MAKING A LIST AND CHECKING IT THRICE

 

Three sets of lists done. The start of the next project.

Having just reported on the completion of my Joust for the Fun of It rules, the hobby butterfly has alighted on the next phase of this project.  I originally created this game for 28mm figures.  Since I have all the figures and bits I need to run the game in 28mm, I  (of course) came up with the bright idea that I could also play it using the 1:20 scale Schleich toy knights. Of course, this means that in order to take my game on the road and run it for others, I would need at least 6 teams of 4 knights each, 24 in all. Towards these ends, I have been hitting ebay hard...

A snapshot capturing a swath of my recent ebay acquistions of big knights and big knight accessories.  I'll be doing lots of work configuring the knights into teams of four (how to mount them, modify them, etc, etc). Right now, I'm working with some friends who do 3D printing to come up with bits and bobs in support of that effort.  More to come on that in the future (still in development). In the meantime, I decided to tackle something that I could get done: the lists. 

I discovered among the Schleich World of Knight accessories these very nice list barriers (in this post, you may clix pix for BIG PIX as usual).

They're nice enough, but I figured if I'm going to "go big" with my figures, then the lists should add a bit more to the look.  And (above right) having added shields to my 28mm jousting lists... 

...I thought I'd do the same for my big ones. And this is how I did it.

First of all, I used a Heraldic Device clip art set that I've had for ages to produce two shields per list barrier (printed out, cut out, and mounted on a slim bit of plasticard). I also had a bunch of 1.5" x 1.5" wooden bases on hand. These I stained. I then used Gorilla Wood glue to paste the shields onto the wood. 

The Schliech barriers have lots of nice detail, to include this lug that protrudes out of one of the sides (there is a smaller one on the reverse). This presented a problem: how to mount the shields flush given this protrusion?

The problem proved to be the solution. I drilled a blind hole in the center of one side of each of the shield boards...

...and then I put them onto the barriers with the lugs fitting into the holes, which not only solved the problem but provided a flat-pack-like fitting of one thing into another to ensure that they were centered... 

...after the first side dried, I then flipped them over and put the shields on the reverse. It wasn't clear how flush they would sit on the rails, so I added two 1/4" woodworking cubes which were (happily) the same height as the rails (or just about) and put Gorilla Glue wood glue on them, and just to be sure, I also generously slathered the rails with J B Kwikweld (good for bonding wood to plastic, good for bonding just about anything!). This combination covered any variation in how the shields might lay. 

I configure each list with 5 barriers.  Each barrier has a single shield pattern that is repeated on both sides.  To be able to run 3 lists at a time, I fabricated 15 barriers, each with a different shield pattern. This way, no matter how I arrange them, there will be no repeat shield designs visible.  In this case, the outcome pretty much matched the concept: Big toy knights on big lists with big shields. So far, so good. 

 

Work now shifts to the much larger and more extended task of organizing, modifying, and configuring the knights. I just signed up to run this game at the Mayhem Convention (April 22), so I'll be sticking to this project to make sure I can see it through in time for the convention.  

Excelsior!