Tenement High-Rise from Toy Playsets

Recently I've been knocking out a number of projects that have been sitting around for a while: units for my Kings of War army, various industrial terrain pieces, a case for my fantasy miniatures, barbed wire sections, as well as a crashed helicopter for Tim and a graveyard hill for Josh.

Now I've finished off the last of the in-progress stuff that was cluttering up my to-do list: the mammoth near future tenement high-rise.

This piece began life as pieces of two toy playsets from the Pokemon and Toy Story product lines. I picked up each at resale shops for about $3 each.

I'd love to find more of these, as that bridge section would be great, and the Toy Story playset could be used almost as-is.

Construction 
With these two inspiring pieces of plastic on my workbench, I got to work. The front and left side of the building are from the Pokemon building.

The right and rear are mostly cut-up sections of the Toy Story structure. I used superglue and plastic cement when possible, but epoxy was necessary for much of the construction due to the soft plastic of the Toy Story structure.

They are epoxyed to a wood base with cut up card for the cement flooring.

The basic building got covered with lots of other bits including toy pieces and crates, then was topped off with a Happy Meal toy chunk.

Then I rubbed the sides and ground sections with pre-mixed cement to add texture, then spray painted the whole thing black.

At this point, I realized I'd made a mistake. I had bought fireplace cement instead of premixed concrete patch for the painted surface, and the texture began to crumble off! I stuck it on the shelf in disgust, where it stayed for almost a year. Ugh!

Finishing and Finished! 
Recently, I decided to finish this one off. I took a toothbrush to the entire structure and brushed off any loose cement, then painted black gesso over the bare and rough areas to re-prime the piece and stabilize the texture that remained. Then it was simply a matter of drybrushing on the main colors, a couple of heavy brown washes and then a drybrush of tan, and I was done.

There's always more that can be done, but for run-down terrain, I prefer quick and dirty painting. Here's a pic of the finished product. The miniatures in the pictures are a Mad Cat mech (by Joyride), Urban War Gladiators and a Void Junkers buggy.

Front

Right

Back (a bit too much flash, but it shows the two upper floors with room for miniatures)

Left

I'm particularly pleased with the roof. The crates are glued in permanently to allow minis to see over the front.

The street level view has some nice details as well.

I'm very pleased with the way this turned out. This is the largest single piece of terrain I've ever built, and it wasn't terribly difficult to construct, nor was it very time consuming compared to smaller pieces. My collection currently has a lot of small and medium-sized buildings for skirmish games. This, however, is the start of a series of urban structures that will still be well suited to skirmish games, but large enough to be useful for my 28mm Mech Attack games as well. The future is going to be BIG!

-- Karl, Chicago Skirmish Wargames club member

Painting the Wounded City Game Mat

Late last year I picked up not one, but two Zuzzy terrain mats: the Ruined Land mat, which I painted immediately to use for Song of Blades & Heroes, and the Wounded City mat, which has been rolled up in a corner for many months ... until now!

I painted it up last weekend in anticipation of some upcoming post-apocalyptic and sci-fi gaming. My painting method was quite a bit different this time. Instead of a solid color base coat (my typical approach for the other 4+ Zuzzy mats I've painted), I went with a different technique, inspired by this blog post.

Yes, that's right, I used a high-density foam paint roller (!) as a sort of super-drybrush to hit most of the raised bits of the mat with regular white latex house paint. This is the type of roller I used -- you don't want to use a typical fuzzy roller, as that will put way too much paint onto the mat.

My house paint was a little dried up and tacky, which was even better because even less of it stuck to the roller. Really, you don't want a lot of paint on your roller. Here's the mat after the initial dry-roll-brush.

Yep, that's straight white -- I was trusting that the final wash would dull it down considerably. The cracked pavement got straight black paint. I also painted the exposed bricks with reds, browns and dark greens.

With the first couple of rolls, it was clear that the roller was leaving marks on the mat. Thankfully, I was able to use this to my advantage and create a rough city grid using the occasional roller marks, which fit with the existing cracks and foundation details that were built into the mat itself. You can probably see the roller marks in this photo, but the final wash dulled them down considerably.

I made a wash that was mostly black paint, with a few healthy dollops of burnt umber mixed in, all watered down to a fairly thin wash consistency. Here's a look after it dried.

Everything is nice and dull, and the worst of the paint roller marks have been sort of absorbed into the overall design of the mat. I used a grey drybrush on a few spots, just to add some variety, and I highlighted the exposed bricks just a little bit, but otherwise I didn't have to do much to the mat once the wash dried. Here are a few detail shots of the cracked pavement.

And here's an action shot showing some of my existing terrain pieces alongside some newly painted figures (Kolony Militia from Pig Iron).

I have a ton of rubble and broken concrete terrain pieces (made from bits of packing foam) that will look just perfect on this mat.Using the high-density roller was fun and saved me a lot of time and effort. I probably spent 3 hours total working on this mat last weekend, and most of that was just waiting for various layers to dry. I'm really excited to get this terrain mat onto the table for a game!

-- Patrick, Chicago Skirmish Wargames club member

Robotech, Battletech and Mechwarrior Mechs for 28mm Wargaming

Thanks to a recent trade with a gentleman on DakkaDakka, I acquired a huge box of mech toys for 28mm gaming. With this acquisition of figures, my collection has gotten pretty big, so I took some time to write up a guide to Robogear, Battletech, Mechwarrior, Macross and other mecha suitabable for 28mm gaming.

Throughout the review I'll refer to them by the name under which they were sold, with the Battletech universe name alongside in parentheses. The figures provided for scale are all Games Workshop Cadian Imperial Guardsmen with Pig Iron Kolony heads. The squares on the background are in inches, but the grid starts about three-quarters of an inch off the table. The angle of the photos will make the largest mechs appear a bit taller.

Exo-Squad/Robogear
In the 90s, after the Playmates toy company had produced the last of its original designs for the "Exo-Squad" line of toys, they reached outside the cartoon (and back a decade) and reissued a wide range of Robogear toys from the 80s. Robogear was the English language version of the Japanese cartoon "Macross." The early years of Battletech also used many Macross designs in the artwork and background. You can see the whole range of ExoSquad toys at the excellent Virtual Toy Chest. Most of these figures are still available for decent prices on Ebay.

Exosquad/Robogear Medium series
This series of 6 to 7 inch action figures are fairly simple with nice articulation, but no separate parts, or pilots. They look great on the wargames table, and are just big enough to work well with 28mm figures. The two on the outside are stock, the middle three have been repainted (and some modified). From left: Invid Scout ship, Excalibur Mk IV (Warhammer), Spartan (Longbow), Raidar X (Rifleman), Gladiator (Archer)

I acquired these three stock versions and the Mechwarrior Legionnaire (more on this later) in the big box!

Robogear large series
These larger vehicles had opening cockpits, lots of articulation and space for pilots (who, curiously, were not also reissued). They are nice toys, but VERY big. From left: Officer's Battlepod (Marauder), Tactical Battlepod, Invid Shock Trooper

Battletech 
These toys were released for the Battletech cartoon of the 90s. They were the first toys made based on non-Macross Battletech designs. Though not in scale with their action figure pilots, most (though not all) of these mechs are very close to 28mm scale. Back row, from left: Bushwacker, Axeman, Thor, Hunchback, Mauler. Front row: Toad (Elemental Battle Armor)

Mechwarrior Die Cast
Released by the Joyride company in the early 2000s to accompany the "Mechwarrior: Dark Age" collectible miniatures game, these metal and plastic models were described as 1/56 scale, but came with 1/87 scale pilots. The same models were produced both as pre-assembled action figures and self-assembled construction kits. Though not all perfectly sized for 28mm, this line contains some of the finest Battletech models yet produced. The Mad Cat in particular (disregarding the size of the pilot) is one of the best. Absent from the picture below is the Jupiter mech, which is very nice looking, but even more out of scale than the rest. These become available with some regularity on Ebay, but unfortunately they often command extremely high prices, especially the Mad Cat. From left: Legionnaire, Mad Cat, Forestry Mech (comes with an interchangeable claw arm, awesome!)

Other Model Kits 
Robogear - With minimal conversion, these remarkably affordable 28mm to 35mm Russian model kits have lot of potential for mech gaming. They're widely available on Ebay.
Macross - Coming in a bewildering array of scales and configurations, these Japanese model kits are very nicely detailed.
Gasaraki - Hard to find, but these beautifully done 1/35 scale model kits look right at home alongside 28mm Battletech and Macross designs.

From left: Robogear Werewolf (lightly modfied), 1/72 Macross Valkyrie (custom gun), Gasraki Shinden Battle Armor (weapon swap on left arm), Robogear Locust (mostly stock)

Here's another photo showing a comparison of the largest of the various lines along side each other. From left: Macross 1/72, Robogear/ExoSquad Medium 7-inch, Robogear Exosquad large series, Mechwarrior by Joyride

Conclusions 
Most of the unmodified mechs described above were recently acquired in the "big box." I've been searching for many of these (especially the Battletech toys) at a price I an afford for a very long time. Unfortunately most of them are significantly larger than the majority of the mechs I have. In my 28mm mech gaming, I'm not a stickler for mech sizes, but the majority of the Battletech and larger Robotech toys are drastically larger than the rest of my current collection of mechs (most pictured below) and would look out of place.

On the positive side, it's great to be able to finally see these toys in person. The Mechwarrior die cast figures and the additional Robogear medium kits will make excellent reinforcements. Even if I end up selling the Battletech and larger Robogear toys, perhaps they can fund the acquisition of some other rare mech models.

-- Karl, Chicago Skirmish Wargames club member

Quake & Mourn Campaign: Session 3 Report

Welcome back for the report of our third campaign session! Last week's games featured a few guest warbands, as Devin (an occasional player who we haven't seen in some time) stopped by, and Josh and Pat both brought out new warbands for custom scenarios.

Deep Woods Vengers vs. Tharks of the Wyl'st Horde

Location: Brionbock Dale

Scenario: We Came for the Honey, We Stayed for the Cave Bear

This scenario is part of the forthcoming Band of Gnomes supplement. Tim's Tharks and Karl's Elves battled over a trove of rare honey guarded by a bear deep in the wooded dale. It was a hard fought battle in which the elves managed to steal the honey and slay the mighty cave bear. However, unsurprisingly the Tharks were brutal in their combat prowess and slaughtered enough of the elves to secure a draw.  

In the scenario, players score points for securing batches of honey, slaying the cave bear and killing their enemies. It had an interesting mechanic for bees to be riled out of the hive and attack the thieves. We were able to identify a few areas where the scenario still needed some work, but overall it was very enjoyable. 

After the battle, the Tharks passed through the remains of a haunted fortress, but found it empty. The Elves came across an evil dark unicorn, but it quickly fled, recognizing their good natures and wanting nothing to do with them. Tim and Karl tied in this game.

Garrison of the Sunken Fort vs. Undead Marauders

Location: The Moaning Marsh

Scenario: The Sunken Fort (a custom scenario)

Devin played the Defenders of Sunken Fort, a group of lawful knights and footmen who had stumbled across the Sunken Fort while exploring the Moaning Marsh. As night fell, the defenders learned all too well how the marsh got its name, as rotting, shambling undead warriors stumbled out of the gloom to assault the fort!

After several tense turns, Devin seized the initiative and turned the tide against the ghoulish marauders. This was a fun game and a nice opportunity to try out a batch of new terrain that Pat had recently completed.

Tainted Thegn and His Dire Men vs. Royal Assassination Squad

Location: Sunderstone Badlands

Scenario: Assassination 

In the first of two scenarios featuring Josh's Royal Assassination Squad, he made short work of the Tainted Thegn's Dire Men. The mechanical monstrosities (dispatched on assignment from the city council of Vildeburg) were tasked with defeating Ditherprank, a powerful* wizard in the employ of the Dire Men.

(*debatable)

After a brief, savage battle, the Dire Men were unable to overcome the hulking automatons of the Assassination Squad and so quit the field. Josh won, and after the battle Mattias's forces came across an abandoned watchtower which they claimed.

Garrison of the Sunken Fort vs. Deep Woods Vengers

Location: Brionbock Dale

Scenario: We Came for the Honey, We Stayed for the Cave Bear

After departing the Sunken Fort, the knightly garrison attempted to foil the Elves' second gathering of honey. However, the wily elves had learned from their last encounter. The garrison managed to get 3 of the 5 honey batches, but the elves rampaged through their ranks to claim the victory. Following the battle, the garrison's bad luck continued as they became lost in the wilderness. The Elves came across an adventurer's ghost, but couldn't persuade him to give up any treasure. Karl defeated Devin in this scenario.

Tainted Thegn and His Dire Men vs. Undead Marauders

Location: The Moaning Marsh

Scenario: The Sunken Fort (a custom scenario)

The Tainted Thegn and His Dire Men came across the Sunken Fort, which had recently been the scene o fa fierce battle earlier in the evening. Mattias's warband was very well positioned in this battle, since they were all mounted cavalry figures and could trot to and fro on the battlefield in response to the undead incursion. 
 

Mattias routed the raiders, then his warband found a stash of gold in a nearby graveyard.

Royal Assassination Squad vs. Tharks of the Wyl'st Horde

Location: Agamin Boneyard

Scenario: Assassination

The Royal Assasination Squad tested their mettle against the battle-hardened Tharks in another assassination scenario. However, the Tharks turned the tables and managed to kill the leader of the assassination squad, causing the mechanical monstrosities to flee the battle. Following the battle, the Tharks discovered an abandoned graveyard, but it held nothing of value. Tim defeated Josh in this scenario.

So far, the campaign is progressing nicely. Each player has been able to play about two games per session, which means those who have attended every night have at least six games under their belts, and their warbands are quite advanced. The club seems to be enjoying the scenarios, and plenty of players have invented their own custom scenarios. 

For those keeping score at home, here are the campaign records as they stand after session 3.

• The Druids of Vitu Daru (Josh)  2-1 
• The Scourge of Longrieve (Pat) 2-3
• The Tainted Theon and his Dire Men (Mattias) 2-2
• Tharks of the Wyl'st Horde (Tim) 3-4-1
• Deep Woods Vengers (Karl) 4-3-1
• The Unnamed Orcs (Terrence) 1-1
• Nobanga's Ronin (Jon) 1-1

Next week we'll take a break and do some post-apocalyptic gaming (another CSW passion for sure), but will be back soon with the second half of the campaign.

-- Karl, Chicago Skirmish Wargames club member

Quake & Mourn Campaign: Assassination, with Extreme Prejudice

Last week the club gathered to play the next round in our fantasy campaign. In this game, Josh and I faced off in a quick assassination scenario set in the windswept wastes of the Sunderstone Badlands.

Ditherprank came to rue the day he desecrated that road-side shrine of St. Gormly with his kaotic magicks, because, as by whisper on wind, news of his deed came to the royal Heirophant in Vildeburg and she dispatched her Royal Assassination Squadron to destroy the blasphemer. The priesthood mechanical duly, and with the blessings of all the saints, awakened the cold metal contrivances of murder and set them on their path, with an Adept of the brotherhood militant to guide them.

 

Fulgid Glim and his banditry were tracking the remnants of a defeated orc warband south across the Sunderstone Badlands when they heard the royal klaxon echoing off the stones. The Adept militant called forth Ditherprank by name. 

Glim glared at his puckish magician sharply and hissed. Ditherprank whimpered, as much in fear of the Tainted Thegn as of the Murder Machines arrayed against him. The mute sycophant who carried Ditherprank said nothing, but then he never did.

Needing no spurring from Fulgid Glim, nor any excuse for the glory of battle and trampling dust, the Dire Men rode at the assassins, and were knocked aside and gunned down as the contraptions spun violently forward.

Ditherprank shrieked at his mute to find some cranny-hole in which to hide themselves, but they found no sanctuary in the blasted dirt. In a breath, a magnificent machine was above him, and with its blessed hammer smote the mute full in the trunk, sending him - and Ditherprank beside - in a bloody arc that could only be described as celestial in its height and grace.

The machine stalked to the broken, twitching body of the mute and regarded it for a cold moment...and as the mute gave a final spasm and expired, the machine moved just as coldly away. 

A dozen yards off, in the pit of a pock-marked crater, from the skull that imprisoned the spirit of Ditherprank the wizard, there issued a rattling sigh. His calcic temple had gained a long and painful crack, which would irk him greatly over his centuries of imprisonment, but he had escaped otherwise without harm. It was a shame about his mute, but one could not fret greatly over that withall. Because, thought Ditherprank, when the shit hits the shrine, there are many mutes in the world but there is only one Ditherprank.

-- Mattias, Chicago Skirmish Wargames club member