Ten years ago when I started historical miniature wargaming, my first period was the Zulu War. I stayed away from British colonial wargaming until now. One of the reasons I stayed away was I felt wargaming other colonial periods like the Sudan would be similar to the Zulu War.

The remake of the movie “The Four Feathers” encouraged me to look into the Sudan as a wargame period. From looking through several rulebooks, there were several historical battles to game unlike the Zulu War. I always had a problem with gaming the Zulu war due to the limited number of historical battles.

I decided that I would make most of the terrain myself to save money. I always wanted better terrain and I wanted to eliminate some problems I’ve had playing wargames. The following paragraphs describe what I did:

Eliminate Casualty Caps

I use casualty caps to mark figures that were eliminated. Over the last 10 years, I’ve been getting tired of them but I don’t care to use unit rosters. I use those pre-cut metal bases to mount figures. I line fishing tackle boxes with adhesive metal tape to store my figures.

This gave me an idea. What if I line the metal bases with magnetic tape and mount the figures on metal washers? When a unit suffers a casualty, remove the figure. This works well in practice. You need time and some money to make these bases.

For desert “style” bases, I glue 3 or 4 small pieces of magnetic tape per base. I then paint the base a brown color and let dry. I then paint the base the same brown color again taking care not to get paint on the magnetic tape. I then dip the base in birdcage grit. I then scrape the magnetic tape free of any grit with a hobby knife when dry and paint the tape again. I discovered that magnetic tape doesn’t attract metal washers if covered with a layer of birdcage grit.

The look of my wargame and ease of play greatly increased. It now looks “cleaner” without all of those caps. If you don’t want to use birdcage grit, use sand. Birdcage grit is cheap and readily available at discount stores if you are lazy like I am and don’t want to go to your local beach.

Use of Toy Plastic Boats

This is an old idea but I think it’s worth repeating. If you want some small rowboats to use in a scenario, check out your local dollar stores for cheap plastic bathtub boats. I was able to find a package of three boats that were the right height for 15mm figures and cost a dollar. Two of the boats were usable by snapping the top structure off. One of the boats came with a plastic sale and mast that will make a great Arab dhow. I haven’t tried painting them but they should take acrylic paint well.

Model Desert Scrub Grass

This is an idea I stole from an old issue of “Wargames Illustrated” magazines. I forget the issue number but it covered making 15mm buildings for French and Indian War using card and covering the sides of the building with spaghetti to simulate wooden logs! Anyway to make desert scrub grass, you will need fimo clay and an old cleaning brush (the type with bristles). If you don’t have an old brush lying around, you can buy them brand new quite cheaply. Craft stores like Michael’s carry fimo clay. First, cut the bristles off the brush to a suitable length. Flatten out a small circle of fimo clay and stick the bristles in the center. Let the fimo clay dry over night and paint the bristles and the clay. After I paint the fimo clay base a tan color, I dip it in a box of birdcage grit. Setting the scrub grasses around breaks up a bare wargames table.

Conclusion

I hope one of these ideas is useful to you. If you have any more, why not send them in? Your fellow Heliograph readers would appreciate it.