Age of Eagles (AoE) - 1810 Battle of Bussaco in 20mm (part 4) - The buildings of the Battlefield

Along the years I put together enough Bussaco buildings to represent the entire battlefield structures. Still missing is the mountain itself that will be built in styrofoam. 

This one is the famous Convento dos Carmelitas Descalços in the center of the walled forest park and also the place were the Palace Hotel grew leaning against its back. Wellesley stayed here before the battle and his horse was tied to an olive tree that still stands a few 5 meters from the cross.  Its a very old card Draper Model that existed for sale in the Military Museum of Bussaco decades ago. It was very easy to put together as many of its features, like the stairs, were only printed.  

This back view can still be seen from the Palace Hotel. 

This is another Draper Model that represents the Capela do Encarnadouro that served as an hospital during the battle. Nowadays its the Military Museum of the Battle of Bussaco. 

Its condition nowadays is quite pristine so I made it look a bit older and decaying as it probably looked during the battle. 

Also from Draper Models are the two next windmills. They are simple affairs and this one represents Sula windmill from were the famous Crawfurd directed the volleys of its Light Infantry Brigade on Loison's Division.

The other one is Massena's Headquarters at the village of Moura. 

This one already showed in the first two parts of this series and its the Capela de Santo António do Cântaro.

The model is scratchbuilt in card with some wood for the three crosses on the roof top.

This is Leith's windmill very close to the place were violent hand to hand combat ocurred in the eastern part of the battlefield. 

It was also scratchbuilt in card, wood and tissue. Unfortunately its nowadays a private building and its closed with a metal door. Besides it stands in a very difficult place to find in the battlefield due to the access and the damn eucaliptus that floods the area. 

Now for the local's houses. These ones are from Draper Models and were intended to represent Sula Village. 

This small lot was bought in Serra da Estrela, 100km from Bussaco, and are resin handicraft small houses. After a repaint they look quite similar to the houses that existed in the villages around the battlefield. 

Size is aproximately 15mm which is the size of most of these buildings, ideal for 20mm figures. 

This other group are some card houses from a very old Portuguese collection. Also simple to build I varnished them with Wood Glue, as I do with all my card models, so they can gain a bit of the plastic strenght and endure the years.

The two houses in the corner didn't have painted backs so I made some drawings there and placed some colour.

Next: The start of Ney's Corps with Marchand Division. 

Rapid Fire! 20mm D-Day, the British beaches- (part 7) Sword Seawall

The Seawall for Sword  Beach is already finished. Everything is made out of blue board. I textured the beach side with sand and the interior side with paint to look like concrete. All Tobruks have a rear door as you can see on the middle right model. On the left another open emplacement for the 50mm guns is made again in blue board.

With a total of 1,20 meters of seawall I hope to have enough for all three British Beaches. According to the RF! D-Day supplement this amount of seawall looks enough but there was plenty more in other places as Colin was probably worried with playability of the scenarios. Probably the same reason for not including anti-tank ditches on the maps in spite of them being shown in the pictures of the book.

I used some plastic circles from the DIY shop for the Mg holes.

 German side view with a Britannia figure.

Rapid Fire! 20mm D-Day, the British Beaches - (Part 6) A few more Sword bits.

For the WN18 I already finished the observation tower and the Casino strongpoint. The true casino was levelled by the Germans and this building was built on top of it dominating a good part of the beach. The only place were I found some proper information was in 'D-Day Then and now ' books.

The first layer of the strongpoint is hard styrofoam which includes the barrel of the casemated 75mm French gun.

The second layer is a resin model of the standard AA type bunker from an unknown manufacturer.

Maybe I make a full WN18 in the future the problem being that this one will be pretty large and not easy to store.

In the mortar Tobruk there is an Italeri 81mm mortar. The sandbagged position can be useful for an extra Mg but doesn't make part of the original. 

The observation tower became a bit crude in the end of painting and I could have added some more details. Maybe I'll do it when WN18 is made as a whole piece.

The Britannia 20mm Flak gun was added to the roof. 

Two torsos of German figures were added for a "Sie Kommen" effect. 

A little bit inland of Sword beach on the western sector stood a 'chateau' from which I couldn't find much information. I made this one in heavy card inspired by the one from Raventhorpe.

The roof can be lifted as well as the 1st floor and plenty of figures can be placed inside. 

These Tobruks  are useful for several of the British beaches. Some will end by being integrated in one piece WN's. 

Some have Italeri machine gunners. 

Others have French tank turrets. 

Next: probably the last battalion of the British 6th Tank Brigade. 

American War of Independence - Will McNally's rules - Trees for Brandywine

I've been thinking for long about a process to make cheap trees. Of course the available trees in the HO scale train market are much better but they are also stupidly expensive. 

This Brandywine scenario requires a lot of them and so I tried my favourite material to work with: hard styrofoam (Roofmate). 

First you cut cubes (or whatever shape you want) from styrofoam 4cm plate, the one you use to isolate the roof or walls of your house. 

Then you glue them together with a hot glue gun. Don't forget the tree trunk. Barbecue sticks or old paint brushes, I use them all. 

The most important part comes next while you use a soldering stick to open holes and crevices all over the styrene until a tree like shape is obtained.

As it is winter you get a nice warmth but also a stinky smell, so forget winter and do it in an open area! 

Finally you use some cheap modelling paste and stick it around the end of the trunk to simulate surface roots.  While the paste is drying you can carve the small roots in it. 

Finally glue to the MDF base some loose bits of carved styrene all around to look like boulders. 

Now painting: paint everything black mixed with PVA glue to strengthen the acrylic paint. No spray as it will damage the styrene. 

Then apply greens, yellows and browns according to your taste. 

Another advantage of these trees is that you can make a large group like this one just in a few hours all along maybe two or three days allowing drying time.

These trees are cheap and you can't make two alike, like in nature. 

I'll show you soon how my Brandywine table is going and you will see that these trees goes well alongside the commercial available ones (I hope...😰). 

AOE 28mm Waterloo - Hougoumont compound and La Haie Sainte

From the French lines you would have a certain difficulty trying to grasp the size and importance of  Hougoumont in the morning of the Waterloo battle, adding to that some poor reconnaissance and maps.

Now you can't see them but on those days the woods of Hougoumont hide the complex from French eyes which led Napoleon not to pay the attention it deserved with catastrophic consequences for his side. 

The model of Hougoumont is an old Draper model bought from Miniatures Wargames a few years ago and I think still available. 

I followed mainly this drawing from the Carnets de la Campagne Vol.1, dedicated to Hougoumont. 

But in order to portray the full Hougoumont complex you need an orchard with an hedgerow looking at the French side ...

 

... and a garden enclosed by a new outer brick wall and an inner masonry wall. 

The pigeon house doesn't come in the model so you need to build it. This one is from card. I also made some thatched roofs using old pieces of linen as on the model on the Waterloo cyclorama. 

The famous South Gate of Hougoumont. 

The model of the chateau is designed for 20mm but goes well with 28mm as the true Hougoumont in 28mm fills any decent table leaving no room for anything else. 

Let's move a bit to the east. 

La Haie Sainte is the Airfix model with a few additions. 

It's necessary a small orchard looking south and a pond inside the farm...

... and also a garden looking north.

And here you have two of the main "breakwaters" of Wellington.

Rapid Fire! 20mm - Normandy Bocage (corners)

A few more pieces of terrain for Normandy, this time some corners for Bocage hedgerows.

Also made are some fields, everything glued to those floor tiles I mentioned in the last two posts.

On the left side of picture you have a 50mm PAK just for scale.

The construction method can be seen in the Bocage tutorial of two posts ago. Nothing new just my will to have a Normandy landscape filled with green bocage.