The "HOW TO" of Making FAST Roads!

Just a few pics illustrating how I made the felt roads. FAST AND SIMPLE! One hour... and you have enough for most battles.

Dark Brown felt pieces cut to shape.

Use felt if you can. Cut to size and shape desired. Lay out flat and paint on the texture using a SPONGE (I use the little grey packing sponges that Flames of War models come in). Use strokes on the felt making lines down each road. Start with brown paints working up to a tan or even khaki/buttermilk (experiment here).

Texture with shades of brown and earth tones using a
sponge - pulling the paint (DON'T LEAVE GLOBS). Use a
BLACK sharpie, ink, or wash to make tracks. Blend final paint
over tracks.

 Pull the paint to spread it out; you don't want GLOBBS. You are after an earthy look. Before applying the final layer of painting, take a fabric pen, or sharpie (BLACK) and make wheel tracks. Simple really, no need to be exact here. I make quick 3-4" strokes down the road running it's length. Again... experiment. You want it to look like many wheeled vehicles pass through leaving deep tracks.

Flock! I used a mix of green flock, sand, and oregano.
Use watered down white glue. DO NOT OVER USE GLUE! or you
will stiffin the felt. Space your glue out.

 Now, apply the final paint with your sponge. Be sure to run over the black marker lines to kind of fade /blend it in (you don't really want STRONG lines showing here - doesn't look natural. Let dry a few mins at least. Now apply watered down white glue with a brush in various spots (again stretching the glue out. Flock these areas with whatever you have (I used a mix of green flock and oregano, along with a bit of sand). You can also apply pure sand as well to make it look more "dirty". Let dry.

I roll over the flock to to press it on to the felt.

The important thing to remember here is don't over use the glue, or apply THICK amounts of paint. Otherwise you will stiffn the felt and it wont be bendable and conform properly to other terrain (or lay flat for that matter). Use glue in a spotty fashion (no long lines stretching more than an inch). Space your glue areas.

One final tip: Use India Ink, or any BLACK or dark brown ink/wash in addition/instead of the marker mentioned above. Works wonders! :)

Same idea with the field. Cut, texture with paint, apply marker lines, apply final paint (not always desired with fields), apply flock. Hay fields just texture with yellow and straw paints, and apply static grass (straw colored - or highlight a yellow/straw color once glued to felt surface). Oh... don't water you glue down when applying the static grass; pure white glue.

 

Dirt Roads FINISHED!

Finally finished off another batch of felt roads. Took about an hour to make a ton of these pieces (just enough for most battles anyway). Nice dirt roads for any period!

Pretty sweet! You can see the train tracks (upper left) and
the barbed wire/barricades (upper right) pieces just finished
as well

The plain felt I used to make these little gems.

 

Another Terrain Update... and more!

The upgrading of my terrain collection continues! This week I have been basing some HO/20mm scale rail road tracks for use in my games. Good enough for my 15mm collection of minis for the time being (although... see below for more on 20mm/HO scale). These are raised tracks so they are realistic as well. I managed to base them on card and added some texturing as would be appropriate. They are coming along nice. Hope to have these done in time for some gaming later next week.

Some based rail road tracks for use in my 15/20mm battles.

Speaking of 20mm scale, I have decided to get back into collecting 20mm miniatures as well! I have been debating this for some time now as the quality and availability of this scale is soo much better these days. In particular are the ranges provided by Eureka (AB Miniatures). Their 20mm WWII line is amazing! I am hoping these guys will fit well with the PSC tanks and vehicles (which I also really like). Not a big fan of the PSC infantry (they look too damn stiff, imo). But yeah... these AB miniatures are just so damn tempting. I think as far as scale the AB minis are just a titch smaller than the PSC inf. Heh... but even then it is minor.




20mm AB Miniatures! Just look at that detail!

                                       Eureka's 20mm WWII Web Site




More AB 20mm. These guys look awesome and the
price is perfect; not too damn expensive.

I'll gave more updates on this as I collect the models. Should be fun. I imagine they will be perfect for Squad/platoon sized games; I don't want to have to play company level games on a HUGE table, so yeah. Of course that won't change my devotion to the ultimate scale: 15mm! :)

Hmmm... some of my brother's High Elves some
how found their way on my table!

A Recent Battle in the Fields...

Had a fun lil game of BG today. Small action involving only a couple squads and some tanks. Took a few shots of the action from the German side. Was pretty fun. Germans had a victory by putting the Americans over their BR by a single point! Kinda reminds me of our last campaign game where I lost the battle and the campaign by one BR as well. Guess this is payback.

Fun game once again.

Terrain Update!

Lots been going on here at the Forge. Some of that involves some much needed updating of my own gaming terrain. After last weeks BG Overlord campaign I discovered it was time to upgrade my terrain collection. So be it...

Some Germans make their way through a newly-made light forest.

Here are some pics of what I have done over the past few days. Of course I also did some road and fields, which I will showcase in my upcoming BG BatRep (see later post).

I am also working on some foxhole and mine field markers (mostly for use with BG rules).

Here are some pics of the most recent terrain pieces I have upgraded (or made from scratch).




Some new trees laid out on wood base recently textured
with a forest floor. 

The texturing on these bases are awesome!

The felt forest floor with trees, rocks, 
twigs, lichen and troops added!

Felt pieces for forest floor. I added all
kinds of texture to them, including
some paint.

Terrain Update!

Had some spare time tonight. Just did some more terrain upgrading. Fixed up the dirt roads with a little more texturing, as well as fixed up some of the trees by painting up the trunks as well as painting over some of the glue spots (was using a glue gun to adhere the clump flock). All in all looks pretty good considering I didn't spend much time on this "upgrade". I must say though, it has been a while since I did work on my terrain. It shows though. So I am planning a lot of new terrain projects/upgrades. My friend told me that felt and lichen are the lazy wargamers terrain! Hahahaa... perhaps he is right. Anyway... below are the results.

Now to get on with a few more turns of our battle tonight. Should have another BatRep up by early next week. Stay tuned!

An AFTER pic of the road after
some texturing.

A BEFORE pic of the road (plain
brown felt).



A Hay and Plant field completed as well. Black Magic Marker
and flock on nothing more than pieces of cut felt.
Pretty sweet really.



Overhead view of our recent BG Overlord game.

 

 

A black felt marker was used to make "deep" tracks in the road
giving some shading.

 

NEW Terrain and Bases!

School has kept me pretty busy past few days. So our Battlegroup Overlord campaign (and game four in fact) has kind of taken a back seat till later this week. I did manage to finish up some new trees (thanks to the trusty glue gun!). So I may actually throw down the new trees on the table for turn two of our BG game this week.

Some of the NEW trees displayed around the bridge. So much
better than the lichen covered trees.



Another pic; this time of a small wood. Still have to clean  them
up a bit as you can see some glue. All in due time.

On the Panzer Grenadier Deluxe front, just bought a ton of LITKO FoW bases (small). I will be mounting my infantry on these sized bases (with two - three models per base as recommended by the PG rules). They are perfect size and I will be able to use them with other rules as well (such as BG). For FoW I will be placing the small bases on the larger med. size bases with a figure or two already mounted.; kind of like a base on a base type deal. Works great really. I'll post some pics of what I mean below. I use celu-clay tp build up the med. size bases edge for a nice snug fit when I place the small sized bases on them.

The FoW med. base is on the left. I used Celu-Clay to build-up
the edges around it to hold a small FoW base within it.

 

Here is what it will look like with a FoW small base set within it.

 

I could also put single mounted models on the base as well
(although not as snug a fit of course).

Here I placed a FoW small base with models facing the short side
within the med. base. Works great!

Finally got around to figuring out how I will be mounting my 15mm figs for use in my Horse & Musket games (check out my link to my Project for 2015 above). I REALLY want to focus on the look of units so I am opting for the large 30mm square bases for my infantry. These will be mounted with five - six inf. in close formation. I wont go into too much detail here on that. I'll have more details in the future as I get the project underway later this spring.

Anyway, stay tuned. I have a BatRep going up soon of Battle four in our BG Overlord campaign (both a video AND a proper write up).

Overlord Campaign Upcoming Battle

Well, after yesterdays BG Overlord loss I am on the ropes! Battle four is this week. I get to choose the scenario type (Meeting Engagement or Attack/Defense). I chose Attack Defense and we ended up with the "Hold the Line" scenario. Not bad at all. I don't get any FREE Defenses however (and I don't have any in my list.

I got to set up the board (again a 4' x 4' layout since it's a Squad level battle). I think it looks pretty good and will definitely be fun. Since I was the defender I chose to make it somewhat dense. Lots of Hard cover, a stream running along the center (counts as Dangerous Terrain), and lots of woods to hamper movement and provide Soft cover.

A look at the table layout for the upcoming battle.
Which edge should I take?

The forces for the battle are pretty much the same as the last battle (outside of some depleted units). Only difference is my FHQ is now Veteran (as is his), and the Americans will be getting an extra 25 points to spend on a new temporary (this battle only) unit from his list. Regardless, the Americans have the advantage in Recon/Scout units, as well as number of tanks (my two to his three). I have more infantry however (good in this scenario).

At this point it's down to me to choose my table edge (and the Attacker gets the opposite). I will then be deploying my initial defense units in the central third of the board. The Attacker will deploy his initial forces 10" from his table edge. So units will be getting to grips fairly soon. He gets the rest of his forces from Turn three on. I on the other hand have to wait until turn 5! On top of all this, D3 of my units will be "pinned" at the start (although I can also put D3 on Ambush as well).

So, it's going to be one helluva battle. Again, keep in mind that I HAVE TO WIN THIS BATTLE! Otherwise all is lost.

As far as campaign VP, I won the first battle (Recce Screen), and the Americans went on to win the next two (High Ground and Flanking Attack). I have 7 VP and the Americans have 14! So yeah, they are winning on that front as well. Regardless, this battle will be the turning point (and possibly the end) of the campaign.

For those interested, the campaign rules we are using have been in development for quite a while now (since the release of BG: Overlord). They are still being playtested. If interested, join The Guild forums for Battle Group (see my links on the right of the screen). Easy to find as they are located under the Battlegroup Overlord section of the forum, at the very top.


If you follow my YouTube channel (see the links above) I am posting a short video on the layout of the table. Might want to check that out if interested. A BatRep will follow later this week. A good look at the layout! Video.

BG Overlord BatRep Posted... and some thoughts

Just updated the Battle Reports section of my blog today to include a game we played last night (Battlegroup Overlord). This was part of our campaign we have been playing, so it's pretty interesting. really fun game, even if a bit short. So, have a look in my Battle Reports section (link above), or click the link here... MEIN GOTT! to go directly to the BatRep.

Take note that I also did a video BatRep of this battle. So check that link out in the BatRep description, or just check out my YouTube channel (again, link above).

In other news, been pretty busy with school. I should be done tomorrow and will have more FREE time through Monday. Awesomeness! A good thing cause I want to start getting deeper into the Panzer Grenadier rules next week. Already planning a review and a battle report for these rules, stay tuned for that.

Overlord Campaign Playtesting

Last week we started a Normandy campaign with the Battlegroup Overlord rules. Been playing BG for over a year now and all I can say is I LOVE it. It's an easy game to learn, you can fight squad, platoon, company or even larger battles with NO problems. After being out of the loop for several months, slipping back into the system was a breeze; once aspect I really appreciate about BG.

StuG III advances over an objective supported by a squad of
Panzer Grenadiers.

Anyway, we are in the midst of playing battle three of a five battle campaign. The rules are in play test by the Battlegroup guys and I thought having a go with them would be pretty fun; like the BG rules, the campaign rules are very easy to learn. My German Panzer battlegroup won the initial battle, but failed in the second (the Americans putting up a really good defense in the High Ground scenario). Gained some interesting benefits like an Elite PG squad, who after the second battle also gained the Scout ability!

This third battle we will finish sometime today. Turns out to be the Flanking Attack scenario which is pretty fun in my opinion; random number of objectives, more forces deployed on-table, and some pretty variable deployment zones. Very interesting the situations that develop from deployment.

A Sherman Platoon supported by a squad of inf. in an M3
move out to capture an objective.

So far, after a single turn I already lost my Stug III G to a breakdown (was immobilized) followed by being BLOWN all to hell by a M4 76! Also lost my entire PG Foot Patrol and their 250/1 halftrack hiding behind a wood (I thought it would be out of site) to another M4 Sherman ripping up the road. Oh well. I did manage to grab three of the four objectives however. After one turn both sides are about equal in the BR department (we are both about half-way to exceeding our forces Battle Ratings).

I am doing a quick video of this third battle and I should have that posted on my YouTube channel shortly. I may do a pictorial BatRep as well and post that here in the Battle Reports section. We shall see.

Later next week I am hoping to not only finish this campaign, but get some Panzer Grenadier games in as well. More on that later.

Battlegroup PanzerGrenadier Forum

Battlegroup PanzerGrenadier Forum



For anyone interested in a fantastic forum for the Panzer Grenadier rules... check this link out. You NEEEEED to be on here.

What's Going on...

STARTING OFF THE NEW YEAR!!!

Finally getting around to updating my Blog. About time really. I figured that this would be a good way to start off the NEW YEAR! Been a while. However, I am planning on keeping this updated on a regular basis. Everything about my adventures in military history, and miniatures wargaming in general :) Lots going on really, and I will be posting all kinds of reviews and battle reports, etc.

You should also be able to keep up on all my wargaming posts on YouTube and Ebay as well from this blog.

Currently I have been playing a lot of WW II miniatures games (my favorite period). I am just getting ready to play a third battle in our five battle mini-campaign with the Battlegroup rules (Overlord). This is a play-test set of campaign rules being developed by the BG authors. SO far... it's a pretty balanced campaign (play wise). The American's have a slight edge in terms of victory condition. Pretty fun stuff really.

In the coming weeks I will be posting stuff for the new DELUXE version of the Panzer Grenadier rules. I am really looking forward to that. I am expecting to be doing quite a few YouTube vids on these rules as well. :)

Of course... also been having a go with more FoW. SO expect more of that soon.

One other thing I should mention is a NEW historical project that I will be doing for the Horse & Musket period. Been chomping at the bit to do this actually. I will have more details soon.



Stay tuned.