Urban Project - Tables and Chairs

Hi all

Firstly my apologies for the lack of regular posting, I'm working on long term projects and it does mean I don't have lot to post about as I'm sure you don't want to read about how I made yet another brick wall or 28mm toilet, coupled with the lack of time due to recent real life stuff means that I missed Friday and yesterdays posts.  With that in mind I think I may just cut down to two posts a week Tuesday and Friday with the occasional bonus post thrown in if I manage to get ahead and get some bits done.  Anyway onto today's offering....

As regular readers will know, I'm building some urban boards for a show in february and I'm busy beavering away with those at the moment.  What I thought I would do is post about how I get on with making some of the pieces, I'll block these posts into what I'll title "Urban Project".  Of course I've already started with the Urban Debris and Blotz posts but that's ok.

Although I normally like to announce a new project with an exciting post with loads of pics and sparkly pieces to draw you in, I'm actually gonna start fairly low-key this time with some really basic stuff that often gets overlooked in game building - tables and chairs!

I know, I know not exactly grandiose but think about it - how many beautifully crafted buildings do we see on any number of gaming tables that look fabulously detailed on the outside, but when you open them (if you can even open them up that is!) there is just empty space.... I'm guilty of this, I've got lovely 4Ground buildings with rooms and lofts - not a stick of furniture!  I also know that if we clutter a building with furniture where are the miniatures going to go? this is because model buildings tend to be fairly small so that they don't dominate the battlefield and allow us to fill it instead with our toy soldiers.  

The beauty of skirmish games however, means that we only have a few models on the board. This allows us to invest more time in creating back stories for each of our heroes, breathing life into them and watching them interact in the games with purpose and with some story telling.  What better way to do that than building a complete and fully developed and interactive board and this means detail!

Gobbo fights in yet another completely empty house!

I'm right in the middle of building a really vital part of my board, the final objective as it were, in the plot that I have in mind.  I will reveal the whole thing eventually, when it is completed and I know that the concept works but for now I need to build some of the detail and yep that detail this time is - tables and chairs.

For the chairs I used some "liberated" coffee stirrers from Mccy D's as they were interestingly shaped.  Cutting the end off and then scoring the wood to fold and form the backrest and seat, I then used matchsticks for legs and viola....

using another piece of the stirrer as a cushion I applied a quick coat of paint and we have....

I mounted the chairs on cereal box card for stability

For the tables, these were even simpler with 40mm and 25mm round bases and a block of 1cm thick blue foam.

Chopping the corners of the blue foam off to make a pleasing shape and gluing the lot together

With a drop of paint and a some card coasters and miliput glasses we get.....

28mm zombie for scale (it was the closest mini to hand!)

so a very low-key introduction to my new project but one I think is essential in building the level of detail into these boards and breathing life into my stories.  These will fit beautifully into a pub or cafe/restaurant setting and are perfect for my main objective on these boards.

I'm afraid if this didn't tickle your fancy then the next few posts won't either as I'm concentrating on furniture for the near future, as I want to have several buildings worth of "clutter".

hope you enjoy
dGG

The kindness of others

Hi all

This week has been hard, a poorly daughter (who is getting better bit by bit and thank you all for the best wishes) and some seriously challenging shifts along with some disappointing news regarding the postponement of exam review boards has led to me being very downcast.  So with almost divine timing (if you believe in that kind of thing!) this morning I received a parcel that has bought a big ol' smile to my face.  

So a little background first, as you know I'm gonna put on a demo/participation game in feb and I've decided to go with a zombpoc theme. A few very nice chaps have offered me their help and I'm truly grateful for that (and I will be taking them up up on the offers too!) including a fellow that is new to blogging and a new follower of this (not so)humble blog - Greg from "The Wargame Addict".  If you haven't checked it out yet, then I urge you to do so as he is doing some excellent posting with a truly gripping ATZ campaign.  Anyhoo, Greg who I have not known very long, offered to send me some vehicles to populate my game boards, an offer which I gratefully accepted as I'm a little light in this regard, particularly rescue/responder vehicles.  Not only did he refuse my offer of any payment he sent me these....

Just a load of vehicles!! including a bus, which I have been looking for and a rather cool mini cooper, which I SHOULD have been looking for! ;-).  They are excellent for scale, detail and finish (although I'll probably weather them up a bit) and I'm so very pleased with them.

I'm really tempted to send the bus to Dave Stone who has volunteered to help me with some of his sculpting brilliance but I may try to source another as I really, really like it as it is - ooooh I'm so torn as I know Dave has something really cool in mind too..........

anyway I cannot tell you how grateful I am to Greg for his amazing gift, not only will it help me in feb (and my normal gaming) but it restored a little bit of faith in this tired and cynical Gobbo. What a thoroughly wonderful hobby we partake in.

best wishes all

dGG

Can't see the wood for the trees!

Hi all

just another quick post from me today (seems to be an awful lot of that at the moment!), real life issues with a poorly daughter is quite rightly bumping the hobby down the priority order.  That said I've managed to get a mini project completed in between hospital visits and lucid moments, mostly as a distraction so it may not be up to scratch but I'll consider it complete for now.

So a few weeks ago I hit the 'net looking for all sorts of cheap terrain items and I came across another eBay post for cheap trees from China.  I'm always a little dubious about scale when it comes to trees, particularly off the interwebs, but these were sooooo cheap I felt like I needed to gamble. Listed as 10cm high and £6.41 for 15 with free P&P and flushed with success from my cherry blossom trees from a similar experiment, I rolled the dice and placed the order.  2 weeks later these arrived......

Marvellous!! a little bit garish in the green but not too shabby at all.  Like my cherry trees they were packed flat and need the branches teased out, this causes the loss of some foliage but that was swept up for use to scatter on the bases.  I won't bore you with the ways and hows I put the trees together, suffice to say I used the same methods as my cherry trees which you can find here.  What I did do however is get my other trees (which incidentally cost me £17 from woodland scenics!) and take them off the cardboard bases that had warped and generally looked a bit naff and add those into the mix.  I also used a few big 100mm round mdf bases for clumps of trees.

mixed in you can barely tell the difference

the original woodland scenics

I also found some animals that I'd got from "Warbases" a while ago and rather than add them to the woods I popped them on 20mm rounds so that they are a bit more versatile.

mr Badger

sly old Mr Fox with Bunny in mouth

not quite so happy Mr Fox

lunch - rabbits

an idyllic woodland scene.....

quite a large coverage!

28mm elf models for scale!

Arineal strolls through the forest with his lady friend...

So that's it a mini project complete.
hope you enjoy
dGG

Motorbikes!

Hi all

I've been looking to add to my vehicle collection for my modern game settings, particularly zombpoc gaming.  While perusing the interwebs for suitable models I find these...

bought on EvilBay from a Chinese company for £3.40 for all 4 (free P&P too!), these are the perfect size for my 28mm miniatures as Daryl can attest to.

Here they are individually, I'm not sure I can identify any particular makes or models so if you can then excellent.  I do know they have great detail for such cheap models and they will enhance my battlefields no end! 

sorry for the fuzzy picture.

anyway just a quick post but I was dead excited about this cheap and cheerful little purchase.

hope you enjoy

dGG

Taisei

Hi all

It's time for some serious melee power for my snakes!! Time to welcome to da Grotto my latest recruit - Taisei.

Deep in the cold, moist temples to Orochi where the greatest nightmares lurk, Taisei waits, conserving his energy only for the bidding of the one true Kami. His physical prowess making him an impressive specimen of the Hebi, his great strength allowing him to wield the no-dachi with frightening agility, fearsome power or crushing an enemy beneath muscled coils, immobilised and helpless to the mercy of the merciless. 

Taisei is my big hitter, armed with a giant sword giving him a damage of +2 combine that with his "Hack" Ki feat - adding a further +3 dam he is gonna crunch some bones! "Grapple" can reduce dice advantage for those pesky samurai by immobilising them.

Swift of "foot" as it were, the boy-snake can move and is impossible to prone or throw  due to his inherent snakiness. "Blood of Orochi" means that he fits my favorite theme "The Blessed" and he contributes to the poison pool.

Not much more to say about his paint job, that hasn't been said in previous posts.  He fits in the theme, he looks fab and he slithers into the warband!

hope you enjoy

dGG

More modern scatter

Hi all

I'm busy looking for ways to improve my modern urban boards, ostensibly for my upcoming debut at the PAWs show but also for my continuing ATZ campaign.  I want my boards to look authentic and urban terrain by its very nature is busy so I need lots of it!  I'll try to make as much as I can, particularly the buildings but some of the finer detail is a bit beyond my skill or desire to make so I'm gonna buy some stuff in.  With this in mind I've been scouring the interwebs for bargains and found my old friends -  Debris of War and Blotz.

First up is Blotz, this UK company is making some lovely mdf products that are simple to put together and look fab.  Among other things I bought two phone booths, one modern and the other the traditional red telephone booth.

for painting these beauts, I find adding watered down PVA glue to the undercoat stops the mdf drinking up the paint. 

with my 28mm coppers for scale

Debris of War is a cracking local company putting out interesting resin pieces which include the excellent bases I've been using for my Ito Clan.  For modern settings, the owner/sculpter - Anthony has put out the bin bags and wheelie bins that I've previously shown on this blog.  He contacted me recently and offered me some new things he's been working on.

These are fun little pieces that will "litter" **sighs** my boards, the bins are cool and will populate the tenements and alleyways with the discarded matresses.

"There's nothing behind my back officers"

Along with Dave Stone's lovely flaming barrels I'm starting to get some really cool layouts going. More pieces are on the way from all sorts of other companies and I look forward to seeing them populate my boards.

hope you enjoy

dGG

Mizuki Ito

Hi all

Continuing on with the deadly women of the Ito clan, we have the Queen of the hebi - bride of the great kami Orochi.  Here is her blurb on GCT's website....

Another daughter of the Ito clan succumbed to the temptation of Orochi’s Blessing. Once a beautiful child of the Ito, with many a samurai lord interested in claiming her hand for a son. That was all before she started the visions that led her to her one and only partner, for now she is wed to Orochi. The Blessing awakening a deep power within her, granting her the power to grant minor gifts to fellow believers to conduct Orochi’s bidding.

This awesome model is a hefty investment in points at 12 rice but in my opinion worth the cost (although in a recent game she fluffed her lines).  She is a pure support model, with a poor melee profile so I lined her up with a Temple Asp as a bodyguard, if she does get in melee she does pack a bit of poison that can puts the hurt on her opponents and her "Fear (5)" can cause them to pause for thought.  However she does offer some unique skills that can either buff her friends or hinder her foes, Her Ki feats are excellent - "Blessing of Orochi" buffs her followers with a plethora of skills to choose from. "Paralyze" is really useful at causing enemy combatants in melee to lose dice with "held" and become "slow" meaning they strike last.  My fave though has to be "Obey", the chance to take control of one of my opponent's models even for a single activation can change the turn on its head and if she fires it off twice....

Paint wise, I obviously stuck with my theme colours and ensuring that the nest of vipers that make up her hair follow the red viper concept.

At the end of the day, she is an amazing model and fits beautifully into my warband, despite her shocker in a recent game I think she will be a stalwart of my Ito.

hope you enjoy
dGG