Nova Scotia - Annapolis Royal - Fort Anne

Fort Anne was originally a Scottish settlement built near the ruins of a French fur trading post and the native Mi'kmaq peoples. The Mi'kmaq peoples fought alongside the French and later Acadian peoples as they tolerated limited French settlements near their land. The area was abandoned by the Scots and re-settled by the French Government. The vauban style earthworks, seen via aerial view (actually a picture of a postcard) were started in 1702. It was taken by the British in 1710 and was attacked thirteen times and changed hands seven times. Up to 70 buildings were present in the fort during its height of importance. The town of Annapolis Royal lies just behind it.

 Here is the fort, with my nephew for scale, and the officer's quarters as the sole remaining main building. It was originally built in 1797 and refurbished in the 1930's.

 As you can see, the vauban earthworks would be very hard to climb with full kit, especially when being fired upon. Plus the shape of them allow for overlapping arcs of fire.

 This French cannon was left behind.

 It bears an impressive coat of arms and other adornments.

 This is a side view of the seaward side. The trees are probably from when the fort fell into disuse after the war of 1812 with the Americans. The town of Annapolis Royal was raided by American Privateers and driven off the first time but the troops were deployed elsewhere and the town was raided a second time.

 Here my nephew is trying to scale the earthworks. Easy in summer clothes and sneakers when taking his time.

 This is a view looking out on the seaward side.

 This is a view from the outer earthworks looking out on Annapolis Basin. Just beyond the island in the top middle of the picture you head right to get to the Bay of Fundy. The British had small forts on either side of the entrance to the basin at one time.

 Here is a view of the town of Annapolis Royal, on the opposite side of the inlet to the Annapolis river.

 Here is a reconstruction of the magazine. Another awesome thing about the Fort Anne site is everything except the museum is free. That's right...free.

 Here is a model of the blockhouse that was torn down in the late 1800's by the custodian of the site. I was made out of the wood retrieved from that same blockhouse.

 In the museum they have an extensive history of the area and Fort. They also have cool costumes that you can try on and pose. Please excuse the wild collared shirt sticking out. It definitely was not period French.

 Here is an excellent model made of the fort during its building of the earthworks in the early 1700's by the French. Sorry about the glare.

 The white flag was used by the French Marines and not as a flag of surrender at the time.

I had been coming here since I was very young and always like to revisit. Its fun in the winter time with a crazy carpet or toboggan. The Fort Anne site is the oldest National Park, established in 1917.

If you're in the area, at any time of year, come down and enjoy. The museum is only open during the main summer months.

Nova Scotia - Cornwallis

When Cornwallis was a Canadian Military basic training facility, I had come here as a Sea Cadet and again when I joined the Navy. It was completed in the winter of 1942-43 and served as a training facility for new navy recruits until it closed in 1946. It was re-commissioned in 1949 and served as a Navy recruit base until 1968 when the Canadian Forces unified and then was used by all three branched of the Canadian Military. It was closed down in 1994. Just in front of the stop sign were the tracks for the train that took new recruits here from up Nova Scotia and also went South to the Digby ferry terminal.

 The field here once housed the gym and pool but it burnt down shortly after the base became an industrial park, community centers and Pearson Peacekeeping Center. Sea cadets still use the barracks for summer courses, pictured in the background.

In the vicinity of bases throughout Canada, there will be military vehicles for display; generally they will be near war memorials. Here is a British designed Centurion tank. It was originally designed to take a direct hit from an WW2 German 88mm gun but only entered the war just after it ended. It was widely popular and was used by many countries up until the 90's.

 The CF-100 Voodoo entered service in 1961, made by McDonnell aircraft corporation, and remained in service until 1987. Its primary weapons were two nuclear AIR2-A Genie unguided missiles. Political controversy led to the missiles being stored in Canada by US forces and only signed over to the Canadians in die emergency. This meant the Canadian Government could say that they owned no nuclear devices yet had them immediately available.

The Sherman tank was an American designed medium tank that was superior to many of the German light and medium tanks. There were more of these tanks built during WW2 than all other tanks by all sides combined. It was actually the British that named this tank first, due to the practice of Britain naming tanks after American Civil war Union generals that were sent to them under the lend-lease program. The name stuck and found its way back to the States. The British and Canadians also used a variant with a larger 76 mm, called the Firefly, in order to deal with heavier German tanks.

This is the Canadair CT-133 Silver Star, based off of the American T-33 Shooting Star, which entered Canadian Air Force service in 1951 as a training aircraft. It stopped being used as a trainer in 1976 but was still used for communications, simulating enemy aircraft and towing targets until 2005.

Infinity Consolidated Rules Links and Corvus Beli Sale

 The biggest hindrance to learning Infinity, a 28mm sci-fi skirmish miniatures game, are the grammar mistakes. Someone has changed all of that here. Its a download for the un-official Infinity game rules. You can get the official rules from the Infinity website here with the quickstart rules here.

Remember you can also get loads of stuff free from the Infinity website in the downloads section:

Basic Rule Army and Weapon lists
Human Sphere expansion Army and Weapon lists
New Model profiles
Markers and Templates
Human Sphere Markers
New Markers
Order Sheet
Air Wagon paper ship and assembly instructions


Infinity is now having a sale on their website. The main Rulebook and Human Sphere for 50% off and 300 pt faction combos for 25% off. These 300 pt armies are different that the ones posted on their website here. Even with ~25% added for shipping it still ends up being cheap, but try to buy local if possible. Talk to your local gamestore and they might be interested in getting some if enough interest is shown. Plus its always good to have more people to play against and that can only be done through interest in the game locally.  Dicebaggames in Duncan has an excellent assortment and Curious Comics downtown has a few starters, if you're in the Victoria area.

Halifax - Citadel Hill (Fort George)

 Having an hour free, I revisited a place I visited often since I was quite small; Citadel Hill or Fort George. It lies smack in the middle of downtown Halifax.

There has been a fort on citadel Hill since 1749 but the Fort as it is wasn't completed until 1856.

 This is the slope going up to the fort.

Here it is a little closer. Does it look like you can get to the fort from here?

Nope. Its quite a drop and this is the reason these style of forts were extremely tough to take and this one was never taken or even attacked.

This is the passageway into the fort and back then was the only way in. There are little cubbyholes for riflemen to get some cover in the sides of the passageway.

This is a view once you go through the passageway to the left. Note the ramp going to the upper ramparts and the magazine to the left of it.

This is the view to the right of the passageway. As you can see its huge inside the fort. The army museum is in the second floor of the wood and stone structure.

Here is a view back out of the fort. The uniforms the rein-actors wear are very good. There are people dressed in all different branches of the military worn during the 1800's.

Here are some learning drill.

This is a model of the smaller fort that was originally built here and were all over North America where the British needed defense networks. I think it would make a good model building for tabletop gaming.

In the army museum they also have lots of uniforms, medals, memorabilia and weapons from the entire period that the British and Canadian army existed in Canada.

This is a Vickers machine gun, used during WW1 and as well WW2. My grandfather, part of the North Shore regiment, was in charge of a unit that used these, the Cameron Highlanders.

Here is a view of the ramp I used to walk into the fort. You can get here from inside the fort. This way, if the enemy managed to use ladders and such to get into this area, soldiers from inside the fort could engage them and get back inside before they were approached, then they would be engaged on the other side. Of course, this would be happening while being fired upon from above.

This is also in the same area pointed the other way. The structure center left is a standalone building that would have their own soldiers and cannon. It would also be self sufficient for a time yet still able to be resupplied from behind it. You can see the stairs to it center right that lead to the main fort on the right.

Now we're back in the main fort looking at the magazine wall. I like the sentry box and think it would make a good little modeling project.

Here is an example of barracks for the men. Simple, effective and promoted unity as a unit would eat, sleep, train and work together.

This is a view of the mouth of Halifax harbour from one of the cannon slots. They had a commanding view to engage enemy ships entering the harbour. You can see a fortified island center left that also aided in defense of the harbour. This fort also had cannon all around which meant it could not be engaged by land easily, like the other fantastic fort in the Maritimes, Fortress Louisburg in Cape Breton. This fort also had a "commons" around it which was an area for animal grazing and celebrations and gatherings. This also aided in the defense of the fort because the enemy could not use the urban terrain to get to the front door of the fort.

If you want to see a google skyview of the Citadel, click here and click satellite view.

Definitely spend a full morning here, not only to avoid the crowds and heat but also to experience the short films that are shown in multiple places around the fort and to speak with the rein-actors.

Terrain with Foam - Hazardous Ice and Lava

These last two hazardous foam terrain I did some time ago. Here is my ice patches. Very simple they are white foam cut in circular shapes with cracks drawn on in marker. In any game they can be used as open difficult terrain.

Opposing that is these lave flows. Just orange foam glued on red foam in flow-like shapes. You could always have scenarios where these pop up during gameplay for added fun.

Thats it for foam and myself making terrain and painting models until I get back home in three weeks. I'll still be posting on places i go to and food i'm eating. Lobster and Digby scallops here we come!

Malifaux Terrain with Foam - Part 3 Hazardous Hole

Next hazardous terrain is the bottomless hole. 

I took the dark brown foam and cut a large circular shape. Then I cut out a smaller black foam circle.

A hole smaller than the black foam shape was then cut out.

The brown one was glued on top of the black one.

Then finally some black lines were drawn to signify the lip of the hole.

I made a larger one as well.

I also built some longer ravine type terrain.

Malifaux Terrain with Foam - Part 2 Hazardous Acid

Here in part two i made acid pools.

It was fairly easy to cut out while visualizing how liquid would flow and pool in depressions in the ground.

I then used old toy and GW barrels, cut in half, to show how the pools were caused. I can always battle-stress the barrels if I want them to look more damaged.