Alamo 20mm (part 2) - the Alamo compound

And now for the Alamo itself. Although the 1836 campaign is very interesting no one would care for it if it wasn't for the Alamo. 

This is a very austere group of buildings of obvious religious influence as the place was a former mission. 

I used mainly styrofoam and thick card for the buildings themselves and toothpicks or matches for the wooden parts of the revetments. Some roofs are pieces of cloth painted and textured to look like straw or thin wood. 

The Alamo seen from the west (from San Antonio de Bexar).

From the south. At the end you can see La Villita. 

The chapel was completely derelict by the date of events.

Entrance of the chapel. 

All eventual entrances for the chapel, as well as any of other parts of the Alamo, were blocked to create extra defences. 

The cattle compound. 

The north wall seen from the square.

The north wall was in worse condition than the rest of the walls as it served for target practice (???) for the texans before the battle. Yes, not a very clever idea: it was the place of the main attack by the Mexicans. 

The west lunette. 

The south west corner.

The south lunette guarding the main entrance. 

The abattis and defences of the south east gap. 

The south west corner seen from the Inside of the Alamo. 

The cattle compound from the Mexican side. 

The 17 parts of the Alamo ready to return to the shelves.

Next: the figures. 

Alamo 20mm (part 1) - Wargames rules

These are some rules I wrote a few years ago for the Texan war of independence.

The Alamo building drives any model maker crazy as well as the last - and great - 2004 movie on the battle. 

When I was a kid I remember seeing the old John Wayne Alamo and got hooked. This was one of the things one day had to come out. 

The campaign itself is a very interesting piece of history in which we can see the enormous desire of the USA to extend its borders at the usual expenses of neighbours. 

Hope you enjoy them. Any doubts, don't hesitate. Sorry for not having a translation but every street throughout the world has a nice Portuguese guy always ready to help! 

Pineapple Miniatures - 1/32nd scale - Mamelukes

First group of four Mamelukes from Italeri are already in Museu Militar do Buçaco. 

The Mamelukes were not in Buçaco of course but a detachment was on the peninsula and were used against the  Madrid riots on the 2 de Mayo as Goya portrait shows. 

On the back of picture you can see Sula, no, no, not the 2nd place for the battle of Buçaco but my dog. 

Detail of the Mamelukes. 

ACW-Fire and Fury, 20mm- Gettysburg buildings Codori House (part 17)

The Codori house was central in the famous Pickett's Charge on the 3rd day of the battle of Gettysburg. Most of the confederates could see the house as they advanced towards the union defensive line.

Here is a simple reconstitution using the usual materials ( card and styrofoam). 

Remember to keep it on the small size. Mine is 7cm lenght (not counting the base), 4,5cm width and 7 cm height. 

The information came from the web were you can see different interpretations as the original house exists no more and the new one doesn't seem to be a fair replica. I mixed several of these interpretations for the final result. 

And now let's get back to Waterloo in 28mm.

Why? Have no idea!

ACW-Fire and Fury, 20mm- Gettysburg buildings Bryan house and Bliss farm (part 16)

Two more: the Bryan house, close to the Angle and the Copse of Trees of Pickett's charge and the Bliss farm, a place of great importance in the action of the second day at Gettysburg.

Once again card all over and just the chimney at Bryan's and the mound of the farm were made of styrofoam.

From the loop-holes of the farm the confederate sharpshooters found a lot of targets.

The fire place of Bryan's house could be seen from the outside. I messed with the planking as all of it should be horizontal, but I hope you didn't notice it, right? 

ACW-Fire and Fury, 20mm- Gettysburg buildings, part 3, Gettysburg college or the building inside the Kinder surprise (part 15)

The Gettysburg college is the missing building for the day 1 in Gettysburg.

I Couldn't find anyone doing this particular building, so mine had to be quite improvised.

Most of this was copied from the back cover of Fire and Fury rule book were you can see Union XI corps being squeezed into town and later into cemetery hill. 

The building is mostly card but this time some new materials were necessary.

The base had to have enough room for some trees and lawn.

The roof dome is a Kinder Egg cut to the shape of the cruciform roof.

The columns are those plastic tubes that come along with brushes. In the beginning we all say "I solely swear to use these plastic tubes after every wash of it's fellow brush" but we generally discard them after some usage. So they can find some utility as architectural columns.

The stairs are some German made hard plastic ones I bought many years ago. They can be easily cut. The kind of expensive stuff that you never regret buying. 

The chimneys are Blueboard cut into shape. The chimneys top is better to be card or other hard material in order to protect the  fragile styrofoam. 

Painting is quite straight forward: Black as primer and white all over. Only the windows are troublesome as there are plenty of them.

The making of the roof is better to be made this: you built one of the full parts, ex: the longitudinal one and then you overlap the other one. Do it always with hot glue as it will help disguise the many wrong calculations.

Once again my father's train diorama saw it self without some trees... 

Now for Gettysburg second and third day buildings and structures.

ACW-Fire and Fury, 20mm- Gettysburg buildings (part 14)

These are just finished and intend to represent some more buildings for the 1st day of the battle of Gettysburg (1st of July, 1863).

Thompson's house is one of the pieces of scenery necessary to play Buford's defence on the Chambersburg pike.

McPherson's barn was another place for Buford's defence soon lost to Heth's Division. 

McLean's farm was close to Oak hill and saw Ewell's attack.

The full latest lot. 

And how was this done? Pretty simple stuff as you can see from the unpainted Thompson's house:

You just need -

1- Some good images of the real thing.

2- Card, the stronger the better. 

3- Plywood or other wood you have for the base.

4- Windows and doors glued to the walls as a saving time measure. If you cut or carve the walls for windows or doors you get into serious trouble! I only do this when the building is intended to hold figures. 

5- Styrofoam chimneys with a hard card top part. 

6- Electric glue to put everything together.

Don't forget the golden rules of Wargaming buildings: make it smaller than the real thing ( otherwise you will not have anything else but built up areas in your table ) and only make windows and door with the real size. And, if necessary, save on the number of windows.

Of course painting is the secret for a good finish. You start with black acrylics all over and the usual darker to lighter colours follows. 

You can also see other buildings of the 1st day of Gettysburg in previous posts namely the Lutheran seminary and the Evergreen Cemitery gate house, along with generic houses for the city itself. 

Rapid Fire! 20mm - Walcheren LVT-4

The Airfix LVT-4 Buffalo is a nice kit that also offers a Jeep for free (or the Airfix Jeep offers a Buffalo it depends on the thing you are after).

I just made a few changes:

- ammo boxes and mantlets for the MG's;

- antennae;

- crew;

- and stowage. 

The crew comes from the Matchbox Falklands British paratroopers deprived of the FN rifles of course. They look quite similar to the winter dress the British RMC used on late 1944.

Other crew are the Revell British infantry with Milliput berets. 

The full RF! 8 x Buffalo fleet for Walcheren. 

Fire and Fury 20mm - Gettysburg 1863 - Slocum's XII army corps (at last!! part 13)

More important than this post is this news: Sporting has just became once more champion of this portuguese Futsal season  !!!

Spoooooooorting!!!!

This said I present you my latest work and quite boring in some moments it was : the last 5 brigades for F&F Union XII corps. 

After painting more then 3000 plastic and metal 1/72nd soldiers for the Gettysburg battle I ran out of minis with frock, sack or whatever small coat and had to use the greatcoat ones to finish this large unit. 

Nothing really to do with the hot July days in which the battle occurred. 

On the other hand I can start to think about the battle of Fredericksburg and those long lines of Union  infantry assaulting Marye's Heights all clad in greatcoats... 

The flag bearers are made out of Revell sharpshooters with GreenStuff hands.

The divisional and corps commanders are StreletsR figures that resembled as much as possible the original commanders like Slocum, Geary and Williams. These came both from confederate and union sets. 

Here and there some head swaps were needed for the sake of diversity. 

The rank and file are the usual Revell, Italeri and Imex, all greatcoat dressed. 

With one brigade and all corps artillery already painted for the XII corps these 5 brigade ended maybe 20 years of painting Gettysburg figures. 

The regimental flags are taken from the web. 

The divisional and corps flags are hand painted.  

I can finally say uffffffff... 

Now all seven Union and three Confederate corps are ready for the refight. 

One day hope to show you my full Gettysburg F&F Union and Confederate armies. Be patient my faithful followers as it's a lot of figures and I'll need time to portray them. Meanwhile you can comment favourably en masse this post :)

Pineapple miniatures 20mm - Waterloo lancers and individual minis -Buçaco 1810

New 20mm both boxes and individual hit the shelves of the Buçaco museum:

20 mm Portuguese and French grenadiers. 

Spanish (Talavera 1809) and French line. 

Polish Blue lancers for Waterloo 1815.

Dutch Red lancers for Waterloo 1815.

Next there will be more boxes for Waterloo as the 200th anniversary of this battle is closing by.