Naval units for Historicon 2024

This week I finally completed the Naval units for Historicon 2024. They are part of my Senkaku project and include both Japanese and Chinese ships. These vessels have taken me way longer than I expected. I have used a combination of three different scales for the naval units.

  • 1/2400 is for the naval battle using the Harpoon V rules.
  • 1/700 is for the naval units during the amphibious assault phase.
  • 20mm is for the actual ground battle.
  • I will be adding some 1/300 aircraft later for an additional scale.

The LCAC – Landing Craft Air Cushioned.

These are the hovercraft that the Japanese forces will use to bring units ashore. The Osumi LST carries two of these craft in its rear well-dock. I have built both of them in 20mm and also in 1/700 scale. The 20mm scale units took a lot of time to build and tested my airbrushing and weathering abilities.

A view of the two different sizes of LCAC
A close up of the LCAC

The JMSDF – the Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force.

The Japanese units consist of:

  • The Osumi – A Landing Ship Tank with 2 LCAC and 2 CH.47 helicopters
  • A Kongo Class destroyer capable of Ballistic Missile Defense
  • An Akizuki Class destroyer
  • Two Takinami Class destroyers
The JMSDF fleet
A close up of the Osumi in both scales, with the LCAC.
An above shot of some of the fleet.

The Chinese fleet

The Chinese fleet will consist of:

  • Two Type 56 Coast Guard vessels
  • A Type 52D destroyer
  • A Type 54A frigate
The entire Chinese Fleet
A close up of the Coast Guard vessels in both scales
The Type 52D in the foreground and the Type 54A in the background
The same vessels but this time in 1:2400 scale

Next steps

With the naval units for Historicon 2024 complete I will be finishing the 1:300 aircraft before moving onto the cliffs and hills for the 20mm terrain. The project is finally starting to come together and March and April should see me get close to completion. I plan to do a test run of the game in May.

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20mm Senkaku Project update – Historicon 2024.

My last post, about my Pavia project, discussed terrain mats. I mentioned that my terrain mat for my Historicon 2024 game was due to arrive in the next week or two. Well, the mat arrived today and I couldn’t resist posting a couple of pictures of the mat for my 20mm Senkaku Project.

The Senkaku islands are not far from Taiwan and are contested by Taiwan, China and Japan. The game will be a modern Japanese amphibious assault against Chinese forces that have captured the islands. For the terrain mat I needed some coastal terrain that would allow me to put hills and dense vegetation on it. The mat was made by Warsigil.

The two photos below show me putting down some of the vegetation, an LCAC and a couple of AAVP-7. I still have a lot to add, but I wanted to get a feel for the size and layout. My next job is to make some hills and rock faces.

Japanese LCAC and AAVP-7 storming the beach

A close up of the LCAC

I was very happy with the mat when it arrived. I can now finish my figure bases so that they match the color of the mat. That is all for now on my 20mm Senkaku Project.

Pavia for Historicon 2025 – Terrain.

Even though I am working on my modern game for Historicon 2024, I am still also working on Pavia for Historicon 2025. The terrain mats are something that I plan to have custom made, as I just do not have either the time or the space to make them myself. Also, I would prefer to work on the figures, buildings and other terrain rather than spend too much time on the mats. As custom mats are a long-lead item, I need to get them ordered.

Type of terrain mat.

For the Italian Wars games that I have previously put on at the club or conventions (Garigliano, Novaro, Bicocca and Ravenna), I have used the teddy bear fur mats by Killing Fields Terrain. These have served me very well and have even helped me win Best of Show and Best of Theme awards. However, for Pavia I want to use something different.

For my recent modern Afghanistan game I used a custom mat from Warsigil.com. I was very pleased with how this mat turned out. So much so, that I have ordered another custom mat for my modern Historicon game for 2024. The new mat should arrive in a couple of weeks. In the meantime, I have been working with Warsigil to produce mats for Pavia – I expect them to delivered by the end of the year.

Mat from warsigil.com

The reason that I chose Warsigil is the high quality of their work. Also, the Battle of Pavia was severely influenced by both the terrain and the weather. There were extensive wooded areas and the ground was very wet and muddy. The last thing that I wanted was a lush, bright green terrain mat. Below is a picture of a wooded mat that Warsigil custom made for another customer. This surface is the type of thing that I am looking at for Pavia.

Warsigil mat

I will use the brown areas for the woods and the greenish areas for the grass of the park.

Design of terrain mats

At the moment I have ordered five mats, each of 4′ x 6′. These are intended to represent the park. Later I may order two additional mats to represent the walls of Pavia and the area around the Five Chapels.

Without going into too many details in this post, the five terrain mats will go in a “U” shaped design. The area between the two sides represents the course of the Vernovola stream as it proceeds through the southern end of the park. In this area it was impassable due to marshy ground on each side of the stream. Also there were raised roadways on each side of the stream, so firing was impossible from one side to the other. The only area where the Vernavola could be crossed was near Mirabello and further north. This meant that a “U” shape could be used, which would allow players to reach troops in the middle of the park. They would in effect be able to stand in the middle of the park.

The following is the image that I sent to Warsigil and the key below is my details that refer to the wooded Warsigil mat photo above.

The brown areas will be the wooded areas and the green areas will be the grass areas of the park. The stream at the top is the northern part of the Vernovola. Mirabello will be located at the southern part of the mat with the stream on.

This layout will give a lot of room for fighting, but have the constraints of both the wood and the stream.

Upcoming work on the terrain.

The next thing that I will need to consider is the large amount of deciduous trees with no foliage. The Battle was fought in February and I want this to be represented. I still have to figure out how to make these trees as they are not readily available on the market. I will keep on working on Pavia for Historicon 2025 despite still having a lot to do for Historicon 2024.

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Preparing for Historicon 2024

With Pavia on the horizon for Historicon 2025, it is important for me to finish all the preparations for Historicon 2024 as soon as possible. This does not mean that I am not planning to put on a good looking game for this years event. This year, I am running a combined modern naval game using Harpoon V rules, with an amphibious landing using Force on Force rules. The conflict centers around the Senkaku Islands between China and Japan.

Progress on figures and vehicles

The first thing that I have been working on is two LCAC hovercraft for the Japanese. These are still not finished but they are getting a lot closer. I have been working on the weathering. In one of the pictures I have included a figure for scale, these are impressive vehicles and have taken a lot of time to build, paint and weather. These truly have been a labor of love.

The next thing that I have been working on is painting the 20mm infantry. I have now finished these figures. They were quite a challenge trying to paint modern digital camouflage in this scale. The main issue was trying to make sure that the Japanese and Chinese figures were distinguishable, In real life the uniforms have similar colors but are slightly different. Trying to bring that out in this scale tested my skills. I have textured the bases, but still need to paint them; I am waiting until my terrain mat arrives in a few weeks so that I can make the bases match.

The Japanese infantry

Chinese infantry

Progress on terrain for Historicon 2024

There are two main items of terrain, in addition to a lot of scatter terrain. The first is some dense vegetation. The second is going to be some hills and rock faces. Before starting the hills, I wanted to finish the vegetation. It consists of nine bases and has taken me a lot longer than I anticipated. It is now almost done apart from some ground cover leaves and some vines that I still need to add.

I wanted the vegetation to be very dense. This required purchasing a lot of smaller plants and some sea-foam. I then used wet ground from AK Interactive Terrains to give a mud effect and blend stuff in. For trees I used various palms that I bought at shows, but I also wanted some larger jungle type trees. I had trouble finding these type of trees in the size that I wanted, I was looking for about 12″ tall. In the end a 3d printer custom printed some tree trunks and branches. I then painted these models and added the canopy.

The base trees, primed black and over sprayed white to get shadow.
The base trees after painting with an airbrush

The following photos show the completed vegetation stands. The photos don’t really do justice to how I think that they look. I was really happy with how large and imposing they appear. But, they took a really long time to make. I hope that they have a visual impact at Historicon 2024.

Aircraft.

In a previous post I discussed the aircraft that I already had for this project – AH64, V.22 and CH.47s. This month I got two Chinese Su.30MKK. I really like how these models look. They are huge. I now need to work on some decent stands for the game.

Next steps for Historicon 2024

I want to make sure that I sculpt and paint all of the hills and rock faces in February. I also want to finish all of the scatter terrain, such as the Chinese tents, ammo store and other camp equipment. The work for Historicon 2024 continues.

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Fall In 2023 – review of my games

Fall In! 2023 is over, but I had a great time. Although there were many great games at the con, this post is just to review my two games. Both games were set in a small town in Helmsland Province in Afghanistan in 2011. The rule set was Force on Force and the games pitted the US Marines against the Taliban.

The initial set up with the convoy stopping to investigate a potential roadside IED

Game 1 scenario at Fall In 2023.

The first game scenario was that a US Marines convoy was passing through a village that was sympathetic to the Taliban, but not overtly supporting them. The USMC had an entire platoon of infantry, consisting of three squads of 13 men. Each squad was carried in 4 HMMWV. There were also three supply vehicles.

The lead convoy vehicle became suspicious of a minivan parked at the side of the road ahead; this was due to the lack of civilians in the area. He called the convoy to a halt and that is where the game started. The mission for the US Marines was to firstly establish a 5 meter perimeter around the convoy, and then expand it to 25 meters. They were then to carry out an optical surveillance of the minivan to confirm their suspicions using binoculars. If they still believed there was an IED they were to call in the bomb squad to deal with the situation. The lead platoon also deployed their radio jammers to reduce the possibility of IED detonation.

The minivan with the potential IED can be seen in the foreground

The bomb squad would firstly set up advanced optical sights to view the IED, then send in a robot to deal with it and finally send a team member to the IED in full blast gear to remove the explosives. Once the explosives were removed. the convoy could get underway.

Of course the Taliban had other ideas and although their IED was prevented from taking casualties, a stopped convoy was an attractive target.

Game 1 action.

We had five players for the game, all with some knowledge of the rules. This allowed a fast paced game. The USMC quickly dismounted their vehicles and started to establish the initial 5 meter perimeter around the convoy. One of the lead HMMWVs kept a man back from the fire team to main the Heavy Machine Gun to provide heavy weapon support.

US Marines can be seen establishing a perimeter around the vehicle.
The lead vehicles stopped.

The initial Taliban teams near the ambush site started to lay down fire on the US Marines, but this was meet with some accurate shooting from the Marines. There were some serious casualties for the Taliban but the Marines had no injuries.

The Marines expanding the perimeter to 25m.

The problems came as the Marines started to expand the perimeter to 25m and Taliban’s reinforcements started to arrive. The Marines at the front of the convoy started to take fire from all directions in an ambush down a side street. One team took several casualties and had to rush for cover while waiting for support.

The perimeter was successfully expanded near the rear of the convoy.

While things were going fine for the Marines at the tail of the convoy, the situation continued to deteriorate near the front of the row of vehicles. Taliban in the upper floors of a building over-looking the street managed to get off several unsuccessful RPG shots at the lead HMMWV. However a technical showed up with a ZSU in the back along the alley with the pinned US Marine team. The pinned team could do little to prevent the ZSU putting down some devastating fire on the lead vehicle which then brewed up.

The lead HMMWV brewing up.

Despite the chaos going on around him, the lead squad commander had managed to get optics on the suspicious mini-van and determine that there was a potential IED. He then called the bomb squad.

After several rounds of fighting the bomb squad arrived on the scene in an MAT-V.

The bomb squad arrive and deploy their advanced optical sight and robot. The destroyed HMMWV is in the back-ground.

By the time the bomb squad arrived, the Marines, despite taking several casualties (including 4 dead), had secured the right hand side of the convoy. They had also suppressed all the Taliban units in the buildings near the middle left of the convoy.

However, they had not secured around the front left of the convoy. The Taliban took full advantage of the situation and managed to get a unit to attack the bomb disposal team. The MK19 gunner in the MAT-V turret mount was also killed.

With the four hours approaching the game was called as a Taliban victory. It was nice to have an excuse to get my bomb squad on the table in a real scenario.

In real life the bomb squad would not have been deployed until the area was secured, but the time limitation of a convention game really tied the hands of the US players. Every one said that they had a good time and I certainly did.

One of the highlights of the convention for me was at the very end of the game. A gentleman stood looking at my table for about ten minutes and then finally came over and confirmed with me that the game was set in Afghanistan in 2011. He then told me that he had served in Afghanistan in 2010 and that the table top and the scenario reminded him so much of his time there.

He then pointed out in a very kind manner a couple of things that I had got wrong. This type of information is invaluable to me and was very much appreciated. Two of the things were that a civilian motorbike and an oil drum cart were near the convoy and in real life they would never have been allowed there. He also let me know that the moment the convoy halted or shots were fired a fast mover (F16 or the like) would have been assigned to the area to provide ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance). This would have prevented a lot of the hidden movement that the Taliban used successfully in the game. The F16 would also have been armed with 500lb bombs which could have been used as a last resort if everything went to *!?*. I now plan on adding an F16 to my collection.

Game 2 scenario at Fall In 2023.

With three hours break after my first game, I started the second game. I had six players most with no experience of the rules. This gave a completely different, but no less enjoyable vibe to the game.

The scenario was that the game started just before dawn with two 4 man Force Recon teams assaulting a small compound to capture the IED maker who build the bomb for the morning game. A convoy of 7 HMMWVs with 2 USMC squads was then sent in to secure the egress route and extract the Force Recon units and the target.

The Force Recon team had night vision and breaching charges to assault the compound.

Game 2 action.

The HMMWVs coming to extract the Force Recon units.

Another shot of the HMMWVs

The game started with the Force Recon teams explosively breaching the two compound buildings and surprising the Taliban units there. However even with all the advantages of a surprise breach and night vision goggles at night, the Taliban got off a lucky shot and instantly killed a member of one of the Force Recon teams. The Taliban then paid for this shot and were then quickly disposed of by the elite operators. The IED maker was then taken into custody.

The other USMC squad securing the extraction route and going on overwatch.

With the noise of the compound assault, Taliban units started to slowly appear on scene and react. While the one USMC squad successfully secured the extraction route and went on overwatch, the other squad ran into a hail-storm.

One of the lead USMC teams got pinned down in the local gas station and started taking casualties from the Taliban who had taken elevated positions overlooking them. Three of the four man team were killed. The final member of the team was hit twice but on both occasions he rolled a six and bounced up. Having had just about enough of the situation he got into one of the HMMWVs, which promptly received an RPG through the rear deck armor. His luck ran out as the vehicle exploded.

The gas station a few seconds before the chaos.

Meanwhile the Force Recon units started to make their way along the extraction route, realizing that the HMMWV team was not going to be much help. Suddenly a couple of Taliban units appeared and set about their plan to ambush the Force Recon teams. Luckily the Force Recon team had deployed a sniper team on overwatch on the roof of an apartment building. With them was a Forward Artillery Officer.

The two M.777s for fire support are seen off table in the foreground.
The Force Recon sniper team and FAO can be seen on the apartment building roof.

The sniper team dealt with one of the Taliban units and the M.777 artillery pieces demolished the other. The luck was with the Force Recon units as the artillery barrage came within 0.5″ of causing friendly fire under the danger close rules.

With time winding down on the convention game, the Taliban disabled another HMMWV with a recoilless rifle firing down the street.

The USMC did complete their mission of capturing and extracting the IED maker, but at the cost of seven dead (including one Force Recon operator) and the loss of two HMMWV. Overall I gave the game to the Taliban, despite them having more than their fair share of rolling 1s.

Post game discussion about the action at Fall In 2023.

As you can see from the above photo, it was particularly enjoyable to teach the Force on Force rules to some young players. Now it is time to move on from Fall In 2023 and start preparing for Historicon 2024

Fall In! 2023 – USMC in Afghanistan.

Fall In! will be at the Lancaster Host at the beginning of November. With less than three weeks to go I am finalizing my game. This involves painting figures, buildings and getting data sheets ready. The basis is the USMC in Afghanistan in 2011.

The theme for the convention is “America, Rise to world power – 1898 to Present”. With big plans for conventions in 2024 and 2025, I didn’t want to take on a new project for this convention, so I decide to use what I have as the basis of my game. Last year I put on a modern Afghanistan game with the British 3rd Para forward operating base. I decided to modify this game by removing the forward operating base and adding more buildings. I then decided to paint up US Marine Corps troops to replace the British troops. All of this work involved painting about ten new buildings, about 75 USMC troops and about twelve new USMC vehicles. I still have some flags and ariels to put on the vehicles. This approach will allow me to put on a theme game.

M.777s for fire support in the second game.

I will run a game twice on Saturday. From 9am to 1pm and from 4pm to 8pm. The first game will involve protecting a convoy that has stopped due to detecting an IED. The IED disposal team will then need to remove the IED. The second game will involve Force Recon units assaulting a compound to capture the bomb maker. A convoy of marines will then arrive to extract the Force Recon units and the target.

The IED disposal team with optical equipment, robot, bomb suit and mine detectors. Carried in an MAT-V
Seven HMWVVs and cargo/fuel HEMTTs.
Force recon units in the foreground will use night vision sets to carry out the assault.

The terrain that I am using for my USMC in Afghanistan game will be similar to the terrain that I used last year. However, I will remove the forward operating base and replace it with more buildings. I have not set up the terrain yet, but here are some photos of the layout that I used last year.

If you are interested in a modern skirmish game using Force on Force rules, please stop by to see my USMC in Afghanistan game.

A quick update, here is a photo of the US vehicles with ariels and flags added. The flags add a bit more color to the table and the ariels really enhance the vehicles. $7.99 for a brush that will give a lifetime of ariels.

HMWVV and M-ATV with ariels and flags added.

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Senkaku Project update

Before I get into the Senkaku Project update, which is a project that I am planning for Historicon 2024, I have a couple of bits of news to report. Both of them involve blowing my own trumpet a little bit, but hopefully regular readers of the blog will forgive this little bit of self indulgence.

The first bit of news is that following my modern naval game at Historicon, “The first battle of the war of Taiwan”, I submitted the game as an article to the Admiralty Trilogy Group. From conversations that I have had with them, the article will be published in the October SITREP. The battle pits a Chinese Type 55 and a Type 54A ships against two US Arleigh Burke ships in the Gulf of Aden in early 2024. I will give more details when the SITREP is published.

The second bit of news is that I managed to take home the GM of the year award from HMGS. This was a combination of winning best of theme for my Battle of Ravenna, Italian Wars game and the Best of Show for my Modern British Afghanistan game. I also like to think that my Cossack Uprising Project helped, even though it has never won an award. It was a great honor to receive this award as there was some stiff competition. Here is a photo of me with the awards.

Now for an update on my Senkaku project (before I get back to painting US Marines for my game at Fall In! in November).

The Senkaku islands are a small group of islands off the coast of Taiwan that are contested by Taiwan, China and Japan. They are uninhabited islands. The game is going to involve a small unit of Chinese infantry claiming the islands in early 2024. The Japanese are then going to respond with a naval and Amphibious assault.

1/2400 models

The game is going to be a two part game and have multiple scales. The first part of the game is to be a modern naval battle using the Harpoon V rules. It is going to involve the Chinese navy and Coast Guard defending the islands against a small Japanese task force with a tank landing ship. This battle will be played out in 1/2400.

1/2400 ships with the Osumi top right.

The vessel at the top right of the photo above is the Japanese tank landing ship Osumi. It carries two LCAC and two Chinooks as well as multiple vehicles and marines. If forms the key component of the Japanese amphibious force for the game.

1/700 models

The naval game will determine whether the landing is within sight of land or is carried out “over the horizon”. It will also determine if the Japanese have naval artillery support.

1/700 Osumi with two LCACs.

When the naval battle is complete, the naval vessels that survive will then be represented by 1/700 scale models. Above is again the Osumi, but in 1/700 scale. In the photo you can see two small LCAC (Landing Craft Air Cushioned). The Osumi is the first of nine 1/700 models that I will need to build. I still need to paint the Osumi.

20mm models

These 1/700 models are a perfect size to represent the ships off-shore for a 1/72 (20mm) amphibious assault using Force on Force rules. I chose 20mm as many of the kits that I need are available only in 20mm. In particular the LCACs and the AAVP-7A1s are available. Here is a picture of the two LCACs that are still in the process of construction.

Two LCACs. One has a Type 12 SSM launcher. There is a Type 03 SAM for the other.

I still have a lot of parts to add to these LCACs which are about 14 inches long. I will also need to weather them. It has been fun building them and airbrushing the metallic paint scheme. I have also built three AAVP-7A1s in both out of water and in water versions. The in water versions still need some basing and wave effects, but I am waiting for my terrain mat to arrive so that I can match the water color.

AAVP-7A1s

Cutting down the AAVP-7A1 kits to make a submerged version was a bit time consuming, but I think the effort will be worth it.

The infantry, both Chinese and US (I will paint in Japanese uniform colors), also arrived. They are from Elheim. I managed to base them and clean them up, but I have not done anything else with them and don’t plan on starting to paint them before Fall In!.

20mm Elheim figures and FH-70s.

In the image there are some Japanese FH70s. There are two in deployed mode and two in transport mode. The transport mode will be for carrying under the two Chinooks from the Osumi. Speaking of the Helicopters, here are the two Chinooks and also the VF22 for the Japanese forces.

Chinooks and VF.22 Osprey

Terrain

Finally, for the terrain, I have ordered a really nice coastal mat from Warsigil. I will then be constructing hills and some dense jungle terrain. I have also ordered a lot of scatter terrain from Anyscale Models. Here is my first trial attempt at the jungle terrain, which overall I am very happy with. I still need to make some tall canopy trees from scratch.

Jungle terrain test pieces.

Now back to my figures for Fall In!

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The Convention Plan

The Historical Miniature Gaming Society (HMGS) has either two or three conventions a year. The big one, Historicon, is in July. There is then Fall In! in the Autumn and Cold Wars in the Spring.
Recently the attendance at Cold Wars has been low and it is looking increasingly likely that there will not be a Cold Wars show next year.

Where possible, I like to run a game at each show. I also don’t want to be known as the person that brings the same game to every show. However, it is difficult to have a new game to display at every convention when there are multiple conventions a year. It therefore takes some advanced planning to keep things fresh. In this post I will share my convention game plans up to Historicon 2025.

Historicon 2023

In a couple of weeks I plan to attend Historicon 2023. With the number of big projects that I am working on, I have not had time to put on a totally new game for this convention.
Several years ago I ran the 1651 Battle of Berestechko. Since that time I have painted a lot more cossacks and increased the number of war wagons. I therefore plan to put on a new and improved game of this battle. I have never won an award for my Cossack Uprising project, so hopefully this will be the year for me to get some recognition for it.

I also plan to put on a modern naval game using Harpoon V rules between the US and China. This is a project I have done for me because I enjoy understanding the technology.

Fall In! 2023

The theme of Fall In is “America, Rise to World Power, 1898 to Present”. Again, as time is short, I plan to build on a project that I already have. I plan to utilize my modern British Afghanistan game that I ran at Cold Wars earlier this year. However, I will remove the British and their Forward Operating Base and replace them with US Marines, a convoy and about 15 new buildings. The game is in 28mm and will use Force on Force rules. Below are two picture of my game at Cold Wars and then a picture of some buildings that I started to paint this weekend.
At Historicon I need to purchase about 30 US marine figures and about four HEMTT vehicles for the convey.

Historicon 2024

I am assuming that Cold Wars 2024 will not take place, so Historicon 2024 will be the next convention.

For this show I plan to do a two part game of the modern day Battle for the Senkaku Islands. This game will be a battle between the Chinese and Japanese. Part 1 will be a 1/2400 naval game using Harpoon V rules and Part 2 will be a 20mm (1/72) amphibious assault on the islands.
Many of the vehicles are in an early stage of construction, but here are some work in progress photos:

Fall In! 2024

At the moment I do not have a plan for Fall In! 2024. With my plans for Historicon 2025 being huge, I probably won’t do anything new. So I will need to repeat a game or sit this show out.

Historicon 2025

2025 is the 500th Anniversary of the Battle of Pavia from the Italian Wars. I plan to do the largest game that I have ever put on the table. Separate blog post will cover this topic, but for now here is a picture of one of my Italian Wars games.

This month’s work

This month I have been continuing my Pavia project, but also getting a naval project ready for Historicon in July. This won’t be a long post, but I want to show a few pictures of what I have been working on.

Modern naval project

My modern naval project is set off the coast of Yemen. It is set in 2024, with three Chinese ships, a Type 55, a Type 54A and a support ship carrying out a port visit. In the region, two USN Arleigh Burke class destroyers are carrying out anti-piracy operations. 4,500 miles away, war breaks out across the Taiwan strait, plunging the US and China into war.
The scenario explores some of the most modern naval technology. I will be using the excellent Harpoon V rules to run a game for four experienced Harpoon V players.

The project uses 1/2400 scale models and a ground scale of 1cm = 1nm. I will do a full report on the game after Historicon, but here are a few pictures for now.

The port with Chinese ships leaving
A closer view of the port
Container cranes are 3D printed and purchased from Shapeways
A closer look at the land

Italian wars figures

I have recently painted 24 Italian arquebusiers and 28 Landsknecht arquebusiers. This is just the start of my push in painting extra figures for the battle of Pavia. Next on the painting bench are 60 French heavy cavalry (archers to support the gendarmes). These figures will bring the total French heavy cavalry to 150.

Italian and Landsknecht arquebusiers

Pavia a project update.

This week the subject of my blog post is Pavia a project update. I have been working on both the park gates and the Spanish light Cavalry.

Park gates.

The only park gate that is somewhat intact is the gate at Certosa di Pavia. This gate is in the New park. I have not found much information about the design of the gates around the old park. I am going to assume that all of the gates, around both parks were of the same design. This assumption will have the added benefit that they will be easier to mass produce. As I am going to need six to eight gates for the old park, that is an important decision. Here are some images of the actual gate courtesy of Google Street View.

Right side – Image courtesy of Google 2023
Front view – Image courtesy of Google 2023
Left side – Image courtesy of Google 2023

Making the park gates

I contacted a couple of terrain building manufacturers to see what was possible. However, I eventually came to the conclusion that I was going to have to scratch build these gates. Foam was selected as the base material. I decided to buy a decent foam cutter to make the job easier. I will also be building many of the five chapel churches and the Castle Mirabello. With all of these buildings the cutter should be a good investment.

Here is my second attempt at cutting some of the front facade of the gates. The first attempt is in the bin. The cut facades are sitting on the foam cutter. This is my first attempt to make a foam building. The process is interesting. Don’t be too critical of my first attempts.

Foam cutter and front facades of the gates.

Here is my first attempt to carve the brick and paint the walls. I still need to weather and dull down the brick. As you will notice the bricks are larger than those in the original. This is because the required skill level to make smaller bricks is beyond my current ability. With eight gates and fifty feet of wall, I think that the overall impression will be good. It is a compromise that I am prepared to make.

Over the coming weeks I plan to finish two or three gatehouses. There is still a lot of work to do, I need to make the sides, back, roof and details at the top and then glue everything together. I also plan to use some pigments to improve the bricks. They will be minus some wooden arched doors in the centre at the moment. The company “Things from the Basement” are selling me some custom doors. These will be made from laser cut wood and they will be bringing them to Historicon for me in July.

Spanish light cavalry

I had 32 Spanish Jinetes and for Pavia I need 62. Over the last few weeks I painted up the remainder. I still need to touch up the flag edges of the new figures, but other than that, they are done. The first picture shows the Jinetes and the second picture includes a few mounted arquebusiers in support.

These Jinetes complete the dedicated Spanish Light Cavalry command. I always love playing with Jinetes in the Pike and Shotte rules. They use the fire and evade rule, which works really well for them.

Hopefully next time I will have more work to show you on the gates. I also will have 60-70 Italian foot arquebusiers that I am working on. They are beautiful sculpts from SteelFist Miniatures. I am also expecting another 80 heavy cavalry in the post soon and I am looking forward to painting them. That is all for this blog post, Pavia a project update.