The Eight...and electricity comes to Drake's Branch.

Disclaimer: The lamps are stand-ins for actual oil-lamps...not electricity...

A small update.  I've slapped together another 4Ground building and have assembled a handful of street lamps for Drake's Branch (my fictional town setting)

The re-painted "Rogan's Bar" set from 4Ground.  Will probably be festooned with posters in a bit.  I dislike green buildings quite a bit so this got a re-spray.  Nice quality with only minimal fuss while building.

Ordered some cheap street lamps from a Chinese shop on ebay and tossed them on...oddly long bases.  I don't like to waste good bases on terrain too often so I decided to use up some Wargames Factory cavalry bases --- this let me add some do-dads to some of the bases as well.

Sorry the last picture is out of focus!

I also threw some shingles onto the Rorke's Drift Storehouse and hate the outcome, but I'm going to keep it - it just doesn't get rewarded with fancy pictures on the internet. It's usable but ugly.

Drake's Branch is expanding!

So, as a Christmas present to myself, I gathered some ebay-funded moneys and picked up a load of new 4Ground stuff.  Shortly after ordering I had discovered the pile of 4Ground kits in a tub which I had forgotten about...the entire Rorke's Drift set!

I had finished the storehouse last post...subsequently broke/ruined the roof by removing the thatch...grrrrrrr...

Anyway, have some paper shingles on the way to re-do the roof and find a way to mend it.  Meanwhile I started on the new kits which showed up....

While waiting for the postman to show I did up some extra scatter terrain and decided to try my hand at some more characterful tokens for "Hiding" in Shoot N' Skedaddle.

The Rorke's Drift hospital awaiting a shingle roof (grey is just the cover colour).  Again a nice old 4Ground kit.  If I was more motivated I could have done a lot with the interior but I find the games rarely use a lot of the interior space.  I may go back later and add some furniture.

Almost big enough to play an entire game inside!

Some Pegasus Hobbies fences.  I applied a basing texture, clipped the ends (so that the posts can meet up properly) primed them black, repainted and drybrushed them and added some static grass.  They fit particularly well on the Steppe mat.  I've gone from solid desert basing to an intermediate so I can get more use out of stuff for other games.

A simple under-construction kit from 4Ground.  Not my favourite.  Hard to assemble and very very fragile.  I'm not entirely sure how long this thing will last gaming.

 The AD Hardware store - a wonderful simple 4Ground kit.  The manner in which they assembled these have changed from the first kits..not sure which method I prefer.  Typical 4Ground quality.

The Land Officer kit from 4Ground.  Lovely stuff, though this was the first 4Ground kit I've had in a long time which gave me some issues (one of the MDF sheets was a bit out of wack and had to be trimmed to fit, etc.).  Overall I love the final product - nice to have two more different designs for single story buildings.

There is a lot more waiting in the wings...and even more in the post still.  While Drake's Branch was a meagre seven buildings prior...it could expand into a proper town within the next few weeks.  Hoping to shingle/fix the RD kits and though they may not look 100% proper in town, I can do a nice farmstead at some point.

Storehouse!

After beginning to get over my Old West doldrums, I had just ordered a large order of 4Ground buildings when I stumbled upon the old Rorkes Drift kit I forgot I had ordered a year or two ago.

This is the rather old kit - unpainted, with one-face burns etc.  It was still a typical 4Ground kit though - beautifully executed, smartly planned - hugely gamer friendly, and a treat to assemble.

After spending way too long on it to even achieve a mediocre paintjob, I immediately began to appreciate the lovely pre-painted kits they now release!

The front, only missing two of the support posts (these will be based separately and added later as a stand-alone part)

One side features a small supply door and the smaller office/shed structure.

 Being a storehouse, the back is closed off...non-descript.

 In typical 4Ground fashion, the building is hugely gamer-friendly.  The "front" roof section comes off in a nice sturdy, well supported set.  It reveals the attic and the front door section.

The small shed/office which is accessible through its own door.  There is a "damage blow out" panel in the rear wall, but I'm trying to keep it in place.  I don't want this to be a battle damaged structure.

 Rear attic features a cargo door on the left of the picture, a floor-hole w/ ladder and a full door on the right, accessed by an external staircase.

Inside the main structure are two separate room areas, each consisting of two adjoined rooms.

This kit is still available as long as they have remaining stock, rumour was (years ago) that they might re-release the kit in new pre-painted form, but that never seemed to happen.

It's a lovely kit, but really makes me appreciate the genius of the current pre-painted kits and their interior details.  Also, forgive the grey colour.  The paint looked much lighter and dried rather dark.  I debated repainting it, but I'll leave it as is for a while.

Cabinets, altars and trucks.

I've broken one of my own cardinal rules and let my hobby table become a bit piled-upon by projects which are all on-going.

I normally try to discipline myself and build...prime...paint...complete a small project before moving onto something else.  My blitz of hobbying over the last week or two has left my table scattered with some bits and pieces.  Time to finish them up.

A remaining cabinet, a Reaper altar (with some books/scrolls added to it)

These are four little collected trucks which are about 1/300 scale.  They came with a service crane (pictured below) and were sold alongside some Japanese Dougram gashapon figures I was using to make some Battlemechs.  I pulled a bunch of bits out of my box and assembled four different utility trucks for use as terrain and mission objectives.  One is a coolant/fuel truck, one is a scrap/recovery truck, one is a communications/radar truck and the last is the maintenance truck (the crane below is how the trucks are delivered via ebay).

You'll notice heavy dip on the trucks.  I did a quick and dirty paintjob on them and as my Army Painter starts to thicken (sadly happens every can) I use it on more and more terrain bits and stuff I don't care about.  The heavier dip actually gives them a dirty worn in look, so I didn't remove all of the puddles with my normal method.

I also started to finish up a couple of suspended bridges I'll be using for the dungeon crawl, and painted up a handful of tokens for Blood on the Sands (gladiator game) which I was too lazy to snap pictures of.

Veteran dice.

The beginning, circa 1989-1990.

 

While pouring through my gaming accoutrement the other day I stumbled upon a small bag of my original Chessex dice.

When I was maybe 9-10 years old, I was in the habit of going to a small hobby shop in Springfield Mall in Northern Virginia. The shop was small, probably already failing (as all hobby stores in malls tend to do...) and only had a few stands of Ral Partha figures, some ESCI/Ertl miniatures and the occasional other stuff I wasn't paying much attention to.

Having cut my teeth on games like Hero Quest, Battlemasters etc., I had grabbed some role-playing-game books from the local used book store and had only figured out that dice other than D6's existed.

I used my allowance (maybe w/ help of my dad, a fellow hobbyist) to pick up a twin set of Chessex dice, seen above.  This was before the "tens" dice became popular and before you could get additional D6's or D10's with your set.  It was a root beer and brown pair of sets.  D4-D20 w/ no repeats.

The root beer set remains intact and the brown set is missing two dice, one of which was taken by my sister for use with a board game she made for the science fair.  A stupid thing which I still hold grudge for today.

It struck me as I glanced through the dice that they'd been serving me well for nearly 25 years.  I've owned thousands of dice in that period, sold dozens of sets on, etc.  The dice in the picture above have been used for most role-playing games I've played and have always been my go-to dice when large numbers of dice were not necessary.

The dice are so worn you can see the edges chipped and cracked on the root beer D6 (one must wonder how many foes have been slain, or damage dealt by this one dice over its 25 year use...).  Sadly some of the brown ones are starting to show cracks in the center and I occasionally fear they will shatter upon impact!

I'm going to set out to replace the missing dice and possibly replicate the set for further use.  Only in my mid-30's, nostalgia creeps in when I stumble upon something like this.  They're silly little bits of plastic, but they've brought me a lot of joy and stubborn heartache!  It's perhaps my adoration for these dice which make me feel traitorous when I occasionally throw out extra dice, or sell them off.

I hope they continue to serve me well, as long as they can.  Thanks Chessex for 25 good years so far. I only wish you still printed this set...(I've asked, they don't!)

Tomb of the Hideous Wraith

I knocked out a handful of figures the past day or two.

Some GW Skaven figures used for Ratmen.  I added wicker shields and de-horned/de-spiked them a good bit.  I don't much like the colour scheme, but I'll stick with it now that I've begun.  I have another eight I'll do up for a total of twelve (my goal number for most henchmen types).

Another six spiders to make a total of twelve.  Only difference on these was the red diamond in place of the prior beige one.

The disaster.  This was a random skeleton lord in Reaper Bones material that I bought for no reason.  It was a mistake.  Very soft detail, super bendy - not the best Bones figure I've purchased.  It didn't take paint too well and ended up a mess.  I almost tossed this guy in the trash.  As he's finished I'll keep him on for dungeon duty.

And now...something completely different.  These are the two remaining Gladiator figures I've had sitting on my desk primed for...over a year.  One is a judge/referee/doltore figure.  The fella in dark blue is Charon (sp?).  He was an attendant who used a hammer to verify that a slain gladiator was indeed slain and not simply trying to sneak out of the games with a gruesome looking wound.  They will serve zero purpose on the table, other than the referee perhaps being a mobile obstacle?  I just had to get them off the desk! 

Henchmen reporting, sah!

I decided to beef up some of my henchmen groups.  I've added a couple of Bugbears in the last post, this post I added some more ghouls/zombies and a couple of extra henchmen.  Next up is likely skeletons.

Additional ghouls/zombies!

Now, with 50% more henchmen in every bag!

 Only had six bone piles, so I added a few more and a small bad-magic-juju spellbook pedestal.

 One of the cell doors and a prior occupant (Zagat's Top 10 Dungeons "Would stay again, forever!".)

 A tremendous weapon cabinet.  And I mean...tremendous, it's wildly out of scale but I'll use it.

I slapped these small cell doors together out of plasticard.  Just wanted some quick fixes for dungeons.  I mean, who doesn't have cells...in a dungeon!?

Not sure what's next.  I did slap together some battlemechs, but I'm on a dungeon roll at the moment and have a game to run on Saturday.  

Cobwebs in the Caverns!

After playing a mediocre game of Frostgrave (undecided on how I feel about that game), I got the urge to sit down and crack on with some painting for the dungeon crawl project.  This was a nice change from the utter blitzkrieg of Battletech miniatures lately (disclaimer: I received eight city-tech plastic mechs in the mail today, so look for that soon!)

Here ya go!

I did up two of my last Tre Manor sculpted Bugbears (really dislike some of the other bugbear figures I had done -- wanted some options).  The Bugbear unit is up to eight figures now.

The dogs are from Reaper I believe, and I just needed some suitable hounds, since they pop up in a ton of dungeon crawl games, as opponents and allies.

The last three figures were a complete...random project.  I was watching a certain film about a suitably sized amount of mischief in the rather diminutive orient and suddenly wanted to kitbash something for the dungeon crawl.  They'll work as any kind of undead beastie (necromancer, wights, etc.).

More stuff in the wings and in process.

Updates (11/1)

Light:

• Added 3025 Javelin, Wasp, Stinger, Locust, Urbanmech, Ostscout, Firestarter, Valkyrie blank cards.

Edits and Updates (10/31)

Assault:

• Added 3025 Charger w/ modified special ability.

Heavy:

• Added 3025 Marauder, Crusader, Ostsol, and Ostroc.

Medium:

• Revised Hemes II (missing "fast" icon)
• Revised Assassin special rule.
• Revised Cicada special rule.
• Replaced all cards for the above w/ new ones.
• Added 3025 Wolverine, Vulcan, Scorpion, and Phoenix Hawk.

  

3025 Assault Mechs

Here are the Assault Mechs (Note: The first test mech from 3050 is included here, notated by the red "3050" tag on the card)

And painted mechs