Pulp Anyone?

Okay, the title is a little misleading.  These two guys could be in most pulp games, but honestly I'm doing them for different reasons.

The first is a Cthulhu Adventurer that looks a lot like a particularly famous archeologist.  I have a gaming buddy who wants me to take a stab at making some classic Cthulhu investigators (adventurer, priest, professor, journalist, etc.) and this guy was my first attempt just because he is so iconic looking I thought he would be the easiest to start with.

His construction is a little new and a little old.  The body is an upside down wooden craft milk bottle (7/8" tall) with the normal tile spacer feet that I always use.  His head is a 3/8" bead I split in half.  I made the head/hat grouping by gluing the flat side of the bead to a piece of paper, and then glued a 3/8" tapered plug, larger side down, on the paper on the opposite side of the bead.  After it dried it was easy to cut the paper to make the proper brim shape for the head and then just shape it with my fingers.  Arms are also tile spacers as is the gun, holster (on his right hip) and satchel (on his left hip).

His jacket is paper.  I put strips down the front to his waist and then put a larger piece on his back.  After it dried I cut a semi-circle and cut it to fit to make the collar of the jacket.

One thing I may try and do in the future is to sand down the top of the milk bottle in front of his head to make more of the right "chest tapered shape," but I might be getting a little too crazy.  Probably best to leave it as is.

The next guy is going to probably be a superhero in the new minis game I'm working on for low-powered supers like Batman, Daredevil, Hawkeye, Black Widow, most of the characters in the Watchman, etc.  I call this guy "Grenadier" and his big thing is he is a hand-to-hand combat expert and he has all these different gadget grenades (smoke, flash, tear gas, explosion, goo entanglement, etc.).  He also wears some light body armor and a gas mask to protect him from his own grenades.  I modelled the outfit after a WWI French Grenadier.  At the same time, this guy would be just as at home in a pulp game as an ally or enemy of the archaeologist above.

He sort of shows how different looking of a figure you can get using add-ons like belt pouches and goggles and gas mask.  He really is nothing different construction wise than the Dark Ages guys I've been doing except for the two pieces of tile spacers that make his goggles, the one that makes his breathing apparatus just below the goggles, and the various pouches he has on his belt.  His cloak and hood are just paper.  In every other way, he's just like a Dark Ages guy I've made before.

I like the red pants (early WWI French) and the gray light body armor.  His helmet is a dark blue and his cloak is a brighter blue similar to the color used by the French early in WWI.

I've got a few more of these on my construction table right now and I'll try to show the pieces separate from the figure as I'm building them so that you get a better sense for how the figures are constructed.

Barrage 2019 Follow Up

Joe, one of the players in the Khazad-Dum game I just ran at Barrage, who is also the organizer for ScrumCon a convention near me that I hope to go to this year posted about the game in his blog.  He provided an incredibly kind review.  I've included a link below if for no other reason he has some GREAT pics of the game, much better than the ones I took.

https://miniaturescrum.blogspot.com/2019/09/crazy-for-khazad-dum-barrage-2019-con.html

Barrage 2019 Games - Two Lord of the Rings Affairs!

I got back from Barrage 2019 late last night, too tired to post about it.  24 hours later, I'm still tired, feeling very much the "old man," but am going to post some pics of the games I ran at the convention.

First off, it continues to be one of my favorite minis gaming conventions.  It is a little on the small side, but the Hawks, who host the convention, are very professional and organized in putting together a local, but still two-day convention that attracts enough gamers to make it fun and interesting.  I have been to probably six of the last eight Barrage conventions, and have had a good time at each one.  Now for the games I ran.

My plan after last year was to get my Dark Ages game done and run that.  Didn't happen.  But Buck, one of the Hawks and one of the main organizers of the convention, contacted me and asked me to run a game or two, even if it was a rehash of my old games.  He told me that the games with my little wooden miniatures have become somewhat of a "standard" at Barrage in terms of there always being a game or two with them offered at Barrage, and I was too flattered not to put on a game or two after being asked so nicely.  So I decided that the easiest thing to do was to do a Balin's Tomb game with my 2nd generation LotR figures (since I had already done one for my club over a year ago), and I would also do a Bridge of Khazad-Dum game, since that would force me to get off my duff and finish the balrog … a figure that has been unpainted in my basement for … I can't believe it … more than a year!  So I committed to Buck that I would run these two games.

Before I get to the games, here is a shot of the finished Balrog miniature.  I made a lot of additions to him, besides the paint, since the last pictures of him that I posted on this blog over a year ago.

I am very pleased with how he turned out.  I changed his feet, I put him on a different base, and I used the hot glue gun to fill in a bunch of the areas that used to be open space, such as around his "elbows" and this turned out to be a great decision.  I also used the hot glue gun to make the "ridges" on his horns and face as well as to create a mouth opening.  His teeth are tile spacers.  The fire coming out of his back behind his head is just paper with hot glue all over it to give it strength.  I painted the areas on him that were going to be fire white and then used the neon craft paints (orange and yellow colors) to create the fire effect.  Then I painted the dark brown over the fire to create the look like what is on his shoulders.  There are other pictures of him in the second game report below, but above is a close up of him.  I can't tell you how happy I am to finally have him finished!  I think he turned out really good!

Game 1 - Balin's Tomb
The first game was the old stand by the skirmish in Balin's Tomb.  I used different terrain for this game than the last time, so I'll spend more time talking about it.  The main difference is I used a oil painting canvas as a "board."  This turned out to be a good decision because it made it easy to move the "tomb" floor plan around and all I had to do was paint it black and then do some lighter to darker tones starting with the middle of the room going to the edges.  The corners are black cardboard boxes I got at a craft store.  The "doors" are just wooden craft shapes that I glued together and painted to look like the doors.  This is the beginning of the game before the goblins rush in, but the doors have been broken open.

Here is a shot after the battle has been joined.  Aragorn, Gimli, and Boromir have rushed to the front to stop the onslaught of goblins pouring through the doorway.  Legolas provides supportive bow fire from behind and the hobbits and Gandalf provide moral support from the rear.  The gold gem on Aragorn means that he is shaken because he lost a melee combat with that goblin, but he wasn't wounded.  He would rapidly recover from the shock and fight on!

In game shot … I accidentally got a shot of Zeb Cook's hand in the shot.  As you can see Merry has moved up on the goblin's left, getting ready to join the fray.

Here is a shot right before the end of the game.  The dreaded cave troll has entered the room, striking fear in the hearts of the Fellowship.  Lucky for them Zeb was playing Legolas, who before this point in the game hadn't hit anything with his bow, and he got two shots into the cave troll as it entered the room before it could get into melee with anyone and I rolled a "1" on the death check … "www-UUUUhhhhhh …" went the cave troll as it fell face-first onto the floor of the tomb, dead.  You can see that Sam has moved up to help out Gimli, and that goblin in the upper right of the picture was Shaken for three turns I think, never recovering, and spent the entire battle cowering back on that corner <laugh>!

It was a pretty easy victory for the Fellowship.  Killing the cave troll so quickly certainly helped, but I didn't put enough goblins in the fight.  Next time, more goblins.

Game 2 - The Bridge of Khazad-Dum
Probably my favorite scene in the first LotR movie is the Fellowships flight to and across the Bridge of Khazad-Dum.  Seeing the Balrog, Gandalf falling, all highly dramatic stuff, and something that I wanted to try and capture in a minis game using my little wooden fellows.

I had a great group of players in this game, all very experienced minis game players and this really helped out a lot, because they had a very bad shock of bad luck within the first few turns of the game.

The Fellowship has about three or four turns to try and get as far from the door, and to the bridge, as possible before the Balrog makes an appearance.  The problem is there are goblins coming in from the sides to try and serve a speed bumps to slow them up so that the Balrog can get them.

Here is a close up of the Fellowship running through the doorway in the mountainside on their way to the bridge, with Balrog and goblins in hot pursuit!

And here is amore distant shot.  The mountain wall was made with thick craft foam cut into the shapes and layered together to give the impression of a thick rock formation.

Here is a shot of the game right before the Balrog arrives.  You can see that the Fellowship is making progress, with Gandalf leading the way, but the goblins are closing in and causing some problems for them.

Tense times for the Fellowship.  Boromir is about to have 4 goblins on him, Frodo is under attack (they lose the game if Frodo is killed), and Gimli is being held up close to the door by a lone goblin.

But they do manage to start making some progress thanks in large part to Boromir blowing the Horn of Gondor and causing 6 goblins to become shaken, allowing the Fellowship to run past them without getting stuck in melee with them.  You can see the edge of the bridge in this shot (it is also made out of craft foam) and the blackness over the edge is just black felt that the two canvases that serve as the two boards (one on each side of the bridge) are painted more or less the same way as they were for the Balin's Tomb game.  And then … the Balrog came through the door!  And you'll note that … wait … where's Gandalf!?  He fell!  Gandalf fell!  No way for the Fellowship to hold back the Balrog now!  And they can't destroy the bridge anymore either!  Oh no!  The poor guy playing Gandalf rolled a "1" on the first Death check, the only thing that would kill Gandalf, and Gandalf was removed from play.  This sapped the morale of the players, but like the heroes they were playing, they pushed on!

The Balrog moves at a steady 6 inches each time it is activated, and if it comes into contact with friend or foe it doesn't stop moving … it pushes them forward with it.

I took the backdrop cave wall down because I kept knocking the #@$%! thing over, so it doesn't look as good as in the other pictures, but what can I say.  I got tired of knocking it over.  At this stage you can see Frodo, Pippin, and Sam have rushed across the bridge and are nearly to the other side.  Merry is close behind but there is a goblin next to him (Frodo and Sam knocked the goblin down in the turn before so they could run past him this turn!).  But you can see a goblin closing in from their right ready to attack them in melee once they exit the bridge.  Once any one member of the Fellowship is within an inch of the bridge, the new goblins that come on each turn can come enter on the board that is on the far side of the bridge close to the exit.  Boromir, Aragorn, and Gimli are attempting to hold the Balrog back on the other side of the bridge!  The issue is although they can "win" in combat, they have no way of hurting the creature (only magic can hurt it) so the best they can do is slow it down.  But they were able to fight this thing for several turns as it pushed them across the bridge and they were not miraculously wounded or killed!

The Fellowship got stuck on the other side trying to get out, but the Balrog kept coming!  Without Gandalf, they can't destroy the bridge!

This is the next to last turn.  I think it was this turn that the Fellowship won the melee combat with the Balrog and the lone goblin (you can just see him in between two of the hobbits on the right side of the fray) and they caused two Hits.  The goblin takes one of them, and he died, and the second must be taken by the Balrog.  Normally this would be ignored because only magic can hurt the Balrog but since Frodo, using Sting, was in the melee the Balrog could be wounded.  I rolled … he was wounded, and had to make a death check.  If I rolled a "1" on a D6 he would die ... but I rolled a "5" so he was only wounded, not killed.  Finally the cards (which are used to activate the figures) were kind to the players and the Fellowship all acted before the Balrog which allowed them to flee up the stairs and out of the cavern to safety.  To win the Fellowship had to get Frodo and four other members of the Fellowship out alive, and they were able to get all out except for Gandalf.  Player victory!

I also played in a game at this year's Barrage (I don't always do that) and had a really fun time in the game I played in as well … even though I was soundly defeated!  Another great year at Barrage and I'm already looking forward to next year.

Gamma World New Heroes & Baddies Revisted

Decided I needed to take a better picture of the baddies so that you could see the construction differences.  Here is the new pic.

Ahhh … better.  You can really see the new construction for the bodies on the Morlocks in particular in this photo.  The tapered bead is the chest and shoulders and this is glued on top of a barrel bead, which is then glued on top of a small tapered plug.  Arms, weapons, and feet are tile spacers as usual, and the head is a small round bead as usual.  It's a little tougher to see on the Brain Lasher but the same tapered bead is the chest and shoulders of the figure (although I have armored shoulder plates from a split small bead on top as well).  From the bottom of the chest there is a vertically glued tapered bead that makes up the ribs to the knees.  A small plug is the calves down and the feet are tile spacers as are the arms as usual.

New heroes!  My campaign is heavily influenced by the Terry Brooks Shannara books, I just love them, especially the ones that take place right after the great wars before everything got much more "Lord of the Ringsy" in feel and plot.  Gamma World (toned down a bit) is the perfect rules IMO to use to represent this period of Shannara and although my world is a little different for the game, the influence from Brook's writings is clear.  One of my players is playing an elf who, in my world, are aliens who were a slave race to the alien invaders of earth that created the devastation and ruin of the earth.  They eventually broke free from the invaders and worked with humans to fight back against their former masters.  Another player is playing a Troll who is essentially the same as the Shannara trolls except that in my world Trolls were created through intentional mutation by humans with human volunteers to produce "shock" troops to fight in the war against the invading aliens.  Here are the figures:

The elf is armed with a vibroblade and a hand crossbow on his right wrist (hard to see in this picture).  He is wearing some lighter armor, either leather or maybe plastic depending on what is needed at the time, and has a distinctive "Elric" appearance, which is what this player asked for.  The troll is wearing a Navy peacoat with a blaster pistol on his belt.  He is clearly carrying a huge club, which is what the player asked for.  I thought that when this game takes place there would be enough technological know-how left to be able to strengthen the club with metal plates and spikes at the "business end" of the club, so I made it that way.

Better view of the hand crossbow for the elf.  The elf is standard construction.  The only thing that is new about him is the vibroblade.  I wanted a definite "light sabre" appearance, so I used a toothpick to make it.  Then I painted it white (the "blade" part anyway) and then painted a neon orange color over the white to give it a "glowing" effect.  I'm pretty happy with it I think it looks pretty good.

The troll is a lot of new construction.  His head is made up of a large and medium sized round bead both split in two but what I did differently is I glued the smaller bead half on top of the larger bead half.  This creates a "lizard" looking underbite, because the skull is not as deep as the jaw, which is what I was going for.  His shoulder and chest is a larger tapered bead split in half and glued on top of a larger barrel bead, which is on top of a smaller barrel bead for the lower legs.  His upper arms (hard to see here) are split small barrel beads with hands and lower arms tile spacer and hot glue.  The pistol is tile spacer as are the feet.  The club is a dowel with a small tapered bead glued to one end, then I used hot glue to give it texture and make it smaller towards the handle.  I did a similar procedure before with one of the giants I made who is also holding a club.  I also used hot glue to put the "spikes" on the metal part of the club.

Little easier here to see for the troll the split barrel bead upper arms that then go into a tile spacer lower arm.  You can also see the split tapered bead shoulders better in this picture.  I used the hot glue gun to fill in some of the larger gaps in the figure, creating shoulder pads and such for the coat.  The collar of the peacoat is paper.

Pretty happy with them, I hope the players like them.

Gamma World Baddies 1

First batch of Gamma World baddies, one "Brain Lasher" (which is from the Mutant Future game but is essentially a Mind Flayer) and 6 Morlocks.  I wanted my Morlocks to look like the ones in the classic 1960's "The Time Machine" movie.  These pictures didn't turn out too great, but I'm really happy with how the figures turned out, I just wish you could see them better in the photographs.

Their construction is new.  You can't really see this because of their "skirts" but the body is a elongated bead on its side to make the figure's chest and shoulders glued to a barrel bead which makes up the torso, and then the legs are a small tapered plug.  Feet and arms are tile spacers, weapons are tile spacers or tooth picks, and shields are precut wooden pieces I got in a bag at a craft store.  Hair is paper as are the "skirts."

Morlocks are supposed to be high tech guys so the fellow in the middle has a futuristic "shock spear" and most of the others have guns of some type.  The one with to the right of the Morlock armed with the shock spear has a vibroblade but it's hard to see it in this picture.

 The Brain Lasher is blurry, sorry about that.  His construction is also pretty new.  I used a hot glue gun on his head to give him the wrinkles and I put hot glue over the paper face tentacles as well to give them more "body."  His shoulders and chest are made up of a tapered bead on its side just like the Morlocks glued on top of another tapered bead that is vertical which creates the torso and the upper legs.  On the bottom of the vertical tapered bead is a small tapered plug that gives him the impression of wearing calf-high boots, but you can't really see that in this picture.

Also not a great picture, but there he is.

As the automatic door in front of them slides open, the adventurers stumble upon a Brain Lasher and his Morlock allies in the depths of an abandoned military facility!

Gamma World Individual Pics

I took some picks of the figures individually.  My thumb got in the way on a few of them, oh well.  It's easier to see the details of the figures in these shots.

Here is the futuristic armored guy.

Here is the Police armor guy.  I forgot that I gave him a flashlight on his belt!

And here is the trench coat old army helmet guy with the medical kit.

The trench coat was a bit of a challenge, I'm sure I'll get better at doing them the more of them I do.  But you gotta start somewhere!

Gamma World Goodness!

First off, it's good to be back!  My eyes are still somewhat up in the air.  I won't go into detail but I will say just when one of them started to improve after the surgery, the other one started acting up so I had to go back to weekly visits.  Things have been stable now for about 3 weeks and I can see pretty well now.  So I finally got the desire to go back to painting, but I needed a break from the Dark Ages guys I've been doing, and I wasn't ready to start the Battle of the Five Armies project (looks too daunting at this point!).  So luckily one of my rpg groups is having me run a Gamma World game.  They seem to like my wooden fantasy guys that I've been doing so I thought, "I should be able to do some post-apocalyptic sci-fantasy guys for a Gamma World rpg!"

For those of you who may not know, Gamma World came out from TSR (at least the 1st edition) right about the same time as 1st edition AD&D.  The DM's Guide for AD&D even has an appendix dedicated to transferring characters back and forth between AD&D and Gamma World.  GW is a "sci-fantasy" game which to me just means a more "gonzo" type sci-fi game, not a realistic one.  The world has these strange mutants, androids, killer robots, etc., but it essentially plays a lot like AD&D it's just in a sci-fantasy world with radioactive wastes and ruined cities instead of the traditional Dark Ages or Medieval fantasy world common to AD&D games.

Anyway, here are three human survivors for Gamma World.  I wanted a mixture of technology levels so you've got all the way from a trench coat with a WWII army helmet to modern cop outfit to futuristic body armor guys here.

I also wanted to give them a mixture of weapons, so I've got the old army helmet guy with the most advanced blaster pistol, the cop armor guy with a hand made mace type weapon, and the futuristic guy with a laser pistol and hand held scanning device.  Here they are from a top rear view.

Hard to see but the one in the middle, the cop armor guy, has a shield that has the radioactive symbol on it and he also has an AR-15 type assault rifle on his back.  The trench coat guy has a katana, and the futuristic body armor guy has some sort of oxygen tank or something on his back.

They were fun to do, nothing too much new construction wise except for doing the guns which was fun to carve out of the tile spacers.  The futuristic guy does have oversized "goggles" as a part of his mask, but they are just made from one small bead split in half one for each eye.  It's easier to see in the first picture.

Now off to make some enemies!

Naked Elven and Goblin Units for BoFA

Soooooo, I learned on Friday that I am going to have to have eye surgery on Monday and have to keep my face parallel to the ground for at least a week, 24 hours a day.  Yippee.  And even after that, I'm not sure how long until I get my sight back in the right eye ... again.  So it looks like I'm out of the game again for probably at least a month.


However, I did get some bases of the elves and goblins done for the units of the Battle of the Five Armies game I would like to do at some point, using the Normans/Saxons that I've already done for the Hastings game as the human units for the battle.  I at least got them constructed, no paint though.  Also I think I might end up putting ears on the elves (or paint them on I can't decide) and also the goblin units to give them a proper "horde" feel will be another base deep, so they will be at least 2 wide by 3 deep stand units.  Anyway, here they are.

Elves.  Long spearman/pikemen in front heavily armored with lighter armored bowmen in the rear.  I wanted to have some diversity for this unit in appearance while still maintaining the order and discipline of the elven units.


A second pic of them.

The goblins I decided to go with figures that mimicked as best I could some of the old paintings and drawings for the older Tolkien books and Middle Earth rpg books.  It has proven difficult over the years to do "bandy legged" figures as they are just too fiddly or too unstable.  So I went with a peg construction with a slightly slumped over look but nothing too severe.  More of "slightly" corrupted humans or elves in appearance.  Still have the big bat-like ears though, gotta go with those!

And from another angle.

Looking forward to painting them.  Hopefully I will recover quickly and regain my sight so that I can do that sooner rather than later.  I'm not getting any younger!

I'm baaaccckkkk ...

Okay, so my right eye is still not quite 100%, but I am getting binocular vision again so that means I can paint ... at least the wooden guys.  Regular figures are a bit more challenging but I am still starting to paint some of those again as well.


So I finished the unit of Norman archers that I had on my painting table now for a little more than 2 months, unable to work on them.  Felt great to paint them!  There is nothing new construction wise although I do notice that the more figures I do the more varied in terms of construction I start to make things like helmets, arm positions, and other minor details that add to the diversity of the appearance of the stand and figures, but really don't add anything to the "craft" of making these little fellows.  Anyway, here they are.

Although I am still invested in doing the Battle of Hastings game, it is a bit tiring to be doing Dark Ages figure after Dark Ages figure after Dark Ages figure, so I need a project that I can use these guys for, but will also serve as figures in another game.  Since my first love is fantasy gaming, not historical gaming, I decided to revisit a game that I've been wanting to do for a long time, well before the Hobbit movies came out.  I've always wanted to do the Battle of the Five Armies that is more in line with how Tolkien wrote about it, not how it was portrayed in the movie.  These Dark Ages Normans and Saxons will fit perfectly into this game as the human men of Dale and such.  And being able to do some units of elves, goblins/orcs, warg riders, and some hero bases thrown in for good measure will keep my motivation up for getting the Hastings project done as well. 


The inspiration comes from this old article and webpage that I just love.  I'm not using these rules, but I am using the map, more or less, and the units described in the write up.


http://larsen-family.us/~1066/5armies.html


Right now I'm doing a test base of goblins/orcs (general troops, not the special bodyguard ones) and a test base of elves.  I'll post pics when I finish!

More Granny Grate Guns

Look what I found! I was going through Hobby Lobby looking to see if "granny grates" had different sizes for the hole or the thickness of the arms (I could not find any) and low and behold, there were not only grates of different shapes and sizes, but triangular grates where the holes were also triangular!

I got a package of 10 grates for $1.59. They only come in one color and size (at least at this store), but you can make triangular and hexagonal shapes.

Me, I was looking for the ubiquitous AK-47 look.

A little blurry, but you get the idea. The rifle stock was flattened with needle-nosed pliers, as was the magazine, then clipped with sharp scissors or a craft knife to make the shape a bit better. On 15mm figures, it works.

One of the other issues I have been having is creating crests on hoplite helmets. Using dimensional paint works, but it takes layers to get a good result, which takes time and patience. This new triangular shape fits nicely around the curve of a round-head furniture plug.

Add just a little dimensional paint (one layer, in this case) and it makes a fine horsehair crest for a 15mm helmeted head.

Not only are there triangular grates, there are circular ones, with curved rows and columns. I could not think immediately of a use, so I did not buy one, but I am sure I will come up with something later, like gears.

Granny Grating for Small Details

Today I wanted to talk about needlepoint mesh plastic canvases, a.k.a. "Granny Grating". Granny grating is a sheet of mesh plastic that people use for needlepoint.

People have made armies out of these, in lieu of using the hair rollers of bygone days. But for what I am doing, I want to show using them for details on smaller figures. For example, guns on my minimalist WW II figures are typically simple mini-dowels – straight, round sticks – and any detail I want shown has to be added with dimensional paint. Using granny grating, however, I can cut out simple shapes and simulate SMGs, bolt guns, long rifles, etc.

Best of all, the complex shape of the Japanese LMG can be recreated. I find it better to use a Sharpie permanent marker to draw the basic shape, so I know where to make the cuts.

This little guy will be a prone trooper firing his LMG off of the bipod. You can see the distinctive features, like the magazine protruding from the top of the weapon (similar to the Bren gun).

Granny grating is easily cut, being nylon. Use a very sharp blade to get rid of the 'strings' that tends to come with working on nylon.

Of course, using granny grating is not limited to the little guys. You can use it for larger figures, like an engine ventilation cover on a vehicle, or even as floor grating for terrain. Like everything we show here, it is just another tool in your box to try and convey the shape of what you are trying to model.

Saxon Fyrd Unit and Entire Wing of Battle of Hastings

Finally finished the Saxon Fyrd unit I was working on which finishes off one wing of the Saxon line for the Battle of Hastings game.  Nothing new, but here it is anyway.

That means that I've finished one entire wing of the battle for each side.  Here are some shots of the left wing/right wing of the Norman/Saxon lines for the Hastings game I'm working on.

The Fyrd right wing of the battle line.

The Breton (Norman) left side of the battle line which you've already seen, but I thought I would post another picture anyway.


Onto the first half of the middle, which for the Normans means a repeat of the above units and for the Saxons two more Huscarl units (I did the first one a while back).