Some Figures and a Trench Idea

I don't usually post so quickly but it was a busy weekend!

Early days on my Venusian forces yet. However, there are now three completed Armies in Plastic French Foreign Legionnaires ready for basing and a game.

 

Yes that's a pumpkin.

 

 

The more I paint Armies in Plastic figures the more I like them. They paint quickly - the hardest part is mold line removal. No matter how often I tell myself I'll just leave them, I end up removing most of them (I don't mind a little here and there but long lines running across a helmet drive me crazy). A heated pin, clamped in an X-acto handle has made this task far easier and a great deal more consistent.  

 

I only plan to paint up a 10-figure GASLIGHT unit, with an additional 4 figures to man a Gatling (provided by the British as I don't feel like painting another just yet), so I'm actually pretty far along on this force!

Next up are three 28mm lizard warriors from the Reaper Bones line.

Still a pumpkin in the background.

Despite my attempts to make the orange different on each figure, my "random" markings ended up remarkably similar. I chalk it up to my human eye being unable to discern the distinctions that seem so natural to the lizard folk themselves.

Finally, the trench idea.

While I love the Atherton Scenics trenches as well as some other vacuum formed offerings, for a larger game where I want to put say, two or three trench lines on the table, they are somewhat large (given my small table space) and expensive for that. More importantly, they also are very "realistic" looking and if there is one thing I am not known for, it's realistic looking terrain.

And so, let us consider trench tiles:

Hand painted MDF coaster and craft paints.

This idea was borne of some of the fine Portable Wargame playing areas on the facebook group for those rules as well as the inclusion of some top-down trench section cutouts in Wargames Illustrated #235. The latter provided the inspiration for exactly how I approached the illusion of depth . 

This is a roughly 4" square MDF coaster available on Amazon. I use them for my WW2 AT guns and for bases for my One Hour Wargames medieval armies.  

I'm not an artist but it certainly is functional, cheap (relatively, depending on the brand. A 9x9 table is still 81 squares after all but I've seen other brands for as little as $20 for 100), has the right "look" for my tables and is easy to produce.

I'm not sure about the bare MDF -I may paint the space at the bottom by the sandbags the same color as my figure bases or perhaps a basic green. Inside the trench is another story - brown? grey? just MDF? the jury is still out.

For a 1:1 trench raid involving a handful of figures, or for Trench Hammer, I think I'd prefer something 3-D (which i can fake using books and foam under my ground cloth), for a battalion attack on the first and second trench lines, this would work for me..

It probably helps that I have long been a fan of dungeon tiles, which these remind me of.

This also makes me think you could make a fun "dungeon crawl" type game for Vietnam tunnel rats. Which means I'll probably have to buy some figures for that now, too!