Terrain Projects for 2020/21

Chinese/Asian Country Town

On a recent trip to China I visited a permanent movie set in Shenyang. It’s an early 20th Century period town, which is still used for filming. Whilst I was wandering around there was a small film crew filming in one of the buildings.

The set inspired me to build a small provincial town, set in the period 1900-1945. The plan is to build a complete table using the new interlocking Sarissa tiles, along with some building from various companies, some of which would have to be converted to look more Chinese in design.

So, whilst at the movie set, I managed to take as many pictures as possible to use as reference when I returned. I also managed to visit Chengdu which has a the Wide and Narrow street, which has buildings from the Qing dynasty period, though these days they’re used a tourist shops, bars and restaurants, and I’m hoping to use some design inspiration from this period within some of the buildings.

The first step is to design some layouts and get an idea of what I plan to do, at the same time I’ve started to collect materials I’ll be incorporating into the build. For instance, I’ve been grabbing wooden stirring sticks from several well-known coffee shops, as these make great fencing planks, that have a more rustic look and feel to them. I’m planning to have two types of roads within the build, one will be cobblestone for the main town area and rustic dirt tracks outside of the town.

The reason being that the majority of the roads outside of the city would have been dirt tracks, especially in the rural areas.

SPQR/Mortal Gods Hellenistic Project

For several years I’ve been toying with the idea of gaming an Ancient Greek City States campaign, at one time I was planning to do this in 1/72 scale using Warhammer Historical, then Mortal Gods appeared, and I considered that in 28mm. I finally bought SPQR because it allowed me to play several armies of that period at a skirmish level which appealed more to me than any other option I had contemplated. So, I grabbed a copy of the rule book from Warlord and made the decision to build a Greek war band from the Hellenistic period, as well as a Republic Roman army.

So, the plan for the project is to build two small armies, one Roman and the other Greek, using a mixture of Warlord, Victricx and Footsore miniatures. I also plan to build terrain for this campaign, and I’ll be making use of the Sarissia tiles again. I should be able to double up some of the tiles for both projects, such as river sections.

My plan is to make a small Roman urban section and a rural Greek section/table. Though I’m aiming to be able to mix and match some of them. I already have some terrain such as a Roman Villa, the Temple under construction from Gangs of Rome starter, some Greek columns and a Roman statue. This will also mean I can play Gangs of Rome with this terrain project as well.

So originally, I planned for this project to be used for SPQR, but it’s now going to be used for Mortal Gods as well, as I received a copy of the core set for Christmas from my wife. Update Post Xmas, I also received SPQR starter set for Christmas, so this project will now be for both Mortal Gods and SPQR.
My first port of call for this project is to research locations, building and architecture from this period. I’m hoping that a lot of the building will be able to cross over, so they can be used either for a Roman scenario and alternatively in a Greek setting.

The first board for this project will be a ruins location. I managed to pick up a columns ruin whilst on holiday in Rome that is perfect size for 28mm.I also have two Greek busts which are the same, so I plan to cut one up to use as a head of a fallen statue. The busts cost me £1.80 each on eBay which was a bargain. This will be my starting point over Christmas for this project, it should act as a focal point for the rest of the board.

SPQR starter set

I was quite impressed with this boxset; the price point makes it excellent value. It contains 70 highly detailed plastic miniatures from Warlord, a 196-page rule book, along with waterslides, dice Hero and unit cards. The two war bands, 17 Republic Romans which includes a hero model, whilst the second war band are Gaul’s, consisting of 40 warriors with command, 12 archers and a chieftain.

This really is great value for the price, and an excellent starting point for this new game by Warlord.

Mortal Gods

This is another skirmish game, though this time it’s set in ancient Greece, though the miniatures in both sets could be used in either game. This starter set is slightly more price wise than SPQR, though my other half picked up a copy during Black Friday week at a similar price point to SPQR.

The box set contains 38 plastic miniatures by Victrix, which includes 16 Hoplites, 8 unarmoured hoplites, 8 peltasts and 6 slingers. These could be used as one large warband or two smaller ones.

Also included in the starter set is the rule book, 2 reference sheets, dice, measuring sticks and 163 cards, which includes roster and phalanx cards, along with cards for gifts, injuries and omens.

Both sets are a great intro point to ancient wargaming, both at a reasonable starting point as well. I have always been a big fan of ancient wargaming, but never really wanted to build an Ancient Greek or Roman army large enough to play this genre of wargaming.

Years ago, I did make a start on building an Imperial Roman Army, and planned to use the Warhammer Historical Ancient Battles rule system, a rule set I still believe it’s one of the best mass battle rules for
historical.

Both these sets will allow me to play this period without having to build large armies to do so.