Battlefields 2020, a photo review

 

the VFW hall provides a great space and the turnout was up significantly

       Another Battlefields has come and gone and a great time was had by all. Despite it being the first truly nice Spring day that we have had here in Michigan the crowd was up and the games were many and varied. The Pro-or-Con guys have done a great job widening the player base by incorporating  fantasy and sci-fi games as well as the usual historical fare. 

1/600 ACW, finishing up the details

 

the floating battery and its landward version; an earthen fort,

and a quarter

       Having completed all of the ships I only had these two little gems left to do. Rather than leave them for "when I get around to it" I decided to go ahead and get all of the 1/600 scale stuff finished. They are every bit as finely detailed as the ship models are and were a breeze to assemble. The floating battery was mounted on a bit of matte board and given some water texture while the earthwork seemed just fine on its own.

Making game accessories

       I had a few minutes to spare today so I took the time and made turning and broadside templates out of some matte board that I had lying around the workshop. They would have worked just fine as they were but I had a flash of inspiration and decided to paint them. I think they turned out pretty well.

L to R, top row; wide broadside template, standard broadside template

bottom row; sixty and forty-five degree turning templates

1/600 ACW USN from Thoroughbred Models

       As can be seen from the picture above the far larger portion of my unplanned purchase of a bunch of Thoroughbred Models 1/600 ACW ships was vessels from the Union Navy.  Below you can find a full-circuit photo record of each model. I must say that I very much prefer the monitors to the others when it comes to painting and rigging. Aside from that they are all excellent models that my humble skills do not really do proper justice.

1/600th Scale C.S.A. Naval units Thoroughbred Miniatures

 

the combined fleets

       Having finally gotten through the pile of minis that I bought on a whim at FlintCon2020 I thought that I would conduct a proper one-by-one "fleet review". All of these models (except the Tennessee) are from the wonderful range produced by Thoroughbred Models, I don't intend this as a kit review these models have been around for a long time and the quality is legendary. So, in no particular order, here is the fleet.

Ironclads completed at last

 

sailing away from me to avoid my wrath,

the Future floor wax certainly does provide a good gloss

         With only six working days left before the Battlefields convention I forced myself to complete the last six ships in my little ACW fleet (I do fear that I will be ordering at least a few more before this saga is over!). This effort confirmed for certain my dislike of square-rigged ships and the spider-web of rigging that goes with them. I consumers yards and yards of stretched sprue and a couple of tubes of Super Glue in the process. Now I can rest easy with the knowledge that the boats are done, now all that remains is to construct the shoals and sandbars that form the harbor mouth and gloss the bases one more time. Oh, and print the ship diagrams and eight copies of the rules, gather dice and rules, make the turning widgets........at least I don't have to bring any hills.

       I will be running this game in the second session, anyone wishing to play please take a look at the rules which are in this post.

A Lazy Man's Half

 

let the rigging begin!

a bit of stretched sprue and some superglue

       Fighting a bad cold and having shoveled my sidewalk I determined that I had seen enough of the outside world for a day. I decided to get a cup of coffee and get back to work on the ironclads. The models were all based, the bases painted and wakes touched in so all that remained was glossing the bases and rigging the ships.
        Looking for the biggest bang for my buck I decided that I would gloss the monitors first then get on with rigging and glossing the sailing vessels. I grabbed my trusty (and almost empty) bottle of Future floor wax (I understand that it is now marketed under the name Pledge floor gloss) and set about adding a shine to my monitor's bases. This went by very quickly which left me with no options aside from settling in and starting the rigging process.
       Being a coward I started with the New Ironsides, she had started life as a full-rigged ship but went to war with nothing but truncated masts used for signalling. This was easy and quick and I was getting back into the groove. Next I did a couple of schooner-rigged paddle-wheel ships. Feeling that I had gotten a handle on thing I started on the Alabama. And suddenly I remembered why I had sworn never to do another square-rigged ship ever again! Even with the vastly reduced rig that I put on the model it took forever and I had bits of stretched sprue glued to all of my fingers before I was done. The model does seem to have turned out fairly well but I'm not looking forward to the second half as they are all in need of extensive rigging. I should have stuck with monitors and Confederate battery ironclads.........

Ironclads based and waiting for rigging

       I found myself planning to start the rigging when it occurred to me that I really had ought to base the models before I went down the rabbit-hole of rigging. That way the models would be presentable for the convention on the 7th of March, you know, just in case I didn't get done with the rigging by then. Not wanting to wait for special ordered laser-cut MDF I just grabbed a sheet of artists matte board, a straight edge and my matte knife and got right to work. I tried to make the bases big enough to ease handling without overcrowding the tabletop.  My main objective was to protect the fragile masts and rigging so I made the bases wide enough that I can pick up the model without grabbing the  upper works. I used a toothpick to spread a thin strip of Liquid Nails to form the wake of the ships. A quick coat of Americana "Uniform Blue" and things were in order. I will use white paint to enhance the wakes and then a heavy coat of Future floorwax to gloss the water area then I'm off to the races with the rigging.

A Visit to Tennessee, CSS Tennessee that is........

 

the shape is very simple, all flat surfaces

       In my usual dilatory way I didn't get around to ordering a CSS Tennessee from Thoroughbred until this morning. Even with the usual fast service from them I was worried that the model wouldn't arrive in time for me to get it ready for play in ten days. Just to be on the safe side I decided to scratchbuild a model out of matte board and balsa. This was greatly eased by the primitive design that most Confederate ironclads followed; a greatly elongated hexagon for a hull plan and a truncated pyramid for a superstructure.
       I found a drawing on line and printed it out in scale to use as my "master plan". The smokestack is a bit of bamboo skewer and the gunports are rectangles of index card. I smoothed out the balsa using wallboard compound and scribed panel lines into the surface with an X-Acto knife when it was all dried. A thin coat of superglue covered the whole surface to harden it and I added a couple of lifeboats that I highjacked from another kit to provide a little eye-candy on a very plain model.

 

the wake is just Liquid Nails teased out with a toothpick

 

the foredeck should have a pair of ventilators, 

but I'm not going to try that in 1/600 scale

 

with a wash of black and the base finished,

 it is usable if not up to the standards of the other ships

       I'm really hoping that the kit I ordered gets here and I can find the free time to get it convention-ready, but now I have a back-up plan just in case.

ACW Naval Action Rules and Templates

                      These are a set of rules that I photocopied out of an old Wargames Illustrated or Miniature Wargames magazine simply ages ago, I can't find the original magazine article but I do know that Andy Callan is the author of this little gem. I take no claim or credit for these, all I can say is that they are a jolly fun set of rules that we have enjoyed for decades. Of course as the years passed I have made some modifications to the rules. If these are improvements we will set that down to happy circumstance, if they have failed the fault is mine alone. At the end of the rules I have included some worked-out ship data cards and a set of blanks templates that can be used to make new ones.

A Dozen Days Left...

 

ten ships in need of at least standing rigging

       So I had a couple of hours free and I decided to finish off building and painting the Thoroughbred 1/600 scale ironclads for the Battlefields convention on the 7th of March. This went much faster and smoother than I had thought it would and I now find myself with twelve days to go and just bases to to do........except there is the Siren call of rigging. Basing these models should only take an hour or so which leaves me thinking that I can find the time to rig these little beauties. I still have miles of stretched sprue from rigging the 1/700 Black seas boats........hmmmm.

HUGE SALE AT SQUADRON.COM $100 off Vallejo paints sets

       Just popped into my email this morning this huge sale Vallejo paints sets $100.00US or more off, plus lots of other great deals, take a look!