At what point can I declare that I've built a shanty-town?

Got another cool Plast Craft kit done last night, this time out; The Caravan!

This is actually a really big set and looks pretty impressive once it's all done.  The main 'building' is a trailer with a small outbuilding shabbily bolted onto the back of it.

The set also includes this very cool looking set of gas pumps.

When I've built these kits in the past I've tried to share some insight into whether they were easy or difficult to build but this time I'm a bit in the dark about that.  I really struggled with this one but to be fair once I had completed the whole thing I found a midpoint structural support laying on my desk that I had completely missed putting in in the early stages of construction.  So was it difficult; yes.  Was it my own fault it was difficult; also yes.

-Jay

Imperial Trenchers - WIP

I feel like I should start off by saying everything old is new again.

When Target Games first brought out WarZone a skirmish war-game set in the Mutant Chronicles universe in the 90's I was a huge fan.  A lot of people just saw it as a 40K knock off but I really liked the cyberpunk inspired take on the whole 'grimdark' concept.

Over the last few years I have shown some of my first and second generation WarZone figs and I have dabbled in jumping back into actually playing.  A few weeks ago my friend Ash and I actually made it as far as debating whether we were going to play the first or second edition of the rules.  Then the plan changed a little bit.

Prodos Games (who are producing the current/new version of WarZone) sent Ash two of the starter boxes to show off on his YouTube channel Guerrilla Miniature Games.  So instead of jumping in the way back machine we're painting up two new forces to play with.

I'll be doing the forces of the Imperial Mega-Corporation.  The Imperial background and imagery is all inspired by the United Kingdom with the Trenchers being a clear throw back to to the BEF of World War 1.

The starter box comes with the two squads I've started as well as two officers and a small vehicle reminiscent of the commonwealth armies Universal Carrier of World War 2 (those should be making an appearance here next week).

I'm really impressed with the quality of the figures.  To be honest when I first heard they were resin I was a little hesitant as I have had some bad experiences with resin in the past.  What's great about the Prodos figures (the ones I've got so far at least) is that most of the pieces are thick enough that bending or warping aren't an issue.  The detail is crisp, the models are light-weight and I didn't spend any more time prepping them than I would have a plastic or metal squad.

Looking forward to finishing these up this weekend and hopefully getting some games in soon!

-Jay

Some more scatter terrain

I got two more sets of the Color-ed scenery from Plast Craft Games assembled/done last night while watching TV.

These are both smaller sets meant to supplement the larger building kits and break up the table a bit.  The three main features I have to call out about the Plast Craft sets are:
1.  They're inexpensive
2.  They're easy to put together
3.  They seem pretty durable
All in all I highly recommend this stuff!

First up is the Rusted Barricades from their Post-Apocalypse collection.

I REALLY like these!  They were less than 10 minutes work to assemble and they are tabletop ready.  I'm considering getting a second set as I think they will be great for framing in areas or perhaps even building a whole junkyard (or ghetto Gorka Morka fort?).

Next is the Railway Prop set for Malifaux.

Unfortunately this is going to be the first set I have to say I'm not too impressed with.  Unlike the Rusted Barricades the wooden barricades that come in this set are only printed on one side, so from the back they are flat grey and untextured.  I also had some minor assembly issues that honestly wouldn't be a deal breaker for me but given that part of the appeal (for my anyway) with this stuff is how fast and easy it is to use I'm not sure that I'm signing up for extra assembly work.

All in all I'm still very happy with my purchases.  Each of these sets was under $20 Canadian and I'm sure they'll get used in dozens of games.  I've got a bunch more building kits to do so we'll see what's next!

-Jay

Gallus Prime and his support chickens

I finished 3 more of my Gallus Gallus for This Is Not A Test and got in my first few games today.

I used them as mutants with the wings mutation.  The figure with the helmet was my warband leader Gallus Prime, the missile launcher armed soldier is Boom Gallus and the spotter never actually made it into my force but I have an extra figure if I need him later.

I got in my first two games against the U.S. Department Of Agriculture (reclaimers) today and although I lost both games it payed a lot like Frostgrave where I didn't take any long-term crippling damage and in the end my warband is actually a bit better.

That's it for the Gallus Gallus, all six figures are done.  I've got some Hops and some Porkers up before my next This Is Not A Test game.

-Jay

It's taken me almost 4 years to start escaping from Goblintown

Over three years ago Games Workshop put their Lord Of The Rings range to bed and started with their new line of miniatures based on The Hobbit movies.

I really enjoyed the Lord Of The Rings game (still do) so I was at my local GW store about 5 minutes after the gate opened on release day to get a copy of The Hobbit Escape From Goblintown.  I started painting the forces of good almost immediately but I never really rushed to get them done so they only just got finished last year.  Embarrassing when you realise the good side is only 15 models total.

Even more embarrassing is the realisation that not a single goblin ever even got assembled.

Fast forward to now-ish and I have 2 separate games coming up where I need broken or unnatural looking men.  I don't have anything exactly right for what I need but these goblins seem like a really good substitute.

I really like the models as they are extremely well textured, they are great representations of the goblins in the movie and in-spite of being single piece models the game comes with 18 different sculpts so you get a huge horde without having a lot of repetition.

I have some other projects on my table right now that are a higher priority so I probably won't get the remaining 24 goblins done soon but now that I have a taste for them it won't take me another 4 years to come back around to them.

-Jay

I wonder if everything in there tastes like chicken?

I finally got my first building from Plast Craft Games assembled last night and now I'm wondering what the hold up was.

It took me about 45 minutes to build the Diner and it was already coloured so once it was assembled it was done!

I first discovered Plast Craft Games when they started doing licensed Malifaux scenery (some of that coming soon) but they also have this great small Post-Apocalypse line that looks perfect for Fallout themed games like This Is Not A Test.

I'm hoping to get a few more of these done this week but I have a busy week with work and I still have about 20 miniatures I need to get painted for this weekend....so we'll see what happens.

-Jay

And our next (two?) Ravenloft NPCs are...

So today I have two more NPCs done, one of whom will definitely appear in the game and one of whom may or may not, I honestly don't know at all.

Liam ApMorten is a Druid who is travelling from one-side of the core back to his "home" in the land of Forlorn.  One of the PCs has been contracted by his church to escort Liam across the core so they will be sharing some adventures together.

The miniature is the Necromancer's Apprentice from  Frostgrave so if I end up starting another Necromancer warband in the future for Frostgrave Liam might make an appearance in that game as well.

The next figure is a flashback to the content of the original I6 Ravenloft module.  The original adventure can basically be thought of as happening in three locations; the lands around Castle Ravenloft including the village of Barovia and the Vistani camp, the lower crypts/dungeons of the castle, and the above ground levels of the castle.  We'll be discussing the first two locations in two future posts but for today we'll be discussing the upper levels.  The upper levels in the original adventure were very off-putting because they swung between classic D&D encounters and some more roleplay-centric encounters.
One of the best loved encounters in the classic module was Cyrus Bellview.  If Strahd Von Zarovich is D&Ds version of Count Dracula Cyrus Bellview is D&Ds version of Renfield.

When the players encountered Cyrus he was typically a Dungeon Master's blank slate to steer the adventure and really play up some of the Gothic horror inspirations that inspired the whole thing.

I don't even know yet whether Cyrus will make an appearance in the new version of the adventure but if he doesn't I'm sure I'll have plenty of uses for a Renfield/Igor type character.

-Jay

Our first Ravenloft NPC shows up!

We haven't begun our game yet but I can start showing a few NPCs over the next few days as they are now beginning to appear in the PCs backgrounds and pre-ambles to our actual adventure.

Alica (not Alicia) is a female Ranger who is known to 2 of the 4 player characters in the game.  She is a character who has a long history with 2 of the characters and sets in motion the beginnings of their journey that will eventually take them to the land of Barovia.  She is sort-of/probably originally from Krynn (the setting for Dragonlance) and will hopefully have some of her own backstory fleshed out as the game proceeds.

The figure itself is actually from the Castle Ravenloft board game.  That's actually a funny coincidence because for about two weeks I've been looking for a female ranger figure in my backlog and everything I came across felt not quite right.  I ended up getting out the Ravenloft board game looking for something completely different and had forgotten she was one of the PC models from the game.  As an added bonus she does not look like she would be out of place ass a Treasure Hunter in Frostgrave so she will probably pull double duty.

I also took some time to paint up one of my Gale Force 9 bargain basement finds from my trip to Baltimore last month.  This is an armoured war dog (an armoured dog is something I didn't have) who will probably be jumping into my Frostgrave warband the next time Terror bites the dust to put an end to the endless recycling of the same dog model.

My next update will be somewhat speculative as I will be presenting our next known NPC for our Ravenloft game and somebody who may or may not (I honestly don't know) be another NPC.

-Jay

Terminators for Terminator Genisys

I decided to take a break from fantasy miniatures for a day and crank out the Machine side of the Terminator Genisys box game.

These figures are 3 parts each and snap-fit together so assembly was a breeze.  The miniatures themselves are fairly basic but they are well textured and a wash brings out the detail nicely.

Tomorrow, back to Frostgrave & Ravenloft.

-Jay