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Tutorial: Painting Stonework

August 20, 2017, 11:43 am
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In this article I describe the way I paint stonework on my models. From cobblestone streets to the walls of medieval houses - they all are painted following this recipe.

First off, as with all artistic things there is not the one right way to do things. Stones come in endless variations of colour and shape and there are many ways to paint them. Over the years I have developed (or let's say, I got used to) a certain technique that creates results which I am quite happy with (even though "technique" makes it sound more complicated and elaborate than it actually is, as you will shortly see). Since questions about how I paint stones come up frequently, I decided to write this detailed tutorial for reference. I hope it can serve as a little inspiration or helper when painting your own stonework models. Let's start!


For this tutorial I chose two Town Square resin pieces from Tabletop World. Their terrain pieces have very detailed textures and paint up very nicely.


Step 1: Black Undercoat

I have been undercoating all my models with black Games Workshop spray paint since day one.




Step 2: Filling

The first actual paint step is applying a layer of pigments which represent the filling between the stones. I read about this in a tutorial by Elmar Fischer aka elladan. As of now his article is no longer available on his site; I hope he will upload it again some time. I use a 50/50 mix of Concrete and Dry Mud from MIG pigments. If you do not apply a medium for fixing the pigments, then they will become dusty again when dry and "fall" off the model. I use MIG's Pigment Fixer. Also, I apply a drop of rinsing agent to break the surface tension of the mix (which comes from the pigment fixer).

For the filling I use MIG pigments Concrete and Dry Mud and Pigment Fixer


What I find tricky about using pigments is that you really have no idea what the end result will look like as long as they are wet. After it's all dry, pigments create astounding effects such as rust, dust, smoke or similar effects which you could not achieve by simply applying paint.

Wet pigments - who can tell what they will look like eventually?

Left: The wet pigments. Right: The dried pigments


Step 3: Paint Grey Stones

After the pigments are completely dry, I paint the individual stones so that they have a proper base colour. Long ago I thought I could get away with simply drybrushing grey at this point. But no, they do need a proper colour as a base.


The town square piece on the left has been cleaned up, the one on the right not yet


Step 4: Paint Individual Stones

With the foundation being laid out it is time for the most important step: painting individual stones. I believe this to be the most important step because when the various stones look different and irregular it creates a more realistic and detailed impression. No matter whether it is a stone wall, cobblestone streets or the shingles of a roof: Tending to individual parts of the structure creates a much more interesting looks as a whole in the end. Of course, this also means a lot of work.

For stones, I paint individual ones with varying mixes of grey and brown. Also some are painted with washes and sometimes I throw the wash into the grey/brown mix. This really is an opportunity to experiment with different combinations. Depending on the ratio of the paints the stones will have all sorts of different shades of grey. You can create many different shades simply by lacing your mix with more and more water rather than "refreshing" the paints. With basically one brown and one grey you can have your stones look like they were painted with ten different colours.



My favourite mix is 50% brown and 50% gray

Individual stones painted with varying degrees of brown/gray

Green wash is always a nice touch for stonework and woodwork


Step 5: Highlight - Drybrush with light colour

Often times this is the finishing step. If the individual stones came out nice enough, a light dry brush with a "bone" white with bring out the details of the texture. When I was painting the town square pieces it was late and dark and I overdid the drybrushing so that it turned out whiter than I wanted it to be.

The stones after a heavy light drybrush


Step 6: Tone down with Washes


As I was unhappy with the bright appearance after the drybrush I painted every stone with Vallejo brown Wash. This tones down the colours again.

Vallejo Washes

The stones of the lower half with wash applied to them


I find these washes to be similarly unpredictable as pigments. When you apply them, they appear to be more intense than they eventually are. Especially the green wash, which is great for a weathering look (e.g. around the edges, near the ground) can look scarily green at first. Like pigments it's important to be brave and experiment and learn the behaviour of the medium.


Step 7: Final Highlights

As step 5 did not work as expected, let's try again: A delicate drybrush with a "bone" white to highlight the edges and textures. This time I was satisfied with the result.


The painted stones of the town square




I very much enjoy painting stones. Funnily, despite the steps described above I still find the results to be varying every time. The colour mixes turn out slightly different every time, the drybrush works out better sometimes and also a lot depends on the model at hand. This makes it interesting every time and you keep on learning new things about your paints. Hopefully, some of this was useful to you, dear reader.

Examples

Below are a few more examples of terrain pieces where I applied this technique.

The Mansion from Tabletop World (read more)

The Town House from Stronghold Terrain (read more)

The cobblestone streets on the Port of Gierburg board (read more)

The dock wall of the Port of Gierburg board. Note the green wash at the bottom.


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Civilian Figures for Pirate Games

September 9, 2017, 4:57 am
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In this post I collect civilians and other miniatures that are great additions for wargames in a 17th/18th century pirate setting.

When I first started pirate gaming in 2008 I compiled a list of manufacturers of pirate miniatures which I still keep updated to this day. In order to properly flesh out your games, however, you will want more than scurvy sea dogs: From all sorts of civilians such as farmers, noble ladies and children, to dock workers to slaves there are lots of miniatures that can enhance your games. The list below contains miniatures from various manufacturers and ranges that are suitable for pirate games during the 17th and 18th century.




Ebor Miniatures

Ebor Miniatures have a few interesting figures as part of artillery crews. Furthermore, I find the head sprue with tricorne hats particularly useful.

Head Sprue WSSMHS01 from Ebor Miniatures


Firelock Games

During their second kickstarter project Firelock Games came out with a pack of civilians.

Civilians from Firelock Games


Front Rank Figurines

Front Rank have four packs of each four civilians in their 18th Century Equipment, Guns and Civilians range containing workers, wagon drivers, aristocrats, a priest and more.

Civilians pack GP4 from Front Rank Figurines


North Star Military Figures

North Star have a nice pirate range for On The Seven Seas game but they also have a number of interesting figures in the Africa range such as these captives waiting to be freed and join your crew.

Captives (NS-NSA7002)


Outpost Wargame Services

The Highwaymen range contains a few civilians like a barkeeper, bar wench, smith and aristocratic victims.

His Lordship from
Outpost Wargame Services


Perry Miniatures

Civilians from the American War of Independence range.

AW73 Civilians from Perry Miniatures


Wargames Foundry

Beside Foundry's equally extensive and excellent range of pirates and swashbucklers they have a number of nice civilians in their 18th Century Civilians range.






Further Reading

Setting Sail: Collecting Ships for Tabletop Games - An extensive reference of 25-28mm ships
Collecting Pirate Miniatures - A list of 25-30mm pirate figure manufacturers, plus a 'Legends of the High Seas' miniatures reference
Terrors of the High Seas - A list of sea monsters and using tentacles in pirate games
Collecting Gierburg Miniatures - A list of highwaymen and civilians suitable for my Gierburg setting

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My Wargaming Goals for 2018

January 7, 2018, 6:44 am
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The beginning of a new year is always a good occasion for recapitulation and contemplation. However, I don't want to look back but ahead: What do I want to do in 2018 in terms of tabletop wargaming hobby activities?

Firstly, I have to say that I am not the type for new year's resolutions. But I must admit that I have been posting less and less on the blog, which is mostly due to the large number of in-progress works and projects. It is easy to get lost and carried away in the many wonderful facets of the hobby (hence the lead mountain syndrome, which is more a "resin mountain" in my case). I think that if I prioritize the little and big projects that I am working on and articulate some goals, that I will find it easier to work on them with a bit of discipline. Granted, this is all still hobby in the end, but I do find it satisfying to complete things - be it the painting of a building, the building of a terrain piece or the definition of the rules for a certain scenario. Throughout the year, the following will hopefully help me remind myself which projects I really need to finish, or at least make some progress, instead of switching to another project that tickles my fancy.


Ships

I really really want to finish the British cutter model from Games of War, which has been sitting here in its near completed state for more than half a year now. All that's left is the sails and maybe a bit of rigging. The vessel can already be seen in some photos in the blog post about the pirates crew by Simon Bradley.


I am still a bit unsure of how exactly to do the sails although I have been collecting some useful posts and videos I came across on Facebook. The facebook group for Firelock's "Blood & Plunder" is a great resource for ship modeling, even if you are not playing their game.

Speaking of Blood & Plunder: They will deliver their second Kickstarter around May and I am looking forward to holding their new massive Galleon in hands. So besides finishing the cutter, I would like to do at least one more ship - either the galleon or another large ship by Games of War, which are really beautiful models.


Jungle Board

The incomplete jungle table for now
I began "working" on a jungle board back in 2010 when my gaming group was playing "Legends of the High Seas". I built a few small jungle terrain sections which I finally painted a few weeks ago. In theory, a jungle board is amongst the easiest to do: Get a good gaming mat with a grasslands motif and add aquarium decorations as terrain and aquarium plastic plants as vegetation. Well, as usual the devil is in the details and it comes down to how ambitious you want to be with your table.

I plan to do a few more jungle sections so that the board is properly filled and I hope to find some good materials for vegetation so that it doesn't look too cheap. Also, I bought the Caribbean pirate buildings from Games of War and the Spanish Style Church from Empress Miniatures. Thanks to the wonderful beach gaming mat from Deep-Cut Studios it doesn't take that much to have a cool jungle table. Once the buildings are painted and the jungle sections are done, I think I will be happy with my jungle board.


The Port of Gierburg

WIP photo of the second section of
the Port of Gierburg board
The Port of Gierburg is my ever ongoing gaming board project. I am at a point where I need to get my hands dirty and build the elevated level with integrated facades and stuff. I made some good progress in 2017 and I should really make some more progress on the board this year. I won't be lying to myself here: I don't think it is reasonable to assume that I finish the board section this year but hopefully I can at least finish the building of it. I totally want to run some games on this board and the sooner the better.


Dogs Ahoy!

By now it should be obvious what my overall theme is. Dogs Ahoy! is the name of my pirate skirmish rules set. I have been working on these rules over the last couple of years (well, on and off, of course) and they are usually what we use when we run games. I use these rules to put all the things into it that I learned from playing Mordheim and creating Border Town Burning and playing other pirate games or small skirmish games in general: different (swashbuckling) fighting styles, relevant positioning of characters and activations, campaigns with objectives and special scenarios for attaining infamy or glory, and so much more.

I made a huge step forward with the rules during December last year and I am almost at the point where the first full draft is done, i.e. all aspects of the rules are defined so it is a matter of fine-tuning and tweaking from then on. I don't have any concrete plans with regards to publishing yet. My focus is on getting things right and I am taking the time that's necessary.

Dogs Ahoy! rule book (provisional cover and layout)


Stuff put on hold

All the other ships: Beside the ships I mentioned above, my shipyard is full of other models, including the three ships from Ainsty and the first three models from Firelock Games. I must admit that I won't have the time to paint them all and I really do not need any more ships. No. No...
The Ruined Coaching Inn: The huge ruin by Tabletop World is now out of production and I am happy that I bought it back when it was available. I have already started painting it and I am about half-way done. Before I continue with it, though, I need to finish my jungle terrain pieces. And there are still many more lovely half-timbered houses waiting for paint (mostly Tabletop World but also some from Grand Manner).
Coaches & Wagons: These are the three architectural/terrain/non-mini things I love: half-timbered houses, sailing ships and coaches. I just love the elegance of a stage coach or hansom cab. As usual this results in having a huge collection that waits to get painted. Just like ships and actually houses as well I need to accept that I really do not need any more coaches. I recently started painting one of the coaches and I just might finish that one so that I have at least one finished coach. But the others will have to wait.

The Coach, work in progress (available from Schilling-Figuren)



Alright, so that's my plans for 2018. Let's hope I pull through. Now time to get cracking!



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Dice Bag with Compartments

February 10, 2018, 7:06 am
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Something I wanted to share quickly: My girl-friend made this dice bag with compartments for me. It is especially useful since I use quite a number of markers and counters for my Dogs Ahoy game. I am super happy with it.








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Jungle Terrain Sections Finished

February 11, 2018, 3:21 am
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Many years ago, I built some jungle terrain sections which I never finished. Now, as I am focusing on my Caribbean jungle board, I took them out again and finished them.

The first step was to paint the bases and stones. Then, I ordered some aquarium plastic plants from amazon for some simple additional vegetation.

The jungle section after painting without additional vegetation

Aquarium decoration plastic plants


Some aquarium plants and simple grass is obviously not enough so I ordered some more stuff from PK-PRO: A box of Ground Detail Jungle Forest from Reality in Scale and various laser-cut paper plants by MIG.

Jungle scenery from MIG

Laser-cut paper plants from MIG


Finished Terrain Sections

Below are photos of the terrain sections with the various scenery and vegetation applied. I am quite happy with the result and will probably do a few more pieces like these.






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Aquarium Decoration Jungle Ruins

February 21, 2018, 8:41 am
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Decor Brick Gate from
Europet Bernina (234-105382)
In preparation of some upcoming pirate gaming on tropical treasure islands I purchased a few aquarium decoration pieces to enhance my jungle gaming board.

I bought the first aquarium deco piece years ago when I first started pirate gaming: the Decor Brick Gate from Europet Bernina (234-105382).  I saw this item and a few others put to great use as 28mm scale terrain on the old website of Alex Bews (aka Witchhunter, which is sadly no longer online). For the base of my jungle board I got myself the beautiful 4x6 Beach wargaming mat from Deep-Cut Studio and now I need terrain to fill it. So aside from some jungle terrain sections I dediced to get some more aquarium terrain. Here it is!

Most pieces below are from the Aqua Ornaments range by Nobby, a German producer of pet supplies. If you are interested in these items, it is best to look them up by their product codes. I have noted the names of some of these items differ slightly between what what reads on their tags, on the Nobby website and on amazon. Speaking of amazon: the prices for this type of aquarium terrain change basically daily, sometimes drastically. So it's well worth putting them in the basket and waiting a bit, watching the prices develop as you can easily save a couple of Euros or Pounds this way.
All pieces are made of light-weight but durable polyresin and come nicely pre-painted.


Ruined Gate w/ Plants (Nobby 28277)

L21,3 x W9,3 x H12,3 cm
I got this piece for 13,14 EUR which is an awesome price, I think.

Ruined Gate w/ Plants (Nobby 28277)





Column w/ Bonsai w/ Plants (Nobby 28280)

L21,5 x W14,5 x H16 cm
This piece was 20,62 EUR.


Columns w/ Bonsai w/ Plants (Nobby 28280)






Ancient Tunnel Ruin (Rosewood 915645)

L12 x W13 x H10 cm
13 EUR

This last piece is probably the most iconic and well-known one. It is the only piece that is not from Nobby but from Rosewood. If you've been following the recent release of Frostgrave: Ghost Archipelago you will probably have seen this item as part of the photos produced by NorthStar for the book.

Ancient Tunnel Ruin (Rosewood 915645)

A Foundry pirate in front of the Ancient Tunnel Ruin

The back side of the Ancient Tunnel Ruin


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Aquarium Decoration Plants for Jungle Terrain

April 7, 2018, 2:38 am
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Aquarium decoration is a great source for all sorts of wargaming jungle terrain. I recently showed off some very nice ruins, today I want to share some useful plastic plants.

Plants form the core of any jungle-themed gaming board. The occasional palm tree is nice but what you really want is dense vegetation made up of many many plants. The best source of affordable and nicely sized plants is aquarium decoration supplies. I used a few aquarium plants for the jungle terrain sections that I finished recently. Now I found some very nice products on Amazon: Plant Mats from the "Hobby" range by Dohse Aquaristik. They come in four different versions:



Hobby Plant Mat 1

Hobby Plant Mat 2

Hobby Plant Mat 3

Hobby Plant Mat 4


Mats 1, 2 and 3 are basically grass blades in different sizes, mat 4 is an entirely different type of plant. Below are two photos for size comparison of the four plant types with 28mm pirates from Crusader and Wargames Foundry.

Size comparison of the plants and pirates from Crusader and Foundry
Size comparison of the plants and pirates from Crusader and Foundry


You get nice results when you combine and stack the plants. I already look forward to creating a couple of simple but effective terrain sections with these plants.

Some of the plants stacked to create more dense results

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Spanish Pirate Buildings from Games of War

April 8, 2018, 5:17 am
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A pirate gaming table for the Caribbean is made up of more than jungle and a beach. Interesting games require buildings so I got me some Spanish-style pirate buildings for my Caribbean pirate table.

Captain Blackbeard raids a Caribbean town

The pirate buildings from Games of War are made up of a few individual modules that allow to configure them so that you come up with three different two-storey houses:
  • Pirate Building with Doorway (PB009)
  • Pirate Building (PB010)
  • Pirate Pan Tiled Roof Section (PB005)
  • Small Pirate Pan Tiled Roof Section (PB006)
  • Pirate Balcony (PB007)
  • Pirate Portico (PB008)

Three two-storey pirate buildings from Games of War

The windows are laser-cut plastic. The pieces with doorways (PB009) come with resin doors.

The buildings require slightly more cleaning than the ships from Games of War but still not much. You need to glue the windows, doors, portico, balcony and small roof section in place. I filled the gaps between the buildings and the porticos and balcony with putty to achieve a smooth transition between the pieces.

In addition, I glued a few wooden bits below the upper storey pieces to prevent them from sliding across the ground floor.

Painting

Painting pan tiles roofs was new for me but I am quite happy with the initial colour choices: A base layer of Concrete (MIG pigment) on the black undercoat and a first layer of Burnt Red (Vallejo) for the tiles. Then I added some variation to individual tiles by mixing the red with Orange Brown (Vallejo) and Neutral Grey (Vallejo). Drybrushing the entire roof with red/grey then causes the pigments to spread across the tiles which gives them a nicely gritty appearance. Lastly, I applied some green and brown as the finishing touches.

After Concrete pigments from MIG for the gaps
I painted the shingles in different shades of red


I did a lot of experimenting with the adobe walls before setting on a final "recipe". Because of that, the buildings looks somewhat different and I can't even really describe what paints I chose in the end.  Greys, browns, beiges in all sorts of combinations were used.


Modular Double Storey Pirate Building

This is the simplest of the two storey buildings consisting of PB009 and PB010.


Modular Double Storey Pirate Building with Portico and Balcony

This building has a portico and balcony. To provide a door for the balcony the first floor is made up of the same module PB009.



Modular Double Storey Pirate Building With Portico and Side Roof Section

This building is configured to have a portico and side roof (PB009, PB010, PB006, PB007).



Note: The buildings are also modeled on the inside but I was too lazy to properly paint them up since this is only sometime visible during gameplay. Also, it seems that I did not wash the buildings enough since the paint is peeling off of the interior floor tiles. So when you prepare your buildings, make sure you clean then thoroughly before painting.

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Spanish Style Church from Empress Miniatures

April 11, 2018, 12:45 pm
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No village is complete without a church. To complement my Caribbean pirate buildings I got the Spanish style church from Empress Miniatures.



I had been tempted to buy the Church from Empress Miniatures for quite some time. Then, while I was painting the pirate buildings from Games of War, I decided that those few houses would not be enough to form the nice little pirate settlement that I had in mind. The church would be the perfect addition to the lot.


Assembly

The church is composed of a number of parts that require assembling. Basically, there are two buildings: the church itself and the tower. Beside the resin parts that make up the majority of the buildings there are a few metal pieces for extra detailing: a bell (for the church), decorative crosses and a statue and doors.

All the parts of the Spanish Style Church kit from Empress Miniatures

In theory, assembling the kit is pretty easy and straight-forward as you only need to glue the church's front/facade to the main body and that's it. The roofs and tower sections should remain removable anyways.

Glueing the front of the church to the body of the building

However, the roof piece was a bit to long/think on one side to place and remove it smoothly from the church after the facade was attached. Therefore, I spent a good amount of time on filing off a few millimeters of the roof section.

Filing off a few millimeters of the church's roof

The separate tower is pretty useful for gameplay purposes. I could immediately see a sharpshooter climb up the tower and pick off targets across the battlefield. To allow for positioning figures inside the tower and at different heights, I added some basic floors to the tower sections by glueing some balsa/stirring sticks in place.

Adding floors to the church tower sections

Painting

The back of the tower
After painting the walls of the pirate buildings was rather Chaotic as I tried a number of paints and methods I decided that I need to be a bit more structured if I wanted to achieve a coherent look on the tower and the church itself - not only because the two pieces belong together but also because the church is a larger body that would not be finished in just one or two sessions.

After the usual black base coat and I used a mix of brown and Basalt Grey (Vallejo) as the first layer to set the tone. Subsequent layers contained more grey and/or some off-white ("bone"). I find that painting these types of walls is quite fun because you get to mix and try a lot. You don't want to come up with a uniform colour anyway so it makes sense to try a few different paints and make sure you add enough water so that the layers blend nicely.

Painting the roof was much more daunting as it took quite some time to paint each individual shingle. There might be a smarter way to get this done but I couldn't think of any other way to do it.

Painting the individual shingles with Saddle Brown (Vallejo)

Gallery

The finished church and tower:




Pirates roam the streets of the Caribbean town

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Gangs of Rome: Blood on the Aventine

April 28, 2018, 4:00 am
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One of the new games that I have been following with keen interest recently is Gangs of Rome by War Banner. Since I prefer small scale skirmish gaming with a focus on the individual fighter and great terrain, Gangs of Rome appears to be just right. As a member of the Gangs of Rome Facebook community I was super lucky to win a copy of the newly released starter box set "Blood on the Aventine". So now is the time to take a closer look at the game and boxed set.

Ever since the first photos of Gangs of Rome surfaced on the web, I got increasingly interested in the game. Granted, ancient Rome hasn't been one of my preferred eras for wargaming (yet), but the photos of small groups of fighters roaming the streets of an ancient Roman city look so cool that it's hard to not want to try this out.

Gangs fighting it out in the streets of Rome

Roman fighters in front of a mighty temple


The new box set "Blood on the Aventine" is the perfect way to get into the game. For only £35 you get a lot of stuff: 7 miniatures, an MDF temple under construction terrain piece, a rulebook for Gangs of Rome, dice and lots of other accessories. Check out the full list of contents in the product description in their online store.

The "Blood on the Aventine" starter box set (front)

The "Blood on the Aventine" starter box set (back)

Photo of the box's contents

Close-up of the miniatures

One really has to point out how much value this is: the temple set by Sarissa Precision alone would be worth the price. Speaking of Sarissa, I am very impressed by the terrain range they created for Gangs of Rome. In general, I am not a fan of MDF terrain. I prefer the higher detail of resin models. However, the Streets of Rome range features a huge variety of nice buildings and other terrain pieces: different buildings, walls, cranes, a temple, a fountain, a bridge and a giant amphitheatre. I especially like the many "under construction" buildings - something you rarely see in other terrain ranges and a nice "trick" to create accessible terrain pieces without going the usual "ruined building" route.

The impressive amphitheatre (source)
The raw amphitheatre with miniatures for reference
(photo taken from the Gangs of Rome Facebook group)


So far I had only had a quick look at the rules when the game was first released (the rulebook is available as a free PDF download from their website!). Now, with a printed copy of the rules and everything else at hand, I can't wait to run my first game of Gangs of Rome.

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British Unrated Cutter from Games of War

May 11, 2018, 12:08 am
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The British Unrated Cutter "Fly" 1763 from Games of War is the latest addition to my shipyard. In this blog post I describe the painting and building process of the vessel, its sails and other accessories.




1. The Model

The Fly is a medium sized ship from Games of War. With its hull dimensions of 31cm length and 11.3cm width, however, the ship is pretty large for a 28mm scale model - especially compared to other manufacturers' models. Or, put differently, it is more true to scale.

I already have the smaller ships and boats from Games of War and they are all excellent. Like their previous ships, this model is very nicely detailed and the cast is nearly flawless, which means that you can quickly move on to painting the model.

The parts of the Cutter kit

2. Painting

 "USS Syren" brig from

I decided to go with a traditional color scheme of yellow and black on the hull and red on the inside. Photos of the ship model "USS Syren", which I came across multiple times on various sites (Facebook, Pinterest, etc), were my main reference while painting.

Games of War offer great paints with their Admiralty Paints range and I can highly recommend them. Their Yellow Ochre and Red Ochre are nice muted colours.

For the wood I went with my trusted Vallejo paints with Beige Brown being the defining wood colour.

The painted cutter

3. The Anchor

I use model ship anchors for the cutter. A piece of rope is tied to the anchor with an anchor bend knot.




I spent a little extra time and effort attaching the anchors:

Close-up on the anchor


4. Cannons

The model has 12 gunports but it does not come with cannons. For the first couple of photos I took the cannons from my Old Glory Brigantine. Then I dug out some cannons that I had ordered from Games of War years ago and which are no longer available. They are very small overall so they take up little space on board.

Small cannons from Games of War


5. Spars & Sails

I bought a couple of small beads to attach to the boom.

The boom and gaff (the spars to which the gaff sail is attached)


Creating and attaching the sails was definitely the most pain-staking part of all. My girl-friend has a sewing machine and she was kind enough to try out various techniques and approaches until I was happy with the results (did I say already that she's the best!).

Various prototypes for testing the stitchings of the jib

The stitchings for the gaff sail, forestaysail and jib applied

The most difficult thing was deciding how to do the edges of the sails. The fabric I had chosen doesn't hold the thread very well. Eventually, we decided that I simply cut out the sails along the stitching and seal the edges with watered down white glue.

Gaff sail

The cutter is gaff rigged with a large four-sided mainsail. This gaff sail is attached to the boom and gaff.

The gaff sail

Headsails

Headsails are the sails set forward of the mast. The cutter has two staysails: the forestaysail and the jib. They are fixed to the bowsprit, to the bows (or to the deck between the bowsprit) and the mast.

The headsails of the cutter


Square Topsail

It appear that the cutter is not intended to be equipped with a square topsail. However, all the references I had a look at suggest that this was the right thing to do, so I took two wooden sticks (from other ship models I have lying around) and made a template for the topsail. And again, another request for my better half:

The square topsail



Rigging Period Fore-And-Aft Craft

The book by Lennarth Petersson describes the rigging of three period vessels: The British Naval Cutter, the French Lugger and the American Schooner. If you want to properly rig your Cutter model, this book is the perfect companion: It depicts all the details of the rigging with very clear illustrations. For each of the ship types there is a single page of introductory text followed by detailed and clear illustrations - in the case of the cutter it is 27 pages full of illustrations (112 pages overall). Sadly though, the book focuses on the rigging only and mostly excludes sails. For the cutter, only the jib and foresail are depicted so other sources need to be consulted if you are interested in sail configurations.













6. Flags

An important feature for bringing a ship to life is giving it some proper flags. This ship obviously deserves British flags, but the question is: what ensign exactly and where to attach it?

For the British Navy in the Caribbean, the Red Ensign is appropriate. The ensign has evolved over time: the one that was in use from 1707 to 1800 is the right one for 1763 (see the model's name) and, more importantly, for the era I am targeting - the later part of the Golden Age of Piracy.

Lastly, I had to decide on a size for the flag. The battle ensigns of the time were huge, really huge. Examples are the Spanish San Ildefonso with a size of 32 x 47 ft (9.8 x 14.4m) from 1805, and the French Généreux, 27 x 52 ft (8.2 x 16m), from 1800 (source). Granted, the cutter is not a ship of the line but these flags had to have a certain size so that they could be seen from a distance. Based on a 1/64 scale, a flag of even 6 x 12m would be about 9 x 18cm. Looking at various photos of models and paintings of cutters and similar size ships, I felt that I could go with a smaller size though.

I took images of the Red Ensign and the traditional Jolly Roger from Wikipedia. Then, I applied some filters and shadows to give the flags a more natural look. I went to a copy shop to have the flags printed out in a decent quality. In a future blog post I will describe in detail how I made the flags.

7. Finished! aka Gallery

And that was it! This has been one of the largest modeling projects I have worked on so far. That is mostly due to me procrastinating because I was unsure how to tackle the sails. I have learned quite a lot and for the next ship (either the even larger Bermuda sloop or the slightly smaller Sea Prince, both from Games of War as well) I should be a lot faster and I might step up the rigging game a notch. For now though, I am quite happy with the result and look forward to fielding this mighty ship in a naval game of Dogs Ahoy.

Here are some photos of the cutter in action:






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Walls from Empress Miniatures

May 27, 2018, 2:07 pm
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To complement my Caribbean pirate town I recently painted up a set of walls that I ordered together with the Spanish Church from Empress Miniatures.

Simple walls like these can be used in a variety of settings. With the pantile roof of the gateway these walls fit nicely into a Caribbean piratical setting. Empress offers all the various sections and posts individually so you can order the pieces that best suit your specific needs. I went for nine wall sections, four corner posts and four intermediate posts.


The walls can be set up to form a rectangle of roughly 18" x 20" size:




The walled area has enough space to contain my Caribbean buildings and the Church.


Wall Section with Gateway

The main entrance to the walled area is via the gateway:





Wall Section with Door

In addition to the gateway there is a section with a regular door:





Ruined Wall Sections

There are three different sections which are ruined/crumbled:




Conclusion

The resin walls are quite nice models with detailed textures. I prefer terrain pieces that are not mounted on bases, so I find that to be a downside. Also, I find the gateway a little too small for my 28mm Foundry pirates (and similarly sized figures). It is not too bad though and still acceptable. Overall, I am very pleased with the walls and have already used them in a couple of games. Actually, I have used at least some of the sections in all of my recent games. In fact, now that I have these walls I cannot imagine playing without them (or apropriate substitutes) as they add so much to a gaming table. When you play skirmish games with only a few models per side where movement and positioning of the models matter, such walls are great for confining parts of the gaming tables, creating dead-ends or other barricades. If you don't have any walls yet, I can't stress enough how much they improve the experience.



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Longboats from Games of War and Firelock Games

August 4, 2018, 5:10 am
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In this blog post I take a look at the longboats from Games of War and Firelock Games.

Longboats from Games of War

As I had already bought some of the other boats (tenders and jolly boats) from Games of War as well as their bigger ships (such as the Cutter) I knew what to expect in terms of quality and detail. To my mind, their boats and ships are unmatched when it comes to the lightweight resin and the high level of detail and textures. Painting up the three longboats was easy and straightforward.

Three longboats from Games of War

The longboat fully loaded with 12 models on 25mm bases

The longboat has an overall total length of 20.4cm and a maximum width of 6.7cm. You can easily place 12 models on 25mm round bases in the boat.


Longboat from Firelock Games

By the time Firelock Games came out with their kickstarter, I already had the three longboats from GoW lying around so I knew I didn't need another bunch of them. I still ordered a single longboat for the purpose of comparison and diversity.

With a length of 17.8cm and a width of 5.9cm this longboat is a bit smaller. As a result, you can only place 7 miniatures in the boat. However, it should be noted that Firelock are pretty smart and well aware of the miniature placement problem on boats and ships. Therefore, their miniatures come attached to 20mm round bases. Still, I have my figures based on 25mm bases so that is what I judge ships and terrain by.

Firelock's longboat is also nicely detailed with a slightly exaggerated wood grain texture. An additional touch is the modeled rope around the oar locks. The boat also painted up nicely and I am quite happy with the result.

The longboat from Firelock Games


Comparison

Here are some photos of the two types of longboats next to each other.

The longboats from Games of War (front) and Firelock Games (back)

The GoW longboat and the Firelock longboat

For me, the deciding factor about the boats is the superior capacity of Games of War's boats. I also prefer their more natural detail compared to the exaggerated detail on the Firelock boat. Last, but certainly not least, Games of War's longboat is currently available for £10.00 while Firelock Games' longboat comes at $18.00, which is roughly £14.00 at the moment.


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Night Watchmen

August 11, 2018, 9:54 am
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After I have been gathering a number of highwaymen and other 17th-18th century scoundrel over the last years it is time to bring some appropriate opponents for these criminals to the table. I always found night watchmen to be equally stylish and characterful and here they are at last!

Night Watchmen are a great faction for 17th to 18th century games. Be it highwaymen, pirates or other criminals, watchmen are a great group of non-player models that players need to avoid during their nightly operations. For missions at daytime they can serve as guards or militia. Because of this, I found it all the more surprising that there are almost no suitable models available. While collecting highwaymen and robbers is relatively easy - mostly thanks to the excellent range from Outpost Wargames Services - this is not the case for night watchmen. The one true night watch model that I had known for some time is Squire Mortimer Bush from Foundry's Smugglers set (CIV007) from the 18th Century Civilians range. This is very much the prototype of what I was looking for: A model in a greatcoat, wearing a tricorne and carrying a lantern.

Resurrectionists (VC017) from
Casting Room Miniatures
If Foundry's models were available as singles I might have bought a few Mortimers to fill up my night watch. There is another nice model available as part of the Resurrectionists set (VC017), which comes from Casting Room Miniatures' range Victorians/Edwardians. Again, this is only one model out of an entire pack and the late Victorian hat is not perfect, either.

I had already accepted the fact that there are no more models to be found and that I might have to get some more highwaymen from Outpost Wargames for converting when I found the Dublin Constabulary set from Trent Miniatures' Great Irish Rebellion range. Like the Victorian resurrectionist they do not have suitable hats but fortunately the figures come with separate heads so swapping them is not a problem at all.

Dublin Constables from Trent miniatures

Surprisingly, again, there are very few head sprues with tricornes available - at least to my knowledge, that is. Black Scorpion Miniatures used to have a pirate sprue which contained a tricorne among other useful bits such as weapons, a parrot and a small monkey. Sadly, it is no longer available. Then, I finally found a head sprue from Ebor Miniatures: Head Sprue (WSSMHS01). These heads are a tad bit small for the constables' bodies but since I didn't find any other alternatives and went with them.

Finally, after being beautifully painted up by Simon Bradley aka stonecoldlead, this is what the four night watchmen look like:

Night Watchmen, painted by Simon Bradley


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Spanish Fort by Slug Industries

November 9, 2018, 12:57 pm
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The Spanish Fort by Slug Industries is a terrain piece modeled after the actual Fort Matanzas and successfully funded via a Kickstarter campaign early this year. In this article I take a closer look at the model and present my painted version as well as some gaming ideas for the fort.




Ever since his first pirate-related kickstarter campaign I am in frequent contact with Philip Page, the creator of the Spanish fort kickstarter campaign. When he sent me the first photos of his fort I was immediately sold on the idea of a 28mm scale version of Fort Matanzas. Usually, when you think of forts and pirates you think of a gigantic Vauban fort that would fill an entire game board on its own (like this beauty). Fort Matanzas is a relatively small fort that is very well suited to be used in 28mm scale games. Therefore, it was a no-brainer for me to back the project when the kickstarter launched. In addition to the fort itself, there was a battery piece which was also part of the campaign and which I also included in my pledge. More on the battery in a future blog post.

The contents of my kickstarter reward: the battery (top left), several parts of the fort
and the tyburn tree from a stretch goal (bottom right)


Quality and details

Philip has compiled an interesting documentation of the building process. He wrote that he was limited in space because of the size of his vacuum chamber. Indeed, I found that the fort was a tad bit too small. On the other hand, the upside to this is that the casts are very good: there are no air bubbles or other defects that could result from the casting process.

When compared to Tabletop World's products (of similar size, of course) you notice that the fort is quite heavy, mostly because of the heavy base piece. I think it is still lighter than GrandManner's products though.

After assembling the different parts and glueing everything into place there were still a couple of gaps that had to be filled. I used sculpting putty for that.

The gap between the turret and the wall had to be filled with putty

A section of the decorative half rod broke off during transportation
and I added putty to somewhat cover the area


There is a planking piece for the guns to stand on. I decided not to glue it on the base. It fits nicely and doesn't move around so I maintain the flexibility of being able to take it out (although I can't see why I would want to).

Finally, one thing I had a quarrel with was the lack of texture on the stones. They look very flat on the master model and you can clearly identify the sheets of styrene that the model was build from. A rougher surface would look much nicer and more believable and give the model more "depth". Had I created the fort, I would have either used styrodur that can be textured easily, or - since I am super lazy - something like the textured plaster wall pieces from Vampisol that I used for my Port of Gierburg gaming board section. Nevertheless, I decided that I would have to make up for it by painting the fort nicely.


Painting the fort

Mixing paint for the filling
with beige, brown and grey
I basically used my standard technique for painting stonework on the fort. The only notable exception was that I painted the filling different this time. Since I am running low on the MIG pigments Concrete and Dry Mud (and I believe they have been relabelled or are not available any longer) I created a mix of beige, brown and grey that I used instead. On a model of this size I would have had to spend quite a large amount of the pigments so it is probably better to use cheaper paint anyways.

The model painted up very nicely. I always enjoy painting buildings like this as they allow you to play and experiment with colours. The inside of the fort e.g. is very forgiving as you can try a variety of tones, paint them over and over until you're happy with the result.

I am also quite pleased with the overall appearance of the stonework. The fort fits very nicely with my other buildings. It is always interesting to see how similar paint jobs can tie different building styles together and create a unified image.

The inside of fort's ground floor

A look into the first floor of the fort


Accessories

Aside from the fort alone, I assembled, created and painted a couple of additional components that truly bring the fort to life.

Ladders

Three ladders came with the fort as laser-cut MDF kits. I am usually not a fan of MDF products. For simple ladders, however, it works well enough.

The ladders for the fort (top) and the battery (bottom)

The fort's ladders, assembled and painted


Flag, flagpole and fitting

In my opinion, having a huge flag waving from the top of the fort is a must. I decided to build a small fitting for flags in the same manner as I did for my British Cutter. This allows me to reuse flagpoles on my ships and on the fort.

Parts for making quick and simple flagpoles: long toothpicks and
wooden beads for the top

Two flagpoles and the fitting assembled and ready for paint

The finished Spanish flag and flagpole

The Spanish flag raised on the fort's roof


Trap doors

The last enhancement I came up with was painting up two trapdoors from Ziterdes/Thomarillion that I had lying around for a while. The idea is to provide another entrance to the fort during games.

Trapdoors from Ziterdes/Thomarillion

A trapdoor placed in the corner of the ground floor inside the fort


Other accessories and future plans

The cannons that can be seen in the photos were taken from my brigantine which I rarely use. I find that Thomarillion's ship cannon looks like a suitable stationary cannon because of the narrow carriage so I will get some more of them for the fort and the battery.

At first I was considering building a big stairway as can be seen on contemporary photos of the fort. It would provide some more space for figure placement and thus increase playability. However, Phil explained that this stairway is a modern addition so I decided not to build it. After all, the idea was to hide in the fort and pull up the ladder if enemies should invade the fort. A convenient stairway to the first floor is not exactly helpful there.

After having painted the fort, I realised that there were no doors. For some reason I hadn't noticed it before. I absolutely plan on building two small doors for the fort some time soon.


Verdict and gameplay

The Spanish Fort is a very nice terrain piece that adds a ton of gameplay to our pirate games. In a recent gaming session it has already more than proven itself. My first idea when I saw the fort was to use it for a Prison Break scenario. We had played this scenario before but for lack of a proper building we had used a normal house that represented the barracks. With the new fort we had a great game where the attacker used grappling hooks to enter the fort and free the captive while the defender fought off the intruders and tried to secretly take the captive away.

The trapdoors worked extremely well during the games we had. We defined a 30" x 5" section beside the main game board that represented an underground tunnel. One end lead into the fort, the other end into one of the buildings on the table. This secret entrance to the fort was determined at random before the game and only the fort's defender knew where it was. The attackers would have to break into the houses and search them to find out where the entrance is. This worked so well that we decided to reuse the system for all town-based games and I have added the creation of a suitable tunnel piece to my to-do list.

While I was building the flagpoles and fitting I came up with another scenario: Hoist the Flag. Two (or more) crews attack the fort which is defended by neutral guards. The first crew to raise their flag from the top of the fort wins the game.

We also used the fort in a sea battle along with the battery. More on that in my upcoming post about the battery piece.

All in all, I am super happy with the Spanish Fort. It has already sparked quite a number of gaming ideas that provided lots of fun and I look forward to playing many more games with it.


Gallery

Finally, photos of the painted fort in all its glory.

The Spanish Fort, fully assembled and painted

The Spanish Fort, occupied by a pirate crew


Here are some more photos from a recent game session:


City guards protecting the fort




Coming next: The battery


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Personalized Movement Gauge from LITKO

November 11, 2018, 2:27 am
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While I was browsing the LITKO website recently I came across their offer for personalized movement gauges. With its lengths of 1/2", 1", 3" and 6" this is a very handy tool, not only for Age of Sigmar. The surface can be customized with your own logo and text. The gauge will be very useful in our games of Dogs Ahoy. I would have liked to use the free space for a summary of the turn order or some other quick reference notes. However, since the rules are still work in progress I chose not to and only went with the Dogs Ahoy logo.

Two movement gauges from LITKO with the Dogs Ahoy logo

Since I was ordering anyway, I chose to also get some flame markers. There are a few scenarios in Dogs Ahoy where crews set a ship or building on fire and these work quite nicely.


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Pirates of Treasure Island

November 23, 2018, 8:25 am
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In August this year, there was a kickstarter campaign for releasing a range of 28mm pirates of Treasure Island. I'm not only going to say that these are really nice miniatures. But I have also been waiting for almost ten years for them to be released.

Mr. O'Brien from the
Pirates of Treasure Island range
It was back in December 2008 when I first blogged about this range of pirates. At the time, Legends of the High Seas was slowing growing to become my skirmish game of choice after having played Mordheim for many many years. Wargames Foundry and Black Scorpion Miniatures were the pirate manufacturers of the time.

Through a Polish forum I got to know sculptor Flis Wojtek, who had been working for Black Tree Design and Warlord Games. He had shared photos of greens of a lot of characterful pirate miniatures that were supposed to be released through Black Hat Miniatures. However, that never happened, until ...

The full range of the Pirates of Treasure Island
via the Black Spot pledge (source)

Kickstarter to the rescue

Now it is almost exactly ten years later and I was very positively surprised to see these miniatures again in the form of the Pirates of Treasure Island kickstarter campaign. Black Tree Design is now EOE Orbis and they released the figures at last.

The whole range consists of 29 figures plus a number of extra miniatures such as a monkey climbing up a flag post or sitting on a powder keg. Inspired by Robert Louis Stevenson's classic novel Treasure Island, there are figures for all the characters: Jim Hawkins, Long John Silver, etc. This results in a useful mix of proper weapon-wielding pirates and civilian types. Beside the mandatory doctor, cook and grenade wielder there are a few unique poses that you rarely find in any of the other pirate ranges: a maniac with a burning powder keg or a marauding pirate kidnapping a mistress.


The figures

Today the figures finally arrived. They had to be sent to EOE's UK hub first and from there to Germany so I received them a little later than other backers. Funnily, this makes it even more close to being exactly ten years after I first saw the greens.

During the kickstarter, I had to go with the "The Black Spot" pledge, of course, which is the entire range plus a few accessory models which seem to not be intended for general release - whenever that may be (at this time the pirates are not available on their online store).


Painted pirates at the bottom (from left to right) for scale comparison:
Crusader, Wargames Foundry and North Star


These figures are very fine sculpts and they will look perfect alongside my other pirates. The casts totally hold up to the expectations I had from viewing the photos of the excellent sculpts. In the photo above I put three of these new figures next to some painted pirates from other manufacturers for comparison.


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Battery by Slug Industries

November 25, 2018, 5:50 am
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In this post I take a look at the battery terrain piece which was produced by Slug Industries as part of a kickstarter project for their Spanish Fort.

In my recent review of the 28mm Spanish Fort I already mentioned that I also got the battery piece that was funded via the kickstarter project. The battery is a solid piece of resin. Aside from the main piece there is a planking piece, similar to the one that was provided with the Spanish Fort, and an MDF kit for a ladder - again, same as with the fort. So, beside filing off a few sharp edges and assembling the ladder, there is no further assembly required.

The battery, the planking (right) and the ladder kit (bottom right)



Painting

I painted the battery the same way as the fort, not only because I had an upcoming gaming session ahead of me, but also because that is the best (and only) way to make the two pieces look similar. Even though I use the same technique, the results vary every time because the paint mixes are slightly different.

The battery from Slug Industries, painted and ready for battle

Back side of the battery with the ladder


The battery on the table

Before the kickstarter, I had never felt that I needed a battery for my table. We are mostly playing pirate skirmish games with only a few models per side and artillery is not really a thing in our games. But I thought, since I am pledging for the fort already, I might as well get the battery and see if I can put it to good use. And I am glad I did ...

When I set up my Port of Gierburg game table, I immediately realized how well the battery complements the dock section:

The battery set up to extend the jetty in the dock section of the table

The battery defends the port


A scenario that we play quite frequently is "Capture/Burn the Ship" where the crews try to attack/defend/capture/burn/steal a ship in the port. Eventually, one crew may win the game by sailing the ship out of port. With the addition of the battery, a whole new win condition can be added: the crews can now also fight for control over the cannons of the battery, so should the opponent attempt to escape with the ship, you can gun the vessel down. This makes the scenario a lot more interesting.

Another game that we played was a sort of "Breakthrough" where a medium-sized vessel attempts to attack an enemy port and wins by having the ship leave via the opposite edge of the table, which represents the port. That side of the board was defended by the Spanish Fort and - surprise - the battery. Both models are perfectly suited for ship-to-coast action and you can set up a great coastal fortification with them.

The defending player controls the fort, the battery and a small ship and
must prevent the attacker's ship from passing this side of the table

The attacking ship approaches


This worked out so well (despite me losing that game) that we came up with a couple of variations that we plan to try out some time soon. And I decided that I actually wanted another battery because it adds so much to the games. With two batteries and the fort I will be able to set up a coastal defense line across the long side of the 4' x 6'ocean board.

I finished painting up the second battery model today:

The two batteries

In closing, I have to say that I am very happy with the battery and the fort and how they have enhanced our games. Over the last years new terrain usually meant that another house is added to the table and that rarely had any impact on the gameplay aspect. These buildings, however, provide whole new levels of interaction for our crews which is quite invaluable.


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Animal tokens

December 7, 2018, 4:34 am
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For a long time I have been wanting to do some animal tokens. Now I finally had the time to do some.

The basic idea is to have a number of "empty" bases that accompany my normal miniatures. Obviously, they have to be the same bases as usual so they are, as always, from Fenris Games:

Over the years I have collected a number of animals. These are the ones I used:




So what to do with these bases? In a number of scenarios that we play, the characters can move across the board unseen. Sometimes they hide as civilians, sometimes they move as shadows or street animals. For each of my pirate crew members I have one respective character marker on a 25mm round plywood base. These markers are secretly placed under Civilian models or under these new animal tokens.

Character markers for my pirate crew members


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Walls from Games of War

December 23, 2018, 7:44 am
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A few months ago, Games of War released some Spanish-style walls as the latest addition to their pirate buildings range. I finished painting my lot this weekend to show them off just in time as my last painting project for the year.


I have been loving the products from Games of War for years now - not only their nice pirate buildings, but more so the fantastic ships and boats, such as the British cutter, the longboats and small ships. With the release of these walls they have expanded their buildings range which should be interesting not only for pirate games such as Blood & Plunder but for a variety of other settings as well.

Disclaimer: Being a great fan of Games of War I'm in occasional contact with Alan of GoW. These walls were sent to me as a thank you for bouncing around ideas. As a gift, not for review purposes. I frequently reject free offers for reviews as I don't do that. Nevertheless, I think you should be informed about this when reading this post.


Range

The "range" consists of the following items:
  • Three different variants of normal wall sections (A, B and C)
  • A wall section with doorway
  • Pillar (one variant)
  • Large Gate

    Wall sections, pillars and gates from Games of War

    The different pieces from the walls range.
    The three sections on the bottom show the backside of the section above.


    You will want to use many pillars as they are intended to be used for connecting the wall sections even when setting up a straight section (not only when setting up corners). If you wanted, you could place some of the sections directly next to each other, glue them and fill the gaps with modeling putty.

    Fitting wall sections aligned next to each other

    I decided to go with a mix of flexibility and practicability: I glued pillars to one of the two doorway sections, to three normal wall sections and to the large gates. For the large gate you need pillars to hold the gate. Since I have two gates, I chose to keep one of them intact and together with two pillars create one "gate section". Then, I cut the other gate into two pieces - I am not sure, but the gate piece actually seems to be intended for this. The result is a mix of raw/single sections and "combined" sections that allows me to set up a wall rather easily without fiddling with too many single pillars.

    My finished set of walls

    The reason for glueing pillars to just one of the two doorway sections is that I can think of set-ups where the doorway section is used to directly connect buildings.

    Walls against the double storey pirate building

    Size and Style

    Back in May I painted up a set of Spanish-style walls from Empress Miniatures. My biggest quarrel with them was that the door and gateway are a bit too small for average 28mm miniatures. These GoW walls are higher and much better scaled for standard-sized figures.

    Comparison of wall sections with doorway from
    Games of War (left) and Empress Miniatures (right)

    As usual, the detail and quality of the GoW models is top-notch. The pantile tiles are perfect and not some cheap workaround to create the look. The textures and structures are also great.

    In my review of the Empress walls I mentioned that I don't like bases on scenery pieces. The GoW walls have a sort of base without which they would barely stand. I painted the base part in a brownish grey so that it blends with a cobblestone street underground and the wall colour itself. For walls, I guess it does make sense to have bases if you don't want them to fall over all the time.

    Conclusion

    To my mind, the walls from Games of War are the nicest models for Spanish/Caribbean/pirate settings. They are perfectly scaled and the details and style is equally great. I was in the process of painting the Empress walls when GoW showed off a preview photo of their walls on Facebook and I immediately regretted having bought them already as I knew that I wanted the ones from GoW. However, since then, I have used the Empress walls in a number of games and they have also worked great and I do like them. With these new walls I now have enough to set up a large country estate.


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