Coastal Forces

I've been churning out cheap and cheerful 1/1200th WW2 coastal forces vessels for about four weeks now. So I thought I'd post a quick fleet review. Here's what I've done so far.

The latest additions are the two destroyers (one German and one British) you can see top-left. They're pretty much the biggest ships you're likely to encounter in a game.

Making Coastal Forces

Thomas suggested in a post that I do a tutorial on how I put my ships together. To be honest it isn't that easy as I put them together in odd moments during the day, so am not always in a position to take useful pictures of each stage in the process. But here's a few pictures and some basic notes on how I go about making stuff.

Remember, I'm not trying to make realistic scale models here. I just want something that's a step up from using cardboard counters.

First off, the bases of the vessels are the ubiquitous lolly-sticks or coffee-stirrers. You can get these from craft shops. The lolly-sticks are about a centimetre wide and the coffee-stirrers half that. Note that I've found that actual coffee-stirrers, grabbed by the handful from cafes, can be slightly thinner than the craft ones.

The coffee-stirrers are good for the gunboats and torpedo boats. The lolly-sticks work for anything else.

Find the length of the vessel and do the necessary maths to work out how long a piece of stick that equates to. I suppose at this stage I should say that I'm working in 1/1200th scale. It's a good one to work with, since 100 feet on the real thing equates to a nice useful 1" when modelling. Saying that I actually make mine in multiples of 5mm, just because it's easier to measure. Anyway, cut the stick to length. Use the rounded end of the stick as the bow. 

I then shape them with an emery board (the kind you do your nails with). Make the gunboats and torpedo boats look sleek and keep the freighters and so forth looking wide and slab-sided. You'll get a feel for what works.

And here's some cut up and ready to go. I put pencil abbreviations on them to remind me what each one will be: 'SV' for Small Verpostenboot, 'SF' for Small Freighter, 'MF' for Medium Freighter and 'ML' for Motor Launch.

On one I have sketched out what needs to be added in terms of superstructure. That one will be an Isle-class Trawler. In addition I have cut two smaller pieces off the end of a stick to be the raised bow of two of the vessels. The bits were to hand, so I did them before I took the picture.

Loads of steps skipped here, but here's three Fairmile B motor launches and the Isle-class Trawler. The superstructure is small sections of lolly-stick, or bits of matchstick. I used thin card from a cereal packet to build up some of it as well. The masts are pieces of florists wire - drill a small hole and pop it in with some glue. The gun turrets/platforms are made with the two things you see at the top of the picture; the shaft of a cotton-bud* and a Hama bead. I cut sections from them with a sharp blade.

Anyway, I have a look at pictures of actual vessels and then work out what the key features and shapes are and replicate them using whatever's to hand. All stuck together with PVA glue, aside from the masts which are superglued in.

I mount each on a base, and then paint it grey. The base is painted in blue. This is temporary; it means I can use them relatively guilt-free because they are kind of painted. But at some stage I will start painting them properly.

The big blank bases are blinds for the hidden movement component of the game. They are made from what I guess are tongue depressors. They're big fat lolly-sticks, anyway. I picked up a ton of them from, of all places, a barbers shop that was shut down by the police for being a money-laundering operation. They were easier to get home than the pool table.

Anyway, I hope you found that useful. As you can see, the whole process is pretty obvious when you break it down. The end results won't win any prizes, but they give the right vibe, and that's what I was after.

Update: I've cut small pieces of wire and started adding guns. Really improves the models.

*Plastic-shafted cotton-buds may be harder to find as there's a move back to the old paper shafts now. I bought a lifetime's supply a few years ago, though.

Ten Years Ago - August 2015

This blog has been around for over 13 years now and has, I think, seen a fair amount of activity compared to many. The other day I was idly looking through old posts and sometimes came across things that I didn't even remember posting.

So I thought that it would be fun to resurrect an old post each month, and I have decided to go back ten years to do it. Hopefully it will allow me to revisit forgotten projects and maybe introduce you to things you haven't seen before.

So as we begin August 2025, let's have a look at something I was up to ten years ago.

Oddly enough I was playing a lot of games with my Risk-figure Great Northern War armies, mostly using a variant of the rules in One Hour Wargames. I was also working through my horribly stalled project to play all of the One Hour Wargames scenarios in order. And I was coming to the point where I was going to play the Fortified Defence scenario, which needed some forts.

So I built a couple of redoubts. 

This is the final post, that shows the finished products. There's three posts in August 2015 that show the build process, step by step.

So hop in your time machine and read In Which I Make A Redoubt - Part 4

I've barely used the redoubts since I made them. That needs to change, I reckon.

And here's the whole of August 2015

Calots

Whilst painting my Green Martians I found a pack of Black Hat's Martian Wolves. Whilst not entirely book-accurate in terms of looks they are are obviously designed to be the equivalent of the Barsoomian Calot. Green Martians domesticated these beasts as guard-dogs, and it's not unreasonable that they could accompany an army. So today I painted them up as two elements of beasts, giving both of my Green Martian armies the option of some extra bad going capability.

Green Martians riding to the hounds.

Calots go two better than the thoats in that they have ten legs rather than eight. More legs make you go faster.

(With hindsight I should have done one element with a handler instead of the third calot - I have some spare foot figures somewhere) and added the spare calot to  John Carter's element as his faithful companion Woola.)

Warhoon

One of the very first armies I painted for HOTT was Peter Pig's Green Martians. That was back in about 1995 or 1996. Since then I have put together six other Barsoomian armies. In fact one of the earliest posts on this blog showcased them.

Anyway, the Green Men of Barsoom are found across the planet in various tribes (or hordes) who fight everyone, including (and especially) other Green Martian hordes. So, whilst I have four Red Martian armies who can fight each other, my Green Martians have, up until now, been starved of an opponent of their own ilk.

I bought a second Peter Pig army back in late 2013. At the time I joked that I'd probably have the painted in 2024. I was wrong. I finished them this morning - over halfway through 2025. They sat in the packaging they arrived in until two years ago, when I got them out and actually put a couple of coats of paint on them. Then they sat for nearly two years mocking me until last week when I finally bit the radium bullet and got on with finishing them

So here we are - my second Green Martian army for HOTT:

For head-canon purposes they are the hordes of Warhoon, who are pretty unpleasant even for Green Martians and crop up a couple of times in the books. The army is pretty simple - eight knights (including the general) and four shooters.

 I gave them a battle-scarred general with a big skull-crusher of a war-hammer.

I also took the opportunity to tidy up my other Green Martian army. They have, up until now, been led by their hero general (John Carter's best buddy, Tars Tarkas) although I had an extra knight element I could drop into it so I could down grade the hero to a knight and use the hordes as a more generic one. However they always got the heroic-looking leader, which irked me. So I made a new knight general element for the first army. Now they can masquerade as the hordes of Torquas, Thurd or whatever. I scratchbuilt a wicked-looking sabre for him, to make him stand out.

Flushed with the success of that sword, I made another and gave it to Tar Tarkas, to make him look extra heroic. 

Just a reminder of how big these chaps are; here's Tars Tarkas riding alongside his bosom friend, John Carter and the incomparable Dejah Thoris.

John Carter takes on the Jeddak of the Warhoon. All in a day's work for the Warlord of Mars.

Naturally my intent for their first game - when I get chance to play it - is a dust-up between two Green Martian hordes. Here's a preview of how awesome that will look.

Next in line is another Red Martian army. The four I have all represent specific city states. I have one - Gathol - that is pretty close to being a 'generic' Red Martian army, but I actually have enough figures and airships to do another. This can then masquerade as an army friendly to John Carter (Ptarth), somewhat neutral (Kaol) or a definite foe (Dusar). And with nine armies I think I'll be done*.

*Until I find some figures to do Yellow Martians ...

Nottoman Commanders

Having finished my Nottoman army last week I realised that I needed to do a few commander for it, in case I used them with rules that require commander figures.

So here they are - one splendid C-in-C and a couple of underlings.

I actually did some for my Swedes and Russians years ago, but I'm mot sure I ever did a post abut them. But  they crop up in photos from time to time if you're observant.

Pioneers

Sometimes a scenario calls for a detachment of engineers or pioneers to clear a road, build a bridge or (maybe) blow one up. So I made one.

I was out most of yesterday but found some time in the afternoon to put these chaps together using scraps of wire and wood on my desk, then painted them in the evening.

I only did two bases because I reasoned they'd mostly be fielded as markers or a small unit. I did them in a generic brown uniform that would look suitable for any 18th century army.

Light Infantry

I did a few units of light infantry for my Russians and Swedes. For strict Great Northern War games these are not needed as light infantry weren't really a thing then. But sometimes it's nice to just use the armies for generic 18th century games using One Hour Wargames or the various Grant scenarios, and they often need light infantry. 

There's little difference between these figures and the line infantry. I just clipped off the bayonets. And, obviously, there's fewer figures per base.

Nottomans 4

OK, so four years ago I conceived the idea of doing an ersatz Ottoman army to go with my GNW Russians and Swedes. I would use Risk figures, which would limit how close I could get to actual Ottomans. But I could produce something with a suitable Eastern vibe. Two years ago I finally completed the line and light infantry, and started on the a cavalry and artillery.

Over two years later I finished the artillery and cavalry. I put off starting them for most of that time and did the actual work in just over seven days. Because that's how I roll.

Anyway, here they are - three units of heavy cavalry, four of light cavalry and three batteries of guns.

The light cavalry. I kept the base figure for one unit, but with the others I either modelled them with lances instead of teh sword, or game them shields, or gave them both.

And I did much the same for the heavy cavalry.

Finally the guns. These were done exactly the same way as the Swedish and Russian guns, but are maybe a tad more colourful.

And here's the full army. It was conceived for use with Simplicity in Practice, and consists of four units of line infantry, four units of light infantry, three batteries of gun, four units of light cavalry and three units of heavy cavalry/dragoons. Naturally the army will work for any late 17th/18th century set of rules I play around with.

The final stage is do do two or three commander figures.

The Banner

I did this after I finished my Gentleman's Gentlemen regiment for Turnip 28. I felt that The Captain didn't really stand out as a snob, and that the unit needed a flag and a motto. So I put this together a few weeks ago. I just hadn't posted a picture of it until today.

It's a mix of Photoshop, clipart and painting. The fringe was done by carefully cutting the bottom of the paper banner with a very sharp blade. The whole thing pops into a little tube on the figure's back.

Fodder

When I made The Gentleman's Gentlemen for Turnip 28 I used British Napoleonic Line bodies with Martian heads on them. This left me with a pile of headless Martian bodies and a load of spare British Napoleonic heads.

It seemed a shame to waste them, so here's the start of my next Turnip 28 force - a unit of fodder made  up from the leftovers.

I added tubes to the ray-guns to make them into hand-cannons. The masks (or are they?) are milliput.

They are about a head shorter than a regular 28mm figure, but I didn't think it matters. 

Obviously there's still some finishing off to do on the flag and the bases, but that will get done later. I've started on another unit of fodder, although that uses different figures and a different vibe.

Sergeant Potato

Today I finished off the fifth unit for my Gentleman's Gentlemen regiment for Turnip 28 - the lump, Sergeant Potato. He featured in the previous post as a piece of terrain, but here he is all complete, with the base done and his medals and sergeant's stripes.

In Turnip 28 a lump is a murderous monster akin to a behemoth in 'Hordes of the Things'. Quite hard to kill early on, their ability to resist damage degrades as the game progresses. They are purely close-combat fighters, as you might expect. And they are a single-figure unit.

Sergeant Potato started out as a random monster of some kind I 3D-printed a few years ago, for use in giant monster gaming. I never really liked how it turned out, so never gave it a proper paint. Last week I dragged it out of my Pile of Shame, and went to work on it. I added lots of tendrils, naturally. I also used milliput to make him extra lumpy, and to completely remodel the head. The smaller spots are the tops of the Martian heads I cut off in order to add the top hats to the other figures in the regiment; if you look closely you can see the brain texture. The top hat and medals are scratchbuilt.

Here's a closeup.

I undercoated him brown with the intent of painting him with a turnip colour-scheme (off-white and purple), but when I showed the undercoated model to my wife she said that it looked like a potato, and I could immediately see what she meant. So I went with that instead.

My regiment is designed to be four units strong, so one of them would be swapped for Sergeant Potato. His hat can be removed as well, so the Sergeant could find himself in other regiments (maybe with different hats if I can be bothered making them).

Whelps

The final unit for my Turnip 28 regiment The Gentleman's Gentlemen. These are Whelps, which are basically light cavalry. They're based on Perry Russian/Prussian multi-part plastic Napoleonic cavalry that I bought last year. I've not painted cavalry figures this big before and found them a little intimidating, but they came out OK in the end.

 I'll get some pictures of the whole force tomorrow.

Toadies

 A couple more figures for my ongoing Turnip 28 regiment, The Gentleman's Gentlemen.

These are Toadies, the sub-commanders of the regiment. In the red coat is The Captain and in the purple coat The Milliner.

Bases to be finished when the whole regiment is done. I've started on a fourth unit, which will complete it, but will probably do a fifth so I have some options.

More Brutes

I've been away on a short holiday (celebrating my wedding anniversary in Central NSW), so haven't done much painting or gaming over the past week. However when I got back I finished off another unit of Brutes for Turnip 28. This now gives me three completed units, plus one Snob.

As with the previous unit, these are armed with black-powder weapons.

However when I was assembling the twelve figures I gave some of them shields, and ended up lumping the ones I'd done that to into one unit. They also have a couple of sword-armed figures, so at a pinch I'm happy to run them as melee-weapon figures (they have no powder for their muskets).

I have two Snobs waiting to be painted, and then I need to put together a fourth unit. I have the figures to do some cavalry (which will have the same top-hatted Martian vibe), and might also make a Lump as an alternative. The fourth unit slot is something I can feel can be played with and varied from game to game.