House for Sale

Well, two of them, actually.

Scratchbuilt Fantasy Homes

You may remember that I made a whole village of fantasy buildings last year (see here). Well, I've come to the conclusion that I have got too many of them.  

If I used them all on my normal size battlefield there would be no room for the troops to manoevre so I've decided to sell these two.

They are suitable for both 10mm and 15mm.

You'll find them on eBay here.

There and Back Again - a Wargamer's Tale

Well, 2013 was an interesting and quite active year for me.

Wargaming-wise I discovered Mayhem and actually managed a game which I thoroughly enjoyed. I almost got a second game in too but my son decided he wanted his bedroom back!

I also discovered Pulp Alley and managed a game of that too but decided that I am one of the few who didn't like it. I think it's the cards that did it for me. Dice - good, Cards - bad!

I managed to paint up and convert quite a few Pendraken 10mm figures (though still have plenty in my lead pile) and also did some 15mm stuff.

I bought a couple of hills after two attempts. The Royal Mail lost the first set but The Scene sorted the problem out brilliantly. And for birthday and Christmas I got some roads from Fat Franks which I haven't used yet but they look good.

And I sold off all my scifi figures and scenery.

And personally there was a lot to thank God for.
My wife landed a job which she absolutely loves to bits as a teaching assistant at one of our local schools - class TA with nursery in the morning and one-to-one with a child with Down's Syndrome in the afternoon.
Our eldest son continues training as an assistant manager at the local pub and is really flourishing.

Our second son received an award in his second year of university (3D Games Art) from heads of industry when in was competing with final year students.

Our third son managed to drum continuously for 71 hours to break the Guiness World Record for Team Drumming and has developed and grown in so many ways.

And our fourth son who is on the autistic spectrum succeeded in riding his bike without stabilisers and has also developed in so many ways.

And I feel that I had a pretty good year too.

And what does 2014 hold? Who knows?
Hopefully more time for gaming but life is already looking quite demanding so we'll have to see.
Wishing you a wonderful year.
Hugh

Still in the Land of the Living

Like so many others, I been failing to keep up this blog. Sorry for that.

But I have been doing some painting, modelling and reading though sadly no gaming for quite some time.

In fact the only game I've played is a try out of the "Pulp Alley" Rules with some British Bobbies seeking to foil the plans of an evil cult. I know that a of people are raving about the rules but they didn't really work for me. I think that I am going to revert to using Two Hour Wargames' "Larger than Life" though I might take some ideas from other rules to flesh them out a bit.

 

Painting-wise, I have been gradually dealing with my lead mountain of 10mm fantasy and pulp and the three Pendraken resin ruins that I bought at Colours 2011. They paint up really well and give me a more urban setting for pulp games. And I almost forgot that I also painted most of a 15mm Hobbit Army for HoTT (I'll add some pictures to my gallery soon). I have only had the figures for about a decade so not bad, huh! I just need to paint up a few rangers and convert a barrel wagon so that it has a hobbit on top and then the army will be complete.

And I have also been doing some scratch-building of a fantasy village, using a cardboard tube, some plastic tubing and an old towelling sock. I'm really pleased how they turned out though I haven't quite decided who would live in such buildings.

My lack of gaming (and blog updating) has also convinced me that I need to hone down my interests to restrict myself so that I paint, model and read less and game more. So I am soon going to be selling off all my 15mm scifi (figures and scenery) on eBay and focus all my attentions on fantasy gaming - 15mm for large battles with HoTT if I play my son (when he's back from uni) or Rally Round the King and/or Mayhem for solo gaming and 10mm for skirmishing and dungeon crawling using Warrior Heroes - and perhaps the occasional 10mm pulp game.

Of course, like many wargamers, I have made myself similar promises before but I hope that this time I will stick to it. Watch this space.

Housing Development

Sorry I am so slow in putting things up on this blog. Life does tend to get in the way of my modelling and painting.

Any way, I have finished the 15mm scifi housing and other buildings.

Other than the green and lilac ones, the square buildings are private housing (the green one is the scifi version of the corner shop and the lilac one is a faith building).
 

The rectangular ones are public buildings - the orange one is a pub, the grey one is a governmental building, the turquoise one is the travel hub and the dark blue one is the police/security building.

Solving the Housing Shortage

I thought that I needed a few more pre-fabs - we need at least a few people being able to afford proper housing rather than just shanties. I also need some sort of terminus and a civic building. So I put in an order for some more pattress boxes and blank plates - six one-gang and two two-gang.

If you live in the UK I can highly recommend Tool Station - cheapest I have found and if you spend £10 postage and packing is free and they get delivered express via Yodel. This lot cost just £8.49 for eight buildings.

I've got a busy weekend dropping siblings off at uni, etc so I'll have to wait until next week to get going on the pimping.

If only the UK housing shortage could be solved so easily!

Scifi Scenery So Far

I am planning to use Two Hour Wargames' "5150 New Beginnings" rules for my main scifi stuff and their "After the Horseman" for post apocalytic stuff so will need afair amount of buildlings.

So far I have put together a few shanty town shacks:

 I used the little bits of foam that you have to remove from protective foam trays to form a basic shape and then built the walls of the shacks around the foam using matchsticks, balsa and various plastic card and rod. The tarpaulin roofing is made from ordinary kitchen roll. In places this leaves the tarpaulin with a dimple texture but I can cope with that.

For more up-market buildings, I have used electrical boxes, hopefully to give the idea of prefabs which the owners have had the opportunity to customise (pimp?):-

The green one is meant to be a 'corner store' supplying a bit of everything and the orange one is the bar.

The customising has been mostly done with card, bits from various kits and other items from my bits box. The pub's sign is the end of a twizzle stick that you get with a cocktail. I've had it in my bits box for about fifteen years, knowing that it would come in handy one day.

Other parts have been cast using Oyumaru to make the moulds (exactly the same as Instant Mold but less than half the price - check on eBay!) and then using Milliput to make the copies. If you haven't used it give it a go. It is so simple and quite addictive. It gives you a new perspective on things as you look at the various textures,  protrudances and cavities as well as the item as a whole. For example the entrances of the buildings are copies from an old HO scale railway carriage.

I've got a police station and several prefab habitations on the workbench (if I had a workbench to have them on!)

And finally for the moment, I got these two off eBay recently for 99p. Hopefully, a bit of converting and a decent paintjob should make them look sufficiently realistic scifi.