Clearing out room for Aetius and Arthur

I picked up troops to make a late Roman and Ostrogoth force and have a lot of extra minis for SAGA.  This will be posted on TMP or you can comment on the blog

A) 8 Heavy Infantry - Normans or Crusade $40

 B) 4 Norman/Crusader Cavalry $30

C) 4 Heavy Infantry - Anglo Danes, Anglo-Saxons, Saxons, Britons $20

D)  4 Heavy Infantry - Anglo Danes, Anglo-Saxons, Saxons, Britons $20

  E) 4 Heavy Infantry - Anglo Danes, Anglo-Saxons, Saxons, Britons $20

 F) 8 Viking Warriors $35

 G)  4 Heavy Infantry - Anglo Danes, Anglo-Saxons, Saxons, Britons $20

 H)  4 Heavy Infantry - Anglo Danes, Anglo-Saxons, Saxons, Britons $20

  I) 8 Warriors - Almost anyone $30

   J) 8 Warriors - Almost anyone $30

 K)   8 Warriors - Almost anyone $30

L)   8 Warriors - Almost anyone $30

 M)  10 Crossbowmen - Norman or Crusade $45

 N) 8 Warriors Norman or Crusade $40

 O) 4 Norman or Crusade Cav (Note - guy on right is on a large horse) $30

 P) 4 Byzantine Heavy Cav $35

 Q) 12 Archer - Pretty much anyone $50

 R) 4 Berserkers $24

 S) 8 Viking Warriors $40

Cold Wars 2017

My first game was the VSF race - sponsored by West Wind.  Largely featuring Empire of the Dead miniatures, with some Eureka miniatures sprinkled in.

The Race begins

 The Donkey King is in the lead (Cirque de Noir Apeman on Brewery wagon). They approach bomb throwing Nannies

 The modified Hansom cab (armored with crab legs) and the steam dog Pansy pass each other going in opposite directions

 Armored Hansom cab with freeze ray pass the Emperor Jimoleon - followed by Lee Ho Fuk on his rocket powered Penny-farthing

 Pansy sort of won the race- she passed the finish line but was shot and killed that turn.  The steam walker came in second after being stalled from the beginning and looking out of the race.  



Empire of the Dead -Friday evening
Church Police - Anglican enforcers aka Brotherhood

Anachrion Club

 In one turn the Werewolves grabbed the comfy chair - triggering the arrival of the Inquisition, and the blood cauldron - summoning the deep ones.  At this point the game turned semi-cooperative

 The Werewolves savaged the deepones- turning them into fish and chips, even the arrival of the boss had no real effect

 The Werewolves walked away with a strong showing, but quite a few of the flunkies need to go to the vet - Old Yaller is down to a 2" move and may have to be "retired"



Nice sci fi pods at an Infinity game

Monastery

My Friend Boe makes excellent foam core buildings.   The Brigade Games folks decided we wanted to run a Peninsular war game for Cold Wars.  Our emphasis was skirmish - and taking advantage of the British Rifles figures recently released,  These feature a gruff officer with a heavy cavalry sword and his burly Sergeant with a Volley gun http://brigadegames.3dcartstores.com/BG-NBR074-British-Rifles-Veterans-Command--Chosen-Men-2_p_4963.html and their supporting characters http://brigadegames.3dcartstores.com/BG-NBR073-British-Rifles-Veterans--Chosen-Men-5_p_4962.html.

One of the foci of the action would be a Monastery that blocks a supply route.
I gave Boe a couple of pictures I found that covered the basics. He did a Work in Progress series as he built it and I wanted to do some of the process of finishing the complex.

Boe delivered the finished foamcore complex.  The first step was to add aa stucco texture.  I used a mixture of Liquitex Ceramic Stucco, Liquitex Heavy body matte gel, Golden Coarse pumice and some latex paint.  Years ago I found a good base ground color in the "OOPS" bin at the hardware store.  These generally cost less than half the cost of custom mixes.  I mixed a big batch since I did not want to run out before everything was coated at least once.

I also prepped the damage sections with gravel, sand and some glue binder

 Any of the mixes will wreck a paintbrush since the grit gets jammed to the base of the brush so I used a combination of silicone pastry brushes and artists trowels to spread the stucco. 

 Next up is crackle paste.  This does a great job at creating the natural cracking that you see in real stucco

Natural crack from the crackle paste

 I used some Hirst Arts blocks to build a fountain for the inner courtyard

 The building is painted so I needed to work on the base and courtyards.  I laid out the compound and cut a piece of HDF board so that I would have a couple of inches on each side.   I used a coarse sandpaper to bevel the edges.  I then spread a tube paintable white caulk across the base, pressed the buildings into place and left to dry.

  I really wanted to secure the buildings so I caulked around the edge of the buildings then pressed in cardboard pieces to represent flagstones

 Once the caulk was dry the ground needed to be painted.  I based this on the OOPs paint and added some darker paint so there would be some gradations in color.

 The painted ground color is then flocked.  I started with flowers and tufts.  Then a liberal coat of two colors of static grass. 

Stray picture of the cracking

 Roof is on, flock still needs to be brushed off.
The roof was basecoated with spray TerraCotta then drybrusheda lighter shade

 Extra flock removed and some vines added

Inner courtyard with flowers and fountain.  The fountain water effects will dry clear and glossy

City Board - Fall In 2012 game

The buildings are mostly O Scale Railroad buildings - most of them Ameritowne.  I laid out the buildings on 4 2' by 4' sections. 

I built the sections out of 1"x2" furring strips that were backed with pegboard to add structure.  I stretched canvas dropcloth over the sections and painted them- making sure that the roads were wide enough for a good game.  The little park scene was put in mainly because I did not have enough buildings.  At one end I build an area with port and warehouses.