Do it yourself Gaming Mat

Last year I followed several threats in different forums which covered DIY gaming mats. Really I was wondering whether it's much work and whether I would be able to create such a thing myself. Finally shortly before Christmas I went to our local hardware store and bought the missing components. I was a bit hesitant so I started with a small 50cm by 50cm test piece.

Here's the material I used:

• a 50cm by 50cm piece of canvas on a stretcher frame
• a tube of acrylic sealing compount
• tinting paint in my terrain base colour
• some sand and gravel
• a couple of scoops and trowels
• some static grass
• old newspaper to cover our dinner table and prevent severe trouble with usually peaceful Mrs Monty

First of all I prepared the basic pulp for the gaming mat. Therefor I mixed the (whole) acrylic compound with tinting paint, sand, gravel and a few drops of water until it blended to a smooth paste.

Afterwards I and my little helper spread the mixture over the canvas and smoothed it slightly. With the sand and the gravel it becomes a rather rough surface. More or less the same as if you glue sand onto a wooden surface when building usual gaming tiles.

Then we spread static grass, little pebbles and some turf onto the wet pulp and pressed it into it slightly. Most of all I wanted to try which components stay in the mat when dryed and which fall of...

Finally we let the mat dry. It seemed like ages for me but probably it was one or two days really. Then I draybrushed the mat with medium brown and ivory. Just the colours I used for my other terrain tiles. The result is satisfying I think.

Lastly I cut the mat off the frame and rolled it around a piece of pipe insulation foam to store it.

After a couple of days I unrolled it again and the canvas set smoothly after a few minutes. So I think the acrylic pulp works rather well.

As you see it found first use when Viktoria set up our crip under the christmas tree:

Rather soon I'll repeat the experiment on a larger scale to create a playing area for SAGA games so roughly 1,20m by 1,20m or something like that. For this I'll try felt cover sheeting as basic fabric. It's much cheaper than canvas and more flexible.

A new gaming board tile, sweltering heat and sushi

During the last weeks I wasn't able to write or read much on the bloggosphere. I'm really sorry about that because I enjoy reading your mostly excellent post as much as writing some line to you but the last weeks were packed with appointments and deadlines and there wasn't much time to slide into the hobby. Somehow all my colleague seem to have ganged up on me and send me all there stuff just before they leave for holiday...

Additionally we're suffering from extreme heat. The whole week we had more than 30 °C and it's really anything but fun to spent between nine and ten hours at the office thesedays. And after two weeks of hot wheather our flat has heated up enough to make painting sessions more or less impossible. It's difficult to set appropriate highlights with sweat running into your eyes and dripping off your nose...

Anyway I managed to finish a very special tile for my game board. It's a hill piece whose hight raises from 30mm to 150mm. We'll need four of such pieces to create a hill for the AWI game our club is preparing for Crisis 2013 and the test match in late August. Fortunately Bernhard already has two of them. I hope mine will fit. Otherwise I'll have to make two more...

Another piece for my board...

Another piece of modelling my wife, a friend of ours, our daughter and me created yesterday, was sushi. To boile the rice is a bit tricky because you have to wash it several times and after boilding you have to flavour it with special ingredients afterwards. But my wife brought a book from the library which explained everything very well and so the rice turned out well. To form the sushi we used to forms which we bought at an Asian store for about 3 € each. The one for the Nigiri worked perfectly. Just fill it with rice, press it gently and take out some nicely shaped, rectangular Nigiri. Afterwards we covered them with some Wasabi and fresh (important!) tuna.

Making Maki was a bit more difficult. Although the form make a nice even rice roll it was difficult to put in the right portion of rice and mind the right mixture of rice and stuffing. So most of our Maki were lacking of structural integrity. However they tasted good, since my wife developed some great combinations of tuna, Surimi, cucumber, Welsh onions and cream cheese.

A selection of our sushi.

Although these sushi cannot match with those pieces of art which real sushi cooks create, they were really tasty and preparing them was a nice D.I.Y.-activity. I can really recommend to try it if you have some friends who are willing to join you or at least eat with you since the ingredients needed come in packages which are just inefficient for small groups or single experiments...

Workbench update and pigsty painted

Last week was quiet here on the blog. The preparations for our large Good Friday game took a lot of time but I didn't manage to take photos or write some lines about it. However the day went by and we spent some great time together playing Hail Caesar Fantasy. Along the way a took nearly one hundred photos which I'm grading presently and I hope to bring the first part of the AAR online until friday.

However additionally I painted the first of my new Grand Manner buildings last week: The pigsty. Although I never liked to paint scenery and terrain pieces that much this little frame house was a pleasure to paint. I cleaned it with some warm water with a drop of usual washing-up liquid. Afterwards I gave it a thin undercoat of white Vallejo Primer although Dave told me that wouldn't be necessary. However it adhered perfrectly and likewise did the colours I painted on afterwards.
As ususal I used Vallejo Model Colours and some Vallejo Game Colours. Then I applied a coat of Armypainter Quickshade (Dark Tone) and worked out the highlights afterwards.

The pigsty from the front....

For the base I used the same colours as for my gaming board. Last but not least I sprayed on a smooth coat of matt varnish.

... and from the back.

Although the house itself is finished I'll invest some further work on it during the next week. I'll put some static grass on the base, fill up the feeder with Water Effect and I'll have a look around for some nice 28mm pigs to populate the pigsty.

Overall this terrain piece is worth every penny and I looking forward to paint the larger houses soon.

Unboxing Grand Manner

Viktoria with Dave's packet

Actually this story started some weeks or even months ago. When I planned my new gaming table I asked me which terrain pieces to acquire. There are a lot of excellent manufactureers for 28mm terrain, but the awesome stuff Dave Bodley of Grand Manner caught my eye again and again. One of our group fellows has a large collection of Dave's buildings and at Crisis 2012 I was able to satisfy myself of the quality.

Anyway I didn't place an order until February when Grand Manner offer a nice discount which balanced the high shipping cost. So I gathered with Axel and we ordered some painted and unpainted models. Delivery took reasonable four week and yesterday the packet from England arrived. This turned out to be a very entertainng event for Viktoria who was very well practiced since she opened a parcel from Granma and Grandpa earlier this day.

So Viktoria and me opened the box with greatest curiosity and Mrs Monty documented everything after she recovered her self control.

W A R N I N G

Dave's packages are very well packed with insulating material to protect the worthy contents.

I highly recommend, to unbox them either when your wife is away or after you collected the vacuum cleaner to show good will!

Viktoria and me opening Pandora's box of styrofoam snippets.

The result of our work...

Considering that Mrs. Monty had cleaned the living room this very afternoon, Viktoria and me were careful not to scatter the stuff all around. At least as much care as possible for a two-and-a-half-year-old who attaches great importance to tear every snippet at least once before putting it into the garbage bag...

However after digging which would have done honour to any professional archaeologist we discovered the much desired parcels.

With great attention and shaky hands I started to unwrap the bubble sheets. And guess what I found inside:

Another protective layer of bubble sheet...

Once again: The shipping charge might be high, but transport companies got expensive lately and Dave avoids neither efforts nor material to garantuee the undamaged arival of his stuff. Thumbs up mate!

Unwrapping the first piece step by step.

Just before dinner Viktoria and myself had unboxed and unwrapped everything and after she got to bed I took the time to have a closer look at the terrain pieces.
I was far more than satisfied, actually I was steamrolled by the quality of Dave's stuff. Even the "simple" Wargames Standard painting service comes out great. It's absolutely fine for most games and for smaller pieces it's rather affordable since Dave charges the original cost of the model again for painting. For larger buildings that can get quit expensive but anyone must judge himself whether the result is worth the charge. I avoided it this time but seeing Axel's painted things I really got doubtful.

But look yourselves:

Two gun positions usable for many periods.

A corral and to circular huts for Axel's Africa collection.

Finally my first three buildings for my new gaming board: Two houses and a pigsy mainly for Napoleonics.

Last but not least I prepared a close-up view from my Night Watchman's Cottage. As you see the casting quality is excellent. I didn't recognize any clear molding line and there are only a few flashes at out sticking corners. Naturally the whole model shows recess of mould release but I hope to get them cleaned away easily. Then the heavy tast of painting and not disfiguring the house will await me...

Close-up view on the Night Watchman's Cottage.

Conclusion:

Dave's terrain pieces are expensive. Maby some the most expensive on the market but at least the models are worth every penny. I've seen a lot of things that were only slightly cheaper but suffered either from a lack of casting quality or material quality. Both are without fail at all pieces I've seen from Grand Manner until now.

The painting service is very good as well. Wargames Standard is more then good enough for any board I've seen by now and Dave's Collector's Standard is really worth it's name. But nevertheless everyone hast to decide by himself whether he wants to engage this service or wants to spend some ours with painting the things himself. Personally I'm double-minded whether I should'nt spent my time for painting miniatures and let Dave do the terrain paintjob next time...

Unfortunately the shipping flat charge is rather high. Nearly ₤ 30 to Germany is a lot and you even could buy another terrain piece for that. But during the last years the transport companies rose their charges, Dave's packages are bulky and he uses a lot of material to protect the goods. All in all I cannot judge the shipping cost unfair but in the future I'll try to catch Dave at shows to save it.

So I hope you enjoyed this review and got an idea what is behind Grand Manner. At least after my humble first experience. I know that there are other good manufacturers and I really don't want to paly them down. But Dave has the most extensive and best researched range I know and my experience with him was just top-notch.

If you want to see more of his work, then visit the Grand Manner website (here) or have a look at the following AARs on Monty's Caravan:

- 2nd Siege on Kolberg: Part 1 and Part 2

- Bolt Action 09th November 2012

- Napoleonic Photo Session

Tutorial: Modular Gaming Board - Part 1

A while ago I decided to bid farewell to my old plain green gaming boards. Probably I'll keep them as emergency reserve but actually I want to build a nice set of modular tiles. Over the last months I tried different techniques, colours and material and finally I'm satisfied with the first tile I finished:

The first tile of the new gaming board.

Hopefully some of you are interested in how I made the tile. On the other hand I need a mnemonic to remember the colours I used. Therefore I present you a tutorial for a durable, modular, light-weight gaming board:

New Gaming Board: "Cutting Practice"

Although I the last evenings with painting the next nine British soldiers I found some time to test my new hotwire-cutter. Since I'm about to build a new gaming board I used it to cut the shelves into the right shape.

Nothing too spectacular but here is a shot review what I did.

First I cut the foamboard roughly with my electric jigsaw.

As a kind of ruler for the hotwire-cutter I fastened to beads on top and bottom of the foamboard.

Then I cut the overlapping foam with the Thermocut.

The wire of the cutter is rather soft. Therefore in some parts the cut wasn't smooth. So I sanded it a bit.

After removing the screw clamps... A clean and smooth cut.

Well...Four board pieces done, eight to do, since I'm planning to use a setup of twelve pieces to create a board of 1,5m x 2,0m (about 5' x 7'). Next time I'll present the Lineinfantrymen but you'll get an update of my table building efforts soon.