Category: Wargaming

While my buddies are at Historicon gaming themselves into a sleep-deprived stupor, I had to work today.  After work, I finished a few figures that were sitting on my painting table.

They are all nice figures that paint up easily.  The detail is clean.  Some of the facial features on the Daredevil Pilots were a little obscured after I primed them, but otherwise, I am very happy with the figures.

The silver-faced man is a “cybernaut” from a couple of episodes of The Avengers television show, and he is facing a very nice likeness of Emma Peel from the same show.

Tomorrow after working a few hours, I will brave the insane and obscene DC traffic to get to Historicon.

In previous posts I have described my town of Granville that I use for pulp games.  A few months back, I bought a bunch of buildings on Ebay.  Now that school is out, my daughter has been painting again.  She doesn’t paint figures, but she enjoys painting terrain.  Below are some buildings she completed recently.

I realized that while the real Granville has two churches, my Granville had none.  This perhaps explains the lawlessness in my town.  I really like this one from Plasticville.  It has a nice small-town look about it.

This house is perhaps a little too modern looking for Granville.

In addition some weeks ago, I posted a review of the corner hotel from Multiverse Gaming (www.multiversegamingterrain.com).  At the same time I ordered the hotel and gargoyles, I also ordered their fire escapes.  In fact, it was the fire escapes that brought me to their site in the first place.  I assembled them right away, but this week I got my daughter to paint them.  Below you can see the Multiverse fire escapes attached to a Litko building with some 25mm and 28mm figures for scale.

I think they are quite nice.  When assembled they include “hooks” that enable you to mount them on the windows of most buildings in my collection.

This weekend I finally got around to painting some of the Crooked Dice figures I ordered a couple of months ago.  These are UNIT troopers for Dr. Who games.

I don’t know if I got the uniforms correct — I didn’t do my historical research.  I went with a simple khaki and green camouflage pattern.  I think that looks better than plain black or something sinister like that.  I figure Greg will paint his correctly, so when I put mine on the table, it will be easy to separate them at the end of the game.

I wasn’t sure about the headgear.  I went with a blue that is meant to be reminiscent of the blue berets worn by UN peace keepers.

A couple of months ago, Greg and I put together a big order from Crooked Dice.  While I have had the figures filed, primed, and based for many weeks, this weekend was my first change to paint any of them.  I plan to work these figures into my zombie game in a shopping mall next weekend at Historicon.

I have been using Roman Circus for light chariot racing games.  The rules are the right balance of beer and pretzels as well as what seems to be a good representation of chariot racing.  I have been using reproductions of Marx Ben Hur play set chariots in 54mm (see a previous post on this subject).  I wanted to replicate that game in 10mm for easy transport on airplane flights, etc.  While there are a number of manufacturers of accurate racing chariots in 10mm and 15mm, I was wanted that Ben Hur look.  When I found the right looking chariots, they had the wrong drivers and vice versa.  I sent an Email to Richard at Magister Millitum.  He combined chariots from one catalog item with drivers from another.  I finished painting them this weekend, and made two tracks for them:  and typical oval one and one in a figure eight.

These were inexpensive enough that I even ordered six chariots without horses or drivers to make wreck markers in the game.  All of this will fit into a single Really Useful Box, so I will likely bring the game with me to Historicon next weekend for pickup games.

I have begun picking up the crescent root buildings one or two a month.  They are awesome!  The price is good, the construction is solid, they were designed for gamers, they’re light, and the pain jobs are terrific.

This one is 28D3.  I received this one from my sister for my birthday.

From a scale perspective, they mix quite nicely with MBA, if you already have a lot of their buildings.

At Historicon in two weeks I’ll be running a zombie game using GASLIGHT set in a shopping mall.  Last night was the play test.

Many of the HAWKs built one or more stores to be assembled into a shopping mall.  From the pictures you can see the different styles and types of stores, from my gaming store to Don’s Pier 7 Imports, Eric’s ice cream store, and Greg’s Asian food restaurant.

Each player controlled a faction, such as The A Team, the Scooby Gang, Cub Scouts, Congressmen, and Sisters of Mercy.  Their goal was “cooperatition,” meaning that the the factions were competing to get the most “treasures” out of the mall, but would often work together to ensure they were not overwhelmed by the zombies.

The game became a chaotic zoo after a while, which is what I wanted.  I think everyone had a good time.  Thanks to all the HAWKs who built stores, and thanks to Bill, Don, and Mike for pushing zombies all evening.

A few weeks back Rebel Miniatures (http://www.rebelminis.com/28mmboxsets.html) released these duck men.  Since they reminded me of the guards in my Tunnels and Trolls dungeon from many years ago, I couldn’t resist picking them up.  (The mechanical scorpion is a pewter figure I picked up at a booth at the Pennsylvania Renaissance Festival last year.)

The figures arrived without any flash.  They are slot-a-base figures, but strangely, they came without the bases.  That’s okay, since I do not like the look of slot-a-base anyway.  So, I cut off the slots and mounted them as you see.

In my Dungeon of the Athelfrog which I ran throughout college, I made a typo in the description of a wandering party of guards, spelling it “gurads.”  When one of the players pointed out the typo, on the fly I made up that “gurads” were armed ducks.  The first time a character saw one, he had to make a saving roll or become incapacitated with laughter.

While painting up the “gurads,” I also painted these power generators for 10mm science fiction.

I invested in the small Kickstarter project by Westfalia Miniatures (http://westfaliaminiatures.com) to make mechanical monkeys for pulp or VSF games.  This was the fastest Kickstarter redemption I have experienced.  The figures are very clean, with almost no flash.

There are two sets of five figures each, one with pistols and one with swords.  These will make a nice ten-figure unit in G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T.

 

I ordered a 28mm Crescent Root (http://www.crescent-root.com) French hotel to see if they are as nice in person as they are on their Web page.  They are.  These are MDF buildings that come pre-painted.  Some sections are pre-assembled, and other sections can be easily assembled and disassembled.

First, the paint job is superb — significantly cleaner and more detailed than other pre-pained buildings, such as 4Ground or Miniature Building Authority.  The doors are all attached with a simple tap hinge that works well enough and allows players to open and closed doors during a game.

In this picture you can see the brackets in two of the walls.  Small pins fit within the holes to hold the walls together.  They slide in and out easily, and they hold the walls at right angles.

Here you can see the pins inserted into the brackets.

If I have a complaint with the building it is that the floors fit too snugly.  I think they will be difficult to removed during a game.  Shown is the attic.  The second floor will be difficult to reach during a game, I think.

This building, 28A3 is among the more expensive ones, at about $90.  It is one of the most elaborate ones.  Others are cheaper.  I think the enhanced quality is worth the premium price.    I see myself order one of these a month, until I complete the set.