A dragon and Alaska

 Gosh, I look at the date on the last post and can't believe it was three or more months ago. No games on my table since then, but some painting done. Our D&D group hasn't met in that time span either, though I did go over to one friend's house and we sat and painted; he, some furniture and me, some goblins (from the Blacklist set). 

I pulled out the airbrush again and attempted the big dragon from the Blacklist set. My first 'big' mini.

Green = craft acrylics thinned down with windshield washer fluid. Burgundy strips on the armour plates (also craft paint). Vallejo Bone White claws, teeth and horns, Sun Yellow eyes. Lightly washed with a homemade black wash. 

Another first in my life happened in the between time as well: a cruise. Me and my wife went on an Alaska cruise as chaperones with the high-school band, of which our oldest daughter is a member. Here's some cool things I actually took pictures of:

Retired boat at Icy Straight Point

A longhouse at Saxman, a village by Ketchican.

There were a number of model boats on display around the ship, this one of the ship we were on. I wish I took pictures of some of the other models. 

This one was tough to get a pic without the reflection. 

Neat layering of islands in the morning as we cruised through them back to Vancouver.

Alaska was a fun adventure, at least the parts I got to see. I wondered if seasickness would be a problem and I probably was seasick the first full day at sea, it was choppy seas, but the symptoms were similar to the migraines I get, so I'm not sure. Otherwise, I was okay. My daughter had to lay down for a long while that day, even with three seasickness patches on. The three of us were fine the rest of the time.

My goblins are not done, or I'd have shown a pic. What is done is a halfling rogue, a cleric, a dire bear, and a mod inspired by a scenario for the Cairn RPG. However, I am waiting to post those as I painted them with some cheapish paints I bought and want to talk about them after using them on a few more models.

Cheerio!

A quick showcase of the my holiday hobbying

I've got a couple of other posts in development, but I've had to put a pause on those ruminations. I've been trying to fix up our family vehicle to a condition that is acceptable for our oldest to take a driving test, fighting with getting a clothes dryer working (this one is now done), and to top it all off dealing with a toothache and root-canal and my wife's broken leg and a couple of sick kids. Yeah, what a start to the new year we've been having.

Back in December, or maybe early January (while school was still out) I did manage to paint these Pirates I bought at a thrift store. They are a set intended for playing the "Rum and Bones" miniatures skirmish game. The band is called the Skull Kickers, for those who are interested.

These were fun to paint. The characters are from some graphic novel and they have a specific look from those pages. I decided to go with the colour schemes on the box, or close to them.

I was also randomly gifted with a Gundam-type kit quite a few months ago. A friend received it in error from Temu and he wasn't going to build it so he offered it to me. I built it over the Holidays as well.

A "big, stompy robot."

And I played a little game of kind-of-Aeronef as a test of concept of ideas I started having about how I'd like to play a flying battleships game. Maybe more on this later, but here's a pic.

With the new firing and damage rules I put together, I made this a three-on-one, the one being this circular ship in the foreground. Despite her superior firepower entering the fray, she ended up with rudders crippled and, unable to steer, the other three ships slipped in behind to pour fire into her.

Don't Fear the Reaper Bones

Like all mini gamers/painters/collectors I have one of those grey piles of possibility (aka, pile of shame): unpainted minis waiting for paint to go on them. It has been reduced by 7 as of yesterday.

First up, one of two Reaper Bones minis I got from a bag of random minis I found at a thrift store. The package is labelled "Derro Leader". I don't know and haven't looked up if there's some kind of lore or universe that Reaper's models belong in, so I don't know what a Derro Leader is beyond this halfling or dwarf sized character I painted.

Derro Leader

With the beard shape and strange pike weapon, this guy looks like someone out of a kung-fu movie, so that's what I went with.

Moving on, it's this guy from the WizKids Mage Knight line:

I don't know what he's called nor do I think he was even on a base when I got him, so no clue what he's called. I just painted him up and stuck him back onto a clix dial that I filed all the paint off of.

Third up is something I didn't actually do much work on. Five zombies from the Blacklist Fantasy box. All painted by two of my daughters and on of my nieces, I just added a few touchups.

What a display of colour on those undead dream boats!

Making a Comeback?

 A couple days ago, I posted something on a Facebook group I joined (Super Cheap Wargaming). It was some new ships I made for pre-dreadnaught era gaming and one of the other members asked for work-in-progress pictures. I did him one better and directed him to the post I made in this blog where I spelled it all out step-by-step. Then I got looking at some of my previous posts. I knew it had been a while since the last post, but was still kind of surprised to see that it's been over a year. Not only has it been a year since my last post, I think it's been even longer since the last time I had a game on my table.

Ack! My table. Which I never got around to cat-proofing and just let stuff pile up on over all that time. Well, we went on a three-week holiday in July (another story in and of itself involving a used RV, a suspension bridge, a moon snail, and getting pulled over by a state trooper at 2 in the morning) and when we got back, I found what I can only assume are pee stains on my table mat. Yaay... 

So I've started slowly organizing the stuff on the table. To help this endeavour, I built some shelves to sit on the back of my hobby desk and put up a larger shelf on the wall. All of it costing nothing as I used wood, reclaimed screws, and even shelf brackets found at the local dump.

While I may not have played on my table, I have played board games with family and friends and also stolen some moments here and there to paint or craft miniature related stuff. So, I think now I'll just perform a photo dump with captions.

The image that caused me to come back here.

A cheapo Halloween decoration spider. I beefed up the abdomen with layers of green stuff left over from other projects. Then I painted.

The motorhome being torn apart to get rid of the water damage.

Tyranid hatchlings(?). Then from Blacklist Fantasy: a dwarf druid, halfling bard, and an elf paladin

Some type of warrior from Wizkids Mage Knight miniatures. I removed some doo-dads from his helmet and armour before re-painting.

A church from Dave Graffam's line of paper models sitting atop the top shelf I made for the desk.

Blacklist Fantasy knolls. Because of how dark my wash ended up being, the photo doesn't show the slight variations I made to their skin colours. 

A cousin-in-law's son asked me to repaint his Plymouth Cuda. After the Trial and error that went into getting the last car I painted to look decent, I searched for a different thinning medium to dilute craft paint for use in an air brush and came across a guy who uses windshield washer fluid. It worked so much better!

An elf magic user from Blacklist Fantasy and above her in the blurry background, my hole board to hold paintbrushes and tiny files and whatever other slim-body tools I use.

If I did any more than what's pictured, I don't recall it and I don't have pictures of it anyway. Hoping to be able to take time enough for this wonderful hobby to post here more regularly again. Bye!

Mods and Painting

My first die-cast car mod 

Months before May, I was at my parents' place, looking through the old die-cast cars that served my siblings and I growing up. Picking up one of the first Hot Wheels cars that my younger brother received and noted all the scratches and the bent axles. I had been watching those videos on YouTube of people modifying their Hot Wheels cars. So naturally, I slipped the car in my pocket and took it home to do at least a repaint and present it to my brother, who's birthday is in May.

I took apart the car and stripped/scraped the paint off, sanding it with a very fine grit sand paper. Removed the axles. Took the axles and wheels from a Francesco car (from Cars 2) to do a wheel swap. The axles are too wide for a Hot Wheels, so I snipped them and stuck them into place with super glue and green stuff. Then I did it all over again, but using lengths of that plastic coating you sometimes find on paper clips to hold the clipped axels together and make them less prone to be de-glued and pushed through the green stuff lump. Painted the car with treated craft acrylics through my airbrush. had to repaint 4 times to get it looking half decent. Used a chrome pen on the parts I thought would be chromed in real life. Put it all together again and...

Not the greatest pic, but the only one I took before giving it to my brother.

The ongoing saga of me painting Blacklist Fantasy 1 minis

I painted the skeletons. I modified them a bunch as well, giving one a spear and a bow to another, clipping off some shoulder pad spikes, and shaving off a couple hoods. Made a pretty nice variety. Took a long time to get around to painting them.

The guys who kept their swords.

The guys who got other weapons.

And a Mage Knight mini

This guy was painted all black with a couple of grey and gold highlights, but it hid all the detail on the sculpt. He was also missing his left foot and clicky base when I got him. Stripped the paint. Molded a green stuff foot. Repaint and rebase (on the bottom half of a clicky base no less)...

One side...

...and the other.

Aeronef?

Another set of rules I've had downloaded for some time because I really like the theme is Aeronef, the game of Victorian sci-fi airship battles. The other inspiring thing about the book version I downloaded is that a number of the miniatures pictured on its pages seem to be scratch built. I first came across mention of this game while perusing the pages of the blog The Stronghold Rebuilt. The concept just struck me as so neat (link to posts tagged "aeronef"). All of Stronghold's Aeronef posts were put up in 2012 where he builds a couple of fleets from scratch.

There are a number of airship models that can be purchased. I've spent some time admiring the ones on the Brigade Models website, produced for their airship game called Imperial Skies. So, with this idea ruminating all these years and aptly inspired by Brigade Models, I finally set myself to building some airships over the summer. Aeronef construction, in my shipyard at least, is mainly accomplished using popsicle sticks, doweling, bread tags, large gauge copper wire, and paper clips.

I currently have two factions created, which I shall be using soon (hopefully) to actually play the game. One side represents, I think, a well-ordered and standardized faction: comprising of two airships from each of three classes. This, I would offer, might be one of the well-established, wealthy nations like England, France, or Germany. In my mind, the second task force is reminiscent of some nation that is less able to produce their own vessels, opting instead to buy what they can. Thus, it is a collection of one-offs, some of which look unconventional, like prototypes of designs considered unfit by the more wealthy nations. I think of the South American countries who tried to get in on the arms race of the historical pre-dreadnaught period, like Brazil or Argentina. It's why I ended up painting it the colours of the Argentine flag. I'm considering the first battle I play be related to some kind of Falkland Islands dispute.

And now... the pictures!

In going with my scenario idea, this will be the British force. In back are two cruisers, on the right are two destroyers, and in front are some dirigibles with air torpedoes mounted on them.

The Argentine ships. At back could be a battleship or battle cruiser (it has torpedo tubes), the big round one could be a battleship purchased from Russia, then a destroyer with torpedoes, then two dirigibles in the foreground (one a little bigger and better armed than the other).

Also of note, I have mounted these all on Heroclix bases for flying supers; removing the dial stickers and filing off the paint. I have ideas about using the dials to keep track of airspeed.

Granted, in reading up on other people's writings about playing this game, they find it rather lackluster. Perhaps I will too, but I intend to play according to the written rules first then start implementing ideas I've already been having about what to change. Wish me luck.

"Aaas yyooouuu wiiisshh!"

 One of the one hundred Heroclix I received those years ago had modification written all over it from the moment I saw it. Looking at it, I know without any reservation, exactly who I wanted this figure to become. It's just taken me this long to actually get to work on making the transformation happen.

The original was called Swordsman. He's arrayed in a purple costume with a mask and swashbuckler's boots, sword drawn and raised, pointing out from his shoulder. A moustache and jaw line to match that of Neville Sinclair in the Disney production of The Rocketeer.

Using pictures from the film, I made a few add-ons: shaved-down some parts of Swordsman's suit then adding head covering, belt, lapels, poofy-ness in the shirt sleeves, and fly-out parts of the gloves out of green stuff. A 97% black repaint would turn this sculpt into Wesley, aka: "the man in black" or the Dread Pirate Roberts.

Of course he's wearing all black, so I tried to differentiate some things to try and make his appearance a little less boring. First up was a zenithal highlight on the black primer. Then, after painting all the black, I chose some elements to be "less black" like his belt, boots, gloves, and headband. These were dark grey mixed with black. I works slightly better for viewing in real life than for these pictures.

Just need to base it now, but I couldn't wait to get some pictures on here.

Painting of Orcs

 Nothing much to write, just posting pictures of WizKids orcs I painted up for our DM (they're his).

The Fearsome 4

As he had multiples of one pair, I used different skin colours for ease of telling them apart.

Also finished up some terminals of my own to use for points of interest or just scatter terrain.

I should be getting more stuff to post as I finally received my Kickstarter order of two years ago: Blacklist Miniatures Fantasy Series 1. Lots of painting ahead.

Pulp Alley: The elusive Anastasia

 No pictures, so I will try out my story-telling.

 Pulp Alley solo game. Scenario was Dangerous Delivery.

The Shadow's Agents (me) vs. Anastasia's Heroes (the game AI)

Prelude:

Lamont Cranston looked over his paper as Miss Lane entered his kitchen.

"You should knock." he remarked, fully prepared for a sassy reply.

"Why? You didn't lock the door." Margo teased, "Besides, you always know when it's me!"

She sat at the breakfast table and picked up a croissant, dipped it in his coffee, and took a bite.

"Why on earth..." he began, but was cut short seeing his ring blink, indicating a waiting message. 

***

Some time later, Moe pulls up to the outskirts of a small town, The Shadow and Margo Lane exit the vehicle with him. Three others are waiting, summoned by secretly delivered messages. The Shadow gives further orders.

"What we know is a group of Russians, fugitives of their own country, will be passing through this area. They have in their possession official plans (main plot point) for a potentially dangerous device, stolen no doubt. Our task is to delay them and capture the plans."

"There's an armed guard (pp1) to the north of us, by that building." Officer Burbank, in plain clothes, adds, "We should be careful around him, in case he's got an itchy trigger finger."

"I'll look into that, unless our main target shows themselves first." says the Shadow, "Spread out. Keep your eyes open. They're probably close."

Turn 1:

The Shadow's agents start in the south-east on a crossroad.

Anastasia's Heroes Start in the north-west, behind a building. Anastasia carries the plans, Mikhail has a broken rangefinder (pp2). They activate first. Victor and Yarina both hesitate, must have a bad feeling about this place. Ana and Mikhail run down the west side of the building and cross the street. Igorek makes her way across the north end.

Margo and Dr. Tam head west along a collection of outbuildings, keeping an eye on the open area with an old well in the middle of it just the other side of the sheds. The Shadow and Trixie go north, toward the guard. Moe and Dr. Tam hang back, in case someone gets past.

Turn 2:

I choose AH to activate first again. Mikhail is held up and Anastasia's card instructs that cards be drawn for all characters. Yarina runs around to the east end of the building and spots something odd: an ancient falcon (pp3) statue sitting on a stone protruding from the side of the building. Victor chickens out and runs the other way (fails a challenge, health saves and is out of the game).

The Shadow and Trixie stop just behind a row of trees. They can see the guard, but he can't see them. Moe tripped over a barrier and knocked his head, Dr. Tam gets disoriented in the dark and goes the wrong way, both are out of the game. Margo rounds the outbuilding at the end of the row and spots a very old looking document sticking out from under the door.

Turn 3:

Anastasia and Mikhail make a run for it across the clearing, past the well. The Shadow sees them and rushes Mikhail, but Mikhail's momentum upends the Shadow for a minute. Yarina snatches the falcon statue from the building as Igorek catches up.

Officer Burbank moves to head off Anastasia's escape. Margo carefully pulls a parchment through the crack under the door. It's a map, but it looks quite unfamiliar (pp4). Trixie takes a shot at Anastasia and misses.

Turn 4:

Mikhail, locked in a brawl with the Shadow, calls out, "Ana...keep going!" Then he throws a punch that gets blocked by the Shadow. The Shadow counters and knocks down Mikhail.

Anastasia makes it to the south-east intersection, knocking down Officer Burbank. The Shadow won't let her go so easily, he causes her mind to think she sees a great bear standing in her way. Unfortunately, Anastasia quickly sees through the fearsome image.

Yarina and Igorek stay to the north, headed toward the guard, who is casually watching what he can see of the pandemonium he can see from his post.

Trixie and Margo both run back to where the action is.

Turn 5:

I try to get Margo to Anastasia to stop her getting to the goal, but the card I draw immediately switches initiative to the opposite league and Anastasia gets away with the plans. Igorek and Yarina reach the guard, and through some artful cunning, Yarina relieves him of his weapon and Igorek opens the door of the building to find a small cache of guns and ammunition, which she loads up on.

The Shadow succeeds in getting the rangefinder off of Mikhail, but the game is over. 

Aftermath:

Anastasia has escaped with the plans and her team has two other plot points. The Shadow got the rangefinder and a mysterious map, but has to accept the he was outsmarted and out-fought by these Russians.

Epilogue:

"I wonder if she's a little like me," Margo as she drove Lamont and a recovering Moe back to the city, "You know, able to see through your mind tricks."

"Perhaps" is the only word a defeated Lamont utters, lost in thought wondering if this was a new threat he'd have to worry about facing again.

More words:

Reminded again of how quickly this game can be played. 5 turns took less than an hour. I've had the table set up for a month waiting for some time to play the game in. Almost seems wasteful.

I had the thought that Maybe I'd like to keep this table set-up a little longer and play a few of the different rule sets I've accumulated. I know that I've used the same Idn Kar Wastes battlemat for two or three different games, but it was far enough apart and without the intent of comparing game rules across them that I can't really compare the experiences. Maybe comparing rules on the same map doesn't matter, but it seems like an interesting enough exercise that I want to try it. If nothing else, it will get me to be a little more active in my gaming. So, I'm off to decide which set is next.

Here is the set up I used for this game and what I'll use for the other rules I decide to apply.

Update 20/05/23: I tried playing similar scenarios using other rule sets. Each scenario was the AI side trying to make it from top left to bottom right and me trying to stop them. I used Swordplay 2015, Star Breach, and Five Parsecs: Bug Hunt.

I don't know how comparable Star Breach is to the others as I had to play both sides where the other games used some level of automatic decision making. At any rate, Pulp Alley was the only one I lost. In the end, it was getting harder for me to want to stick with the same layout and the same scenario. I've go no really in depth analysis on similarities and differences. So all I really accomplished was to pull out and dust off rules I hadn't played in a long while. And that's okay.

First Play: Warstuff

The following is an old entry that was being drafted as the motherboard went kaput on the computer I was using. Played in November, I'm just getting back to it now.

Looking through lists of free wargame rules, I was really looking for air combat stuff, but I ended up on One Page Rules. Their new starship combat rules (new to me, have not been on the site for a long while) had come up in a list of free wargames I found. Scrolling through the sight, I happened onto Warstuff. So, where their other rules are pretty much written as alternates for some well-known popular wargames, Warstuff is a very generic game to be used for any models or toys one might have lying around their house.

The game is very accessible; needing only a print-out of the rules, some minis or toys for combatants, some six-sided dice, and a pencil and paper for writing out the army lists. I made a 150 point army in about 15 minutes then helped my 9 year old son make one in about 20 minutes. I set up a table and we played a game in less than an hour.

Building units

Warstuff is a points-based army builder. The rules suggest a game of 150 points and provide a very easy unit building process. 

Start with a model/toy/minifig you want to use in your squad. Choose a unit quality level for it; what number does the unit have to roll on a d6 to succeed at something, mainly shooting and dodging or landing hits in melee, but easily expanded to include testing for other perils. It costs though. For example: a low quality grunt costs 5 points, but only hits on rolls of 6+, where a higher quality troop succeeding on 3+ is 20 points.

Next step is to assign up to three of the 26 special features, which also cost points, to your units. Features consist of things like Frenzy (reroll a failed melee roll) or Shooter (make a ranged attack). 

Mix and match quality, features, and number of units until you hit the game's point level. So you could have a force of ten low quality (6+), medium range shooters (call it a squad of Imperial soldier goons). Or go for two high quality (2+) guys with the max number of high-cost features (perhaps some armed and armoured bounty hunters). Hmmm, that's a game I should try running myself - Does quality stand up to quantity?

Rules

Super simple rules provided for movement, shooting, and melee. Easy to add on anything more you need. The download on the website now is actually different than what I downloaded, though I haven't compared the two versions.

Gameplay

As mentioned, I played with my son, who's 9. We had two games using Lego minifigs as our combatants. I played both games with a team of five: a dwarf warrior, Maui, an undersea being, and two random gun-men. It's been long enough since I started this post, I don't remember any stats except that Maui had the Large feature.

My glorious Warstuff team.

My son tried two different teams. Team one was Sith Anakin and a collection of clone troopers. Second was a pilot Anakin and some Ninjago guys.

He really liked the game, even though I won both rounds. We'll probably play again soon.

Lord Garmadon perches himself on the building, ready to huck some dynamite my way. This is where we had to improvise some rules for jumping/falling off of things.

We had some morale rules and Anakin's team lost a morale check at this point. I think only Master Wu and R2-D2 remained standing. Besides the dwarf, seen here, I had lost one of the gunmen.

My Shipyard

I've been told that some of my ancestors were ship builders in Norway. It's possible that some of that quality has been passed down to me, at a smaller scale anyway.

I haven't posted much, but each time I post on a social media group about my scratch-built ships, someone is interested in how I built the models. So this will be my how-to post. Follow along as I make another ship.

Step 1: Blueprints

This is easier than you might think. There is a website called the-blueprints.com. First thing is you'll want to head over there. Find the "Ships" section in the database (link). Ships are arranged by classification and country, so if you know what you are looking for, this can be helpful.

For this example, I am going to make the Japanese armoured cruiser, Izumo (aka Idzumo). Click on "Cruisers (Japan)" and we get a listing of names of Japanese cruisers, through which we scroll until we find Izumo. 

Keep in mind, this listing contains all kinds of cruisers from different eras and maybe not all cruisers ever built, so mileage may vary. Also watch the check boxes on the right, they indicate whether the image being called up has top view and side view or just a side view. Both views is ideal.

So here we have top and side views of Izumo. Download the image.

2. Scaling the Image Download

I chose 1:3000 scale for these ships, but this will work for other scales, just insert the scale factor where I have 3000.

Do a web search of the ship and find it's Wikipedia entry. 

In the column on the right, you can find all kinds of info about the ship. For this, we just need length. Izumo is 132.28 meters.

Using a calculator, divide the ship's length in meters (132.28) by the scale factor (3000). We get 0.04409m, or 44mm. This is how long the model will be.

Open an image editing software, I used PowerPoint. Import (paste) the image onto your workspace. Crop the left and right sides of the image to the bow and stern tips of the boat. 

Resize the image length to the model length (44mm in this case). Make sure the image height is locked in with the length so that it scales both directions.

Repeat as desired for other ships. quite a few will fit on a letter size piece of paper. Print the ships.

3. Basic Ship Construction

Cut out the top view. Note where the superstructure rises above the hull of the ship. use the side view to help locate the extent of the superstructure. With these lines in mind, use a glue stick to apply glue to the bow and stern of the ship, leaving the superstructure glue-free. Affix cutout to a craft stick (like a popsicle stick).

Using a knife and the glued-on cut out as a guide, carve the ship shape from the stick. For these battleships at 1:3000 scale, there is generally no need to worry about the thickness of the stick if using popsicle sticks.

With the ship shape complete, use a sharp knife to carve the lines of the superstructure. As it isn't glued down, the superstructure cutout should just lift away (if it did get glued and the glue is not totally dry, it may still peel off using the knife blade and some care). Then glue superstructure piece to craft stick and repeat the shaping process. 

Finally, glue the superstructure to its place on the hull. I use Tacky glue for this. Write name of ship on the underside if doing multiple ships assembly line style. 

We could call this ship done at a couple steps above bare minimum and skip to basing...or we could delve into the land of high-fiddliness.

4. Intermediate Ship Construction (or A Reason to Use Some Special Tools)

Note funnels (smoke stacks) and masts on the ship (see side view). Find some metal or plastic rods of similar thickness. I used some worn out metal anode rods from some laboratory tool my brother uses at work for the funnels and paper clip wire for the masts. Cut pieces of rod/wire to their respective length in the side view plus the distance to the waterline (on some drawings, only the ship above waterline is shown, others show the whole boat, so watch for that). File off burs, bevel one end and flatten the other.

Locate the masts and funnels on the top view paper layer of the model (compare to side view if unsure). With a pin vice and appropriately-sized drill bits, drill holes through the model for the funnel and mast rods/wire to fit. Slowly so as not to split the wood.

5. Basing

Cut a 50mm length of a wider craft stick - mine are 20mm wide - and glue the boat onto it. Write the name of the ship and indicate which end is the front on the underside.

Press rod and wire into the holes, beveled side down. With the base there, they'll stop close to the right hight. Glue if needed. File funnel tops to the same level if applicable.

Paint or stain base if desired. The sticks I used were already blue.

Affix national flag on rear of base and write name of ship. Alternately one might print, cut, and glue name along with flag to the base. Consult underside of base to double-check which end is the rear.

And that's it! We now have a smart-looking model for wargaming.

Edit:

Oh wait! I forgot about the turrets.

Find a cylindrical object roughly the same diameter as the turrets on the top view. Things that work might be a bamboo skewer or a toothpick. a piece of plastic spru, etc. Cut a slice and glue it on. Or cut a tiny circle out of a thin bit of plastic, like a bread tag, and glue it on.