Monday, August 16, 2010

TAGCON & Terrain

This weekend is the annual tournament that I started back in 2003. I organised the first 4 TAGCONS myself but in the past three years or so I've stepped away from organising and now simply take part. My claim to fame is helping get DBA established in the club and coming 2nd in the first ever DBA comp at TAG (beginners luck!). Not a bad effort considering that I was actually umpring the FoW comp and only taking part to help out with numbers between umpiring duties. I lost the final vs Keith's Samurai and will be looking for a rematch this weekend all going well.

Since then DBA has undergone a resurgence locally and in Christchurch and now there are a number of comps throughout the year. In fact I think South Canterbury and Christchruch are probably the strongholds of DBA in New Zealand.

This year we are a little light on numbers with a couple of people not being able to make it due to other commitments but have 9 1/2 players- Dave can't play in the morning so will fill in the afternoon three rounds. Hopefully we can find another local to play the morning byes.

Haven't really put much thought into my army, having been focusing on 28mm Impetus forces of late (as readers are probably aware) so have decided to go with the Alans (II/58). I'd love to be able to field the all light horse version- just because, but will go for a more balanced army (4 knights, 2 blades, psiloi and the rest light horse) most of the time. A few more palytest games this Wednesday are in order.

I've decided to go with the Steppe version (if defending) to get as much good going terrain as I can. So tonight I've made some hills, woods/rough going for the army. [Well technically the hills were done over the weekend and simply painted and flocked tonight].







Alla re based on some cork tile I had lying around. The hills then have some polystyrene glued on and permafilla added, once dried the hill is painted in PVA glue and covered in beach sand, then painted black dry brushed with a dark then light brown before Woodlands scenic grass is added. I may add some silflor grasses yet, but it isn't cheap and aren't sure if its worth wasting on these terrain pieces. The hills have a cret and aren't too steep so that (hopefully) figures don't slide off too much.

The woods/rough are even easier, simply covered in PVA and beach sand before painted and flocked using the same process as the hills.

Not too bad and they look much better than a strip of felt or cloth and are pretty straight forward (and fast) to make.

Craig

3 comments:

  1. Well, you managed to get the rematch and success favoured the Alans in our game. Of course you also managed 1st Place with that raiding rabble of horsemen, well done!

    With numbers for Tagcon DBA reaching ten players this is an outstanding result. This is actually the same as 2009 and two more than 2008.

    I agree, Canterbury seems to be the centre of DBA here in New Zealand. However, support is growing elsewhere as well as seen by players prepared to travel for DBA from elsewhere. Already we have two Wellington players and one Auckland player registered for Conquest in October.

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  2. Thanks TWR. Those Alans surprised everyone, but especially me!

    We were a bit unlucky not to have a couple more players. A friend of mine from Christchurch was supposed to turn up but real life (TM) intervened.

    I am very tempted for Conquest but if Flames of was is mid war I would probably do that instead. We'll see though, as Martin from CHCH and I were talking of doing a 28mm demo game of the Battle of Hastings at Conquest(possibly using Impetus) so if we were to do that then I could play DBA Saturday and do a demo game on Sunday.

    Looks like you are well on the way to getting a good field of players- we'll just have to convince some of them to come further south to enjoy our tropical weather sometime:)

    Craig

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  3. Hey Craig!
    Toatally adore your blog site.
    You can check my stuff out at http://lighteffect.net/blogs/

    Cheers Martin

    See you at Nationals I hope in CHCH this year.
    I have decided to jump in and have a go.

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