Black Powder Terrain Part 1

At Huzzah Con 2011 in Portland, Maine I picked up some buildings to use with Warlord Games’ Black Powder rules. The gang at Battleground Games & Hobbies (BG) are using these rules for 28mm American War of Independence (AWI) gaming. Historicals, outside of Flames of War, are not in vogue at BG. Both of the stores (Abington and Plainville) have great terrain for Warhammer 40k and Warhammer Fantasy. They even have terrain that can be adapted for Warmahordes. But, there’s precious little for the 15mm Flames of War and even less, none in fact, for 28mm AWI.

Thankfully the vendors at Huzzah came to my rescue. The Hobby Bunker, from Malden, had a stall selling a myriad of product. They brought four large boxes of JR Miniatures buildings. One of the boxes contained 25mm AWI terrain. Two pieces struck my fancy but price kept me from purchasing the Chew House at $42. I settled for the Hoskins House at a modest $22. If they had the Hoskins House Kitchen ($22) I would have grabbed that too.

My friend Adrian along with numerous guys I gamed with, namely the fellows from Boston Trained Bands Wargames Club talked up Architects of War throughout the con. Adrian told me the Age of Glory stall had a bunch of product. A few minutes later Steven Mynes, owner of Age of Glory, answered a handful of questions. I purchased the Old Barn ($65) and Plantation Shanty ($45) from Steven.

Tonight I began work on the Hoskins House and the Plantation Shanty. This article will concentrate on the Hoskins House because I want to dedicate a few articles reviewing Architects of War. The Hoskins House is a gorgeous resin building. It depicts the house on the Hoskins farmstead from the Battle of Guilford Court House (click for Wikipedia article on battle). I “washed” the model with soapy water and left it to dry. Then I examined it, closely, for imperfections. There were a surprising abundance of bubbles and craters from the casting process. This is usually a sign of an inferior product. But, for $22 I’m willing to accept them whereas I wouldn’t in a $45 or $65 terrain piece. Once thoroughly dry I primed it with Chaos Black spray. As a result of the many recesses I had to tilt the building on its side before applying a second coat of spray paint to certain areas.

How did I want to paint this building? Mericanach shows one example in their Hoskins House post. The official JR Miniatures website shows another example with white sides and a brown roof. I don’t want to put a lot of work into this so I made some quick decisions. I would pick three different base colors, do one highlight/drybrush, and one inking at most. All of the base coating was performed with Citadel Foundation paints. The roof was Dheneb Stone, the walls Khemri Brown, and the chimney Mechrite Red.

The next stage is inking. The roof will be inked with Asurman Blue, the walls with Badab Black and the red areas will get Baal Red. That will be followed with drybrushing. The roof will get a drybrush of Space Wolves Grey. The walls will get Vallejo Beige Brown. The chimney and doorstep will be drybrushed Dark Flesh mixed with Skull White (60/40). The top of the chimney, and part of the roof near the chimney, were also drybrushed with some Chaos Black and Codex Grey to make it look like soot built up.

I am not going to base the building. I like the ability of easy storage and of placing it on any table regardless of color scheme. The building will receive a 3-4 coats of ‘Ardcoat and then the same number of Testor’s Dullcote. I don’t like shiny models and certainly dislike shiny buildings. Pictures of each of the stages and the finished product will be posted onto this blog. For now, I hope you will enjoy the images of this building.

Looking back on it allows me to see two things I’m less than happy with. I don’t like how the chimney came out. I made it too red and didn’t wait like enough for each stage to dry. I also don’t like the highlighting on the walls. The Beige Brown blends in too much with the base coat. Unfortunately, none of my browns are light enough to provide a proper drybrush. I experimented with adding white to the browns and didn’t like the look.