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Having finally extricated the Americans from La Cambe I pushed on toward Arthenay where once again I would meet some dug in Germans who I needed to eject from their defensive positions.
I was reasonably confident - the German forces were significantly depleted and I was hopeful they'd pull out in fairly short order.
My first squad raced up to the advanced hedgerow
Whilst I deployed other squads to build a firebase.
Where were the hun hiding?
One of my squads took advantage of some double phases to race deep into enemy lines, neatly avoiding the Mg42 by careful deployment of their "conga line" formation
A tank rumbled up in support
Which cheered up the nearby Americans no end.
Unfortunately a pair of M42s lay in wait and began hammering the squad that had advanced so far.
Shock and casualties were mounting.
In desperation the squad on my right began to push forward.
And with that time was up my central squad had been cut apart by Mg42 crossfire and morale was tumbling...
We'd return later in the week to conclude the action.
There's no "official" basing size for Midgard - as long as you and your opponent have your units on the same frontage you can do what you like, but we've generally settled on a 12cm frontage as our preferred size for 28mm miniatures.
Stage two
Next I've drilled holes in the corners of the bases and glued some Rare Earth magnets in place. This is to try and hold the bases in place on my metal based Really Useful boxes, so you can skip this stage, or add magnetic srtip to the bases or whatever else you come up with.
Stage three
Next stage is to cover the top with some flexible steel sheet. I do this because my models have manets on the bases. Obviously if your models are based on a steel base (or pennies) you could reverse this and top instead with magnetic sheet. I bought mine from the nice folks at Coritani.
Stage four
Next I've added a little basing material around three of the edges. I've left the back clear as it makes taking and adding models off easier. I make this stuff by mixing brown acrylic paint, a little ready mixed filler, some sand and some PVA and water until I get a consistency I like. Thee are product available, but they're pricy for this kind of thing, save them for model bases.
You could do this just using sand and PVA and then paint the whole thing afterwards, but I've started doing this and it works for me - I'm not your dad, do whatever you think best.
Stage five
Paint the whole thing with some brown paint, just to disguise the metal when you have to take dead 'uns off
.
I used cheap acrylic paint, you could use household emulsion or spray the whole thing. The important thing is it needs to be a pretty thin layer so you keep that nice magnetic thing going on.
Stage six
Dybrush with a lighter brown. I used a pretty orangey one (which doesn't show too well in the picture) but choose something to match the miniature bases.
Stage seven
More drybrushing, this time with a creamy colour
Bases for other troops
So far this has been about bases for ranked infantry units, but alongside this I also made some other types
This is for skirmishers. Exactly the same size as the infantry ones above, but instead of covering the whole top with metal sheet, I instead used some offcuts to add four squares large enough to accommodate skirmisher bases. I broke these up a bit too in order to get a more irregular shape to the unit.
Below is a cavalry base example, there are 120mm x 100mm - cavalry look better with a bit of extra depth, especially irregular sorts like the Pictish cavalry.
Again I used some offcuts to create shapes the right size for the horse bases.
All the other work is the same as for the infantry bases, except I took the opportunity to add a few large rocks to the bases, to break things up. I picked the rocks out with various grey shades.
Final stage
The last step is to add basing material of your choice - is used a mix of static grass, tufts, clump foliage and some purple "flowers" aiming for a heather look to suit my Pictish homelands.
Finished results
So how do they look with models on?
Like this:
I'm pretty pleased with the finished results and have made enough for my 300 point army - but as it's expanding I may need a few more...
Video
For those of you wanting a different medium, here's the same process but in moving picture format
My chum and his son came over for another game. I roughed up a "hold the objectives" scenario with a limit of 15 turns in the hope of avoiding the slugfest our games sometimes degenerate in to.
I took the Khand force taking on some Minas Tirith types and some Men of Rohan.
The Paddingtons Khandish warriors fan out
I have quite the Khavalry force now.
Not So Young N's recently finished Rohan riders.
And some foot troops.
Khandish arrows take out a gee-gee.
Evil plate clad fellows - ideal for opening up with a big chopper.
Battle is joined.
The Minas Tirith men start ganging up.
Axe versus horse.
I managed to get a good firing line, but arrows alone seldom win in Middle-earth.
Finally the so-called "good" forces fell out.
I started surrounding Rohan riders.
The chariot once again proved less than game-changing.
Battle flared across the field.
Theoden was proving a tough nut to crack.
And the fight with Minas Tirith was deadlocked.
The Minas Tirith archers had an annoying vantage point.
Better armour was turning the tide in favour of "good"
I was dragging down riders, but Theoden rode on.
No matter how many I threw at him.
My two lone archers had no targets.
Definitely a bit thinned out over here
The Rohan forces also fell to the White Tree.
I ran out of troops first, even fifteen turns proved too long for me to hang on, and the men of Rohan barely made the finish line.
