Battle of Scarif - cutting the base of the citadel tower

 

In my previous posts I've talked about the initial design and then the creation of the boards themselves. This post will look at the creation of the base of the tower. Again, my starting point was the map. 

Having neatly split my map in a 4 by 6 grid I was able to adjust the positioning to get the tower base to fit neatly into a 60cm by 60cm area at the bottom right hand side. This was crucial as will become clear later. What was also clear was that it was a complex geometric design. When checked against reference photos it was also clear that there were multiple different height levels as well, above and below the base layer of the boards.

The next step was to create a reference template of the various concentric rings and angles. This required serious thought and repeated measurements from the map and reference photos. This had to be correct as the visual appeal of the full table would be determined from these measurements. I fired up MS Word and played around with the shapes at a quarter size. As a starting point I decided that each ring would be 5cm deep but with the central landing pad having a radius of 10cm.

I think at this point it's worth noting that the movie's design and production team based their design on the Imperial symbol. It's a clever Easter Egg that isn't visually obvious but is pretty cool.

I couldn't make the tower base any bigger than the 60cm diameter because I needed to cut out a whole ring of the board to create the cooling reservoir. If I exceeded that size limit I might reach the edge of my board and I couldn't cut through or into the board edge. Once the ring measurements were decided the angles could be measured and drawn onto the plan. I simply printed the page and got out my pencil and protractor. 

Where there were 6 spurs meant dividing 360° by 12, for 30° angles, one sticking out, and one not alternating around the base.

The 6 weirs, whilst geometrically spaced, were clearly smaller than the structure between them and a rough measure suggested they were about 15°. This seemed logical and visually pleasing so that's what I went with. I had to be careful with positioning as the weirs were the outermost point of the tower base. The easternmost weir was at the 3 o’clock position and so the tower centre was moved just over 2 cms to the left to ensure I didn’t hit or cut into the board’s wooden edge.

With an outer ring with a 30cm radius I had to order a large compass specifically for this build. I tried the string round a pin but it just didn’t work. I pencilled in each of the rings and then used a protractor to mark all the various angles needed to outline the basic design onto the board. 

The next step was to cut it all out. I used a large snap off knife with the blade extended to cut the initial shape into the foam. This seemed to work pretty well. I was able to lever out the central section where the cooling reservoir was and only had to make some minor tidying up cuts to the edges where I wasn’t completely happy that the sides were vertical. For my first attempt at cutting foam to a specific shape though I was very pleased with the result. As I was soon to discover though having a hot wire cutter, specifically one on a machine with an adjustable angle arm would have been a god send with this build. I definitely regret not getting one, but hey ho, it’s now on the Christmas list!

I then raised the middle section slightly, by 10mm, using pink xps board. This was set in slightly so I could bevel the edge. The inner most circle got another xps board layer and then a disc of 25mm cetoflex added on top to create the base for the central landing pad.

This was all glued down and gave me the basis for creating all of the tower base detailing which is what I will cover in the next post.

Keep those dice rolling!

Charles the Modeller 

Battle of Scarif - Building the base boards

 

Having decided to build an 1800mm by 1200mm board to refight the battle of Scarif, and having found a map that I liked, I now needed to build the boards themselves. This wasn’t as straightforward as I would have liked. I know from experience that I can fit three 1200mm by 600mm boards into the stacking system I’ve built for my car, so I knew how big each board was going to be. The challenge came from the depth each board would need to be.

I googled other Scarif games that people have put on, including some enormous 28mm games and also looked at other models of Scarif that people have built including some impressive Lego versions. Whilst all of them were great in their own ways none of them seemed to have really recreated the whole battlefield in detail, with most in particular, just building the tower itself and at best paying lip service to recreating the tower base. Quite understandable, but this gave me the chance to do something unusual.

The base of the tower is very complex. It’s very geometric, in concentric patterns replicated 6 times. There are multiple transit lines intersecting with the outer ring, 6 main arteries connecting with the tower centre, ducts, gangways, 6 massive weirs with attendant waterfalls and enormous pool as well as a landing pad, all of which are on multiple different height levels. The rest of the board is fairly straightforward with low island atolls and sea - a pleasant change after the contours of my Imjin board!

Luke Fellows, of Geek Gaming Scenics, builds his boards using 6mm MDF or ply with 20mm or 25mm battens round the edges with the middle infilled with polystyrene insulation. I’ve built my last few boards the same way and I really like the system. If you are not familiar, check out this video he did here as it’s a very effective system.

I still wanted to use this system but the problem was with the six waterfalls surrounding the tower. I wanted to represent these and they needed to seem massive. A 25mm drop was not going to be sufficient to convey the scale of the complex. I thought that if I doubled that drop to 50mm I could probably make that work. That would allow me to infill the board with 50mm insulation and keep to the same system just with deeper insulation. 

The problem was that I couldn’t find any wood cut neatly, with clean edges and smooth that was exactly 50mm. Everybody that showed up in the search results for 50mm battens, strips or whatever actually provided the cut at about 44mm. There was clearly some major discussion and agreement amongst British wood suppliers that nobody needed exactly 2 inch thick wood and that 1inch and 3 quarters was just fine. Except it wasn’t for me. It would have meant slicing the top 6mm of whatever insulation I needed across the face of the insulation boards! Not going to happen!

Going any deeper than 50mm, up to say 75mm or 100mm, which I could get wood for was going to cause significant weight issues as well as imperilling my stacking system. So I was stuck at 50mm. The only option was to cut wider wood down to 50mm. I picked up some 119mm wide by 18mm thick smooth finished timber and fired up my rarely used table saw. With some test cuts and the odd error I was able to cut the timber lengthways into 50mm strips. 

These were then cut into the appropriate lengths using a mitre saw, which is when I realised I hadn’t cut enough and had to go back and buy more timber. Basic maths fail and an extra day’s effort required. D’oh!

I glued and screwed the wooden strips to some 6mm MDF boards that I checked were all absolutely the same size. I used clamps and corner angles to ensure that the sides were perfectly square and absolutely vertical and screwed them into each other at the corners. Whilst narrower than I’m used to using at 18mm thick I believe the height at 50mm will prevent any warpage.

I then cut Reticel 50mm thick insulation board to fit into the middle of each board and glued it in place using spots of gorilla glue.

I overlaid the top with some good quality wall lining paper carefully laid edge to edge and glued down at the edge of each board to minimise potential for warping.

I filled in gaps and screw holes with wood filler, sanded everything smooth and applied two coats of black gloss paint. I now had a blank canvas upon which to create my model.

Next time I will look at how I created the shape and design of the tower base. Until then keep the dice rolling!

Charles the Modeller 

Battle of Scarif build overview

 

My latest project is building a 6ft by 4ft board representing the Battle of Scarif from Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. You know the one, where the rebels led by Jyn Erso and Cassian Andor land on the Imperial planet of Scarif to steal the plans for the Death Star. It’s an epic battle with stormtroopers fighting Rebel commandos, x-wings blasting AT-ACTs, an enormous tower and star destroyers smashing into each other. I want to show all of it and run it as a participation game at shows.

So first things first I needed to decide how big it was going to be and what elements were going to be included on the board. As always I went hunting for a map. It’s a made up battle so what are the chances that there’s a map for it - well pretty good really. It turns out that there are people even nerdier than me. I found multiple different maps and drawings of Scarif of varying quality and detail. Looking at them more closely it became clear that most related to the video game version and that others were just generic. However I did find one that seemed just right and that appeared to map the whole complex pretty accurately when I compared photos and screenshots with the map. 

I knew I could fit a 6ft x 4ft (1800mm by 1200mm) board into my car using the stacking system I created for my Imjin board. I therefore looked to see how I could fit as much of the map as possible onto that size board. A lot of the terrain is not actually fought over in the movie and by making the tower base 60cm in diameter, I could fit all of the key bits of the battle onto the rest of the board. I placed a 4 by 6 grid over the map and hey presto I was good to go! Well pretty much, I just needed to make the tower a bit smaller and the islands a bit bigger.

The board was going to create a number of challenges,

• A very complex tower build with an enormous tower structure 
• Large expanses of sea, beaches, weirs and waterfalls
• Tropical islands with beaches, bushes and oh so many trees
• Lots of interconnected transit systems with attendant infrastructure
• Trying to make the board look like the movie
• Sourcing 6mm figures, walkers and spaceships 

However, the good news is that there are no hills, no real contours and as it’s not historical I have quite a bit of licence. It’s also pushing my modelling into areas that I’ve not worked in before so I was really looking forward to starting work on it.

The next post will cover the creation of the base elements of the board.

Until then keep those dice rolling 

Charles the Modeller 

Imjin River Event - Soldiers of Gloucestershire Museum

 

I will be taking my River Imjin board and the game to the Soldiers of Gloucestershire Museum for a three day event this weekend the 29th April to the 1st May.

The game will be open to play to visitors to the museum and run amidst the memorabilia and artefacts of the Glosters in the heart of this fantastic Museum. If you are near Gloucester please head over to the museum and come and give this game a go.

I hope to run one day of the historic battle each day with the game concluding on Monday afternoon. Timings are a little bit tricky because of the variable nature of a game but I expect things to look something similar to this:

Saturday 29th April will cover 10pm 22nd April to 10am 23rd April 1951

11am Guy Temple's ambush at Gloster Crossing

12pm Chinese troops flood across the Imjin

1pm Chinese troops engage A and D coys on hills 148 and 182

2pm Hard fighting for hills 148 and 182, Chinese troops threaten Truell's guns

3pm Curtis' action for his VC, denouement of the battle for the hilltops

Sunday 30th April will cover 12pm 23rd April to 10am 24th April 1951

11am Retreat of survivors of A and D coys to hill 235, B coy establishing positions on hill 314

12pm Grist's mad dash and Chinese envelopment of Gloster position  and crossing the Imjin in daylight

1pm Chinese initial attacks on hill 314

2pm Chinese attacks on 314 intensify

3pm Survivors of B coy try to reach hill 235

Monday 1st May will cover 12pm 24th April to 12pm 25th April 1951

11am Relief column arrives!

12pm Ammunition run and final positions

1pm Chinese wave attacks on hill 235

2pm Chinese attacks intensify and Drum Major Buss plays everything except retreat

3pm Daylight brings airstrikes and a flying Boxcar attempts resupply.

Once the event finishes the board will stay on at the museum and will be on display in the Korea room to help the museum tell the story of the Glosters Epic last stand.

Keep the Dice Rolling

Charles the Modeller

My Modelling Space

I have been really fortunate that recently I’ve been able to get my own dedicated hobby space. It’s a room in the roof space above a building I own as part of my business. I persuaded my wife to let me convert it. This may have taken some time.

To convert the room I needed to remove a stud wall and level a floor, remove a built in cupboard, improve the lighting and redecorate. I’m pretty handy and so I was able to do everything apart from the electrics myself.

This gives me a working floor space of 12ft by 15ft, or 3.6m by 4.5m. There’s a bit of a corridor that I have been able to put an ikea storage system and which will hold most of my minis.

The lighting is provided by 8 x 1m long LED strips with 6000 daylight output. I have them on two separate switches and the room is very brightly lit. The only downside to these lights is the interference it causes in photos and video. I am looking at how to mitigate this, but at the moment it’s a minor issue.

I spent a lot of time planning what was going to go into the room and how I wanted it to function. This involved looking around the web and YouTube for ideas and how to guides and it took a while, however, it was really valuable research and well worth it.

I laid laminate floor because it’s easier to keep clean and mop up the inevitable spills and splashes.

I needed workbenches, so I spent a bit of time watching YouTube videos and then planned and built them myself. I used 47 by 89mm timber to make the legs and frame for each workbench. Once the carcass was built I topped it with 18mm plywood and put in a bottom shelf of 12mm ply. Then I added lockable caster wheels to enable me to move them around the main workspace. Finally I painted them, with the tops and shelves getting multiple coats of a polyurethane floor paint to make it tough and durable.

I built two workbenches with a surface of 600mm by 1200mm. The second though, has an additional shelf and a removable top section. This allows me to operate a table saw using the other workbench as an outfeed table.

However, my main workbench, is 1200mm by 2400mm and has the lower shelf indented by 300mm so I can move a chair into position if needed without catching my feet against anything. This workbench on its own will be big enough to handle most of my terrain building plans but by joining the workbenches together I can create a tabletop of 1800 by 2400mm or even 1200 by 3600mm. This gives me quite a lot of flexibility and a lot of tabletop space.

Then I put some thought into organising my tools and modelling supplies. I tend to paint my minis at home in a spare room so I don’t currently need a painting space. But I still have a lot of tools to manage and keep tidy. Again YouTube was my inspiration and I very quickly decided that French cleats were the way to go.

French cleats are a neat, flexible storage system. Essentially battens are fixed to the wall, usually about 18mm thick and about 50 - 75 mm high. These are cut length ways at a 45 degree angle, creating a top lip that stands proud from the wall. Attach another piece of the batten with the lip reversed to a shelf or rack and you slot that over the batten on the wall and hey presto you have a movable shelving solution. I used lots of wood left over from building various things to create custom racks, shelves and holders. I can add more if I need to and rearrange everything quite easily when the mood strikes.

With everything having a place it makes keeping track of tools easier and helps push me to keep things organised and tidy.

Next post should be about the beginning of my Battle of Scarif build. It’s progressing well and will be epic when finished.

Till then keep your dice rolling 

Charles the Modeller

Plans for 2023

In my last post I reviewed 2022, this post will cover my plans and hopes for the year ahead.

This year I’ve created an Ovelist. An Ovelist is a simple collage of images, each one representing a task, job or activity I intend to do. It is named after its creator Andy Ovel from the Hobby Support Group podcast and is an excellent way of tracking progress and focussing activity. It’s a living document and can be added to, removed from or amended throughout the year. It is not intended that it should become a mill stone around your neck. As you progress, ticks can be added to tasks completed and it should help visualise the progress and achievements that can get all to easily lost in the ether.

Battle of Scarif Board

My big build for the year is going to be creating a board to refight the battle of Scarif, the final battle at the end of Rogue One. I’ve been intending to do this for a couple of years but having just watched the outstanding Andor TV series on Disney+ I have an added impetus now.

The board will be 1800mm by 1200mm and will comprise the many islands and atolls that surround Scarif Tower. I will also incorporate the planetary shield into the game. The key terrain challenges are the enormous number of palm trees required and the modelling of the sea bed around the islands. The board needs to be ready for the Joy of Six wargame show on July 2nd in Sheffield.

Scarif Tower

The main focus on the board, and in the battle, is the huge Scarif Tower. I intend to model the entire complex including landing pads, hydro systems, cooling pipes and the tower itself with the huge communication  dish. I’ve never done anything like this before so it’s a big challenge. The tower will be at least 60cm high.

Scarif figures

I have sourced and am in the middle of painting all the various 6mm figures that I need to represent the rebel marauders as well as the Imperial stormtroopers, shoretroopers and deathtroopers I need to refight the ground battle.

Scarif Vehicles

An odd title but this covers the AT-ACTs, the X wings, TIE fighters, the Imperial Star Destroyers and the rebel fleet. I also intend to build a diorama of the Hammerhead driving the Star Destroyers into the planetary gate.

3D printer

I’ve been wanting to get, and learn how to use, a 3D printer for over a year. I have decided now that I have a permanent hobby space I will take the plunge and buy one.

WW1 Figures 

I backed Henry Turners Europe Asunder: The Great War kickstarter last year. I have access to pretty much the entire figure library for the Great War. They really are beautiful figures and I hope my 3D printing skills progress well enough for me to be able to print out lots of the figures and I have enough time to paint them.

WW1 Rules

I hope David and I can continue our excellent progress on testing the rules for All Hell Let Loose: Great War. With luck this year should see the development complete and then it’s just about distilling it into something coherent.

Gloster Event

The final outing of my Imjin River Korea board will hopefully be a 3 day event at the Soldiers of Gloucestershire Museum. I am intending to refight the three days of the battle in the Museum itself with visitors taking on the roles of the Glosters and the Chinese. The board will then stay at the Museum in the museum’s Korean room.

Modelling Space

I have recently finished refurbishing some roof space for use as a permanent modelling space. This needs developing and customising so that I can build models and wargame in it. I’m making excellent progress and will post on it shortly. This should make a huge difference to my hobbying giving me the space to really expand my output.

Gaming with the kids

I hope that over the year I’ll be able to get my two sons to play some games with me and hopefully they’ll catch the wargaming bug.

Gaming with my mates

Now I have the space I hope to spend much more time gaming with my mates. I’m setting a target of 20 nights/ days of wargaming and 10 of roleplaying during the year at mine and 10 nights/ days at friends.

YouTube 

Hopefully this year I will make more content for YouTube. I’d like to produce some content on modelling techniques and the models I’ve built.

All in all quite a list, but plenty to keep me going.

Charles the Modeller 

2022 Year in Review

The year 2022 is over and so it’s time to take stock and look back at the year. Just like last year it turns out I had a really busy time hobbywise and got a tremendous amount of things done.

Imjin River Korean War board

I finished the build of my Korean War Imjin River board, painted all the troops and designed the scenario for the three days of battle. This was the focus of so much of my activity across the year and resulted in some of my biggest highlights.

• I joined Tom Katzy on Episode 58 of the Hobby Support Group Podcast to talk about building the board and refighting the battle. Tom and Ed were able to play a few turns of the battle at Warfare where Tom’s legendarily poor dice rolling caused the Chinese to fall behind schedule.
• I got to meet quite a few of the guys from Little Wars TV at Joy of Six including Greg, Steve, Tom and Miles.
• I have lost count of the number of people who have told me that fathers, uncles and relatives fought in Korea. Almost all say that the veterans wouldn’t talk about it.
• A significant number of readers of this blog have said hello - thank you for reading and for introducing yourselves it means a great deal to me.
• The guys at Wargames Illustrated were kind enough to publish two articles on the board fulfilling a long term ambition I’ve had for 30 years
• The board won best participation game at Partizan and best in show at Phalanx. The Hobby Support Group podcast awarded it Best terrain project for 2022 and I was voted the favourite guest on the podcast.
• Refighting the battle at Fiasco in Leeds the Glosters were reduced to just 5 stands, from their original 31, at the start of the penultimate turn. Each of those stands were on 4 disorder, where a 5^th destroyed them. The Glosters were literally hanging on by the skin of their teeth, just as their historical counterparts had done.
• The Soldiers of Gloucestershire Museum have agreed to take the board on long term loan- I will talk more about that in a future blog post.

 

Permanent Hobby Space

I have managed to persuade the wife to let me have a permanent hobby space. I have completely refurbished a largish room to create a space to be able to build more models and wargame in. I will post shortly with more details on this as I am now finalising the organisation of my tool walls.

 

Hobby Highlights 

• I got to game in Dan Hodgson’s war room again! This time David Wasilewski and I got to play test Dan’s Khartoum game on his fabulous 14ft by 7ft table. Over the weekend we played the game twice alternating between controlling Gordon and the defenders or the Mahdist forces. The Mahdists won both times. David defeated my forces 1 day earlier than I was able to defeat his, however I am certain that without my goading he would have waited several more days before attacking. I therefore claim a Moral victory! It was an awesome experience and a brilliant weekend. I believe Dan will be taking this to Hammerhead so make sure you check it out if you are there. A really big thanks to Dan and his wife Julia for their hospitality, and I’m looking forward to welcoming Dan to my wargames room shortly.
• I got to wargame on my Arnhem board, in Arnhem, on the Arnhem anniversary weekend. I caught some of the re-enactments and the parachute drop on Ginkel Heath.
• Whilst I haven’t posted much on the blog I have passed 50000 page views.
• Work on the WW1 version of the rules, All Hell Let Loose Great War, is progressing well with a host of core mechanics created, tested and approved.

 

Passing Regrets

• Neither of my kids are showing any interest in wargaming. I taken my kids with me to a number of shows this year, and whilst generally they both have a good time at shows they have no interest other than that. Both of them are still into Dungeons and Dragons and the eldest has now started painting his D&D minis, so I still have hope, but currently, I consider my job as a Dad only part done.
• I didn’t blog as frequently as I could have done
•  I didn’t produce any YouTube content at all.
• Other than shows and events I didn’t get much wargaming in, but it was still much more than I managed in 2021.

 

All in all I think 2022 was an excellent year. I am really excited about the future but I will cover my plans for the great things I want to do in 2023 in another post shortly.

 

Keep your dice rolling!

Charles the Modeller