Wednesday 14 March 2018

From LeeH - Isandlwana 80 points!

With all my planned figures painted and two weeks left of the challenge remaining my mind began tuning towards a final 'Body of Work' photo. Then I thought it would be cool to lay out my British and Zulu's against a backdrop picture of the mountain of Isandlwana. This train of thought could only go one way and it wasn't long before I had a moment of inspiration/madness... and the next thing I knew I was building a mountain in my living room! 




Let me start by saying that I have not built a lot of terrain before and certainly nothing on this scale, so this was a major learning curve for me. One thing that was evident from the beginning was that I was using the wrong materials; I had the wrong tools; and the less said about my technique the better! However I am happy with how this turned out and when I get myself properly tooled up I will be making more terrain in future!




This isn't an accurate 3D model of the mountain, rather a rough approximation based on modern photo's and contemporary drawings. I think its recognisable as Isandlwana and is certainly acceptable for wargaming at home and in Posties shed-o-war.

Last Stand Cave

According to Zulu accounts one lone infantryman of the 24th is supposed to have held out in a cave only to run out of cartridges before being overrun and killed. If true he would have been possibly the last man to die in the battle. 

This model is made up of five layers of foam, each a little over 2" thick, so the whole model stands 11" high. Trying to work out the dimensions for the purposes of scoring this is a little tricky but here are a few pictures and my size calculations.






Layer 1 - 17x10x2" = 340 in³
Layer 2 - 14x8x2" = 224 in³
Layer 3 - 12x7x 2" = 168 in³
Layer 4 - 6x5x2" = 60 in³
Layer 5 - 5x4x2" = 40 in³
Total = 832 in³ divided by 216 in³ = 3.8 six inch cubes

The dimensions of each layer have been rounded down and sloped edges haven't been included so the cubic dimensions for each layer are pretty solidly conservative. Rounded down to the nearest whole number makes this 3 x 6" cubes or 60 points... unless the Wednesday Minion feels generous! I'll accept whatever is deemed fair and at the end of the day it was fun to build as an unplanned extra to my Challenge.

From Ray

That's a mighty mean looking hill you have there Lee or are you just pleased to see me!?!
Great work ol boy, I wouldn't wanna climb that!!!
I give up with these bloody terrain items, I'm retiring from trying to work out points for these items. Math was never ever anywhere near my strong point.
I'll go with your very complicated layer by layer workings out giving you 76 points and I'll throw in an extra 4 points! So 80 points it is!


8 comments:

  1. Nice work Lee :)

    I think Ray must be demob happy with all the extra points he's throwing around like confetti today ;)

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  2. Great work Lee!

    And well done to Ray for not deleting the post :)

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  3. An awesome table top piece. Well done and terrain...yeah..it's a steep learning curve. But learn we do. Cheers

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  4. Very nice work. I like your project this year a lot

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  5. Nice bit of terrain building!
    Best Iain

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  6. The ‘Little House’! Very nice! Now if you can just do a tiny Rorke’s Drift...

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