Spodding

I just received some photos from Nic and John at Eureka Miniatures of the table setup for the Jurassic Reich game at Little Wars back in May. These are much better shots than I could achieve and so, with their permission, I’ve posted them here for all to see.

I’m really pleased with the way that the table came out and the minis looked superb on the countryside.

Just took these off my camera – apologies for the delay. I was somewhat busy on the day itself and so didn’t get around to as many of the tables as i would have liked. I really wanted to chat with the fellow who brought in the Lord of the Rings table – his work is astounding and highly inspirational.

The big day has come and gone. The dice have stopped rolling and the tables have been packed away for another year. This year’s Little Wars was everything I had hoped and expected it to be – packed with people exploring new games, having fun, rolling dice and coming away with a swag-load of goodies that they have to explain to their wives.

There were some wonderful games on display – amongst my favourites were a superb Martian game using Eureka’s Pax Limpopo range, some stunning scratch-built Martian walkers, and the G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T ruleset. Another visual feast was a Lord of the Rings game with a wonderful Corsair’s ship as the centrepiece – the person who brought this along has consistently outdone himself each year and this was no exception. And then there was a fabulous little game of Tennyson’s “Charge of the Light Brigade” using a simple ruleset that recreated the poem line by line. And there was even a Flashman figure along for the ride! And lastly, there was a stunning table of Dad’s Army recreating the village of Walmington-on-Sea.

Fantsastic work by everyone involved. The organisation of the day was excellent and the whole thing ran without any significant hiccups – well done and my deepest thanks go to Ara, Mike and Nic for organising such a superb convention, and to the Nunawadding and League of Ancients clubs who helped out so ably on the day. Man it was great!!!

Thanks to the folks who came up to me and said they’d been following the table’s development on the blog. It was great to meet you all and have a chat. Thanks go to Kosta who sculpted such wonderful figures, without which the game would have never taken place and to Tom, the incredibly talented man who painted a ridiculous number of figures in such a short space of time.

And lastly, thanks to Nic Robson and Greg Hallam, two of the best guys I could hope to have as friends.

Here’s some pictures from the playtest session:

More to come…

The castle is packed in the boot and the table is assembled ready for strapping to the roof of the car. It’s finished* – with about 2 hours to spare! The road trip starts at 7:30am tomorrow and I should reach Ballarat around 3:00pm where I’ll be stopping for the night and then driving on to Melbourne the next day. It’s around 800km I think, a big trip to do on your own, especially with a massive game table tied to the roof.

Should be able to blog a while on the road, and will definitely have some photos of the assembled table and the painted armies on Saturday.

Wish me luck!

A recent reconnaissance flight over Nazi-occupied France captured an image that immediately sparked interest amongst the Allied High Command. The following document is considered “Most Secret.”

Check out the dossier compiled by our man in the field for more photographs: Jurassic Reich Blog

The big day is drawing near (a week and a half to go), but the castle is taking shape very nicely now. I’ve finished sculpting the cliffs and there’s very little actual construction that needs to happen now – it’s just the remaining painting that needs to be done and filling in some gaps here and there. Oh, and finish off the river and waterfalls.

Here’s the latest photos:

Time is running out to get this done in time, so I switched into “Full Panic Mode” and drew up a project plan listing all of the tasks I had remaining and an estimate of the time I need to complete each one. I then worked out how much I can work on this each day and mapped out exactly when it will be finished by. According to the plan, I’ll be a week late.

The final few weeks will be a blaze of glory as I burn myself out trying to get this done. I had to swear to the missus that I would never take on a project like this again!

Here’s some photos:

Work is progressing at a pace now that panic has set in.

I have almost finished the farmyard, just need to do some windows and doors and finish off the thatching on the small shed. The dino lager is my project to complete over Easter, and by then I should also have a substantial amount of the cliff faces done too. After that, it’s a case of paving the castle courtyard, doing the roof and upper storeys, filling the river with water, and finishing off the various painting and flocking tasks.

So after extensive experience at virtual farming, I thought I’d take up hobby farming instead. The construction is still underway at the moment – I need to do one building, finish painting the farmhouse and do its windows, as well as detailing the ground cover and other bits and pieces – but it’s almost there.

This will form one of the three focal points for the Jurassic Reich game (the other two being the castle and the dino-lager).

I’ve got the basic landforms done now and I’m just covering the foam with polyfilla and building up the cliff faces bit by bit. It’s coming along pretty well, but i am behind schedule and am starting to look for places where I can take short cuts to save time.

As usual with me, nothing ever gets finished and this table is no exception. I will take it to Melbourne ready for playing on, but far from finished in my mind. Ah well, at least I can bring it home again and work on it to my heart’s content (that is, until the next project comes along).

Here are some in-progress shots (they are quite large):