Old Time Desert Town

Hello everyone!

So recently an event occurred where many of my Roman's were wrecked. I won't get into the details here on my blog quite yet as I've shared it so many times over with friends and on a couple forums I am sort of sick of repeating it. Long story short - they were smashed to bits, and I've been spending time repairing them. Most will make a recovery and hopefully still hold their former glory. I'll most likely retake photos of their glorious return soon.

Now that we got through that little bit, in one of my more recent blog posts I went on about plans to make a Roman wall and fort - while this is a very exciting project and I do wish to pursue it, when it comes to projects on the go I am in a much better position to start building on my Italian Desert terrain mat and I already have plenty of resources already available to begin. My WW2 North African Bersaglieri are well over half done and once I finish fixing some Romans it'll be time to work on some desert terrain. Bersaglieri regiments were sent to Eastern Africa and Tunis, Libya/Egypt in the North African campaign. I like the desert and dunes so I am going to go for the Libyan and Egyptian battles (Much of Tunis was not necessarily fought over decertified areas) involving the 12th Bersageleri regiment. The 12th fought in three major battles between Egypt and Libya and there were a lot of casualties taken - eventually they had to disband and its remnants integrated into the 7th regiment. For gaming it may not actually make historical sense to put these elite troops in any old random desert village off in some random oasis since they all fought in specific areas, but for wargaming anything can be possible!

I just want to note: my opinions and ideas here are for my own personal collection and I by no means want to look like I’m looking down anyone who doesn’t share my “max out the terrain” way of thinking when I game. The hobby has all sorts of awesome people who work on great projects and ideas no matter how big or small!

I like to do a bit of research on the gaming mat / terrain I want to seriously do. For Ww2 and games like bolt action or chain of command I never really liked the look of open fields with lots of space. The issue with desert warfare though, in ww2 however, is that is often what went down! Fast zipping attacks across the sands, or fighting between dunes and rock formations as well as town fighting. While it is accurate to have some open space for wargaming, I think it is far more exciting at the 28mm skirmish game range to have a lot of variants in terrain and interaction with the board, or at least a mix of cleared area with some terrain that could be used with tactics in mind. Have a town in the centre of the mat, or at the side, and the surrounding area is dunes and open location. When gaming something like huge armies in Hail Caesar it is not so convenient to have two large armies duking it out in some ruins or heavily debris filled area. For big rank and file games open fields for cavalry and infantry tactics makes a lot of sense - but for a game involving smaller warbands or squads like ww2 based games often are, the ruins of Stalingrad, Berlin, or Budapest and myriad other town or city battlegrounds just leave room for tons of terrain building options. (That's not to say I wouldn't game in open field battles for ww2, but I don't think it would be as thrilling).

With my current housing conditions, however, I unfortunately do not have the space to really get into specific Libyan territories. I mean, I certainly could craft something for specifically a ww2 scenario, but I consider that I am also planning to do some crusading forces as well as some armies of islam in the future, I think it makes more sense to make something as generic as possible, but still fitting for the times. That being said, I am looking to Libyan and Egyptian "old towns" for inspiration. There are two main ideas that go to my mind:

1) Make it so that a town could be used in medieval times, as well as the early to mid 1900s.

2) Make it modular and easy to pack up and carry around.

Mud brick houses were common and are still used by many folks in the world. I have taken a lot of influence from the old Egyptian and Libyan towns that have "old towns" and ruins from medieval times, such as Ghadames (Libyan Oasis town) for influence. While I wont go crazy and do the old crammed maze like structures, the building aesthetic is certainly what I am after.

In any case, here's what I've so far amassed.

I have various ruins, a variety of palm trees (sadly no date palms) and what I'll call 20th century dirt roads and pathways on top of a Cigar Box Battle Mat. While I hope one day to make my own textured boards to game on, these fleece like battle mats Cigar Box sells are excellent to use if you're going off to a night of gaming since they fold like a blanket and you don't need to roll them up or carry an awkward long tube with you. You can stick foam or other objects under them too and you get rolling dunes that blend in seamlessly with the board!

The goal is to make either the centre or side or even a corner the village, while the rest of the mat should be rolling desert hills or other terrain features - but not too terribly many. More in the village, less out in the wild! I also want to have a proper Oasis - I often see tiny little pools of water in wargaming, but the Oases I see in the real world vary in size and could cause difficulties for a tank to drive through (if it could at all!). With that in mind I'd like to build something that covers a fair area that can be placed on the edge of either the short or long side of the map, and represents a larger pool of water that runs off the game board. In this way, it isn't just a puddle looking thing. I would then build lots of reeds and grasses and palm trees surrounding the oasis shore area or even some small crops - and the further away you get from it, the less vegetation you would find.

My initial plans are to stick with the Italians in world war 2 and have a collection of bombed out or ruined old mud brick buildings as well as some that aren't desroyed that could easily be used for medieval aged scenarios as well. I also want to eventually either buy or build some simple mud brick houses that are still intact to represent earlier eras where not everything is blown to smithereens. Renedra is releasing some new Middle East houses soon and I might look into those.

The above two are generic stone / stucco covered building ruins - with various paint jobs they could represent anything from mud brick houses to even stone homes in Europe.

These two are from Paul's Modelling Workshop - with more of a North African aesthetic and a less generic feel in mind. I made sure there was ample amount of debris piles to move and play with since I think plopping down a building recently being destroyed without thrown bricks and damage about it doesn't quite look right. I also have some "ancient" ruins - older walls that are cracking and crumbling, specifically from a company called "Javis". I really like them a lot and they certainly have an ancient feel to them - these kinds of walls I assume would be in disrepair before any bombings so fewer debris piles would be added. Sort of like old Roman walls or old Roman roadways that still exist today.

Another thing I'd like to do is bring life to my game mat. I've played most games in my hobby life time with simply houses put down alongside each other and we call it a town or a farm.. with a tree and a hill here.. but man. If you actually look at a town or even a wooded area, there's a lot of little things going on! I know that it's not required to have these little extras for gaming, and I have no problem with people wanting to use minimalism or just put down a few toys and game - but for my collection purposes I just want to make my board look as convincing and life like as possible. Here are just some ideas:

I always see Sandbag walls in world war 2... that's great if you've prepared a bunch of sand bags and have them ready, waiting for the enemy..or can stack them up real quick.. but what if the enemy is COMING RIGHT NOW AT THIS EXACT MOMENT and all you have are a few crates and a table? Throw down some boxes, barrels, and furniture in the way to delay forces and hope that old rickety chair stops a bullet.

Bam, your house exploded. But its not just bricks and wall pieces that are in the debris pile! Chairs and other stuff would be flung around, so I'd add a little more to some of the existing debris piles I have.

Towns aren't just empty! I've lived in the countryside and smaller towns and villages often have tools, junk, boxes, cars, trucks, carts, etc etc, just hanging out against walls or lying on the ground. I've got quite a few items that I've got from all over the place that should be okay and fit to scale. They might be scattered if a bomb or tank takes them out.. but against a building that is still standing, a couple pieces really brings the structures to life.

A whole back of generic pieces. Some suited for all eras, while others might not fit world war 2 or earlier periods depending on how advanced the town is. Or maybe it's still full of tribal people's living the old ways? Or maybe 1940 hipsters!

These kinds of pieces I don't plan to glue down or dedicate to one piece of terrain. I think many of them could cover a number of areas and eras so If I do use them in my buildings and displays for games they'll be better off being loose fitting. This also allows them to be moved if the game requires model soldiers to be lined up in a way where terrain is causing problems.

Craters are another thing. Craters. More sandbags. Barbed wire. Maybe some areas of piled earth for defensive ditches.

Finally, I'd like to have my town possibly sitting on something akin to flattened earth. I've seen some pictures where the earth is purposely flattened especially inside a building, and its not just sand rolling in. though I have seen some buildings where it is quite literally sand everywhere from oasis edge to out in the wide open desert. Will have to figure that one out.

That's it for my plans and ramblings for now. I've been also painting some more Italian Tribesmen while fixing my Romans. I like to switch back and forth to feel I'm still progressing. Here is some recent WIP.