Dust Tactics: Axis Sturmpioniere

I'd decided to collect both armies, that I had a full play-set. That way, whenever any of my gaming friends were over we could simply jump right into a game.

Rather than point too much of one side in one go, I decided to keep both sides relatively even and paint an no more than 2-3 units for one side without painting some for the opposing force. It meant that pretty early on I could try out a few quick games with just a few units per side and as the project developed no one side became overtly over-powered.

These Sturmpioniere from the Dust Tactics: Core Revised Set were pretty fun to paint. Once again, I attempted to keep the colours pretty light, using some lighter base colours and much more subtle shading in the form of a watered down wash.

By doing these this way I found the limits of watering a wash and experimented with using De-Ionised water, which I'd been using for cleaning my airbrush, which seemed to help. Which got me thinking about some of the other tools that 'expert' painters use, i.e. thinning mediums.

My conclusion, I think they're onto something.

Music for Zombie Gaming - Part 7

Bear McCreary is a name that has popped up quite a bit in recently years, if you're a bit of a nerd. The American born composer and musician lives in Los Angeles California. Not only does he have an awesomely manly name, he is also responsible for the soundtracks for the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica, The Walking Dead and Agents of S.H.E.I.L.D. among other things.

He also composed the theatrical film score to Step Up 3D... which is actually rather good... but less talked about, certainly by most Walking Dead fans.

Although he studied under the legendary Elmer Bernstein he has undoubtedly created his own sound which, whilst clearly versatile, shows a superb understanding of pace and timing and is quite distinctive.

Bear McCreary normally works with a limited pool of musicians, typically around 10, often using less traditional instruments, with a considerable emphasis on percussion and the deliberate inclusion of discordant counter harmonies, his themes are subtle and build into considerable crescendos.

Bear McCreary's instantly recognisable opening theme to The Walking Dead is a great example of how this works and is a perfect mood-enhancer for any Zombie Board Game, Card Game or  Zombie Miniatures game.

Dust Tactics: The Hammers

This squad of 'Hammers' for Dust Tactics were pretty easy to paint, I even managed to salvage the pre-printed insignia on their chests.

Soft plastic figures do present a bi of a challenge when it comes to de-flashing. To be fair to Fantasy Flight and to the whole Dust studios production team, the models were pretty sound in the first instance.

The Hammers

I was pleased that I was able to keep them relatively light although I still think they could have benefited from lighter base-coats. After finishing these I started exploring some slightly lighter tones to replace my standard 'olive drab variants' palette.

Conan VIII - The Golden God - LARP Event

My name is Adam and I'm a LARPer, or more precisely an LRPer.

I state the latter because when I was mostly involved in the hobby it wasn't even know as LARP, it was LRP, the action got missed out, why? Probably because 'Action' was a given. I don't know who coined the phrase LARP, but they we better marketeers than we were, it certainly rolls off the tongue better than LRP.

Point of clarity. What has widely come to be known as LARP in the public eye is not what I actually did. It was the same sort of thing, just different. I don't think there's anything wrong with the 'Sport' LARP that has become so popular, but I was always very much firmly on the European side of the fence, immerse interactive improvisation theatre, story lead rather than rules led, is what we did. In fact, the first event we ran didn't even have a rules system. The mantra was 'The is movie-make-believe, if it's fun, awesome and might happen in a film, run with it'.

As a life-long fan of Robert E. Howard, our games were for the most part set in Hyboria and visually John Milius's 1982 classic Conan The Barbarian, whilst not true to the text, certainly 'felt' right.

I was fortunate enough that many of the friends I fell in with were writers, model-makers, prop-makers and costumiers to the film, television and theatre industry (I did a short stint in the industry myself just before heading off to college). So, to put it bluntly, the games we played had pretty high production values, especially considering the relatively limited budgets.

I drifted away from the hobby for one reason or another. I still played quite a bit of horror themed and Zombie LARP but I hadn't picked up a sword in years.

In last 2012 we received an out of the blue invite. Some of the people involved back in the day were ready to run something once again... it was settled then, we were headed back to Hyboria.

Atlantean Sword: When choosing a sword, there was no competition.

To be continued...

Dust Tactics: Hell's Boys Ranger Attack Squad

This was my first attempt at any kind of camouflage in a long time. In fact, the first attempt at anything with a pure military theme for a while, so I had to re-buy a few choice olive drab and olive colours.

This Ranger Attack Squad for Dust Tactics turned out a little darker than I really wanted, so I started to think about getting the top coat, pre-wash, colours a little lighter and diluting the washes a little more.

Hell's Boys - Ranger Attack Squad

Incursion: 3D Play Set - Part 3

Rome wasn't built in a day... but I'm pretty sure that the Romans did a little bit every day... so that eventually they got quiet a bit done.

 Slow but steady progress is the order of the day for my Incursion 3D Play Set.

I want the game board to have a very 3D textured feel so the floor tiles start out as Cork Floor tiles from a DIY store. I've seen cork floor tiles used very well for a number of things, so I picked up quite a few packs to set me in good stead.

The edge of each tile will be sanded down so there is clear definition between spaces on the game board.

Dust Tactics: Death Dealers Ranger Weapon Squad

Whilst living away from home over the last 18 months I didn't really get anywhere near as much hobby done as I'd have liked. I simply couldn't transport large scale hobby projects and gaming tables back and forward and to me, that's very much part of my enjoyment of the hobby.

I did want to do something however, something simple that would be a complete game in a box and I could take as far as I wanted, without having to commit to anything too vast. Seeing as I had a change of location and was getting a little giddy about Weird War 2, later growing into an interest in Incursion, my curiosity was piqued by Dust Tactics.

I downloaded a copy of the rules, free from Fantasy Flight Games website, which looked simple enough, with just enough variation to have at least some depth, and after deciding it looked pretty cool I picked up the Dust Tactics: Revised Core Set.

The models were pretty nice sculpts, the soft plastic did throw some challenges with de-flashing and a few 'bendy' models here and there (simple enough to fix with the hot and cold water trick I picked up when collecting Star War Miniatures), but considering the price, pre-priming and high production value on things like tokens, unit cards etc. I was sold. So, with a single pack of miniatures at a time and a small toolbox of paints and tools I set upon a new adventure.

What started as a simple boxed set, grew over the 18 months, during which time I was keen to attempt to copy the colour scheme and painting techniques as closely as possible. Here's the first of many units I painted over that time.

Death Dealers: Ranger Weapon Squad

Quick note on basing. As I'd been experimenting with some resin bases, the entire play-set is scheduled to be re-based on pre-painted resin. Therefore, none of the bases were touched.