Terrain Blitz: Southern Pine Trees

   Somehow, I ended up with a extra day off that did not plan on having, which was alright with me. This just meant that I can work on some of my own projects. I tend to assign project days between my stuff and commission stuff. In this case, I decided to really try out my pine barren pieces for my Olustee project, which will also give me ideas for other terrain answers later.
   The field problem I had with with project was that there were no tree designs in the modelling world or train set department addressing the southern pine tree. This is rather surprising, since a large area (southern-eastern U.S.) have them everywhere. The train and model companies tend to stick with the mountain fur trees. It probably has to do with making them easier and most train layouts trend towards the Rockies when it come to the United States. Plus, there is the European market. So I was left with on choice: make my own.
   Notably, the first thing to notice out in the field is that the southern pine tree grows rather tall while losing the lower branches underneath. This is not always the case, but it is when seeing them in a pine barren area or areas shared with other trees. So I decided to make these using Woodland Scenic Trees. While the largest Wood Scenic Trees could work just fine, I needed to make them taller. I would have gone with the outdoor stick routine like have in the past, but I need the trees to be more stable, since they will be top heavy. Plus, I knew I could extend their height mounted on MDF board. For this, I used dowels.
     So why do these trees have to be taller? One, I like trees to be more accurate in size for modelling purposes. I like to go the extra mile with this. Plus, the average southern pine at full growth average is about 50 to 70 feet. The tallest recorded one in was 169 ft. The second reason is that I am going to have a lot of trees on my convention board. So in the process of modelling accurately without compromising playability, I need them taller, so hands can reach through and rulers and measure through without lifting and moving them out of the way. The plan is to have 150 trees on the board at 6' x 18' board. The middle has a clearing where the main fighting will be at. Also, a bunch of the trees are going to be Cypress trees in an impassible swamp or smaller trees, so they will look out of control awesome. However, it will still work in a game setting.
    Below, are the photos of what I was able to do. I really had the time to 20 more trees, but I ran out of glue and my hot glue gun died as well. I will mostly work on more of them the next week on a day off. I will also have to write up how I am doing this for a tutorial for those interested. Enjoy!

Here they are with 28 Union Troops.

The tallest one measures a roughly 14 inches. Compared to a 28mm figure, this would equal 70 ft. 

This is one of the many skeletons I have awaiting to be finished.

Olustee Project: Testing out "This Hollowed Ground" Rules.

          This was another test of rules for our convention game. Kalissa and I decided to test out the rules "This Hallowed Ground." Between the to of us, we already found a big hiccup while playing. It turns out that Kalissa read the original rules for "This Hallowed Ground" where I was reading off the play sheet I got off of Jay's Wargaming Madness. After looking over the differences, Jay's reference sheet seemed to be the easier flowing rules. Besides, the violent and harshness that these rules are in the scheme of this could make this game to run at one game at a time, instead of a continuing set of games. The actions are fast and easy. We found the only things we would have to modify was based on our different regiment sizes and simple stuff, like repeating rifles to even some things out. After all, this is going to be a historical game, so some units are going to have some bonuses and handy caps. Example: the Union soldiers in this battle with repeating rifles ran out of ammo and were given replacement rifles that shot half of the time. Another example where the Georgians would raced forward, but ran out of ammo and had to withdraw to get more ammo. Fun stuff like this.
    Our game had Kalissa with the initiative to attack with the Union soldiers. I ran the Confederates and advanced forward. Through out the game, I rolled pretty good. Kalissa was taking some serious casualties by the end of the game. Her poor cavalry was destroyed fairly quick. Despite this, this shows to be a very promising outlook for using these rules. I think people are really going to have fun with these games. Either way, here are some of the photos we took. Enjoy!

I would like to say I was an idiot, because I somehow through out 3/4 of a bag of static grass I was using for my troops. This is why these Confederates' bases are not finished.

AAR: Star Wars Imperial Assault: Continuing Our Campaign.

      It was another festive night of Star Wars: Imperial Assault. Our friend, William and I started a campaign a while back with my wife, Kalissa as the Imperials. This fits with her, because she seems to be a master as being ruthless. Such examples as having Darth Vader show up first thing on our first mission seemed a little harsh. I guess what makes this game more interesting is that Kalissa is willing to play the bad guys. She never does in our historical games.
    Either way, William and I have been told numerous times that we cannot read. Mainly, the whiskey seems to say this. This is the only game I drink playing at night. Neither of us are drunk playing this game, but it is a good excuse to use rather than admitting that are by rolling and bad decisions we would have had anyway.
   In this mission, we were suppose to find two communication terminals that were yellow inside the Imperial base. Like the rest of the campaign missions, there are always extra surprises awaiting us after certain thins happen. Such as this game, where I entered the corridor and a bunch of Red Guards were just in the way. No problem! We had seven turns to complete our mission. We did not. We were only able to find on of the two terminals, thus getting ourselves captured. How outstanding! So when we play our next mission, it will be a jail break! I will have to play that AC/DC song at the beginning.

Olustee Project: Researching the Battlefield in Person.

      Even though, it does not often happen with me and researching a battlefield, it is always nicer to get the perspective on the grounds themselves. Kalissa and I were returning home after I took my father out to sea for his final resting place. Along with my brother, we had actually a great weekend of fishing out on Tampa Bay. Usually, our father out fished us there. Maybe, we were not as threatening as our dad was to the fish. Who knows. Since Kalissa and I do not really have much of a reason to return to Florida for a while, we took a slight detour on the way home.
   Our destination was the Battlefield of Olustee, Fl. off of I-10. It actually did not make much of a difference on the way home back to Fayetteville, NC. We had left two hours earlier than I normally would have and the whole battlefield walk was about an hour and a half. It was really nice to see it in person, though, I was a little disappointed that the museum part did not hold to many relics of the battle. I was hoping for a few battle flag references and such to help modelling my miniatures. Also, as a surprise, they have the battlefield and then, the re-enactment battlefield next to it. This works as a benefit to my project as well as a problem. The benefit is that I can have a little more artistic freedom for the terrain. The problem might be giving away some accuracy to the battle. I might be looking too deep into this, since I plan on trying to out-do any previous attempts to model this battlefield for a convention game. Anyway, here were the photos we took of the battlefield. Enjoy!

Kalissa had mentioned Spanish moss in southern pine trees. My assumption was that they had it further south in Florida.

I thought this was interesting for modelling the ends of a snake rail fence.

This was before you hiked the trail. I am sure this was designed for pic-nicks and such.

The wet area of the field.

This is what the re-enactment field looks like.

Then, this is more like they would have found through during most of the battle.

I read nothing about this until the park.

Mission Commission Success: El Guettar. 1943

     This was a fun project I did for Tyler Wallace who wanted to have an epic game at Millenniumcon that is a convention based in Texas.  He wanted to run a Bolt Action game for El Guettar for WWII. Of course, I had no problem with this. I, even, added some extra stuff for fun. The hills and the troops are his stuff. I just did the base board. I was told that the battle came out historically as the battle with exception of American tank destroyers surviving the whole game. Either way, here are the photos he posted.