New and Old Toys, Part 3

Sci-fi doors, crates and barrels are perfect for adding those nice extras to your gaming table. 

(click on the pix to enlarge)

Narrow and wide doors, section and air lock doors
from the Sedition Wars Terrain Pack are great!

Staging the shot

Various items from my collection: Starship Trooper,
AT-43 and Hero Clix Alien to name a few

Finally gotten around to painting some
cool bio-hazard and nuclear waste barrels (red
and yellow respectively) from Fenris Games

More sci-fi crates and hatches from Fenris Games 

Put 'em all together and you get some nice dioramas
"Meanwhile, at the loading bay of HMS Rourke's Prime
currently orbiting Rajanatha 3 in the Gamma Sector"

That's a repainted AT-43 Mech UNI Fire Toad
"Preparations are underway for the massive landing
expedition and support base operations"

"I need that load out as soon as possible!
Otherwise I'm going to miss my timetable
and be late for the jump point."

2' x 2' Mini Terrain Table

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Because gamers like a big area for viewing and admiring, most of us have the typical 4' x 6' playing areas. Realistically, most of my games end up in tight quarters. Especially my skirmish games in 28mm. Solution: make a mini terrain table for those close quarters.

Start with a standard 2' x 2' acoustic ceiling tile
available at any hardware store.
Paint the edges with flat black for a better border

Inexpensive but very effective for most of my painting needs

Apply with a metal spatula a good base layer of a slurry mix
(sand, white glue, cheap gray acrylic craft paint and water).
Let dry and cure overnight then apply successive coats of dark brown wash

Again let dry and cure overnight

After the board was dry-brushed to my liking I then applied
white glue to random areas and sprinkled copious amounts of
static grass from Gale Force Nine

Let dry and cure overnight then take a tooth brush to
tease out (stand up) and remove excess static grass and Voila!

My whole intent was as mentioned above but after it was completed I knew that I could pose some of my minis on it for some cool diorama shots.

Steppe this way!
My Mongols from The Assault Group
and Old Glory lines in 28mm

Assortment of German Panzers: Stug III, Sd.Kfz 222 armored
car and Sd.Kfz 251 half-tracks from Bolt Action in 28mm

Same Panzers supplemented with 25mm BMW motorcycle 
troopen from Battle Honors (incidentally, putting them in the
foreground mitigates the scale disparity)

My 28mm Soviet Tankovy: KV1 and T34/76 from Battlemart
and armored cars: BA6 and BA64 from Bolt Action 

Showcasing some of my 6mm Modern micro armor from
GHQ: M1 Abrams, British Challenger and German Leopard 2
alongside Timecast buildings and haystacks

Ditto

Composed shot for my Instagram

Hai on More Conversions! Part 1

Here's the latest project on my table. Conversion of the board game Samurai Battles to another miniatures game using Hexon and 6mm Baccus Samurai figures.

The game comes with these beautiful 1/72nd scale plastics from Zvezda. 

However, I didn't like the aesthetic look. To me it does not capture the epic scale that I've seen in those Kurosawa films (Ran, Kagemusha, etc.) and gives me the impression of a small unit / skirmish game feel. Hence my conversion. 

Ran: Ashigaru Arquebusiers deploying

The following pix are progress shots of this current project. As you can see below the 6mm scale gives a better visual for some truly epic battles. Incidentally, our group has been doing the same for most of the Command and Colors family of games (e.g. Memoir 44, Battle Cry, Command and Colors Ancients and Napoleonics). And we've been having great success in the look and feel complemented by the great playability of this system.

From L-R, Black Army, Red Army
Finally completed opposing armies fully represented on my
table top using my Hexon terrain. I have enough here to play all
the scenarios from the base game to the latest expansion.

I've decided to take a count of all the units in the scenarios and represented them as single stands. All combat units except the Peasant Infantry (found in the expansion) are 4 stands strong. Meaning they take 4 hits to kill. That's represented by four figures per stand in the original game. I chose to use single 2"x3" metal stands from Games Accessories... 4 banners each...

Finally my order came in from Baccus and first order of business was
sort them into their unit types. It was a daunting task that completely
overwhelmed me. I knew I had to be systematic in this approach. 

Notice that some of the minis are black primered. In my earlier attempt, I primered a few bags and realized that it was better for me to restart the process and get them all sorted in their respective units first then I can paint them piecemeal.

Here are 3 AY (Ashigaru Yari = Non Samurai Spearmen) 
Medium Infantry units for the Red Army

Same units from another angle. Notice that each unit has four
sashimonos (flag banners) to represent their hit points 

New Scav Alert! Part 4: Decoration Sites

Continuing my series of re-purposing found objects from the different craft worlds online and in brick and mortar sites I found these great pre-painted metal gate and fence on a popular seasonal decoration on line store: Department 56 Village Replacements http://www.department56corner.com/.

Here's a tip: their store is not that organized and have lots of variety. If you do find something that you like, better to pull the trigger then and there since you might not find it the next time. 

My Black Scorpion Pirates fit nicely

The stone wall with some snow was another
item that I found at the same site

Observation tower courtesy of a flea market find at Historicon

Mix and match: the dark brown crates are pre-painted
models from Pegasus Hobbies

Wood pier on the left was also another item in their catalog.
Good luck finding it, though. Last I check, it wasn't available.

New Scav Alert! Part 3: rafting Store Floral Dept. Finds

It's that time of year again where I discover some great finds from my local, neighborhood dollar store.

If you're in the continental U.S. there should
be one of these babies in your neighborhood

Just a serendipitous find. As usual, I kept my eye peeled for any potential item that can be used for all my gaming needs. Case in point, I looked at these plain, unobtrusive objects with a miniaturist's eye and always imagined how they can be utilized as part of a scene on my gaming table. 

I saw these seemingly innocent items at the crafting,
floral aisle and I immediately thought of moss covered
boulders perfect for any period / fantasy skirmishing 

A bit of an imagination goes a long way for creating
our gaming scenes and I'm always on the lookout
for 'eye candy' opportunities. 

28mm metal Viking figures are from my Gripping Beast

collection with rune stones from Fenris Games and the odd

bits of trees I've collected through the years 

One on one

Incidentally, those pines trees were an earlier purchase from same Dollar Tree and was featured in an earlier post: New Scav Alert! Part 1

New and Old Toys, Part 2

Using some of Star Wars Miniatures in a clear plastic container full of bath salts inspired me for this shot.  

Meanwhile, at the frozen planet Hoth...

New and Old Toys, Part 1

Most of us have lots of toys that don't get any use for whatever the reason. In this case, my Al Qaeda and Soviet Paras in 28mm supplemented by a recent purchase from Millineumcon 2014 of some kit bashed technicals that are (alas) a different scale: 20mm.

Front Left to Right: Al Qaeda Fedayeen, Soviet Paras
Rear Left: Kit bashed Technicals
Rear Right: Starship Troopers (just in case you were wondering)

At this past Historicon, I wanted to remedy the neglect of some of my toys by being on the lookout for prepainted terrain. Eureka! (not the company but the exclamation) Miniature Building Authority (MBA) did not disappoint. Also there were plenty of homemade terrain by enterprising gamers being sold at the flea market. Here's some of my new acquisitions.

Front Center: Homemade rubble and metal junk pile
Rear L-R: Prepainted block buildings and shanties from MBA 

Front Center: Pre-painted block buildings and shanties
from MBA w/pre-painted oil drums from Pegasus Hobbies
Rear L-R: AT-43 prepainted shipping containers
plus 4 un-painted shipping containers also from MBA

Concrete barricades from AT-43 work well with
my Technicals albeit in a different scale

Freshly spray can painted MBA shipping containers that needs some weathering