Expansion of the farm

You may remember the farm I had built for me in an earlier post, well, I've been inspired by a photo I came across to build a vineyard that will sit adjacent to it.

This photo which comes from Paul Darnell's Touching History blog shows the sort of thing I'm aiming to achieve. Bill Gaskin made the vineyards, terrain board and painted the figures - Paul made the hundred or so buildings.

The vineyard looks like quite a simple design. A large rectangular base with some stakes stuck in it with wire running between them. Then some trunks added and some foliage. Can't be too hard - can it?!

I've bought issue 1 and 2 of Paul's 'Touching History' scenery making guides in the hope something like this is covered. These books cover the Spanish Napoleonic period (don't worry - I'm not starting a new period!) and the English Civil War which will be helpful for my other project. I thought, as my Romans will mostly be fighting in a mediterranean environment, the Spanish scenery would be fairly similar and so this book would be useful!

Travel Chaos

As I'm sure you're aware, there has been unprecedented disruption to European air travel as a result of the volcanic eruption in Iceland. What was meant to be a nice little break in Florence, Italy, soon became the holiday from hell.

You'll be pleased to hear I'm now safely back in the UK and ready to get back on with my ever-growing list of things to do. I have a very busy period over the next month with coursework and exams for University but finish on the 25th May. Following this, I'll be focussing solely on my wargaming projects until the end of July when I go to London to work for the rest of my summer holidays.

I wouldn't expect many updates between now and then but I can assure you, when I have a spare few hours, i'll be working hard on my Roman and ECW projects along with my multi-period terrain board!

Apologies for the lack of posts since Christmas when it was all looking so promising! But thank you to those who keep coming back for reference or new visitors looking for help and advice! For details of my ECW project, check out my other blog here.

BigRedBatRiver

Here are a few snaps of the river I received a few weeks ago from prolific blogger and wargamer Simon, otherwise known as BigRedBat. They're made from modelled polystyrene but I can't tell what they've been textured with.

They'd make great additions to any battlefield from Ancient times to WWII and beyond. They could even act as canals, given the raised lip of the bank

This pic shows the full extent of the pieces that make up the model river and as you can see, there's quite a number of different options for potential layouts!

Things I hate this week: basing and the weather (it's stopping me going out to undercoat and varnish figures!). Into the ECW and AWI? Click here for my latest project.