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Camkierhi wrote:Well I for one will be following this with great interest no matter where you post it. How are the kits?

The figures fit together nicely and are well detailed and designed - the vehicles are functional models, they aren't massively detailed in some areas, but they are sturdy and do the job. I have no fears about how well they would hold up for some heavy gaming use which is most important. I would though like to get hold of some Rubicon vehicles as I understand they are more detailed models and size well with the Bolt Action / Italeri kits.

Theophony wrote:Well I'm in, I just started gates of antares which is bolt action using 10 sided dice, so I'll be watching what you do for terrain and stuff. Also I just ordered through warlord and have a free Lt speirs coming in a couple weeks, not sure he's useful or available otherwise, but they still have the offer up as well as the sprue sale going on.

Lt. Spiers is a nice little figure, I was annoyed that I missed out on their limited edition Lt. Richard Winters mini a few years back - will have to see if any going on eBay for a reasonable price...

Terrain should be fun - planning a coastal terrain board which I hope to showcase at some stage and potentially do a YouTube type blog (ala The Terrain Tutor...)

dsteingass wrote:I really dig the Bolt Action stuff. I have the old rules. This will be fun to watch.

I haven't played Bolt Action in either version, but the rules that I've read so far look fun

I've played Demo games at GenCon. The best thing I saw, was the GM used two GW Square bases, glued together on the faces, and those hold 4 tiny D6s that are used for activation counters and wounds, they were flocked to match the table. These little counters follow your men around on the table for quick identification.

That's an interesting idea.

To give you an idea of the terrain boards I'm thinking about, here's some scaled down mock-ups I created a few years back. Each square is 2" x 2", full sized they'd be 2' x 2'. Full table will be 8' x 8'. I have a load of pink insulation foam ready and waiting for this project...

wanted to do something like that for years...if you´re at it, raise the ground level right from the start... so that maybe even tunnels or river beds could convincingly be made...

I have seen a good and different way to do the river bed idea. Do not raise the board and make the river part of it. Make the board as normal and cut out where the river would be, making just the banks. Then lay over a 'water' surface of blue/green/brown/grey to be the river itself. This makes the board more configurable without needing custom river boards. Essentially turn these cut pieces any which way to make a lake, river, or shore line as needed.

Not the best example as these are very thin flat tiles, and to busy in terms of shape for a coastline, but as an idea:



I think it bears some merit revisiting again in the future.

Looks promising Ruglud. If the mockup is anything to go by, the full size board is going to be a beast!

Interesting idea for the water effect, but I want to have waves breaking on rocky promontory - oh boy, this will be a lot of work!

Far too warm the last few days to get anything done, so I've been outside, enjoying the glorious respite from the usual grey skies and rain we get in old Blighty...

It was Father's day though, so Happy Father's day to all those of you who are Fathers or soon to be Fathers... For my Father's Day gift I was lucky enough to get the Ghost expansion for X-Wing...

Happy Fathers Day! How many do you have? I am blessed with two myself.

I hear you about wanting to sculpt/add detail. I think I may try some clear plastic overlays for that, with some sculpted Water Effects.

Really like Maniac's idea with the water, but understand where you are going with the beach heads. How deep is it likely to be?

Maniac_nmt wrote:Happy Fathers Day! How many do you have? I am blessed with two myself.

I hear you about wanting to sculpt/add detail. I think I may try some clear plastic overlays for that, with some sculpted Water Effects.

Two as well for me - one of each. Questionable whether they are blessings or not at times

Camkierhi wrote:Really like Maniac's idea with the water, but understand where you are going with the beach heads. How deep is it likely to be?

I'm still undecided as to the approach for the water - water effects or simply sculpted and painted filler...

I do though like this effect by Terranscapes

Progress... kinda....

I glued some sand to some bases....

Gluing stuff to bases is still progress. In fact gluing things to bases is what I have been doing for a couple weeks .

Hey agree with Theo, progress is progress, lovely sandy bases, nice rich colour to the sand is that natural or do you dye?

Progress is progress right! And it's just builders sand, no additives or E numbers. Could be the grey bases and camera flash making it look like that?

Frustratingly slow getting to this stage, but strangely satisfying seeing the sand base. I really need to check my paints haven't all dried up now !!

Had a day off work so... stuck some more sand to bases

Thing about the builder's sand... filter it through a screen before using it. This removes the large grains that will cause trouble later on.

Yep, that's an option, but I usually just ping off any of the larger grains or small stones, then dab a a bit of glue and chuck more sand at it... I did though sift through the sand and picked out a load of the stones with tweezers - that was... tedious (didn't have any fine mesh at hand at the time...)

...it's almost as if you've used real sand...

Progress is progress. Every step is a step closer.

Nothing wrong with the occasional large "rock" on a base. Gives somewhere for plants to be growing.

I think you should get serious about it, get a micrometer out and go for scale sand.

Depends on what you are trying to represent really, in my minds eye, Sahara sand would be very fine and relatively uniform. Gobi dessert would be all variable and rocky, pebble beach would be larger but uniform sized. Mars apparently according to the (possibly faked) Mars Rover, is a bit of everything, but generally rocky. The moon according to (possibly faked) NASA missions, is something like the consistency of flour with the odd large rock thrown in. Just depends on where you want your models to be.

My personal bucket of stuff, is a complete mixture, of a very fine beach sand, some course sand, some cat litter, and some bird cage grit. gives me a mess which I cover up with flock made from wood chip cat litter and then some static grass. Base ends up about 10mm thicker than it needs to be and gives my models a height advantage in battle. If I ever actually played.

Now you see what you have done with your sand pictures!

Still good progress, and still love the colour of your sand.

Ahh, you see, the sand will not be sand when finished - these yanks will be stood on some classic Northern European grassland / meadow - the sand will be painted up to represent soil, then covered with a scattering of flock, tufts, leaf litter summer flowers, etc - the prone HMG base will possibly have some added woodland elements to provide some light cover - think a large log / tree stump or similar...

So similar to the official Bolt Action images:

Nice and sandy!

Ok, not an update and not related to any of my (many) projects (yet...)... But....

Is this the ultimate sci-fi gamers wet dream of a table to play on?




Okay, yeah, I know - it would be a nightmare to actually play on a table like this but wow - would I love to work for Disney and create stuff like this

More details
https://orlandoinformer.com/blog/disney-world/star-wars-land-revealed/

Me want....NOW!!

Gods that would be the job of dreams.

I would accept the aforementioned pain in the butt to play on it!

They sure know how to make models at Disney Imageneering... One of my favourites that I always make a point of looking at when I go to Hollywood Studios in Orlando is the model of the Tokyo Disney Sea 'Explorers Landing Fortress' - what really tickles me about it though is the use of the old Empire Volley Gun crew - who knew that Disney shopped at GW back in the 90s .
(use the gallery zoom to find the three figures - http://www.solegends.com/citcat1992/cat1992p353empartillery-01.htm)


http://www.disneybymark.com/tds-explorers-landing-fortress-model/

Can you imagine getting paid to build stuff like that? It would be amazing.

An absolute dream of a job...

 Ruglud wrote:
An absolute dream of a job...

Which becomes a nightmare when those pesky Star Wars geeks come out of the woodwork and start talking smack about how the doors of that type of building should slide to the left and not to the right . Or someone points out that that species would not survive out in the atmosphere of that planet without them having some sort of rebreather . I thought working at a comic and game store would be awesome when I was 18-19, but it really gave me a completely different perspective of the type of people I belong with.

I would do that kind of job at the drop of a hat.

I'd also explain to those ^ geeks that a) had the door slid to the other side the mechanism would clash with some modelled interior feature (while pointing it out), and b) said species does have a rebreather modelled onto his chest/waist and only finds they need to use it occasionally (see that chap from Rogue one). I'd have thought of it first.

Random thread has random update...

As mentioned earlier, 'when' I finally get the US Airborne painted up, I'll be basing them to reflect mid-summer, N. European grasslands. In order to get the effect I'll be using static grass of various lengths, so I've ordered some finally from eBay - then I looked at some YouTube videos and saw the various applicators. Nice, but pricey - happily though there are plenty of tutorial to make an applicator for under £10 (GBP) / $10 (USD)...

So here we go... I haven't done a step by step on this as plenty of YouTube vids, but a brief description...

Ingredients:
1x electric bug zapper (powered by 2x AA batteries) - cost £2.99 from The Range (I bought two, the second will be used for a bug zapper surprisingly)
1x small (7cm) metal sieve / tea strainer - 80p from Wilko's
Length of wire

Specialist tools:
Soldering iron and solder

Basic instructions:
Dismantle the bug zapper, cut the wires to the three wire mesh panels - these will no doubt come in useful for terrain pieces at a later date.
Cut the strainer handle down, then cut the plastic frame down so that the strainer fits and it looks nice and neat.
Given this zapper had three pieces of wire mesh, there are three wires - the wires going to the outer mesh are connected to the sieve (I actually cut one of the wires off, so just reused the other wire to connect to the sieve), the third wire I de-soldered from the control board and replaced with a longer piece of wire - this will have a crocodile clip added once I get one.

Basically all you do know is reassemble the zapper handle, with the sieve slotted in - I added a shaped piece of plywood to give the sieve a snug fit and reduce any movement when using the applicator.

Ta-da...



There you go, a couple of hours work and we're pretty much done - just need to add a 5 amp crocodile clip (I have 25 in the post for £4.25, or 19 pence each... Will also potentially fill the end with some silicone sealant to give a neater finish. So total spend is £3.98 (not including batteries and wire that I already had).

Once I get the static grass I'll give a test and see how effective it will be...