It’s no secret that small details can breath life into a wargames table. I’m talking about things that are not really necessary for gameplay, but still add to the atmosphere. So, what would fit into an American Civil War landscape?
Every homestead needs a small vegetable garden. Dogs and pigs would be kept out by a picket fence that would have to be painted regularly by that ne’er-do-well Tom Sawyer. Mine is based on two old plastic cards; the fence is made out of matchsticks, the pumpkins are coriander seeds.
Another thing every homestead needs is an outhouse. Peter Pig offer a pack of two in their Scenery range and they look very nice. I based one singly and the other one together with a scratch built dunghill.
And who’s guarding the farm? Trusty Buster, of course! The doghouse is built from scratch, again out of matchsticks and balsa wood and the dog is from Peter Pig.
Another piece of scatter terrain I built was telegraph poles. I’ve already got myself a couple of old TT gauge tracks from ebay so I can put a railway on my table. The Union and Confederate armies used to dispatched small parties to tap into the telegraph line of the enemy, which often ran along railroads. This would make a great scenario, so I made a couple of simple telegraph poles.
This was easy: I just glued shish kebab skewers onto round bases and than put a small piece of matchstick across the top. I painted them grey-brown and drybrushed heavily to give them a weathered look.
And this is how a mock-up of the table looks like (the house with the porch is from Peter Pig, the barn is a model railway building I bought at a flea market and repainted):
I’m looking forward to having a game soon!
The Raft 