OwlCon 2012

Last weekend was our local gaming convention here in Houston: OwlCon. Held in beautiful Rice University this annual event is named after its mascot. This has been going on awhile and just celebrated it's 31st bday.

This year I decided not to work the con and sponsor an event. I just wanted to attend and play, play, play. So I walked around snapped a few pix and enjoyed myself tremendously.

Friday night was opening night where I got to play a Western skirmish game: Gut Shot.
They were testing our the latest expansion called 'Night of the Living Deadwood'
where humans and zombies went head to head with each other. Last thing standing.
Sorry, no pix of the actual table and minis. 

Meanwhile in another room of the con, a great game was being held in the
same time slot . I couldn't be in two places at once, gol darn it! Great table and minis.

Using Gaslight  rules this was a VSF (Victorian Sci-Fi) table filled with lots of eye candy. On the eve of WWI, it's a city fight circa summer 1914 where the Mahdist clash with Euro powers.

And walking thru the dealer's area I spied some Dungeon Stone. Pretty good stuff and made in Texas.

 

Aerodrome

Another great event GM'd by Brian Weathersby.

He never disappoints and I always love playing on his table. 

From the con catalog write up:

"It is April 1945, and Berlin is in ruins. As the Red Army advances into 

the heart of the Reich's capital, it is finding that the German defenders 

may not be numerous, but they have no shortage of determination and courage." 

Ambushed T34-85 by a Panther. 

Sunday was a major fleet action. The Battle of Calabria was brilliantly put on by
Stephen Kastensmidt using War At Sea minis and rules.

I did spend some time in the Steve Jackson room where I played and bought my own copy of Frag!

Sigh... Back to work.

Refurbishing Old Models Part 3

As posted in Part 2, where the Maintenance Bots were featured, I'm continuing my quest for additional scenic items to populate my Sci-Fi table. I've been wracking my brain thinking about other objects big and small that would enhance the scenery: space shuttles, drop ships and perhaps a smattering of different land crafts. 

Part of the fun of this great hobby is exercising one's noggin and imagination for cost effective (read: cheap) items to grace one's table. Lord knows, I've spend coin aplenty in the past and in other areas of this hobby.

So, off I go a hunting. First stop...

A lot of you have been asking: Where ya get that? 
Well, at my favorite Scav-alert store, that's where!
Look for one in a city near you (that is, if you're in the states).

Here are more finds to add to my Sci-Fi scenery. By doing a lot of squinting, especially since I forgot to bring my glasses, I saw the lines of these bikes and imagined them monochromatic and without the riders:

Another Dollar Tree special. You guessed it:
$1 a pack! So that's 50 cents per model. Oh boy!!

Took out the worthless and out of scale riders

A little black primer, metallic dry-brushing 
and we'll see what these babies will transform into

Next, I go to Wally World!

And looky what I found at the Toy Clearance
aisle. I know what you're thinking,
'What can I possibly use this for?' 

Again, with some more squinting, I noticed that
the lines and shape of this model is excellent
and lends itself to a possible shuttle or drop ship
while my Maintenance Bots look on. Meanwhile the
horribly, garish paint scheme has got to go!

Coming soon, the 'after' shots...

A10 Warthog

A little deviation from my current projects when I really need to focus and get that rail yard done for 15mm but alas...

This poster says it all.

One of my favorite ground attack aircraft aside from the famed IL-2 Sturmovik of WW2.

After savaging what looks like a Soviet tank.

Some nose art choices...

And here's the culprit and cause of the current derailment of my train of thought. Sigh... another project to add to my ever growing list of 'to do' items which can't be helped since I wanna do it all, dammit! 

An old kit that was a gift from oh so long ago...

You know, come to think of it. I haven't put together a full on kit since at least a few decades ago. (I'm not counting those plastic vikings and Mobile Infantry neither since all you got is a head and a couple of arms.) So now, in my maturing years, I'm not sure I'll have the patience and the eyesight to tackle this project. 

The two most important things needed are a great light source and a good magnifier. 

The more light the better!

Goggle types are the best.

My homemade combination. Time for a magnifying goggle upgrade.

OK, who the hell am I kidding? I've got umpteen projects on my list and when am I gonna be gaming in 1:144 scale? 


Back burner... Yeah. 


Besides I already have a pair of Warthogs, albeit in another scale...

A flight of GHQ MicroAircraft from my collection

Refurbishing Old Models Part 2

As I mentioned in Part 1 of this post I've acquired these toys from the clearance shelf of my local Wally World's toy section. I usually cruise the 'clearance' aisles of Walmarts and Targets looking for such bargains. Here's what I found. 

When I saw these robots, I immediately saw their potential as effective scenery. And I knew that with a little imagination I'd be able to recycle them. All I needed to do was to paint over these God awful colors, apply some weathering and presto: instant scenery at a very low cost ($2 a package = $1 a figure).

I made sure that they would scale properly with 28mm.
Here they are posing with some AT-43 figures.

Here are the 'After' shots.

After some black primer and recoloring these plastic toys 
are transformed into useful Sci-Fi scenery.

 Here they're depicted as ancient and inoperable
Maintenance Bots with their original creators.

Now they've been abandoned for countless years.

Only to be used as terrain for my repainted Space Commandos. 

 Where they'll be battling it out amongst the bots.

These Space Commandos were bought @ 25 cents each from
the Clix bargain bin of my FLGS then repainted and rebased.

Coming up, more recycled bargain bin toys.

Mongols of The Golden Horde: Rank and File: DONE

Mongolian BBQ! Yummy.

Scene from the movie 'Mongol'.

For my first post of this year I've decided to bring out the Mongols for a photo shoot since I've had these rank and file figures done for awhile. I finally got around to posing these guys in their completed state. If you haven't read my previous post regarding these models, some of you may recognize that they're from the Old Glory line and paint up really nice. They're a mixture of Mongols and Pechenegs. Mixing and matching them gives the right look of being horde-ish.

So here they are thundering and plundering to a town near you! 

Mongol Nobles from TAG in the background.

Yes, that's my Viking longship in the background...