Sci Fi trees?

Ok lets us start by saying NO ONE KNOWS what trees will be like on another planet. I really do not, not got the foggiest idea. NOT A CLUE. I don't even know if we will recognise them as being plant life> I have no idea.

However wargamers being human will always tend towards what they know and as we know what a tree is like on this planet, and as all wargames rules want some soft cover/concealment, these will do for now!

Now many of you might remember Joe (AKA Zabadak (Link to blog) purchased a plastic "flower" ball from the 99p store. I followed suit. I will turn it into Jungle in short order.

Now as you can see in the top picture there are a few purple "Fronds". I had initially no use for the purple "fronds" but waste no want not. I have turned them into sci fi trees.

Taking it apart (there were only 3 purple, the rest are green). So using a glue gun, I stuck them to 2mm MDF bases.

An easy job, and done quite quickly. You could stick them to plastic counters as well, but you would need to "Key" the surface or the glue will have almost nothing to cling on to.  I would choose not to use the glue gun on coins as they really do need to key to the surface. But you are welcome to try it if you like, BUT I would not recommend it.

The Glue guns are quite safe as long as you don't try anything silly, like squirting hot glue in you eyes or onto your tongue. And if you get any on you quicker to wipe it of than run to the sink and pour cold water on it. Look it is common sense.

Also cover everything with news paper as it makes tiding up easier and you will get nagged less.

Once dry. Trust me it is quick. I waited 30 mins (go and make a cuppa for the better half). It was simply a matter of painting with dark brown on the base and sprinkling sand in place. No need to be precious, every thing is already covered and no one really cares about the bushes. So be quite liberal in the sprinkling.

Once sprinkled I repainted again with dark brown and then hi-lighted in a desert sand/yellow.  That way job's a good un and only the tidy up to be done. leave over night to dry and in the morning put them away, or don't put them away and get nagged at, the choic e is yours>

Quick and easy sci fi terrain. I just wish I had a few more to bulk out the terrain.

Being Sci Fi they can of course be any scale and being purple they have an otherworldly look to them.

Autumn Skirmish Show report.

I was having one of those days I had forgotten 5 things, or more rather I had remembered 5 things I had forgotten pertinent to the show on the car ride up to Sidcup. I may well have forgotten a few more but 5 I can recall. Luckily I did remember my name, some money, a packed lunch and mostly what I wanted to buy if the right traders were there. The bad news is most of the traders I wanted were not there. One of the traders was their BUT he had sold out of what I wanted and was not getting any more! So for Shopping I will need to wait until SELWG at Crystal Palace.

But here is what I did buy. (Let's get that out of the way first). 1 pot of paint from Tolehaven. and One OH6 "Loach" Model from a mate (Thanks Ian) and yes I did get a discount. The helicopter was an impulse buy but I can always use stuff for my Vietnam Project in 20mm scale. And that gives me 4 helicopters I have yet to build. I hope to do them in the AHPC later this year, but I will need to buy some crew first. So Total spend was only £6.20

Right on with the games. (A couple of games are missed out just because I did not like them,... call it editing)

Tonbridge Wargames Club/Society

28mm Bolt Action

Part of operation Market Garden

Herne Bay/Whitstable Club

I think 20mm  Napoleonic not sure what rules.

Medway Wargames Club.
28mm American war of Independence
Or As I like to think.
Traitorous Colony Scumbags
Betray the King
(Honest I am not Bias!)

Using the "To the Strongest" rules.
 Just because they work better than some rules
specifically for the period.

Gravesend Gamers Guild
Space Marines Vs Chaos
40K

Nuff said.




Hornchurch Club Playing Guildball.
Looks nice and a fun game, but I for one do not need any distractions.

Old Guard Wargames Club
(I Know at least 2 Old Guard wargames Clubs
so this may not be the ones you think!)

Not sure of the scale the rules
or what the two sides were
BUT
I do know they were enjoying it!

I will do a report on the Game we put on later this week. By We I do mean the Rainham wargames club. But if you want a sneak peek pop over to Ray's Blog and the kind mister Rousell willgive you some clues. Here is a link (http://onelover-ray.blogspot.co.uk/) he claims his blog was never called "One Lover!" I think Google thinks different!

Rusty Regiment (Part 5)

not much done really, just 4 more necron warriors. I got these from eBay and they were already assembled and painted but in a different (Silver colour). But as I got 20 for £10 I am not making a fuss about it despite the fact that the plastic gun tubes are either missing or have been painted over in a gloss blue. So the only thing to do is send for more gun tubes and paint the others in "Scorpion Green!" Which are not ideal solutions but they will work for now.

Now these few are out of the way I can go back to doing WW1 figures for Matt.

Thanks for looking today I hope you are having a truly great weekend so take care and have fun and maybe a little treat like an ice-cream!

The Rusty Regiment (Part 2)

I know some of you will be turning away in disgust! I must admit if it was on some other blog I might well do the same such is my dislike of GW. However my love of my nephew is stronger. So to that end here are the latest batch of Necrons. Right that's the mushy stuff over with.

Necrons as I am sure most of you will know are the GW scifi Undead of the 40k universe and actually very nice models. Personally I MUCH prefer the older Necrons and not the new fancy stuff in the hardback codex. Of late it seems to have become more vehicle orientated, but not in a good way. So I will be sticking pretty much to the older models except Pariahs as they are not in the new codex!

So Today just 10 rank and file Necron Warriors. This is the third time that I have painted these figures and I suspect the last, (Crosses fingers).  As you can see I am using liberal amounts of the rust paint to give the decayed left on an abandoned world for a million years look which I really like. Did the Romans think that the future would be all polished marble and clean streets? Well if they did they were wrong, at least where I live. So we have a dirty grimy shabby decaying future. And in my 40k Universe rusty necrons. In your 40k universe they might all be shiny and bright and there is nothing wrong with that either, Just each to their own.

The Crystals on a few of the bases (the purple bits), are made from model sprue just whittled into shape and paint slapped on. They take a while probably because I don't like doing them. But I do like the result so they will appear on every 4th base or so.

My posting schedule is a bit mucked up at present. But I will do another blog post before Sunday and the Broadside wargames show. Just a pre-show shopping list and believe me it is not expected to be a very big list at all.

So until then, take care have fun and enjoy the weather no matter is wet or dry as there is nothing us mere mortals can do to change it, only the way we think about it.

Cheers Clint

Rusty Necrons started

Well who would have guessed that? Me doing some Games workshop figures. I know I really do. Quite unexpected. So over the last few days I have started (very slowly) to repaint my warhammer 40K Necrons. This all came about as I played a game with my nephew ( I used Tyranids)and being fair I did quite enjoy it. I lost of course but that only (in this instance) spurred me onto getting these painted. So I started with a test run and repainted every part of it in GW "Tin Bits" coloured paint. It took 2 coats but eventually I had an even coat and a base to work from. So then I took GW "Boltgun Metal" paint (a dull silver/steel metallic) and very roughly highlighted the figure. And I do mean roughly. Then I applied liberal amounts of the "Rust" paint from model mates,  As you can see I have ended with a very corroded finish to the Necrons. Clearly this is wanted it worked on my space rats and I think it works here as an antidote to the nice and shiny Necrons that most youngsters paint following the guidelines in the GW Codex and stores. I hasten to add that I have nothing against shiny Necrons, it is just that you see them all done that way in stores these days and I wanted something different. Therefore I went for a corroded version.

As you can see all parts of the necron "army" will eventually succumb to the rust treatment, but these are only test figures and done as a trial. But in this photo the scarab base has also been treated in the same way. I did at first try to run the "Rust" into the groves but as it is quite viscous it did not work too well and did get most places despite my intentions. So I have decided to turn that into a plus and not a negative. This may seem wrong but I am happy with the result.

I must admit that I have been heavy handed with the rust paint as they have supposedly been hanging around for millions of years as it mentions in the background. I don't know about you but IF I had waited a million years or so I would expect at least a layer of dust to be coating all the surfaces! It has been voiced that in the far future they would have found a way to make metal non-corrosive. Well the truth to admit they might, or they might have other non decaying materials that will last a million years. But to my mind a million years is a totally unfathomable time. It is not like waiting a 4 sleeps until Christmas like you did as a kid it is much longer than that. As such no one on this planet earth will know for certain how things will decay over that time period. So maybe they will develop anti rust and anti dust materials that will last a million years and maybe they will not. Even if they do there may be other reasons that they would not use that material. It could be something as simple as expense, after all stainless steel has been known about since at least 1821 but we still build cars that rust! Or it might be that the planet surface they have been on is particularly corrosive. Or Maybe there was no vital ingredients when they were produced. Or perhaps the non corrosive material was just not tough enough for battle. Who Knows and more to the point who is going to be nit-picky enough to argue about it.

That's it for today I shall have something Historical next time (Promise).

Take care have fun, all the best from Clint

Paint it Rust (The work of the paint Elves))

While at Salute this year one of my planned purchases was a bottle of rust paint, from Model Mates Click this link as I saw it on Kyles ( Click the Link  ) blog the previous year and was taken with it. Now I have toyed with painting rust a few times and have very gradually worked out how to do it. But this way is just so much easier that I am an instant convert!

First paint it an under colour, I like games workshops tin bits for this and then dry brush some bolt gun metal over some of the high lights. You may not have to even do these first 2 steps but I did. Then when dry apply a coat of the model mates rust and get yourself a drink. When you come back from the drink you will find the model has gone rusty. I am sure there are a group of Magic elves doing all the work as it really is like something from a fairy tale. I have not sat and watched it, nor do I intend to as I would much rather believe in Magic Elves!

You will have to forgive my photography but I think you will agree it does look like rust. While you can buy it in 3 different tones I only bought the middle  tone as I did not want to over work the poor little paint elves. It is even better than that though, being pure magic you can even clean your brush in water afterwards! yes you can. While you can also use water as a thinner having tried it the results were just not as good. I can only imagine the Paint Elves don't like the taste as much. So I will not be thinning it again, well not with water anyway.

As I have now run out of my Chaos Rat Marines ( Hardly the most novel of ideas) I will have to find something else to paint in rust!  So unless anyone wants to donate any skaven or Space marines to me ready for conversion I don't think I will do any more just yet unless I find them dirt cheap at a show or on eBay.

Thanks for looking today I am now of to eBay to see what price I can pick up Necrons for!

I must say I love the Paint Elves who did the work and the paint as well, it really is magical. So My advie is don't buy it and watch the results but buy it paint it on and go out of the room and make a drink. It really is worth the it!

Thanks for tuning it. All Praise the Magical Painting Elves! And with luck see you all again soon.
All the best from Clint!