Stormwall Magnetizing

One thing that seems to make storage and transport of huge figures easier to move is magnetizing.  I like to magnetize the waist and the feet at a minimum so the piece can be taken apart and stored.

Here's a pic of my StormWall in pieces that made him manageable to paint and store.

What you can't see is that the base is also magnetized.  When the Stormwall does get killed, I can put away the model in its foam and leave the base right on the table where it was destroyed.  No extra wreck marker needed and the template left in place LOOKS GOOD.  Here's a pic of the Stormwall and the base.

The real benefit is that the model now stores in a much smaller foam footprint that fits inside my existing case.  No need for a custom foam or additional foam outside my case special for the colossal.

May Prototypes

Made some progress with the new buildings.  Here's the street scene with just a few buildings.

The buildings need paint next but I wanted to work out the kinks with this prototype set.

Some more sign options and a few cross-hair markers for Bill.  In the background is a vending machine that got too close to my gray overspray and now has an unintentional design on the front.
 

Here are the bus stop and subway entrance pieces -- cut out but no add-ons attached.  These are just the prototypes -- after putting them together, it was clear that some design improvements were needed.  When I cut out the next set, I'll put the transparencies on them to look like plexiglass.

While cutting things out, I found that it's super simple to cut out 3", 4" and 5" rings for use in Warmachine.  Fifty cents of materials makes a useful game aid.

Here's the work / paint tray I cut out to make the rest of the artistic work go a little easier.  The intent is to make some that allows me to do some painting and then put the whole tray away easily.  The tray protects the kitchen table too.

Infinity Board Progress

I've been doing entirely too much "designing" and not enough "producing" or painting so I devoted some time while the gf was traveling to put together some of this stuff that I've been cutting out.

First is a small park with hedges, topiary and a statue.

 

 

From a different angle, you can see some baby blue shops on the left, a few street ads and three flower boxes.

 

Same view from a little higher up

 

Here's an overview of the street.  You can see the red long bridge at left and the new jersey barriers in the middle at top.

Here's a little closer view of the street level.  The tabletop is a gray street.  The curbs that are under the buildings are a different piece that can be picked up and moved.  The troops are walking on a crosswalk that's actually painted on the tabletop.  I may paint over them.  Crosswalks turn out to be equally well painted on a piece of plasticard that is easily movable where the tabletop paintjob isn't.

Here's what the street looks like from the point of view of the 1K Sons

 

Still a TON of work to do on this board.  Plenty of designs that haven'been cut out.  Hoping my next post is the Mag Lev train.

Terrain Storage

Someone asked what my system was for storing terrain.  This is a quick post for that.

First step - Folding Tables (courtesy of Cyric).  This allows for a gaming area to be converted for games and then back to a family area with only a little effort. 

Next - A rolling shelf unit holds all the books, game craft and terrain pieces.  To keep them dust free and protected, I put terrain in storage containers.

Storage containers - I generally put my terrain in labelled storage containers so I can get to it easily and keep it dirt/dust free.  It also makes it easy to move and store in the garage or basement.  Stackable, water resistant, $4 each on sale.

Build small - I rely heavily on scatter terrain and re-usable pieces between game systems.  You can change it around for infinite variety.

Flat terrain is preferred.  Where terrain goes vertical, it is usually nested and stackable.  It must fit in a storage container.
I gave away all my centerpiece terrain because it doesn't store easily in a 14" x 20" space.

Tabletops -- You can change your whole scene by changing from an open field to desert terrain to a water colored board.  Tabletops store flat against the wall.

A good storage system in the basement also helps keep you organized.

Terrain Weekend

Bryan and I took some time to paint up and assemble some of the buildings I had cut out with the laser.  I have to say that the painting took longer than expected.  The assembly on the kidney shaped building did too.

The results?  Here are some pics of the building and catwalks we assembled. 

Learned plenty on this weekend.  The prime and paint we used made the process of painting these buildings longer than it needed to be.  There were some problems with a few of the building segments that we found when we assembled them.  We found that very thin segments could be quite brittle.  There's a set of windows with a thin sill that are just waiting to be broken by a misplaced hand.  Also, the kidney shaped building was a fail.  Took a lot of time to design, cut and assemble and the finished product looks cheap and amateur.

The buildings we did assemble have the designed effect.  Cheap, simple, effective terrain that's strong, fully functional and storable.  Below are some pictures of those buildings in storage mode.  All the buildings are storable in russian doll mode.

The building below is all three buildings stored in one.

Next steps:  Lots of touch-ups yet to do on the paint.  Plenty of other building, painting and assembly to do.  I have an L-shaped building and a balcony building designed.  I'd also like to recut the roof of one building roof that's pretty sloppy.

Laser Cut Buildings

I've always has trouble with making buildings for wargames.  The problem is in the windows.  Drills make round holes in wood and mortising tools are not nearly as good as they promise in their ads.  I made a full Russian Tank factory once and had no trouble with the factory but the office windows were a debacle.  Drill, saw, drill, saw, saw, saw, drill -- took forever.

To get around the window problem, I tried cutting out a building wall from a piece of MDF but found that my tablesaw cut straight but couldn't cut square especially for small pieces.  Not a good tool for making miniature terrain.

After seeing all the recent startups using lasers to make buildings, I looked around and found one for rent.  First step was to design a throw-away building I call Building 0.  I have no intention of making any/many of these but it's here to build some skills around the drawing program and make the mistakes around fabricating.  Here's a cut-out of the roof of Building 0 and a staircase.

 

Once cut with lasers, the walls come out like this: 

 

It's a very simple setup -- 6"x6" building with 3" floors.  Here's what it looks like with just the base plus the roof section.  (I will apologize right now for some truly lousy photography)

The roof has a balcony around the top with cutouts to allow for walkways to be added.  I also made a middle floor that I can copy to be floor 2, 3, 4, etc.

I learned several things with this building. First and foremost -- the engraving I did on the outside of the building takes a LONG time to print. Plain old cuts take much less time. Granted they're less interesting but for quantity, I need to lose the engraving.  Also, the joinery I used presumed the MDF was uniformly 1/8" but I found it's a few fractions of a millimeter smaller in most cases.  The holes I cut for holding things together (mortices) need to get a little thinner.

Here's the simple building with a staircase going up the side to the second floor. 

After putting it in play, I found that my proportions were off. It looks good but the rise needs to be steeper and the stairs need to end higher.

 

I also built a 6" walk way to go between buildings.  I don't have a building for it to go to -- so it's just propped up against a middle floor for Building 0. 



The walkway's a little off in the ratios too -- the railing is too low and the walkway isn't very interesting overall. Needs some cutouts or a railing.

 

Here's what the building looks like with the base, the middle floor and the roof.

The next step is to print a few more middle floors and paint it up.  Look for another post in about a week.

Historic Wargaming

This is what I did this weekend:  tried out a set of self written American Civil War game rules.  Overall, not so bad.  Took 6 pieces of feedback to improve the rules.  Now I just need to get them arranged well and tighten up the verbiage.

Trip to Historic Wargame Convention

On May 19, 2012 I went to the Drums at the Rapids, a historic miniatures wargame convention.  Here are some pictures from the games.  Some of them are in focus but it's a new phone/camera so some are pretty blurry.

The most impressive game I saw at the convention was the Russo-Japanese Naval Battle.  Here are some of the pics:

Pretty cool huh?  Yeah, I thought the models were very good until the gamemaster told us they were scratch built.  Every smokestack, mast, line, flag and wave modeled on the base was made by him.  That makes this fleet ASTOUNDING in my mind.

He also had plumes of water exploding out of the sea where shots from the main guns went wide of their targets.  It was great to see the Russian fleet in flames and surrounded by these water eruptions.



Below, Vikings raid the fishing village.  The Longboats are further off past the river.

This was the French Foreign Legion board.  What was striking to me was how good the village looked.

I need to work on my Menoth village more. His stuff just looked too good.



This is a small small section of the huge Prussians vs. French board. To give you a sense for size, the table was three times the size of the gaming table in my basement. Packed with models.

Here's a Gladiator arena -- scratch built -- and the Gladiators that compete in it.

And this is the stuff I came for.  Very juicy game of ACW in 20mm.

The game I played was in 6mm and I unfortunately took NO pictures of it.  Oh well, next time.

New Mosh Pit

I had a chance to finish off that Mosh Pit project I started a long while back.  The pit is an MDF disk that's 16" wide.   On top is a set of ancient block and sand in the pattern of a ruined temple.

I had a few things in mind when putting it together.  First -- it had to be interesting to play on.  It had to outline the play area and not add any effects that would withdraw from the Mosh Pit. 

To that end, none of the blocks or ruins on the pit are tall enough to count as an obstacle or obstruction.  Those can be added as seperate terrain pieces later.  Another effect on the pit is a 1" zone around the edge.  When Mosh Pit was originally released, there were two pit widths quoted -- 14" and 16".  For old schoolers that like the 14" width, players can ignore the outer width and just use the sand line as the outer boundary.

There are some effects on the pit that are artistic.  It's hard to see in this pic but there are two semiburied stone faces on the pit.  

Looking forward to playing on it!

Tournament Model Tray

Got inspired to make a tray for transporting figures while at a tournament.  The idea was to have something that would allow magnetized figures to stick to it but also provide some amount of setting for them to be standing on.  The game group batted around ideas and this is what came out: 

It's a cookie sheet painted green and flocked.  There are some dirt patches in the middle and tufts of grass growing up throughout. 

Figures don't have to be magnetized to use it but it helps keep them steady while you're walking around.  Here's a small battlegroup (25pts) on the tray.

The terrain is magnetized so it comes off to be used on the battlefield too.  The beauty of this type of tray is that it folds flat and slips in the side of my miniatures container.

In this next picture, you can see that there's a few imperfections I need to fix.  Bare metal that needs additional flocking.

This is how a big battlegroup looks on the tray.  I could see getting another battle engine or some terrain piece on this one but not a lot more.  Another troop unit would make it pretty crowded.

The next one will be bigger.  I'll probably add a layer of sand before painting and flocking it -- just to make the ground more uneven.  Might even add a stone cliff on one side (magnetized on bottom with a sheet steel top) to add some character.

Here's a pic to show the value of magnetizing the figures.  The figs are stabilized by the magnets but not stuck to the tray by any means. 

I didn't go crazy with the magnets because didn't want the figures to get additional wear from being pulled off the tray.  The connection is a bit weak though.  If I add another layer of material to the tray, the magnets I used on these models might need reinforcing or replacement with larger ones.