March Terrain Projects

With the painting competition finished I'm straight back into terrain building, I had a number of projects lined up since last Autumn and I was itching to get back to building stuff. 

First up we have a River from GaleForce 9, they are apparently discontinuing this set which I wish I had known prior to purchasing it. This is actually a replacement product as there was a manufacturing fault with the original which left a cracked glaze over the water and was pretty ugly. GF9 for their credit did replace them without challenge. 

All I've really done here is a couple of layers of flock so that they match my other boards then added a few clumps of foliage and grasses along with some taller grass. I feel it does look even better in real life and it will fill a gap in my terrain collection that's been annoying me for years. 

Next up I've a load of random scatter terrain, these first 2 are just CD base terrain and were essentially made from spare rocks and stuff after I finished with my other scatter terrain. I didn't want to waste anything so I bunged these together. 

 Next I've a load of new scatter terrain, inspired by my brothers use of the 4Ground tree bases I thought I'd do my own, I unfortunately mis-remembered the size of the bases and it wasn;t until I'd ordered some 40+ 40mm bases I realised the that the 4Ground bases use 60mm ones. Handily Warbases came through with a custom order of something similar built for my 40mm bases. They were a little more expensive than the 4Ground ones but will do the job.

I based up a random collection of rocks and tall grasses to make some difficult ground areas for skirmish gaming. We've always struggled defining the edge of such areas with our existing terrain and so these will be a great addition. I've already got another couple of sets of bases being worked on and will be rebasing my all trees onto 40mm bases so I can use them in the same style of base. I may also try and get some larger bases from Warbases soon.

Finally I've some new plot point markers for Pulp Alley, some Aztec/South American style ones which I believe came from some AVP miniatures, I based them to match the rest of my jungle terrain.  

I've also some interesting pyramid like markers which came with the Horrorclix starter set and will make great markers for any mythos based adventure I'm sure. 

That's a wrap for now, I've a huge pile of stuff to work through and I'm keen to just kick through it while I've the energy to get on. I've miniatures for fantasy, 40k and Victorian/Steampunk projects lining up on my desk as well as more terrain and some additional pulp bits left over from the competition. 

First batch of Weird WW2 Scenics Completed

The terrain made from bitz box rummaging was finished earlier today, I feel that's not bad for a weeks work considering that I've probably had under 10 hours hobby time.

Firstly a quick group shot of the finished bits.

Which break down to the following rooms:

The Chemical Pump Room
These huge pipes and pumping equipment shift the vast quantities of chemicals round the facility required for use in the mutagenic experiments of the DoomTrooper Project.

The Generator Room
Providing power to the both the underground facility and the guard station upstairs, the generator room is a prime target for any attack. I'm still waiting on the actual generator to arrive but it should be here in a week or so.

The Experimental Lab
The main target for the attack, the lab has produced a great number of monstrosities as part of the DoomTrooper project. Again I'm waiting on some clone tanks from West Wind Productions to finish this room off.

I've also enough crates already in the collection to make weapons storage room. Though I'm not sure I'll need it as I'm trying to keep the board to just 2'x2'.

Next up I've some WWW2 troops to finish, some new stuff to start and then I better start assembling miniatures for the Analogue Hobbies Painting Competition.

Progress so far

Well it has been a couple of days and in my meagre hobby time I've managed to assemble about 10 scenic items from nowt but stuff in my bits box.

Essentially these are the following:

• Generator room switch
• Random pipework
• Large pipework
• Pumping gubbins
• Computer bank (a little out on era but with a retro paintjob it should do)
• More generator room gubbins
• A fuel tank
• Secure facility door.
• Going to get them sprayed up tonight and paint em over the weekend.

So now to get it all sprayed up and hopefully finish painting it by the end of the weekend allowing my to concentrate on getting some minis painted over the next few weeks and await the arrival of the rest of the terrain.

Blinked and missed 2012

Well 2012 has sped past an unimaginable speeds.

My daughter was born on the 13th Jan this year and is a delight, unfortunately my hobby time appears to have dramatically diminished and outside playing a few games here and there I have painted practically nothing in 12 months. For reports on the action you should check out my brothers blog over here:
http://infrequentwargamer.blogspot.co.uk/

My only success was 12 more Napoleonic French Line Infantry for Sharpe Practice.

So what inspired this sudden blog post I hear you cry????

Well this weekend my Brother was up, I'd not really planned anything but decided to run him through a few games of Angels 20 from Axis and Allies miniatures, I've introduced a few new gamers to it over this last year and I do believe it's one of the better WW2 air warfare games out there. It's also all pre-painted which is a definite win in my eyes these days.

The variable flight stands are one of my few hobby successes this year, I found some telescopic rods in Tesco for £1 each, after sanding off the bottom and cutting away the end I found I could fit them onto the Angels 20 mini bases and still be able to use the status maneuvers needed as part of the mechanics (read placing planes at jaunty angles for in game perks)

So after a few games of this my brother and I sat down to discuss what our next project will be, we'll be getting together in a months time for Christmas and New Year so it would have to be something we already had miniatures for as nether of us have much time at the moment. It would also have to be something I contributed most of the bulky terrain for as my Phil would be on the train so space would also be a premium.

We've played a lot of 1930s pulp over the past few years and as part of that we also appear to have a few WW2 miniatures in our collections, I've about 10 Germans used mainly for pulp villains and we both have some Weird WW2 miniatures from an abortive project a few years back so we decided to dust them off and run a couple of scenario driven games around Weird WW2. But what rules would we use, clearly they had to be a small games about 10-12 miniatures a side and a smaller battle field would be a perk as it would mean transporting less.

Brink of Battle raised it's head again, we've pushed a few minis around to it earlier in the year and it appeared to be a reasonable set of rules. After a couple of discussions we agreed to tweak a couple of rules, firstly we'd replicate the activation system from Sharpes Practice as we felt it worked well there and I was keen to use blinds to represent unknown enemy positions. We also discussed adding multiple wounds to better represent some of the weird stuff such as battle suits and great honking monsters. 

So it appears we had a game, after mulling it over for 20 mins of so I had a couple of scenarios in mind and with out further ado I'll introduce them:

It's late 1944, the Allied forces across Europe are pushing back the Germans and it would appear all is not going well for the 3rd Reich, Dr Willhem Von X, disillusioned by the way the war is being fought has recently defected and ended up in the Britain. He has provided a wealth of information on a super secret project code named SS Doomtrooper. Deep in an under ground laboratory it would appear t hat German scientists are trying to create the ultimate battlefield warrior, mixing ground breaking science with their technological advances it may be the last hope for the 3rd Reich's survival. 

A small covert force lead by a notorious British Major will be dropped in the area and a two stage mission will follow. 

Mission 1; Capture the Facility Entry, It would appear to maintain the secrecy of the project the facility has been designed with only a single entrance, this entrance it lightly guarded to help it remain undetected. The major will take a small force and attack the entrance at dusk, once secured additional forces will be dropped under cover of darkness to reinforce the major and provide some heavier firepower for the fighting that will take place inside the complex. Should the Major fail to capture the entrance this larger force will be required a the area may soon by crawling with additional Axis forces. 

Mission 2; The Major will lead a team inside the facility with several objectives, they must plant timed explosive devices in 3 of the critical areas of the Lab complex. The Main Growth lab where the scientists are known to have a number of Doomtrooper specimens in progress, The Generator Room, The Chemical Treatment Plant or the Armoury. Destruction of a number of these areas should lead the lab to be inoperable and should ensure the program is shut down. 

So we've a plan forming, I've suitable terrain to do both a general above ground board and some terrain used for underground pulp games which would suffice for the lab. A quick plan shows I need the following extra bits:

Specimen Tanks and medical equipment

Some pipework and pumps

A generator and random electrics

A secret entrance

Defenses such as barbed wire and tank traps

So far I've rummaged in my bits boxes and can make much of the above:

I'm sure you are dying to see what I  can turn this random collection of stuff into so keep watching this space,  there will be some WIP pictures up later this week.