Big Spanish Civil War Project Part 2: Dinamiteros

I finished these off ages ago, but only got around to writing them up now. They're very characterful figures from Peter Pig. 

Dinamiteros were militia who fought using nothing but homemade explosives and slings, the most simple of all ranged weapons. I have had trouble finding many primary sources, but this article provides a lot of information. Time Article

I've read secondary sources which claim Dinamiteros were also used by the Nationalist faction, but can't find any evidence to support this.

The claim that captured Dinamiteros were executed immediately by the Nationalists does not seem particularly unusual to me. This level of aggression towards captured Republicans seems to be fairly universal. Hugh Thomas argues that both leaders and rank and file Republicans were executed without much thought in "The Spanish Civil War", (1986). He uses an acvount in which Franco was said to have ordered three ordinary militiawomen to be shot as an example of this brutality. 

Many sources I've read strongly associate Dinamiteros with Asturias, a region notable in this period for its mines and unionised workers. The mines were a ready source of explosives.

However, they seem to have been more widespread than just Asturias. At the 30 second mark of this footage, you can see a group of Dinamiteros fighting at the siege of the Alcazar in Toledo: Footage

In this photo, the banner identifies the Dinamiteros as "Vascos" (Basques). Some appear to be wearing slings tied around their necks. Image here

This photo (and others) by Gerda Taro show Dinamiteros during the Siege of Madrid. Image

Since "dinamitero" means simply "dynamiter", I don't think slings were used by everyone in the above sources. There's no denying that explosive slingers make great gaming units though. 

Enough historical nonsense! On to the models themselves 😊

The whole group. Four bases of two-man teams. 

Some close ups

Big Spanish Civil War Project Part 1: International Brigade

 For several years, I've been really interested in the Spanish Civil War. It's a really interesting era of history, with so many different ideologies and personalities clashing. It's perfect for wargamers, both for these reasons and because of the range of unusual troops players can use.

A few months back, I decided I'd make a Spanish Republican army for Hordes of the Things, as it's my major ruleset. It wasn't long before I had another idea, though. I decided I was going to paint both sides of the war. I'll probably use them for solo games, but not exclusively. The models I'm using are 15mm Peter Pig. 

As a goal, I've decided to paint enough models to fight the example scenario at the end of the Osprey rulebook "A World Aflame". This is the Battle of Jarama, in February 1937. 

The first batch of models I painted was a company of International Brigade troops. These were people who came from all over the world to fight for the Second Spanish Republic against the Nationalist rebellion. They were organised by the Soviet Communist Party, something which would make France and Britain view the Republic in a negative light. They're particularly interesting to me because they represent the British Battalion at the Jarama, which contained many volunteers from my own country, Ireland.

A group picture of the whole company

 

Each group of figures is on a 3cm square base. It's a fairly generic basing scheme, as I'd like to try different rulesets. They are based in the same way as the Balagan Blog recommends for Crossfire. I've also made labels for each base in a style similar to his. Thank you for these ideas 😊

Individually based figures

Since A World Aflame is the ruleset I'm going to try out first, I based some models individually. These are message runners, medics, forward observers (for Crossfire) and squad leaders. 

Company Commander and HMG

Like most of my stuff, I painted the flag on the command stand. I first made the structure of the flag from an aluminium drink can. Then I printed the flag I wanted to replicate, and painted over it to give it a "scale lighting" effect.

Three squads / platoons.

Not much to say about these really. I'm really happy with them.

At the start, I wasn't mad about Peter Pig figures, but as I've painted them I've started to really like them. They are quite small, even for 15mm, but they have excellent detail. The faces are especially good, and are even better on the batch of Nationalists I've just started working on.

In relation to the Spanish Civil War, today is the anniversary of the bombing of the Basque town of Guernica (Gernika). This was an outrage which was unfortunately only the first of many of its kind. 

Blood Bowl Pitch Case Part 2

Following on from the construction of the case, I started building the pitch and dugouts. This was an interesting change from the first section of the build, because it allowed me to be more creative.

The first thing I did was to undercoat the entire outside of the case. I think I gave it three coats before moving on to black Rustoleum All Purpose Gloss. Then I gave it a few coats of satin yacht varnish for protection. The finish isn't perfect because of the texture on the plywood, but I'm still very happy with it. 

The next step was to make the pitch and lay out the markings. I started off with a sheet of static grass mat, the kind used by railway modellers. Using a ruler and paintbrush I measured out the squares and painted them in. This took a lot of time and patience! The result was far from perfect, with many of the squares being a few mm too small or big, but it's almost impossible to be completely accurate. Mistakes were easy enough to fix, I just used some PVA and static grass to cover them up. 

I made quite a few corrections to the pitch after this photo was taken! I then used a knife to cut along the Line of Scrimmage, and glued the two halves into the case. 

With the pitch completed, I could start on the dugouts, score counter and turn trackers.  I decided that the half of the case to the right of each player would contain dugouts, while the left would be taken up by turn and reroll tracks. 

I cut squares from a thin sheet of plywood (I think I got it from the back of an abandoned bedside locker!) and glued them in to make the turn and reroll tracks. I decided to only include one turn track per player to save space. After each half of the game they can simply be reset. 

   Numbers were painted into each track. 

I left some empty space on either side of the board so that I could make a scatter template and score tracker. I wanted the scatter template to look more interesting than just a few numbers, so I decided to sculpt it from Milliput. I rolled out a thin layer of Milliput onto greaseproof paper and sculpted the numbers 1 to 8, them I made a Blood Bowl ball. 

I decided that there would be four rooms in each dugout; Reserves, Knocked Out, Dead and Injured, and a Dungeon for players who have been sent off. Using some 3mm MDF and a sharp knife, I carved out some walls and doors to go between each room. 

     The bars in this one were made from           paperclip wire. 

I wasn't sure at first how to make the floors of the dugouts. I decided eventually to use coffee stirrers to imitate stone blocks! I cut them into different lengths and used PVA to glue them in. 

I started to furnish each room. I made a ladder from matchsticks for one reserves box, and a flight of stairs for the other. The steps were made by gluing bits of sprue together, then sculpting stone details with Milliput. 

I made "Home" and "Away" signs using old metal sprues. These were easy to make, I just cut them to be rectangular and painted them. 

I painted a beer barrel from an old Ogre kit for one reserves box. I filled it with some clear resin. 

 I made a stretcher for the Knocked Out box using two lengths of paperclip wire and Milliput. Again I sculpted this on a sheet of baking paper (used wet pallet paper actually!) to stop it sticking. 

I made some coffins for the Dead and Injured rooms using small pieces of thin plywood covered in Milliput. 

Some benches were made for the dugouts using matchsticks. Once all the furniture was finished, I painted the floors and walls of the dugouts and glued everything in. 

Here is the completed pitch! 

In each left hand corner, I made extra sections, to be used as dice trays.

I'm really happy with how the case turned out! 

Blood Bowl Pitch Case Part 1

Many years ago, I saw a custom Blood Bowl pitch case online. Since then, I've always wanted to build one. I looked at others for inspiration, and decided upon this design. Here's how I designed and built the whole thing! 

I wanted the case to consist of two halves which sit flush against each other when closed. I decided the dugouts would be below the level of the pitch itself. 

A Blood Bowl pitch is made up of two halves, 16 squares wide by 13 squares long (including end zone). Each square is 34mm. This means each half of the pitch is 51cm by 44.2cm. I wanted the dugouts to be 2 squares wide, so the final size of each half of the pitch is 45.4cm by 66.2cm. This is to allow for the border around the edge of the case, which is made using 1/2 inch plywood. 

With all this in mind, I made each half using the following shapes of 1/2 inch plywood. I robbed my dad's electric circular saw for this (be very careful if you use one!), but I'm sure a jigsaw or even hand saw could work if you focus on getting accurate cuts. 

1x 66.2cm by 44.2cm rectangle - this is the "base" of each half - referred to as A

1x 66.2cm by 4.5cm rectangle. Referred to as B. This piece makes up the back border of each half of the case. 

1x 66.2cm by 3.3cm - referred to as C. This piece will go under the Line of Scrimmage. 

4x 44.2cm by 3.3cm rectangles. These create the border on the left and right of the case, as well as the edge of the pitch. Referred to as D 

This is the mess I had after all the parts were cut out!

This picture also shows a mess *ahem* a completed half of the case. All pieces are assembled using wood screws. 

Piece B is attached to the edge of A, forming the border of the case. This means it rises up 3.3cm over A. 

Piece C is attached on top of A. This will form the Line of Scrimmage for the case, and grass will go over it. It's very important not to mix up pieces B and C! 

The D pieces are all attached on top of A. Each pair is 68mm apart. The inner D pieces will go under the pitch. 

Phew, that was complicated! Once two halves were made in this way, I had this. 

At this point I decided to install the hardware. I recommend bolting a handle through part B at this point, as the hollow inside will soon be filled. I put latches between the two Bs. I added hinges between the two C pieces. 

This is the right time to fill any gaps between the parts. It is almost inevitable that there will be some errors in the cuts. I sanded away any imperfections. 

The next step is to build up the pitch itself. For this I used a scrap sheet of Kingspan foam (aka XPS, extruded polystyrene, blue foam, pink foam or whatever it's called!). This was glued to the A pieces using Gorilla Glue. The stuff I used was the wrong thickness, so I had to do a lot of cutting, sanding and cursing to get it down to 3.3cm in height. 

So that's it for the first part of the case! This is by far the most technical section of the build, and I hope my descriptions of all the different parts were OK. The next section is much more fun, as it involves furnishing the whole stadium! 

Conall Beag

 

I just finished painting this miniature from Monkstone Miniatures. They're making a very interesting range of fantasy figures with a unique look. This one is "Rollo the Masterful", but Conall Beag (Conall the Little) is the name that came to me for him. 

I had a lot of fun experimenting with this colour scheme. Purple and turquoise are two of my favourite colours, but I haven't painted many figures with them. I imagine the scheme to be Conall's knightly heraldry. 

Sebastopol Mortar (build)

 I've long wanted to build an Ethiopian army for Hordes of the Things. Recently, I've been doing some research into what such an army might look like. I ended up reading about "Sebastopol", a huge mortar commisioned by Tewodros II in the 1860s. 

The gun weighed 6.7 tons and could fire around half a ton of ammunition at a time! Although an indication of its power, Sebastopol's great weight was its undoing. As far as we know, it was never fired in battle. It was simply to heavy to be mobile. 

A contemporary illustration 

The barrel of the mortar today 

A replica Sebastopol, now on a roundabout in Addis Ababa

"Sebastopol" is a strange name. It refers to a city in Crimea, but I couldn't find any information as to why a mortar was given this name. Tewodros fought against the British, who had previously besieged Sebastopol. However, this was a British victory, so the name of the weapon probably wasn't ironic or insulting. 

This history is very inspiring, so I started thinking about how I would include it in my future army. It will be classed as Artillery, possibly as a General element for extra power. I imagine that as being Tewodros cheering on his creation! 

I remembered I had a 28mm scale mortar I got free with some Alternative Armies figures. I checked it for scale beside some 15mm figures and it was quite accurate to the size of Sebastopol, so the conversion work began! 

I added extra bands around the barrel using Milliput, then cut the base down into a square. 

I used some old matchsticks to make the undercarriage 

One thing became clear to me at this point :I needed wheels! This is a challenge, as spoked wheels are not easy to make from scratch. I just got a Snotling Blood Bowl team in the post today, and one part stood out to me. As you can see in the picture, the box contains spoked wheels. 

I wanted to copy this part using a Milliput mould. First, I covered the wheel in some talcum powder, then I pushed it into Milliput. The powder helped me to pull the wheel out again. Once the putty hardened, I had a perfect impression of the wheel! Using talcum powder and Milliput again, I stamped out copies of the wheel on old wet pallette paper (another material Milliput won't stick to). 

I'm really happy with how they turned out! But I had lots more to do before finishing the wheels. Two of Sebastopol's wheels are slightly wider than the others, so I had to use a different method. I gave sculpting them by hand a try. 

I used a paint bottle lid to stamp out a circle into epoxy putty, then hollowed out the middle with a sculpting tool. I carved some wood texture into the wheel. 

For the spokes, I took a toothpick and drilled evenly spaced holes around it with a pin vice. I used these to attach paper clip wire. Then I cut the wire down to size and glued the whole thing into the wheel. They took a long time to make, but I'm happy with them. 

I sanded down the backs of the wheels and glued them on. They're not as straight as I'd like, but I'm really happy with how the model turned out! I put it on a 40mm square base for Hordes of the Things. Lastly, I added two matchsticks on the carriage to be more accurate to Sebastopol's shape. 

I might add some chains around the wheels later, but for now the construction is done. I have a lot of other projects at the moment, but I'm looking forward to painting this one! 

The Silver Pinnacle Slayers

I painted this Dwarf Blood Bowl team back around the start of Lockdown, having wanted to start the game for years. I chose Dwarfs as my first team because they are very resilient players who are also well able to dish out damage!

I decided to go with NMM for the metal parts of the figures. I'm very happy with how it turned out. Apologies for the poor quality of the photos. 

A group shot of the whole squad!

My favourite players on the team are the Troll Slayers. These guys are very strong, and are able to hold their own against most other teams. Their main downside is their "Frenzy" special rule, which makes them recklessly pursue their opponents. 

I painted runic tattoos on both of them, although they might not al be visible in the photos. 

Two Blitzers:

The three different poses of Blockers (also referred to as Longbeards). 

Finally, two Runners. These are the "fast" players on the (notoriously slow) Dwarf team. They're great for running into the End Zone for a touchdown. 

I plan on painting up some Star Players and Secret Weapons for this team. Every Dwarf team needs a Deathroller sooner or later!