What is it about breweries?

It just seems that I must have a brewery model for both my pulp scales... so just bought an HO one for the 20mm figures....

German, of course... but then, that seems to be all you can get. Suppose Faller, Vollmer and Kibri are probably all German companies?

Quite a big model with good detail.

Including inside detail - though I might normally finish up using this to add extra outside detail.

1897 First encounter/initial set up

Time to start actually playing with these...

Firstly, terrain. Almost chose itself - had to include the brewery, finally found a use for the 28mm/oversize bandstand and country house also seemed to fit. Basic idea French driving up a major road running parallel to a river - which gives a useful boundary - while an infantry Brigade tries to slow them down.

Scenario starts with light cavalry leading the French, to be followed by the zouves then line infantry/heavy cavalry and artillery.

Overview of the battlefield. The river on the far side of the road is the boundary - ignore everything you see on the far side!

The pavilion serves as a good Victorian folly in front of the country manor. It is defended by a line battalion Acting as a flank guard.

Brewery and road defended by by a fusilier battalion and line battalion. The road has been protected by some improvised barricades (sort of). The moulds in the background show my dilemma - I can set up for casting or gaming, not both.

The French cavalry make their appearance.

1897 Sorting buildings

It's one thing collecting and painting loads of shiny 42mm toys, but that's only part of it. Battles and generally playing with the things means you need buildings, hedges and trees on the table as well.

Happily, I've got Newhaven. OK, Newhaven is 28mm rather than 42mm, but then lots of people have buildings that are to a smaller scale than the figures, plus one house = one village... Not relevant! This is basically a 1:1 toys scenario! The question is: what do they look like next to each other.

So I've had a couple of quick sessions trying things out.

This is my Lledo brewery. Very much something to be defended from those Foreign types.

Likewise, Sarissa country manor (normally used as part of Miskatonic University) fits well. The Sarissa fencing also fits in very nicely scale-wise.

Different photo session, Sarissa church - these larger buildings all go very well with the figures.

However... 1897 is very  much a British affair - most of Newhaven is obviously American. Don't think the TTCombat  police station is appropriate somehow.

So, conclusion - 28mm buildings go very well with 42mm buildings. However, it does mean having to buy and build a load of British houses if I'm going to represent the sort of High Street I grew up in (and which would have been easily recognised in 1897.)

Brewery and Park completed

The A3 board system seems to be working but does need a few compromises. The brewery, for instance, was originally meant to be linear. All pieces on the brewery apart from the lorry are glued down; the park I've glued the fence but items like the clock and chairs are loose - I can forsee lots of variation in the future.

I've been buying various road and pavement sets for the table. However, many of these simply have the features'drawn' on in a dark sepia colour. So I bought a dark sepia marker and drew 1cm squares on the courtyard to represent 2' flags.

At the back, the paving is marked to represent cobbles.

That seemed to work, so when it came to the park I rather overdid it really... for this, I should probably have glued the grass in first, but I thought... 

So, cobbles for the front and back entrances, crazy paving inside. It looks quite effective.

The side view really does show off the park to it's best advantage.

 And finally a back view.