Pulp Zepplin (1)

Additional Stretch goals

I had a sleepless night last night. (Not though choice I hasten to add!) As such I did some thinking. (Yes it  did hurt and I am sick of listening to the worlds smallest violin before you ask!) Anyway Long story short. I had an email from Karl at Crooked Dice to let me know that my Kickstarter should be ready to ship in a week or 2. As all the stretch goals are now finished and delivered to his home.

Starting Point

Anyway as I wanted to build a "PULP" board any way I decided to start. And what is more Pulp than an Airship!?  What a Zeppelin? Who in their right mind build a Zeppelin? The answer is NO ONE! But I thought it was worth a try anyway! I decided it would not be all that large, So swigging down the Pepsi I figured 2 2 litre bottles would make a good enough "hull" (I am sure that HULL is the wrong word but until I think of it HULL will do!)


 Needed a nose of some description. So I simply cut a pimg pong ball in half! I am sure there is a better option but I just went with what I had! As with the hull I am sure there is a MUCH better option but I could not wait for that. I NEEDED to crack on!








So using some UHU general addehisive I stuck 2 Pepsi bottles together.  At this stage I have no idea if it will work but am hopeful! It is now about 3 foot long. Judging that to be sufficient I stopped there. At this stage it is all pretty rough but with scissors glue a scalpel and a saw I am not overwhelmed! (That comes tomorrow!).

This afternoon allowing PLENTY of time to dry I shall give it a skin. I ran to the local store (A tescos as it happens) and bought some cheap Kitchen towel. So I will detail my endevours later on maybe Sunday.

Now while I wait for this afternoon to arrive and me to get a little more spare time I have some questions about Zeppelins. I promise not hard ones.

Firstly the engines and bomb rack will be external to the gondola! But what else would you like to see in the gondola.  I shall put a cockpit and Matt has suggested some machineguns. But what else is needed bearing in mind it shall be quite small? Please add serious ideas to the comments and I will see what I can manage!

COLD WAR WARGAMING.
As mentioned last time I plan some cold war wargaming. With a bit of tidying up I have a modular desert board. So it makes sense to me to work in a middle east setting. I shall say no more until I get the basics done. But remember you heard it here first! Or forget all about it if you choose.

A Bunch of 15mm Sci Fi.

Yep I am back on the 15mm Science Fiction. First up 2 "Snapdragon" studios storage lockers.  Very quick basic paint jobs, Primer base colour, gun metal door then a black wash and finally rust applied.  Quick simple and all done in an evening. No hassles at all. I would like some more "snap dragon studios" stuff and despite the fact these were originally 28mm they shall work very well as 15mm terrain. Overall very happy wit them and the fact I got them cheap 2nd hand at the Flea Market at Broadside so much the better.


Now I was one of the backers for "Ghosts of Hefei" Kick starter and I have heard nothing of it since I received my pledge parcel. Now I only got the rules and some 15mm figures so not a massive outlay. I only mention it as I have now painted the figures and am showing them all (that I got) today. The rules are OK and I do not object to having bought them but U am not sure I will ever play them.

 Firstly 6 security robots. The idea of the game is that you steal these. For me and using the Gruntz rules they make a para-military security robot force. Yes they ave mostly got different weapons and different sizes, but that is OK with me as they all look vaguely police and vaguely  official and not as powerful as ful blown military should be. So more figures to be happy with.

Lastly here is a 15mm "Gang" for the game, although I shall use them all as generis civilians in those few games where civilians are needed.
As mentioned they are all 15mm so the storage u its are included for scale.

That's it for today more 6mm stuff next or Maybe if the club get back to me today my plans for a show game next year.

Until then take care have fun and keep smiling (and in my case get some sleep).

The Army Grows.

Slowly ever slowly I am growing the 10mm Samurai army. Today are 2 more units of Samurai. I say unit as I am thinking od 4 stands as being a unit and no other reason, I could equally say another 8 stands. As with all the others they continue to be by Pendraken Miniatures simply because it avoids compatibility issues such as scale creep and sculpting style. Observant people will note that two banners have a red stripe at the banner base and two do not. This allows me to identify units within an army quite quickly and has nothing to do with historical accuracy.

They are two separate units I promise! Clearly they are all in the same pose but that just makes it easier to identify what they are armed with. When I start a second force I will keep all the armour as red as Il Nomasa did. I will no doubt talk more about that when I do them. The army is starting to come together now and once I do a few more units a whole army shot will no doubt be in order. At the moment though there are still not sufficient to warrant it.

Some of you will know I am not a huge believer in KICKSTARTERS. I can and do see a place for them but I also feel that there are just too many of them, and yet yesterday I made a small pledge to my second one! Only $30 before we get to involved in jeering at me and saying "I told you so!" As I do not trawl the kickstarters looking for projects I was actually on the companies home page checking out their products and happened to notice the kickstarter. HERE it is if anyone cares to see where my money has gone. It has a mere 9 hours left to run and the stretch goals are not so massive to attract anyone particularly, However as a fan of Science Fiction in general and the Alien Films in particular I felt it purposeful to support them. Way way way in the future I can see myself doing an ALIENS game but that is at least 1 year and probably 2 before I get that far. I really do have far to much to do with these Samurai before I get carried away with other ideas.

And that's Wednesdays update, the next one will be Friday. I hope to have my week 2 Zombtober figure done by then. As I will not be able to post it on Sunday due to SELWG. So with luck on Friday something 28mm to show. Until then take care have fun and paint a zombie or two! All the best Clint.

Herding Cats

I am sure most of you will be aware about crowd funding. I am pretty sure that many of you will have already backed a number of projects and perhaps even this one. I did think I should let you know that I have pledged to this one. Mantic Games are launching a science fiction skirmish game using the popular Kickstarter LINK I will refrain from saying too much more as you can get all the information from the horses mouth as it were by "clicking" the link.

What I will talk about is why I am getting involved. As 4 members of my wargames club have already pledged (I am the 5th) I will be starting at the same time as everybody else so there will be no playing catch up as there have been with so many projects in the past, which is always disappointing and the other guys have played a few games and learnt the rules long before I get a chance to even paint a single figure. Unlike a couple of others I am only taking the $40.00 starting force. It is tempting to go large on this, but better to get one force and paint it up and get it on the table rather than buy everything and get nothing done. Which would be typical of me. I have decided on "Enforcers" as my army of choice. Mostly because they are the most complete force at this pledging stage which hints that they are a sculptors or game designers favourite. Also being humans they might be usable in other games and in game terms should be quite versatile. Well that's my thinking so it's bound to be WRONG!

Anyway enough about things in the future back in the here and now. I have been herding cats again, which actually has been closer to juggling cats this time. The upshot is that the Planned game for BROADSIDE is now going ahead after a short period when insufficient club members were originally available. As of yesterday 2 more club members have told me they can make it so we are up to 4. Of these 4 2 have played the rules (Myself and Graham) and the other two will have to learn it on the day. I was hoping to run it next weekend at the club, but as I would be the only one to play it at the show there really is very little point in that. I might as well keep the ships and the terrain clean, safe and undamaged at least until the day of the show. All this uncertainty has meant that I am now behind on the build, one loses interest quickly when one feels a lack of response. Luckily Monday is a bank holiday so the chances are I will be able to pull it back.

That's it for today. Thanks for reading and I'll post again on Sunday. All the best Clint

WAR of the worlds (2)

I have to be really quick before I get guilted into painting more space Orks... which I'm quite enjoying but don't tell anyone.

Anyway cutting a long story short, Kev from the wargames club emailed me this last night.

This is a link to a new wargames Pre-kickstarter.

My reply was "OH F**k! No way round it. think it's a must! "

 It's kind of right up my street so I feel sure I will get sucked in. There are a number of other kickstarters I would also be interested in as well and needless to say no one is going to give me any more money, so I will have to start selling things. Maybe a lung!

Anyway the slave driver (nephew) has started to pester so that's it for now.

Have a good couple of days and I will post again on Saturday.

EDIT 7am Friday morning, having slept on it for a second night.

Having thought about it, It's a NO from me. There is just too many fundamental flaws with the whole idea.

Tanks were created to counter the trench warfare stalemate of 1916-17. Not how we use them today.

I can't conceive of the Martians building trenches ergo the trench stalemate would not come to be.

Unless the tanks are made out of ceramics then they will be worse against heat rays than being in the open.

The whole idea is set in the wrong scale. If tripods are that big then a smaller scale like 6mm or 10mm would be better. If tripods are not huge,  go larger to 20mm where there is already a lot of commercial kits already about. 15mm seems to be 100% designed to limit all the spending to one company, with no other options.

I think it's the wrong era. I think set later, in the great depression maybe. when tanks are in existence and that counters my first point. It also allows you to do gangsters verses Martians which would have much more appeal to me. "Eat Lead you slimy rat!"

SO to conclude it's a No from me there are some nice ideas but overall too many flaws and missed opportunities.