More fun with foam (Trench Terrain board Pt3)

(Sing it!)

Trenching time, trenching time,

Time for a trenching time,

Time to get your Proxon and your ruler.

trenching time, trenching time,

Lots of fun with trenching time,

Time to let Stew he do another

                 trenching post for you.

-Good job, you nailed it.

More Trench Terrain Board

Can you believe it?  So soon after the last installment.  That's what happens when your two oldest children go to their grandparents for a few days and nights.  Amazin how much time opens up.

The first 2x4 board being done as seen in previous posts, it was time to move on to the foam stage of the second 2x4.  The plan for this board is there will a trench pit for some guns teams, the ridiculous large trench will continue to wind it's way across, and there will be a bridge going over it that will make a nice objective.

I happen to (rumble bang) have the stone bridge (shift, screech) right over here (clang, rattle) under all this stuff (clatter shatter)....Ah, there it is.

Tadaa!
made from Hist Arts years and years ago,
but still holding up quite well.
Unlike me.
My elbow hurt today for no reason.

This stage actually went somewhat fast.  Some of it is practice effects, but I was also greatly aided in my Proxon upgrade from Shifting Lands:

Shifting Lands Guider Pro 2.0
An MDF construction while not complicated to build, 
does take some thought.

What it does is make cutting things straight WAAAAY easier.  

Yes, I added it to the hobby expenses list.

As the cutting and shaping went fast, and because I'm sure you all find this as fascinating as I find long discussions on the proper color of pompoms in the late summer of the 1806 campaign in wherever...

It'll be rapid-fire-picture-caption time.

Go!

Virgin foam placed next to the previous terrain board.
I placed the bridge where I thought it would look cool,
and drew in with a sharpie where stuff would be cut out..

 

Protip: label everything.
I should of labeled more.
Because after cutting you get random shaped pieces of foam and you're like
"is this a keep piece or a scrap piece?"
bridge is also outlined.

main trench cut out and bridge test fit.

Cut out the gun pit area and made stairs using the method described in the previous post.
The depth is 1/2 an inch again as in the last board.
I just cut a half inch off the top.
The idea is that even with some build up later on with wood and ground covers and maybe sandbags
the Quar will be able to stick their snouts over the trench line.

The two boards placed together.
Some Quar added in for scale.

The pink panther giving me the thumbs up is very reassuring.

Then the areas under the bridge and stairs get the stone texture treatment
as seen in previous post.
This time I took Dave Stone's advice (ooo, Stone on stone) and skipped the sharp part
and just used a pen and pushed very hard.

Looking adequate.

I'm not intending to attach the bridge or even use it in every scenario, but the stone wall will serve as reminder of where I thought the bridge should go, and will be another break in the side of the trench wall from being all wooden planks.  

Speaking of wooden planks.. 

... (grumble grumble) they can't all be gems....

As I was SAYING, speaking of wooden planks

I haven't been painting a lot;
instead, I've been cutting down long sticks into shorter sticks
in preparation for the next stage.  

Don't know how many I will need except it'll be somewhere in between 'lots' and 'a zillion.'

Least while I cut sticks I can hang out with my wife and watch some TV show she picked about murder.

It's always about murder.

Thanks for reading.

Double thanks for writing a comment.

Till next time.

Trench Terrain Part 2

 

More Trenches, More Quar, More Fun for Everyone.

Just so.  Blogging IS so much fun.  Most fun you can have on the internet but don't test that statement.  

Let's get on with it.

More Work in the Trenches

Last we left off; the hero of our story had cut out a large trench and added a defensive trench that ran along side.  See previous post HERES for Part One if some inclined.  Yes, I am the hero of this story, I don't need to be saved, and you don't need to laugh so hard.

Where we left off.
The arrow indicates where we'll focus our attention today.

There should be a way down into the big ol trench.  My first thought was a waterslide.  Waterslides are fun.  But a waterslide doesn't really fit the theme so instead I'll add some stairs.  Stairs are less fun but probably easier to make.  To double the fun we'll make two staircases.

The Foam is 2" high.  I decided that the stairs will be 4" long.  In almost all skirmish games I've played a miniature can move around 6" (give or take) So 4" I thought would be a good length so a miniature who started their move near the top or bottom could move all the way up or down and not need to stop in the middle.  The stairs will be 2" wide, as that will accommodate most bases.  

Cut out a 2" by 4" block of where the stairs are gonna be.

My wife took this picture.
She said I was 'adorable' playing with the new machine.
By 'adorable,' she obviously meant HEROIC.
Even wearing my Christmas PJs in July.

MATH TIME: Math is not fun, though I'm told that certain types of people do find math fun. I've also been told that certain people find it fun to put together puzzles.  I've even heard tales of some people who think it's fun to paint miniatures.  These people are called boring.  There's all types in the world.

4" = 100mm.  10mm is a good size for a stair for a 28mm miniature, as it's just bigger than the foot.  

Seriously, go look at one.  I thought about this for a while, I spent time on this.  Because stairs that are too big or too small would look out of scale and stupid.  If each stair is 10mm long, then 10 stairs will fit into a 100mm length (10 into 100 is 10!).  The height of the staircase is 2" = 50mm.  If I want each of the 10 steps to be it's own layer, then the height of each stair should be 5mm (10 into 50 is 5).  

Did that make sense?  Course not.  Math is hard and mysterious.  

take the 2" by 4" block, and just slice into layers 5mm (ish ) in height.

then just take a layer and slice off 10mm increments to make stairs.

Like that.
Stairs.
How fun.

We'll transform these into stone stairs
by carving in a stone pattern.
Now these are looking fun.

Carving a stone pattern was super easy and there's a lot of youtubes about it if one is interested.

in summary:

1) use a sharp blade to slice in the outlines.

2) use a ballpoint pen or dull pencil to trace those lines to make them deeper / more distinct.

3) use a rock or ball of aluminum foil and smash it all over the foam to make a bumby rock like texture.

4) use a pair of tweezers to rip out small parts here and there to increase contrast.

Commit 

With the stairs done, it was time to make a commitment and actually attach all this foam to the wood.  Using liquid nails, I glued it all down trying my best to make sure the foam lined up with the edges of the terrain board and added foam scraps in any large gaps in the middle.

Tadaa!

For this board, I'll declare the Foam stage:
Complete.
2 more boards to go.

I'm still deciding on what the next stage should be.  Spackle to close the gaps? Add the wooden planks first?  The ground texture?  Move on to the next terrain board now that I've gotten down the basics of foam construction?  

While wallowing in indecision I did the most boring thing a person could do and painted some miniatures.

More Quar.  What else is there? 

These are Crusader Snipers.
I always say sniper like this:
sniPAH.
It's more fun and amusing.

Fun's Over

All fun times must come to an end.  Usually that's when your children are born, but in this case, just the end of the post.

Thanks for reading

Double thanks for writing a comment.

Till Next time.

Trench Terrain Boards Part 1

By my count, I've painted 40 miniatures in the past 2 months.

Incredible speed that is, inhuman even, Olympian.  

Nobody could keep up that pace.  

I certainly can't.  At least not without performance enhancing drugs.  

The kind of drugs that government agents take in the movies in order to withstand 'vigorous interrogation' by the enemy, because painting endless miniatures is a form of torture.  

That's just a hyperbolic way of saying 'I don't like painting miniatures that much and want to do something different.'

It's terrain time.  It's off to the trenches!

It's also a post that I feel like I type a lot but do very little.  

WW1 Trenches (Kinda)

My "This Quar's War' project is off and running with a bunch of newly painted miniatures, but I don't have any Quar-specific terrain.  While Quar are strange creatures, their technology isn't and it's basically at the WW1ish level.  WWI always screams trenches to me, and to me trenches always look super cool when they go into the ground rather than sit on the table.  Which means it needs to be a terrain board with foam to dig into.  I've always wanted to make a terrain board and try my hand at some serious terrain modelling.  When I goof off on youtube I don't watch vids on miniature painting (BORING) but watch vids on terrain making.  

After asking myself the fateful question of "How hard can it be to make some terrain boards?" It was time to get started.  

It doesn't have to be faithful recreation of WW1 western front; just something WW1 Trenches Kinda.

There are lots of good resources out there on the internet on how to make terrain boards so I'm just gonna copy all those people.  Very little original thinking required, which is the way that I like it, because my brain has grown soft from watching too many children's cartoons with my kids. 

On blogs, I will direct you toward the master of all things terrain board and foam to Anton's Wargaming Blog.  There's a section called 'adventures in blue board and foamcore' full of examples and he's also currently building a trench board (extremely quickly) that I'm paying close attention to. Very close attention.

Enthusiastic Amateur Hour

I don't know what I'm doing.  Don't take me for an expert or someone skilled.  I'm like a teenager going on his first date after getting a lot of advice from the internet, and I'm really excited about it.  

Taking some inspiration from some Quar illustrations...

Images lifted from "tales of the Breach" available as a free PDF from https://rhyfler.com/.

I then drew out a plan on graph paper.

The plan went through several revisions.

Main idea: the table will be 6x4 comprised of 3 2x4 terrain boards. There will be a very wide, very deep trench that runs along it; something more for travel than defense; to move troops and such, but also so wide and deep that tanks / vehicles can't drive over it (making any bridges good scenario objectives).  Not sure if something like that ever existed in real WWI trenches. Branching off from that there will be more traditional defensive trenches.  I'll also be adding some modular step hills with trenches that can be moved about.   

In my imagination: It's not a trench system that was designed for the front lines, but a long existing trench system belonging to the Coftyran faction (Royalists) as part of the intricate border defense and the Crusader faction is moving in.  The front lines have come to it.

The big trench will be 2" deep, and 6" wide.  

First this board will be used for skirmish games, but with an eye that it eventually could expand into big battle games.  

Time to go to the hardware store.

Indeed Boromir, indeed.

Got myself 3 2'x4' sheets of MDF, some 2"x1"x8' wooden boards, and 2 sheets of 8'x4' insulation foam that were 1 inch thick.  

--Originally I wanted 1 sheet of 2" think insulation foam, but the one sheet the store had was all beat to hell so I got the other stuff.

I had to ninja drop kick the foam sheets in the parking lot in order to break them down to a size that fit in the car.  Everyone was impressed with my ninja moves I SWEAR, and no one pointed out that next time I should bring a utility knife to cut the foam like a normal person.  

Construction

The first step is to create some battens / frame around the 2x4 sheets to add stability and help prevent warping.  

Cutting the 2"x1" to the proper length.  

attach the frame to the sheet.

The braces were attached with liquid nails and after that had dried for a few hours the boards were flipped over and screws were added to hold them in place.  And you only see two boards because I ran out of wood and had to go back to the store to get more.

Indeed.
Same goes with Wargaming Projects

--Fun Fact: Wood does not come in precisely the sizes it is advertised.  My original idea was to create a 2" frame and have the 2" foam nested inside. I thought this would protect the foam and ensure that the boards would line up better.  But 2"x1" boards aren't actually 2x1 but more like 1.5 by .75.   I couldn't find a board that was actually 2", go figure.  Also the sheets of MDF that were sold as 2'x4' are actually just slightly bigger.  I found that out the hard way, because I cut a brace 2' long brace and placed it down on the mdf sheet and found it didn't reach to the end..

So new plan.  The braces will be on the bottom, and the foam will be on the top

3 boards assembled and looking pretty flat.
So far so average.

Let's start adding foam.

Foam Stuff

I knew that for this project I was going to be cutting a lot of foam.  Thick foam too.  So I invested in the tool that all the terrain Youtubers and cool bloggers seem to use: a Proxxon Hotwire Cutter.

tadaa!
I admit, It don't look like much.

Trying it out.
I glued two 1" pieces of foam together to get the 2" height I want.
It is SO MUCH easier to cut with the hotwire than a sharp knife.
Though that REDHOT wire is kinda scary.

OK, I can feel you attention starting to flag.  I don't blame you, and I haven't said something funny in a while.  Let's rapid-fire-picture-style the rest of this post.  Watch the pink foam dance.

I cut 4 slabs of the 1 inch foam roughly the size of the board.
glued them together to get a 2" height.

used the Proxxon to straighten out the edges.

Cut out the profile for the large trench.
Sketched out where the regular firing trench is gonna be.
I used some Quar miniatures to get an idea of the proper size.

Cut that out as well.

Well this bit is important.  At some point I figured out it was easier to manipulate the foam through the Proxxon if it was in smaller pieces, so started cutting everything in half.  

I'm also extremely anxious that the foam won't line up to the edge of the wooden board completely, and that will result in things not lining up with the other boards with big gaps and everything will be terrible.  A tip I remembered from Mel The Terrain Tutor is that it's easier to cut things down the middle, line up the pieces at the edge, and fill the gap in the center.  

Building up the firing trench.
The Quar need to be able to see out of this trench.
So again, using Quar miniatures I tested what the actual height should be.
Quar a little shorter (and pudgier) than usual 28mm miniatures.
A 1" deep trench is just over their heads.

A 1/2" deep trench looks to be just about right height
that they can poke their snouts over.

Almost lastly, cut some ramps so miniatures can travel up to the firing trench.

And lastly for this post, 
start using scraps of foam to plug big gaps in the middle.
We'll just have to trust that spackle will fill any small gaps in a later step.

Slow Burns

This board is gonna be a slow burn, take your time, no rush project.  For a few reasons:

1) As stated, I don't know what I'm doing and I'm kinda feeling my away along.  Before any progress is made there is at least 20 mins of me just staring at things making thinking noises before I do anything.  And I do it very slowly.  

2) It's big and takes up a lot of space, so only gonna work on it on nights when I'm able to stay up late and devote enough time to make it worth yanking it all out.  And there are 3 boards to make as well as some more traditional tabletop terrain.  

Which means that in the meantimes, I guess I can continue to paint more miniatures.

More miniature painting.... yay I guess.

Thanks for reading.

Double Thanks for Writing a comment.

Till next time.  

Hobby Budget Part II: Spending Check In

 

I'm spent...WHA???!!!  

......

....

Whoa.

Fast Thousand

Back at the beginning of the year, I decided to keep track of my hobby expenses for this year.  You can see that Previous budget post HERE.  Go on and read it again.  It's short and well written, if I do say so myself.  

I won't pretend that anyone is gonna do that; so the main points were that I would set a budget of $1000 for the year, I would keep track diligently, and the budget would include anything that was bought for hobby reasons.  Not just miniatures.  Which is good because:

That's a lie of course.
I've bought lots, but other stuff as well.

I've kept track of expenses (rounded to the nearest dollar) in a sidebar on the blog which can be seen over there --> on the right if viewing the blog in web browser mode.

It now being the end of June and the year is half over, I thought it good time to look into it.  The expense list is reprinted below and slightly expanded:

-$20 bouncy balls
-$16 storage tubs
-$70 more paint pens
-$68 Quars (28mm miniatures)
-$360 Wooden Wars Miniature Flats
-$30 With Hot Lead and Cold Steal ACW rules
-$45 Bolt Action 2ed rules
-$30 Drop cloth
-$30 latex house paint
-$60 Quar tractors (2 light 28mm tanks)
-$95 plastic Quar (28mm miniatures)
-$50 Army painter darkdip
-$47 More Quar (28mm miniatures)
-$134 Proxxon hot wire cutter
-$17 paint brushes
-$17 balsa wood stripper
-$10 Balsa wood sheets
-$78 XPS foam
-$78 lumber

For a grand total of: $1,255

That was a fast thousand.  

Initially, I set the $1000 as kinda an arbitrary limit because you know, couldn't really be spending that much and it sounded good. I am surprised that I reached the total so quickly.  I don't really think of myself as spendthrift, but maybe I am.  Now that I've reached the budget limit, options of what to do:

1) Stop buying stuff.  Budget is depleted.

                --PFFFFT!  what do you take me for, a responsible grown up?  LAME.                

Though in truth I do have enough to keep me occupied and out of trouble.  Enough to keep me safe at home at night versus wandering the streets looking for excuses.  I predict that spending will slow down.

2) Add to the Budget.

                --I have been doing some extra work, so cash can be added to the budget in the traditional leaky bucket.  But figuring out the proportions of what should go in, and more adding and subtracting sounds like a lot of math and shifty accounting.  I'm not a huge fan of math.  We have calculators for a reason, because math is for machines.

3) Forget about the budget aspect.  We don't need no budgets! but keep tracking.

            --This is the one that I like, because it involves doing nothing different.  A comforting status quo.

I don't know if this is an atypical year for me with hobby spending; I've never tracked before. Can't know what you don't measure.  It feels atypical though; like when you notice a lump or mole on your skin that you swear wasn't there before....

Maybe this year I've started more big projects or new genres than usual.

DISCLAIMER:

I don't if $1255 in 6 months is a lot or a little.  Or even responsible.  I imagine that it'll all depend on one's own income.  I'm certainly not trying to come off as "look how much money I have to waste on miniatures tut tut tut."  That's how the Monopoly Man talks in my head.

To some it may be a lot, to some it may be a little.  I don't even know how it compares to myself, as I've never tracked before.  But every damn year that damn The Great Wargaming Survey asks how much was spent on hobby stuff and I never know.  This time, I'll know.

Besides, This blog is titled "A Terrible Loss of Lead and Wealth." 

Breakdowns and Wastages 

Of the grand total $1,225; 

$705 were spent directly on miniatures and wargaming rules.  Necessary purchases.  Those damn Wooden Wars and Quar miniatures are pricey.  More so the Wooden Wars. 

$137 were spent on painting supplies (brushes and paints).  Gotta paint the necessaries.

$413 were spent on stuff best described as 'hobby adjacent."  not necessary hobby supplies but stuff that goes along with it; storage, tools, etc..

Having the machines do the math for me (good job machine); 67% of the total has been spent on miniatures, rules, and paints.  Not sure what do to with that number, but it feels good having it.

POSITIVE VIBE:  The miniatures I've been purchasing this year are Quar and Wooden Wars.  

As I write this, ALL of the Wooden Wars miniatures are painted, and I've gotten through quite a lot of the Quar.  defying the tradition of getting a big haul of miniatures and letting them just sit for weeks, months, years, decades.  You know who you are.  I've done it too.

Because of this, I don't feel there has been any wasted money on miniatures. 

But there has been wastes:

1) $60 wasted on a drop cloth and latex paints to make this battlefield for the Wooden Wars

As seen here
and written about HERE

Which I do not like, isn't even all that pretty, does not work very well (too many folds), and probably will just get rid of do over.  Waste of money and time.

2) $30 wasted on the ACW rules 'With Hot Lead and Cold Steal."

The ACW is the best CW, that is true, and I'm the self-proclaimed expert on all ACW miniature wargaming.  I printed out a certificate that I made myself and everything, it's very official.  So I tend to collect ACW rules like a rich man collects ex-wives. 

It's not that the rules are bad.  I'll damn them with faint praise and state they were alright.  Some nice concepts in there that I liked, some stuff that was confusing even after a second read through, a little that was conflicting.  Don't like the basing scheme but can be adjusted without too much effort. 

Thing is... the rules didn't really grab me, so I'll never play it.  The book will sit on the shelf forever.  I can tell because after reading getting the book, and reading it twice, I haven't looked at it since.  

On the positive side: I supported ACW gaming by buying an ACW gaming product. I'm like a patron. 

A patron that pays an artist to create work but secretly thinks he could do better but never tries.

3) $27 wasted on some balsa wood sheets and a balsa wood stripper.

I have big terrain project in mind and I'm gonna need a lot (and I mean a LOT) of wooden planks.  I thought balsa wood would be good for the material and the stripper was supposed to make it easy to cut the wood sheets into half inch strips.  But the stripper kinda sucks, doesn't work very well.  I also don't think balsa wood is the right material anymore.  

I might find a use of the wood eventually, but until that time it's just gonna sit around as miscellaneous terrain supplies and be in the way.  The stripper I already tossed.  

The wastage totals $117, which doesn't seem all that high.  

Until you do the math (nice job again machine) and find that's 9% of the total spend, and then all of a sudden it feels high.  If someone told me that they're gonna take 9% of my paycheck I'd do a spit take with my coffee.  Aren't those called taxes?

If someone told me that I was getting a 9% raise, I'd thank them kindly.

Some people might argue that ANY amount of money is wasted when spent on toy soldiers.

But we don't like those people.  None of them are reading this blog anyway (barely anyone does).

I might argue that they're wasting money on stupid things too; like retirement investments or a college fund for their children.

End of the Filler Post

But I like the occasional filler post.  Maybe you did too.  

Thanks for Reading.

Double Thanks for writing a comment.

Till Next Time

Even More Quar

 

I got the thing that you wanted but were too scared to ask for;

Even More Quar miniatures.

How can you get if you don't ask?

Gotta work on your assertiveness.

Whaddaya mean you didn't ask because you didn't want?

Phish!  Lucky for you that I'm a mind reader and I know what you want.

Now lets get on with it.  

here are some pics of barely adequate painted miniatures.

Even More Quar 

Starting off with the strangest miniatures, I give you these.... things.

One part hamster, plus one part snail, plus one part elk? Minus the neck.
Something Jim Henson saw in a fever dream.

These are called Cadier, and it's just the Quar analog for a horse.  In 'The Scenario' I'm envisioning, one side will have horses loaded with explosives to go blow up a bridge.  So I ordered some Quar cavalry and just didn't paint up the rider.  It's a win-win, because I got what I wanted but didn't technically have to paint cavalry because cavalry would be two miniatures and cavalry is the WORSE thing to paint.

Moving on; back to things that walk on two legs, to proper Quar.

My Crusader faction was low on leadership and support, so I rectified that situation and provided it.

I'm a good Quar-termaster. 

I stole that joke from Ben Cato.  Whom by the way, is a big supporter of many blogs with his comments and recently started posting again on his own (see HERE).  So you probably owe him a comment or two.

And now that I've givin him the bump, he can't be mad at me at stealing his jokes.

Master of psychology is that.

Here we have a Crusader NCO.

Suitably war weary

And here are 2 Junior Lieutenants

These guys break with leadership traditions 
and carry shotguns and axes instead of swords and pistols.
How modern!

Also the uniform has a slight Village People biker vibe, 
but that might just be the way I painted them.

Fun Fact:  All the above are from the 'old metal sculpts' and all the below are the new resin releases.

Because I am super genius, I got the resin blister called "crusaders officers" which are basically the same miniatures as above but in resin form.  So now I have extras.  I guess in WWI style war, one can't have too many Jr lieutenants.  Officers always take the highest percent of the casualties.  

all painted up.
"Ma-CHO Ma-CHO Quar,
I got to be, a Macho Quar." 

(IF you got the Village People reference above then that song was not far from your mind and this joke is amazing).

Another of the new resin blisters all painted up are these with LMGs.

Really Big Light Machine Guns.

once in a while, you gotta show a miniature from the back.
just to prove the whole thing was painted.

All Crusaders Minus a Few

This wraps up the Crusader faction in those famous words.. "for now." 

I have an order pending at Zombiesmith, placed almost 2 months ago yet to arrive, for a few more Crusaders that I want to add for "the Envisioned Scenario," but until that arrives there's not much more that needs to be done. 

All Crusaders.
Tuff bunch of anteaters this.

Just in time too, because I'm out of time.  Because..

It's Here.  It's Back

My most artful enemy.

My hated foe.

The worse thing ever.

It's Summer.

Curse the tilt of the Earth!
(don't let the cute sun fool you)

Summer is the enemy of hobby time.  The kids have no school to wake up for and slowly and inevitably their bedtimes get later and later because everyone can sleep in.  Everyone but me.  I still have to get up early to go to work.  The window of free time that exists after the kids go the bed but before I go to bed shrinks away... 

What? Do hobbies while the kids are awake?  Crazy hard.  There's 3 of them and only two of us so we're already out numbered.  Plus, they like love me, for whatever reason, and always want to know what I am doing.  And WORSE, they always want me to take them outside.  OUTSIDE! Where all the dangerous animals are, like rabbits and butterflies.  

My only consolation is that summer is also the season of cleavage and short-shorts.  

But I'm getting to be too old to wear such things.

Thanks for reading.

Double thanks for writing a comment.

Till next time.