More for Chain of Command in Malaya

With our Chain of Command Malaya 1942 campaign now in full swing, I've been inspired to work on a few more terrain pieces so that we have all that we need for the coming scenarios.

When I first started playing Chain of Command I made only six Jump off Points and had failed to notice that some scenarios like The Flank Attack and Attack on an Objective will require a fourth. With two Flank scenarios coming up in the Malaya campaign I thought it was time I redressed this and created enough JoPs.

This then led me to think about how I might do this more imaginatively. Lately, in some of the forums, I've seen some very creative JoPs often featuring a few miniatures. These look great, but I often worry that they will be confusing during play. I think the solution is simply to make them look different enough from any other based miniatures and as close as possible to the style of your other JoPs that there's little chance of that happening.

So while I made up two more JoPs in exactly the same style as my others I also had some inspiration to create one that was specifically Japanese. I had created a company commander base for my Crossfire Japanese platoon and realised I could adapt this to suit Chain of Command (while it could still serve its purpose for Crossfire).

Some additional JoPs in my traditional style

The new JoP sits comfortably with the other ones

I'm very happy with this and have similar sorts of figures that I could use for a British and American version, so these will no doubt end up being little side projects I'll develop to help break the monotony when I have a load of miniatures to paint.

While I was at it, I realised I didn't have a Japanese Forward Observer team and so sifted through some plastic 1/72 Japanese from the Waterloo and Italeri sets that would just about do the job. They are not the finest sculpts I've ever seen, but they are functional.

Having successfully made a dry paddy field I've also wanted to try my hand making some in-season wet ones.

A dry out-of-season paddy field

The basic shape followed that of the dry one - a MDF base with the paddy banks made out of insulating foam and shaped with filler.  This time I painted the interior in a dark green/blue colour.

I then made it look wet by covering it with several coats of Modge Podge varnish. This is water based and a lot less smellier than an enamel based varnish.

Next up I tried to see how best to show the rice plants growing. For this I planned to use static grass and find a way to lay it down in a pattern that would be consistent with a planted rice paddy. I tried two different methods, one using a line of glue on the left hand side and the other with spots of glue on the right.  Rather rashly I made the decision to change method half way through making the first paddy field.  In hindsight a rather silly idea.

I think the spots worked much better, the only problem now is how do I make it all looks the same? Well, that's my punishment for being impatient.

The paddy banks themselves will also need flocking, but I think I can work this to come up with a reasonable impression of an in-season paddy.

Finally, in the mail today were some of Sarissa's new 20mm Far East huts and these I will make up and add to my Airfix Jungle Outpost huts. That should give me sufficient buildings for the village fight which is the final map of the Malaya 1942 campaign.