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| Cart convoy - moving the army the hard way |
I like all that nonsense you can create for the table which is not about men with weapons killing each other. I have made it a bit of an LoA trademark over the years with battery positions, wagons, civilian vignettes and the like.
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| Muddy waters under the cart - made using yacht varnish |
The arrival of the extensive Swedish artillerymen many of whom are open handed has spurred one of these creative phases and combined with items from Warfare Miniatures' siege equipment range and various wagons, I have created a variety of visually interesting pieces to dress specifically my Great Northern War tables but which could also be used more generally.
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| Original with Foundry horse |
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| Mark 2 using all Warfare components |
Tactica provided the spur to get on with this labour of love and this post is all about interesting things you can do with rather prosaic items like, well, carts.
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| The commercial model |
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| prototype experimentation |
I saw the pushing yer wagon out of the mud opportunities early on and have now produced two iterations of this. On uses an old Foundry artillery horse which looks more like a pony based on the diminutive size of Foundry models pre-2010.
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| Civilian leading the horse |
Having displayed this piece at a few shows and received requests about where it could be purchased I realized that I couldn't sell a commercial piece using someone else's horses. I thus built a second piece using all Warfare components and happily this is now available from the shop.
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| front the front |
I was pretty content with the dirty puddle effect under the cart created using yacht varnish in a couple of layers. I painted one of the men in this version as a civilian and another as an infantryman with his coat tails unbuttoned. The loads in the carts are also slightly different.
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| Angry officer of Engineers - get that ramrod out! |
Another iteration of 'cart-ing' is a static cart being used as a supervisory platform by an officer of engineers or artillery. Various items of siege equipment are scattered round the cart in a busy scene from behind the gun line.
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| Lots of things going on around the cart |
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| An interesting twig used as a dead tree trunk |
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| This stand alone piece can be used alone or in larger arrangements |
The officer had to have his base removed and metal pins drilled into his heels to prevent the model being accidentally knocked out of the cart. I am tempted to put one or two small items into the already busy picture such as a linstock but probably wont.
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| Busy action around the hoist - repairing and digging |
Not content with this cart-wittery an even more ambitious piece of work involved jacking up a damaged cart under the ubiquitous artillery gin (hoist frame). Lots going on on this base. A man is moving the new wheel to the cart.
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| Watch yer toes Sven! |
Another is adjusting the mechanism on the hoist. A third is getting down and dirty with his wheel barrow and shovel. Numerous little items are being used in this peice and it is my favourite based on the amount of activity I have managed to crammed into an 80 x 100mm space.
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| Hard at work! |
Am I out of patter? Not by a long chalk. What I didn't manage to get finished were two other pieces of cart-art. The first is a wagon which has toppled and shed its load with the cargo strewn across the ground and men picking through the debris. The second is an exploding cart with barrels of powder on fire and men furiously trying to dowse the conflagration.
For anyone interested in their own cart-ography you may want to look at the following Warfare Miniatures items;
WLOA904 Tumbril cart
WLOA918 Baskets, barrels, bells and sieves
WLOA925 Gun gin
WLOA926 Gabions under construction including wheel barrow and tools
SA1, SA2,SA3 Swedish Artillery crews (three sets)