Paint What You've Got Finale

First, apologies to Dave Stone. I had intended to have this posted at the end of last month to finish up the Paint What You've Got Challenge, but the house that I live in at the farm has been under renovation since January and the last two weeks of have been nothing short of horrific - with my wife in South Carolina with all the horses and my son away at University, it was felt that with fewer people in the house this would be the best time to tackle such a big project.

This is my kitchen, and because of all the wood floors being refinished (the entire house has wood floors except the bathrooms) I was without a stove for 9 days during that time because it had to be taken out 😡 

It's definitely been an adjustment living here while this is going on - all furniture, pictures, window dressings, everything was removed from each room for new drywall, paint, and lighting.

All part of the challenge of living in a 125+ year old farm house. But it did force me upstairs into the studio (as that thankfully didn't need any work) any time I was home so I did quite a bit of hobbying. 

In addition to completing the castle from my last post I also finally knocked out this massive tile project. This photo was before I started the detail work with vines, cobwebs, overgrowth, etc.

These are from Lunesdargent Workshop and their Paths To El Dorado Kickstarter - I have even more Egyptian themed tiles from Lunesdargent that I need to get to as well but that is way down the line.

These were waiting for me when I returned from South Carolina last year. One giant box weighing close to 50lbs if I remember correctly - they are made from polymer strengthened sandstone which is stronger than hydro-stone but definitely increases the weight.

There has to be well over 400 individual tiles that I hand painted, weathered, and detailed. Talk about absolute madness lol!

To make these tiles a little easier to work with for a game I glued different shaped rooms and hallways onto black foamboard so they could be used in a modular fashion. That way I could essentially build different boards each time they were used.

This is a fantastic little objective marker from Crooked Dice, and perfect for an Indiana Jones adventure.

Long corridors like this create fun possibilities for all kinds of neat traps.

All the extra details really give the tiles a real pulpy type of feel that I was after.

Really pleased with the end results, but now because of both the weight and odd shapes of the rooms and corridors the real challenge is going to be how to safely and securely store them?

I also completed some Perry Union horse holders that I've had for probably seven years now - I have since fixed that rifle 🤦‍♂️ I can't believe I forgot to paint that before I took the picture.

These are perfect for deployment points for Sharp Practice, and will work for marking dismounted cavalry when we get to them. I'm currently working on the Confederate horse holder vignette right now.

I also finished up another group of Confederate sharp shooters.

I know Old Gory gets a lot of eye rolls for their sculpts but I do like the character, especially when you compare them to Perry plastics.

And finally I made some covers for all my 4Ground wagons. Why these never came with that option is a real head scratcher to me.

I made them out of tissues and Mod Podge and am super chuffed with the results.

Can't have a Civil War game without some covered wagons and that was a little project that was long overdue to be completed.

Until next time, thanks for looking!

Ivor

Sharp Practice ACW

In my ongoing quest to continually start new projects while not completing old ones I got a bit of the American Civil War bug again. I've been having so much fun with club mate Jeff playing skirmish games that we thought why not give Sharp Practice a go?

We talked about some different ideas and what we would need to just play a small sided game and I came up with a quick table design - now if you want to see some real epic scale 28mm ACW gaming check out my brother from another mother Jay White's incredible ACW games here. It's jaw dropping stuff and this is just one of many museum quality games - do yourself a favor and hit his follow button, you won't be disappointed!

Despite much unpainted ACW lead filling quite a large box I still had a full force of Confederates ready to go - though some re-basing needs to be done as some movement trays are going to be in order for line troops.

I also had enough Union forces as well for the game but absent mindedly left that box at home the day we played our test game - so you will see some Old Glory Confederates standing in for some Union forces in some photos, doh! 

And speak of the devil, a unit of Confederates posing as Yankees. 

Jeff has been absolutely blasting through Union figures this past week though so you won't ever see that kind of thing in the future lol.

The Union forces coming in from behind the barn.

I've heard nothing but great things about Sharp Practice and the fact that it's random activation and really narrative driven immediately drove me to buy the rules set some time ago.

And they didn't disappoint! The activation sequence and the Tiffin card really make for an incredibly unique gaming experience. And honestly I'm having so much fun with games that have a unique activation I'm not sure I ever want to go back to a classic "you go I go" game again.

As mentioned above, due to the uniqueness of the activations my general and top leader (leader 1 in regards to the cards) didn't even make it out onto the table until turn 3. It was mad, but it really made the game even more fun and cinematic as I was asking the question of "what could be delaying General Laughton"?

Granted, this was our first go at the game and admittedly I didn't do my share on reading the rule book ahead of time (though I did watch several videos on YouTube) so mistakes were made and flipping through the book was necessary but honestly we both had an absolute blast playing.

This was a fun sequence as Jeff tried to get his unit of skirmishers around and into the barn, but my skirmishers had other ideas and just threw a ton of lead onto those poor fellas. 

The "shock" mechanic works really well in my opinion and adds a lot to the game - my skirmishers taking aim at the Union forces by the barn.

I'm going to start work soon on the 43rd Battalion Virginia cavalry, better known as Mosby's Rangers. I think this will be a really fun unit to play for ACW Sharp Practice as the mixed column list really suits my play style - plus I'll get to have some horses on the table.

I've always been fascinated by cavalry and despite JEB Stuart getting most of the notoriety I think Mosby and his unit were much more interesting. So we'll see what the future holds for actually getting Mosby on the tabletop.

Finally, thanks to new follower Matt Williamson. Really appreciate you hitting the follow button 😀

Until next time, which will probably be another Sharp Practice game, thanks for looking!

Ivor