Basing and Compromising

Confession time. I have been very lax at painting and basing for almost two years. Plenty of thinking, converting, green-stuffing and so on, but sod-all by way of concrete results.

The problem is that I've long been rethinking how to base my figures, so I've dillied and dallied, dallied and dillied, lost my way and  ... *cough* ... sorry, too many musicals on christmas telly.

Anyway, my figure size of choice is 15mm and the rules set of choice is from the Piquet stable. So far so good, and I've no intention of walking away from that. But one day (probably after I retire and move!) I might find opponents, and then the basing could be a bit restrictive - not to say the extreme reaction mentioning Piquet can have. Basically I want to have a bit of flexibility. Comments about having one's cake and eating it are unhelpful, by the way.

Piquet's DoB2 suggests a 3cm base width, with three foot figures to a base, but it's pretty flexible on this, as long you're being consistent within and between armies. Then there's the rules sets that use individual basing - TSATF, SC and SP for example, where three to a base would be a pain - I hate casualty caps. And ME is pretty fixed on 4cm bases.

I'm therefore rethinking basing, and leaning towards 2 foot figures on a 20mm frontage. This would allow me to use each base as equivalent to a 25/28mm figure for rules that work with individual basing. A 10-"figure" unit certainly LOOKS more impressive like this. As an aside, TSATF works well like this when using the Fastoso variant of 8 "figures" per unit. And 2 x 20mm would fit with the 40mm frontage that seems quite common.

So I'm working towards using 40mm base frontages as standard, with 4 infantry figures per base (or 2 x 2 if using 20mm bases), or 2 mounted or 1 gun on that frontage. The foot will be more fiddly to move, but I can maybe think up some decent movement bases to make this easier.

Of course that means a ⅓ increase in figures per infantry unit, so I might still change my mind as I start painting.

Heigh-ho.

Oh, and a Merry Christmas all!

Fnuuk and Jee-oo

Some of the longer-term readers of this blog (two years and counting!) might recall that I decided that My Mars needed a bio-engineered form of bamboo that was used for things like musket barrels that I called Jee-oo.

Having just got my hands on the new production of Space:1889 by Clockwork Publishing* it appears that they have also come up with a bamboo-type plant.:
"... but across the steppes close to the equator grows a plant called ‘Fnuuk’. Known as the bamboo of Mars, it grows as tall as 25 feet and even forms real forests. Whilst the colder steppes of the Northern and the Southern hemispheres are easily accessible by mount or wagon, travelling the Fnuuk groves is true torture as the leaves of the Martian bamboo are as sharp as knifes."

Clearly Hill Martians use Fnuuk for poles and other building materials, and I could also believe it is used to create temporary zarebas such as those seen during the recent unpleasantness in the Sudan. Thankfully Colonel Burnaby was able to rescue Gordon (Hurrah!) without the need for a major rescue expedition which would have been an extremely difficult undertaking due not least to the geography of any route to Khartoum.

I am therefore happy to report that the latest publication of the Royal Martian Geographical Society has confirmed that various strains of Jee-oo appear to be domesticated forms of Fnuuk. I shall therefore be using the names interchangeably in future.




* This is essentially a translation of the Uhrwerk-Verlag production in German, which uses the Ubiquity system from Exile Games. The German release has been out for over a year, I think, and the artwork for their Venus and Mercury sourcebooks looks stunning - I can hardly wait for their publication!

Hullcutter II

I have managed only a little more progress today.



That's the bits of the hull in one piece, with a triangle of balsa at the front to prop it up.

As you can see, I've smoothed off the top of the bow with a hot wire.







I glued some balsa strips half a deck-height to the lower deck, and then hot-wired the remaining angle of polystyrene away. That gets the same look as in the Sky Galleons illustrations.

The bow probably needs some more bulk to be added before adding a ram, but it's taking shape nicely.









It will need only a little more work to imitate the window openings - I guess it gets hot in there turning that crank!








However I am very aware that several problems are building up, so it's time to pause and note the lessons so far from this learning experience.

The Lessons, or "What I'll do differently next time around"

In no particular order:

1) lining up the various decks was a nightmare and, with hindsight, not done accurately enough. Part of the problem was that, in trimming the expanded polystyrene, it is just too easy to have the hot wire at slightly the wrong angle and slice too much off. Then the deck thicknesses aren't quite square, so you're lining them up by eye to get the best-looking fit - and that's not a good idea with my eyesight. This will now require some significant (and messy) sanding and filling to get things square - I'll wait for decent weather for that and do it outside - it's going to be messy! The panelling will cover it, of course, but it's probably a long way round for a shortcut and the rest of my fleet should really be built more efficiently.

2) Next time I might well consider placing balsa on the top and bottom of the layer of polystyrene (or foam) for the lower decks. If I can get these properly aligned then I'll have a much better match deck-to-deck - AND the hot wire trimming would be nice and square. Pushing pins through the polystyrene to line up the balsa wood might help with this.

3) Care will be needed with the weight of the ram. The basic build of the craft is very light, so I'll have to avoid a heavy ram if at all possible or the whole thing is going to get very unstable. It's probably going to be a compromise between solidity and weight - too much weight will raise the centre of gravity and pull it well forward at the same time. Both are bad ideas. I might make the rear keel a bit larger to add a counterweight, but there are limits. In my mind this is the knottiest problem I have to solve. I may try laminating thin balsa wood - hopefully by crossing the grain and soaking the white glue through it will make it robust whilst still fairly light.

4) I really should have planned in the flying stand before I started, and build it in as I went along. Polystyrene doesn't take a drill very well. I mean, it REALLY doesn't.

5) The more I work with the polystyrene, the more I think that using a heavier foam makes better sense. This should compress a lot less than expanded polystyrene, and will be a better anchor for propeller housings and the flying stands. I'm toying with the idea of using bbq skewers thrust through the hull to act as anchors for the prop housings, but I'm not confident that the current construction will be sufficiently robust to hold them firmly in place. Time will tell.


So, bottom line, I need to pause for thought and solve some of these problems before going further - the ram, keel and flying stand in particular. I suspect the ship will be a bit scrappy in the end, but it's been a good test so far and it will be interesting to see how to firmly attach propellors.

nil desperandum!

Hullcutter I

All I can say in my defence is that I blame DLI and his To Infinity and Beyond blog; he started making liftwood ships'n'things. And I'm nothing if not easily distracted.

It's been one of my long-term plans to make some sort of Martian liftwood galley. You know, one of those "OK, I'll do it right after I finish painting these, and base those, and then after I have added some of them, and ..." long-term plans.

Anyway, DLI's blog inspired me to drag it up my list of priorities. He's used balsa wood for the hull, which I probably wouldn't (I have neither the tools not the patience), but I find that seeing how someone else has done something always gives me ideas of how I might go about it. That's often because of a different set of skills or materials, and sometimes because I might want to achieve a different goal, but it's all good information. In fact that is why I often blog about how I build or convert stuff. It may be amateurish and you might not want to copy it, but it might just give you an idea about an alternative/related use for it, or trigger an idea for a better way to do something else, and good luck to you.

I decided I'd make a screw galley for my first attempt - I might manage to figure out cloudship masts and rigging in another lifetime - and I picked the Hullcutter from the "Cloudships & Gunboats" book as a fairly simple(?) one.

Next thing was to convert the deck plans. 18mm is about 6 feet in scale terms for my Peter Pig 15mm earthlings, so I fiddled with Word until I'd made a table with a 18mm grid. I then drew the Hullcutter decks onto copies of these grids.

I could have gone for a 20mm grid, but that's bigger by another 10%, and the length (14 squares-and-a-wee-bit) wouldn't fit onto printed A4 paper. Providence therefore dictated 18mm squares for my first attempt.

I also added some tabs towards of the rear of the lower deck to act as housings for the propellors. I know DLI had a few problems with getting these fitted, so forewarned  is forearmed!






I then cut the deck shapes out and glued them to 2.5mm balsa wood that I had lying around.

The next step was to carefully cut out the shapes on the balsa wood.

I glued the Lower, Bridge and Drag decks to some offcuts of 30mm expanded polystyrene sheet, cut out slightly oversize with a hot wire cutter. The main deck I left for gluing at a later stage.

I used white glue, which wasn't ideal due to the non-porous nature of polystyrene, but I scored it well (hopefully getting a better key for the glue), used lots of pressure and left it to dry well at each stage. Next time I might use a hot glue gun for a faster process!

Foamboard might turn out to be a better option that expanded polystyrene, but I used what I had lying around.

Once everything seemed to be dry, I used a hot wire cutter to trim some of the the polystyrene to the shape of the decks, especially where I needed straight lines to align the various decks. That was actually the entire thinking behind using the balsa wood in the first place - it would act as a guide for the hot wire cutter and make sure I didn't remove too much polystyrene by accident. (Yes, some thought really did go into this!)

Next step is to glue the layers together, and the main deck goes on top of the sandwich. Same glueing process.

I've left the drag deck off at this stage (this photo is with the glue only just on) so I can put some weight in top, but you can see it starting to take shape.

It's also quite obvious that I should also have added tabs to the main deck for the propellor housings! Ah well, next time ...


That is the result so far, but it's time to sign off soon, and the glue needs to dry.


The next stage might well be the trickiest as I will start to shape the hull and keep it as symmetrical as possible; angling or curving from the lower deck up to the main deck. Ultimately you won't see a lip of polystyrene round the edge of the main deck, and having the balsa wood decks will ensure I don't take too much off. Well ... it's good to have a plan anyway.


I still have to figure out a few more things before I'm done:
1) I'll have to cover the polystyrene for greater durability and a better look. I might use thin balsa strips for that, like planking. Or I might get a life and just coat the sides with some water-based filler.

2) Ram and keel. The ram in particular will have to be fairly sturdy as it will undoubtedly take some bashing as the model keels over (no pun intended ). I'll probably use thicker balsa wood, or a sandwich of balsa wood and/or mounting board to get the right thickness. A composite of the two materials might be the best solution for strength too.

3) Propellor housings. No idea how I'll do these yet - à voir.

4) Flying stand. For that I'm thinking of using a slow hand-drill to make a hole up into in each of the forward and the rear parts of the hull. The internal balsa wood layers should give the holes a shape and solidity that expanded polystyrene alone wouldn't. Or I might just embed the flying stand in the ram and keel if I make them solid enough.

5) Handrails. I've ordered some wooden stanchions from a model boat supplier in the UK, and I'll wait and see how they look. Alternatively I could use cocktail sticks or barbecue skewers for the uprights. It will probably be more balsa strips for the handrail bits (and I may add some heavier footings for the stanchions too).

6) Guns! (Two heavies, two rogues and one lob gun to be precise.) I'll probably bug Rodrick Campbell over at Highlander Studios, as he's been teasing us with pictures of 15mm Martian artillery that are in the pipeline.

But I'm happy with the start I've made. More to follow.

Hojaan-nuu I

The latest invention of my febrile imagination, whilst on holiday, is to be mixed in with my jingals for the skirmisher units.

Hojaan-nuu
The Hojaan-nuu is a crossbow that is used to launch a small rocket and is another example of the Martian's apparent backwardness actually being an inventive way to adapt older technology in their straitened circumstances.

The crossbow itself is fairly standard and lightweight, and can even be used as one in extremis. It is usually cocked with a lever or just by hand, but heavier ones have also been seen. Principally it is used as a device for launching a rocket ("Hojaan"). Most such rockets propel shrapnel-type shells, but others are explosives, flash-bangs, fragmentation devices or even solid projectiles. The crossbow launches the rocket in the desired direction and elevation, with the rocket igniting as it is fired - an ignition lanyard is wound round the crossbow string and is pulled out as the rocket parts company with the bow. This means that the missile is already about 10 yards away before it truly flames, ensuring that the firer is not fried, and quickly increases the velocity of the missile from about 180 ft/s to nearer 750 ft/s.

Shrapnel munitions
The shrapnel rocket is a tube about two fingers in diameter (2 inches) and two palms in length (8
inches) and is composed of thin bambuu. The front cap is usually conical and additional to the length of the tube. The shrapnel (typically ¾ inch heavy ceramic cubes) is packed round a fireproof fibrous inner tube in the forward half of the rocket, with a disc separating this from the propellant in the rear half. The inner tube extends down most of the length of the tube.

The firer is able to select he range of the shrapnel projectile by altering the angle of the launch, clearly, but also by pricking a hole in the side of the tube at a particular point and piercing the inner tube. The outside of the rocket is usually marked with approximate ranges to help the firer - the nearer the propellant end, the shorter the range. The inside of the inner tube is coated with an explosive that burns much faster then the rocket propellant. When the flame of the propellant reaches the hole in the inner tube (at the selected distance) the explosive is ignited and flares rapidly, blowing the rocket cap off. This causes the sides to fall away and releases the shrapnel to spread out in a cone. Et voilà - a long range shotgun!

The rockets will usually burn for no more than about three seconds, which puts the rocket range at about 600 yards, but the shrapnel will still be deadly for a further 100 yards. The minimum effective range is about 150 yards - less than that and the shrapnel has had little time to spread. But there are also shorter range 'grapeshot' rockets that are far more effective at short ranges (20 - 100 yards).

Clearly these weapons are not particularly accurate, but they are useful for harassing and breaking up enemy formations at long range and, with luck, can be quite deadly at any range. It should also be noted that these weapons can be quite deadly to their users too, and strolling around a battlefield with a dozen-or-so explosive tubes strapped to your body takes a certain sang-froid. In Parhooni these troops are jokingly called "fire-throwers", but the term used is also a pun on the word for "cooked" in Son-Garyaani.

Modelling the Hojaan-nuu
I will be using the ubiquitous Black Hat Imperial Martians with guns, with the muskets cut down, and a deeper stock built up with green stuff. Once that is nice and hard, a gentle filing at the end will create a smooth seat to superglue a bent piece of brass rod for the bow. Then a wee bit more green stuff to extend the stock beyond the rod, just for luck. I do fear that the join might not be very robust, so I will have to be careful how I base them to minimise accidental pressure on them. I'll mount them two per base plus one other figure to maintain the three-to-a-base ratio; two bases of these plus two more of jingals and I'll have a complete skirmish unit.

Other implications
The Daa-nuu (see one of my May 2014 offerings) is capable of firing similar munitions, but with greater payloads and over longer ranges. (Think the Congreve Rocket, but safer for the crew.)

Safety note
Frankly I have no idea if it would really work, but don't try this at home children, just in case!



EDITS: fixed a few of the typos, plus added a couple of hyperlinks now I'm not limited to my iPad