Making Frostgrave's Harbor: Part II

   This past weekend I was able to finish working on the ships for my Frostgrave waterfront.  I began by base-coating the ships dark brown, and then dry-brushed them with successively lighter coats of a grey-brown mix of paint.  (For part one of this article, see: Making Frostgrave's Harbor: Part I

The small ships with their paint jobs, before I "winterized" them.

The large ship all painted up in it's weathered look before permanently gluing it to its base, and before getting its winter treatment.

     I then applied snow paint and flocking to the bases, and a little to the ships themselves.  I also added a few Water Effects icicles to the ships.

The finished large ship, with the Templar aboard checking out.

A close up of the detail.

The Templar checking out two smaller vessels in the frozen harbor.

Detail shot of one of the smaller ships.

        I'm really pleased with how the ships came out.

     Since the city of Frostgrave is thawing out, I thought it might be fun to add some spots in the harbor where the ice had melted through, and the water was actually visible.  I figured it would be fun to have these areas where folks could push their enemies into the freezing water, or perhaps evil things could emerge.
     While at the local hardware store a couple weeks ago, I picked up a sheet of fluorescent light covering that had a cool crystalline pattern to it.  I wasn't sure what I was going to do with it at the time, but I thought it might work perfectly for this project.  I actually ended up using it to make the water portion, instead of ice, because when you painted the underside, the texture made it look like rippling water.  I began by cutting out a roughly oval section of the sheet.

Painting a "hole" on the underside of the plastic sheet.

I wasn't sure how I was going to do the surrounding snow, so at this point I masked the "hole" and sprayed the sheet white.

In the end, I decided to use some white felt to represent the snow, as that was what I was going to use for the harbor anyway.  I applied a small ring of Water Effects around the hole to represent the edge of the ice, and then I glued the felt over the plastic sheet to be the snow.

   Next up, I will be building the ruined dock along the city's edge, so stay tuned for Part III.

Making Frostgrave's Harbor, Part I

   Last year at a  wargame convention flea market, I was lucky to find some ships which inspired me to want to construct a waterfront area for my Frostgrave games.  The first of these was a model of a ship under construction.  The second was a lot of old pirate ships.

Wooden model of a ship being built. There was one figure on the model that indicated it was scaled for between 15mm and  20mm sized figures. With enough of the scale specific stuff stripped away, I thought it would do fine service for 28mm figures.

 

Simplistic pirate ships.  I'm not sure what they're made of; it looks a lot like the kind of foam insulation you squirt from a can.  I decided to keep the painted ones for they're intended purpose, but the unfinished ones were destined for the Frostgrave docks.

 The wooden model was very old apparently, as many of the glue points had dried out, and there were a lot of bits that had fallen off it.  This didn't bother me, as I already had thoughts of making it look like the ship in the beginning of the first National Treasure movie

A close-up of the "Charlotte" from the movie, National Treasure

And a wider screen-grab of the ship.

     Luckily, I had a friend with a bandsaw who was able to make the wooden ship into a waterline model.  He also was able to cut one of the foam ships in half to give me the ability to use it for two different half-sunk ships.  He also was kind enough to cut out a base for the waterline model to sit on.

     At this point, I've got the all the hulls ready to paint.  I added broken mast stumps to all of them, and used some of the extra bits from the big ship to add a bit of detail to the decks of the smaller ones.  I also made a couple crates to put in the ice around the smaller ships.
    I decided, since the base of the large ship would be snow, to paint the base white separately, and then spray the ship.  I'm not sure if I'm going to go with black or a dark brown.  Likewise, I'm not sure how the foam the pirate ships are made of will react to spray paint, so I think I will give them a coat of paint by hand, and then spray over that.

      Hopefully, I will get a chance to do some spraying later today.


Here is Part II
Here is Part III

HAWKs Host Games at Har-Con

Several members of the HAWKs (Harford Area Weekly Kriegspielers) attended Har-Con yesterday and ran five games at the con. This mini gaming convention is put on by Harford Community College's Gaming Club (Harford County, MD) and features video, board, card, RPG, and miniature gaming. The crowd was light due to wonderful spring weather, and those who did attend were scattered amongst the various gaming genres.
The HAWKs had two tables at the con. On one we ran two land battles, and on the other three naval battles.
The first game we ran was my "Look, Sarge, No Charts: WWII" 1941 Russian Front game, and featured a Russian force attempting to hold open a road as German forces tried to cut it.
We had a nice group of players at this game including two student's of HAWK Greg Priebe, who teaches an online history course at the college, and had offered extra credit to any of his students who played in the game and wrote a two page report about it and it's relation to the history of the actual events.
German forces, attacking from the left side of the table, attempt to cut the road running along the right hand side.

In the final moments of the game the action swirled around a small wooded area that straddled the road as the Russian defenders tried to throw back a couple of German units that had reached the road. In the end the game was declared a German victory.
While I was running this game, James 'Tank' Nickel was running an Uncharted Seas game on the second table. Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to get any photos of it.
After my game, Buck Surdu set up his GASLIGHT 'Tripod Down' scenario; which features three tripods attempting to rescue the crew of a fourth one that has been destroyed; as local army units try to kill the stranded crew and beat back the rescuers. And on the naval table, Tank set up a 'Fire as She Bears' game featuring Swedish and Russian fleets.

I had a chance to play in this game as the Russian fleet admiral. My lack of skill as a naval commander showed as I was quickly overwhelmed by the Swedish forces.

My fleet (in foreground) comes to grips with part of the Swedish fleet.

Meanwhile, Buck's game was underway on the other table. Three tripods reek havoc on the English countryside.

In the end, despite a stiff defense from the humans, the Martians were declared the victors.

The final game of the night was a WWII naval game run by Tank using 'Naval Thunder'. I got to play in this one too as one of the Italians facing off against the British. I commanded four cruisers.

This was the second naval disaster for me, as lost my first cruiser on the second turn as a lucky British shot caused a freak magazine explosion. Soon after, as I tired to fend off two attacking groups my other ships were sunk or burning. (As seen in the photo above.) In the end the game was declared a British victory.

The HAWKs had a great time, and want to thank the convention organizers who provided everything we asked for, and all the gamers who came out and played in our games. We look forward to coming back next year.