Mountain Lard Weekend

Over the weekend, I managed to head up to Hendersonville, NC and attend the Mountain Lard game day. It was a great games day. Even though there were some last minute cancelations, there were still four games going simultaneously for both periods. In the morning, I ran a Sharp Practice scenario based on the Horseshoe bend scenario that I had written. Though a small scenario designed for 2 players, we had three at the table. The Loyalists divided their forces. The game went rather well. Unfortunately, one of the Loyalist players had to leave mid game due to a family emergency. The Loyalists won the game when a random event set the house on fire triggering the end game event - Colonel Alston's wife forced the rebels to surrender to protect her family. The player running the Raiders had achieved their objectives and had successfully looted several buildings. They were the only unit to take no shock for the entire game.

The Loyalist advanced unobserved to start the game and nearly reached the sentries before being spotted.

The two Loyalist players (Dave P and Allen H). The one on the left, Dave P, had to leave part way through the game. (Hope everything was OK, Dave.) He commanded a unit of militia and a unit of Loyalist Raiders. The raiders as mentioned earlier were very effective.

Once spotted, the Loyalists quickly came under fire. The unit of militia took no losses but plenty of shock.

It took a while, but the main body of loyalists began to move and advanced on the house. They approached the side and took the house under fire.

Seeing an opportunity, the Rebel player decided to attempt to charge the broken militia and Loyalist Raiders in an attempt to reduce the Loyalist force morale. But did not roll well enough to leave the yard.

The risk did not pay off and the main body of Loyalists charged an destroyed the single rebel group, killing its big man. The picture is from the Facebook post from the event as I forgot to take a picture of this.

The main body of loyalists then charged the house repeatedly and took the bottom floor. Several attempts were made to run upstairs as well. A firing random event from the Rebel player led to the house catching fire which ended the game in a Loyalist victory. The house and home was lost. Here is the defeated Rebel (Mark C on the left) and the victorious Loyalist (Allen on the right).

At the same time, Mark Luther was running a game of Coastal Patrol featuring Soviets against Germans. Over lunch, Mark told me that the game ended as a draw with both sides left nearly broken.

The other two games were a game of O Group with 10mm miniatures and a 1st World War game of Chain of Command in Africa (28mm). The Africa game was amazing and I really feel like I missed out playing that one.

The Chain of Command game was run by the gentleman in white.

In the afternoon, Mark and I were in the Bag the Hun game that was based on the TV show Black Sheep Squadron. I had a Japanese Shotai of three planes commanded by a top ace. The target was to shoot down a flight of two Avengers. My ace maneuvered perfectly and got on the tail of an Avenger at point blank range. He had no less than four opportunities to fire on the Avenger. He managed to lightly damage the aircraft but received engine damage in return and had to flee the battle. My other two planes were shot down pretty quickly. I think Mark lost one of his Zeros. All Corsairs and Avengers were able to exit the game. Not my best flying.

My forces before the game starts.

Things looked promising as I quickly got on an Avenger's tail. My two wingmen are still alive at this point.

No matter how much my Ace shot, I failed to strike damage on the Avenger. A Corsair (not piloted by Boyington) shot down one of my other planes and here the other is about to be killed.

After some lucky shooting by the Avenger, my ace gets engine damage and turns around to retreat.

Mark (left) commanded the other three Zeroes and the Drew M, who piloted Boyington and his wingman (right).

And our host for the game, Mark B. Fantastic job running the game and the "Emmy" dice mechanic that he added added alot of fun.

The other afternoon games were a second run of the WWI Chain of Command game, a game of What A Tanker set in Stalingrad and a game of Charlie Don't Surf (20mm minis I think). All of the games seemed like great fun. The What a Tanker game seemed to be a 10mm game.

The What a Tanker game looked like fun.

The Charlie Don't Surf game also looked like a great time.

The event host, Chad, did an amazing job pulling this together. There was a raffle that i didn't win. But everyone got a gift bag.

The next day, I met my college roommate who presented me with a gift. A big box of mostly painted 15mm Minifig Napoleonics. I was shocked with the number of figures that were there. Aparently, there was a church member at his mother's church who was a wargamer who passed away. His wife, not knowing what it was, sold it at a church rummage sale. My roommate's Mom purchased them and gave them to him thinking he might like them. Having no use for them, he gave them to me. I am still trying to sort these miniatures out and figure out what is there. In the box, there were two very old Warhammer 40k miniatures. Still in the blister Packs.

House On Horseshoe Bend Playtest

I ran a playtest of my secnario for Mountain Lard. The scenario should play out quickly. The main determinant will be how quickly will the British advance. I rolled randomly for the side that the British would advance. They ended up on the road. At Mountain Lard, I will ask the British players where they want to enter. Using the bonus die to movement, Col Fanning moved three groups of Loyalist Militia straight up the road with a good roll. Unfortunately, on the Tiffin card, the sentry rolled really well and immidiately spotted the British Force and alerted the sleepy troops inside the house. The next turn, the Rebels immediately took the British under fire. They squandered their first fire at long range and just added some shock to the three groups. Then the subbordinate Rebel leader was drawn who had his long term militia in the first floor. They fired and stacked more shock on the Loyalists. On their next activation, the Loyalists darted across a fence and took cover behind the snake rail fencing. The Loyalist raiders did VERY little. I positioned the Loyalist 2IC with them who was not able to move 12" in the three turns before chapter end.

A firefight ensued between the two groups in the house and the British formed behind the snake rail fences. The Long term militia landed some good hits on the Loyalists since they had moved into close range. It was here the fight became bogged down. The Loyalists were not able to break contact. Shock was climbing. Col Fanning received a wound that degraded his status. The rebels took some casualties among the troops on the second floor. But with only 4 windows, they only had room for 8 of the 10 memebers to shoot anyway. (This was a problem with the model. The historical house had 5 windows on the second floor but I didn't pay attention when gluing them on.

The game was great fun. I stopped at this point and was going to run it again. The house never really was in danger and the Loyalist Raiders didn't really do anything. I think the number of points needed by the sentries was about right. A lucky roll just saw the British spotted at once. With an excellent roll, the British can nearly march into the yard of the house. I will run this a few more times to see what needs to be changed before the weekend.

The House On Horseshoe Bend - Completed

I finished the house. It is based, assembled and painted. the way I had it printed, it took quite a bit of assembly. In hindsight, I would have made the windows as part of the base model. But I still think I have something usable. I will put the parts up on my PayHip store later today (https://payhip.com/b/Cd5sf) as a pay what you want. The main item that will be needed for the model is some roof tiles. These can either be purchased from Warbases or made from card or thin wood. I also used brick paper for the chimneys. This could be painted on by a more ambitous painter than I am. The model is 1/100th scale and based off of the actual house. I am missing a window on the front of the house on the second floor. I forgot to check the source before glueing the windows on.

Above is the front of the house. And below is the back of the house.

I am pretty happy with how this came out.

Backside of the House

The build is moving ahead slowly. The posts of the back porch are now bricked. The porch is painted.The roof of the porch needs to still be tiled. Once this is done, I will need more superglue to start assembly. With Eastern being this weekend, I don't see getting much done. I did manage to paint all of the windows for both the sides of the house and the back of the house.

I am very disapointed in myself as I just realized that I failed to put enough windows on the second floor. There were supposed to be five across the top and I only had four across on the front of the house. I will make the back match the front. Mildly annoying but it still is coming along well.

I am pondering doing the covered well that stands near the house in the current images of the building. It was just off the back corner of the house. I'm not sure I would be able to get around to it anytime soon.

With the weekend over, I was able to get a small amount of work done. The back porch is glued in place. The rear doors and lower windows are in place. The Back porch is shingled and glued in place. But before I could do the upper windows, I started with basing. I spread a mixture of acrylic caulk, PVA glue, sand and paint over the base. I got it as far under the building as I could. If I could do it again, I would have primed the base black first before gluing the building to it. I had to leave that to dry overnight.

I still have the second floor windows, the side windows and more work to do on the base left. It is getting there.

Shingles, Porches and Windows

This is probably the worst part of the build. Getting these last pieces on this side of the house is painful. The gap between the porch roof and the building roof is a narrow fit but workable. Over the weekend, I managed to finish the front of the house.

I am attempting to figure out how the roof will be painted. Since this picture, I did complete the rest of the roof. On the front, I ran out of superglue. I used PVA to glue the upstairs windows in place. For the back of the house, I still have to brick one more support on the base of the porch. I also need to paint the supports for the porch roof. These will need to be glued in place along with doors and windows. After that, the only remaining item is the side windows. I will have to paint the remaining windows and glue the tiles on the porch roof for the back. Once this is all done, I think I will be ready to work on the base. The completion is getting closer.

Windows and a door

I managed a bit more work on the house last night. I got the front first floor windows applied. I applied a touch of brass paint to the door knob after this. In addition, I finished the second chimney. I had a harder time with the brick paper this time for some reason. I just started to tile the roof as well. I got one whole strip applied before I had to stop for the night. I didn't get a picture of the roof tiles. Maybe tonight. In the picture, you can see the porch laying upside down to the right. After the rooftiles go on, I will put on the porch. That will let me determine how much room I have for the upper floor windows. In all honesty, I think the building should be taller. Possibly by another 10mm or so. It will be tight between the porch and roof to get them in there. But it is starting to come together.

This Old House

The front and back steps came in yesterday from my printer. Also I received my package from Warbases with the roofing tiles. These made it downstairs to the hobby table. I am now trying to figure out how to paint and assemble the building. I have the blockw with brick paper on them ready for the house. I think I will have to glue these to the bottom of the building before gluing that to the base.

The initial pass was to prime the pieces black and then drybrush the base building white. I am adding Brick paper to the chimneys and the base bricks.

Over the weekend, I managed to finish one chimney and start on the second. I also started to paint the windows and doors.

I also managed to finish bricking the supports of one of the porches and painted the porch and front steps.

This week, I am hoping to finish the doors and windows and start to glue them to the building. The roofing needs to be done. I started to cut out my Warbases tiles. I am rather concerned with getting these to line up correctly.

I also did some work on the TRE Games snake rail fencing that I purchased. They are nice kits but look a little large to me for 15mm miniatures. I made one section of fencing.

The upper rail is head height with a 15mm figure. Here it is compared to my existing snake rail fances.

I may skip the 'x' supports and upper rail. I also need to sort out how I will base these.

House on Horseshoe Bend

I have received the model back from the printer. It is looking pretty good. I made the windows and doors of the house separate from the frame. The porch and porch roof & railins are separate items as well. I also had the chimneys printed separately and the foundation columns. Once he brought them to me today, I realized that I was lacking steps up to the porch. I spent a few minutes working on that and sent him a new file. the plan is to attempt to assemble the building on a base. I have sent a set of steps to a friend to print as well.

The roof will be scratch built. I have ordered several sheets of shingles from Warbases. Somewhere I have a a sheet of their 15mm shingles that I will need to find. The new building will be taller and wider than the exising building that I have. Since I have no pictures so far of what is printed, I took a screen shot from Thingiverse of a partially assembled structure.

I am working on the base blocks currently. I am attaching brick paper to them and then will glue them to the base. This is slow going.

In the mean time, an order from TRE Games just game in. I received three packs of Snake Rail Fencing and a windmill. All useable for What a Cowboy and the fences for AWI Sharp Practice. Honestly, these seem to be a complicated model. They are very small pieces of wood and the instructions are the same as if I were to attempt to build these at actual size. The windmill looks relatively easier. What I like is that TRE Games put some painters tape on the back of each sprue to prevent the pieces from falling out in transit. For such small pieces, this is great.

The next best part is the smell of the cut wood that comes with opening each pack. I really like that. I do think I will need additional sections of fencing. TRE Games was very good with communicating and sent updates from ordering on Sunday to delivery today. I am looking forward to trying some more of their products.

Mountain Lard Prep

While working on completing preparations for Mountain Lard, I have finished with fitting the miniatures to their sabot bases. I have decided to lay out the table and run a practice game with what I have. I still want to replace the plantation house with a larger one. Hopefully, I will pick up the replacement building this week.

Here is the table layout so far.

I think I will add a few more trees to the overall layout. In addition, I was not happy with the snalke rail fencing that I have. I have several sets. The first is from Terry Haney that are rather nicely based. These are great but only have enough to barely surround the farm itself. The fecing that is extending past the end of the house is some that I had made. It does not fit in with the other fencing that I have. I just placed an order from Tre miniatures for some of the fencing that they have for salw. I like the look of it in the pictures on the site but will see what I end up with.

I had purchased some additional milita figures on eBay and they arrived this week. I am not sure what I will do with these. They look far more uniform than the others that I have. I may use them for long service militia. Or just a regular unit. Will have to see.

House on Horseshoe Bend

As I close in on finishing the miniatures for the Battle at the House on Horsehoe bend, I am dissatisfied with the plantation house that I have. It is an old model from Old Glory Miniatures from their Americana line that is now discontinued. It is a great model. Well built and very robust. But, it is too small to represent one of the grandest houses of the North Carolina back country. As such, I am looking at how to build one. The house itself should be simple as it is basically a large rectangle. There are two chimneys, one on either side centered on the house. On the front and back there is a porch that extends the entire width of the property. There are five smaller windows on the front and back of the upstairs. The front of the house has four windows and a central door. The back has two windows and two doors. One door is centered with a semi-circular window above the door and another door to its right that blends in with the rest of the wall. The two windows are to the left. The house is raised on some brick supports and there are steps up to the front and back porch. There is a low railing across the front and back porch.

My thought is to make a model of this in tinkercad. I am going to divide this into multiple parts. The first one will be the main building. Then the brick supports that the building rests on. Next will be the chimneys followed by the porch roof, porch base and railing. Or so is my thought. The base building and the planking is done. I have made the front door and attached it. The windows are next. There will be 3 different designs. The first level all have the same look. The second floor also has the same design. On the two ends, there is an even narrower window that is for the attic. All are similar in design so that once I get the first floor windows done, I should be able to knock out the others based off of it.

I will shingle the roof once it is printed. The reason being that I am unable to figure out how to model shingles in tinkercad. And I am likely too lazy to learn.

This is what I have so far.

I have decided to separate out the base building from the doors and windows. I have also eliminated the roof as this will be added later.