Some Inspiration

I have been searching for 'Zulu Dawn' with Danish subtitles for quite some time, and Sunday evening I finally succeeded when browsing an obscure webstore of a small store in Copenhagen.

I also got the last part of 'The Hunger Games' for Anna, as she has been collecting the series. The John Wayne film was a freebie, so I thought I might as well get it.

I now have both 'Zulu Dawn' and 'Zulu', which means plenty of cinematic inspiration for painting some Zulu War stuff for IHMN.

Some Old West Minis Getting Ready for Painting.

My High Moon project is making only very slow progress. This is due to a lot of things, most notably real life getting in the way all the time. With the 'tatoes well under roof, though, I should be able to squeeze in more hobby time over the next month or so, until after Christmas, when I have to fell some trees/bushes, and cut back a lot of branches, in the back garden.

But, for now, I have gotten the minis for out lead character ready for priming. Duregar/Ulolkish, who is going to play him, will be painting it, so, hopefully, we should be able to play the first scenario somewhen in January (I also have to paint some models, but when I get started, they should not take me too long).

Here's our (anti)hero, both mounted and dismounted. The minis are from Foundry and Knuckleduster.

Weird 'Sight' on a Long Colt?

I have been cleaning up a Foundry mounted U.S. Cavalryman for my Old West project, but I stalled when I reached his Colt.

It looks like there is a sight 2/3 down the barrel, instead of near the muzzle, and this baffles me a bit.

I wonder if any cavalry revolver actually looked like this, or if it is just the result of a casting vent on an old mold?

I would be much obliged if any of my readers can shed some light on this for me, as I haven't been able to find anything on the matter...

Interlude

Well, I spent most of the day sorting out my household accounting/budgetting, and then got stuck in front of the computer reading forum and facebook.

BUT, I also managed to dig out some minis I am going to re-base and paint (at least some of) for the first actual High Moon game - AND, I have also ordered some packs from Foundry to have some stuff to flesh out the town.

Tomorrow, hopefully I should get stuck in and get some work done!

Testing High Moon: Dead Reckoning

I had my regular gaming buddy ulolkish/Duregar come by my house to roll some dice for testing the mechanincs in the Two Hour Wargames Reaction System.

As expected, we had to look a lot of things up, and often had to discuss how to resolve a tricky situation, or to read an example a couple of times to get our heads wrapped around the workings of the rules, but Duregar agreed with me on the potential of the rules.

I did not take any in-game pics as such, as we were only playing through some of the STOP!-boxes to see how the rules worked in action, but I shot a couple of the set-up after Duregar left (after having generated a character for future adventures in the Weird Wild West).

First, one from the top, where it can be seen that Doc Holliday Ducked Back from Wild Bill Hickok's bullets into the soon-to-be small saloon.

And another view down the street. Even though I have not done anything to the raw mdf-surfaces, yet, I can already see how atmospheric the games are going to be when I add civilians, scatter terrain, and some signs and colour to it all.

I am really happy with my decision to go the mdf-route for this project - especially the possibility to just lift off a roof and gain access to the interiors of a building will be such a game-changer over the alternative use of a buildings footprint!

Sarissa Old West Sheriff's Office.

Today, I dis some work on the Sheriff's Office. I have not yet glued the cell bars in place, and I also have to glue the small 'SHERIFF' sign in place et the front, but I am quite happy with the result so far, as I was at work last night, so slept some of the day.

As you can see, this later design has some detail cut into the flat roof - so now I have to figure out what it represents.

Another progress in design is represented by the tiny tabs holding the pieces in place for packaging now being left at the corners. This means that they disappear completelly into a corner highlight instead of leaving a lightter mark down the piece when sanded down.

This is the first kit with actual inner walls I have assembled - and the connectors holding the room separator in place had to be sanded down, just like the tabs on the roof supports, thus allowing me at a later point to blend them into the outer walls with some filler before painting.

The tab on the front sign has been sanded down, likewise.

The Sheriff's Office is the last of the buildings I purchased in this batch, so when I have glued the cells, it is time to look for props to make the most important buildings (Saloon, Bunk House, Doctor's House/Farmers Shack), and get some Townsfolk to populate the street(s) and stores.

And, of course, to start getting some games together!

Building More Sarissa Old West Buildings.

Well, I finished these in one go, actually.

 As you can see, I did not get the pitched roof upgrades for these.

Although the flat, featureless roofs are not very attractive, when painted they will probably look OK - AND provide a good sniping position for the Marshall's posse when the Daltons come to town...

One little design flaw is to be seen here, though: The model with the saloon doors/swinging doors uses the exact same floor design as the other 'Small PLUS' buildings - that have a tab connecting the facade to the floor directly under the door. This leaves an unattractive hole in the floor that will have to see some filler before painting. This is, in my book, a totally un-understandable choice, as it would have been so easy to have a file without the tab-hole for cutting, thus avoiding an unecessary cut routine, AND saving the customer extra work.

I think the 'fat' building with the saloon doors is going to be my small saloon/bar for the first couple of games - it should have just enough space for a bardesk and a couple of tables - maybe even a piano.

As I did not have extra doorframes for these, I shall have to make some inside frames out of matchsticks or something similar - I like the idea of exits being clearly marked for when a character has to make a hasty retreat!

Building Sarissa Old West Buildings.

Yesterday, I announced my recent decision to start collecting mdf-buildings for my gaming purposes, and that I had already purchased and started assembling some Sarissa Prescision Old West models.

Today, I am going to take you through building such a model. I know, most readers of this humble blog could probably easily figure out their own best practise for this, but I'd still like to share my experience.

First step is to remove the parts from the mdf-sheets. The parts are held in place by some tiny 'pegs' or 'tabs' left there in the laser-cutting process. The larger parts can be removed by force quite safely, but the more delicate pieces. like window frames, door frames, and the supports for the porch 'awnings', need a gentlier approach.

I prefer to use my trusty X-Acto to take care of all the little pegs, best done form the backside of the mdf-sheet.

After removing the parts from the mdf-sheets, it is time to remove the leftovers of the pegs. I use a P80 sandpaper, then a P240 to smooth out the surface.

I also sand all edges with the P240; it makes the buildings less clean-cut, and it also provides an instant highlight.

The Sarissa Old West buildings almost all have a flat roof- For some reason, only known to himself, the designer has left the roofs completely devoid of features, apart from the 'slot' that fits over a tab in the back wall. It would have been so much nicer with some texture, but I guess it would be easy to paint it as tar paper.

However, a pitched roof upgrade is available for all the basic 'main street buildings', containing an alternative back wall, two roof supports, the roof, obviously, and a door frame.

For this building, I opted for the upgrade, and I have thought up a little trick for those:

I sand down the tabs holding the roof pieces in place by about half a millimeter.

This means that a shallow recess is left where the tabs are connected - and thus I can use filler to make the otherwise rather unattractive joins disappear.

Using the upgrade kit, I suddenly have TWO door frames, which is rather handy, as you will see quite soon.

I use an old size 1 (or maybe a very worn size 2) brush to apply un-thinnd PVA glue to the backside of the door frames (or any other ornaments)

And then apply them to the outer walls.

AND the extra door frame goes on the inside to mark the door, which will be a boon when gaming. Later, when I add interior details, I shall of course decorate the door adequately.

Window frames are done the same way. Excess glue is wiped off with a wet tissue, alternatively removed with the tip of the X-Acto blade when slightly dry.

What looks like window glass, here, is actually just a newspaper photo...

When the glue on all the ornamenting has dried up properly, it's time to put up th outer walls. The building is all but finished by now.

As you can see in the picture, though, this building is designed with an 'awning' over the porch/sidewalk, so I'll have to attend to that one when the glue is dry.

Apart from the flat, featureless roofs, the design of the awnings is my only real point of criticism; the supports do not have tabs to connect to the roof, and the post holes in the sidewalk are too large for a snug fit, making this last step in the construction process the only slightly frustrating part.

In this picture, you can see what the tiny 'tabs' look like before sanding.

Although in my book a design flaw, it is a minor nuissance, and with a bit of patience - and making sure that the model sits on a flat surface - a nice result can still be obtained.

The finished building can be seen between the other two 'stores' in the picture below. You can also see, that I hadn't figured out the little trick with the roof support tabs when assembling the shack - I shall just have to see what I can do about it when I get around to painting the roof...

That is all for now. I hope this has been useful information for anyone considering to get some of the Sarissa stuff for their Old West setting - I shall not be looking for anything else than mdf when buying buildings in the future, that is for sure!

To MDF or not to MDF...?

I have had some experience with wargaming buildings made from various materials.

Paper (mainly Worldworks and Whitewash City), is cheap, just needs to be printed, cut out, and glued together, is light-weight, and looks OK, especially in numbers. It is also prone to warping due to to air humidity and/or pressure, which is a big problem as I have moved my gaming activites 2/3 of the year into my un-insulated garage attic.

Resin withstands humidity, and makes truly beautiful models, but they require a lot of work; cleaning, filling and painting a large building can be quite daunting. Larger resin models are heavy, and usually not exactly cheap (including postage). Also, most resin buildings have no access to interiors, and are not easily converted.

Plastic (Renedra/Perry), very nice models, but usually slightly undersized, and rarely with accessible interiors (without extensive conversion work). Not overly expensive, but not a lot of choice out there.

So, I wanted:

• a light material
• a sturdy material
• buildings with accessible interior
• fast to build
• large model ranges (for easy variation)

Looking at the level of perfection currently reached by manufacturers of laser-cut mdf building kits, I realized that I probably had found a viable solution. If I had any doubts, THIS wiped them all away.

Recnently, as part of my plans for playing High Moon: Dead Reckoning, I ordered some Old West buildings from Sarissa Precision, and they arrived Saturday.

I almost immediately started putting some of the models together, and I must say, I have not been disappointed.

The parts have been cut so precisely, that the only work I have to do is sanding those very small 'tabs'. left to keep the parts in place in the mdf sheets for packaging, and then glue the buildings together.

In this picture, I have finished the Shack, and have two more buildings under construction (first, window and door frames, plus the ornaments on the facade, are glued in place on the outer walls, then the building is assembled), and I expect to have at least four buildings ready tomorrow.

All roofs are lift off, with full interior access, which opens up a world of opportunities for modelling and gaming.

The best part about these is, I can use them right away, as the 'wood' look is quite fitting for the Old West, but of course I shall want to slap som paint on, especially on the facades and the interiors.

Howdy....

I have not been on here much, lartely, I know. After returning from our vacation in Italy I had a hard time getting used to working night shifts once more, especially beaceuse it was still summer, and sleeping during daytime was difficult due to much sunlight and relatively high temperatures.

Also, I was heavily disapppointed by Frostgrave, which, combined with a certain weariness of painting skeletons, left me mojo-less for some time.

During this lull in motivation, I have been cleaning up the Westwind Brotherhood models I ordered for use in Frostgrave, and also some of the animated Scarecrows I intended to use as constructs, and I have been prepping 15mm washers for basing my JTT corn/maize stalks.

All the while I was reading a lot of threads on the LAF, and notably this one caught my attention:

http://www.lead-adventure.de/index.php?topic=82110.0

I dug out an old free copy of THW's 6 Gun Sound that I have had on my harddrive for ages, and started reading.

I liked what I read, so went on to browsing the THW site to find an updated version of the rules, but, alas, they had been taken down for an overhaul.

Instead, I found High Moon: Dead Reckoning: http://www.twohourwargames.com/himodere.html

I read some additional posts on Legionnaire's Twilight Trail thread, and finally bit the bullet and bought the pdf-version of the High Moon rules. And never looked back!

Stay tuned for more about my new-found love for the Reaction System (oh, yes, there WILL be blood...!)

Fistful of Lead: Finally Tried the Rules! 2014-01-02

It's been quite a while since I purchased and printed this little beauty; I actually brought them with me to Horisont III two years ago, but somehow it managed to slip under the radar until now.

Shortly before my Chrismas vacation ended, Ulrik (duregar) came down from Odense to play a couple of games, and after we played a 4-way game of Star Trek: Attack Wing with my daughters, he and I brought out my Whitewash City Buildings and had a quick and dirty showdown with only 3 vs 2 figures (my entire painted Collection of Old West minis).

I only took one pic, as the action was intense and over much more quickly than I expected (partly due to some extreme dice-rolls, partly to underestimating the power of the Colt .45).

The buildings had soaked up a little moisture from the air, and I couldn't correct the sidewalk railings before they dried up, and I think I may have to glue matchsticks to their backside for stability - but thats a project for the future!

I should have put all the rifles in the same Group; having both long range and short range armed characters gave the 3-man Group too many strings to play, as their lone rifle could provide suppressive fire while the other 2 closed in.

Had one Group had short range weapons only, they would have had to duck and weave to close in on the rifle-Guys, while the latter could try to circle their opponents to keep them at bay.

Lesson learned the hard way, as my 2 outlaws could not exploit their rifles to the limit; ome got gunned Down by the opposing rifleman almost immediately, leaving the other one hopelessly outgunned.

I think we played 3 turns in total, but it was enough to show that the game needs more items to break up LoS and provide cover, such as civilians and 'street furniture' (wagons, barrels, crates, etc.).

More Buildings, forming several roads/alleys to move along, would also be nice, as would bigger posses, but, Again, it's a matter to deal with later...

The game flows fast, and the Card activation engine seems to work a blast. The game was too short, but mainly because of the limited number of combattants, and a couple of odd dice rolls by Ulrik.

I'll be playing it again, for sure, each time I have painted or built something new to put on the table.

Wild Bill Hickok

This seems to be my post #100. Yippie-kay-aye, M....!

I finished this guy from Artizan Designs Sunday evening, for the Old West Painting Posse at the LAF. Possibly also for some gaming...

Painting breakdown, from hat to shoes:

Primer: Black (Army Painter, I think...)

Hat:

• Base coat: A very dark mix of OC Codex Grey and Black (I honestly don't remember the ratio; the pot is from before I started recording my mixes)
• Layer 2: A lighter shade of grey, equivalent of V 70995 German Grey
• Highlight: OC Codex Grey with a little black

Hair:

• Base coat: OC Graveyard Earth + Black
• Mid-tone: OC Graveyard Earth
• Highlight: OC Graveyard Earth + OC Bleached Bone

Skin:

1. Mix of OC Bestial Brown and OC Dwarven Flesh  1:3
2. Old GW Dwarven Flesh
3. Mix of DF and old GW Elf Flesh
4. Elf Flesh

Eyes:

1. OC Dark Flesh
2. WZ Legionnaire Flesh
3. Black 0.1 permanent marker

Shirt:

1. OC Codex grey with some white
2. OC Codex Grey with more white
3. Highlights: Pure white

Tie:

1. Black
2. OC Codex Grey + black
3. OC Codex Grey with less black

Jacket:

1. OC Snakebite Leather
2. F Buff Leather Shade
3. F Buff Leather
4. F Buff Leather + F Buff Leather Light
5. F Buff Leather Light

Waistcoat

1. OC Bestial Brown + OC Scorched Brown
2. OC Bestial Brown
3. OC Vermin Brown

Buttons:

1. Black
2. OC Boltgun Metal
3. OC Mithril Silver

Belt:

1. OC Bestial Brown
2. OC Vermin Brown
3. OC Vermin Brown + OC Vomit Brown

Buckle:

1. Black
2. OC Chainmail

Guns:

• Base Coat OC CodexGrey, then 2 layers with white mixed in progressively.

Trousers:

1. Basically the same as the hat, but with one more layerbefore highlights.

Boots:

1. OC Scorched Brown + Black
2. OC Scorched Brown
3. OC Scorched Brown + OC Bestial Brown

Spurs:

• Built up using some greys, again. OC Codex Grey as highlight, if I recall correctly.

*Pheew* -  I really need to start writing down the colour breakdown along the way, instead of waiting 'til after i finished a mini...

Four Horsemen... well, sort of...

I didn't get around to this yesterday, so here they are: my entire collection of painted Old West minis:















At second thought, I think I shall continue to use greys for the gun metal parts - I just need to fet that shotgun fixed!

If I manage to get a couple more done for the Old West Painting Posse o'er at the LAF, I may even get a couple of Old West games staged after Christmas. Let's see where this takes us...

Doc Holliday.

I finished this Artizan Designs mini earlier today as my first contribution to the Old West Painting Posse at the LAF.

I must say, I have rarely been so irritated when painting a mini; although he is nicely detailed, especially the trousers have some very bad mold lines, and the shotgun is a veritable nightmare, very badly cast. I have tried to mend the, somehow 'twisted', double-barrels, but I think I'll have to redo them at some point, probably sanding/filing them down to a point where I can stand looking at them.

I also think that I might switch back to using metallics and washes on weapons; I think I get better results that way, but I have to scrutinize the few (3) other old west minis I painted about 2 years ago, as I also used greys on their guns.

I'll take a group shot tomorrow, and do some musings about them.




The camera caught the light
on that sleeve :o(
Really annoying!

The colours used on this one:

Primer: Black

Skin:

1. Mix of OC Dark Flesh and OC Dwarven Flesh (actually a mistake to use that mix on this guy - makes him look too healthy; a mix with some grey or blue-grey would probably have been better)
2. OC Dwarven Flesh
3. Mix of DF and OC Elf Flesh
4. OC Elf Flesh
5. (Face only) OC Elf flesh + white 1:1

Hat and Jacket (+ Hair):

1. Black primer/base coat
2. OC Shadow Grey with black mixed in 1:2
3. Same, with less black 1:1
4. Same, with only a bit black 2:1

Duster and Hat Band (+ Tie and Boots and Barrels):

1. Black primer/base coat
2. OC Codex Grey with black mixed in 1:2
3. Same, with less black 1:1
4. Same, 2:1

 Breeches:

1. OC Shadow Grey with black mixed in 1:2
2. OC Codex Grey with black mixed in 1:1
3. Same, 2:1
4. OC Shadow Grey + OC Fenris Grey; this is actually a bit too blueish, but it works, nevertheless, I think.
   I should be mixing highlights for this series using white, but considering the base paint (Shadow Grey) is no longer available...

Waistcoat:

1. Vallejo Black Red
2. VBR + GW Khorne Red
3. C Khorne Red

Chain:

1. OC Scorched Brown (how I miss it!!!)
2. OC Burnished Gold
3. OC BG + OC Mithril Silver

Buttons:

1. OC Mithril Silver

Shotgun Stock:

• OC Scorched Brown
• SB with bone
• SB with more bone

That about sums him up, the base is my usual lazy solution. I think I should get me some grass tufts... somewhen... Would not hurt the eye.

Next up for testing: Fistful of Lead

Front cover courtesy of Jaye Wiley

I recently purchased the PDF-file for Fistful of Lead, a game simulating gunfights in the Old West using d10 and standard playing cards for the mechanics, and after two sessions of reading the rules from start to end (31 pages including reference sheet, optional rules, and two (identical) sheets of counters (- an improved set of counters is to be had at the Yahoo group for the game)), the simplicity, yet quite intrigueing nature, of it got me about digging some Wild West minis out from various boxes in my home office, and the garage.

I already have 3 painted Artizan cowboys that I used for a game or two of Gutshot a couple of years ago (they just needed some reworking of the bases, which is almost done), and it might be time to dig out my Whitewash City buildings (and resume building the sets I have).

If I wasn't going to Horisont (table-top gaming convention in Esbjerg) next weekend, I would have invited my regular gaming pal/opponent/guinea-pig Ulrik down from Odense for a test run of the rules, just using the 3 already painted cowboys, but now, maybe I'll manage to get a couple more prepped and painted before actually playing the game.

I think I'm out of the stupor, initially caused by the news of me being made redundant at work, so expect updates to again appear sporadicly.