Welcome to "Adventures in Lead", a blog dedicated to the hobby of miniature wargaming. The figures and terrain on this site are mainly for a campaign set in exotic "Indostan", a distant land bearing remarkable similarities to 18th century India during the Seven Years War. Bits and pieces from other projects may pop up here as well from time to time, including colonials, gladiators, pirates, dinosaur-hunting and even some RPG'ing.
The actual campaign journal and after action reports for the Indostan campaign can be found on their own blog - "Indostan: The Jewel in the Crown", the link to which is found by clicking the small image below-left.
If you do find anything remotely interesting on this blog please leave a comment, it's what keeps these sites going and their authors motivated - Thanks for looking.

Sunday, July 23, 2017

Blood & Plunder: Sloop

This is the first Blood & Plunder ship I have completed, the Sloop. All in all I am very happy with the quality of this piece and equally pleased with the finish I've managed to achieve. Everything pictured here comes as part of the kit, except the sails, which are made from calico. The rigging was a bit fiddly, but not overly hard and in my opinion adds a lot to the finished model.
You can buy a sloop of your own from Firelock Games.






Monday, July 10, 2017

Blood & Plunder: Port Wall & Gibbet

For my Blood & Plunder table I plan to utilise an existing pair of 2" high terrain boards that will sit on top of a "water" cloth. The problem is of course the 2" high difference between the land and the sea. So I require a harbor or port wall to separate the two and to integrate with the gun battery.
The wall is constructed using exactly the same techniques used in making the gun battery, albeit much simpler as there is next to no cutting and NO angles. To break up the monotony of a plain wall I decided to insert a wooden pylon mid way. This led to the idea of hanging a gibbet from the pylon, as a "welcoming" to any newcomers to the port. A short tutorial follows of how I made the gibbet and it's post.
Port wall & gibbet
Cut out a section of "Granny Grating" (if you can wrestle it from your Nan)
Find an appropriately sized cylinder and bind the grating with strands of copper wire. Carefully fix with super glue.
When dry remove it from the cylinder and cut out some of the sections of grating to make larger openings
Cut out two round sections of grating to fit in each end. Carefully fix with super glue
Make a loop of wire to hang the gibbet and fix with super glue
Spray the gibbet by holding onto the copper wire strands, then clip them off.
The post is made from different sized craft sticks, some toothpicks and wire. Drilling small holes to accommodate the different sized sticks is recommended
Painted and put in place, with some crochet thread as rope attached
Without the hanging gibbet the post could be a hoist or other port-side thingy
The completed piece, with a rusty gibbet
The two existing pieces married together
A picture of the battery and wall in place - some more port walls to go
If you have any questions don't hesitate to comment below.

Sunday, July 9, 2017

Blood & Plunder: Port Gun Battery

It has been close to a year since I last posted here, which is a bit of a shock really; the reasoning behind a lack of posts is not through a lack of playing games although. I'm glad to say it is the complete opposite and that I'm playing more games now than ever, just not as much war gaming as I'd like to, more role playing and board gaming. Sometimes a skirmish game comes along although that really grabs my attention and wants me to drop everything else and get building and playing. Enter Blood & Plunder.
Blood & Plunder, from Firelock Games, is a 28 mm historical miniatures war game set in the 17th century during the golden age of piracy. Not only are the rules innovative and clever, but they have a great range of period miniatures to support it and an amazing selection of resin ships. One of the first posts on this blog was concerning piracy and ships, so it's a subject close to my gaming heart. I've yet to actually play a game of Blood & Plunder but from what I've seen it ticks every box for me, with streamlined and convincing ship combat.
I have decided to run demonstration games of Blood & Plunder at MOAB in October with some mates, because I really want to show off this system and want it to do well in Australia. So thoughts have immediately turned to a table layout and the necessary terrain. Because we will be demoing both land and sea combat we need a combined land/sea table.
Part of that table planning led me to design a small gun battery. What follow are the steps I took in it's construction. Enjoy.
The finished gun battery
Draw a 1:1 template
Cut out the template - base piece and walls
Cut out the blue foam and scribe the brickwork. I use a cake decorating stencil that I press into the foam
Apply the brickwork to the entire sections and both sides
Use the template to mark the angles of the wall and use guides to cut the foam
This did prove tricky and I used a combination of method. Forgot I had a diamond saw and next time I'd try that
Apply texture to the brickwork, by first scribing deeper cuts in the foam and...
...then applying texture with a rock or aluminum foil ball and press down some individual bricks
Dry fitting all the parts together - there was a lot more gaps then I'd care for
Testing the cannon placement
Cut out the platform - I just used Styrofoam because it would be totally encased
Cut the bastions for the cannons.I also made a brickwork floor, which I later decided to ditch
Glue all the pieces to together and pin them. Fill the gaps with filler (a lot of filler)
I had to fill quite a few gaps but it all looked ok when painted
Fix down the distressed wooden stirrers for the guns to sit on
I decided to go with a dirt floor - sand the area with pva and water
Paint and add grass
I used varying shades of grey on a black undercoat.
My gun battery is supposed to be sitting in the sea, so I left the base a little darker/wetter
And there it is, a port gun battery. If you have any questions don't hesitate to comment below.

Here is the accompanying port wall and gibbet.

Also please don't forget that Blood & Plunder's current Kickstarter No Peace Beyond the Line is in it's final days and is well worth looking at. It caters to some new factions, but someone wanting to get into Blood & Plunder can still benefit from pledging.