Wizards Tower

I think that it was the Angry Piper who suggested a Terrain theme this month for Bloggers on TMP, so as I felt like a change from my Zulu project and dug this building out for another go.

When we planned to start a Frostgrave Campaign I realised that I had no suitable terrain so started to build a damaged Wizards Tower. Now when we lost interest in this the Tower laid in the spare bedroom forgotten for several years. Recently another friend mentioned that he and his son had started to play Mordheim again and wanted to start a league. No action yet on that front but I have several gangs underway and got the Tower out to finish. This time I am not going to use any snow or other winter themed effects other than it looking a bit bleak.

The construction is Foamcore with a thin layer of Foam sheet glued over the outer face. I picked up a tip from watching Black Magic Craft. If you mix Black paint with Craft PVA glue and coat the Foamcore and card everything it is very hard once it dries out and is base coated in one step. Be careful to coat both sides to minimise warpage though. (The seperate Tower section warped a couple of mm so I had to trim the other wall to fit.) The Windows are from GW. The roof is a card base with wooden structure laid out and then covered with Charlie Foxtrot roofing tiles left over from my Berlin Buildings. (Not forgotten about as I am still trying solve some issues with)

The condition that I recovered the Tower in with a couple of minor additions before I realised that I should document this. The Crenelations are left over from my Robin Hood project and is a Zvezda product.

I have added some details with thin foam and built steps from Green foam.

I cut the floor detail and a Hexagon into the foam hoping that it would show when I painted it up.

I used wooden craft sticks for the outer structure.

I have done just about all the painting but have some parts that need constructing, which I have put aside until later like a front step; the chimney stack, torches and possibly an alter step. Of course it will probably need a base but am undecided about what shape etc.

Not made by Sarissa Precision, I just found the pack an extremely handy way of keeping everything flat and square.

I have been searching for some images about summoning circles but have not found any images which I can add to the Pentagon. I'm also worried about invoking some evil if I do successfully do so.

Haha.

Call to Arms Demo game part two.

My buddy Tyrone took some low level photos of the game last weekend which is something I neglected to do. I hope these are all the correct ones as when I uploaded them to my photo package it mixed them all in with my own photos in time order.

Call To Arms Isandlwana Demo Game

Well I finally managed to put a Game on with all the models painted for Isandlwana so far. As things went it did not take long for things to go the Zulus way after a long build up. I wrote a timetable which was based on the Osprey title of British Red Coat verses Zulu which has a map and quite a good description of the battle.

Here is the Initial setup. The British started in line but with two Companies off table to the Left which were initially involved with the Zulu right Horn. My opponent Tyrone won the Dice off to choose sides and chose the British. (It would be fair to give him the British for the next game in the series at Rorkes Drift). I actually like commanding the Zulus so no problem there. The Zulus started off the table and arrived in dribs and drabs until the whole Army came on and assaulted the British. A few of the Regiments were brought to a standstill by casualties and shock which enabled the fresh units to come in and take over.

Some of the issues of using Zulus is I got the Head and Body mixed up and got confused over who was commanding what. I need to mark out the Commanders and have some activation markers as some turns just blended into each other. I suppose Black Powder might handle this better than Sharp Practice.

I took a photo of the finish of the first day with the Zulus lined up in front of the British. We called it a day there as things looked like they were about to get nasty.

The photos below are at the end of the battle. The Artillery managed to get off the table as did Captain G Wardells Company. There was one Company left to fight it out on the left flank Commanded by Captain Mostyn and Pulliene but everything else was wiped out.

The Zulus lost one Regiment and half sized unit, also a half sized Unit was running away. About half of the remaining Regiments were at about half strength and several were just about at breaking point and just managing to keep going. My notes say that only one regiment was intact. If I had some more troops on the British side with some Lancers and Gatling Guns the game could have turned the other way, especially if they were to form a large square. I will have to try this out another day.

I hope my opponent enjoyed the weekend as I did. I also had quite a few compliments on the painting  and a number of conversations. At one point we had a laugh about drinking a nip each time someone made a quote from the Movie. My one regret is that I did not print out a copy of the Movie Poster of Zulu Dawn and put it in the plastic holder I have to explain the game a bit better.