French Leave

Today's contribution to Dave's ‘Season of Scenery’ is a modest affair, though perhaps no less useful for that; this time a wrecked French baggage wagon. Before building this little wagon I confess I knew remarkably little about French military transport. Like so many things connected with Napoleon's armies, however, it turns out there was rather more thought behind it than first appears. The Gribeauval system is usually remembered for revolutionising French artillery, introducing standardised guns, limbers and equipment that were lighter, more mobile and considerably easier to maintain in the field. Less celebrated, though no less important, was the influence this standardisation had upon the army's wagons and logistics. Uniform dimensions, interchangeable parts and carefully organised transport meant Napoleon's armies could often march further and faster than their opponents; a rather useful quality when one has ambitions of conquering Europe!

This offering began life as 'Warbases' excellent French Baggage Wagon No. 2, found amongst their Napoleonic carts and limbers range. Rather than building it as intended, I fancied turning it into something a little more theatrical; an abandoned wagon that might serve equally well as an objective marker, an encounter piece or simply a little storytelling vignette on the tabletop.

The conversion itself was thankfully straightforward. A couple of broken wheels, the wagon deliberately canted over at an awkward angle and the unfortunate accident of a shattered tongue, which I quietly replaced with plastic strip before pretending it had always been part of the plan, immediately suggested a vehicle abandoned in considerable haste. Mounted upon one of 'Warbases' scenic pond bases, together with scattered crates, discarded equipment and just enough skulls and opportunistic crows to remind everyone that this is The Silver Bayonet, the whole thing came together rather more quickly than expected.

Looking at it now, I rather like to imagine the story behind it. Was it abandoned by fleeing soldiers? Did the horses bolt? Or did something emerge from the surrounding woods that persuaded the escort to leave everything exactly where it lay? Happily, the answer can change with every game.  This also goes someway to explaining just how remarkably clean it is too.  A fun little piece to do, great value for money and  useful objective marker to have in the game.

A Scene of Utter Carnage

Having finally reached that most anticipated juncture in the academic year, the long summer holiday, my thoughts naturally turn to slowing the pace a little. There are, of course, the inevitable jobs left upon one's bureau by the Saintly Mrs. Awdry, friends and family to catch up with, and, if fortune smiles kindly, the occasional pint of properly cloudy English cider to enjoy in a shady corner of the garden. For me though, the summer has always meant something else; it is a chance to disappear into my lair for a few uninterrupted hours and indulge in this most wholesome of hobbies.

Quite unexpectedly, I have found myself drawn back towards the Crimean War.  Half finished regiments of Foot Guards have emerged blinking from their storage boxes, Heavy Cavalry have begun assembling in earnest and, rather alarmingly, Horse Artillery has started unlimbering on the painting desk. Yes, best beloved, it would seem that Awdry Towers has returned to the Crimea of 1853.  I suspect this particular diversion deserves a post entirely of its own, chiefly so that I may publicly lay responsibility at the polished boots of one Paul O'Grady Esq., whose recent exploits have proved far too persuasive for a chap whose willpower has never been especially robust, but that tale can wait.  Suffice it to say, the painting table presently resembles the Ordnance Wharf at Balaklava and, whilst progress is steady, there are only so many photographs of scarlet clad infantry one can reasonably inflict upon polite society.

Instead, I found myself thinking back to June.  One of the unexpected pleasures of the Forgotten Heroes month was not simply building Captain Caveman and his increasingly improbable entourage, but reconnecting with so many old friends around the blogging community. There was something rather comforting about checking in each morning to discover what everyone else had been creating; it seemed a terrible waste to let that momentum disappear.

Fortunately, Dave Stone over at 'Wargames Terrain Workshop' has launched another 'Season of Scenery', and that proved exactly the excuse I needed.  Terrain has always held a particular fascination for me.  Miniatures may tell the story, but scenery provides the stage upon which that story unfolds. It allows one to scratch that creative itch in a rather different way, adding little details that perhaps only the builder ever notices but which somehow breathe life into the tabletop.  With The Silver Bayonet featuring heavily in my summer gaming plans, I thought this might be the perfect opportunity to revisit a few long neglected projects.

Now, in the interests of complete honesty, I should probably confess that several of the pieces I intend to share have been languishing on the shelf of shame for rather longer than Dave perhaps envisaged when he announced the challenge. I have therefore interpreted the rules with all the flexibility of a Victorian politician, adding the odd tuft of static grass here and there before confidently declaring the project 'finished'.*

*I trust you will keep this confession strictly between ourselves.

The first pieces are a ruined encampment together with a handful of corpse tokens.  One of the things I love most about The Silver Bayonet is its wonderfully Gothic atmosphere. I wanted players to feel that their patrol was venturing ever deeper into hostile territory in search of a missing unit, only to stumble across unmistakable evidence that something unspeakable had already passed this way.  

The tents became the heart of the project and rather than sculpting them, I opted for wet-strength tissue, laminated together before stitching actual seams into the material. Tiny punched paper discs became eyelets for the guy ropes, cocktail sticks served as tent poles, paperclips transformed into tent pegs and ordinary thread completed the illusion. 

Once pitched exactly like a full sized canvas tent, they were carefully collapsed and the whole assembly received an airbrushed canvas basecoat before slowly being weathered and detailed.  Look closely and you'll notice deliberate tears slashed through the fabric.  Those, naturally, received rather more attention with the blood effects than was truly necessary, but this is Gothic Horror after all. 

The accompanying corpse tokens came together from little more than a raid on the bits box with plastic skeletons, discarded Napoleonic British sprues, Green Stuff, and a somewhat unhealthy amount of artistic licence. 

Torn uniforms, exposed ribs and the occasional protruding intestine hint at a grisly fate, whilst a few opportunistic crows from North Star have already begun claiming the battlefield as their own.  They're decidedly unpleasant little vignettes, which is, I suppose, entirely the point.  Hopefully they'll add just the right amount of foreboding before the first shots are fired.

In one final acknowledgement, I should add that the bases are from the ever reliable 'Warbases' and are listed as Terrain, Objective and MacGuffin bases.  These are the 2mm thick options and work perfectly for these little flights of fancy. 

Five Million Page Views!

At some point last week, 28mm Victorian Warfare passed the rather astonishing milestone of 5,000,000 page views.  Now, if I'm entirely honest, page views don't quite carry the significance they once did. There was a time when I would check the counter with almost comical regularity, convinced that every refresh somehow validated my latest ramblings.  Inevitably, I suspect I contributed rather more to the total than was strictly necessary!  Nowadays, with bots happily trawling the internet and mysterious visitors appearing from every corner of the globe, the number itself is perhaps a rather blunt instrument; even so... five million is still five million.

More importantly, though, this cozy corner of the Blogosphere has never really been about statistics. It has always been somewhere to record projects, celebrate successes, confess failures, more recently involving superglue or Milliput, and occasionally persuade perfectly sensible people that peanuts are a legitimate modelling material.  What continues to amaze me is the company it has kept.

Over the years I've had the privilege of corresponding with hobbyists from all over the world. Many have become familiar names in the comments, several have become genuine friends and all have helped make this hobby richer, kinder and considerably more enjoyable than it would ever have been sat alone at the painting table.

The recent Forgotten Heroes challenge reminded me of exactly that. Whilst I was delighted with how Captain Caveman eventually emerged from his peanut shell, the real joy came from the conversations it sparked and the encouragement shared throughout the month. It reminded me that blogs still have something rather special to offer in an age of fleeting social media posts.

So whether you've been following along since my earlier Victorian campaigns first marched onto the table, discovered the blog through a fondness for obscure cartoons, or simply dropped in looking for scenery ideas before deciding to stay awhile, thank you.

Five million views is a pleasing statistic, but the friendships are the part that truly matters.  Here's to whatever absurdity finds its way onto the workbench next.

Every Journey Needs Somewhere to End

Season 10, Episode 7

If I am entirely honest, I was not at all sure that this final post was going to happen. June has rather galloped past in the manner of an escaped cavalry charger and whilst Forgotten Heroes itself draws to a close, work, travel and the general business of real life have conspired to leave precious little time at the hobby desk. The irony, of course, is that this has been one of the most enjoyable hobby months I have experienced in many years. There have been peanuts, there has been sculpting, there has been resin and there has even been language that would certainly have caused my late Grandmother to raise an eyebrow. Most importantly, however, there has been friendship.

One of the genuine pleasures of taking part in Forgotten Heroes has been reconnecting with old friends, discovering new projects and being reminded exactly why this particularly cosy corner of the blogosphere is so special. To Jez and Roger, whose continued enthusiasm keeps this splendid enterprise alive year after year, I owe a considerable debt of thanks. Without their efforts I rather suspect Captain Caveman would still be little more than an optimistic peanut sitting on a supermarket shelf.

Yet there remained one final task.  Captain Caveman himself had yet to make his formal appearance and no self-respecting prehistoric superhero can simply be left standing alone upon a gaming table; he requires a home and naturally that home sits atop the roof of a van.  The Teen Angels, as readers of a certain age will doubtless remember, travelled in a somewhat distinctive vehicle which served much the same purpose as the Mystery Machine, Mystery Incorporated's trusty van. This presented an obvious opportunity, namely the construction of Cavey's rooftop cave.  What could possibly go wrong?

Quite a lot, as it happens.  After a little searching I discovered a suitable STL file on the Crooked Dice website which appeared promising enough. At £6 it seemed worth the risk and after all, what is Forgotten Heroes if not an opportunity to make questionable purchasing decisions? Or is that just me?  Unfortunately the model appeared rather more suited to resin printing than my own somewhat agricultural FDM printer and the initial attempts were, to be charitable, deeply disappointing.

At this point I once again sought the wisdom of the estimable Simon Moore, who very kindly pointed out the entirely obvious solution, "turn it upside down."  One occasionally encounters moments in life when another person says something so self-evident that one immediately wonders why one had not thought of it oneself. This was one such occasion and of course, the next print proved vastly more successful.

Knowing that the roof would ultimately disappear beneath Cavey's cave, I was not overly concerned by minor imperfections and so attention turned towards constructing the rocky summit itself. A sheet of plasticard provided the foundation and a quantity of leftover epoxy sculpt was spread across the surface and encouraged into something vaguely resembling the cave seen in the original cartoons.  Rocks were added, texture appeared and optimism returned.

A little textured paste introduced some variation and before long the whole thing began to take on a distinctly prehistoric appearance. At this point the bits box once again came to the rescue. Buried deep amongst decades of accumulated treasures I discovered some forgotten prehistoric trees from Steve Barber Models which, much like Captain Caveman himself, had apparently been waiting patiently for their moment to shine.

The cave itself proved an absolute joy to paint and for a brief and entirely unfamiliar period everything proceeded exactly as planned.  This naturally made me suspicious.  There remained, however, one final detail.  No cave upon the roof of a van can reasonably be accessed by conventional means and so a ladder was required. Two coffee stirrers, split and sanded, provided the uprights whilst small plastic bones were lashed into place with wire and secured with superglue.  It is, I freely admit, completely ridiculous, which is probably why it has become my favourite detail.

As I write this final dispatch the model is still not entirely as completed as far as I would have liked. There remain details to finish, logos to paint and the cave to permanently fix to the wagon.  Yet perhaps there is something rather fitting about that.  Forgotten Heroes has never really been about finishing. It has been about beginning. About rediscovering forgotten characters, rediscovering old enthusiasms and, in my particular case, rediscovering the pleasure of writing and sharing my experiences with this most wholesome of hobbies with friends.

So before the final credits roll, I should like to offer again my sincere thanks to Jez and Roger for once again organising this splendid annual lunacy, and to all those who have taken the time to read, comment and encourage throughout the month.  Your responses to this slightly absurd prehistoric adventure have meant far more than I can properly express.  But what of Cavey, I hear some ask  Surely he must now make his grand entrance. After all, one suspects he has been lurking somewhere in the background all month, glaring through his whiskers and waiting for precisely the right moment to shout:

Captain CAAAAAAAAAVEMAAAAAAAN!

Captain Caveman’s Curious Critters

 Season 10, Episode 6

Whilst rummaging through the bits box in search of components for Captain Caveman, I previously neglected to mention that I had made an unexpected discovery. Nestled within the yellowed remains of another long forgotten Kinder Egg shell lurked a tiny, plastic elephant.  Now most sensible hobbyists would have smiled fondly, returned it to the box and carried on with the task at hand; I am evidently not most sensible hobbyists.  At the time, the discovery was noted and reluctantly set aside. Captain Caveman still required vast quantities of hair and there seemed little point introducing further complications into a project already involving peanuts, cake decorating equipment and minor acts of sculptural vandalism.  The elephant, however, remained.  Waiting. Patiently. Like some diminutive, plastic, embryonic inception.

One of the favourite, recurring motifs of the original Captain Caveman cartoons was the inclusion of curious critters that Cavey would produce from the end of his club or indeed from the mass of hair covering his body.  These often unwilling contributors would lend their unique skills to furthering the plot, and I would chortle at the cameos not truly appreciating at the time that everything could be made better with dinosaurs.  Now as Flaming June is all but extinguished, I wondered if I could include such frivolity in my Forgotten Heroes project?  Before I knew quite what was happening, one hundred and twenty ‘dainty’ dinosaurs were en route to Awdry Towers.  I would love to report that this decision was the result of careful planning and considered reflection. It was not. It was, however, available with free postage and as I write this dispatch, the true scale of this acquisition remains unknown to the Saintly Mrs. Awdry. 

My current strategy is based entirely upon concealment and the hope that brightly coloured dinosaurs might somehow, some day be mistaken for a sensible purchase.  I selected five likely candidates to become Cavey’s familiars and stashed the other one hundred and fifteen! 

Based and undercoated these were immense fun to paint.  I took some initial inspiration from the cartoon itself but in the end plumbed the depths of my paint store to retrieve the most lurid and underused collars I possessed.

Meanwhile the memory of the small, plastic elephant cracked, "Life... finds a way." One of the stalwart gags of Hannah-Barbera prehistoric world is the use of small wooly mammoths pressed into surface of their world. For example a mammoth sink makes an appearance in the Flintstones episode, ‘Bedrock Rodeo Round Up’ and a full blown mammoth shower turns up in ‘The Jetsons Meet the Flintstones’. Could my little plastic elephant be used for such a purpose? In the butchered words of Professor Malcolm,

 I became so preoccupied with whether or not I could, that I didn't stop to think if I should. 

Success criteria would include a more cartoon like pose, longer tusks, more hair and the small matter of creating the illusion that the trunk was emitting water.  I am starting to worry that this was no longer modelling, but more like experimental palaeontology!

There followed a period of genetic experimentation that would have had even John Hammond quietly reviewing his insurance arrangements as I set about disassembling and reconstructing the unfortunate pachyderm. I had an idea that I would try and make the elephant sit, using a piece of slate to achieve this, and in doing so elevate his trunk to allow the water to fountain out. Lashings of superglue and green stuff followed before the creature was trimmed, sliced and reassembled. The resultant abomination looked so very sad that there remained only one option, the Saintly Mrs. Awdry's cake decorating tool was summoned from retirement and once again pressed into service.*

*I am beginning to suspect it has now spent considerably more time producing prehistoric pelts than decorating cakes.

The fur covered a multitude of sins and anatomic anomalies although there was a call to do some running repairs to sliced off toes, the elephant’s not mine you understand.  The tusks were my next consideration and having removed its original appendages in the manner befitting a deranged, plastic poacher I attached superfine Milliput ones that had previous cured.  A little bit of sanding and some green stuff applied to conceal the cracks and the build was almost complete - just the small matter of the cascading water feature.  

Using a pin vice with a drill bit barely visible to my ageing eyes I had created a couple holes atop the trunk.  And so dear reader on to the true folly of this plan, a return to the UV resin!  What followed looked less like miniature modelling and more like an experiment conducted by a particularly eccentric Fellow of the Royal Society.  With the UV torch suspended above the desk, strands of twisted wire were slowly coated with resin and cured layer by layer until something resembling a fountain began to emerge. 

Leaving the ‘water’ aside to completely harden, the mammoth was given a lick of paint and then positioned for the final assembly.  I delicately threaded the ends of the wire, kept free from resin into the pre-drilled holes in the trunk and et voilà!  

Does it serve any meaningful purpose on the tabletop?  Absolutely not.  Does Captain Caveman require a woolly mammoth shower feature?  Equally no.  Did I enjoy every ridiculous moment of creating it?  Cavey would, I suspect, answer that question with a resounding… 

Captain CAAAAAAAVE MAAAAAANNNNN!

Captain Caveman on Ice

Season 10, Episode 5

At this point, with Captain Caveman assembled, a sensible chap should probably have tidied the workbench, cleaned their tools and moved on to painting our prehistoric protagonist.  Unfortunately, I still possessed spare peanuts, surplus Milliput and a single troll’s foot.  The outcome, in my mind at least, was therefore inevitable and a second Cavey was born.  This time I proposed a rather different outcome, one that paid homage to the opening sequence of Captain Caveman and the Teen Angels.  This famously sees our hirsute hero discovered frozen within a block of ice and it occurred to me that this might make a rather entertaining objective marker; what could possibly go wrong?   

Following the successful formula of the previous build, a second miniature was constructed and painted in suitably chilly shades of blue and placed within a makeshift mould constructed from scraps of plasticard and secured with a hot glue gun. Possessed of UV resin and a wholly unjustified degree of confidence, I began pouring the first layers.

The plan was simple, the execution, less so.  The resin was carefully tinted and layered as intended until a steady stream of bubbles began emerging from beneath Cavey's arm.  At first I was puzzled.  Then enlightenment dawned.  The peanut was hollow! The resin was entering the shell and the trapped air was escaping.  I am not ashamed to admit that this revelation arrived several minutes later than it probably should have.  Still, by this point, I was committed to the process and elected to persevere. A few bubbles could surely be explained away as imperfections within ancient glacial ice?  Unfortunately, the resin had not yet finished teaching me valuable life lessons.

Despite knowing perfectly well that these procedures should not be rushed, I removed the shuttering too early and promptly released partially cured resin across the workbench with consequences that can best be described as educational.  Following a brief period of reflection, several cups of Earl Grey and a stern conversation with myself regarding the virtues of patience, the resin was left alone to cure properly.

The resulting block required some considerable tidying up and at this point I encountered another of life’s great ponderables, how did all those impossibly talented social media resin wizards manage to restore crystal clarity after sanding?  The answer, it transpired, was more resin.  A final coating restored the transparency beautifully and although some bubbles remained visible, these were ultimately disguised with snow effects around the top and base where they now appear entirely intentional; sweet serendipity shines again. 

And so Cavey now exists in two forms, one ready to join the Teen Angels on their adventures and another patiently awaiting rescue after several millennia trapped in ice.  Frankly, given the amount of trouble he caused in his construction, I am beginning to understand why nature tried to keep him there in the first place!