As you can see here are the latest of the 10mm Warmaster Dwarf cannons. I did get them finished and while not blowing my own trumpet they came out quite well. It was a pain to get them finished but now that they are I feel good. I may have to start the next unit over the weekend.

I have not been up the shed due to working all the overtime so when I check I am hoping that everything is dry enough to work on. The Cold and inclement weather has delayed work on the two construction projects, but not disastrously so.

A brief post today. Cheers Clint

Well the crisis that stopped me blogging on Monday is over now. So I can continue.
Nothing is dry up the shed. So I can't work on the moon boards or the cliffs, which is a shame but there is absolutely nothing I can do about it at least for the moment so the best thing to do is just wait and see how it goes. I would love to say I'd done this to it or reached that stage, but as it's not dry enough at the moment I'll have no choice but to be patient.

I have done some work on the painting table however. My mental block on the 10mm dwarf cannons has passed and they are now progressing, I should have them done by Friday. I'll say no more for now and with luck chuck a photo up end of the week.

I am also now working on Skaven Space Marines. 6 more started, All the conversion work and even some of the base colours. I really need to talk to a few GW employees about these and get some decent feedback as opposed to working in the dark. I can't see it happening in the next few weeks though, but by then I should have a squad done and then I can start to ponder my direction. I am loving the idea of a Rat ogre dreadnought though so as soon as I can find the bits cheap enough on eBay (cheap rat ogre head and cheap dreadnought....not a chaos one I'll make it chaos without the aid of GW this time).

There are a couple of things I'm working on that I don't want to mention at this stage, (Kev knows Relfie so ask him if you want.) They are gaming and even zombie related but unless I can get them to work how I want I don't want to talk about them further.

I have been thinking about Zombie games recently. Most of the games we play are in the first few weeks of the Zombie-Apocalypse. Kind of the "Walking Dead" setting with a few survivors either scavenging, escaping or just moving through an area. While these are great fun and I'm not saying we NEED a change it does make me ponder if we should play it as more of a campaign. By this I mean the same sets of characters used each time to drive a storyline forward. Is day today survival sufficient for us or should we be looking to make a series of games where players actions have repercussions. Maybe if they drive cars a lot they might need to scout petrol stations, use a lot of ammo gun stores. Will the other local survivors be hostile to them for "stealing" resources or even just making lots of noise. After all more noise means more zombies. So something simple like driving a car down a street might seem fairly harmless but what if you are a survivor living by stealth and some road hog drags more living dead into your neighbourhood.

Another thought is what happens after a few months, how will the survivor groups have changed. Will they have built forts that they can defend or will they be nomadic. If nomadic what modifications will they have made to cars? Survivor architecture will also be different, boarded doors ad windows are only the start to the possibilities. Solar panels can provide warmth and light and running water, so the roofs of buildings become far more important, water collections and even small vegetable patches for those looking o live for many years to come. There used to be a textile factory in Leeds that had Sheep on it's roof. As a survivalist why wouldn't you do the same. I think there's some modelling opportunities to be had here, but at the moment they are just pondering. I think there's more possibilities for zombie games than just the out break period which we have tended to concentrate on. Still it's a lot more to think about, but enough of that for now.

I did go to the wargames club on Sunday, but I did not stay all day, I treated it more as a social then a gaming day. Most of the regulars could not make it either apathy, work, broken ankles or family commitments. Peter did turn up and will be their in 2 weeks. Graham put on a rather nice American Civil War game. (All Grahams games look nice, lots of scenery and every thing painted and he even has read the rules enough times to know what he's doing.....In my opinion Graham is the rules guru at our club.) I did mention club shirts and the treasure said the kitty had enough money just sitting their, not being used..... I am tempted to pay for them myself just to stop other people whining that they don't like them, or want a different colour/design or layout. It's funny but the ones that make the most fuss tend to be the ones least likely to do anything themselves,(just an observation). I did notice that there was a flaw in the design though, unforgivable to all wargamers on the dice logo I had a 1 and a 6 on adjacent faces. I have yet to change it on the computer, but at least I spotted it before someone else did. I'll start working on the shirts again, once this batch of overtime is out the way.

Real life prevents Blog today.

AS you can see I have started the coast/cliff boards. But I got called away, so it will have to wait until next week before I do any "REAL" work on it. The top picture shows the wooden edge that will be common on all the cliffs so they can fit side by side without leaving massive gaps. I have not measured the angle, as I did not see the need, I just went with what I thought looked about right but I'm now thinking I could have made them steeper. This is the "outside corner and as such will take a lot of materials especially as I think I want a lighthouse on the top. But I shall be making it up as I go along so pretty much anything could happen.

This board is 24 inches square. and should reach a height of 11 inches plus the light house. I have glued the first few layers of polystyrene down and will give it a chance to dry before I add more layers and take it to full height. Originally I was going to work to the pencil lines but I could not get the polystyrene sheets I wanted at B+Q so I settled for some smaller and cheaper ones. As with all things I'll try to save money on wargames projects where I can so I was not too disappointed with getting smaller ones. In an Ideal world Blar Blar Blar...

I'll settle on the rusty armour for the skaven Marines. I was asked why I thought metals that far in the future would rust. I can think of several reasons, like they use a material that corrodes for the same reason that we don't make modern tanks out of stainless steel. It could be expense, durability, resilience, scarcity of materials or the reason I have selected, because I like the look of it. Other than that I have not sat at my freezing cold attic painting table, because it is just that at the moment, freezing cold. I'll no doubt use the excuse of being to hot in the summer!

Lastly to Kev who broke his ankle on Thursday. Get well soon mate, take care and we'll talk soon no doubt.

All the best Clint.

As mentioned previously I was looking to start a Warhammer 40k Chaos Marine army and trying to work out the colour scheme for the force. Well here are my two options.  I can either go for a grey armour or a rusty armour. (Hope you can tell it's rust!) I want them to have a run down shabby look that I think is suitable to rats as I don't see them looking after their equipment particularly well. I know skaven Marines have been done before a number of times, which tells me that it's not a terrible idea. I imagine their fleet got trapped in some kind of Chaos storm and the only other living organisms (of a certain size Germs don't count) on board the ships  mutated into a meld of species. As shipborne Marines I see them as less reliant on big fighting machines and more on close quarter battles. I appreciate that the fleet could and probably would have a stock of Land Raiders, rhinos and the rest, so I may allow myself a couple of vehicles but on the whole I'll try to limit them. I do like the idea of dreadnoughts though as I can see them along with terminators being used on board ships. As I want this to be a cheap project I think I'll stick to what I can get at the right price on eBay. I have enough pieces to get a complete squad done before I need to go looking for more though . These were painted about 6 months apart as I was dithering over them and could not decide where it was going. My nephew by the way loves them and really wants to make his own, but I am trying to restrict him as while he's a good painter/modeller for his age he is only 10 years old.  So for now I'll just decide on the colours and maybe get some more done. Always open to suggestions colour wise, but orange and purple stripes is not going to happen. And if you insist that It should I look forward to seeing yours.

Elsewhere in the Shed, the moon board has had another coat of muck and should get it's final one on Monday when it should be dried out. I'm not gonna rush them as that's no use to anyone and WILL result in more work needed to tidy up where they would have gone wrong. I did have a look at it this morning and it does need several days to dry out, so I anticipate a week before this one is to the same stage as the others. And then only two more after that.

It was raining very heavily when I knocked of work this morning and I didn't fancy going to B and Q. But that is the next step for the First BROADSIDE board. I have sketched it out roughly and am happy with the sizes. I would like the cliffs taller but we do have to be "semi"-realistic so they are only 10 inches tall. It's the kind of crazy thing I might change later and double the height, but for now they look about right. As you can tell I am not being decisive.

Nothing much is happening on the painting table, I seem to be out of the swing of it for the moment. Maybe that will change over the weekend.

Thanks for reading, I'll post again Saturday and hope to get to B+Q>. Cheers Clint

This is just to remind you all what the moon boards turn into once coloured up.The figures are 25mm space suited figures by Ground Zero Games Painted in a very bright green so as to strongly contrast with the greys of the terrain. These are two of my own boards and not part of the ones I'm currently making,  although they should look the same when done. As mentioned previously the latest one is drying out and if the weather is ok, (Not to cold or wet) it should get another layer of paint glue and sand before I write again. Kevin pointed out a set of Horror clix zombies in space suits currently on ebay. I'm still umming and ahhing about getting them, so for now I'll pass although "Zombies from Outer-Space!" really does sound like such a NAFF B movie you'd have to go and see it.

Moving on. It has been a slow couple of days on the painting and making front. Nothing new to share just yet.feels like a "Must do Better" type school report.

 I have however been thinking, The dock-scape is going on hold for a bit (I imagine Kev and Relfie scowling at me as I type that). Having had a better look at the one that Karl at Crooked dice has done I think using the paste table is no longer the way to go. I have not given up, just set it aside till after Cavalier (end of Feb) where I can have a chat with the CD guys and pick some brainz.

 I'm looking after my nephew for the next couple of days as he's been sent home from school ill today and I'm down as his emergency contact, it's nothing serious to worry about, but far to serious to play on the X BOX. If he's well enough to play X BOX he's well enough to go to school. That's the rules as laid down by my beloved sister and who am I to argue with her. So it looks like it will be a Jurassic Park afternoon, or maybe Eight legged Freaks.!

Hopefully I should have something to show on Thursday... Must do Better!

It's hard to make out the details due  to the colours, however these are the moon scape so far. If you squint though you can see enough to get a pretty good idea. Each board is 2 foot square so this area is 4 foot square, I have 2 more boards to do after these are done. Obviously they need to be fully painted BLACK and then painted in various shades of grey. The sand coloured board has only had one layer of muck on it but I'll put a couple more on this week and allow it to dry completely so that it comes to the same stage as the other three.

This is the "Start" of the coast boards for the Broadside show. This one is again 2 foot on each side. As yet I have yet to determine if they will all be 2 foot by 2 foot squares OR if I can make 2 2foot by 4 foot rectangles. I realise I could do either, it's just what comes down to being the better game boards for storage and transportation so for now I am not going to over think it, I'll just play it by ear. You can see in this shot that one corner has been notched this is so I can attache the cliff walls  in such a way that they can but up to each other without a nasty gap. Having visualised it I think it should have 11 inch  high cliffs with a 2 inch reverse slope. (Not sure that makes sense enough for anyone to understand, but when I work on it again I'll take a pic and it should become clear.

I will have to make two boards that are square, one with an inside curve and one with an outside curve. This will allow me to turn a couple of corner and vary the coastline sufficiently. The tables we have at Broadside are 2 foot wide and 6 foot long thus with 2 tables set  at right angles will give an 8 foot by 6 foot coastline. By having a choice of both inside and outside corners we can set the adapt as we need to. Anyway this will all become evident as work goes on.

As mentioned on Friday the dock board will start in earnest on Monday. Brummie has suggested a thick layer of paint to disguise the texture of the hard board. It's so obvious that I missed it as a solution. I still like the idea of foil though, not because of the shininess but because if I screw it up and un-screw it carefully it will create a very different texture.Still time will tell.

Nothing from the painting table to talk about today. so with that I'll finish writing for today. Cheers Clint

Best laid plans of mice and all that. I've been busy all morning sorting out my mothers switch over from Analog to digital. It's all done now but did take two different installation engineers or two different call outs and a free upgrade to Free Stat as she's in a set top black spot. Their meter readings kept "overloading" and making bleeping sounds and they had no idea why. Still it's all sorted now.

All of which means I'm a little behind as that had priority. However the moon boards have dried out nicely and I have started  another one of them. At this stage it's about half masked up, but I can easy finish that on Saturday. So in conclusion they are getting done, I'll offer a pic in a few days of all 4 of them (2 more after that, for 6 in total).

Which of course means the dock sides are already behind schedule before I even start. The good news on that is that every day next week I'll be walking past B+Q so can re-stock on some vital supplies. Assuming I stick to the paste board idea I'll have to think of how to loose the "checker board" texture. It worked very well as car parking, but I can't see it working as water. My choices are to either sand it back or to cover it. As Sanding will be a LOT of work and still might not work I think I'll have to cover it. My initial thoughts are to use aluminium foil but I'm not sure if I can get a good solid attachment to the hardboard. One of the other problems I'll have is the general dimensions of the paste board. Being 20 inches across I think I might have to put the docks, wharfs and jetties at an oblique angle. Until I sketch it out I'm not sure how that will work in regard to look and feel, I'm hoping it adds rather than detracts but only marking it out will really give me a clue.

Painting wise the 10mm Dwarfs are at a stand still. I have volunteered to paint a collection of buildings for the game of warmaster that is proposed for next club. I guess I'd better rake them out and dust them off. I have also re-started a games workshop Chaos Marine army. I don't really play 40k any more but my nephew does and it would be nice to be able to give him a game. The main problem is the colour scheme. I have tried them in grey armour and that looks quite good, (and my nephew loves them) but I came up with another idea and want to try that out before I am completely satisfied. About 1/2 way through painting the second style now. When done I'll invite feedback on them both.

Lastly for today I had the "hard copy" of the crooked dice 7ombie TV rules and some nice counters arrive this morning. I already know that the rules work quite well, so this is just to own a nice shiny copy,

Post again on Sunday and maybe a pic or two.

Nope this is not one of mine, lets make that quite clear. I had nothing to do with making this. I have included it because not only is it superb but it has inspired me. When I saw it I asked Kev and Relfie if they thought I should build a dockscape. They both replied very quickly that they thought I should. In an ideal world I can knock one out in about 4 weeks start to finish. HOWEVER I am going to aim for 5 weeks starting Saturday. ( I'll probably over run a few weeks but good to have a target to aim at.)
As you can tell this board is only 24 inches square. The ship here is 6 inches wide and 24 long. I don't know how tall it rises, but as I'll have to scratch build my own I'm not that worried.Nothing wrong with small boards, in fact a lot to recommend them, no vast shooting galleries, and lots of opportunity to get up close and personal. So taking this as a start point I'll try to shoe horn it into the paste table. At this stage I only intend to use 1/2 the paste table, which gives an area of 20 inches by 34 inches. If my players want a bigger area they'll have to wait a few extra weeks, or do it themselves. Yep that means I'll make it the size I want and plan it to expand onto the other half of the paste board when I get a chance.
Given that I want as much versatility as I can get I'll try to keep it as an old dock. That way we can use it for everything from pirates/cutlass all the way to contempory, or horror or even science fiction. Obviously the boats will have to be era specific, but the actual wharfs and jetties in made to look like stone or wood can be of any time period. Concrete can also be used as that dates back to Roman technology, but I'll try to minimise that.

That's all in the planning, but what's in the make. Yesterday when I went up the shed to work on the moon boards some of the paint had frozen in the bottle. I managed to thaw it out OK and it was not a huge amount, but it does illustrate just how cold it was. I have managed to coat boards 2 and 3 with a mixture of paint and PVA wood glue. I am now ready to start the next one. But due to the cold have decided to come indoors and warm up for now. I'll give them both a day to dry out and then start the next. I feel very happy with the progress now that I am 1/2 way through them. I'm so looking forward to a quick tidy up in the shed you would not believe it. But all in all they are coming on fine.

Unfortunately I can't face the painting table at the moment, there's just something about the 10mm dwarfs I am struggling with. I know once I bite the bullet it will all flow, but I'm not in that mind set today. Relfie wants to do some Warmaster at the next club, so with luck I'll feel encouraged to get some more done, just not today.

I will start on the Cutlass shore boards soon but having a short arm deep pocket moment so am not buying the materials this week, or the figures. I have had an expensive week wargames wise, bagged a few eBay bargains despite the fact I still have loads to read and paint but they were just so tempting I had to. I also sent off for the 7ombie TV rules and counters before they sold out. I get paid end of next week so I'll try to resist eBay temptation till then, or maybe put a few things on, just so I don't feel to bad about all the wargames money flowing out of my account. Hey ho!

More again on Friday cheers Clint

yesterdays post today

Well as I was very busy yesterday I thought I'd invest a few minutes today to catch up.  On Sunday we had a club meeting and finally got round to playing the zombie car park game at the Rainham club. I only took one picture (to the right) because as soon as I produced a camera some of the players got up and walked out. That crimestoppers programme has a lot to answer for. (IT my be because the kettle boiled about then as well though so not too sure.) It was one of those games where it started with me and two other players (Relfie and Kev) we got everything ready I told them the rule changes and we just started and Fraiser (one of our new and young members) turned up. So to keep things fair Kev and Relfie gave him two characters (one each) and we started. WE got a turn done and then Patrick and Tim arrived (pictured) we had a quick break to admire Tim's painted treasures. And Patrick decided to play some loud 1970's horse racing game on his own in the corner. So Tim started and we had another couple of turns. Then Patrick decided he was gonna play and him and Fraiser split their forces. When I use the term "Herding Cats" you get an idea of what it's like from that brief description above of how the game started. Anyway here's the cast list:

Relfie: Brown (trousers) erhm suit and a Little Girl.
Kev: Army Girl and a Store keeper.
Tim: Biker and Heavy
Fraiser: "Sleazy man"
Patrick: Eccentric Shop keeper.
Clint (me): Zombies.

All the Zombies were classed as extras and all the characters were classed as co-stars and we were using the 7ombie TV rules. Given that there were 4 teams of 2 characters, Patrick and Fraiser being paired due to Patricks late arrival/participation and because they are friends. I shoved 35-40 Zombies on the board to make it "balanced".

The game started with the search for keys with some pretty MAJOR hints (from Kev who had read the blog) to the younger players as to where you might find them, which they ignored for most of the game. It's great having a mixture of ages as the younger players tended to do their own things with out regard to the victory conditions and how to escape, although they were pretty keen on stitching other players up at the same time. Most players searched the loos and stairwells first thinking perhaps that people had discarded their car keys in such unlikely places as they attempted to escape the grey horde. You are hardly going to make good an escape by chucking car keys down a ladies loo. Still they wanted to search and so they did. Patrick and Frasier spent most of the rest of the game searching the skips and getting a few scavenger cards including a bicycle, dolls head, a crowbar and 2 Molotov's.

Meanwhile elsewhere the sheer number of Zeds mad it impossible to move without being reached by at least one of them. Tim's Heavy was the first to succumb to the grey horde and taken down quite quickly as he kept trying to use his luck re-rolls and kept failing to alter the result. It then took that character 3 turns to shake of the stuns before he could come back as a Tank. Hugely disappointed with the 4 inch tank move he plodded towards his real life son with all the built up taxi-dad hatred he could muster. kev and Relfi had by now found keys and were trying cars as often as they could. Special mention to Kev for killing (headshot) three times as many zombies as everyone else combined. (I need to check his dice next time, not saying they were loaded, but I have my suspicions.) Relfie's little Girl was the first to find a car. Tim's Biker and the Brown Suit man were about to jump in when the grey mass swamped Mr Brown suit right in front of the little girl as he was trying to get in the door. The biker edged away and ran for another car (he too had keys) needing 5 or more for the keys to fit in this car he of course rolled a 4 on 2d6. dragged down by a feeding frenzy of 4 zombies he lost his second character.

Kev also lost his crack shot shop keeper to a small horde but the army girl also had keys and had got a car working. The little girl a notorious bad driver managed a sharp turn and fearing a collision stayed in first gear where they were better able to control their vehicle. While the army girl was crashing up through the gears at every opportunity.

Meanwhile back at the skips Patrick and Fraiser becoming surrounded by zeds, including two tank zeds (Tim and Kev's ex characters) and as yet without keys decided to let loose with the Molotov's right next to the petrol tanker. Throwing them both, the missed both times and both petrol bombs scattered. Four Zombies were turned into crispy critters and three of the four took head shots as a result and died. The forth staggered around on fire no doubt to be talked about by TV critics for days to come.... too much violence on TV these days etc.

Having negotiated all the obstacles the little girl put her foot down and made swift progress stopping just 1 inch from victory. Then the Army Girl covered the distance to the exit to take the game.

So that's the game report. To me it's quite funny how the two characters to get out in cars were both the same ones as at the Sittingbourne club and yet played by different people. It's also interesting that the Heavy died first in both games even though again played by different people. Both the youg players want to play the same game again using the same scenario so I know they enjoyed it.

Elsewhere at the club there was some boardgames being played and an ACW naval battle. So I think it was quite diverse. The concept of the battlefield in a box (my paste table idea) was received very well and I can see other club members taking it on board and making it their own. Tim was also mentioning the possibility of "re-doing" the dead cowboys in 20th century clothes which I think has a lot of merit. He originally sculpted a series of dead cowboys which the rights were bought for by someone in the states. So if he re-sculps them to be more contempory dead (not living dead) I think he could be on a winner, but time will tell.

Just a very quick post today as I am all behind with what I should be doing.

Yes we had our first club game yesterday I'll talk about it next post. Just to say that for now it went pretty well. It did have issues, but nothing too disastrous. And peeps seemed to have enjoyed it.

The latest two moon boards are drying nicely and I'll be able to work on them tomorrow once I have a good look at then then I'll know what to do. It will either be first base colour coat, or another load of "Muck" dependant on what they need.

Nothing painted in the last few days so nothing more to say today. I'll try to do better next time.

Cheers Clint

Here are the other two figures from forlorn hope games. They painted quite well. I'm not 100% happy with them, but they are good enough for the table top and that's the whole point from my point of view. They are let down by my photography skills or lack their of but you'll have to take my word for that. I have enjoyed painting them and they'll maybe get an outing tomorrow. I should be running the Zombie car park game postponed from last year. So I can put these three in as extra characters, which may or may not get picked by the players as we'll have a random selection like we did at the Sittingbourne club. I think there will be less people playing so I think either 2 or 3 random characters each. Which should give the game a different feel as it will be less everyone out for themselves as players "Sacrifice" figures in order to keep the ones with keys alive longest. But time will tell. If I remember I'll take a camera and hope to get a shot or two of the game as it goes along.

I have not looked at the moon boards today, best If I leave them till Monday and see what they look like then. That way they have much more chance of being dry. It definitely is a case of a watched pot never boiling. Sometimes a few days away  make all the difference to a project. I have spent a lot of time thinking about the beach boards I want to make for Broadside 2012. One of the things with shows is the amount of tables the organisers have to buy in for the event. Lots of clubs want to showcase their games and aim to have big displays if they can, and whilst that does look good as each table we tend to buy in costs about £5 some club displays can cost the organisers £25-40 in additional tables. The money has to be found and quite obviously shows do want clubs to put on games, so It's not really a gripe, just an explanation. Therefore I think the Rainham club can fit their game on 2 trestle tables. The tables being approx 2 foot by 6 foot. and beaches (on the whole) tending to be focused on the shoreline I think I can build it on 2 foot widths. Thus If we decide we need to we can create an L shape playing surface by placing one table at 90 degrees to the other. In my mind I'm thinking 8 foot (6 foot long side PLUS the 2 feet from the second tables Short side) by 6 foot. At present I am thinking 2'x4' boards (3of) and maybe a 2x2 board corner piece, and possibly another 2 foot square "Satellite Board" of seascape and rocks which is not attached to the actual terrain but is still part of the set up. There really is a lot to talk over at the club on Sunday and I'll most likely forget something or other.

But that's today's post. Another one Monday.