Basing by numbers

...In which our protagonist gives a step-by-step look at his ridiculously-complicated basing method.

I'm going to show how I make a simple vignette, in this case a base with some troops wading through a puddle, like the one shown above.

Basing. It's another one of those aspects of a great looking army that wargamers either love or (more likely) hate. From the pioneering days of green paint to the the modern age of artificial foliage, it's been a long struggle to balance between the quick and easy, versus the great looking, and again versus the realistic.

My own style has verged decidedly away from the quick and easy, at least for the current 6mm Borodino project-- so don't try it if you haven't got a lot of patience! And remember: I'm not plugging this as the best way to base your figures; it's simply a way, and not even necessarily a good one.

Step 1: you need something to base your troops on.

Well, actually step 1 would be getting troops and painting them; in this case I've already got some painted ones standing by. Anyways, being too lazy (not to mention too inaccurate) to cut my own bases, I much prefer to buy mine. In this case I'm using an excellent pre-cut 60 x 60x 2.5mm MDF square from East Riding Miniatures. Different media have their pros and cons; MDF bases are cheap, fairly durable, and thick enough that you can grab them directly, rather than using the figures for leverage and consequently ending up with an army full of spaghetti spears. On the other hand, MDF is not magnetic, and it swells and warps when wet-- so don't spill your beer.

Step 2: figure out where your troops are going to go.

This means getting out your ruler and sketching some guidelines. Yes, a lot of wargamers are too impatient to bother with such things... and it tends to show. It's worth taking the extra couple of minutes to do this, even if you're using figures cast in strips (granted in that case you don't need to worry about spacing, only alignment).

Step 3: etch and sketch.

The surface of most bases is going to be pretty smooth, which is not ideal for creating a strong bond. If you're planning to use sand, flock, or anything granular as texturing, you will definitely want to roughen the surface before getting out the glue. In this case I've scuffed it using a coarse sandpaper.

Note, however, that I didn't scuff everywhere. Since this base is going to have a puddle on it (which I've sketched in), and since the puddle won't be taking any texturing, I've left it smooth. The two Xs you see in the grid mark where the standard bearers will go in that formation, which is important when it comes to identifying victims for the next step.

Step 4: down and dirty.

Looking at the layout grid for the base, you can see that three soldiers are going to end up with their feet in the muck. Muck, of course, is not generally kind to white uniforms, so out comes the brown wash. Three unlucky Russian grenadiers get their gaiters spattered, and then go in for a bit of amputation!


Out come the side clippers to cut the base off each of the figures, and the needle file to flatten the botttom of the cuts. I've also decided to have a partially-submerged log floating in the puddle, so I've also done some surgery on a twig.

Step 5: stuck in.

At long last, I've finally gotten out the glue. I told you my way was long and absurdly complicated! Most wargamers would probably be done the entire base in less than five steps. In any case, I've used gel superglue to stick my three amputees in place, one at a time, along with the protruding bit of wood. As I glue each figure, I prop them in place while the glue dries. You don't want your grenadiers stuck on there leaning at 45 degrees! Once everything's in place, I brush on some PVA glue to strengthen the join.

Now wait for the glue to dry.

Step 6: work that murk!

Because a single stage would be entirely too quick and easy, I do the water in several layers. First, I paint the puddle green. This represents... algae. Yeah, that's it. Hey, I never said any of this made sense: it just happens to be what I do.

Now wait for the paint to dry.

Over top of the green goes a coat of watered-down brown ink. Since the forward regiment on this base will have already marched through the puddle, I've drawn "ripples" in the brown ink with a wet paintbrush, letting part of the green undercoat show through. Finally, a thick layer of glossy varnish gives the water a distinct shine. Note that I've also glued on a scrap of bark, which will in due time become a boulder.

Remember to wait for each layer to dry before brushing on the next one!

Step 7: everything at once is too much.

Have I mentioned how absurdly long my basing method takes? By this point you should be starting to see why. In this stage I've glued on the front rank of each regiment. Why the front, and not the back, or both? Well, since the grenadiers I'm using are all in an "advancing" pose, the space between the ranks is pretty much inaccessible once all the troops are glued in place. By sticking only the front rank on first, I can deal with the "in between" space without having to worry about anyone's bayonette being in the way. If I were using minis in standing/marching poses, I would definitely glue everything on at once.

...And wait for the glue to dry.

You can also see that I've started to apply my texturing medium, in this case good ol' terrarium sand, stuck on there with undiluted PVA. A lot of people dilute their PVA with water-- a waste of time, in my opinion. The stuff is dirt cheap, spreads nicely enough without being watered down, and dries twice as quickly to boot. And believe me, when you're doing as many steps as I am, drying twice as quickly saves a lot of waiting! Notice, though, that I've been careful not to apply any sand where the other ranks are going to be.

Now wait--again--for the glue to dry.

Step 8: you put three layers of sand?

Yes. Three. Again, this is something a lot of people are going to say is pointless: a bit of static grass will easily cover up the "step" between a single layer of sand and the thick figure bases. Even those who like a flush base will frequently go with some sort of pumice. In my defense, I have only couple of points: firstly, that a single layer of sand will tend to deteriorate from day-to-day handling, whereas the three-layer method simply wears down to the next layer of sand (and for that matter it has so much hardened glue in it that it's much less likely to wear away). Secondly, pumice is comparatively expensive, and a careless brush coated with the stuff will leave white smears all over the place. Sand and PVA, by contrast, cost next to nothing, and the glue dries clear if you get any where it shouldn't be.

Of course, you do have to wait three times for the glue to dry.

Also note that I've capped off the three layers of sand with a dark brown wash. Again, for anyone who cares and who didn't already know, I'm using the Baccus Basing System (with a few minor tweaks of my own).

Step 9: the middle ground.

This is an easy one-- just drybrush the ground between the ranks to suit your usual "ground" look.

(And wait for the paint to dry!)

Step 10: double the fun!

Now, at long last, I glue on the second rank of figures. And wait for the glue to dry. For the sake of interest I like to my my ranks a bit of variation, so here the line is straggling a little bit where it's gone through the puddle.

It might seem like a preposterous amount of waiting to get to this point-- but notice that each of the steps to get here takes only a couple of minutes (well, aside from painting the figures). The trick is to plan around the waiting. For instance, I'll generally do two or three bases at once, working on them for twenty minutes or so in the morning, and again in the evening. Depending on your schedule, you might even be able to do three coats of PVA in a day. Painting is similarly handled-- because I know I'm only going to base one rank at a time, I don't even paint the second rank until I've already started glueing on the sand.

And waiting for that glue to dry.

Step 11: touches and textures.

At long last the base is starting to look good. Here, after the long wait for the glue holding on three more coats of sand to dry and make everything flush, I've drybrushed the ground to bring out the texture. For the sake of a better photo I've drybrushed everything; realistically, this is when I'd decide (more or less) where the static grass is going to go. Obviously, any ground that will be covered with ground doesn't need to be drybrushed.

That scrap of bark I stuck on there also gets its own drybrushing, in this case a medium grey followed by a light grey. When that's dry, a inking with watered-down black brings out the surface details, and you've got yourself a boulder. Finally, I paint the base edges to cover up any messiness from the previous stages.

...And wait for everything to dry.

Step 12: it's alive!

At long last we come to the fake foliage stage. I outlined in a previous post the materials and methodology I use for this. One thing worth repeating is that bases seem to look better when they have a "dominant" type of foliage. In the picture above you can see the bright yellow-greenish mix I've been using in this role; the pic below shows the final result, with other grass mixes and some flocking added. Of course, every different type of foliage you add means having to wait for the glue to dry!

So, after all that it's finally time to give the base a last once-over to make sure everything's the way it should be, followed by a helpful squirt of varnish to keep it that way.

I pronounce this base ready for the gaming table!

...and it's off to join its grenadier division.

For anyone who lost count, I waited five times for superglue to dry, seven times for PVA, a good six or seven times for paint and/or ink, and twice for varnish! I'm surprised the grass didn't end up longer...

Much Ado About Horses

...In which our protagonist obscures the fact that his output is currently rather unimpressive by producing this instructive article.

Cavalry. Love 'em or hate 'em, they are impressive. Or at least they should be.

A lot of people are intimidated by cavalry-- and I don't just mean on the battlefield. One of the comments I see again and again is how much wargamers hate painting horses. They're big, obvious, take forever, and never quite seem to look right. Believe me, I know the feeling, 'cause I'm a onetime horse-hater myself.

But painting horses doesn't have to be an awful chore, best avoided; the truth is, in smaller scales horses can be painted quickly, easily, and can still look good.

Equus ferus caballus, of the "brown" variety. Now why is it so hard to get a mini to look like this?

Tickle me brown

Before getting down to business here, let me ask a hypothetical question. If you were going to paint an infantry unit-- let's say the 1st Battalion of the 3rd British Foot Guards in 1909 --how would you go about it? I'll give you a hint: they wore red. Now get painting.

I'm guessing that at this point no one is ready to paint the 1/3rd Foot Guards 1909, despite my useful hint (well, aside from a tiny minority of sad, anal-retentive buttoncounters). Anyone actually intending to do such a unit would be well advised to seek out uniform references and plates as a painting guide. And yet most people will take their miniature horses, say "oh, they're (mostly) brown, right?" and blithely start painting.

Horse colour chart, blatantly lifted from Junior General. Hey, if everyone else is doing it, why not me?

And so I present to you the horse colour chart. Even a quick look at this would probably solve much of the usual brown-o-philia and horse-o-phobia. You can clearly see that not all horses are brown; furthermore, even the brown ones tend not to be completely monotonous.

But let's take our education a bit further, shall we?

That dratted real horse again, showing areas of contrasting colour.

Take a look at the above picture, and compare it to the colour chart. I think we're all intelligent enough to see the patterns here, so let's get painting.

Witty subtitle about painting 6mm horses

As always, I like to start with black. For the purposes of this demonstration, I'm also painting the horses in their entirety before painting their riders; in actual practice, this isn't necessarily the case. I'm going to do "brown" horses which tend to be the most common in my armies (a circumstance driven by the limitations of my paint collection, I should point out). Slight modifications to the shade of brown will give you bays and chestnuts.

Step 1: black undercoat.

Step 2: coat

In painting the brown coat, you'll notice that I've left the nose and socks black, and, because these are large-ish Adler horses, I've also taken some pains to avoid painting the eyes, nostrils and tack. More importantly, select a slightly lighter shade than you want your end result to be.

Step 3: hair

Pretty much as you'd expect: hit the tail, mane and forelock. I've used a dark brown for this, which I've also used on the base. Note that I also snuck in a gold edging on the shabraque and pistol cases in this step.

Step 4: ink

I probably should have mentioned this at the top, but in any case at this scale I like to use inks for shading. Here, I've used a dark brown ink on the coat, and a black ink in the hair. Note that these are inks, not washes; there's a difference. Inks tend to be more opaque, and are also quite glossy-- a definite advantage in this instance, as real horses tend to have quite a glossy coat.

Step 5: markings

Paint the nose, forehead blaze and socks as desired. Avoid painting the mouth and nostrils if possible. On brown horses I like to use white for the markings, as the contrast looks really spiffy. Dark brown or black are also realistic choices, but tend not to stand out so nicely. Another note: real horses may sport coloured socks on anywhere from zero to all four of their legs. For the sake of quickness and contrast, I almost always do all four.

Step 6: tack

Hit the bridle, reins, etc. in the appropriate colour. Most Napoleonic tack seems to have been black, so in this case I've simply touched up any overpainting from the previous colours.

...And that's it. You're done.

Done.

Just paint the riders, and you've got yourself some decent looking horsemen!

Grand Scale greys

As a special feature here, I'm also going to show how I paint my 10mm horses. This is a more complex, time-consuming technique, but it does look better. I've never bothered to try it at 6mil, but the Adlers, at least, are large and detailed enough that it could be done.

Ideally, I would have demonstrated brown horses once again, to better illustrate the differences between the two techniques. Unfortunately I wanted a grey team for my last Celtic chariot, so that's what you're getting instead. Note that in horse-speak the term "grey" actually refers to white horses (I don't get it either). What you're seeing me paint here are actually "black roans" or "blue roans" (yeah, I really don't get it).

Step 1: black undercoat. As per the usual.

Step 2: coat, and Step 3: hair

Anyway, you should already see the difference here: rather than applying a uniform slathering of colour, I've taken some pains to detail the musculature of the horses' legs and haunches. If your models actually depict this level of detail, all to the better; if not, it isn't that difficult to fake. Also worth noting is that on these grey horses I've painted the hair in the same colour as the coat. Finally, I've used a darker shade for the coat than I want the end result to be.

Step 4: ink

Here I've used black ink on the hair, socks and nose to give them some contrast.

Step 5: highlight

Here I've gone over the coat with a lighter shade of grey, keeping a border of the original shade. The result: instant highlights!

Step 6: tack

Paint the tack in your preferred colour, and you're done! This technique takes longer and a little more finesse with a brush. In ultra-close-up macro photographs it also tends to look worse than the simpler technique I outlined first; but at any realistic viewing distance, this is the better-looking way of doing it.

Examples of this 10mm horse-painting technique.

So that's my take on small-scale horses. In other news, I've got more of these smaller, friendlier posts in the pipeline. Heck, why not? It keeps me from wasting an entire weekend each time I want to make a blog post, and it also keeps me from going weeks and weeks without having anything to show. Is that progress? I like to think so.

Nothing rhymes with 'Davout'

...In which our protagonist, having completed Davout's 1st Corps for Borodino, tries to think of some clever title for the associated post, but instead merely reaches the lame conclusion given above.

Charge of the light cavalry: Chasseurs à Cheval and uhlans of the Vistula Legion. Davout is not in this picture.

So I've finished my 1st French Corps, and without it taking another whole month. Mind you, painting a bunch of little toy soldiers before an arbitrary deadline probably isn't what most people would consider a worthy ambition, but not all of us are Barack Obama, for crissakes. Or, for that matter, Louis-Nicolas Davout.

A French general. But not Davout.

Who in the world is Louis-Nicolas Davout?

Wargamers know him as the Iron Marshal, as the Prince of Eckmühl, as the sometime Imperial Minister of War, as the victor of one of the most astounding battles in military history, made the Duke D'Auerstadt in the giddy aftermath. He was one of Napoleon's finest soldiers, a man whose command fought on, undefeated, even as his humbled Emperor abdicated in 1814. His desk job during the Hundred Days and his consequent absence from the battlefields at Quatre-Bras, Ligny and Waterloo offer one of the great 'what ifs' of Napoleonic history.

More importantly, he was bald.

Davout. Or, as I like to think of him, the 'Baldest of the Brave'. How could you not love a pate like that?

As I mentioned in my last post, Adler makes special figures for famous generals. With the French, this is taken to the extreme: there's a pack consisting entirely of Napoleon and his Marshals, and another for their virtual army-within-army of aides-de-camp. Of course, as I also mentioned in my last post, I'm too impoverished and/or cheap to buy said packs of specific characters.

Adler FN 21C - "Mounted General and ADC". They look good, despite my paint job.

Although I considered chopping the bicorne off one of my generals and sculpting the great man's Shining Dome out of green stuff, ultimately I decided to grit my teeth and make do with a proxy figure for the time being. Very likely the Adler's special Davout figure is wearing a hat anyways... which sort of defeats the purpose of having a special figure in the first place, in my opinon. I mean, how else are you supposed to recognize the guy, in 6mm, from across the table?

French proxy general investigates the disposition of the infantry. I call him, uhhhh... Pravout. Yeah, that's it.

When I'm Feeling Blue

While Russians may or may not have worn green, there's a general consensus that French infantry wore blue. No problem, right? I've got heaps of blue paint. I have so many different shades that most of them got tossed into storage to free up space. Of course that was when I was doing Ancients. The thing with Napoleonics is that all of a sudden you can't just slap on some Imperial Blue here and Prussian Blue there. It's wrong. You need a uniform guide accredited by the Imperial Ministry of Napoleonic Uniformological Studies, as well as all 168,152 officially-recognized colours of paint.

In front, the 7th light infantry regiment, with the 108th line regiment following. The line infantry wear blue coats and white trousers and gaiters, while the light troops are all in blue. Shockingly, I used the same blue for both types. Suck it up, buttoncounters!

I'll admit it. I didn't even try to find a good colour match for the hues shown in my reference material. And I'm quite happy that way. Being indifferent to strict historical accuracy is one of my guilty pleasures, along with a fondness for peanut butter and listening to Madonna.

My French gun crews also wear the same shade of blue. It doesn't matter if they serve 12-pounders, 8-pounders, or howitzers.

Tell us, O Prophet, how such miracles are achieved

Now that I've confessed to making little-to-no effort towards attaining historical accuracy, this seems as poor a place as any to endorse My Fool-Proof Method For Painting Adler French (MFPMFPAF, or 'mif-pim-fip-aff' for the phonetically inclined). I mean, it's got to be foolproof if I can do it, right? Anyway, if you're NOT planning to paint Adler French in the near future, you can probably skip this next bit and head down to the eyecandy at the end.

Adler FNG 5B - "Guard shako advancing (1812)". These guys make great demonstration pieces because their uniforms have the full gamut of Napoleonic frou-frou, although the same basic technique works for any troop type.

To begin with, you need minis and paints. Also paintbrushes. Probably you already knew that; but if not, you can't say I wasn't looking out for ya.

The 14 paints I'm using are:
1. BLACK matte spray paint, as a primer/basecoat.
2. GREY, for shako highlights, greatcoat, canteens, etc.
3. WHITE, for crossbelts, pants, etc.
4. DARK BLUE, for coats.
5. RED, for epaulettes, collars, cuffs and turnbacks.
6. FLESH, for... flesh.
7. TAN, for backpacks
8. BROWN, for musket stocks and hair.
9. BROWN ink, for shading. Ideally this should be a darker hue than 7 and 8, above.
10. BRONZE, for shako plates.
11. SILVER, for musket barrels, bayonettes, and canteens.
12. BLUE, for coats.
13. LIGHT GREY, for greatcoats.
14. GROUND COLOUR, for the bases.

I'm not going to tell you what brand of paint to buy, or what particular shade of blue you need; that would defeat the purpose of MFPMFPAF. Rather, pay attention to what each colour is used for, and find a paint appropriate to that usage. If you're painting voltigeurs or tirailleurs, you will also need YELLOW and GREEN for their collars, epaulettes, pompoms and plumes.

Step 1: prep the minis for painting. This means cleaning away flash, straightening bayonettes, separating the figures, and basecoating BLACK. Some people choose not to do all of this at this stage. That's fine; but before you procrastinate, you have to ask yourself: do you really want knives and/or side cutters and/or black spray paint near your painted minis? Anyway, as you can see in the pic, I've used carpet tape to temporarily adhere the minis to a bit of scrap MDF for painting. I like this solution better than glue, but to each his own.

Step 2: GREY. Paint the rolled greatcoat and canteen where applicable, and drybrush the top edge and visor of the shako. I usually paint a narrow stripe up each side of the shako as well for a highlight, although the discerning viewer will notice that I've forgotten in this instance.

Step 3: WHITE. Paint the crossbelts, trousers, gaiters, and shako cords where applicable. Drybrushing the shako plume is also useful, as it will brighten any colour painted over it. Likewise, if painting voltigeurs or tirailleurs, paint the collar WHITE and then YELLOW. Go ahead and be messy painting the crossbelts; the whole point of getting them so early on is that it doesn't matter.

Step 4: DARK BLUE. Paint the coat, and, if applicable, the trousers and gaiters. To be quite honest, you could just as easily skip this step, although it's a good opportunity to straighten out those messy crossbelts.

Step 5: RED. Get the collar, cuffs, epaulettes, turnbacks, cockade, shako cords, pompoms and/or plumes, again, as applicable. I've yet to attempt a cockade on a 6mm fig, but those with more skill than I are known to do such things.

Step 6: FLESH. Hands and face. Need I say more?

Step 7: Paint the backpack TAN.

Step 8: Use BROWN for the hair and musket stock.

Step 9: Shade the face and backpack with BROWN ink.

Step 10: Paint the shako plate BRONZE. For the button counters, some shako plates may be SILVER or GOLD.

Step 11: BLUE. Highlight the areas painted DARK BLUE. If you skipped step 4, this is where you cover up the ragged edges on your crossbelts. Paint the pompoms if you want blue ones.

Step 12: Use SILVER on the musket barrels and bayonettes. If the figures have canteens, highlight them.

Step 13: Pull out your FLESH again (and stop thinking dirty thoughts!). Use the 'four dot' method for highlighting the face: a dot of paint on nose, chin, and each cheek.

Step 14: This is another optional step. Get out your WHITE again. Paint the musket strap as required. highlight the turnbacks, without completely covering the RED. Touch up any other WHITE areas as required.

Step 15: Paint the ground using your GROUND COLOUR. Probably this is some sort of green or brown, but I guess it could be anything.

And you're done! Simple, right?

Adler FN 18A - "Artillery crew (1812)". These were painted using the MFPMFPAF method, with only a differences from the example pieces: blue trousers, no crossbelts, pure red turnbacks.

Now you have to glue those minis to their bases, add a bit of sand and static grass, and in no time you've got units looking like these:

French line infantry. The pompoms on 'centre' companies can be green, orange, purple or blue; light companies can have green and/or yellow pompoms or plumes, while the grenadier companies are supposed to sport red plumes.

French infantry, showing a few of the many available variations in pose and equipment. Adler actually produces 19,629,486 different product codes for the French infantry alone, accounting for most of the major troop types in some of the more common wargames poses. I have it on good authority that Oompa Loompas are working feverishly to fill in the gaps.

Spanish Fly

There is one unit in Davout's corps that I couldn't paint using MFPMFPAF. This was the Joseph Napoleon Regiment.

The Joseph Napoleon Regiment, shown in their white and green unifoms.

One of Napoleon's brothers, Joseph Bonaparte was ostensibly the King of Spain; the entire Spanish army was up in arms against the Bonapartes, however. Much of that Spanish army had actually been 'serving' with French forces in Germany, and while most of these troops escaped aboard British ships and were repatriated to Spain, a few thousand were captured by their erstwhile allies. These Spanish POWs were pressed back into service as the Joseph Napoleon Regiment, intended to form the core of King Joseph's new army. In the event, the Regiment never saw service in Spain, or under Spanish colours; as a unit of the French army it marched into Russia in 1812, only to be bled white by that campaign.


Mike and the Amazing Technicolour Grasslands

Readers of previous posts here at the Leadpile may have noticed a gradual evolution in my basing techniques. One of my inspirations has been 6milphil's excellent basing style, which combines layers of flock with layers of static grass. Of course, being in mid-project meant that I could hardly abandon my own previous method, but I've been doing a bit of tweaking, and have been pleased with the results so far.

Bourdessoulle's brigade tramples some different grasses.

I've been using the excellent Baccus Basing System pretty much universally since I picked it up, and this latest batch is no different. Since my first lukewarm review, the BBS has definitely grown on me. It uses sand as a base medium, drybrushed consecutively with several colours of paint to bring out the texture. While both quicker and more realistic results can be attained by other techniques, the BBS is a consistent, elegant, and versatile method, well-suited to customization.

So what have I done with it, you ask?

The above example illustrates some of my current basing fetishes:
1. I've gone with a coarser grade of sand than that provided by Baccus, which makes drybrushing easier. As a personal preference, I also like to use several layers of sand, building up the 'ground' until it's flush with the metal base of the figures themselves.

2. This is the static grass that came with the BBS - I believe it's actually KJ0850 "Light Green Mix" from Realistic Modelling; maybe someone can confirm or deny this. At any rate, it's a pretty standard mix of yellow, light green and red strands. It contrasts well with the BBS drybrushing, and in 6mm contrast is everything. While I feel that a few different 'flavours' of grass or flock will improve the realism of a base, I've found that making one 'flavour' dominant (i.e. 50% or more of the foliage on the base) improves the overall look. To match my older stuff, based in vanilla BBS style, I've made this grass dominate.

3. This green-brown mix makes good dying grass. I've used it around the edges of the greener stuff, as well as around rocks and logs -- delineating dry or rocky areas where plants might have trouble growing. This particular mix is miniNatur 002-29 "Short hay, 2mm", from Angel Barracks.

Girardin's cavalry brigade, on a base showing different grasses to good effect.

4. I've used a few patches of more intense green as well. This could represent a different species of plant, or wetter and more nutrient-rich lowlying areas. The mix is a combination of the monochrome miniNatur 002-22 "Grass flocking 2mms. Summer", also from Angel Barracks, with a sprinkling of the venerable 99229999055 "Static Grass" from Games Workshop for variation. Most of us probably realize that static grass is made from nylon, but it's supposed to look like real grass. Blending colours helps promote the illusion; a monochrome swathe just looks like astroturf.

5. While it's tough to make out in the picture, I've also added a few 6milphil-inspired patches of oldschool foam flocking. This represents moss or weeds, again furthering the impression that your armies are marching across a living, breathing ecosystem. This is a mixture of Woodland Scenics T41 "Fine Turf - Soil", T42 "Fine Turf - Earth", and some long out-of-production green and yellow stuff.

6. I'm also trying to put a point of interest on each base. This isn't necessarily something to draw attention; a log, a puddle, drummers, or in this case a boulder can serve. These are just little things your brain can pick up on unconsciously to differentiate each base from the next.

On this base a puddle and a log serve as objects of interest. Note the greener grass around the wet area.

It's tough to see in the picture, but this base features a couple of soldiers struggling to move a stubborn pack mule from their unit's path.

There's the mule again, in the background on the left. I stuck a broken 4-pounder on the base to the right, giving cover to some skirmishers.

I'll shut up now

Enjoy the pictures. Why not leave a comment?







Finally, I'd like to wish a happy Thanksgiving to any fellow Canadians out there. Also a happy Columbus Day (whatever that is) to the Yanks, and just happy... day... to everyone else.

Next time: something different.