UK Games Expo: Z War One

One of the games that caught my eye yesterday at the Games Expo was Dice Sports new Z War One. Described as tactical espionage with zombies, it looked really good, a cross between Spy Or Die Trying and Zombiecide. The Kickstarter starts tomorrow, I took these photos of the game which are a bit ropey due the lighting and my phone, but hopefully give you a rough idea of things...

UK Games Expo: The Great War

I went to the UK Games Expo at the NEC today. I wasn't planning to, I was only going to meet someone but when that got bumped back a few hours I found myself wandering around a large hotel rammed full of gamers.

I say gamers, not wargamers as it was, by and large, a totally different audience from what you get at Salute or Colours. There were a few wargames companies in attendance, but by and large it was a show devoted to board and card games, the scope of which was quite daunting.

There were some good miniatures games on show and I will dig through the photos I took on my Blackberry in the poor hotel lighting(!) tomorrow, but I will post these of PSC's The Great War boxed game, my Kickstarter copy I picked up at the show...

ACW: Infantry on the Cheap

I don't know where time is going this year, but unfortunately not a lot of it is being spent on hobby activities. I really want to get back on with my ACW project having painted up the first couple of infantry regiments. With this in mind I was surprised to find that em-4 Miniatures had released two sets of plastic ACW infantry at the bargain price of £5.00 for 20 figures!

They don't look too bad and will provide some useful filler figures if nothing else. Gisby has shown how nice they paint up and easy to convert on his website here.

Mad Mini-Max

Ok, so the brain has been on overdrive thinking about Mad Max and gaming possibilities. Whilst I like the look of Devil's Run: Route 666 it is 20mm scale, so vehicles like tankers will be a tad big (also the game isn't due for delivery until February next year). The one thing that struck me about Mad Max Fury Road was the scale of evereything. The desert, the fleets of gang vehicles, these weren't battles with one or two vehicles, but potentially dozens a side.

I had a Eureka! moment on the train today when I recalled TimeCast sell sets of 1/300th plastic modern cars, twenty in a pack for just £2.50. This would mean they are easy to convert and you can have a lot of them. They would also be compatible with 1/300th WW2 and Modern vehicles form the likes of GHQ and Heroics & Ros, so lots opportunities for bits and spares.

The TimeCast models are (I guess) architects models for the lovely white building models you see of planned constructions, so I am hoping there might be more vehicles out "there" that I can hunt down. And of course, there are the Irregular 'Mad Ron' vehicles which can also join the fray...

Edit. Or you can buy 1/300th 100 cars for £3.61 with free postage from China on eBay!

Mad Max Fury Road

Just back from the watching Mad Max Fury Road at the cinema - wow! A shed load of fun and hugely entertaining, well worth watching on the big screen if action movies are your thing.

Of course I now want to make loads of Mad Max vehicles and that Devil's Run: Route 666 Kickstarter is still open. Ummm...

Normandy Firefight: Kohima British Infantry III

Boggler kindly pointed out that the 1/32nd Australians were going for just £2.49 on the Airfix website, so I popped over and bought a box of them, the Gurkhas and 8th Army, all retailing at the same price.

The plastic they are moulded in is really interesting as it is not the old soft polythene, but is harder, fileable and easy to trim. I thought I would see how easy it was to convert and had a crack at one of the kneeling 8th Army figures to see if he could help fill out the Kohima British unit.

I'm pretty pleased with how he is coming along...

I have also started on one of the Australian figures, replacing his bush hat with a helmet. The Aussies are wearing gaiters instead of ankle puttees so this will require some work, but overall I am pleased with how both are looking at this point.

Mars Attacks: Bolt Ack-Acktion

I've been meaning to find some time to paint up the Mars Attacks Kickstarter and over the weekend Beasts of War posted a live blog of an ingenious Mars Attacks/Bolt Action crossover, that was really inspiring, even if it was a shame it had a lot of unpainted figures n a really nice table...

They also produce a free downloadable PDF for the Martians, so if you fancy bringing some inter-planetary invasion to WW2, this is the way to do it!

Atlantic Fleet Launched!

After a minor set back last week, Killerfish Games have now released the iOS version of their new game Atlantic Fleet. I loved Pacific Fleet, but this looks much, much better and no doubt will provide many hours of entertainment like its predecessor...

Here's their blurb about the game features:

- No In Apps/Advertising. No Pay-to-Progress. One Price = Full Game
- Stunning full 3D graphics and environments, including underwater
 - A unique blend of deep strategic planning combined with quick tactical decisions
- Play as the Royal Navy and her allies or Kriegsmarine (German navy)
- Up to 10 versus 10 ships in combat
- 3 Game Modes: 1) Single Battle Editor with 30 Historical Missions for standalone combat 2) Campaign of 50 missions per faction 3) Full Dynamic Campaign from 1939 to 1945
- Individually saved games for each campaign and faction
- Multiplayer Hotseat for Single Battles
- Sink ships with realistic buoyancy physics, not with hit-point bars!
- Target specific ship subsystems to sink or cripple the enemy
- Destructible ships, subsystems and visual damage to ships
- 60 historical ship classes representing over 630 ships and 350 submarines
- 13 playable aircraft - Submarine warfare, wolf packs and convoys
- Carrier operations and land-based air strikes
- Too many more to list here, visit killerfishgames.com

Black Ops

Another of Osprey's forthcoming wargames rules titles has piqued my interest - Black Ops. Accoding to the blurb "Black Ops is a skirmish wargame of tactical espionage combat for two or more players. It recreates on the tabletop the tension and excitement of modern action-thrillers such as the Bond and Bourne films, The Unit or Burn Notice TV shows, and the Splinter Cell and Modern Warfare series of video games. 

The fast-play rules use regular 6-sided dice and a card-driven activation system to keep all players in the thick of the action, while the mission generator provides a wide range of options for scenarios, from stealthy extraction or surveillance missions to more overt raids or assassinations. Stealth, combat and technical expertise all have a role to play, and players may select from a number of different character types - spies, mercenaries, criminals, hackers, special forces and many more - to recruit the best possible team for the job. 

Players may also choose to join a faction - powerful organizations, intelligence agencies, criminal syndicates, militaries or rebel groups, each with a stake in international affairs. By doing so, their team may receive certain benefits, but may also find itself limited at a crucial time. With the variety offered by the characters, factions and scenarios, no two games of Black Ops should ever be the same! 

Although the standard Black Ops setting is an ultra-modern world just a hair removed from our own, the rules are versatile and adaptable enough to suit OSS operations behind Nazi lines, Cold War-era infiltration missions in Moscow or Berlin, or sabotage runs against a rival corporation's interests in a cyberpunk dystopia, and the rulebook will include a guide to running games in such settings."

The flexibility mentioned in the last paragraph sounds really interesting.

Here Be Robots...

A rather large box turned up from Airfix today, a bit of overkill for the contents and the bin is now full of those foam packaging quavers. Interesting to find the old bendy soft plastic has changed and now can be cut, scraped and filed quite easily - I have now started the standing and kneeling versions of Kohima rifleman three...

On a different note I came across a great little Kickstarter from Ramshackle Games to fund five multi-pose 28mm scale robots. I really like the look of these models and they should be fun to paint. It has less than two days to run so don't hesitate if you like the look of them...

1864

I watched the first part of the Danish drama 1864, about the Second Schleswig War last night. This episode was set just after the First Schleswig War but it boded well for the series and the juxtaposition with a present day storyline referencing the Danish contribution in Afghanistan was interesting. Watching part two on iPlayer tonight.

Lego Wars 1940

The internet is a many splendoured thing isn't it? This is just great...

I so want a Lego Char B1 now...

Panzerfäuste: Gnome Concept Artwork

Had great "fun" today adding foil slings to the Kohima riflemen (and my fingers, don't you love super glue?) and thanks to Boggler spent over thirty quid in the Airfix store where the 1/32nd Australian, Gurkha and 8th Army figures are heavily discounted - £2.49 down from £7.99 :-)

In that purchase I also picked up the venerable old 1/72nd Pontoon Bridge (also reduced) which I want to use in Panzerfäuste, the size being perfect for the French inspired Gnomes...

Panzerfäuste: Orc Concept Artwork

Been a busy day today so I thought I'd show off some of the Orc concept art from Hysterical Games for Panzerfäuste. There was some 'controversy' on Beasts of War over the picking an "evil" race to represent the "British", some people over think things sometimes and need to get out more...

Normandy Firefight: Kohima British Infantry II

Here is soldier no. 2 in standing and kneeling positions. As Boggler pointed out the re-issued Multipose boxes only have six figures, and of that only one is kneeling and one is prone, so this requires a bit of surgery to get a second kneeling and prone figure out of the box.

Luckily, I picked up some twelve figure sets released a way back by Airfix off eBay, so I should have enough figures for the half-section, I may also look at the legs in the Afrika Korps sets as I have quite a few of them and should have enough spare.

The keeling figure here is posed just pushing himself up, I think it looks ok. Now I need to add rifle straps, other equipment and work on the prone figures.

Normandy Firefight: Kohima British Infantry I

It's a little while since I dug out the Airfix Multipose 8th Army and British Infantry sets to mix and match and make some British Infantry to use in a Kohima Normandy Firefight variant, however today I sat down with the heads, torsos and legs I stuck together to make some more progress.

I've done a fair bit of research on what the British infantry in Burma looked like and these photos shows quite nicely the look I want to try and recreate.

Normandy Firefight recommends standing, kneeling and prone figures for each character, which is an interesting challenge. Today, I made some progress on Tommy number one, completing a chunk f the work, including scratchbuilding ammo bandoliers on the standing and kneeling versions of the first character.

These are work in progress photos but show the standing figure...

And the kneeling one...

Panzerfäuste: Gnome Bakery

Things are progressing nicely on the redevelopment of Panzerfäuste, although much of the work is still underwraps. One of the "secret" developments was the commissioning of a range of resin buildings from the extremely talented Tony Harwood.

I managed to get hold of on of the pre-producting casts and liked it so much I painted it up overnight on Wednesday. Having initially wanted to keep it as a surprise for later on, we liked it so much we weakened and posted pictures of it on the Hysterical Games Facebook page! If you didn't see it there, here are the photos with some old Panzerfäuste miniatures to show the scale.

Painting Target: 109/1000

Shieldmaiden

I'm in one of those don't know what I want to paint moods again, so I am just painting stuff I am finding on the workbench - there is no rhyme nor reason to it. Today I finished this Shieldmaiden who was one of the core thirty plastic figures funded by the Reaper Bones Kickstarter.

Like most of the Bones figures they are nicely detailed, though that is hard to see in their unpainted state. I really like this figure but might replace the sword with a spear (her scabbard has a sword in it).

Painting Target: 108/1000

Trolljegeren

Clearing stuff off the old Sky+ box I came across the Norwegian film Trolljegeren (Troll Hunter) that I recorded last year but hadn't got around to watching yet, so with SWMBO out I did.

Filmed, Blair Witch Style, as a mockumentary with hand held "discovered" camera footage, it tells the story of a group of Norwegian film students who find the bear poacher they have tracked down is actually a secret government sanctioned troll hunter.

Whilst the effects are a bit low budget in parts, it is a hugely entertaining film and well worth watching. As the group encounter various different trolls throughout Norway I couldn't help thinking what a great game this would make!

Donnybrook: C17th Militia Officer

I got out the habit of painting my Donnybrook figures when I hit the Algonquin as I wasn't convinced I was getting the right skin tone. However keen to get back on the Donnybrook horse I decided to paint up a figure that I based and undercoated a while back and then ignored for the best part of the year.

I'm not 100% sure who made the figure, I think it is Foundry and may be something to do with one of their Pirates sets. Whatever, I trimmed away his ponytail as too C18th and painted him up as some fairly well-to-do merchant type, leading a town militia against Indians, bandits, Government forces, whatever. Pretty pleased with how this came up so quickly, now he just needs a militia to lead!

Painting Target: 107/1000

Batman: The Penguin

Well it took a little longer than anticipated due to Operation Birthday Fairy but I managed to finish my Knights Models Penguin today.

This is a really very nice miniature with some lovely subtle details. Using such a dark palette I employed the old trick of lightening the black with cream to avoid the contrasts being too cold and stark. I'll start work on the Penguin's gang soon...

Painting Target: 106/1000

Frostgrave "Nickstarter" Begins...

North Star have started their "Nickstarter" pre-order offer for Osprey's forthcoming fantasy skirmish rules Frostgrave. I'm pretty excited by the game, but am not sure whether to order more than the rulebook as I have plenty of generic fantasy miniatures hiding on Lead Mountain. They are quite nice though...

The Devil's Run: Route 666

Word Forge Games have launched the Kickstarter for The Devil's Run: Route 666, their 20mm-scale post-apocalyptic vehicular combat game and the good news is that it is already funded!

I dabbled with Dark Future many years ago loving the concept, but finding painting the cars somewhat difficult at the time (not sure why as I was happy slapping paint on tanks).  I wasn't 100% sure about this initially, but with accessory packs being released to help convert Hot Wheels and Matchbox cars, and these pictures of the first 3D printed masters released, I am tempted.

There is also an excellent Dark Future group on Facebook who post photos of some inspiring models. It is a closed group so you will need to join it to see the pics...

Off With The Fairies...

Long time readers of the blog may recall my painting of a Past Times fairy ornament for SWMBO a few years back. Despite saying she was happy with it at the time, it eventually clicked I had done something wrong(!) - apparently fairies wear one colour uniforms, so the fairy got repainted overall purple. The rest of the fairies remained in bits and pieces in a box that eventually got lost somewhere on Lead Mountain.

Today is SWMBO's birthday, however having been told "I don't want anything" and not to "waste my money buying something I don't need" I needed to come up with a cunning plan to avoid the SWMBO man traps she had laid - after 23 years of marriage I am not so stupid as to realise that "no presents" would in any way improve domestic detente. So I dug out the box of fairy bits and commenced a rebuilding and repainting exercise, the results you can see below...

The process was not as completely straight forward, the Red Fairy was missing an arm so I had to make a new one out of Green Stuff, I think it passes muster.

Hopefully SWMBO will be pleased with the present, the whole operation has been undertaken in secrecy and almost came a cropper with SWMBO being off work ill until yesterday losing valuable painting time.

It has been a bit of fun painting these 120mm figures and putting to use some of the techniques I've learnt over the years painting "toy soldiers". Now to get back to the proper stuff!

Painting Target: 105/1000

Geheimkrieg: US Power Armour

Well I managed to spend sometime with a paintbrush today, unfortunately from a hobby point of view it was working on a present for SWMBO whose birthday it is tomorrow - hopefully she will be pleased!

Whilst painting said, rather colourful, present I started pondering what to do to get my hobby mojo back and am leaning towards something simple to kickstart me, either WW2 or moderns. It is a shame these 28mm US Power Armour troops from Clockwork Goblin aren't available yet as they would fit the bill perfectly...

Mars Attacks: Occupation

Fans of Mantic's Mars Attacks game might be interested some new source material in the form of latest Topps' Kickstarter, Mars Attacks Occupation. This KS will fund the production of a new set of trading cards, but will include other stuff such as a new miniatures game scenario and a digital novella. One of the stretch goals, already broken, is the production of some Dinosaurs Attack v Mars Attacks cards.

Now I don't know why I didn't think of this, but the idea of Martians v Dinosaurs is way beyond cool...