Wednesday 25 February 2009

Wulverghem and Messines Window Cleaning Co

For our third game of Iron Ivan’s “Price of Glory”, I wanted a decent objective. Looking through my books, I found the linked craters in Ospreys “Fortifications of the Western Front 1914-18”. A trip to B&Q last Tuesday evening found the saw working, and a sheet of 6mm MDF was duly cut to size.

Stage-1

Stage-2

A miss-burnt CD was used as a template to cut the holes in the polystyrene, and PVA glued the cut shapes to the baseboard.

Stage-3

Stage-4

The edge was finished with masking tape, and some plaster filler was used to cover holes in the polystyrene. Strips of plaster-coated scrim (aka ‘modroc’) covered the model, and was used to shape small shell-holes and parapet.

Stage-5

Bish, bash, bosh, coat the lot in watered-down PVA, then a couple of coats of burnt ochre. I’ll still need to get a finish to the trenches and a final surface that I’m happy with. Good enough for a Tuesday game.

PoG_Game_3.1

The forward base is out in ”no man’s land”. The trenchlines are merely symbolic of the relative positions. The raid happens at night. Only support weapons can, well, support the raiders and raidees.

PoG_Game_3.2

The objective. I’ll need to make a firestep to use with the sandbags.

PoG_Game_3.3

The coloured ‘gem’ markers (aka ‘joob-joobs’) seem to work well. Green here depicts a casualty to that unit.

PoG_Game_3.4

With the whistle blown, the British make a dash for the crater, and a bitter mass melee ensued. There was much cursing or dice-rolls, and promises to the gods of fate.

The question I was left with was: should I, as the German player, have fired off a flare to illuminate the scene as soon as I detected the British assault? I did, but it allowed the opposition to see my positions too, unleashing a battery of Stokes mortars.

Price of board: mdf 5 boards plus offcuts = under 8 quid. Polystyrene = free. Maybe 3 quid’s worth used of paints, scrim, filler, pva. At a guess, the board cost me a fiver. It isn’t finished, but is useable.

Figures: Renegade and Great War Miniatures

(previous games)

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Fascinating stuff!

AktoMan said...

The memoirs and history books of the period are amazing, and inspirational. The horrors that the PBI suffered through should be unforgettable.

Anonymous said...

Have you though of using expanding building foam as a base, to get that "exploded" ground effect.

AktoMan said...

I haven't, Ken. But now I'm wondering about using it inside some moulds instead of whittling polystyrene to shape. Hmm .. and thanks.

AktoMan said...

Awwww, that's sweet - I've been spammed by a cleaning company!! They must have seen the state of my flat. But it's a long way to travel from Canada to Scotland, just to clean some windows. Or maybe they have a verrrrrry long pole?

ArealBuildingServices said...

Amazing !! Window Cleaning

AktoMan said...

More Canadian window cleaning spam. It's a pane.

Perhaps I should arrange them to come to see my property, at their expense of course.