Friday 27 May 2016

Chariot Fun

Just a quicky.
And they're off!
This week I had the pleasure of helping MacSver continue playtesting the upcoming "Faustus Furious" chariot racing ruleset from Ganesha Games. With a 3 player game going on (controlling 2 chariots each of different types) great fun was had.

A Heavy Chariot forces it's way down the inside.
MacSver has already painted a lot of different chariots up to represent Heavy rigs, agile one and archer carrying setups. As you can see from the pictures he has also started on a custom demo table which will look fabtastic when finished.

Coming up to the final bend, but a mob of spectators
have run on. They must think it's all over...
I believe that the final editing and tweaking is being done. The rules are great fun with much crashing, spinning and careering going on the keep the races unpredictable.

Definitely one to look out for when they become available.

(more playtest details on MacSver's Blog)

Tuesday 24 May 2016

Painting Amera's Ruined Tower and Amphitheatre.

Itching to make a start on my Amera plastic I picked out the Amphitheatre and Ruined Tower (as couldn't resist the latter!). This is not so much a tutorial but more a work log, as everything did not go exactly to plan.

Saturday 21 May 2016

The Plastic Mountain


Well not so much mountain - more ruins. Like so many others recently it seems, I've made an order to Amera Mouldings for some ruins. This doesn't mean I'm ditching my Graffam ruins by any means, but I have a (too) small selection of "physical" ruins and wanted to add to them as a different option.

For the record: 1 x Ruined Chapel kit, 2 x Building Ruins, 1 x Amphitheatre, 1 x Temple Ruins.

Now we'll see if all the reports of the ease and speed that these paint up are all lies!!

Thursday 19 May 2016

Friday 13 May 2016

Steam Powered Sawmill Finished

Finished my Steam Saw mill. It is intended to add to my Dead Man's Hand scenery (which is of a more industrial mining town theme rather than the traditional town) but will easily fit into other games (Victorian or Horror I suspect).

The main building is a Stables kit from Warbases with the stalls left off.  I like my buildings to have more than one point of entry\exit if possible, so I cut a side doorway. I also left the back roof section loose for access, adding a tab of scrap mdf to stop it sliding off. The roof is corrugated card from Hobbycraft.

The steam powered sawmill equipment is a resin kit from Frontline Wargaming. They unfortunately forgot to pack the funnel, so I've had to improvise with a straw.

I've used small animal gnawing sticks from a local pet store for the log piles (they are nice and straight). Much to the bemusement of my wife I've had to paint them to look like wood!

I think I need a pile of planks as well as logs, but I have plans to do a load of ladders with wood stirrers and will do it at that time.

Wednesday 11 May 2016

Carronade 2016

Just a quick post to mark the attendance of Arabiansquire and myself and Falkirk Wargames Club's show "Carronade".

The venue was packed out this year with tables and visitors. Our involvement this year was very low key (as opposed to hosting a game last year).

As ever when with the wee lad the focus on arrival is to scout out the participation games. Most the large table displays I have to admit get a very fleeting, albeit admiring, glance.

The first game was a demo of Arena Rex , a new mythic Gladiatorial game, put on by Common Ground Games from Stirling. The models looked nice inside a nice arena and the game seemed to play well.. Unfortunately the wee lad was rolling poorly and came a quick cropper to a "lucky" counterstrike.

His other game was a Hobbit based Escape from the Goblin City games put on by Stirling Wargames club. A very nice set-up they had indeed. Young Arabiansquire took control of the goblin hordes whilst an opponent controlled the 4 dwaves trying to traverse the table. The action became a bit of a grinder once the narrower section was reached, but the gameplay was simple enough everyone basically could make decisions and they enjoyed their time playing.

My participation was chatting to some friendly faces I'd bumped into and a little bit of shopping. I wasn't really looking for much, and most of what I was looking for (ruins) were either not there or too expensive for me. There were loads of nice shiny things on sale, but I generally resisted.

OK, maybe with the exception of Wargames Illustrated Steampunk Queen Victoria
The bring and buy seemd to be stuffed with 40k this year, but I picked up a bargain tubs of painted GW skeletons, and from the same stall I couldn't resist Cthulhu Fluxx. And appart from some dull supplies that was it really.

For a (much) more involved report head over to MacSver's Battleshed Diaries as , being a Falkirk Club member now, was involved in the behind the scenes work. Sit down before you start though, I was tired just reading about it.

Monday 9 May 2016

Peter Jackson's Gallipoli Diarama

Why hasn't this appeared on any of my feeds yet? What am I not paying these anonymous folk for!
Good to know you can rely on family, so thanks to Halo*Star for drawing my attention to this.

Enough silliness - just follow this link for some awesomeness!

http://imgur.com/gallery/FAAWz

(but how do you reach the middle? is the question!)

(btw I have "borrowed" the above picture to try a draw people into finding this great link\article. If it causes offence to the owner please let me know and I'll remove it)


Friday 6 May 2016

Servants of Ra Characters


The 3 main characters from the Ih Her Majesty's Name "Servants of Ra" box set. Unashamedly I've been heavily influenced by the "official" pictures, painted by Kevin Dallimore, albeit with a slight colour tweek here and there.

I wanted the skin tone of the central figure, Akhenaton - risen Pharaoh, to be a bit darker than on the box. Of course that means that I was unpracticed in these tones, but I've managed to get at least a bit of face shading in.

I was also keen for the coat of Professor Abir not be just a plain texture. Fortunately the pictures on the box are very good, so I was able to examine and roughly guess when Mr. Dallimore had done to get his effect and I had a bash at copying it. I'm pretty pleased - especially at the wargame standard arms length distance of inspection.

From the box set I only have the Mummy figure left, but I have rustled up an additional few to hold in reserve,  so they will all be done at the same time for consistency.