Making Mexico

So, the countdown has really started.  Friday November 5th is when I'll be running the game at the convention.  And thanks to a crazy work schedule I'm a bit behind and having to work like a fiend!!

The table will be 8 ft x 5 ft which was larger than any gaming mats I had.  So the quick solution was to get a piece of felt cloth cut.  I picked a tan color I liked at the fabric store and had it cut 9 ft x 6 ft. so a little would hang over the edge.  Then I picked up 3 different colors of spray paint and went to work.  Here's the results with some of my terrain as I'm figuring out the final layout.

Also to provide a bit of cover and give it the proper feel for this area of Mexico, I needed some mountains.  I obviously don't want anything too large that will get continually bumped into when folks are reaching for figures, but still large enough to provide some cover and fill in some table space.  I bought a piece of insulation sheath and started cutting away.  Besides the pieces you see in the picture above I have these below getting a good coat of white glue.

At the suggestion of my wife I went to Hobby Lobby and picked up a couple of packages of cacti.  These unfortunately were not that cheap... oh well!  At least I'll have them now.  Mounted on some larger disks and here's the result.  This actually turned out better than I was expected so I'm really pleased with the results.

And finally I finished my Villista artillery crew.  Unfortunately no one makes a crew for Villistas that I could find in 28mm.  So I took a Knuckleduster figure and cut of his pistol so it would look like he's reaching for the gun.  The other figure is from Gringo 40's.  The 75mm is also from Gringo 40's.  Not my best picture, but at this point the battery was going dead so I'll take it.  :)

Hope you are having a great week friends.  Viva Villa!

Rod

Dot - Dash - Dot...

Two more weeks until the convention and I'm furiously working away at the finishing touches to my Mexican Revolution game.  First thing was to add a bit of terrain to the board.  It's not really necessary for the game but visually I think it will give some appeal.  I'm talking about telephone/telegraph poles.  I will have these running parallel to my train tracks.  I got these at the hobby store.  They are made for model trains (O-gauge), which as you can see from the picture are a little tall for 28mm figures, but they looked more comparable than the HO scale poles.  I got 10 total, but only painted up 4 for the purpose of this game.

I also needed 6 more Villistas to fill out the ranks of my infantry.  Not wanting to buy another pack of 30 troops from Old Glory I decided to buy 6 old west figures from Knuckleduster.  And 2 troops from Gringo 40's.  I picked two to be my future artillery crew and the rest became line troops.  Here's the one's I picked for that role.  (artillery coming up in the next post!)

The first 5 are from Knuckleduster:

This last one is from Gringo 40's.

Federales Completed

I've been a busy bee this week knocking out 16 more Federales.  This gives me two more 8 man squads.

I'm less than a month from my convention game so I'm trying to get all the painting done quickly.  This will hopefully give me at least a week or two to tweak the scenario and possibly add some last minute troops if they are needed for balance.  This is my first time volunteering to run a game so not sure how it will go, but hopefully every one will enjoy the game.

For my Federal Army I have 4 8-man squads and 1 MG team.  1 Commander, 1 Staff officer, 1 bugler and 1 runner.  They will be greatly outnumbered by the Villistas, but they have the benefit of hard cover while defending.

Here's a picture of them all together...

39 total troops.  Feels good to have them all done.  It will feel even better when I wrap up the Villistas that pretty much double this army in size!

Hope you are enjoying your Saturday.
Rod

Las Soldaderas

One of the iconic images of the Mexican Revolution is that of the Soldadera.  Women camp followers that eventually took up arms and joined the fight.  These women joined the fighting for a variety of reasons, for example, some to help protect their sons and husbands, others for revenge, and some just wanted to fight.  Whatever their reasons, they were there in the fighting and it's only fair to add some to my army.  These are the four soldadera figures available from Gringo 40's miniatures.

I forgot to spray these with DullCoat before taking the pictures so they are a little shiny looking.  D'oh!

These were some nice looking miniatures and I was really happy to be able to add some variety to my Villista army.