Above is a pic of Lt. Colonel James Galbraith, Regimental Colour in hand, alongside Bobbie the regimental dog and some of the other "Last Eleven" survivors of the 66th (Berkshire) Regiment, making their last stand in one of the walled gardens just South of Khig village, a few miles West of the Afghan town of Maiwand.

Monday, April 21, 2014

Fullblown Charasiab layout (kinda...)

This past weekend my 14 year-old daughter surprised me by asking to set the wargames table up with a large Medieval battle, for her to shoot video of for a class project.  The table was already covered with my not-quite-finished Charasiab layout, with various interim "scratch" terrain pieces filling in until I manage to finish the final versions, including half the ROAD network that crisscrosses the tabletop, two of the three villages (I used some of my nice Mexican buildings as placeholders for them) as well as the pair of rivers along the East and West edges of the table.

While digging out a stack of dusty boxes full of Medieval troops (It's been four years since I set up and played a Medieval game!), I came across something else in my storage closet which I had forgotten about: a box of DESERT ROADS built to use with my old Afghan ground-cover before I built my Maiwand terrain-boards.

The roads are all one inch wider than the ones I'm in the midst of making from latex caulk, but they match the latex roads much better than the paper templates that were in place, so... I swapped out the paper for my old desert roads, which there were just barely enough of to go around.

After my daughter was done shooting her epic Medieval conflagration, and the troops, siege equipment and rather impressive castle were all packed back away (Hopefully they'll come out again to be part of a game in the not too distant future!) I realized... there it was: MY CHARASIAB LAYOUT, virtually complete!

So I asked that same daughter to use the camera in her phone -- which is better than mine -- to take some pics...

View from the South...


View from the North...


And finally, thanks to inspiration and instructions from my friend and  fellow wargamer Dan Gurule, AKA: "Last Stand" Dan, who I met at the 2011 Colonial Barracks convention in New Orleans -- and with some vital assistance from the same 14 year-old daughter of mine, who is our family computer graphics expert -- I did my first ever "Annotated" iPhoto pic, showing the Charasiab battlefield, which I must say I'm kinda' excited about and think turned out rather nicely, and also bodes well for things to come:



7 comments:

  1. Thank you for the images of your beautiful terrain. I always love seeing the work you have completed.

    Regards

    Vinnie

    ReplyDelete
  2. Great work, but I am NOT going do Afghan wars, I am NOT going to do Afghan wars, I AM going to do Afghan wars... :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thanks gentlemen!

    Vinnie, I'm glad you enjoy seeing it, makes taking the time to post it worthwhile.

    Buckeye, as a fellow wargamer, all I can say is... good luck fighting that delaying action for as long as you can... which probably won't be too long!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Cracking set up Ethan I would be interested in seeing those medieval pics too!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hi Willie! Happy to read your comment. When my daughter finishes her school video project, maybe I can post it here. I actually took some pics myself, and maybe I'll put them up too. What I really need to do is play a game on that Charasiab lay-out...it's been WAY TOO LONG since I've played a game! But I'm hoping to remedy that soon...

    ReplyDelete
  6. Absolutely awesome Ethan! You never fail to inspire me.....Hopefully I get to play on that battlefield too.
    Cheers,
    JB

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks, Sarge, glad to hear you enjoyed the pics. And yes, I really hope you get to play on that battlefield as well!

      Delete