All Done. Teepees and Dead Horses

OK so this is the end of the Little Bighorn project (for now)... some set dressing for the game. Above we have some teepees for the village. The pattern is a free download from firstpalette. They are big though, but I discovered that printing them two to a page (on 8 1/2" x 11" letter paper) makes a perfect size teepee for 28mm gaming. The "poles" are coffee stirsticks cut in half, then in half lengthwise, and taped to the inside of the teepee walls. A good project for an evening. They didn't need to be super-detailed since they will be placed on the very edge of the battlefield anyway.

The other thing the battle had a lot of was dead horses, survivors of the Reno fight talk about piling up dead horses as breastworks and the people who saw the Custer battlefield afterwards mention dead horses (and later, piles of horse bones) everywhere. So I thought I would get some horses 3D printed (thanks Byron!) and paint them, just as some cover for the troopers.

Here's what I imagine they'll look like on the battlefield, more or less.

So that's about it for painting before we have the Big Game. Don't get me wrong - I still have lots of unpainted models for this project, likely more than I will ever get painted. But this will be enough to do the battle I've planned for my birthday, and to commemorate the 150th anniversary of one of history's most famous "last stands". 

Next up - battle report. Hoka hey!