A couple more buildings ....

I've added a couple more buildings to my scenic stock. These are card buildings made by Keranova, from their Medieval Town range. The parts slot together and a number of small tabs protrude from the walls and roofs; I removed the tabs, filled in any gaps and painted the detail back in - for the roofs I covered them in some tile effect paper sheet.

I think thats all for new buildings for downtown Wittenberg for a while ...😀

One more Begovian Infantry Unit

 Some single based Begovian infantry for skirmish games (I finished these a couple of weeks ago; forgot to post pics of them...) Nominally Ottoman tufekci...

more cannon fodder for the Wittenberg artillery ....

Xmas prezzy books ...

 A trio of books for Xmas...

plenty to stimulate project and gaming ideas 😀

Happy Xmas ....

A Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year to All

Visiting the llamas...

The palace cats along with their new friend von Tiddenheim's spaniel, have gone to visit the palace llamas and see their xmas tree...

Mischievous cats ....

 The palace cats have been mischievous lately....

Trying out the new Kings and Queens new thrones, they are quickly shooed away by one of the palace staff...

after being ejected from their new found comfy chairs, they joined in with an inspection of the palace guard ...

Another river bridging set ....

 I've had one pontoon bridge set for a long while; I made an alternate deck and some boats out of cardboard a couple of years back for a bridge of boats look, re-using the ramps form the pontoon set.

I thought it would be nice to have two full sets, so I made up two new ramps from cardboard; using thin card strips for the planking, hibachi skewers for the wooden stakes plus a dusting of sand - then painted to match the first set

The Monrovian army on manouvres, crossing a tributary of the river Oudear.....(new ramps and card deck/boats at the front)

Two more houses ......

 I've recently added a couple more new buildings to the scenics... fiddly to paint but worth the effort :)

they are resin ones from Steve Barber Miniatures. They need to be assembled, each floor and the roof is a separate casting.

Tweaking some old buildings ...

1. An old HO plastic kit house

It didn't really fit in when used as bottom part is way out of scale for 28mm figures - it was usually relegated to the background.

The roof surface smoothed and covered with thin cardboard, new ground floor shell was made from thicker cardboard. Tile plus stone effect paper sheets used along with some printed doors and windows - it now looks the biz :)

2. A pottery building - 

Never have been satisfied with the chimney, repainted it grey and added some chimney pots to the top. Also to spruce it up a bit I put some stone effect paper on the sides and back.

Adding a new building .....

I thought I'd have a go at an item from the from the Petite Properties 1/48th range ; I picked a smaller one called Tinkers Alley, I made it up but didn't use all the detailing pieces - I added some timbering to the front and back to fit in with my other buildings

Zinzendorf - Dragoons (40mm)

The re-equipped Dragoon regiment - they have been brought back up to full strength after the rigours of the last Begovian campaign.

[figures - my own 40mm home-casts, Kettle drummer is a conversion of a home-cast Creartec figure]

Over the border ....

General Waldebeck has organised an intelligence gathering information on the current positions of the Begovian army; they appear to be in camp across the border about 20 miles or so south west of the border town of Darkur.  A number of small units of scouts have been sent across the border ...

One of these heads towards the border with Begovia ..

they crossed the border and about five miles ducked into a copse to keep out of sight of a Begovian patrol..

taking care they headed further into enemy territory after another 15 miles they could see a group of Begovian encampments in the distance ; they approached carefully and found some cover to observe one of them ..

they circled round and through a wood to get a bit closer ...

after that they headed back to Wittenberg territory, passing by another camp and avoiding another patrol

a bit further on, they saw a body of horsemen approaching and took cover; they watched as a large group of Tartars passed by...

They hurried back across to the border and then on to the army HQ to make their report; the positions of the camps were noted and placed on the maps, but the presence of Tatars allied with the Begovians was important information ...

Camp for the Begovians (WIP)

 I've been making tents for the Begovians to be used to represent a camp; made up a template.. Initial prototype build...

The template, to print on A4 160g paper.

I used the template to make up a number of tents. To make a commanders tent I used a tent template cut in half and with fill in-between; using a cardboard internal frame for rigidity

Have enough tents for a good size camp ...

will get these painted; I have cast a few figures up to convert to add some interest to the camp scene as well

Making the large chamber for Under Wittenberg....

I needed a large chamber for the Under Wittenberg game. I decided to use a box folder and make it as adaptable as possible.

I removed one side of the box folder to make photography easier during games. I cut some coffee stirrers to size and fixed them near the corners to provide a groove at each end to fit swappable wall effect pieces.

The cardboard inserts for the wall sides cut, covered in stone paper and checked for a good fit

Onto flooring - some pavement effect paper sheet, cut to fit (future option of swap out floor piece)

Flooring paper stuck down and wall inserts in position - rather empty, perhaps a bit larger than was needed. I can add internal walls for a later game, along with different wall pieces.

A little bit of dressing to check on how pictures would look..

In use as part of the Under Wittenberg game....

the two doorways and the bell came from a free sprue with a Warhammer Age of Sigmar magazine  that I spotted in a newsagent (not my usual purchase to read, but the free sprue had some really useful bits on it).

Rules and Stuff...

Rules for Games 

[post amended 5/11/2020, to add link to Weight of File Ruleset and associated quick reference sheets]

Basically I have a selection to choose from depending on the size and content of the scenario.  I always tailor rules to a scenario if needed. Apart from the main rules set I use below,  I make up scenario specific rules and borrow bits from other rulesets as appropriate.

Big Battles - I use Weight of Fire ruleset (a free set I downloaded some years back) with a few of my own tweaks (rules PDF here, quick ref sheet here side 1 and side 2)

Skirmish Games - Skirmish Rules Lite  (home-baked). (PDF here)

Adventure Games - A general set useable for 17C onwards.  (PDF here) It was derived from the rules included in Battlegames Zulu Special (BG14), I made a few basic adaptations (and a few more minor ones) main changes to the published rules as follows

• The Shooting Table was extended to add SMG, LMG, Sling and Bow. With a generic musket/rifle entry. Rolling 2D6 when firing a SMG and 4D6 when firing a LMG.

	Range
Weapon	Short	Medium	Long
Field Artillery	0-6"	6-24"	24-36"
Battalion Gun	0-6"	6-12"	12-18"
Musket/Rifle	0-6"	6-12"	12-18"
Pistol	0-2"	2-6"	n/a
SMG	0-6"	6-12"	12-18"
LMG	0-6"	6-12"	12-18"
Throwing Spear	0-4"	n/a	n/a
Sling	0-6"	n/a	n/a
Bow	0-6"	n/a	6-12"

• A saving throw for all combatants - 1D6 1,2,3 disabled/dead; 4,5,6 OK

The Skirmish Riles Lite and the general Adventure game set are sort of close in content and I ought to converge them to make one set. (one day 😉 ).

Optional Bits

• Combat with 'to and fro' - Simple Combat (home-baked) (PDF here); this has skill, attack, defense attributes for character figures; with 3 wounds per character maximum.

• Combat no weapons - Fisticuffs 
• winner of combat decided by rock paper scissors dice.
• loser is downed for next move, lays prone; to get up throw 1D6: 1 stays prone.
• opposition figure in base contact with prone figure, holds him down.

• Animal Herding, derived from some I found online (PDF here)

The Under Wittenberg Game

This was the last solo game played.  Very ad-hoc game. Basically a test of the concept of splitting the game table into two halves, one being the above ground and the other underground. The passageways and chambers were added as I went along and the story developed. Some new pieces were made - steps, the pit, the large chamber along with some doorways and 'treasure pieces'.

• Movement nominal 6" max per move.
• Actions controlled by dice what happens next 1,2,3 for x otherwise ....
• When contact occurred I used  'Combat no weapons - Fisticuffs' .

Under Wittenberg (4) ... Into the Treasure Chamber ....

continued from the previous post....

They crossed the pit picking up a new assistant in the form of a cat, down the steps and into another passageway ..

and the other party were heading in the same direction, parallel to them 

The men form the royal society passed through a door into a large chamber...

while they were were looking round they heard the noise of footsteps and low voices, they moved cautiousy towards the sounds ...

The other party (Red Jack and some of his gang) were also finding their way around the large chamber...

The two parties could see each other dimly in the lights from their lamps....

Suddenly two of  Red Jack's gang rushed the men of the royal society; the cat scurried off into the darkness as one of the gang turned on their leader Red Jack ...

She knocked Red Jack down and went to help the men of the royal society...

In the darkness and confusion with some light provided by dropped lamps, the affray continued ...

Red Jack had managed to get up, grab a lamp and with the monk headed back out the door they had come in .... meanwhile two of Red Jack's gang had been knocked to the floor...

The men of the royal society found out that the the person who had come to their aid was Mlle Jeanette Dimanche, one of Givenchy's Irregulars who had infiltrated Red Jack's gang. The two remaining rogues after coming round were held at sword point while someone went for the guard on the church crypt door...

---oXo---

Some time later the two rogues were escorted out and off to the town jail, under the watchful eye of Mlle Dimanche..

With additional guards, the work cataloguing the contents of the large chamber could proceed. The great golden bell - could it be the be the 'Mother of Voices' ?

amongst the other items was a large gold cup - maybe this was the fabulous 'Whorled Cup'?

The contents once catalogued were to be removed to the Kings treasury for safekeeping and study. How they would get the great bell out would be a challenge..