Wargods of Aegyptus

I've resisted the themptation of WarGods for what seems like forever now, but today that resolve failed me and I bought some.  The scale of the game sits somewhere in between Mordheim and Warhammer Fantasy, which suits me just fine.  The miniatures look fantastic and the Egyption mythology aspect if just freaking awesome.

Should get these in the next week or two, I'll post photos when they arrive.

Terrain - Hedges & Forests Part 4 - Update

I managed to get all the painted hedges glued onto their bases.  Still not sure what I'll do flock wise.  I'd like to use the scenic bushes as that would them a natural look with some nice depth and volume, the catch though is that it's pricey stuff and I'd probably need 3-4 bags at $15 each.  Too pricey, I'll have to see if they have any larger bags available and if that would work out any cheaper.

Tomorrow I'll start putting the flock and sand on the bases of these, the trees and the forest/woods stands.

Terrain - Hedges & Forests Part 4

Not quite sure how to progress with the hedges, the foliage/flock I've bought looks like it might be too chunky and I'm having a little trouble breaking it down.  I decided to put the hedges on hold while I mull it over, so I've turned my attention to the trees.  These should be simpler, so if I take the tree bases (the round ones), the trees themselves, the forest bases and shake it all up...

I end up with this:

A closeup of the base with 28mm Blacktree Wehrmacht miniatures for scale.

Ok so I didn't actually shake this together but they went together pretty easily.  Once the putty is dry I'll add sand and flock, same with the forest bases.  I'm pretty happy with how they're turning out.  I should only need 4-5 trees per forest base to look like a forest while leaving plenty of room for miniatures.  I'm also thinking of making up some bases with rocks and shrubs on them to make parts of the forest innacessible to infantry.

Hmmm... now back to those hedges...

Terrain - Hedges & Forests Part 3

Trees!  They look nice and they're perfect for 28mm gaming.  Probably won't get much done with them tonight as I really want to get some of the hedges sorted first... but first I need to finish cooking dinner.

Terrain - Hedges & Forests Part 2

I managed to get the airbrush out and gave the foam pieces a first coat.  I'm using cheap poster paint which cost $2.50AUD for around 400ml so I didn't expect the coverage to be great but I'm impressed so far.  The real test will be when it dries as the cheaper paints tend to shrink quite a lot.
 

I found the paint was going on pretty quick and easy so I just kept going, until I ran out of space on the cabinet... so I had to find other perches, like here.

And here...

And here.

I also managed to get a bit of paint on the forest bases, the trees should be arriving either tomorrow or Friday.

I've managed two nights in the shed - in a row - woo hoo I'm on a roll (for me it is).

Plans For Tomorrow:
If the coverage on the hedges is ok after the paint dries then I'll cut up some more bases and start gluing them down, otherwise I'll grab the airbrush out again and give them a second coat.

Disposable Heroes & Coffin for Seven Brothers

Came home tonight to find my order from Iron Ivan Games had arrived.  The packaging was a little worse for wear but none of the books seemed damaged, well not by the postal service at least.  Since there were six books in my order the envelope wasn't able to completley close.  This meant that a small sliver of the sticky glue on the lip of the envelop stuck on the front cover of the main rulebook.  Luckily it stuck to the white part of the front cover so no real damage was done to the artwork, still annoying though.

The books themselves have a fairly thin cover, even the coloured ones, however the books are anything but cheap.  The content is well laid out well and these books have more tables than I've seen in any game, well except maybe for Phoenix Command but that game was just awesomley ridiculous.

I'll have to put these away on the shelf, for now, so I can focus on the terrain building.  I mean it's so unlike me to get distracted and leave something half finished...

Terrain - Hedges & Forests Part 1

I needed a break from making the Whitewash City buildings for Gutshot and Sixgun Sound so I thought I really should get some decent scenery and terrain sorted for Nuts.  So I started at lunch today by purchasing some of the Woodland Scenics range of bushes and foliage.

A while ago I had made up a heap of hedges and hedgerow out of the expanded foam found in the PC boxes from work (we throw away sooo much of this stuff).  Initially I was going to have the hedges sit directly on the table but the more I thought about it the more I'm convinced they'll need an MDF base more for weight than stability.

So off to the garage I went and half an hour later I've got these.  The white things are the amazing average looking (but free) expanded foam hedgerows.  The bases have been cut out from 3mm MDF using a jigsaw and then hand filed.

And another shot to better show the scale/size of the hedges.

I had it all planned perfectly.  A liberal snake of MDF glue on the base, press the hedge down and then secure using rubber bands.  Oh it worked so well... until I used up my entire supply of two rubber bands.  I did have a whole gosh darn bag of these somewhere but I couldn't find them anywhere.

A comprimise was settled upon: masking tape.  It works pretty well and servers the purpose well.

I also cut out some 6mm forest bases, I won't do much with these until my e-bay trees arrive from Queensland.  I'd like to base the trees seperatley and just sit them on top.  That will allow for easier storage and the trees can move around the miniatures and not the other way around, which will help with games that use stands and not bases (Warmaster, DBA etc).

One thing I will point out is that I got sick of filing the hedge bases pretty darned quick so I grabbed the router and gave these bases a quick once around.  Didn't come out as good as I'd hoped for but for 30 seconds of work I really can't complain.

So the plan now is to go and watch Fringe and let this stuff dry overnight.  Tomorrow I'll have a look at how well (or not) the glue has bonded.  All going well I think I'll get the airbrush out at hit these hedges with either a black or green undercoat.  Once that's dry I'll try to work out how to put the scenics stuff on.

Yeeeeeeehah!

Look what arrived with this afternoon's stagecoach.  My Gutshot rulebook from Hawgleg Publishing.  The quality of the book is top notch and the writing style is both entertaining and easy to read.  One of the authors even signed it for me.  Very much looking forward to giving this a go on Staurday.  I've got enough Whitewash buildings made up for a small town bank robbery, I just need to get some paint on my cowboys.

Nuts Second Edition Is Here... Almost

Just ordered Nuts Second Edition from Two Hour Wargames, it's not out until Wednesday so I have a little bit of a wait. I'm really keen to give it a go this weekend but I still haven't managed to get much scenery sorted. So unless Nuts 2 is less lethal than the first edition, very unlikley, then terrain and lot's of it is needed.

So Ed, is it Wednesday over there yet? Is it... huh?

Workbench: 1/600 Aircraft

On the Workbench
11 x BF109E's - based
4 x Gloster Gladiators - based, painting started
3 x Ju88 - based, painted
6 x DO17E's - undercoated
6 x Hurricanes - based
6 x Hurricanes - based, painted
4 x Blenheim Mk 1 - based, undercoated
12 x FW190A-3 - based

Completed
12 x BF110's
13 x BF109E's
6 x He111's
4 x JU87's
6 x Boulton Paul Defiants
12 x Spitfire Mk 1
53 Total

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Cards for Hardy, Algy and the Hun

I picked up couple rulesets from Too Fat Lardies recently and since they're all card driven I needed some new cards.

First up is the Napolenoic era naval rules Kiss Me Hardy. I'm really happy with how these are turning out and I should have them done in time to have a few games this weekend. I'm planning on using the WizKids Pirates of the Spanish Main ships. They're about the right size and are cheap, which is very handy when you're trying to refight the battle of Trafalgar.



I started working on the cards for their WW1 aerial combat rules Algernon Pulls it Off (stop that snickering - this is serious... heh heh he said pulls it off) but I got side tracked when my playtest copy of Bag the Hun 2 turned up in my inbox. It turns out that I needed a few new cards for BTH2 and I decided to use my newfound uber Publisher skills and create some purtyer cards.

Obviously I can't say too much about BTH2 suffice to say any house rules I was thinking about using are no longer needed, BTH2 is very comprehensive and looks to be a magnificent successor to an already great game.

Bag the Hun - AAR

Another great game of Bag The Hun last night. Reichsmarschall Toby and I played another 'Get the bomber home' scenario and both of us were fielding some freshly painted (but not quite finished) models.

Luftwaffe
1 Heinkel He 111
4 Messerschmitt Bf 110
4 Messerschmitt Bf 109

RAF
6 Supermarine Spitfire MK1 (in two sections)
3 Hawker Hurricane MIIc

The game started with the hun heading north to south (left to right in the photo below) with RAF starting in the south west and heading for intercept.

A nice table level shot shows a section of the Spitfires and the Hurricanes heading straight for the bombers and fighter bombers while green section hangs back to see where the 109s were heading.

The 110's may be bigger and less maneouvarable than your average 109 but they pack just as much of a punch.

A shot from the Hun end of the table. Things look a lot cleaner on the table with the altitude dice attached to the bases.

Turn two started off with the fighters exchanging fire. The Hurricanes popper up in front of the 109's received some fire with no effect and quickly returned fire resulting in one of the 109's exploding into a huge ball of flame. The Hurricanes quickly passed the 109's and started to swarm the Heinkel. Junior Ace Harold Potta opened fire on the Heinkel and managed to damage the fuel lines (+3 on subsequent damage rolls, remember this it becomes important later). All I'm hoping for now is the 'Red Section Fire' card...

The Spitfires valiantly try to hold off the Messerschmitts. Fire is exchanged and losses are taken on both sides. A Spitfire explodes and another is damaged, a 110 also gets hit hard. A great opportunity to bring out the pipe cleaner smoke trails.

Well... what I had hoped wouldn't happen... did. The 'Bomber Move' card.

But with the end of the deck means a new turn. And with a new turn comes a reshuffled deck and so with a little bit of luck and a strong tailwind...

Success!! A hard turn, altitude drop and the choice of throttle dice put Section Leader Potta right behind the heinkell. Things start to look up as Potta passes his Getting on the Tail test. Things start to look a little gloomy as a 109 (just to the left of this photo) moves up behind Potta and attempts also to get on the tail, thankfully he fails. Hun aircraft start to move in from everywhere in an attampt to remove the Hurricane from it's lofty perch of destruction.

Well Potta had worked his magic and soon enough a card he's been waiting on turns over 'Character 1'. Potta opens fire with both cannons and uses every last round left. Base attack of 10, Junior Ace is +1 (11), 8 sections of fire is +5 (16), Target is Size 5 so +4 (20) and he's Dead Close so +2 again for a total of 22 dice. The result is good 6 successes. The Heinkell save 1 to reduce the hits to 5 which is still enough for a Critical roll. The roll is a 7 'Critical Instrument Damage' which is not exactly the result I wanted... but then Toby reminds me that no it's actually a 10, the Fuel Leak from the previous turn adds +3 to the next damage result. 10... so in the immortal words of Marvin the Martian: kaboom an Earth shattering kaboom.

A great game and a solid victory to the British. I simply cannot wait to get my hands on Bag the Hun 2 and the rules for ground attacks. I'm really looking forward to some big bombing run games... and will give me chance to use the dozen or so Do17 miniatures. Oh and of course I'd had to get some Mark Vc Spitfires in the air, fire factor 12 anyone?

Bag the Hun - Better Bases

My order of tokens and dice from Em4 arrived not so long ago and with Badga on tonight I thought I should actually get everything ready.

The 7mm dice are just the right size to blue-tac onto the base. This solves the problem of dice getting left behind after a plane has moved and the confusion of conjestion "is this dice for your plane or my plane?". Also there's no chance of altitude dice getting confused with fire dice (especially around planes at altitude 5-6).

Here's everything stored in a small case, I'd like to try and find a bigger one though as I'd like to store all the dice and tokens for all my games in the one place.

Anyway gotta grab a coffee and get back to painting the 110's for tonight.

Whitewash City - First Town Test

With the first lot of Whitewash City buildings completed I thought I should get them all out on the table to get a better idea of how many, if any, more I should be putting together. And here's the results. The blanket is the only sandy/desert one I could find in the laundry and it did not want to lay flat.

I'm pretty chuffed with the look of the table. Maybe a couple more buildings to help fill out the bigger tables at BADGA. With a bigger table I'd go for a layout where the main street branches off to the left and right in a Y shape. Yes it would get rid of the classic western main street look but it would add a few more places to hide.

Now I really should put the cardstock away and pick up the paintbrush, them lawmen and varmints ain't gunna paint themselves now are they.