Terrain

Though the ground cloth wasn't the best for table top use due to cats, it has worked well as a cover for the redneck gaming table. To go on that, I have started working on some terrain. I purchased some 1/8" MDF sheet, cut some rectangles to DBA, 1/2 FE, 1 FE and 2 FE sizes then free handed some ovals and cut them out using the band saw. I then beveled the edges using the belt sander. If you are going to do this, a dust extraction system and mask are highly advisable. I put a 1/2 FE and a 1 FE aside to become swamps for my Scots-Irish. The rest were painted green giving me generic tree or hill blocks.

The swamps had their centres routed out for the water bits. Even more dust and honestly not really necessary. The deep routing caused the boards to warp and I had to back fill the large central cavity with wood putty to provide a surface for the troops to stand on. Next time I will just route out a few selected pools - much less work and dust that way.

The next project was trees. Back in my model railroad days, I had been given a pine forest. I dug these out and prepared them as per instructions. Since I would need to be able to move the trees around the the troops on the field, I cut out some MDF disks using a blind hole saw and beveled the edges using the belt sander. Small MDF disks can really fly. I painted the disks green and drilled mounting holes to spec for the trees as I epoxied them into place. A quick snip for any trunks projecting  from the bottom and a kiss from the belt sander and they were flat and ready to go. Last step is to put the flocking on the branches.
I'm well pleased with the result.

I

Last Wednesday's DBMM game

George was back over with the Successors and Persians. I set up the redneck table again so there was lots of room for a 300 point game. I put my companions in the centre with the pike command on the left and the Cv on the right.  I was able to adjust my line a bit and lined up the companions against the spear group, horse on horse on the right and pikes against Cv. I started well up the map and pushed forward. The result was as expected - I lost. The Companions stuck into the spear and gnawed away at them almost bursting through by the last turn but not without getting chewed up themselves. The horse on my right stared at each other angrily without doing much. The pike ground forward. At turn two I split the double ranks into two lines - I had learned my lesson about useless deep formations of pike.

Lessons learned:

• I need to learn to handle the Companions better but at least I didn't dither about with them
• I need to move away from a three block deployment. With that much horse on the board, I could have spread the pikes out in a long line and covered most of the field.
• I need to pay more attention to ME.