ACW Black Powder Game - Preperations

So,

February 18, 2017, I will be hosting a Black Powder American Civil War game at our local shop, this game will be an invite only game (but feel free to stop by and watch) and we are planning on a huge table (8'x12'). The battle will be based on the Chancellorsville, May 3, 1863 at the Chancellorsville Inn. The Union troops pulled back from the day before and constructed hasty field works to try to slow down the Confederates that had won the day before.

So with that, we needed some field works for the game, so last weekend I cut up a dozen 1"3/4" x 12" long strips for bases of the field works. Robert then added pink foam and added the planks to the back of them to give then a hasty built look.

Roberts Photo of the cut foam on the bases.

The planks added to the back side

With troops behind (Roberts Photo)

Another shot of the planks with troops (Roberts Photo)

I came over this past weekend to help finish up the field works and we also added some angled sections to make the field works look a little irregular and not just in a straight line. Funny thing is when we cut the bases, we just eyeballed it and cut them up. Once they are together they look pretty slick.

A shot of the Cannon and angle sections.

We also wanted the field works to accommodate guns, so with a few scraps, I cut out half circles (Roberts Guns are on rounds) and add a few plastic gabions to them. Once these were cut out, we moved onto texturing the foam.

Texturing is getting added

  We used an Elmer's Glue sand able wood putty to give us the dirt look. Nice thing was that it was raining here in Phoenix and the temperature was cool, so the Elmer's wood putty stayed wet and was workable. If it had been hotter out, it would have dried before we got it on the material, such is the problems of working on terrain in the Valley of the Sunstroke!

So there you go, a few field fortifications for our Black Powder game. The good thing is that we could use this for other games as well, heck, I even mentioned these would be good for Bolt Action for World War One! (Are you seeing this Warlord???)

TK