30 Oct 2017

A riveting evening

You guessed it!

An evening spent adding rivets to my new VSF stuff.

Utilising my trusty Rivet Maker (a greetings card makers hole punch)....


...I set about adding rivets to the under hull of my new VSF flyers. The punch makes it a quick job to make them and then it is a fairly quick process to dab a blob of glue and shove a rivet on. I tend to give them a watered down PVA wash afterwards to seal them.


Also did the Tesla Guns so I can get all these sprayed soon.


TTFN


26 Oct 2017

Tesla Guns!

Krak Kerpow ZZappp!

Yeah 'Lecky Guns for zapping people!


Dinky little kit from Blotz and it only took an hour to put both together.

I think I'll add some extra rivets to the base and some power cables as well. I might have to see if I can find two of those old GW ork gun sights to add to them ACME styleeee!

TTFN

24 Oct 2017

Letting myself get distracted.

With only a few weeks to go for the painting deadline I should have my nose to the grind stone getting the last figures painted for myself impose challenge. 60 still to do so what do I do?

Something else completely different of course!

Being so close to the finish line my mind has wandered off into 2018 with a view to setting some goals for next year. Yes yes I know I haven’t finished this year but it’s just how my mind works!

Sat around my study over the last few years has been the collection of Dystopian Legions (DL) stuff that I purchased ooooh sooo long ago. I’ve always been interested in the Victorian Sci-Fi but never really got to have a crack at it gaming wise. I even had a copy of Space 1889 but never played. That desire is what lead to all the purchases of DL and also the 6mm Dystopian Wars (DW) stuff. It had been niggling at me that nothing had come of these so I became resolved to do something about it. Well that was over a year ago and still nothing happened. Well apart from Junt and I conning Urn to buy loads of stuff for it as well. 

We had come to a consensus that it would be fun to take DL to Mars. I suspect that this may have been driven by me but I will deny it if so accused. However that notion stuck, germinated and started to grow. First it stemmed into the idea of a couple of funky Aeronef flyers to supplement the land forces we already had and then, like so many of the notions in my head, it got out of hand.

Long story short …..Aeronef started getting designed. Then I balked at scratch-building all these ideas. Then it occurred to me that they might be good in MDF. Looking around there are a few people making Aeronef but they weren’t what I was looking for or were too big. So I resolved to contact a manufacturer to see if some could be made. I had to good fortune to choose Blotz as my first port of call and I am very pleased that I did. Since the early contact the idea was well received and handled in a stress-less manner. So in just a short time the first two designs from the project have gone from concept sketches to scale drawings and onto being finished things. I have to say it has been fun! Slightly surreal getting your own design through the post as a kit to put together but fun none the less!

The first two were the Kingdom of Britainnia ones primarily because they were the simplest designs on which I could get some idea of how to proceed with the drawings that Blotz would need. I will admit to being quite pleased with how they have turned out.

A Patrol boat for HM’s forces…..


…..and a light launch to ferry troops around.



As this had come from the DL perspective I’d intended the large ones to be ‘sky tanks’ and the smaller ones to be ‘Sky APCs’. I suspect however that the DL rules will be thrown out of the window, due to them being poorly received, and a new rule set will be found which will give the Aeronef a life of their own.

Given that we have five DL factions between the three of us that have DL, then ten designs are required in total. The first two are finished, the next is now with Blotz and the fourth will be pinged over shortly. I’ve been scribbling away on new design ideas trying to make each new one markedly different from the others which is a fun challenge.


I keep having to rein myself in with the practical limitations of size. I doubt the Long Haired General at home really wants a house full of massive sky ships. Shame. I’d love it. ;-)

If you like them then head over to Blotz where they are available to buy or keep an eye out for the new ones in future.

TTFN

6 Oct 2017

Bbbrring bbbrring!

Once again I allowed myself to be distracted from my mission of painting figures!

But I couldn't help it as the little phonebox from Blotz is just awesome.


Didn't take much to do. A solid undercoat of black followed by a heavy dry-brushing of red. Then the sign got several quick coats white. I didn't want to lose the etched letters so I used airbrush white paint because it's got a much thinner consistency.

Once that was dry I used a touch of Nuln Oil black wash and watered that down slightly to pick out the letters without staining the white too much.

I love these little kits. So characterful!

TTFN

5 Oct 2017

A deadline on the horizon

I've allowed myself to get a little distracted by another project of late so must redouble my efforts to get my 365 figures painted before 10/12/17.

Lots of things on the go but I decided to try and finish some half done stuff to get it off of the painting table. First off is a bundle of Ork Dreadnoughts and Killer Kans for EPIC along with an AA wagon. With these finished I've only got 60 left to finish!


 With them out of the way I've moved onto a tray full of Ork buggies, planes and scorchas that had been started. I've slowed myself down, once again, by choosing to paint checker patterns on 6mm figures. why do I make these choices?? Oh yeah! Cos it looks good! ;-)


I'd expect these to take me another week to finish but there is something like 30+ so its more than half of what I need to do before December.

Also on the go are some more Pulp City figures and I've started painting two of the smaller Massive Darkness box sets.


As always I've also allowed myself to be distracted by scenery. No great surprise there as it is a real weakness of mine.

First up a cool phone box and some street lamps from Blotz. Very nice fun little kits to put together!



I'd gotten them at Colours and really wanted to put them together to get them done for my City scenery set. I also got the new tram kit from Warbases as I thought it would look good on the city streets. Sweet kit.


Not quite sure when I'll get around to painting it?

;-)

TTFN

Game 48

Massive Darkness again for game 48.

This was a fairly standard mission with no time pressures. As such our characters were tooled up and had advanced skills by the time we got to the Hellhound at the end.


He didn't last long.

TTFN

Game 47 Warhammer 40K

We've not had a chance to play much more 40K after our flurry of games in the middle of the year so it was good to pile round to Urn's place and get the marines out.

This, as it turns out, ended up being a marine on marine battle as the sneaky underhanded Raven Guard fell in with the flighty White Scars to try and take some clearly high important objective from the Brave Heroic Howling Griffons whilst denying the Griffons their spoils of war! Fiends!



Things started bad for the Scarlet and Gold when the Turncoat allies managed to steal the initiative however not a lot of firepower could be brought to bear upon the Griffons so casualties were light.

Sadly the return fire from the Griffons was less then impressive.

The mission had both sides turning up piecemeal and this served the Scars well as their bikes arrived with good effect as did their Raven guards assualt squad both of which were quickly bearing down on their goal.


An attempt by some Terminators to grab their opponents objective was stymied somewhat by them being outnumbered and overrun.


Thankfully the second terminator squad had scared off the scars on bike who didn't get back close enough in time to help get onto the Griffons prize before the game was called.

A draw but a real shoeing for the Griffons. Shame. The termies were itching to have a go at the bikes.

TTFN

Games 45 & 46

The Immortal.

Sounds menacing doesn't he. Well in Massive Darkness he bloody well is. Game 45 was a special mission to grab dynamite, lure the bad boss to a subterranean bridge and blow it up to send him plunging into the Abyss.

This was a tricky one. Which is why Game 45 was short lived and a failure. We messed about too long and before we knew it the Immoral, the unstoppable target of our plans, had passed the point where he could be drawn to his death.

Quick Reset!


This time we didn't hang about......no actually we bibbled a bit on this one as well and then happened to notice that the rouge had placed themselves well for a run on the bridge and had the fireworks to lure the bad guy!

Once we cottoned on to what was possible it was an easy matter for the Rogue to tease the horrid ogre onto the ancient stone walkway before using a magic spear to destroy the supports and dispatch the Darkness's lieutenant to its doom!

Fun mission and nicely different to the others we've played so far.

TTFN
 

Game 44

The run of Massive Darkness games continued with game 44 being a mission in which the dungeon progressively collapses as the rounds go by.



We'd found that the game itself isn't that difficult barring an unlucky draw of the cards however...

...adding the time element to the game really steps it up a gear! No more checking every room for cool equipment. This was a race to get out past the inevitable encounters.


Pulling two horrible cards near the end did for us! We defeated the monsters and all of characters got out except for the Stout Dwarf who tripped and fell before being buried beneath the collapsing ceiling of the dungeon.

Technically a loss. Morally? Well I suppose that depends how you feel about dwarves?

;-)

TTFN