Bits and Pieces

It's been awhile once again, since my last post, and since then I have been dabbling here and there with different projects, modeling, painting and some gaming.

Free Comic Book day has come and gone and the whole family headed to the local store to partake. My youngest picked up some free comics, I picked up a couple of games that were on sale, Lord of the Rings LCG(Living Card Game) by Fantasy Flight Games and Tribune also by FFG. I've been wanting to get the Lord of the Rings game for awhile now and it's one of the better solo games I've played (you can play with 2 players, 4 if you have 2 core sets). Tribune is a worker placement game set in ancient Rome and is another fun game that was easy to learn and will probably make it to the rotation for family game night. We met up with a friend/gamer/opponent, Shawn for lunch at a nearby pub, a very enjoyable day all around.

As far as gaming goes I've played a few games of Tribune, once with my older son and again with him and my wife. The game is easy to learn and the game play flows well. I also have played Lord of the Rings LCG in solo mode a number of times and quite enjoy that.

I've been reading a few rule sets namely Dust Warfare by FFG and Cutlass by Black Scorpion Miniatures . I am looking forward to playing the Dust Warfare set as I already have enough miniatures from Dust Tactics, a board game that straddles board and miniature gaming set in the same background. The rules seem clearly written, well indexed and looks like it will be fun to play. Cutlass I am holding off an opinion until I give it a try though on initial read the mechanics seem a little dated relying on a slew of tables. These may be easy to remember in game play and it does have a good set of reference sheets. Cutlass is all about a campaign style of play in which your crew grows in size, skill and equipment as you play more games and I think as a one shot game it may not hold up so well. So this game would require a dedicated group of gamers to get the most out of it. 

I've also managed to do some modeling, pulling out some models I've had for quite some time. I've been working on some 15mm WWII miniatures for Flames Of War   getting prepared to play some games with the new 3rd edition rule book. I am working on some Germans now and will move onto some Americans when they are finished. A friend of mine picked up a 1/100, 15mm Sdkfz 251 plastic kit by Zvezda for me to put together and compare to the Battlefront ones which I have done.

The Zvezda kit. This is everything for the model. It also come with a card of game stats for their own game. No decals though, all snap together.

Battlefront in the background, the scale is very close.

Front comparison.

All together.

All the halftracks primed and sprayed  the basic colour.

I would have no problem playing these side by side on the table. For me the only issue is the Battlefront ones I have are late war while the Zvezda one is early war.

Panthers and a Stug. I magnetized the barrel of the Stug so I can equip it with the 75mm or 105mm gun.

I tried doing the camo with a brush which turned out ok. I just know I will never get them painted if I wait to get the airbrush out!

The same friend who gave me the halftrack kit also purchased a bunch of foam core buildings from GameCraft  Miniatures for use in our 20mm modern battles. I got him to order a couple for me just to give them a try. I've put mine together making the floors and roof removable so that figures can be placed inside. They will take some modelling to make them ready for the table but are quite nice and cheap!
 

A 2 story building assembled.

With the roof removed to the second floor. This is the biggest cutout to allow me to lift out the next level. I glued a paper lip under the edge to support the cut out section.

Both cutouts removed to get to the main floor. I am going to base the building so I need to get to the main floor from the roof.

And finally I've been playing around with the TerraClips to try out different board arrangements for a Malifaux table for the up coming Malifaux weekend at my house.

The view from one side. This is a box each of Streets of Malifaux and Buildings of Malifaux.

The other side. A little more open, perhaps some trees in the little park like areas.

 That's about it, hope you enjoyed.
Rob.

20mm Modern USMC Paint Tutorial

A reader asked if I could explain the pretty quick method I used to paint my 20mm Modern USMC by Elhiem Figures so here it goes. This is a little different than my usual post so I hope it is understandable.

It just so happened that I just received another batch of figures that needed painting up so I thought I would grab a bag, paint up the figures and snap a few pictures as I went along step by step.

First off I'd like to say that the basic colours and techniques are taken from the Enduring Freedom book by Ambush Alley Games. Piers Brand wrote  how he had painted the figures for the book and I mostly followed that changing some colours and techniques to match colours I had in my collection. 

The first thing to do is pick out the figures to paint and clean them up before glueing them on bases and priming them.

The selection I had to pick from

The figs as they came out of the package. Note the bent guns and various metal flash & vents. 

I straightened out the guns, careful not to bend them more than necessary and cut off any flash and scraped down a few mold lines, all with the knife.

Next they are glued on bases with super glue. In this case I used pennies.

Then I took them outside to prime them with a spray primer(GW Chaos Black) being careful to try to get the figs pretty well covered.

I brushed on some black paint to get into areas the spray could not get into.

That is the prep done which did not take very long. Now to get into the painting.

These are the colours I use for the main uniform. Vallejo 873 US Field Drab, 819 Iraqi Sand and 837 Pale Sand.

The main uniform area in 873. This doesn't have to be tidy.

All 4 done. I will only show one figure for each step though I am doing 4 at a time.

A heavy dry brush with 819.

I put this on brushing from various directions to cover most of the darker base coat except in deep folds. After it drys I do it again to make the Iraqi Sand more solid.

I then dry brush on a lighter coat of 837 Pale Sand.

I then put on a wash of GW Devlan Mud thinned down with equal parts water and mat medium to blend the colours together while adding some shade.

 

For the webbing, gear and boots I used 921 English Uniform and 988 Khaki.

Webbing, gear and boots painted 921 English Uniform. From here on you have to paint carefully to make sure you don't get any on the main uniform.

I then applied the same wash I used on the main uniform.

 

I then dry brushed with Khaki.(I've also used British Uniform with some white added)

The team finished with the details painted. Skin, guns, sunglasses and the mounting bracket on the helmets.

After that it's time to do the bases and take them to the table.

Hope this helps and excuse the photography, it really doesn't show the colours very well.

Thanks for reading,

Rob

Mostly Modeling

Well I didn't get a lot of gaming lately bit I have got in a fair bit of modeling, mostly in preparation for some Malifaux gaming. Now that I have most of what I need painted for my Seamus crew I think I might be switching modeling gears to some historical figs. I have plenty to work on so picking an era and scale will be the hardest part. I will probably work on some 15mm WWII while completing the 1/1200 Napoleonic ships of the line. Of course I could work on my 25mm WWII, 25mm EWC, 25mm Napoleonic, 15mm Napoleonic, 25mm Infinity, Warhammer, Warhammer 40k, etc, etc... Oh well I should just pick something and get into it.

My complete rivers, next some bridges.

A view at river level.

Seamus completed.

His Belles.

Flesh Construct.

Dead Justice. She'll be used with her Dead Doxy stats.

The only games I've got in lately was at A Few Glued Men recently. It was a short evening as there was a low turn out for the evening with only 5 people showing up. I played a 3 way game of Heroclix which I've played a few times but am not terribly familiar with. I played Nova Force vs. Shawn and his Sentinels and Gareth with Capt. America, his Howling Commandos and the Silver Surfer(for some reason). Gareth and I teamed up against the Sentinels and then turned on each other once we figured they were beaten down enough. Gareth pulled out the win by keeping his units fairly safe and thus being relatively intact to take on me and the remaining Sentinel.

Gareth complaining about how his forces would be wiped out before pulling out the win. Shawn plots.

Shawn with his evil plans.

Well once again that's it for now. Keep gaming.

Rob

Random Games

Once again it has been a little while since my last post. I am going to have to start keeping a game journal so I will remember exactly what I have done between posts because my memory just isn't that great.

I managed to meet up with Ben from A Few Glued Men to play a few games of Dust Tactics. He wanted to give it a try but we were having problems getting together with our conflicting schedules. Ben was able to come out to my house though and we got in a few games. Dust has very uncomplicated rules but almost has a chess like feel of play. I hate to say I lost both games but it's true, and I hate to blame it on my dice rolling but  it was rather poor through both games. I think Ben enjoyed the games and maybe we will be able to get in some more games in the future. He is interested in getting into the SSU units that are coming out soon and I am interested in checking out the Dust Warfare miniature rules when they become available.

The Dust games in progress.

I also played a few games of Malifaux, one against Chet at A Few Glued Men and one against my son. And yes I lost both of these as well. These losses I can take full blame for though. Malifaux victory is based strictly on meeting your crews strategies and schemes which are usually different from your opponent and frequently have nothing to do with destroying the other team. Having not played in awhile I lost sight of my own victory conditions early on in both games and set out to destroy the other crew. I then was trying to reposition and recover from bad positioning to get my victory points after I came to my senses and realized my mistake. I will have to get a few more games in before the Malifaux weekend to make sure the rules are fresh in my head.

Tristan and I battling it out in the streets of Malifaux. Marcus vs. Nicodem.

   Tristan and I also played a few games of Heroclix which I have had for years but haven't played in a very long time. I picked up the new rules and some of the new figures and Tristan picked up some figures as well. The game is fun to play and also requires no painting!, so its nice to just open a box a battle it out.

Shawn started a Descent campaign in which I am taking part so we had the first game of that. We managed to get the campaign kicked off, travel to the first dungeon and clear out the first level. The game was fun but as always with Descent a little long, though now all the prep work is done the next time we get together it will be to go straight into the dungeon and kill things.

And that was about it for games, I did some modeling mostly to get some Malifaux figures ready for the upcoming Malifaux weekend.

I green stuffed the bases to fit the Streets of Malifaux.

 

Seamus under way.

It's Been Awhile

Yes it has been awhile and I am sure I will be forgetting some of the activities. It has been fairly active in both the gaming and modeling front.

After a prolonged halt with my painting my son wanted to paint some of his Malifaux figures so we both sat down to paint. He finished off his Marcus figure while I worked on some of my Resurectionists and I am continuing to paint so I have some crew choices before the Malifaux weekend in June.

Flesh Construct

Canine Remains

More Canine Remains

Marcus, painted by Tristan

 I have also been playing around with the Terraclips to see how I might put a board together for the Malifaux weekend.

The overall view, I have also placed some trees in the center unoccupied area to cut down LOS.

A close up showing the under pass, there are stairs up on the other side.

So as you can tell there is going to be another Malifaux weekend. I was thinking of making it larger and renting a hall but the Malifaux community around here just isn't quite there yet so I will be keeping it at roughly the same size but with some different players. So maybe next year the player base will be big enough to warrant renting a hall and all that entails. And if that happens I can plan for a regional event and get the guys down from New Brunswick again. This upcoming weekend will be sort of a test run for a tournament setting as I will be setting this up as a tournament using the Gaining Grounds rules from Wyrd Miniatures.

Now in terms of gaming I know I will forget stuff and in no particular order:

• 2 games of Dust Tactics from Fantasy Flight games with my son. We are on scenario 6 of 8 from the Blue Thunder scenario book. Tristan won both games so I will have to win the next 2.
• A game of Descent also by FFG. My friend Shawn is going to run a campaign and it's been awhile since any of us played so we played a refresher game. It was a fun game and after the players pulled out a strong lead Shawn managed to reel it in towards the end but not enough and we pulled out a win from the evil overlord.
• A few games of WWI Wings of War, again by FFG. Another one I haven't played in awhile but lots of fun. I taught the game to a couple of players and gave a refresher  for another gamer who has lots of stuff but had only played a few times. We had a few 2 on 2 games in which I was shot down twice(who shuffled that damage deck anyways!)

A view of the 1st air battle, just before I got shot down.

The players for Wings of War WWI

The second fight with a 2 seater.

One of the Germans down.

•  I also just finished up running a D&D session for Tristan and a couple of his friends. .It looked like it was heading for a possible TPK but they managed to get through and then wisely decided to rest for the night. I think they had fun and they should be able to wrap up the adventure in 1 or 2 more sessions.

Well I think that's about it for now unless you include a fair bit of online play with the 360 with Black Ops and Battlefield 3.

Thanks for reading.