Vietnam-a-palooza

This group represents about a week's worth of work...

The top left group is Australians, top right is a bunch of NVA, and the main body is US Army soldiers. (Also in the picture is my cup from Rubios-their Tilapia tacos are amazing...and my ipad bag, aka "murse")

The Americans are a mix of Peter Pig, flashpoint, and some Battle Honors, I think. They cleaned up real nice!

Back view of a Peter Pig trooper.

NVA rocket man.

Close up of the NVA two man LMG team.

A not-so-great picture of an Aussie platoon commander.













So, I finally went out to Bass Pro Shop looking for some products for basing. I found a item called: Awesome 'possum natural nymph dubbing. It looks great as some ground clutter and is only $3.49 per pack and I only used a third of the small bag for all the guys you saw in the first pic.

I looked at the MIG weathering powder I am intending to use for my vehicles. There was one especially I purchased called Vietnam Earth. Its a reddish brown color that I was able to match fairly close to a Reaper paint color.



List of materials::

Woodlands Scenics Realistic Water
Reaper paints "oiled leather" base color
White glue (to affix the dubbing)
1/4" flat washers (bases)
Tube dispensed spackle (DAP Drydex ) which is used to fill in the washer around the base of the miniature.

Cheapest paint (or resin!) mixer around

Lets face it, we all love gadgets.  Hell, this hobby is riddled with specialty tools and doo-dads that allow us to create the wonderful things we love so much.  That is one of the reasons I bought one of those Badger cordless paint mixers with the tiny paddle end.  And it's awesome, don't get me wrong.  It can stir the thickest sludge!! I have used it most successfully to stir up those Tamiya paint jars and transfer them into little eye dropper bottles like the ones Vallejo paints come in. (I like consistency, its a 5S thing...)

But I digress, so as some of you know, I do some resin casting and mold making.  Well, I am still a rookie and have had mixed success (no pun intended). Back to the drawing board...I went back to the folks I got my supplies from, Reynolds Advanced Materials (www.reynoldsam.com) as they are very helpful.  The issues I have been having stem from improper mixing (read: user error) so I thought I need a little mixer to get this resin stuff stirred properly. Another chance to get a gadget, right? Only problem is...all the little paint mixers I could find are single speed, on/off.  Well, 25k RPM is NOT going to work, stuff would be everywhere. I needed a variable speed one and could not find a cheap solution.



So here is what I worked out:

I went to Ace hardware and bought a #6 screw, 3 inches long (fully threaded) for 19 cents and 2 wing-nuts (6/32) which were 2x20 cents.

Put one wing-nut on backwards and run it to the bottom, and put the next one one normal, tighten it down fully and for a total of 59 cents and my Dremel (which all good hobbyists have...) I now have a variable speed resin mixer, which I tested out tonight to cast some casualty counters.  The castings set up perfectly and I am very happy with my Yankee ingenuity!

The first of Riot control trucks...

Here is the first attempt at a riot control vehicle.  This is a tanker truck  converted, armored and upgraded with one overhead cannon and two water cannons lower and in the front.

Here you can see the lower water cannons real well...

Here you see the armor protection added to the wheels

Defiance Games Marines Review (pt 1)

I ordered some of these guys form eBay, after looking at the website (http://www.defiancegames.com/)  and have to say they are pretty damn sweet.  They are hard plastic
and in parts: torsos, legs, individual arms and heads.

 As you can see the art looks very similar to the James Cameron movie...

Included in the box is enough to build 24 separate guys, with different weapons and kit.  Also included are bases (24 - 25mm ones) and a unit card.









I will take some close up shots after I start the assembly process! I have no idea what to use for the Opfor, although Defiance has two different sets of bugs coming out early October.  I am thinking a reread of David Gerrold's War against the Chtorr series is in order.  One set looks just like the bugs from that series.

Stay tuned...

War of southern aggression (part 2)

I was researching which camo patterns  to use for my scifi game. The scenario is a civil war type between the northern and southern hemispheres of a far flung civilization.

I found the two I am going to use, this with the brown is the south, and the three color green is the north.



























Here are some WIP pictures:

Let's start a riot!

The unruly mob is squaring off against the riot police...

Frontline view from the cop's side...

Everyone is based, but only half the police are started!

Sci-Fi Drones

So I got these in the mail yesterday!  I was very excited, because they are going to work in two of my scenarios for Ghengis Con.  This kit includes 3 Enforcer (spider-bots) Drones and 1 Air Drone.  These will be HKs for the Terminator game. I also bought 2 more Air Drones (one missile one and one with a minigun!  FRP games was very easy to order from and it came quickly via Priority Mail.

RAFM 2047 Enforcer Drones

In order to build the finished product you see here, it took a bit of assembly.

Exploded view (no pun intended) includes:

• 6 legs
• 1 leg base
• Head/brain
• 2 machine guns
• Missile pod

First I had to drill out the leg base for pins to add strength to six fail points.

Pinning and gluing the legs

Legs finished...

riot trucks

I need some riot control trucks with water cannons. Of course, no one makes them, so I must! ;) Here is the before pic.

War of southern aggression (part 1)

These are the 20mm Elheim miniatures troopers I am working up for a tomorrow's war scenario in February.  I decided to show the difference between the north and south by their gear. I cast up some British Bergen packs to use for most of them!

Tacticon 2012 Force on Force

Tacticon 2012

This was my first convention in quite a while where I was a Game Judge.  I have to say I did miss it.  (The last time I did this was at Historicon in 2007 but that was a whole different game. )

So, why?

Well being a trainer, I am always in front of a group of folks, so that isn't it.  I paint damn near every day, so, no again.  It really appeals to my geeky organizational side.  I loved these things:

• Design
• Researching a battle, or topic
• Painting towards a goal (this required a lot of discipline due to a bit of ADD in my painting concentration!) 

Games

Game one: Friday night

My buddy Nick Johnson ran a British/Taliban scenario which was fun to help with, here are some pics on that one:

Game two: Saturday morning

Chechen Scenario, it was added at the last minute, but no one showed.

Game Three: Saturday afternoon

Take that Hill!  Great scenario using the Twilight:2000 rule set as a scenario setting. I used to love the RPG, so thought it would translate well to a game.  Father/son team kicked some serious butt in this one.

Game Four: Saturday night

Nick did another game where I got to play the Taliban. Almost ran off with 5 Brit bodies, we light them hardcore.


Game Five: Sunday morning

Chechens roughed up the Russians good, but given another two turns the Russians would have taken the Parliment house!

All in all a very busy weekend, but it was worth it.

More to come.

Strike!