The Second World War in 20mm

As the early posts on this blog show, the main wargame which i play is warhammer fantasy but i also enjoy a few other games as well. For some time now i have play Lord of the Rings, the War of the Ring and Bolt action. With the majority of my gaming friends away at university or having a break from the hobby i've had to put aside fantasy for awhile and focus on these other two.

I do think its a shame that Wotr wasn't more of a success as i personally really enjoy it. Afterall there are some great, huge battle scenes in lotr with massive armies squaring of against each other- this is what i like to recreate on the battlefield.

Having gotten my friend into the idea of wargaming on a semi regular basis i've been playing alot more Bolt Action, which we both find interesting because of the 'historical' element behind it. Bolt Action is designed to be played in 28mm but i find that it works perfectly well at 20mm and means you can fit more troops on a regular 6" by 4" board. It also has the benefit of being incredibly cheap at this scale.

 

Airfix 1/72 8th army

   Being more into terrain building than miniature painting these days i wanted to build something that could be used in 20mm for BA and in 25mm (i think that's what it is) for Lotr sbg and Wotr. I'd also decided to 'hold fire' on any big project for a little while and instead make some 'scatter pieces'.

First up, are the woods!

I was able to buy some lazer cut mdf bases for pretty cheap from wargamestournaments on ebay.

I think they are supposed to be movement trays but they make great bases for my interchangeable trees.

Using a nail a made a hole for the trees to glue into and then sanded the base.

I sprayed all of the bases brown.

And then drybrushed it with a lighter brown tone.

A little flock and static grass to match my modular boards.

The Boards got flocked later.

Some woodland scenic's clump foliage helped to break up the large blocks of colour.

And provide plenty of 'cover' of for troops to advance behind.

The clump foliage is best applied with a hot glue gun, for durability.

I can change the type of forest, by changing the trees.

These were very easy to make and woods are always useful pieces of terrain for wargaming. I intend to make another batch of these so that i can completely cover a board in woodland if the game requires.

I also made a few 20mm BA specific terrain pieces to add some flavor to my games- A crashed Focke-Wulf, a wrecked stuart tank, some small scatter-able pieces and a large crater.

Pieces like this can be quickly placed to add character without getting in the way or over cluttering a board.

D-day landings anyone?

whilst i was buying bases for the woods i also bought these.. perfect for smaller pieces.

Having bought some DAS airdry clay, i decided to make to terrain.. to see what it could do.

I raided my bits box and found some ammunition boxes.

This was very easy to make, just a case of piling up clay around the outside.

It was made to fit any of my weapons teams.

Some sand and flock and it was finished.. personally i think its too green, so will probably change it at a later date.

Plastic soldier company stuart tanks come with enough bits to make 3 tanks and half of three more.

Using the spare bits i made this...

To hide the half with i didn't have, i sunk it in the DAS clay.

Some sand and a bit of paint...

As i do with all my 8th army stuff, I covered it in Army painter strong tone (seen here before being dulcoated).

For this piece i used an old Focke-wulf I half built when i was a kid.

It was in a pretty poor condition, so it was perfect for use as a wreck.

As with the other pieces, the clay could be shaped, to form a crash 'crater'.

Some sand and paint... plus a few bullet holes..

I used dark tone army painter ink to 'weather' the plane.

Large pieces of the plane had gone missing over the years, but this just added to the damaged look.

sadly the clay did warp the base as it dried, something to be aware of next time.

Again, i'm not convinced by the colour of the flock, but it'll do for now.

These pieces only took about a week of work to finish and most of that was because i was being slow and lazy. At some stage i will come back to them and probably reflock them or add some foliage as i'm not 100% happy with them.

The woods will probably see the most use as they work for the lotr sbg (or the hobbit sbg as its now called). I have also made some Bocage for 20mm games, which i will post at some point and i am currently working on a large 4" by 2" river module which can be used for my Pegasus bridge board and will also work for the 'barrels out of bond' scenario i've heard is in the desolation of smaug book. I'll try and get into the habbit of uploading WIP pics as a slowly complete it.

Feel free to comment :)

Helm Deep- FINISHED.

At last, i am finally finished. At least, the main structure is finished... there are still some final details that i need to get around to (a couple of doors/stairs etc.) but i'll get around to that in a couple of months time, for now i'm done :)

Bored of creating cliffs and itching to build something i started work on the causeway.

The causeway was built from scraps of polystyrene and then covered in polyfilla
(this time i chose to carve the brick work whilst it was drying which save ALOT of time!)

As i had predicted, creating a gradual slope whilst bending to one side was very challenging.

Once the filla was dry i undercoated it all with black paint.

Followed by a heavy drybrush with slate grey.

Back to the detailing, i textured the edges inside the keep with sand.

This looks abit odd now but once painted just adds texture.

Using woodland scenics liquid earth pigments (Burnt umber and slate grey) i began to paint the rocks.

This is an incredibly quick method of painting cast rocks and looks very realistic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SfP4RpcDYw  They have lots of videos
on youtube explaining how to use their products.

The one issue i encountered was that the pigments did not colour the polyfilla
i had used to fill the gaps between rocks. This was fixed later using watered down black paint.

Whilst fixing the rocks i undercoated the entire base black.

The inner walls were painted to match the deeping wall.

And the seams between the rocks and walls were tidied using watered down black paint.

The bridge was sanded to fit between the wall sections and then undercoated.

I drilled three small holes into the inner wall for the bridge to pin into place.

On the bridge, i drilled holes to match and glued in place pins made from paperclips.
This way the bridge could be removed for storage.

The bridge was a detail i almost left out, but i decided it would make an interesting gaming
element and i wanted to remain true to the weta original.

Supports were added to the inside of the keep to add some structural integrity.

The steps were cast and glued into place, later the polystyrene was polyfillered and the brickwork
carved (again whilst drying)

As a continued to raise the tower height, i began making a framework for the connecting rock face.

I remove the piece and began casting/shaping to rocks to fit. The rocks were attached with No more nails.

I tried to use up my spare rocks, including the originals i used when i was first experimenting
with colours. As a result this one ends up looking slightly different, but simply added to the realism. 

The rocks covered 3 sides of the framework and were fitted around the wall sections, tower and keep

Due to the weight of the section (all the sections end up very heavy) i had to add some supports inside.

Polyfilla was again used to fill in any gaps.

I added an old Eaglemoss figure to represent the statue of Helm Hammerhand.
I spray painted it at a later date.

Almost finished!!!!!
The Tower was primed and painted- the roof is even removable :)

I painted the rocks to match the others. (Notice the one which is slightly different)
I blended the two types with i few washes, to make it look more natural.

And with that, the fortress was finished!

It took me about 10 months, from start to finish.
(Although i did stop working on it for a few months in the middle)

At some point in the future i will probably redo the cliffs to the right of the fortress,
replacing them with cast rocks like the others.

I added three gargoyles/lions-head things to the keep for extra detail.

In the next couple of weeks i shall be inviting several friends around for the day to play a huge War Of The Ring battle on it, using adapted rules for sieges and special senario objectives etc. My younger brother and I did a play test of the game yesterday, which took about 7 hours- The basic rules work but some things did need slight altering to make the game more exciting/balanced.

I hope you enjoyed watching the build as it progressed and i think i've got the bug as i plan to host a couple of large scenario games throughout the year. Currently deciding between Orthanc/Isengard (including dam and orc mining scaffolds) or the Black Gate as my next big project.. Hmmmmm.. both have their merits but the idea of a dozen ents running around the board just makes me giggle like a little girl.

I shall try to take some pictures of the Big Game so you can all see it when its covered in painted troops and being attacked by approximately 400 orcs/uruks (still painting most of them though!)

Please feel free to comment/share or ask me question if want..

Until next time :)