Bombed Out City Beginnings and Random Painting Progress

Hello,

I've started work on a stupid big bombed out city table for modern skirmish, zombie, sci-fi, and post apocalyptic games.  This first piece is going to be a 9 level office building.  Theres alot of work left, but the skeleton is almost done.

a 1:43 scale car for size comparison, ignore the unpainted lead in the background

 

 











Interior shot, I made the levels taller than a normal office building would be to allow room for human hands the room needed to shuffle around toy army men.

 



Heres's a small shot of the front, I'll need to add window pieces.







Here's a shot of the back showing some of the remaining floors.  I couldn't resist putting little men on it.

I've also been painting a little.  First are a Perry Miniatures French 12 pound artillery crew.  They are standing in front of the gun, to hide my shame that I haven't finished the gun.  You'll notice the Prussian Blue is shiney looking, my matte simply doesn't remove the gloss off of blue.

Next is a random shmattering of miniatures.  I keep piles of loose minis around when painting large batches of minis to absorb leftover paint.  Left to right:  GW Griffin crew, old plastic space marine scout, RAFM copper from thier Cthulhu line, Foundry? Old Guard, two ugly Old Glory WW1 late war British, and a GW wizard.

Here's a pack of brown minis.  I spilt some Vallejo English Uniform and these guys took it up.  Left to right:  GW Bretonian fanatics (only  GW would think it's a good idea to go into battle with paper strapped to your face?), two Old Glory Vampire hunting priests, and a GW LoTR hobbit archer.

          







Here's a Herroclix Dr Xaxier painted to look like a zombie in a wheelchair.  On the ground is one of Spiderman's Amazing Friends (Starfire?) painted to look like a beheaded naked lady.  The Naga that still needs washing and highlighting is a Warlord Games Dacian head glued on a green stuff doodie.

Lastly are some wet looking Victrix Old Guard Grenadiers that I have finally based.  They photograph glossy, but aren't that bad looking in person.  Maybe I'm lieing to myself as I'm too lazy to risk frosting with more coats of matte spray.

Stupid Easy Razor Wire

Hi,

I used to make barbed wire with super long strands of wire, a drill, and lots of twisting and glueing.   It was boring, time consuming, and I often painted it with my own blood.  I like my blood to stay inside of me.

But now I have a much quicker safer method.

1.  Go to Lowes (maybe even Home Depot) and buy some of the metal mesh that they sell in the outside gardening section.  27 minutes

2.  Cut out individual wires. 1.5 minutes

3.  Wrap the strand tightly around a plastic pen.  2.1 minutes

4.  Pull out the pen.  .01 minutes

Bench Vent Contest and Are you a Wargamer?

Hi, 

Benchvent.com is offering a free benchvent to the winner of model workspace contest.  I don't know if there are rules other than posting a pic of your space and sending them the link. 

Here's my mobile workspace:

Here's their link:
http://www.benchvent.com/blog/show-us-your-workspace-and-win-an-exagon-r/

If you have a blog, post a picture on there and send a link to scott@benchvent.com

Are you a Wargamer?

To genuinely call yourself a Wargamer, then you must have done most or all of the following:

(Questions were copied from Neil's Toy Soldiers and Dining Room Battles)

* Spent at least £500 ($800.00 in American dollars) on figures / tanks - and you get extra kudos for every £500 ($800.00 in American dollars) you've spent

Jiminy Christmas, over 30 years I don't want the wife to know how much I've spent.  I have somewhere between 10 and 20,000 28mm minis.  I guess about $8000 or  £5000.00 (10 points)

 * Pricked your finger or thumb on a pike block - several times
Yes.  (1 point)

* Tried at least 10 different rule sets and vowed never to play half of them ever again

No, I've probably only bought 10 and I love them all (0 points)

* Bought an army off EBay
  No (0 points)

 * Sold an army on eBay
Sold about 15 armies on eBay (1 point)

 * Spent months painting an army - then used it in anger once
..or never!

Yes, I have a 2.5K WAB Hungarians that sit unbloodied (1 point)

* Tried several different periods and genres
Yes (1 point)

* Dropped a box of figures on the floor from a great height
  and then I've stepped on them (1 point)

* Lost a battle on the last throw of the dice
  Never, I lose big or go home. (0 point)

* Made at least one enemy for life
No (0 point)

* Had a proper, stand up argument over a wargamers table
No (0 point)

* Thrown a dice across a room
  We play with toy army men, no reason to get angry (0 points)

* Rebased an army for a different rule set
  No (0 points)

* Inflicted a whopping defeat on an opponent
Yes, stupidest game ever:  my cheesy WAB Hussites, annihilated the WABcorner's painting machine author's out of period Samuri army.  I lost at least 2 or 3 models.  (1 point)

* Suffered an embarrassing defeat due to a stupid tactical decision

  yesterday playing Saga for the first time, but it was more like a series of stupid tactical decisions.  (1 point)

* Joined a wargamers club
yes (1 point)

* Bought a ton of lead that remains unpainted
Silly question, but at least I still line them up in formation on dusty shelves.  The lead provides me a gamma radiation shield (1 point)

* Been to a wargamers show
Yes (1 point)

* Have more dice than is logical or necessary to own - and have used most of them
Yes, I don't even know what some of them are for. (1 point)

* Have taken boxes of troops down to a club just to show them off to your mates
no (0 points)

 

* You have reference books on each period / army you play

No (0 points)

* Having played so many different games you confidently quote rules for a totally different period, scale or rule set to the one you're playing at that moment
No (0 point)

* You have lied to your spouse about how much you've spent on the hobby
  not bringing it up isn't technically lieing, and she probably loves me enough to not ask. (0 points)

* You get genuinely excited when a package arrives in the post
Yes (1 point)

* You have joined a re-enactment society (5 points for this one!)
No, but 20 something years ago I did go to a get together of boffers.  I will never do so again.   (0 points)

* You have played in an unsuitable venue
No. (0 point)

* You continue to search for the perfect Napoleonic / WW2 / Ancients / ACW etc. rule set (knowing that it doesn't actually exist).
I don't care about perfect (0 point)

* For that reason you have developed your own house rules for certain periods. And think them far superior to the original author's efforts.
  My rules are scribbled in notebooks that will be tossed when I die (0 point)

* You have returned from a wargames show and sneaked upstairs to hide the stash.
No, when you have a room full of minis your wife can't tell new from old.  Simply don't let her catch you packing for the show and she won't notice if you've brought new minis in. (0 points)

* You have an irrational aversion to some genres and vow never to play them regardless of how much fun they look.
warmachine, grind, dba checkerboard gaming (1 point)

* You have made your own wargames scenery.

Yes. (1 point)

* You have reached a painting 'wall'
No, I think not, if it's like writers block (0 points)

* You have lost - and regained - your wargaming mojo.
  you can't lose what you don't own (0 point)

* You have the occasional (and short lived) sense of guilt with your wife/children when complaining to them about the money spent in clothes, shoes or toys/Xbox games when you have £200 of unpainted metal stuffed in an upstairs drawer.
No. (0 point)

* You have done armies in different scales for the same period

no (0 point)

* You have jealously coveted someone else's troops.
  every game, if I live through the zombie apocalypse I will horde the neighborhood minis (1 point)

* You have laughed (secretly or otherwise) as someone else's paint job
Yes, but I've also laughed at mine, in my own face in a cruel mean hearted hurtful fashion (1 point)

* You have provided a piece of useless trivia relating to the troops on the table to show off your war gaming knowledge.
no, trivia is not useless, use it to distract your opponent (0 point)

* You have contradicted someone elses' trivia - demonstrating your superior knowledge and giving you a warm glow inside.
no, I should get negative points here. (0 point)

* You have caused a major disaster on a wargames table (spilling a pint, collapsing the table, dropped someone else's figures on the floor). 
 yes (1 point)

* You have cheered when an opponent's dice lets them down at a critical point (I have literally danced in front of someone when he failed a morale roll) 
 I do a gorilla dance, clap and laugh for both sides (1 point)

* You have lied to your partner about going gaming. "Mothers' not very well - just popping around to see her. I'll be back in about - oh - seven hours".
No (0 points)

* You have lied to an attractive woman (man) about your hobby.
No (0 points)

* You have made an opponent cry. It doesn't count if they are under 8 years old though.
No (0 points)

* You have painted the same army in the same scale more than once (Monty, you dawg!)
They are not multiple armies, I simply make the original army larger (0 points)

* You have reference books on armies you haven't even got.
 yes, but intend to buy more minis that I'll never paint (1 point)

* You have bought figures for a period you have never and will never play - because they were cheap.
Duh, cheap minis can't be resisted  (1 points)

* You have inflicted grievous bodily harm on a die that has let you down.
No, they all look the same  (0 points)

* You blog or have a web-page about your Wargaming activities
  and I also have the best 83 followers on the blogosphere (1 point)

* Your book collection is almost all war and war games related
Yes. (1 point)

* You critique 'war' movies (especially Hollywood war movies) for historical accuracy.
Yes, Hurtlocker was based on my less exciting adventures  (1 point)

* You spend car/train journeys checking out the lie of the land - considering which way you would attack from and whether it would make good wa rgaming terrain.
No, but I do rate every building I enter on its zombie apocalypse survival rating (0 points)

 

33points.  I don't know if that's good or bad.  How many points do you get?

Battle in the Bosque, Zombie Vixens, and Some Other Stuff

Hello,

I've got internet again so I should be blogging more often, as blogging from the public library/homeless shelter is inconvienent. I've posted some sloppy pictures of the Battle in Bosque Convention, followed by pictures of some of things I've been painting,.

Here's a group shot of a bunch of gamers doing things. Very few of them made it out alive in the All Things Zombie game a friend Buc and I put on. Our table was a recreation of the convention and Albuquerque Garden Center.

 

Overall pic

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

inside of building

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

zombies feasting on an unlucky player

zombies attracted by a car alarm

someone escapes in a red car

Here's a small scene of a real fun game put on by Buc called 7TV. Gangs, spys, and cultists all try to overcome body guards and kidnap a foreign diplomat's daughter. My camera was set on stupid and this the only real good pic. 

 

Here's a few Strange Aeons Cthulhu game pics. 

 

Here's a 15mm Franco-Prussian War battle, I wasn't able to play in.



Talisman

Canvas Eagle action.

Battletech?

I recently picked up some Wargames Factory (WF) Zombie Vixens from the friendly Albuquerque game store called Active Imagination.

I was really impressed with the minis. The ladies balance on there tiny feet, so you don't have to hold them to the base while glue drys.

The box says you only get 30 zombies, but you really get 36. Each of the 3 sprues give you two crawling zombies that fail to mention. You only get 30 bases.

Here are the undead ladies compared to the old ugly WF male zombies.

vixens compared to other female zeds.

Left to right: WF, Blue Moon, WF, Victory Force, WF, Reaper, WF

vixens with other companies, left to right: WF, Horrorclix, WF, Mantic, WF

Here are two zombies I made out of Victrix, GW, and other bits, with a little green stuff for guts.

I found some Reaper Cub Scouts. I painted two up as zeds. Below left to right you can see them compared to a RAFM kid zombie and an Old Glory kindernacht.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here's another little table I made using sytrofoam and some GW Epic minis I found in Active Imaginations bit box. The civilian is a Reaper mini.

Here are a few Victory Force zombies with their bases cut off. VF zombies made great dead people because their poses are somewhat static, as they're really shamblers and not ragers.

 

Here's a few random models: two nuns with guns (no clue who made them), a GW Imperial mortarman, and what I believe is a GW Imperial Guard Griffin crewman.

Lastly are a few Perry plastic Prussian Jaegers, that I've finally finished. I had lost an arm off of each them and had to replace them with bits from Victrix Austrian landwehr. Now I have a full 12 member unit for skirmishing, either Sharpes or Songs of Drums and Shakos.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Zombies gaming

 

Albuquerque Zombie Center

Would anyone like to get together and run a game at the Battle in the Bosque of the Battle at the Bosque?

Here are some pictures of a 4' x 8' table based on the Albuquerque Garden Center that I'm nearing completion on. I really only need to finish the indoor floor plan and add more outside vegetation.

My initial plan was zombies versus miniature wargaming enthusiasts, but it could be used for any 25-28mm modern or sci-fi gaming. I just don't have time to buy and learn a new set of rules; I prefer making junk more than running games.

The second problem is that the stupid thing won't fit in my stupid car, and I would need help driving the two 4' x 4' pieces a couple miles to the Garden Center.

love Baconfat

Grognards, Blucher, Lutzow, Austrian Victrix Landwehr Sprues

Hello,

 

I've almost finished painting a 24 piece Victrix French Old Guard Grenadiers.  They pretty much need a clear dull coat and thier basing finished.  I am not leaving the command staff on GW bases; they are only white glued to those to aid in painting/handling.

 

 

 

 

 

I hope I did the top of the bear skins correctly

 

I would be done with the Grenadiers, but starting painting these for the New Mexico State Fair.  NM has military models and miniatures as a category in the Arts and Crafts competitions.  The models aren't really that shiny in person, I left a gloss on the horses, in the hopes that it would make them look sweaty.  I hope I win a ribbon, will find out Tuesday.  The judges are from the Albuquerque Scale Modelers club and the competition will probably be tough.

General Blucher/ADC and General Lützow

 

I recently picked up a box of Austrian Landwehr to make Prussian Freikorps Jaegers and Brunswick Jaegers; I thought others may be interested in what you get. There's 56 minis for 30 something dollars, not bad.

Hello,

command sprues, you get TWO of these

regular sprue, you get EIGHT of these, only 3 body types

here's the standards you can cut out and use, if you don't like making your own

Brunswick jaeger