Neu-Moschi Station for the Usambara Railroad

As the final stop on the Usambara Railroad during the German colonial period, I've been wanting to add a rail station to my outpost for some time now.  I don't know what the station looked like during the period, but here is the current Moshi station:

Source: Geocaching

Nobody makes anything exactly like it, but I didn't feel like trying to build this completely from scratch.  However, Sarissa now make a European train station that I thought could fit the bill with a little work. My initial hope was to shave the roof-line and remove the chimney, but unfortunately the design of the model didn't easily allow for this. As such, I ended up having to use the stock station with some additions to the roof materials.

It's not perfect, but better than nothing.  I've also purchased the goods shed, which will eventually be added to the right of the station, mimicking the shed seen in the actual photo. I have no idea what the period paint schemes were for the stations, so I've decided to copy the current colors. 

The roofs are removable, along with the upper floors, so you can place figures inside. I've also opted to add a little decoration to some of the rooms.

The kit itself is relatively straightforward to build (though be sure to dry fit pieces, as I had to do some sanding to get some parts to fit) and sturdy in the end. However, there are a few design elements I don't care for. None of the corners are designed to fit flush. I think this was done to hold the roofs in place, but visually it looks a bit odd. They also don't have the roofs overhang the walls (most likely for the previous reason).  Having built up my roofs, it's not so bad, but looks worse if you use the original roofs. Lastly, the doors are all greyboard and I'm concerned they won't hold up in the long run. 

That being said, overall I'm happy with the station and think it's a good addition to the table. Though mine will primarily be located in German East Africa, I think it could very easily be brought back to Europe for either world war, or for VBCW games.

EDIT: Michi on LAF was able to dig up a period photo:

Kamerun Gunboat Battle: Germans vs. French

My gaming group had hoped to put together a large jungle game last month, but unfortunately it fell apart due to scheduling conflicts. However, Steve lives close to my work, so we decided to try out a small game at his house using my new jungle terrain and his recently acquired river mat. 

In this fictional confrontation from the Kamerun (Cameroon) WWI campaign, a German gunboat needed to make its way past a French controlled river outpost, hopefully destroying the outpost in the process.

Unfortunately, the French had gotten word that the Germans were on their way. In additional to a few obvious defenses, the French and their Pygmy allies had lots of hidden surprises along the shore waiting for the gunboat.

As such, the German commander landed ground forces on either shore to flush out any waiting ambushes.  The left bank was patrolled by a squad of askari with Azande musket men in support. Meanwhile on the right bank, a scout lead askari up the shore, while German sailors, Azande warriors and a witch doctor moved up the jungle track.

On the left bank, one askari was killed by a booby trap. Pygmy bowmen then opened fire on the askari, but were unable to hit their targets.  The askari wildly returned fire, but could not get a bead on their attackers.

On the opposite bank the German forces advanced unopposed. The German gunboat tried to soften up the French barricade awaiting the troops, but was unable to dislodge the French soldiers.

As the gunboat moved down river, swordsmen hiding on a small islet appeared and managed to grapple their way onto the boat.  German sailors quickly moved to counter attack the boarding party. At the same time, a French gun hidden on the right shore started pounding the gunboat, while French soldiers on the left shore began shooting at the German sailors.  German morale began to falter under the attack.

On the right bank, the German sailors were quickly cut down by the French troops. The askari began rushing the French entrenchment, but were hampered by a group of Pygmy warriors that appeared out of the underbrush. The Pygmies were quickly killed off, and the surviving askari returned to their assault on the French position.

Back on the left bank, the German askari managed to kill off the Pygmy bowmen, but panicked and fled as more Pygmies appeared.

Between the boarding party and the French soldiers on shore, the sailors on the boat were quickly cut down.  The gunboat got a final shot off at the French artillery, destroying it, but it was too late. The gunboat had suffered enough damage to it's hull that it began sinking and ran aground on the muddy riverbank. 

On the right bank, the askari and Azande warriors were able to overrun the French position, but at a heavy cost. The few survivors quickly lost their lives to newly arriving swordsmen. 

Back at the left bank, the Azande musket men made short work of the remaining Pygmies, but were soon faced with superior French troops.

 The surviving German command killed off the the last of the boarding party, but with only a single unit of Azande left, they knew their mission was a failure and they were forced to retreat.

Overall it was a good practice game and gave up some ideas for improvement before we try a more in depth battle. 

A Few Flags for the Caucasus Region

My friend Steve asked me to to put together a few RCW era flags for him, so I thought I'd post them up here as well.  EDIT 06Feb16: I've redone the TransBaikal flags to get better resolution.

Dagestan Flag

Mountain ASSR Flag 1921-1924

Mountainous Republic of the Northern Caucasus Flag 1917-1920

North Caucasian Emirate Flag 1919-1920

TransBaikal Cossack Regiment Flag (Cut away outer white triangles)

TransBaikal Cossack Regiment Flag (Cut away outer white triangles)

28mm Jungle Terrain

So the guys have wanted to move some of our African gaming from the savanna into denser jungle terrain. After looking at Dr. Mathias' tutorial on LAF, I decided to take a shot at creating something that looks lush down at table level, but left plenty of  open space above for people to be able to easily move their figures around.

The first step was  to find something reasonable for the tree branches and leaves. I went through several bunches of silk plants, but the leaves always looked too large to scale properly for 28mm. I also looked at using foam semi-spheres covered in moss, but didn't think I could create something that looked satisfactory or that wouldn't get knocked over during play. In the end, I managed to find some flocked plastic ferns at the Micheal's craft store. These have metal wires running up each stem, so they are fairly sturdy and can be bent so the shapes look more natural. These are manufactured by a company called Ashland, and there are 7 stems on a bunch. Many of the leaves have curls on the ends, so I nipped those off, as I didn't think they looked appropriate for tree branches.

For the ground plants, I managed to find a great selection of cheap, plastic vivarium plants at the local pet shop.  These are made by a company called Zoo Med and come in a variety of styles and bag sizes. For this scale, I though the Amazonian Phyllo, Malaysian Fern, Australian Maple, and Borneo Star all looked reasonable.  I also threw in some plants from an Ashland greenery mat I had left over from the savanna project.

To give the impression of larger trees in the jungle, I picked up some cork bark branches at the same pet store. I sawed the ends flat for mounting, they dry brushed the branches in various shades of green to look like moss. Finally I used some shredded moss roll (left over from my hedge project) to represent vines climbing of the sides of the tree trunks.  The trunks will be mounted without branches on top, creating that open space so players can get their hands down into the jungle easily.

To mount the trees, I drilled holes in wooden disks purchased from the craft store.  The disks weren't that thick, so I doubled up areas where the trees would go to help prevent the wood from cracking over time. I originally mounted the trees first, but in hindsight I'd recommend applying the dirt and flock first. After the trees had dried, further holes were drilled for all the ground plants.

Here's a finished product. I've used various base sizes and shapes to give the jungle elements a more irregular layout, and also sprayed down each base with matte finish to reduce the shine from the plastic plants and also help hold the flock on the tree branches (they suffered from some shedding during assembly).

And another example of just the large tree trunks. There are also a few small bases of ground plants only to further fill in gaps.

Finally, here is an overheard shot showing  some of the open spaces for arms to get under the canopy easily. 

I still have more bases to finish up, but my hope is to get enough assembled to cover at least a third of a 4x6 table.  We'll try it out this weekend, so I'll report back on how it performs during game play. 

German Equipped Chinese

As I've mentioned previously, I want to be able to pull my Ma Warlord army into the Second Sino-Japanese War, so I ordered some German equipped infantry from Brigade Games, along with a German Pak 36 from Perry Miniatures.  

The Brigade figures are very well sculpted, but smaller than the Copplestone figures (though they seem close to the Perry). There was a bit if flash and mold lines that had to be cleaned up, but for the majority of the figures it wasn't too big of an issue.  Unfortunately there were a few figures where the mold line ran down the face or other areas that couldn't easily be filed down.  My hope is that will get lost in the background. As with my earlier swordsmen, I've moved the color of the uniforms into the green-grey tones and used Brigade's Kuomintang sun decals on the helmets to represent the 36th Division.

 The LMG package includes two LMG teams; one firing and one moving. The machine guns appear to be Czech ZB vz. 26s or 30s, but are missing the bipods. I've gone ahead and added those using some bits of jeweler's wire.

Currently no manufacturer makes a Chinese Pak 36 anti-tank gun, so those wishing to field one will have to pick from one of the German sets out there. The biggest problem with this is that many of the figures are wearing boots, which isn't correct for the Chinese. However, I did find a few photos online where it appears that not all the Chinese troops were wearing puttees.  As such, I thought a Perry DAK Pak 36 was probably going to be my best bet. The open collars don't look correct, but perhaps manning the gun is hot work. I also filed off the epaulets to help them further blend into my Chinese forces.  Overall, I think it ended up looking pretty good.

I still have a few Tibetan cavalry figures to finish up, but the army is getting close to completion. I'll take a group shot when everything is done.