With Pavia on the horizon for Historicon 2025, it is important for me to finish all the preparations for Historicon 2024 as soon as possible. This does not mean that I am not planning to put on a good looking game for this years event. This year, I am running a combined modern naval game using Harpoon V rules, with an amphibious landing using Force on Force rules. The conflict centers around the Senkaku Islands between China and Japan.
Progress on figures and vehicles
The first thing that I have been working on is two LCAC hovercraft for the Japanese. These are still not finished but they are getting a lot closer. I have been working on the weathering. In one of the pictures I have included a figure for scale, these are impressive vehicles and have taken a lot of time to build, paint and weather. These truly have been a labor of love.
The next thing that I have been working on is painting the 20mm infantry. I have now finished these figures. They were quite a challenge trying to paint modern digital camouflage in this scale. The main issue was trying to make sure that the Japanese and Chinese figures were distinguishable, In real life the uniforms have similar colors but are slightly different. Trying to bring that out in this scale tested my skills. I have textured the bases, but still need to paint them; I am waiting until my terrain mat arrives in a few weeks so that I can make the bases match.
Progress on terrain for Historicon 2024
There are two main items of terrain, in addition to a lot of scatter terrain. The first is some dense vegetation. The second is going to be some hills and rock faces. Before starting the hills, I wanted to finish the vegetation. It consists of nine bases and has taken me a lot longer than I anticipated. It is now almost done apart from some ground cover leaves and some vines that I still need to add.
I wanted the vegetation to be very dense. This required purchasing a lot of smaller plants and some sea-foam. I then used wet ground from AK Interactive Terrains to give a mud effect and blend stuff in. For trees I used various palms that I bought at shows, but I also wanted some larger jungle type trees. I had trouble finding these type of trees in the size that I wanted, I was looking for about 12″ tall. In the end a 3d printer custom printed some tree trunks and branches. I then painted these models and added the canopy.
The following photos show the completed vegetation stands. The photos don’t really do justice to how I think that they look. I was really happy with how large and imposing they appear. But, they took a really long time to make. I hope that they have a visual impact at Historicon 2024.
Aircraft.
In a previous post I discussed the aircraft that I already had for this project – AH64, V.22 and CH.47s. This month I got two Chinese Su.30MKK. I really like how these models look. They are huge. I now need to work on some decent stands for the game.
Next steps for Historicon 2024
I want to make sure that I sculpt and paint all of the hills and rock faces in February. I also want to finish all of the scatter terrain, such as the Chinese tents, ammo store and other camp equipment. The work for Historicon 2024 continues.
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