Dave Graffam Buildings – Split Ruin Part 1

Don’t you just love it when a plan comes together?  Well I’m no John “Hannibal” Smith (Murdoch maybe) but I’m always happy to improvise.  I had intended on using 3mm MDF and a hot glue gun to put my first Dave Graffam building together but a few test runs of the hot glue gun showed that I had maybe 4-5 seconds before the glue dried too much to reposition the MDF.  This was just a little too quick for me to use it on my first build (ie I’m fit to bouts of procrastination).

First up I cut out one side of a wall section and then traced it onto the MDF.  I took care to make sure the straight edges were in fact straight but the ruined edges I took less acre with.  This is a ruined building after all and I intend to paint the edges so I can hide am edge that’s out a 1mm or two.

I went with adhesive spray to stick the artwork to the MDF because it dries fast and doesn’t tend to run or drip everywhere.

One of the reasons I couldn’t use the hot glue gun is that I wanted to “pin” the walls together.  I have a roll of 0.9mm wire and a 1mm drill bit in a hand drill and it cuts into the MDF like butter.  I drilled into the wall section about a centimetre and glue them in with super glue.

Then drill two holes into the opposing wall section, line the edge with MDF glue and press together.  I let that join dry while I cut out the rest of the artwork and MDF for the opposite wall.  It’s starting to look good even with just three walls and the floor artwork sitting in place.  Again I left it to dry while I cut the floor pieces.

Floor pieces all cut, glued and ready to put into place.  MDF glue on all joining edges and two pins on the left and right edges really give the floors strength.  Not that there will be a lot of weight on them but there’s no chance of getting any bowing that happens with some multi story cardstock buildings.  This build does come with some columns to insert which would help with a cardstock building but I won’t bother with those.  I may paint up some balsa wood pieces and stick them in but I’ll wait and see, they may just get in the way of moving the miniatures around.

Only have the roof left to build now, I was going to just make it out of card but I’m thinking I’ll get some balsa wood or try to find some 1.5mm-2mm thick card.

 

Once the roof goes on I’ll base the building on some 3mm MDF and add some piles to the floors to help break up the “empty box” look that it has going.  Some small off cuts, pebbles and sand should do the job.  One of the other Graffam buildings has some furniture to build so I’ll make some for this too.

About 3 hours of build time to get this far and I’m guessing maybe another hour or two to finish off.  It’s a little slower than I had hoped but things will be a lot quicker on the next ones now that I’ve worked out how to factor in the extra thickness of the MDF to allow the internal walls to match up with the external walls.

Once the construction is finished and the paint dried I’ll give it a coat of matt varnish, especially the floors and outer walls where most of the handling will be.  A great thing is that if a section does get damaged all I have to do is print that page out and glue it over top of the damaged bit, easy fixed!

The actual size of the building is surprising too, I had imagined it much smaller.  A squad could quite easily hunker down inside.  The wrecked house and ruined tower builds are going to be downright impressive!

Looking for some Pulp – We Can Be Heroes

I
I will be king
And you
You will be queen
Though nothing…

Sorry, just couldn’t help myself.

For a while now I’ve been looking for some good skirmish rules for my Star Wars minis but haven’t really found anything that “felt right”.  I think where I was going wrong is that I was looking for some sci-fi rules and while that might fit the period it doesn’t suit the flavour of the Star Wars universe.  What I really need is some pulp rules, and so the search begins…

I’m no good at writing reviews so I won’t try, instead I’ll just list some pros and cons of each of the systems.

I started by picking up a copy of We Can Be Heroes II by TFP Games.  70 pages inc covers, around $12.95US but currently on sale at Wargame Vault for $8.62US.

Pros

• It uses a card based activation system which is something I really like in a game.
• The system isn’t genre specific and comes with a huge range of examples of weapons and armour for different genres.
• Each character in the game are either a Hero, Sidekick, Superior Troops or Inferior Troops (oddly enough there are no “standard troops”).  Each of these types have a fixed set of stats, so all Jedi are the same as all Sith who are the same as all Bounty hunters.  This does make for a lot less record sheet checking and even my kids can pick this up pretty easily.
• Redshirts/droids/troopers: the game has got this trope covered.  A single Jedi can easily take on a squad of battle droids and win in a few turns.  Yes there’s still a little risk the dice won’t be kind and you’ll get hurt but the odds are stacked in the Jedi’s favour.
• A random amount of Hero points are available each turn that we also use as Jedi power points for things like deflecting blaster fire, force push, throwing light sabers and so on.  This allows for cool powers but keeps them in check too.  Yep Obi-Wan can use force push to knock over that unit of droids but there’s six of them and that’ll use up all the Hero points for this turn… you sure you want to do that… there’ll be none left for Anakin to use this turn?

Cons

• Each character in the game are either a Hero, Sidekick…  I know I listed this as a Pro but it also takes away from the game.  My kids won’t care that Anakin Skywalker has the same stats as Yoda or Darth Maul but I do.  This will affect long term playability for me but I’m happy to wear that as this is a game I can play with my kids.
• Skills, these should be a pro but they feel tacked on and really don’t add much to the game.  Reference is made as to how the First Aid skill helps to heal a character but nothing is said in the Combat or skill sections of the Strong, Very Strong or Super Human Strength skills when surely they would have some effect.  A missed opportunity I think.
• It doesn’t really affect play at all but the layout of the book consists of the rules being presented as speech bubbles, see here: Just like that… for the whole book.  It’s not unreadable and it’s doesn’t get in the way but it doesn’t sit right with me for some reason.  The same goes with all the pictures of the miniatures, there’s just too many of them.  At least on for each speech bubble, obviously as it would just look silly having a speech bubble full of rules floating on an empty page.  If they cut the speech bubbles and reduced the number of photos they could easily reduce the size of the book to 35-40 pages.  But like I said earlier this doesn’t affect the fun you’ll have at the table as I haven’t had to refer to the rulebook once during play.

Overall

I’ll definitely be playing these rules with my kids.  There’s a cheap magic supplement available too which makes it a little easier to work out force powers and could easily be used for any form of magic, psionics, voodoo or whatever.

Since the the rules are so simple (not always a bad thing) it won’t take much effort to convert the Star Wars characters into the WCBH rules.

These are the sort of rules you look at and think “I could have made this up myself” well that’s true but TFP have saved you the trouble and the time.  A solid set of rules that are fun to play, and like a true pulp game no one ever really dies.  Which is another plus when the Jedi your five year old is playing takes on two Droidekas and rolls badly… very badly.  The force was not with him that day…

So the search is still on for a set of rules for me.

Next time I’ll have a look at Fantastic Worlds by Ratrap Productions, other rules I’ve got lined up are Larger than Life by Two Hour Wargames and Flying Lead by Ganesha Games.

 

Any suggestions about other pulp rules I should have a look would be greatly welcomed as well.

Dave Graffam Buildings

Just picked up some Dave Graffam buildings from Wargame Vault and I’m aiming to get a couple of these built over the coming fortnight.  Most come with single and multi layer variants so they give you plenty of scope for variations and should suit just about any period from fantasy to napoleonics right through to WW2 and beyond.  And at around $5 AUS per building they’re great value.

My plan is to build these using 3-6mm MDF for the walls and floors, the roofs I may just leave as cardstock.  Haven’t entirely decided yet and I’m sure to change my mind part way through construction.  What really caught my attention is that the buildings look functional at least for 15mm and 28, I think they’ll look awesome at 10mm scale but they’ll be much to small to hold a stand of infantry.

But one thing is certain that the strength and durability combined with the amazing artwork should leave me with some sweet gaming terrain. 

Ruined Cottage: www.davesgames.net, www.wargamevault.com.

Split Ruin: www.davesgames.net, www.wargamevault.com.

Tower Ruin: www.davesgames.net, www.wargamevault.com.

Wrecked House: www.davesgames.net, www.wargamevault.com.

Back to the 28mm Germans and Long Grass

I’m making one last push to get the Black Tree Design 28mm Germans finished this weekend.  So far it looks like I’ll get the full platoon done by Sunday, this post however isn’t about the Germans but more about the bases they’re um based on.

I wanted to put some tufts of long grass on a few of the bases to help break up the flat look the green flock I’m using causes.  I was looking on eBay when I thought I probably should do them myself.  I tried this method a few years ago and it turned out crap.  Back then I blamed the technique for the bad results, unfortunately the current results prove that it was my implementation that needed improving.

I had an old brush laying around that was gunked up with glue and had the right looking bristles for what I wanted.

Cut a small length of around an inch or so.

Fold it in half, this takes practice and the first few lots of bristles shot our of my hand and across the table.

Twist the end nice and tight, dab a small ball of super glue on the end and wait 4-5 seconds.

Then simply put it on the base of the miniature.  I’m just using the cheap superglue you get in packs at $2 and I find I can stick the tuft on the base and in about 10 seconds I can use a toothpick to move the bristles around and they stay where I want them.

Tomorrow once they’re completely dry I’ll use some small scissors or nail clippers to cut them to the lengths I’m after.

One nice effect you can see in the photos at the top of the post is that the superglue makes the base of the bristles go white when it oxidises.  I’ll subdue that somewhat later with a green/yellow ink wash.  For some bases I’ll try putting little dabs of paint on the ends of the bristles to make them look like they’re flowering.

More photos of the Germans themselves once they’re done.

Dungeonbowl!

While searching the net for some Napoleonic terrain ideas I came across this on a Mordheim terrain site.

I instantly thought of Dungeonbowl.  I’ve made some corridor and room pieces out of mdf in the past (think Space Hulk) and they looked good but moved around on the table a lot and just lacked that little something.

These however seem to be the perfect idea.  Interconnecting rooms made out of a sturdy little box that shouldn’t shift about of the table, allows for great scope in detailing and with a lid becomes it’s own storage box!  What’s not to love?  I’m making plans to build a couple of these.  A big room like in the photo on the right and for starters four of the smaller square rooms around it.

Once I’ve done the math and worked out the room sizes and door placements I’ll put some plans up here for comment.

After all the cardstock terrain I’ve been putting together lately I’m really looking forward to “building something”.

I’ll just have to paint my Skaven team now.