I Have a Blog and I’m Not Afraid to Use It

Here’s an almost completely useless, yet absurdly long, post for you all.

On or around the new year, I wrote about 2014 being the year of finishing projects, and today I took some steps in that direction. Way back when, I had planned to create a terrain board for the TooFatLardies scenario from I Ain’t Been Shot Mum called “Action at Galmanche.”

“Action at Galmache” takes place in Normandy, July 8, 1944, as a part of Operation Charnwood and the British and Canadian attack on Caen. The terrain is farmland, consisting mainly of orchards, although there’s a smattering of cultivated land, as well (currently represented by a brown blotch at the upper right of the first photo).

Forces consist of a couple troops of Shermans and an infantry company on the British side, and a company of SS Panzergrenadiers and a PAK40 on the German side. No STuGs, though they feature prominently in my photographs.

Anyway, I had gotten to the point where the terrain board was flocked, but stalled out due to school and indecision on how to represent bocage at 1/285. Well, I cheaped out and just spent a couple hours hot-gluing clump foilage directly to the terrain board. It will work, even if it doesn’t really look like bocage.

My trees, which were created for 15mm ACW really don’t work as an orchard. Unless maybe it was an orchard of gargantuan Pecan trees. Which I’m quite certain they historically weren’t. However, in the interest of expediency, the action will take place in what looks like a particularly well ordered and sparse antediluvian forest. I actually have a couple more bags of “We Honest” Chinese trees that should work at this scale, but I’m not sure I can muster the energy to fix them up, at this particular point in time.

The whole thing fits on my drafting table

Those gleaming silver buildings are from GHQ, and just arrived yesterday. They’ll be primed and painted just as soon as I can clear my table of some ACW stuff I’ve been working on. Like all things GHQ, they’re just little gems of wargaming perfection. Or almost perfection. There’s some pretty bad mold slippage in a couple of the buildings. Which might bother someone who is more discriminating than me.

I would (and probably will) like to put a bit more time into making this board look like a real place, as I’ve moved away from the idea of doing terrain boards (lack of space, lack of flexibility, lack of time) and probably won’t have the chance, again.  I need to paint a few Sherman tanks, and print up the cards I created for the scenario, plant some crops in the corner of the board, and then this project should be ready to roll.

I plan to use the whole setup as a way to introduce people to historical miniatures wargaming. I mean, nothing’s cooler than these little bitty tanks. The sheer miniatureness of it is compelling, somehow.

Stugs advance down the road from the manor house.

I was so mad this shot was out of focus that I decided to use it anyway.

This orchard holds death!

Oh, all miniatures are GHQ except for the infantry, which are the wonderfully bobbleheaded Adler figures. I really do like them!

The whole thing fits on my drafting table

Stugs advance down the road from the manor house.

This orchard holds death!

I was so mad this shot was out of focus that I decided to use it anyway.

Cards for I Ain’t Been Shot Mum

Terrain board construction has been forced to a halt by snow, rain, cold temperatures, and other unfavorable climatic conditions which prevent me from using spray paint or sanding (which for peace in the household must be done outside).

I have started developing a series of cards for the IABSM game that I’ve been doing all this work for. These things are done to standard poker playing card size (2.5″x3.5″) and are constructed of various found images from the internet which I then construct silhouettes for in Adobe Illustrator.

If you’re interested in doing these sorts of things but aren’t interested in spending the money that Illustrator costs, there is a piece of vector graphic software called Inkscape that’s free. I haven’t used it, myself, but I’d be amazed if Inkscape couldn’t repeat the sort of very basic functionality I’m using to do these cards.

A few unit cards for IABSM3

These cards are for the “Action at Galmanche” scenario in the IABSM 3 rule book. If you’re playing that scenario and would like the graphics to print a set of cards, leave me a comment and I’ll supply you with the file. Once I’m done, of course.