It’s been a momentous couple of weeks here at the Maiwand Day household, starting with my youngest child’s Bat Mitzvah (ceremony and celebration for reaching the age of maturity and responsability in the Jewish religion), then the Unveiling of my father’s gravestone in New York (he passed away in December 2013), then dropping my son off at Cornell University upstate in Ithaca, New York, then visiting some other prospective East Coast colleges with my rising high school Sophomore older daughter. We got back to Los Angeles on Saturday night, with two kids instead of our customary three. I’m bummed my son is not around but I’m very proud of him and very happy for him since he’s where he wants to be.
With my son across the country and my youngest child now a teenager who officially counts as an “adult” for religious purposes, I can’t help but think it’s kind of childhood’s end here at our place. Still, the games must go on… and so I managed over the past two days to complete the one remaining item on the “To Do” list for my Charasiab terrain lay-out: the latex caulk road system.
I will put up a post showing the later stages of resin pours and then removing the dams from the edges of the boards, and also making the caulk roads — but tonight I am simply posting a handful of pics I just took of the (virtually) finished layout. I use the “virtually” qualifier because there are a couple of small items I will still be working to add, and possibly one large additional item as well — the tall mountainside for the North-East corner of the table, on the far side of the Logar River. Nonetheless as the title of this post states, the terrain is pretty much done.
It’s now the early morning of September 1st, 2015. September 1st is a somewhat momentous date in the annals of the Second Afghan War, being the day General Roberts engaged Ayub Khan’s army outside Kandahar and decisively defeated it, avenging Ayub’s victory over the British at Maiwand just over a month earlier. One of the nice things about the terrain I’ve built for Charasiab is that I should be able to reconfigure it to refight Kandahar as well, by connecting all the river boards together and rearranging the rocky hills, but one thing at a time — first I must get a few play-tests in of the Charasiab scenario ASAP, before it’s time to pack everything up and drive to Metarie, Louisiana, just outside New Orleans, for the Colonial Barracks V convention, something I very much hope to pull off this November.
For now, here’s a few pics of the (mostly) finished layout…
View from the South:
Higher angle from the South:
Overhead view:
View from the South-West, Kabul River in the foreground:
View from the East, Logar River in the foreground:
View from the North:
Northerly overhead view:
View from the North-West, Kabul River in the foreground:
The table and all that terrain looks fantastic.
Well done.
Tony
Shabash huzoor!
That table is the very thing.
Very very impressive!
Looks great Ethan you must be delighted with how it. Turned out!
Best wishes
Willie
Congratulations to you and your family for those milestones. The terrain looks wonderful!
It has been such a privilege watching this project come to fruition – an absolute triumph.
Thanks very much Tony, James, Phil, Willie, AJ and Michael for your very kind words re: this project — and thank you AJ for the well-wishes for my family!
Michael…your ridiculously high praise makes me blush, even across the near infitite inter-webs! In a way I think you and I are absolute hobby opposites — you are the insatiable gadfly, flitting from reasonable-sized masterwork to reasonable-sized masterwork, while I focus interminably on one gargantuan sized project. But variety is the spice of life, and I have lived vicariously through your always surprising and always fresh hobby exploits and accomplishments over months and years, which I consider far greater privilege than the one I've afforded you! To be honest, part of me wishes you'd go back to focusing on the Pontoonier Minatures Third Burma War Burmese troops you did such an incredible job painting and basing a few years ago (if you own any more to paint that is!)… but I know you must do things your way just I must do things mine! Maybe some day I'll manage to branch out into the Third Burma War and satisfy this itch myself! Meanwhile I — together with the rest of the world-wide miniature wargaming blogosphere — will keep enjoying whatever genre rises to the top of your lead-pile!
I hope to be back with a post re: an actual play-test or two of the Charasiab scenario fought across the above terrain in the not-so-distant future. Wish me luck and it just may come to pass — through the Sang-i-Nawishta Gorge that is (a touch of Charasiab terrain-laced humor)…