28mm National Guard of Milan 1848 - Piedmont Army

These are the first of two Chocolate Box Wars units I'll be making of the National Guard of Milan. When I saw this uniform in the Osprey book with it's fantastically ridiculous hat, I knew I had to have them as part of my Piedmont Chocolate Box Wars army. Unfortunately for me, because they saw little action until their incorporation into the Central Italian League, nobody makes a figure for this unit. Time went by and I mostly had given up. Then I decided to learn more about AI 3D model generation. After playing around with some online 2D to 3D AI tools I got some nearly usable figures. Good enough to encourage me to learn the requisite tools to complete the project. Those tools being the 3D modeling software Blender, Meshmixer and Windows 3D Builder, as well as some Autodesk Fusion 360 until I got more comfortable with Blender.  

Investing over 100 hours in learning these tools, I'm finally competent enough to make my own 3D models and this unit is the first one I've completed using my own 3D model STL files from my own models. To say I'm quite excited about learning this new skill is an understatement. Now there are no longer ANY units or uniforms that are out of reach. I learned a lot doing this unit. Primarily something that looks 'correct' close up, isn't what you want on a figure. Our figures have over-exaggerated details like belts, ammo pouches and the like. Getting a feel for how oversized is still part of the learning curve for sure. 

Something as simple as a musket, the length, width and breath of which is well known and easy to scale properly, looks TERRIBLE when scaled to the proper scale. They need to be shortened and fattened in thickness while not in height from trigger to hammer. Building a library of these 'scaled for miniatures' features is definitely needed, just the same as traditional sculptors use existing features on their 3-up 'greenies'.  All said, these are more than passable and I'm quite happy to have them and the skills I've learned in making them.

 

Below, a sneak peek at the complete ten figures I made in total. The next two-stand unit will feature all of the new standing and firing poses I've created, four more in total, plus the two firing poses from above. After that, some other small 3D modeling projects that have come too fast for me to document here, but will be as I catch up.  

 When the STL files for these eventually become available for sale, they'll be listed on my store at Wargaming3D - https://www.wargaming3d.com/brands/ajswargaming

Dry-brush texture palette

I made this quick dry-brush texture palette for a friend who's starting their painting journey with the Slap-Chop method. I made myself a similar one about a year ago but I forgot to post it here. It's a simple affair on an MDF base with leftover bits from my spares box and some junk from my 3-D printing 'broken bits' drawer. 

My first one had more 'stuff' and less brick and rock texture. I found the latter more useful in general so this one has about a 50/50 mix which I think will be ideal.

Before black-priming the whole thing, so you can better see the various 'junk' tossed onto the palette. These are surprisingly helpful to keep your dry-brushing from looking 'chalky'.
 

28mm Stone Bridge

This is a 28mm stone bridge that I recently 3D printed and painted up. I have a larger Warlord Games Stone Bridge that I use often, but sometimes I need two, or I want one with a smaller footprint. This one I printed just large enough to fit a Panther tank in 28mm and no more. I started with a base color of British WWII Uniform primer from a can leftover from my very large British WWII army. From there I picked out some extra colors, dry-brushed, and then added some washes to represent recent muddy wheels passing over. The latter matches up well to my homemade muddy roads.

This was liquid resin one morning and a fully painted terrain piece that evening. Sometimes I really love having a resin 3D printer available for when a need arises.

Chocolate Box Wars Campaign Game #1

Saturday I played the first of what should be a series of five games in Ed M's Chocolate Box Wars Tournament. I'm looking at the tournament more as a way to play with a bunch of new opponents and less as a competition. I expect the others are as well. 

This first game came on the heels of me hosting a game at our Club's monthly game night, so I begged Ed to host our game as I wasn't sure what condition my game room would be in with an upcoming convention preparations and the tear-down of my game night game taking up space. The battle pitted my only completed CBW army, my 1859 Austrians vs. Ed's Hungarians with their multitude of different line uniforms - very beautiful, very CBW. The photo above shows the armies after deployment during turn one's marches. I anchored my right flank on the town and shifted some line units left with thoughts that if Ed defended, I needed flank pressure on that large hill he was occupying. More on that to come.

Ed stole a march on turn two (won the initiative roll) and surprised me by jumping forward with his class D line (militia) flanked by two of his class C line (regulars). I saw clearly his plan, to get in the plain between our hills and take up enough space that he could use his artillery to support his class D line while simultaneously preventing me from doing the same. I was planning on doing exactly the same. Ed's plan worked and he got the precious middle ground and started very effectively pounding my infantry. Just when I thought General Dice had abandoned me I got a clutch 3-casualty rally on my pressured infantry, extending their life....for a turn. They would later on succumb to the relentless pressure of Ed's combined class D infantry and artillery. 

Ed demonstrated against the town on my right, but chose caution over engaging my advanced rifles that were defending it. This allowed me to press my class B Grenzers into the center to put more pressure there. This forced Ed's left flank to engage the plucky border patrollmen. Ed pounded them for multiple turns racking up three casualties (one from flaking a stand) several times. With their B class morale, support from the CinC and General Dice, they were able weather the storm with multiple rallies of 3 and 2 casualties. I believe in the second to last turn I used seven of my 22 command tokens on rallies and at least FOUR of these were to support the Grenzers. At some point in there Ed did flake a full stand off them reducing them to a single stand. This was at a great cost in command initiative points. In the center things seemed to be holding on as a stand-off with my line infantry taking the worst of it eventually losing a full battalion.

With Ed's expenditure of initiative to wear down my Grenzers, it was time for his cavalry to engage my left flank. It was what he had left for the job, and it was a fine tool. Ed executed a wonderful cavalry maneuver, withstood my light cavalry's counter-charge and got off two solid attacks on my leftmost line infantry. Unfortunately these attacks yielded no casualties and Ed was nearly out of command points. With me holding a reserve of several command points my infantry and light cavalry were able to counter-attack to great effect, eliminating Ed's cavalry unit. With a few remaining command points my center was able to focus fire on one of Ed's class D infantry in the center eliminating it as well. Ed's final turn attacks were all excellently planned and executed. On the right I got effective rally rolls when I needed them and on the left it was all a matter of chance. I felt out-played most of the game, but was able to steal a victory. 

Below, a note on army size for Chocolate Box Wars. Here is my over-sized Austrian army in it's storage and travel containers, labeled and ready to play. This includes additional line infantry and all 'options' for cavalry ranging from Hussars through Curiassers, easily enough for two players per side. A large army in two medium-sized stackable boxes. I can literally carry the army under one arm.

Two 28mm Burned Out Farmhouses

Back in 2020 I painted up these resin ruined farmhouse sections.  I've been enjoying using them in games as their footprint and styling are both to my liking. Unfortunately the bare pieces on the tabletop didn't really convey the 'ruined building' vibe. Also the actual footprint of the terrain piece was difficult to define during a game. Move forward four+ years and I've finally based these up and added some additional features made from foam and other terrain materials. Now they're much more functional while preserving all of the qualities that I liked from the original resin pieces.

The larger piece, suitable for the 'main farmhouse' includes the larger of the two corner pieces. At the recommendation of my uncle, I also added some wisps of smoke to convey that 'freshly burned' feel.
 

 

 

The smaller of the two pieces, with a 28mm British infantry NCO for scale. This could either be a smaller farmhouse or barn building. The corner with the white smoke was scratch built from foam and balsa to round out the building area.

One of the nice things about these pieces as they're quite generic and can be used for many historical periods.