Hotz Game Mats - It's Here!

I came home to find my Western Town Hotz Mat had arrived.  Wow that was quick!  As expected it came folded but from laying it out on the table I can tell that it will only take a light iron to get it nice and smooth.  The mat feels nice and light so it's not going to be a pain to carry around or roll up but it feels heavy enough to stay on the table when you lat it down.  It looks a bit rough in the photos below because I didn't take the place mats and a few magazines off the table before I laid the mat down.

This photo shows the side with just the rock scatter pattern. 

Here's a shot of the western town side.  The flash makes the streets look a lots less defined than they are in person.

The rock scatter pattern is a little bigger than I thought it would be and at first glance I thought it wouldn't look very nice but the effect looks nice over the whole table.

I can't wait to get this onto a table this weekend.  I think this is just the kind of inducement I need to pull my finger out and get the Wargods stuff painted, oh yeah and the western stuff too.

Seeing how good this mat is I think I'll look at getting one of the european hex mats for Bag the Hun, possibly a plain blue one for Bag the Hun or any naval games I may... um buy, in the not... um too... distant in the future :)

Wargods of Aegyptus - The Rest of the Order

First up I want to say sorry for the lack up updates recently.  It's not entirely my fault.  You see a little while a go my Xbox broke and I had to send it off to get fixed.  Microsoft ended up replacing the console for me (yay) but in the meantime we bought a new 50" plasma TV.  The roll on effect of this meant we could move the old 42" into the family room.  So now I have a nive big plasma TV in a room where I can play Xbox any time I want.  Even now I can hear it calling: play me... plaaaaaaay meeeee.  Needless to say the painting has taken a hit.  So now back to the wargaming.

I picked up the rest of my Wargods order las night, a unit of Heru Spearmen and a Heru Harbinger with a great sword, a unit each of Anubi swordsmen and archers with an Anubi Hero.

This guy has one of those ball-and-socket type joints.  I hate them, glue is never enough and so will require pinning.

Metal shields, man that really takes me back to the 80's.  What I really like about these miniatures is the variation in poses you get.  There seems to be about 4-5 different poses all up so even in a unit of 10 men you don't see a lot of repetition.

The Anubi hero.  The detail in this guy's expression is just fantastic, the angry snarl and the way the ears lean forward really gives the impression of an angry dog just about to pounce.

More archers, from what I've been hearing and seeing archers play a pretty important role in Wargods.  Like in most games you have to protect them but if handled well the shooty stuff can win games.

Anubi swordsmen, these miniatures look awesome!  I'm very tempted to start painting these guys today but I should get the Heru I've already started finished first.  Besides it would be so unlike me to leave something half done and start something else... right :)

I picked these minis up from Badga last night and it was great to see half a dozen guys huddled around the Wargods table rolling dice and pushing metal.  Most were playing with Gus's various armies but we've all got a good mix of races between us and some talk of a campaign was going on so all looks good on the Wargods front.

With a bit of luck I'll have my Hotz Mats western mat in a few weeks and if I can refrain from picking up a controller I'll have most (if not all) of my army painted.

Hotz Game Mats

I recently placed an order for a felt game mat from Hotz Mats, the same folks who also produce the fine Whitewash City cardstock buildings.  I've gone for one of their Small Town Western Mats.

It's approximatley 72 x 45 inches (183 x 114 cm) and I've gone for the double sided option with the other side having only the rock scatter pattern.  This will be fantastic for Gutshot, Six Gun Sound and Wargods of Aegyptus.  It will also be quite useful for WWII games if I ever get some Afrika Korps sorted.  It's still a good 3 weeks away so I'll post some photos once it arrives.

Wargods of Aegyptus - Heru and Asar Update

I've managed to get all of the Heru and Asar undercoated, based and all the flesh areas base coated.  Which from the photo doesn't look all that much, and it would be if it wasn't for the fact that I did it in one session.  Sleep and food breaks none-withstanding that is.  The goal now is to get a unit of 10 of these to tabletop standard per night over the next 3-4 nights and then get 3-4 of the characters done with whatever time I have left.

What the photo doesn't show very well here is that most of the shading has been done one the flesh, a little highlighting here and there and a targetted ink wash wouldn't go astray but I think I'll get the rest of the minis dones before I start getting bogged down in the nuances and details.  I will not allow myself to be tempted to spend just a little extra time to make this mini look just right or give that mini the paintjob it deserves and so on.

My primary goal here is to have a painted army on the table this Saturday night.

Should be possible... right, heh?  I mean who needs sleep anyway?

Wargods of Aegyptus - More Heru, Some Asar and the First Anubi

I started painting my Heru for Wargods of Aegyptus.  Very nice casting with only minimal cleanup required.  The quality of the sculpts is just amazing and the detail just pops out at you when you start to put the paint on, these are going to be a pleasure to paint... which is good because I have so many to paint (with more to come).

Another Heru Swordmen unit and the Asar Warhawks starter.  Initially I was only going to get a Warhawk Unit pack but the cool characters made this pack a must have.  The only qualm I have with a couple of the characters is that I find the sculptors desire to make most of the female characters topless just a tad juvenile.  The Basti range of miniatures turned me away for this exact reason.

The Swordsmen and Warhawks based and ready for undercoating.  Airbrush this time me-thinks.

The characters from the Asar Warhawks starter... except for the one second from the left, he's the Master of Words from the Heru Starter.

The two Harbingers from the Warhawks and Heru starters respectivley.  I have another one on order which is probably one (or two) too many but I'm planning on not having to buy any more of these for quite a while.

All the accessories that came with the characters: gongs, idols, books, jars... you name it.  I don't think these play a part in the game, at least not from what I've read of the rulebook.  Oh I got the rulebook too.  Very glossy and professional, up there with the stuff GW put out and even laid out in a similar fashion too now that I thnk about it.

The start of my Anubi forces, Harbinger, priest and embalmer.  I have 3 units of warriors on order, along with another unit of Heru.  These guys are really just add-ons for the Heru army but I may expand these later into an army of their own.

Same guys from above but based and waiting for an undercoat.

That's all for now.  I'm planning on doing a lot of painting tomorrow so I'll post photos when there's something to look at.

Terrain - Hedges & Forests Part 6

Warning!

I should have seen this coming but the Tamiya paint, well moreso the Tamiya Thinners, reacted strangley to the craft paint I initially sprayed on the hedges. Not in a bad way mind you, but weird none the less. Almost a day after I splrayed the Tamiya paint on the hedges the paint still hadn't dried. What I had was a tacky, almost rubbery goo on the surface. After three days now it has dried and hardened up but for a while there I was worried that the hedges were ruined.  So the moral of my tale here is don't mix your paint manufacturers, or better still: test and test again.
 
So back to the hedges....  I've managed to mostly flock two pieces of the hedges using different methods. 
 
 

The hedge below is using Model Scenics Foliage and comes out like a fluffy gauze. I cut out strips and glued them on with MDF glue (it's slow to dry but the fumes won't stink out the house and I have heaps of it). It's the easier of the two to put together and I think it will survive being handled fairly well.  The few places where the foam shows through is pretty clear in the photo ut you really don't notice it on the table.  The only thing I don't like about this one is that the colours are pretty one dimensional.  Also I think I'll get maybe 4-5 of these done from a $14 pack, these could get costly.

The hedge below was made up using a combination of Model Scenics Bushes and some offcuts of the Model Scenics Foliage.  The hedge looks fuller in both depth and colour variation but I'm worried it could suffer from too much handling.  The coverage needs to be fuller using this method as the flat areas of the foam show up against the undulations of the flock.  Once this is done I might even give it a light spray with some spray adhesive to help hold it together.  The process of flocking sothing usig this method is quite slow as you can only do small areas at a time and only one side of the hedge until the other side dries.  I could use the scenics glue as it dries faster, I'll have to investigate this I think.  Again I think I'll get maybe 4-5 of these out of a $14 pack so I need to get down to the game shop and see if they sell bigger/cheaper bags.

I think I'll continue flocking using both methods.  Mainly because I want to use the stuff I already have and secondly I don't want to have all my hedges looking the same.

So far I'm pretty happy with the results of both methods.  The cost is starting to convern me a little but hedges are a common terrain element in just about any wargame so it might be a worthwhile investment.

Terrain - Hedges & Forests Part 5

If you look really carefully at the photo you'll notice millions of tiny little cuts all over my hand... no?  Can't see them?  Well the thinners in the paint did, not immediatley.. oh no it waited, it waited for me to completely coat my hands with the stuff.  Almost got finished and then a tingle... tingle turned to a pins and needles feeling and finally the pins and needles just fricken' hurt.  Luckily all I needed was some warm soapy water and a hug from my youngest.

Hmmm oh yeah I did some more work on the terrain too.  The tree bases below will need a little brush work to bring out some of the details, possibly a bit of flock here and there.

I tried the paint (Tamiya) on a small piece of spare foam and I really expected it to shrivel up, but it didn't so I gave all the hedges a spray of green on the foliage which helped hide almost all of the silver/white bits that were left.

You can see here the coverage is quite good.

Lastly I got the forest bases painted, everything here took almost 5 complete pots of the Tamoya paints but the colours looks great. 

I'll let the paint dry overnight and I'll have a go at flocking the hedges tomorrow.