6mm Scenery

I'm in an odd situation where I actually managed to paint a lot of things, it's just that I either lack the motivation to take photos of them, or there isn't enough natural light to do so. This post was not made under natural lighting circumstances, but I thought it was time to do photos again.

Anyway, here's a small review of the 6mm terrain pieces I have been working on for my Schultze-Böhnstadt project. All of them are handmade on the cheap and are based on 2mm plasticard.

'Red Contingent' for Gudugan Pudugan

I continue churning out painted 6mm lasercut figures from Commission Figurines, for my Gudugan Pudugan (that is Ancients era) project. I plan to have enough figures to field large battles.

I had to have some sort of organization system for the 500+ infantry and 200 cavalry, so I started colour coding them, this is the first batch completed, the part that is painted red.

6mm Ancients Test Basing

I made a larger order with Commission Figurines in September/October. I'm actually kind of slow on reducing stockpile, the Bloody figures I bought in April are just being completed. Anyway, half of that order was about eight hundred 6mm lasercut Ancient figures, infantry and cavalry. They are meant for the late Republican Roman period, but what I really wanted was some generic bods for my Gudugan Pudugan rules.

There are seven troop types in Gudugan Pudugan (which can of course be used to fight historical battles as well), and once I had the figures and the bases required, I set out to try my basing concept which would help discern the troop types and give armies a unified overall look.

The Böhnstadt Royal Frigate Dachshund sets sail

After a failed attempt, I managed to produce the first of the small scale Schultze-Böhnstadt Navy frigates, the famed Dachshund. There is no fixed scale, I just made her to a slightly smaller size than comparable 1/450 and 1/600 scale models like the Heller Le Superbe, La Couronne, and the Revell Spanish Galeon, all of which I'm using as contemporary warships. 

The Dachshund was completed to protect Schultze-Böhnstadt overseas interest, guard trading routes and present the flag around the globe. There are whispers that an Albionic-led anti-piracy squadron is due to assemble at the northern Barfrican coast, near the famed Pirate Bay, and she might be needed there.

6mm Terrain

I thought I could use a few more compact terrain pieces, so I did some tinkering with available stuff.

On the left, you can see a bunch of pine trees re-based, two sets on MDF and one on a CD. Although the trees are more distant than they could be, I think the varied terrain adds a touch of reality. There is also a set of rocks covered in vines and flock on the extreme left. The rocks are corkboard, and there are pebbles, branches and dried tea filter stuffing on the bases. 

In the center, I used the same basing technique with home-made trees. The trunks are twisted wires, and they are dipped in the same spongy flocking material. I do sort of lack non-coniferous trees, but the test worked well, so I might make some more. I think rounding down the edges of the MDF base, in support of irregular shapes, is also a nice touch.

The two hills are made from insulation foam that I grabbed at a construction site, they would have thrown it out anyway.

A small fortress in the middle of a lake and a small town are also in the making, both will be based on CDs (I also have an abundance of those, and they are quite practical).

More tiny terrain

This is a small castle and town I had built a while ago. I wanted to prepare a few posts before going on holiday, but then I kind of skipped out, it's time to get things going again.

The castle is build on a CD. Corkboard, pink foam, stone paste, sand and flock were used to create it. I think it looks quite fancy.

6mm Gothic/Renaissance Castle - Completed

Perhaps I should add some static grass, but otherwise this castle is ready to go. I used the same painting method as on other 6mm buildings - it's not the best on the walls, but the contrast on the other elements goes nicely with that.

More Italian Wars

A few more 6mm figures march off the painting desk in orderly formation. All of them are H&R Italian Wars stuff. 

Tiny Landsknechts Episode One

Just a quick situation report from Random&Creativeland: I have received the large(ish) order of Renaissance figures from Heroics and Ros and started painting away. I'm still amazed how quickly and effectively a 6mm force can be completed. 

I based the figures on not very traditional 50x35mm bases, which will suffice for Pikeman's Lament and most homebrews - the 60x30mm version does not have enough depth for the lowered pikes or multiple ranks.

Kliszów in 6mm

As the weather turned for the worse, I chose not to install the 8x5" table, and just tested the Kliszów scenario I wrote for Maurice with the 6mm collection. Yes, this is what lacking a camera flash does in such conditions.

Above, a quick Swedish advance hardly threatened by the Saxon center.

Castle Building

Here's a few progress shots of the 6mm castle. It is built in a pseudo-Gothic style. On the first photo, I have laid out the walls and the keep, and started adding a few details.

Kickstarting a project

There is no better way to delve into a new period than painting 170-odd figures in one go. This is what I did with the promised Hungarian War of Independence project, for which the 6mm MDF range by Commission Figurines seemed a reasonable choice.

The fruits of my labour are the following: three units of Hussars, two dragoons, one cuirassiers; a Hungarian, a German and a Honvéd unit of foot.

As it is a very local conflict and therefore not widely known, I'm going to share interesting trivia as things progress. 

Baccus Goodness

Another two hundred or so 6mm figures join the collection (I honestly don't know how many is there in total). The Baccus packs are the following: WSS line infantry (much superior to the GNW sets, I'll probably replace them at some point), WSS dismounted dragoons (to be used both as mounted and foot Freikorps), and SYW 'Hungarian' grenadiers, for everything bearskin related.

6mm Freikorps

With a running 'virtual' campaign, my focus turned on the various irregular elements of 18th century armies. To keep up with the topic, I quickly made up two 10-figure horse Freikorps units from the spares I had. This also served as practice as I had not painted 6mm troopers for a good while now!

I used British dragoons for the first (Freikorps Bauschmertzen) and French hussards for the second (Freikorps Puttenfrott) group.

The MDF army marches to battle.

I have finally completed the Commission Figurines MDF lot with these three units of foot and horse. I've also painted up a bunch of scratchbuilt cannon with Heroics and Ros gunners.

A Tiny Update

Tiny both in scale and scope, a couple of buildings and two more Commission Figurines MDF units for my Imaginary Leuwenthal / GNW Russian army had been completed. 

I did not like going all green, so I chose this pair, the Ingermanland foot and Arkhangelgorod horse with yellow coats.

The houses are typical to the Hungarian countryside, their roofs are made from tea to look like stacked reeds.

First MDF troopers

I thought the next 6mm army should be cost-effective so I ordered some infantry and cavalry in bicorne hats from Commission Figurines. This has been planned for a long time, and I can safely say I don't regret purchasing them.

These would be ImagiNation figures suitable for games with other 6mm armies or proxies for SYW/GNW Russians.

6mm SYW French / Glambrian army

This is the sixth complete 6mm force in my collection. I think I have well over two thousand Baccus and H&R figures now, and could therefore organize a six-player Maurice campaign using only those.

With 192 infantry, 72 cavalry, three officer markers and four guns, this army is on the small side along with the British. 

Some figures were shown earlier: the fresh parts of the army are the hussars, the infantry in blue turnbacks and the cannon.

Redcoats

These are the figures for the "half" army of the Albionic Monarchy, whom will only be used as redcoats, and not as Böhnstadter redcoats. The cavalry is Baccus light dragoons, the infantry is H&R Prussian infantry, but seeing how detailed they are, they pass for British as well.

The idea is to swell up the ranks by using the Baccus Prussian foot in red, the guns and heavy horse, plus the three Highlander units, to create a complete army.

These units will play a prominent part in an 'Over the Hills' RPG campaign, in which the players are regimental commanders, so the facings of two of the three units match their owner's choice. Smaller battles will be conducted with Easy Tricorne, and larger ones with Maurice.

Here's a premade army composition for the latter:
NA Lethal Volleys (12) 12
NA Steady Lads (9) 21
4x ART (10) 31
6x RI Trained (36) 67
+upgrade 3 to Elite (9) 76
4x RC Trained (24) 100
+1 RI Trained when attacking
Army Morale 10

Actually, with cannons borrowed from another army (the French, Swedes or Austrians), the Brits would only need one unit of horse transferred from the Böhnstadter side to be quite autonomous in a Succession Wars campaign. There's also that little trouble that I bought the "SYW Prussian Artillery" pack fom Heroics and Ros, but there were no cannon in it. Perhaps if I could scratchbuild some guns, and use the crews for those...

The Complete Ottoman Army

"OK, at this point he's really showing off", readers might say looking at the picture above, but don't forget that 1) there were already two posts that included some of the material above, 2) I'm never going to field all of these in one battle.

Let's make a final tally:

• 4 elephants (H&R)
• 8 guns with 32 crew (Baccus)
• 8+1 officers (including Cleric marker) (Baccus)
• 192 infantry (Baccus)
• 96 cavalry (H&R)
• 84 irregular infantry (H&R),

425 figures and models in total, maybe a bit larger than some European chunks of the collection, but not that huge, especially considering how fast I painted the H&R figures up.