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Thursday 30 May 2019

Making the terrain boards for 'Carry On up the Nile!' (6)

Once the buildings and city baseboard were complete, all that remained was for everything (including the city's wall sections) to be given two coats of PVA glue to seal the surface of the wood ... and then they could be painted.

I chose to paint the buildings and the walls white, the doors Humbrol Matt Earth Brown, and the windows Payne's Grey. (I chose Payne's Grey, which is a very, very dark grey because when seen from a distance, windows look dark grey rather than black or blue.)

The city baseboard was painted Yellow Ochre to match the terrain boards, as was the parade ground area inside Fort Omdurman and the bases of the walls.

Fort Omdurman


Khartoum's defensive wall

The city's defensive wall is made from three separate sections that are connected by simple dovetail joints.

The city of Khartoum

The painted individual buildings.
The painted city baseboard.
The city, with the buildings kept in place by their locating lugs.

The completed terrain for 'Carry On up the Nile!'





The terrain is by no means perfect, but as the saying goes 'it will do for government work'. If I was going to reuse it many times, I would replace the terrain boards with something more substantial, but as I suspect that the game will only have one outing, I see no point in doing so. As to the city ... well I have already had a couple of ideas as to how that might be reused ...

18 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. Jonathan Freitag,

      Cheers!

      I am rather pleased with the way it has turned out, and look forward to using it at COW in July.

      All the best,

      Bob

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  2. The buildings and walls are look good.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Peter,

      They are simple and functional, which is what I wanted to achieve.

      All the best,

      Bob

      Delete
  3. Replies
    1. Rob Young,

      Cheers! It has ended up looking pretty well how I hope it would, so I'm very satisfied.

      All the best,

      Bob

      Delete
  4. Simple, effective and looks good. Can't ask better than that!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Looks rather nice. John, Valerie and Peter would have been proud.

    Cheers
    Andrew

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Rumblestrip (Andrew),

      Cheers ... and not a single piece of sticky-backed plastic in sight!

      All the best,

      Bob

      Delete
    2. Knew there was something missing...

      Delete
    3. Rob Young,

      I tried to find a use for some, but ...

      All the best,

      Bob

      Delete
  6. Hi Bob,
    Well done there on your model of Khartoum- it all looks superb and just right for your COW Game...perhaps at a later date you may mount the buildings and walls of Khartoum on a permanent base-board and use the model as a feature article in your future 'Colonial' PWG Book? Best Wishes. KEV.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Kev Robertson (Kev),

      Cheers!

      I'm certainly giving thought to using the buildings in future PW Colonial wargames, but the wall is a bit long. That said, I'll certainly be keeping it 'just in case'!

      All the best,

      Bob

      Delete
  7. Bob,

    The whole set up looks great. I particularly like the way in which a simple coat of paint has improved the buildings. In bare wood there is always a certain touch of the child's toy blocks but this vanishes once painted and the white gives just the image needed for the game (and whether or not Khartoum was actually white is totally irrelevant).

    The fact that the terrain is “by no means perfect” is if anything a virtue. When I look at photographs in magazines or blog reports of shows I see great modelling – often almost matching the standards set by railway modellers – but it somehow seems disconnected from “real” wargaming, more a branch of military diorama modelling. To be clear, I’ve nothing against such models and if people get their fun from the modelling itself that’s fine by me. However, if your fun comes from pushing figures around the table, you need something a lot less specialised and adaptable (that is able to take you wherever the campaign leads without months or years of modelling work),

    Best wishes,
    Mike

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Mike Hall (Mike),

      You are spot on about the difference that a coat of paint can make to a model. In this case, I used white acrylic craft paint from THE WORKS to paint the buildings, with the doors and windows picked out in Humbrol Matt acrylic and Rowney acrylic paint.

      Whereas I can appreciate the work that goes into the railway layout-looking terrain one sees at wargame shows, it is inflexible and cannot be used for anything else. I've already realised that my model of Khartoum can - with little or no alteration - be used again and again in other wargames.

      All the best,

      Bob

      Delete
  8. is carry up the nile a new set of rules or just a scenerio. Also are the portable rules on your blog the same in the book. I didnt buy your book yet and I wanted to try the rules forst before buying them, thanks for your time.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Terence Flynn,

      'Carry On up the Nile!' is a scenario that I designed to showcase Chris Engle's POLITICS BY OTHER MEANS tactical Matrix Game rules.

      The rules in my book are a developed version of the ones on my blog, with examplar battles that show how the rules work.

      All the best,

      Bob

      Delete

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