Category Archives: American Civil War

American Civil War: 28mm American Farmhouse

My workbench focus over the past couple of weeks has been almost exclusively on my 28mm American Civil War project which I hope to have wrapped-up and ready to present in a large scale battle this spring. As posted previously, I love setting out a realistic wargaming table full of structures and terrain. Luckily, Perry Miniatures – the maker of my favored 28mm American Civil War soldiers – also produces a couple 1/56th scale plastic kits of terrain suitable to the period.

The Perry Miniatures farmhouse is loosely modelled on General Meade’s Union headquarters from the Battle of Gettsyburg, pictured at right in a photo from the aftermath of the battle and as it looks today. I’ve seen the house in person a couple of times, and I’ve also seen similar buildings in Western New York, Ohio, Michigan and Virginia. The Perry Miniatures model is typical of the small wood-framed clapboard rural farmhouses found in the North, South and into the Great Lakes region from the late 18th through 19th-centuries.

The pieces of the farmhouse kit come in two easily-assembled sprues along with an extra sprue of three types of fencing. The fencing is disappointing and unfortunately doesn’t really offer much to work with in terms of building out a farm scene. Some extra sets of plastic fencing from Renedra are probably needed to really complete the set. However, the box does contain a chair and a couple barrels to add some nice detail to the model’s front porch.

I glued up the kit and sprayed it with a flat black undercoat. My plan was to give the farmhouse a weather-beaten finish looking like it had years of peeling paint. I started by dry-brushing the model with a large flat brush with a yellowish off-white paint, making sure to leave a fair amount of the black in the gaps and areas between the clapboards (photo at top left).

Next, I dry-brushed the house again with a bright white paint, giving the clapboards additional depth as if the most recent layer of paint had deteriorated over time. For the roof shingles, I built-up dry-brushed paint in dark brown, light brown and then a bit of dark green mixed with a brown wash. I began the chimney with a dark gray paint and then finished it with dry-brushed lighter gray and dabs of brown and off-white paint to represent variations in the stonework (photo at middle left).

For details, I dabbed the barrels, chair and porch planking with dark brown and completed them with some lighter brown dry-brushing and some aging metal for the barrel hoops. The door knobs at the front and rear each got a dab of brass paint (photo at bottom left), and I gave the picket fence another coat of the bright white like the house clapboards.

The final results are below and ready for the battlefield this coming spring.

American Civil War: 28mm Cannonball Markers

Aside from actual gaming, one of the more enjoyable aspects of wargaming for me is scale modelling. Scale modelling is basically looking at the real world and figuring out how to represent it realistically on the tabletop. I’m constantly picking up little pieces of wood, paper, metal, fabric and string and figuring out what those materials might be used for down in a miniature scale.

My most recent project is building some cannonball markers for my 28mm scale American Civil War gaming. These markers will be used to indicate when my field guns are loaded and ready to fire. In reality, most American Civil War field batteries probably didn’t have time to neatly stack piles of cannonballs as gun teams fired furiously at enemy lines. That said, anyone who has visited a historic battlefield site will most probably be familiar with the look of cannonball piles often found sitting neatly nearby an antique artillery piece.

Many companies offer pre-made cannonball markers cast in plastic or metal, however, I thought scratch-building some markers of my own would offer a nice break from my usual painting of soldiers in blue and gray. For bases, I used the same 7/8″ fender washers I use for basing all my 28mm miniatures. The cannonballs were made from a length of metal pull chain found in the electric aisle of any hardware store. Many modellers use small gauge shot to model cannonballs, but I found the connected balls/links of the chain makes assembly quicker without the mess of chasing little balls around the workbench.

To begin, I cut and glued a small thin piece of cardboard over the center hole of each washer. I then cut three three-link sections, two two-link sections and a single ball from the chain. Starting at the bottom layer, I used a dab of superglue to affix the three three-link sections on the base. When dry, I glued the two two-link sections on top of the base layer and then fixed a single ball on the top of the pile. The result was a neat pile of 14 balls stacked into a symetric pyramid.

Once each based pile was dry, I spray-coated the markers with flat black paint. To give the cannonballs some shading and depth, I lightly dry-brushed some rusty metal and brown paint over the balls, allowing some of the black to remain between. The base was then painted green and flocked with some static grass affixed with PVA glue. A protective dull clear spray coat finished them off.

Sitting alongside my Union gunners running a field piece into position as their General shouts orders, these new markers make for a nice piece of detail on the battlefield.