New 54mm Nile River Steam Launch

 

The growing Dervish flotilla on the Nile River

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Yesterday I applied the finishing touches to a launch boat for the Dervish flotilla of boats for my Khartoum  Project. The river battle will likely be a part of my package of 54mm Sudan games at Historicon 2023. The Sudan package of games will include several runnings of the storming of the city of Khartoum, a Limeys & Slimeys type of river battle with boats, and Abu Klea (British Camel Corps versus the Dervish). All games will be played on two 6ft by 24ft parallel tables.

On to the river boat update:

The launch (foreground) and dhow (background) are made from the same
hull that I purchased from Hobby Lobby. This demonstrates how the same
hull can be modified to achieve a different looking boat.

If you enlarge this picture and take a closer look at the poop deck, you can
see the ship's steering wheel and a safety rail. I also added a small set of 
stairs to the right of the safety rail.

The steam launch boat is on the right. The boat to its left is a dhow that still needs its sails.
A finished dhow with sails is behind the two boats in the front. A fourth vessel is behind the
dhow with the sail, just visible around the corner of the Nile.

After the boats are finished, I will start working on some riverbank pieces that cover up the straight edges of the blue felt. These will be made from cork placemats that I bought at Target. A sample of two curvy sections is shown in the table below.

Note the two curved sections on the right. These are just sample cutouts that need
to be terrained. I'm still deciding on how much sand color versus green grass should be
on the riverbank .

A picture of the Nile River in the Sudan

Summary:

Thus far I have built two Nile River paddle boats for the British team and four dhow style boats for the Dervish side. I don't anticipate building anymore large British paddlewheel boats, but I might build four more dhows for the Dervish. I'd like this to be an 8-player game.

My Khartoum Project is coming along nicely as I've placed my recent focus on terrain building and river boat modeling. I will be getting back to the painting of more Ansar and Beja figures for the Dervish army. I anticipate that each Dervish player will command 100 figures.

My Gun’s Bigger Than Yours!

 

Here is a picture of a Saxon fortress cannon at Koenigstein Castle in Saxony. I took this picture in 1996 whilst on the Christopher Duffy tour of Seven Years War battlefields. The Saxon carriage colors of black and yellow is particularly striking.

Picture of the Day

 

Here is a picture of my Freeman's Farm table top from 2020. I particularly like the use of different styles and colors of the trees, which is what makes this a good looking picture.

The figures, of course, are Fife and Drum Miniatures AWI figures.

ccc

City of Khartoum Models

 

Khartoum - capital of The Sudan

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The other day I cleared off one of my wargame tables and set up the city of Khartoum. I wanted to get an idea of how much space it is going to need for my convention game at Historicon 2023 and also to determine the need, if any, for additional buildings and terrain pieces.

The city sits on a 5ft wide table and I will likely have 6ft wide tables for my game. After setting everything up and getting a better feel for the spacing of the buildings, walls etc., I am thinking that I should set up the game on two parallel 6ft by 20ft table. I will move just the outer walls of the city to the other parallel table, while the remainder of the city will be set up on the back table. Thus the actual storming of the city walls with scaling ladders will be played out on the front table so that the gamers can reach for their collective figures.  

Once the Dervish scale the walls then they can move onto the back table where they can loot and kill infidels to their hearts' content. Having the buildings of the city on the back table will make it easier for players to move their troops in and around the buildings.

The back table will also be deep enough to allow me to set up a portion of the Nile River and have some steam boats docked on the quay. I wonder how many of the European inhabitants will be able to make their way to the boats and relative safety, assuming that the boats can escape before the Dervish reach the river and cut off any escape.

These dhows and the Nile will not be in front to the city gate.
For now, I have a Nile River diorama set up on this table.

Gatey McGate Face - one of two entrance gates into the city.

Major General Charles Gordon searches in vain for the naval relief force.
Great view from the roof of the Governor's Palace.

Quayside at Khartoum.
Gordon should have taken one of those river boats while he had the chance.

Grand view of the entire city.

The view looking towards the town square.

Another view of the city center.

Merchant stall in the town square

Some of the European residents of Khartoum survey the city from their high perch.

Hookah smoker offering his wares to the public.
A pair of thieves carry off treasure from a nearby ancient tomb.

Most of the buildings were made by me, but I also have some resin walls and buildings made by King & Country in the mix. The street surface is cork from the backside of place mats that I bought at Target Stores. The civilians are a mix of 54mm figures from Trophy of Wales, Britains, John Jenkins Designs, and King & Country miniatures.

I finished my second Nile River paddle wheel boat (left) recently.

My plan is to run the Khartoum game twice a day on Thursday, Friday and Saturday at Historicon. The game will be set up to allow 12 players in the game.

P.S. Can you spot the easter egg in one of the pictures?

Paddle Wheel Boat Update

 

Yesterday I worked on the paddle wheel mechanism of my second Nile River paddle wheel boat and this pretty much brings the model to completion, save for a little bit of painting of the paddle wheel and several other bits and pieces.

The day before, I figured out a way to add actual brass handrails around both decks. I found some 1/16 brass tube at Hobby Lobby that was the perfect size to pair up with posts made from wood kabob skewers. It was tedious trying to drill holes into ten pillars and then grinding out the diameter of the whole with a rat tail file. Then I was fishing through my box of drill bits and I found a 1/16 drill bit which meant that I only had to drill one hole in the post and do it rather quickly. Next I threaded the brass tube through the post holes and this worked to perfection. I did run out of tubing and so I had to substitute some brass wire for the back end of the boat. It looks ok but I think another trip to Hobby Lobby will give me the small amount of brass tube that I need to finish the job.

I have left the boiler exposed so that it can be seen. The assumption is that this is how the boat would look before the war began. I also have some Britains mealie bags that I can place in front on the boiler to protect it from projectiles. The mealie bags are removable, of course.

Next up: three more dhows for the Dervish side.

cc

Time to Boiler Up!

 

Lately I’ve been working on the construction of a new Nile River paddle wheel boat. I wanted it to look a little different from the first boat, so I decided to have the boiler exposed and visible. The two pictures below show the work in progress of the boat and you can see the location of the boiler midship. The boat isn’t as finished as it looks in the pictures; I have to add column supports for the upper deck and handrails around the perimeters of the first and second decks. I added some Britains mealie bag walls and figures to give me an idea of what the finished ship will look like.

I’ve had a lot of fun building this boat, especially the boiler and smoke stack parts of it. The boiler is made from a pharmaceutical meds bottle and a couple of small gears that I found at Hobby Lobby. I found a few other brass bits and dodads from the local hardware store. I don’t shop at the big box hardware stores unless my local family owned hardware store doesn’t have what I’m looking for.

The two metal bands around the boiler are made from strips of paper and the rivets are simple sewing pins that I pushed through the plastic bottle. A brass necklace magnet was placed on top of the door just because it was shiny and looked good. The smoke stack was made from a 3/4-inch dowel rod.

I like the steampunk look of the boiler and I had a lot of fun making it. The base was made from balsa wood because it is easy to cut and shape. Two brass grommets were pushed into the base to add some more shiny bling to the boiler base.

The final step was to prime the boiler black (save for the brass bits and gears which are attached after the boiler is painted. The boiler was then painted with a base shade color of dark grey and then a highlight color of a lighter shade of grey (but not a whiter shade of pale).

I wasn’t going to make a second paddle wheel boat, but on one of my shopping trips to Hobby Lobby I found a wooden blank sign that reminded me of a ship’s hull.

I hope to finish the boat over the weekend, but the handrails and paddle wheel are more complicated to make and so finishing the boat may take more time than expected. However, the finished product should look pretty damn good.

Picture of the Day: John the OFM

This is a picture of the world famous character and rogue on The Miniatures Page known as John the OFM. His TMP avatar is the fellow holding the tankard of ale. The gentleman on horseback on the right, waving his hat, is the real JOFM, Himself. One of the members of the Fife and Drum Miniatures forum arranged to have the head made in John’s likeness and then it was grafted onto a Perry AWI Continental army general.

The figure was then painted, we called him Little John, and he then made a trip around the world visiting places such as the UK, Australia and the USA, making multiple stops in the latter country. Those of us who were in on the bit then took pictures of Little John on our own Wargame tables and then sent him on to the next person. Finally, the figure was gifted to JOFM along with copies of the photos from around the world.

Pretty cool idea.