My Mosque

Spot the tourist on the minaret- he's a 28mm figure on a 20mm square base.

This week I'm posting about this model of a Mosque I made sometime about twenty to thirty years ago. It's copied from one in one of the wargames mag of about the same time, though I forget which.
It's built mainly from heavy duty card, balsa wood and bits and pieces.
The base is a piece of plywood about 12" x 15" and the height to the top of the minaret is about 18".
It was made for no reason that I recall but was used a few times in some Indian Mutiny games.

Side view (bit obvious)

Obligatory boring rear view

Arches, made from card, dowel and wall filler

Minaret walkway; cocktail sticks and beads

Dome; cocktail stick embedded into a home-cast clay dome and more beads

Doorway. Note damage (damn balsa), several bits of similar dmage can be seen

In addition to this Mosque, I made, at roughly the same time, two other buildings.

Quite a big building!

Rear view

Side View

 The base of this building was a block of packing form (rarely are these cuboid)
The main walls were all drawn out in this card in one continuous piece and 'wrapped' around the polystyrene block. Stairs were bits scrap with hardboard bases,
The whole model was covered in filler and painted

The base (once used as a coffee table maybe)

The other "wrap-around" building

"Interesting" side view (the other twp are blank)

So there you  are, my entire 28mm middle-eastern building collection.
It took quite a while to dust them down, but it's still evident on some of the photos.

And that is it for another week, one in which I looked at basing some figures up, but didn't, perhaps I'll look at basing again this week!

Thanks for taking the time to visit and have found something to interest you in my nostalgic visit to old stuff!

Forgotten Armies # 7

   Hussar Regiment No.?

This is truly a forgotten army, only remembered when I did my Storage post last week
It's strange (to me at least) that I'd forgotten about it as it was one of my armies that I've used a lot in the past.
In case you don't recognise the 6mm Irregular Hussars, they're from my Prussian Army  of the mid to late 19th Century, but specifically made for the Franco Prussian War.

Prussian Battalion

This was originally a collaboration between myself and #1 son, I would be doing the Prussians whilst he would paint the French. The rules used were the very fine set "Principles of War" and their Army lists were designed around Division size.

The Jager add a bit of colour (sort of)

Prussian organisation was three battalions to the regiment, two regiments to the Brigade and two Brigades to the Division  with the addition of a single Cavalry Regiment, a battalion of Jager and artillery.

Light artillery left and Heavy right (yep I can't tell the difference either)

With 24 figures to a base, two bases to the battalion that's about 300 figures to the division !
Two divisions make up a corps and I have two corps !
At corp level there are two Brigades of cavalry and yet more additional artillery.

One Division

Kurassier Regiment

Uhlans

Corps cavalry with their Horse artillery

Corp artillery (two heavy and 1 light)

The Division

The Division plus the Corp Cavalry and Artillery.

 We played a few small games to learn the rules and is all cumulated with a large game involving 5 Prussian Corps (iirc) and three French Corps (French Corps were substantially larger than Prussian ones). It was played on a 24 foot x 6 foot table using two foot square  terrain boards, allowing for rolling terrain - as the battle moved forward, so did the terrain (and occasionally the tables too!).

The commanders L to R: Brigade, Division, Corps and Army

Army Command

As far as I know, no photographs of this epic battle survive - it was well before the era of digital cameras! 

I really enjoyed this period and I reckon the eight or so players that participated in this project did too.

That's it then for this week, needless to say another in which I did nothing hobby related save for catching up on blogs !

Thanks for taking the time to visit and I hope there is something here you've found interested in; your comments, of course, are always welcomed and appreciated.

Storage & More

   Buildings that have never seen the table-top!

Firstly a warning, this post is a bit photo-heavy though I have omitted several storage photos that I originally intended to show. Another week past and another wherein nothing remotely hobby-related achieved, save for this blog and my attempts to catch up on all the blogs I follow (unsuccessfully).
I have stored figures, buildings, games etc. in all manner of places around my house and thought I'd post some of these.
Like many fellow gamers (I'm pretty sure) storage can be and major problem and I'm pretty lucky to be able retain and store figures and buildings I've had for many years, including some for well over forty years !
Here's some of what I have  around my house in just about every room!

The photograph on the right shows two of the four shelves occupied by all manner of things and even of there are mostly buildings shown, the bottom shelf contains the majority of my pony wars figures  along with other items.

Two storage units full of figures and an "Atlantic" Egyptian galley

 The two photographs above are in the same room, but on different shelving units.

Boxes containing some of my 54m Western collection

 When you have a large collection of 54mm buildings, for western gunfights storage can be a major problem! I have stored some above wardrobes in our master bedroom (shown above) and in our loft!
These are the oldest wargaming pieces that I can think of; the scratch-built Assay office just noticeable in the above photo, like all my western buildings is at least 45 years old! If I could lay all my western buildings out, they would fill an area of  about 6ft square!
Not shown, but also in the same bedroom are two sets of drawers, one containing a lot of my colonial troops and all my Romans. The other contains about have of my 7YW figures - the others half being dispersed in many other places.

My scratch-built mosque and dwelling

The Mosque above and the Japanese castle below are both stored above wardrobes in our house's main landing.Just noticeable in the photograph below is one of two Vauban style star forts that I built (the other was for a friend. It occupies about a square about 5 feet on a side, when laid out.

Japanese Castle (never used) and bits of a star fort to its right

Most of my storage is in my gaming room, above the table, on the table, below the table and in every nook and cranny !

Above  head height and the table. (obligatory blurry picture)

More storage above table and added shelf between two Ikea units

Mostly light-weight buildings stored here !

Under the table stuff (obligatory very boring picture)

 Under the table is currently stored  many of those vegetable baskets (kindly donated by my local grocer),
In the photograph can be seen the bottom of one of two Ikea units on this side of the table (left), the tabletop itself (top bluey bit); five stacked trays all containing vehicles for modern games (iirc); (centre back), a blue set of drawers - I forget what i s in them, but I suspect they're western game accessories); two trays of my recently painted Sudanese  that don't have a proper home yet; below the Sudanese is one of my cases for storing part of my zombie collection (there's 400 figures in it !).

Fairly boring picture

Still in my gaming room and tucked behind the door is the Ikea unit in the photograph to the left.
These units are an ideal size for the veggy trays I've been using for some time now (they're cheap, (read free), they stack really well and you can put them in a an Ikea unit - what not to like ?
In addition the foam figure trays from KR fir nicely into the trays to, three being easily stacked a single veggy tray.
The photograph to the left shows five veggy trays at the top, all containing foam trays with gangsters, zombies and Jimland/Congo
The bottom five tray s all contain vehicles for modern games (yes five trays of vehicle)
Still in my gaming room, the photograph below shows my Playmobil converted Colosseum (for 54mm gladiators) on a shelf above the door, with the Ikea unit just to the left of the photograph.

Colosseum (on a very heavy 3ft square board)

General storage

In the other alcove in my gaming room is this old Kitchen cabinet (and my original paint station)
It's used for storing many of the bits and pieces I use for scratch-building things, stacked in various tubs and trays (top).
In the centre, just above the fold-down leaf can been seen my Pony Wars fort - it's been its storage position for many years.
Below the cupboard is a shelf containing a lot of Pony Wars figures and many other bits and bobs.
There are three drawers below the centre shelf all containing either buildings or scenery accessories, such as my bill-boards.











I have quite a few other places where various things are stored, some like the loft are not easily accessed and I've only shown about half of what is stored under my table (mostly trees) and I'm pretty sure that there are other  places and things that I've forgotten !

This has bee a bit of a diversion from my Forgotten Armies series, but I'll be reverting to it next week, showing what is stored in one of the two blue containers shown in the second photograph above (not least because I've already taken the photos)/
Here's a teaser:

Not much of a teaser really as they're 6mm!

 Thanks for taking the time to drop by and I hope you've found something of interest

Off the Top Shelf (FA#6)

   Condottieri  (Armoured Lancers)

Yes, this was the army that should have been blogged about last week in my "Forgotten armies" series and is really number 6 in the series.
There was minimal damage caused by the fall from the 'top shelf' (some 8 feet !), a lot of bent pikes and spears and some damaged paintwork (not that anyone will notice with my painting skills) and I think that at least two pieces have also gone awol !

Mounted Crossbowmen (light horse)

The Forlorn hope (Skirmish Infantry)

The army, painted up for a Renaissance campaign,  is based for DB  rules and was slightly smaller than many of the other Armies in use. For the campaign each player chose an Nation and painted up the army or armies for the Nation. As Umpire I had the Pope's forces, whilst France had 3 Armies (the biggest force) and other 'Nations' had a number of Armies proportional to their available resources (both the player's and their 'nation'.

I think there were seven or eight players and all the figures purchased were from Irregular Miniatures from whom we got an excellent deal and service, with army packs configures specially for the armies in question.
If you want to see some beautifully painted 6mms from this period go to the link above and drool ! 

More dead men walking

Landesneckt foot (Arquebusiers)

More mixed foot (mostly useless)

There quite a lot of them

For 6mm figures the detail is quite staggering imo

The pike, a bit worse-off than most from the fall

The Landesneckt pike

An artillery battery

More Artillery (Largely ineffective)

I probably had too much artillery !

A Carroccio (a religious Wagon and immediately re-named a Karaoke)

A siege piece (never used iirc)

This and the battering ram below, were, I think not Irregular minis

Battering ram (possibly Games Foundry)

The whole force

 I really do like the Renaissance period, but could never afford, let alone paint a 28mm force to any degree of satisfaction.
 So yet another Forgotten Army, but one that I'm sure saw action, maybe two or three times.
The Campaign saw a huge battle with about five armies on each side, but I can't recollect the result.

 That's it then for yet another week wherein I haven;t managed to do anything other than hospital and clinic visits and not one iota of hobby related work save for writing this blog !

Thanks for taking the time to visit and yes, I'm still behind on trying to catch up on blogs !