Thursday, August 11, 2011
I just ran across the website for Sarissa Precision, which makes laser cut buildings. What caught my eye is that they produce a line that no one else makes, but for which there is a need: victorian style city buildings
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Monday, November 22, 2010
A few links to web stores that carry 54mm toy soldiers:
http://barzso.com/
http://www.sdsoldiers.com/
http://www.toysoldierco.com/
http://www.classictoysoldiers.com/
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Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Wargaming in a Budget is a new book form Ian Dickie and Casemate publishers that should find a place on the shelves of every gamer limited by money and/or space (and that’s 95% of us). Trying to hit a happy medium between quality and cost, Dickie has produced 176 pages of concrete advice on making wargames tables, figures, outdoor terrain, buildings, ships and airplanes. There’s also a section on the types of games that you can play to get the most bang for your buck (skirmish, et. al.)
Its all good stuff, and I’m going to use a lot of his advice for my new wargames room.
About the only thing he left out is an examination of the different kinds of high quality free wargames rules you can get for every period under the sun. And you can get those right here on MiniatureWargaming.Com.
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Thursday, November 05, 2009
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Every year near Halloween, I present a horror-themed extravaganza for my gaming group. Past games have featured Cowboys versus Victorian Horrors, Weird War II, Science Fiction Horrors, Victorian Werewolf and Vampire hunters, Dr. Frankenstein’s Monsters versus the Villagers and a Cthulhu Monster Hunt.
This year, I was inspired by Ambush Alley Games’ Ambush Z rules and the excellent 15mm Zombie figures from Rebel Minis, Khurasan, Splintered Light and 15mm.co.uk. In the end, I painted about 200 zombie figures—far more, it turned out, than I needed for the Ambush Z rules.
The scenario involved three squads of troops—Special Forces, Police and HazMat specialist charged with leading groups of survivors out of an infected town. The police began in town; the HazMat team just outside, and the Special Forces on the other side of a large stretch of fields and woods outside town.
The police and HazMat teams moved quickly to hook up—there was only a foot of heavily zombie infested tabletop between their initial positions. Once in support of each other, they were able to amass a large quantity of survivors from the buildings and quickly dispatch any zombie hordes that appeared. But a lucky roll for the Zombies increased their die quality from a d6 to d8, making them more difficult to kill. The zombies were, however, no more focused than before. Taking advantage of the angles between the buildings, the human teams were able for the most part to keep them out of the line of sight, and thus milling about aimlessly.
In the meantime, the Special Forces team was having a hard time crossing three feet of open terrain. Their player was too cautious, and that allowed the zombies to build up between his position and the police and Hazmat teams. The Special Forces killed Zombies by the dozens, but were unable to clear a comfortable path to town. We decided later that in this game, you just need to keep pushing forward, creating a pocket of safety around you with firepower.
But even as the Special Forces failed to make headway, the other two teams kept slugging forward, each losing but a single figure in getting out of the town. Finally, they managed to dash into the open terrain, leaving the confines behind.
Then disaster struck. The police unit had a run of extraordinarily bad luck, allowing a couple of zombie units to close and ultimately eat all of the police and the citizens they were escorting. The Hazmat team and its citizens, however, finally managed to settle under the covering fire of the Special Forces, who by this time had also lost a man to a zombie assault. Finally, they managed to beat off one last zombie attack and pull back off the exit end of the board
The Ambush Z rules played very well, and within a couple of turns we no longer had to reference the QRS. We did run into a couple of points of confusion, however, concerning how to proceed when multiple groups of zombies are close enough to react into contact with the living players. I’m still not sure we did it right. The rules were good enough, though, that I’m planning on painting some Rangers, Delta Force and Somalis and using the sister set of rules, Ambush Alley for a “Black Hawk Down” game . I also think they’d do well with a Colonial marines versus Alien Hordes game.
The buildings in town were created with the help of Evan Designs’ Model Builder software. While the software has a 15mm scale setting, I found that it looked too small, so the ones you see are in a 1/76 scale. The images were printed out on a HP inkjet on 110lb paper, then folded, glued and taped. I had thought about gluing the printed images to foam core frames, but ran out of time. The fieldstone walls and piles of debris are from Tactical Conflict Systems (which I believe are no longer in business).
The figures came from a variety of sources, including modern zombies from Rebel Minis, zombies of an indeterminate period from Khurasan, and fantasy zombies from Splintered Light and 15mm.co.uk. The Rebel minis were the best for my purposes, being clearly modern figures. They were smaller than the others, but had a nice amount of detail, considering that they are 15mm. My only regret is that there isn’t even more variety. The Khurasan minis were slightly larger, and reminded me of the sort of zombies you’d see on a Scooby Doo cartoon, with long hair, snarling faces and tattered, draped clothing. The Splintered Light zombies were designed for fantasy games, but at 15mm they worked well enough. At any rate, they were very nicely sculpted and cleanly cast. There were, however, several unusable figures, such as the “dwarf” zombie in a helmet. The zombies from 15mm.co.uk were the largest, and most crudely sculpted of the bunch. They also were clearly medieval, with period clothing and belt purses.
In addition to the metal 15mm figures, I also bought a bag of railroad figures on Ebay from a company in China. They were slightly smaller and thinnner than the 15mm figures, but painted up and based, looked nice enough. I used these for the civilians.
You can see more photos of the Zombie game here.
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Wednesday, March 18, 2009
The Walkerloo Napoleonic miniatures are the most unique and wonderful toy soldiers I have seen in a very long time.
The figures are large (1/20 scale), die cut from heavy cardboard and printed in vibrant colors. They are kept upright by placing them in round plastic bases. They may be flat, but the illustrations are animated, colorful and full of character. You can’t help but smile when you hold one.
Creator Christopher Walker writes:
I made the first figures for my nephew and myself. I’m not a marketeer. I try to make pictures, perhaps beautiful (the widest definition of the word) ones(?). I wanted to create a romantic object in the spirit of my interest and fascination with things ‘military’. I also loved the notion of an expansive floor filling battle… in colour… like that in final scenes of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang!
... of course they have historic resonance in the costume research and poses, (I posed for them all myself! - I’ve come to realize this makes it a weird type of self portrait… ha! Walkerloo) - but its still all just pretend… and made of cardboard 200 years after the event… The costumes are accurate.. and not. After a day and and night of rain not to mention the previous engagements the costumes would have been very scruffy… Philip Haythorthwaite told me that many of the British Dragoon jackets had not had their dye ‘fixed’ ... and so their trousers and horses after the night of heavy rain would have been streaked with red dye.
The scale was an instinctual decision. I wanted sufficient detail so as it could be read easily. Later 1:20 seemed to work well regarding the blade manufacture for the die-cut process. And 1:20 was familiar from my time as an architectural student… that was also where I began making card models! I coloured the first soldiers in marker pen… but yourre restricted with colours so I experimented with paint… Gouache pigments made the colours really sing and gave the pictures an attractive solidity… The original paintings have been getting bigger with each new regiment as my eye for detail becomes more attuned. The figures are now about 50% of the original art work.
While I wouldn’t roll pots and pans at the figures like Grandpa Potts and Lord Scrumptious, the figures surely will stand up to regular tabletop (or floor) play. My seven year old has been playing with the samples I was sent, and the only damage they’ve suffered is a little bit of dirt dulling the vibrant colors.
A table full of Walkerloo Napoleonics would make a spectacular game at a convention show, or as a neat change of pace for your regular group. They’re perfect for a skirmish game (assuming you can find appropriate trees and buildings—but I think you can), or given enough space, a larger scale encounter. I’d love to see a dozen of these in each of several units massed for combat.
These figures would lend themselves well to two games I’ve been planning for years. The first is a cavalry - swordfight skirmish game. With each player controlling two or three figures, the sides would charge together, and the fight would devolve into a whirling skirmish. Turning templates would help control the movement of the horses. The second game would involve battery and counterbattery, like a tabletop version of that old computer game where two cannons blaze away at each other from opposite ends of the screen. My game would use actual, but scaled down artillery tables.
For those short on time, or weak on eyesight, the Walkerloo figures would be a great way to get started in Napoleonics. I’ve always wanted Napoleonic armies, but have not had the time to start painting. Now I can have them ready made. I’m going to order a bunch of these figures as soon as I scrape together some extra cash.
You can find the Walkerloo figures here.
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Saturday, February 14, 2009
I like to mix my own figure washes in various colors using Future Floor Wax, water and acrylic hobby paints. It’s an integral part of my painting system. I typically waste too much of both floor wax and paint, however, because I inevitably mix much more than I need. It’s occurred to me that the thing to do is to mix a standard set of colors and store them in small bottles. But I never have because I could never figure out where to get the bottles.
Then I ran across a site called Specialty Bottle. They carry bottles in a wonderful variety of sizes, in glass, plastic, and tin. I think I’m going to get a bunch of smallish ones with eye droppers.
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Miniature Wargaming is part of the "adventure games" hobby, which includes r ole p laying and board games. Wargamers recreate battles on the tabletop with toy soldiers, like a more complicated game of chess. Models range in height from 6mm to 28mm tall, with 15mm and 25mm being the most popular. There also is a growing interest in toy soldiers and military models, such as the 1/32 and 1/35 scale plastic soldiers from Conte, and Marx.
The most popular miniature wargames are fantasy and science fiction based, such as Warhammer, Warhammer 40K, Warmachine and The Lord of the Rings. World War II games such as Flames of War and Axis and Allies are new favorites. Other favorite historical periods include Napoleonics, the American Civil War, and ancients, such as Romans or Greeks. Other gamers enjoy miniature naval wargames, recreating battles like Trafalgar, Jutland and the Coral Sea.
Hobbyists research historical periods and paint their tiny soldiers in accurate uniforms. Others develop "historically realistic" rules sets or build scale battlefield terrain using model railroad techniques.
For pictures, visit the gallery.
Some of the bigger hobby companies are Games Workshop, which produces Warhammer, Wargames Foundry and Old Glory Miniatures. Wizards of the Coast produces several lines of pre-painted miniatures games, such as the Star Wars and Dungeons and Dragons miniatures games, and a historical game with pre-painted miniatures: The new Axis and Allies game. Wizkids produces a fantasy collectable miniatures game, such as the Mage Knight and Heroclick fantasy games, the science fiction games MechWarrior and Rocketmen, as well as the quasi-historical Pirates of the Spanish Main.
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