Three Mud Huts

Over the holidays I made three more mud huts.

And my daughter made a house for a goblin sorcerer.

Happy New Year!

A Mud Hut

After a long summer break, I just finished the first of eight mud huts I'm currently working on. It's painted and varnished now. Ready to play. 

Walls and roof are made of papier mâché, with stripes of coloured paper added for the straw on the roof. The door frame is made of green stuff.

Orc Head for a Hand Puppet

I spent a rainy Sunday afternoon in October making hand puppets with the children and took the opportunity to make an orc head.

It looks a bit like my grandfather from my mother's side and still needs to be painted.

Anybody know if Humbrol enamel paint and gloss varnish work well on paper mache?

Happy Halloween!

Karl

Foam Board Hexagons

I'm currently working on something quite boring. I have two boxes, filled with 150 hexagons cut out of foam board.

They are large enough to put several 28 mm miniatures on them. I want to use the hexagons to play Commands & Colors and to make my own strategy game.

Therefore I'm glueing colored paper onto them. This is a complicated technique which takes a lot of time.

The other day I told Krüger: "Krüger, I started to work on the hexagons again." He said: "After a couple of years, some projects come to a point where you just need to give up."

Here in Berlin, where I live, late autumn is cold and dark and many of my friends become gloomy and loose their energy.

The Waltrop Campaign / Day 8 / HotT Battle Report

On day 8 of the Waltrop Campaign young officer Fibos asked general Heracleides: "Please allow me to lead a small army into the Orc territory." (He is talking about hexagon 30 on the campaign map.) Heracleides accepted.

Krüger and I played out the battle between Fibos army and the Orcs with the excellent ruleset Hordes of the Things, using these army lists:

Spears General (officer Fibos), 5 Spears, 2 Riders, 4 Shooters

and

Warband General (Krüger can’t be bothered to make up a name for his general), 5 Warbands, 1 Hero, 2 Riders, 2 Shooters

I played the Greeks. I was the defender and had to place the terrain. I have just finished a paper mache hill which took me a long time to make, a couple of years actually. If this interests you, you can read more about it here. I placed the paper mache hill in the center of the board. I also placed three pieces of tropical forest on the tabletop, a large one and two small ones.

Both armies started with some elements in the woods and ran for the hill. When the battlelines met, some elements were left behind, two shooters on my side and two shooters on Krüger’s side.

It was my turn when the dice for close combat were rolled for the first time.

I started with a fight on my right side where I had an overlap. My slingers, supported by another element of shooters, destroyed one of Krüger’s Orc riders. Then my luck left me. Two of my spears were fighting two Orc warbands and lost the fight, although they were supported by an element of shooters on their right side. Then my general and another element of spears were destroyed by the Orc general. Thus I lost the battle. The Greeks weren’t able to occupy hexagon 30 on the campaign map.

"What was the problem, Fibos?"

"I had never fought on a hill before, Heracleides. I thought, we had to be on the hill before the barbarians could reach it. When our phalanx reached the slope of the hill, with some troops still left behind in the woods, I realized my mistake, but we couldn’t go back. We destroyed their cavalry but then they crushed us. They are horrible creatures, green and bulky."

"You have to be more patient. Wait for the enemy, until he is where you want him."

"Yes, Heracleides."

"If you make another mistake like this, I will send you back to the academy in Athens and have you study philosophy and mathematics."

"Yes, Heracleides."

Problems Making Papier Mâché Wargaming Hills

I enjoy making objects out of papier mâché. Masks, hexagons, walls, hills. I made these two hills about 6 years ago. I like the way they look but unfortunately they don’t work well as hills in a wargame. They are 3,50 cm high and have a smooth surface. Figures slide down or fall off.

Now I’m working on a hill that’s much flatter. It’s 1,50 cm high. I can’t make it flatter, I think. Then it wouldn’t look like a hill any more. It would look like a piece of area terrain.

Making a hill from papier mâché might not be the best idea, but as I said I like the material. It’s my favorite material. It’s my intention to make a hill that lies flat on the tabletop board. Unfortunately, each time I apply a layer of paper to a papier mâché object with wallpaper paste, the object changes its form while the paper dries. So it takes a long time to make a papier mâché hill that lies flat on the floor, possibly forever if you want a perfect hill.

I started to make this hill 2 or 3 years ago. In January I said to myself: Ok, two years are a long time to make a papier mâché hill. I have to finish this project now. I have to change my technique.

So I thought about ways to stabilize the object and applied a layer of Milliput, a self-hardening modeling clay which can be carved and sanded. This works a bit better but the hill still changes its form when it dries.

Maybe you think: Whatever. These are hobby problems. Not really important in a time when our environment is changing rapidly, reminding some of us of the big changes that happened 65 million years ago and lead to the extinction of dinosaurs.

Or you experienced problems making papier mâché hills yourself and can offer some advice on solving them?

I hope I can finish the hill soon. And start three more.

What I'm Working On

A palm tree.

Area terrain.

Chessmen.

A hill.

Stones.

What I'm Working on

A green creature.

A hill.

Hexagons.

What I'm Working on

5 green creatures.

6 pieces of area terrain.

What I'm Working on

5 green creatures.

6 pieces of area terrain. (Marsh and rough.)

A checkerboard.

To Do List

I tend to get distracted and start new things all the time, so Marjorie, my wife, convinced me to use 'to do lists' to organize my life. Buy storage boxes. Buy a kitchen knife. Go to the dentist. Paint a chair.

On the back of my regular 'to do list' I have a 'to do list' for hobby related stuff.

It says:

Paint 5 green creatures.

Sculpt 2 bamboo men.

Sculpt 2 horses.

Make a hill.

I don't think this is what Marjorie had on her mind when she talked to me about 'to do lists'.