“Wagon’s Ho, No!”

Well it was Dead Zone last time so I guess that means it must be more “10mm Wild West” this, Well actually it’s the last of my 10mm figures, the “wagons”. Now I was rather dreading these, not from a painting point of view (though twenty four liveried horses, aren’t my idea of a fun painting session!), but more working out the best sequence in which to do them. You see I could of assembled the whole lot of them which would have made adding the filler on the bases relatively simple, but painting the horses and the basing material a blooming nightmare! Whereas painting the horses and wagons first would be easier but then not catching them with the filler and paint afterwards would be a problem! You see now why I’ve left these till last.

Now I’d ordered some 20x80mm MDF bases for the wagons to go on, I knew these were a little too long (and I could have ordered a custom size) but I wasn’t really sure exactly how long I did want them as they need to be pretty tight to the ends of the base so when they are placed in the ubiquitous “circle” there isn’t too big a gap between the wagons. So after messing about trying the wagons and horses on the bases I marked where I needed to cut off the ends (10mm, making them 70mm long) then taped all six bases together and using my precision mitre, cut off as close to the line as I dared, I then tightened my sanding board in the “workmate” at ninety degrees to the worktop and sanded the ends of the bases (still taped together) down to the line.

I began the wagons themselves by gluing the front wheels to the front axles, and the back wheels in place on the back of the wagons (there was a slight “hiccup” with the wheels, but I’ll hopefully cover this in a future post), I also glued the figures in place too as I decided that it would be easier to paint then “in-situ”, the wagons covers I left off, again to ease the painting of the figures. So after everything went outside for a spraying with some matt black, and was then touched up with more matt black and a brush, all the wagon pieces were painted in chocolate brown, and highlighted with butternut. Then the wheel rims a few other areas were picked out in more black with highlights of chainmail, and the occupants were painted in the same manner and colours as the settlers were the other week (so if you want to know how these were painted, follow the link at the bottom of the page*).

The horses I decided to paint separately so they were glued to coffee stirrers in strips, and undercoated in either chocolate brown (for the majority) or black, they were then highlighted in either chestnut or dark grey, then their tails and manes were added in black highlighted again with dark grey (chestnut horses only of course). Harnesses came next so these were all lined in with more chocolate brown and highlighted with leather brown, and the beams down the sides with a little butternut. Looking at them, they were just a sea of brown, so I thought I’d add a little (a very little!) interest to them by doing their saddles in dark grey, and then adding some socks and nose blazes in coffee and cream.

So now it was time to start putting all the separate pieces together (or the fun part (not)), after careful consideration I decided the best was to glue the right hand front horse to the shaft then add the right hand back horse, I discovered that the front axle wasn’t high enough to keep the shaft straight, so I added a small crosspiece of coffee stirrer under the wheels to lift it up (this was OK as it also meant the bases would be as thick as the figures ones were now), all of these were then glued onto the MDF bases, checking their positions by placing the wagons onto the axle’s. I then “filled” around the horse bases and front wheels, leaving space to add the other horses and wagons rear wheels (are you keeping up?). Once dry I painted over the filler with musket brown, as this would be the base colour for the painting of my bases. Then it was time to add the wagons themselves, so first I glued more small lengths of coffee stirrer between the back wheels and added a bit of filler over these, and painted this in more musket brown before gluing them down onto the bases and front axles, I then added more filler under the wagons and out to the rear of the baes and again painted this in musket brown.

Next I took the wagons canvas covers, I had already painted the front and rear inners in coffee and cream as these would be impossible to paint once fitted. I trial fitted these only to discover that they wouldn’t fit flush to the wagons and were not tall enough to go over the drivers without there being a gap between the canvas and wagon! So taking my trusty greenstuff I ran a “bead” along the bottom edges of the canvas covers before fitting then in place and shaping and smoothing the bead to shape. Next morning after this was dry I painted this new “green line” in black, then the canvas was painted coffee and heavily highlighted in cream. It was at this stage of the proceedings that I gave everything a coat of “Strongtone” Quickshade (including the still separate horses).

When everything was dry it was time to add the other two horses, this meant trial fitting the rear left hand horses, carving away a little of the base filler till there was a gap that the horse would fit perfectly in aligned to the right hand side one, this was then glued into place, before some more filler was spread around it, left to dry and then painted in musket brown. This process was then repeated with the front right hand horses. This just left the bases to be dry-brushed with some sand and coffee paint and a “blow-over” with some matt varnish to finish them off, looking at them now, it looks like a lot of work for what appears to still be just a sea of brown on them! Oh well. I have also been working on my “10mm wagon train attack” rules and once I’ve had chance to try them out, I’ll try and post a quick battle report, and put the rules up in the “Rules wot’ I wrote” section of the blog.

Lastly (if you are still with me after all that!) I present to you my last entry in IRO’s “T” shirt challenge, my new (and specially commissioned) wargames show shirt! As I mentioned to Steve (Maenoferren) a few weeks back I am constantly apportioned the “blame”, for this and that around here, so much so that I had thought of getting a “T” shirt printed! Well IRO’s challenge seemed the perfect excuse for doing just that, along with a little self-advertisement into the bargain. So next time I’m accused to making someone spend money or some such, I can say “Oh yeah, been there, done that, got the T shirt!”

Till next time, stay safe, and cheers Roger.

• https://rantingsfromunderthewargamestable.wordpress.com/2021/03/13/meet-the-new-neighbours/