Spodding

The thing with blogs is that you’re supposed to update them regularly. I keep forgetting. Does that make me a bad net-citizen? No, just a guy with too many things on his plate and a crappy computer that takes hours to warm up enough to be usable.

I’ve been working over the past few months on terrain for two games, to be run at Little Wars Melbourne* at the end of May (oh God, that’s next weekend!). I will be running a game that I call “Plains, Trains and Aerosans” where players get to chase after an armoured train in propellor-driven sleds called ‘Aerosans’, attempting to disable the engine and steal the cargo. Unfortunately for them, the train is shooting back (with large cannons) and naturally the other players will want the glory for themselves and so are likely to be trying to shoot each other too.

The table is laid out with about 30 snow covered terrain modules on it and a railway track down the centre. Here are a few shots of the game in action.

You can see one of the movement cards I’m using in the game (there’s a couple laid out on the table in one of the shots) – the mechanic for this is essentially the same as Wings of War/Glory, but with the twist that there’s things in the way that you have to dodge. It should be a good game and I hope to see you there.

The second game I am working will be run by my two good friends Andrew and Greg and it’s called “A Cast of Thousands”. Andrew and I have been collaborating on painting the figures and I’ve done most of the terrain pieces for it. The game is set in a movie backlot in the 1930s. Each player is a wanna-be director who has ‘borrowed’ a camera and snuck into the studio while the regular directors are on their lunch break. The idea is to round up the matinee idols and extras and shoot a scene. These professionals are milling around the sets in costume, signing autographs and discussing their latest pictures, so for them, this is just another step on the path to stardom.

So the sets and actors are drawn from all periods and genres and you throw them together and shout ‘Action’ – the script will practically write itself!

* Honk your horn if you like their logo

The first set for the “A Cast of Thousands” game is nearly finished. I just need to paint some of the Saloon and finish off two of the windows on the ground floor and it’s done. Dressed with a few barrels and crates, it should look very nice and suitably weather worn. The following picture shows the Saloon as it stands at the moment – I’ll finish it off by the weekend and then work on the next project for Little Wars (armoured trains and aerosans).

At this year’s Little Wars in Melbourne (http://www.littlewarsmelbourne.com), I am involved in two games – presenting one and providing the terrain for a second. the first game is the Charge of the Ice Brigade (see the Armoured Train entries below) while the second is called ‘A Cast of Thousands.’ This game concept is the brainchild of Andrew Boswell and Greg Hallam and departs from the traditional ‘wargame’ in the sense that the combatants are not warriors as such, but movie actors and directors, each vying for the chance to finish their blockbuster first. Each player controls a director and camera crew and has to assemble a cast, a location, and a script and start shooting their movie. It is set on a Hollywood backlot in the 1930s and the terrain will be a series of building facades in various styles – a Wild West town, a Greek temple, a yellow brick road, etc etc.

I’ve begun working on the first few buildings for this – a Western town, with a saloon, a shop front, a bank and a Sheriff’s office. The shop front is almost done and the saloon is well under way at the moment.

Late in the First World War, several Powers experimented with armoured trains as a means to protect the movement of troops and supplies and provide significant fire-power at the point where the troops dismounted.

The Poles in particular developed these trains, as did the Russians and the Germans. Even Britain and Japan flirted with the concept. Ideally suited to provide protection against small arms fire, the armoured train saw action during the Russian Revolution, the Winter War in Finland, and even during the Second World War in Poland and the invasion of the Low Countries.

In modern times we tend to look back on the concept with some puzzlement – how could these vehicles be expected to survive in wartime, especially since the development of aircraft. Well, essentially, they didn’t. And so the idea was abandoned eventually.

Probably the high point of their evolution was the “rail cruiser” of the Soviet Union – the MBV-2 railcar, fitted with three turrets and several machine guns.

CompanyB make a model of this beastie in 1:56 scale. It weighs in at a whopping 800g (1.75 lbs) and is about 34 cm (14 in) long. It’s easily the heaviest wargaming model I’ve ever come across!

I started assembling this today and decided up front that I would try to do it justice. The original vehicle has welded seams visible along the sides and a number of rivets etc. that the model is lacking. Also the prototype has pintle-mounted machine guns on each turret, which aren’t supplied with the model. So a little bit of kit-bashing is in order.

The resin model is crisply cast for the most part but unfortunately some of the detail has been lost due to air bubbles – typically around the step ladders and hand rails. I started by cleaning off any flash and mould lines, and then began smoothing out side panels of any imperfections that may have crept in – filling tiny air bubbles etc. I carefully cut off the hand rails and sanded back the surface once more, filling any gaps with Milliput.

Using brass wire, I made a number of parts and fitted them to the cruiser’s sides. This was all I could manage today (I had to come inside to cook dinner), so hopefully I’ll pick up the story next weekend and finish off the model’s assembly.

The key to winning a war in Russia was being able to function effectively in the harshest of conditions. Napoleon learnt a costly lesson there and Hitler should have paid more attention during History classes.

The Russkies developed a number of over-snow transport vehicles including the quirky little “aerosani” literally “aero-sleds.” Essentially an airplane motor bolted onto the back of a sled, a variety of these things saw service throughout the war.

CompanyB Minis are bringing out their own 28mm versions of these two models. The RF8 is available now (click here) and the NKL42 is nearly ready for release apparently. I have recently finished the first of these kit and a great looking model it is too. To be honest, it’s a pig to assemble and I actually went as far as making my own suspension bars to replace the white-metal versions in the kit. This model is to be used in a demo game and so has to be robust enough to withstand a bit of rough use.

The idea for the game comes from Nic Robson of Eureka Miniatures. He’s been mulling over this ever since he saw the master model by Mike Broadbent. The players operate an aerosan model each and are chasing after an armoured train, trying to shoot the engine and damage the boiler enough to make it slow down, all the while being shot at by the gun turrets on the train itself. The board is made up of a number of modules, each about 8″ wide and 6′ deep. At the start of each turn a new section is fitted to one end of the table and terrain is randomly placed on this. The train, which is located along the centre of the table, is moved forward one module. The players move their aerosans by placing three cards (very much like Wings of War) and attempt to dodge the oncoming terrain. At the end of the turn the last table module is removed, ready for the next turn.

It works like those scrolling backgrounds on a cartoon and players have to keep their aerosans moving forward enough to avoid ‘falling behind’ while dodging terrain and each other.

This project has been on my to-do list for ages – more pieces to go with my wooden palisade and gatehouse. I plan on making a small village to use with either Anglo-Saxons or Rohirrim, consisting of a number of thatched houses, a stable, an armoury and a long hall. Looking at historical recreations for inspiration I have designed a long hall that is fairly accurate, but still has some elements that are inspired by the Lord of the Rings movies (while not being a straight copy).

The following pics show the facade I am working on at the moment.

My website (the One Ring) runs a monthly painting challenge and I thought it would be a good idea to join in for a change! This month, the challenge is to paint Lurtz – the Uruk Hai chieftain that Aragorn fights at the end of the Fellowship of the Ring movie.

I’ve had this figure in my possession for several years, and went as far as spray coating it a couple of years ago. But since then it’s been languishing at the bottom of my painting queue.

So – here’s the undercoated figure – let’s see how far I get with it by the end of August.

Steampunk… sort of Jules Verne meets Wallace and Gromit I guess. I’ve been sucked into this game purely because the models are so cool. What’s not to like about armoured zeppelin aircraft carriers, and massive paddle-steamer battleships!!! The game play seems pretty nice too, but I’ve only just started exploring the rule book. It’s actually pretty hard going because the designers seem to like hiding rules in amongst all the waffle and fluff, which is a shame.

But I’ve finished painting two battleships so far, one for the Prussians and one for the Federated States of America. I have two fleets on the go concurrently and have started going beyond the basic boxed sets, expanding into carriers and scout zeppelins now. More painting to come, but here are the first two:

In a top secret factory on the outskirts of New Jersey, the ‘swing shift’ has just clocked on. The production lines begin to roll as Rosie O’Leary puts on her gloves and grabs her welding gear. The factory is making M-300X Rocket packs, the latest gizmo to add to the already incredible arsenal of the US soldier. Over the din of the machinery, Rosie hears an unfamiliar wailing sound. Other girls on the line have heard it too – an air raid siren! In Jersey? It must be a drill, for sure.

The shift supervisor leans out of her door with the telephone still in her hand and yells “Everybody to the shelters, it’s an air raid!”

Rosie’s Rocketeer began life as a makeshift civil defence unit, fighting to protect their factory and homes. The Nazis had managed to stage a surprise attack on American soil and the girls of the ‘Swing Shift’ strapped on the rocket packs, grabbed their rivet guns, and took to the skies above New Jersey.

The brass saw their heroic actions and formed a secret ‘special operations’ unit from these factory girls for missions behind enemy lines in Occupied Europe.

Eureka Miniatures will (eventually) be producing a range of miniatures in this range to go along with the Dogface GIs and the Jurassic Reich minis. The above concept art is something that (hopefully) will find its way into metal one day.

Been busy doing some graphics for the JR sourcebook (in between other projects) and have designed some unit badges for the various forces included in the book. The idea is that these will eventually be available for sale as sew-on (or iron-on) badges and even as custom dice, once the book is out.

The four units are the 9th SS Kriegsclaw Division, the “Dogface” GIs, a Stukadactyl Divebomber squadron, and “Rosie’s Rocketeers.” I have badges for three of these and am working on the fourth, but in the meantime I’ve also done a recruitment poster for the Rocketeer Corps.