Building a town...

So,

About 6 months ago I decided to pick up a few models from Sarissa Precision Ltd to add to my old west collection. Now last year I built there Old West Train for my buddy Merle and after building it, I knew I wanted one of those for sure.

With that in the cart,  I then wanted a few more buildings. But having a good selection of 4Ground old west buildings I wanted something a bit different, so I went for the South of the Boarder set 2, which had a cool looking church and train station!

With those ordered, I sat and waited for my order to arrive. My plan was to slowly assemble and build each kit, taking my time and adding a few extras to each kit as I go. The great thing about Sarissa kits is that they are a great starting point to add extras to them and they are half the cost of 4Ground kits.

So when my box of laser cut pieces arrived, I had to decide which to work on. I started with the Market stalls and quickly assembled them. I didn't take any pictures of them as they are pretty basic and I still need to decide what I want to have on each table for a market.

The first building up was a simple Adobe building, the plus I did to it was to cover the entire outside walls with model paste as I wanted it to look more like adobe. I also added working doors on the kit by taking a cue from Crescent Root Studios and just used a simple piece of black duct tape to allow the door to open. I also textured the base so it would look better on the table.

Two story adobe

The next building up was the cantina as i needed a proper Mexican looking bar. I was excited about this kit, but once I pre assembled it, I was bummed by the overall size inside the cantina. I had wanted to add a few tables but it would be too tight to move any other models around in it. But I still love to overall look of the building. I added working doors as well as modeling paste to the outside as well.

Cantina on left with 2 story adobe on the right.

My next building was the Hacienda kit, once again I loved the look of the kit but I wanted to do something with the roof. Mexican buildings have a Spanish style look to them and I wanted to do a Spanish tile roof, but struggled to find anything that looked right. But then Drunken Samurai came to my aid by giving me some very finely corrugated card board that he got from another friend. This stuff must be for dollhouses as once it was cut into strips and glued on, it gave a very nice Spanish style roof. So big shout out to Drunken for saving the day!!!

Nice simple building.

I also made all the doors work but opted out of adding modeling paste to this one as it had some nice detail etched into the wood. The only down sided to this kit is there is no stair way up to the second floor, neither on the outside of inside, that's not a deal breaker but just bummed that there is no way up there.

Spanish Church in the rough

The next building that is on the bench is the Spanish Church, it is currently being painted but the few additions I did too this one are Spanish tile on the roof, the front doors open and I added a bell to the bell tower. with this kit I also pre-painted the inside white, as I now have learned that doing this is much easier than trying to do it while assembled.

Next up will be the Spanish style railroad station, i will be adding the tile roof to this one, this will be pretty much it. I may add some details to the inside of the station, we will see.

From Sarissa's website.

So stay tuned, more pictures will be coming as I get ready to start on the train!

TK

Arizona Game Fair Recap

Well Arizona Game Fair has come and gone and I have survived! This was my first time attending this event which is normally a all Board/Card convention, this year I was the first actual miniature game to be hosted (Yes X wing was there, but I look at that as more of a board game than miniature game), which was CAVSO. I also was brought in to run the Paint & Take for the event, which was sponsored by Talon Games. 

I ran about 20 people through the CAVSO demos, which all but one had never played a true miniature game. All that played this weekend had a blast and loved the game,  so I would say that it was a hit!

CAVSO Demo Table, thanks to Robert for lending the terrain!

A packed table for CAVSO!

Besides the demos, as I mentioned I ran three Paint & Takes with CAVSO models. Talon Games sent a bunch models to use as well as Reaper paints. My friend Richard who recruited me to AZGF, bought the brushes to use for the event.

CAVSO models on display to inspire painting!

Two full packed tables for the Paint & Take

Each session had 12 folks signed up and all but a few had never actually painted anything before. As I said before, this is primarily a board and card show, so not many painters there. Now with more board games having cool miniatures, more folks are looking to paint there miniatures in their board games. So this was a great excuse to pick up a brush and test out their skill with out having to invest in paints and brushes. Once again folks had a blast painting and for most, these were the first miniatures that they ever painted.

So how was the rest of the event? Well from what I saw of it in between my demos or classes, tit looked like it was pretty well handled. There were lots of board games and when I went over to the RPG room, it was packed! The vendor area had a good selection of shops, including Imperial Outpost. All of the shops present had good selections of items, although not to surprising, none of them had any miniatures. All the folks that played in the demos or went to the Paint & Take were asking me if they could buy any of this there, which sadly I had to point them to the Reaper website. I imagine that with more miniature games, the vendors will respond by bringing more minis next time.

And because of the success of the events I ran, it looks like i will be going back next year to host more games. In fact I will be running a few Fistful of Lead games next year at the event. How do I know that, well I went and did a bad thing the other day, I ordered two bundles of Sarissa Precision of Old West terrain!

So next year, we will have some Old West Action going on at Arizona game Fair. I am also meeting with Richard to discuss just what sort of miniature games should be show cased at future events. Now, I need to wait to get my new toys, so stay tuned for some new terrain.

TK

Fistful of Lead Reloaded!

So,

A while back, I stumbled onto a Fistful of Lead Reloaded rules on another blog I follow, Wargames and Railroads which is a great blog by the way. Anyway, Kris the blog owner did a review of a few Old West rule sets and honestly, I was not looking for another set of rules since I was happy with Legends of the Old West. But the problem with LotOW is that it is out of print and it is hard to get new players to play as most want the rule book. So after reading Kris reviews on the different rule sets, I found myself looking at the Fistful of Lead Reloaded by Wiley Games run by Jaye Wiley.

Now I have been stopping by Jayes blog for years from time to time and never put two and two together that he wrote FfoL. But after reading the review I picked up the rules and gave them a try with my buddy Robert. We were both happy with how simple and fun the rules were and it was not too long of a game. We both said we will need to get this back on the table.

Well about a two months ago, I ran another demo for my friend Richard and once again, I used the FfoL rules. It proved too be a very fun game once again and it took very little explanation to get Richard up to speed with the game, in fact it took about 5 minutes to explain everything.

Set up at Games U for Richard

 One nice thing with these rules is that they are very simple and very fun to play. The reference sheet has all you need to play on it and pretty much tells you how to play without looking at the rules. I have always said, if you can figure out a game by just looking at the reference sheet, it is a solid game.

The Good Guys from Gorgon Studios

 The game I ran for Richard brought a lot of folks around the table and the use of the playing cards for activation, just made everyone get into the mindset of Old West gaming. So with a nice looking table and a quick fast playing rule set, how can this not be a crowd favorite.

The Bad guys from Artizan Designs 

So after thinking about the games I ran and played in, I went over to Jayes site and ordered a few more items from him. I picked up For a Fistful More book, which is a nice scenario book for the game. I also ordered his laser cut tokens since it seemed wrong to use the LotOW counters. I also picked up his special playing cards, these have all the special rules on them, you can use regular playing cards, but heck, why not have these cards.

Even more scenarios!

I also order Viva la Revolucion for doing the Mexican revolution, can you say Wild bunch??? And I also picked up his Horse and musket rule book as well for my buddy Robert. I am curious to take a look at it for some Pirate action! So i see many games of FfoL in the very near future, in fact I may be taking running a few games of FfoL at a local con in July, still working out details.

So if your looking for an affordable fast and fun Old West game, Fistful of lead Reloaded is right up your alley, I highly recommend it.

TK

Desperados for Thunder Mesa Mining Co.

Quick little update today.

Painted up a few old west figures for a friend up in Camp Verde for his On30 layout called Thunder Mesa Mining Company which is a model railroad blog that I follow. You will notice that the model railroad layout is based on the Big Thunder Mine train rollercoaster at Disneyland and the Calico Mine Train at Knott's Berry Farm. Dave Meek is an outstanding modeler and I love looking at his layout.

A few weeks ago he did a post on an expansion of the layout and I thought I would send him a few extra old west figures I had lying around to populate the layout. Now these are Foundry miniatures and are 25mm ( or 1/56 scale) and will be pretty close to 1/48th scale figures. So a few hours of work and off went these four desperados to join the Thunder Mesa Mining Co (or rob their trains!). So go check out his awesome blog and once the figures arrive I am sure they will make an appearance somewhere on the layout.

TK