A Shot Heard Around the Universe- the megagame.

A couple of weekends ago I was in Leeds for the most recent Pennine Megagame offering ‘A Shot Heard Around the Universe.’ This was an original offereing by Tim set in a universe of his own creation. Imagine a series of inhabited systems at the edge of a galaxy owned by a distant but powerful empire, the systems are feeling hard pressed due to increasing taxes and feel a little forgotten… the whiff of rebellion and secession is in the air.

Being a space game I decided to volunteer my services and provide some 3D props to the game. I thoughht if every team had a model planet it would not just add to the visual element of the day but a physical representation to identify with would help team immersion in the game.

The models were surprisingly simple to do. Once I found some polysterne balls (and one ping pong ball) of the right size I mounted them upon bamboo skewers and primed them with a tick coat of PVA. This was to give the balls a bit of rigidity and well as give the paint something to stick to. Expanded polystyrene can be difficult to get paint to adhere to at times.

I got a list of the descriptions of the planets from Tim and put the base colour and basic continents on with a brush. After that it wasa simple job to shade the planets by dabbing on various complimentary colours with a bit of sponge, blending it all together whilst wet. The final touch was bit of white sponged on those planets with seas to represents clouds. I didn’t go to excess here to keep the underlying detail.

After another coat of PVA to seal them I made some stands for them with cut down pens and air drying clay.

Once all set up on the large game map I thought they looked pretty good and added to the day.

My role on the day of the game was being kept very busy running the espionage map on a side table. The board represented a mixture of physical and conceptual areas on each of the planets and the security agents moved around the nodal map conducting operations. It certainly through up some interesting situations in the game, the system worked fine but some of the values need reworking. One player did out manoeuvre the rest with skillful play- can’t remember the last time I had a player so successfully Machiavellian.

Cheers,

 

Pete.

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Urban scatter terrain and winter PMC/ SOF figures.

To break up the long running series of posts of my holiday photos I thought I’d throw in some bits I’ve been working on.

I play a few PC games- I’m not a hardcore gamer by any means but I like a good co-op session with my friends, its good to relax chat and shoot stuff online for a few hours every now and again.

One of the games that I’ve been playing a bit of recently is ‘Tom Clancy’s Division’, set in a disease ridden anarchic New York city with gangs and a rogue Private Military Contractors running about. [I’m pretty sure Tom Clancy had nothing much to do with the game, it was released after his death, but his name still shifts units…]

 

Inspired by the game I’ve been making some bits and pieces for my modern gaming collection all in my usual 20mm size/ 1/72nd scale.

A large barricade I made up from various bit and pieces: skip, shipping container, truck cargo bed and resin cast rubbish bags.

 

Back view: the base sections came from old Matchbox kits.

 

A couple of rubbish piles and skips mounted on Wills plastic scraps.

 

Some sections of modern concrete barriers, these and the rubbish piles came from Anyscale models clicky.

 

Some wooden barriers, MDF kits from Blotz clicky.

 

These are my PMCs inspired by the game’s Last Man Battalion protagonists: I used Elhiem Minitatures clicky US Rangers from their Somalia range. White helmets and jackets, trousers in UCP and webbing in Olive green mean they’ll do for US SOF types if I need some in winter bases.

 

For transport they get two HMMWVs. These started of as toys, a gift from Tim at Meghablitz and more clicky but scrubbed up very nicely. I painted them with spray cans using blu tack as a  mask. They were then finished with acrylics for detail and oils for weathering. A big thanks has to go out to Tim for them.

 

Cheers,

 

Pete.

 

Some Middle Eastern Scenery

 

Just finished these pieces of terrain – all with a desert theme. I’d popped into the local model shop and bought a 4 pack of OO gauge shipping containers from their model railway ranges. I decided to do 3 for my middle east tables (the fourth is being built into an urban barricade).

The small adobe building is from Blotz. It was quickly textured with a mix of filler and textured spray paint.

The last building I’m rather fond of. It was an MDF kit from Sarissa- Precision. It has a more Middle East urban feel to it, I’m planning to pick up more from the same range.

Cheers,

 

Pete.

http://www.knightwing.co.uk/

http://blotz.co.uk/

https://www.sarissa-precision.com/

Where we are going we need roads….

As you will have seen from past posts I’ve been getting into 6mm ‘Cold War goes hot’ gaming recently. However I’ve been unhappy with roads I’ve used for my games: I just used the thinnest dirt roads from my 20mm collection. Whilst they did the job I’ve been on the look out for a more suitable replacement and after considering a few options I’ve made my own (kind of).

 

Firstly I purchased this rather nice  PDF from Wargames Vault:

http://www.wargamevault.com/product/196057/Roads-1-285

Being multilayered you can selected the different types of road marking and road surfaces before printing them out. I went for European markings and dirty asphalt dry before getting them printed out (Cheers Brian). I then used the technique I had previously utilized to make megagame counters and stuck them on to self adhesive floor tiles (4 for £1). You can get thicker more durable tiles from places other than pound shops but they need to be cut with a blade and ruler rather than scissors that slows down production.

I went from this:

To this:

I tidied up the edges and added a bit of weathering with marker pens and pencil crayons to give a bit of variety:

I did plenty to give enough variety to the road layouts. The vinyl tiles give them a bit of flexibility but I don’t know how well they’ll drape over hills… Gentle slopes should be OK.

I made up a quick layout so I could see how they look:

You get a decent selection of parts although I’d have liked to see a single into dual carriage way connector. I grabbed some 6mm toys to see how they scaled (Heroics and Ros based on 50mm and 30mm squares for 5core Brigade Commander):

 

Overall I’m really pleased with how they look. I’ll get a game in with them as soon as possible to try them out.

 

Cheers,

 

Pete.

 

Some 6mm terrain.

MDF laser cut terrain has really taken off in the wargames world in recent years, I’ve been buying the odd bit for my 20mm collection for a few years now but have only just got round to getting some for my 6mm games.

 

I bought three buildings from Blotz to try. The bigger buildings come in sections and it is a nice touch that you are able to buy ruined levels to have the same building with different levels of destruction.

Construction was simple enough using PVA glue and following the online instructions. I took my time and let sub assemblies dry before moving on to the next stage. MDF can soak up paint due to its porus natures so the buildings got two coats of spray paint (from pound shop cans) before I went at them with hobby acrylics.

 

Overall I’m impressed with them and will order some more further down the line.

http://blotz.co.uk/

 

I recently pick up some small pieces of 6mm scatter terrain from Leven Miniatures to use as markers and objectives. I went for the fuel dumps, supply dumps and the sandbags.

 

The above strips of sandbags are intended to be put just infront of a company base (50mm square for 5core: Brigade Commander) to show that it is dug in. I’ll be after a few more bits from Leven next time I see them at a wargames show.

http://www.levenminiatures.co.uk/

Cheers,

 

Pete.

 

 

Assorted vehicles and terrain bits.

I’ve got these finally finished off since the new year (I’ll also do a looking forward/ looking backward post tomorrow) so I thought I’d do a big photo dump of a post to get them out there:

First up- a 6mm sized ruined factory made from bit of resin I got from a private seller on the Lead Adventure Forum.

A small house from Leven miniatures, again in 6mm.

A barricade from S and S model scaled for 20mm. I’m tempted to give the bus some more weathering.

A Armourfast 1/72 Valentine converted to a Bishop with an S and S aftermarket part; the short coming of the Armourfast suspension are evident in the photo more than in real life. I may yet do some remedial work on them.

A cheak FAI 1/72 diecast repainted and decaled into a Finnish scheme.

A trio of 1.72 Rhodesian Bush War vehicles from S and S.

A Rhodesian SAS conversion of a Unimog,

 

 

An armoured lorry.

Another Unimog conversion; this time a mortar carrier. I’ll add the crew at a later date.

Three diecast 1/72 BTR60PBs.

Firstly a simple repaint.

One converted into a command variant BTR60PAU, conversion kit by S and S.

Repainted with infantry seated on the outside Afghan style (they considered mines a bigger risk than snipers). Infantry by S and S again.

Cheers,

 

Pete.

The last bits of scenery…?

Whilst I’ll never say never the shed is rather full so space is at a premium (and I’ll have to wait for some better weather before I can have another big tidy up) but I’ve no plans for much more 20mm terrain other than the prison and a few ruins for my desert set up.

These few bits have been finished over the last week or so:

The ruined bridge section from the Matchbox/ Revell Firefly kit.

A scrap yard made from a couple of railway modellers kits.

Another view.

A pair of Dutch style ruins from Airfix.

The rubble and the back came from a mixture of Linka casts and cat litter with a few matchsticks too.

A French style cafe or shop, again from Airfix.

The rubbles was made in the same way as for the Dutch pair.

Cheers,

Pete.