Make terrain and scatter

I have been painting a lot of brown this week. When you have an old west town in 28mm you have to invest in multiple shades of brown. Oh but the brown I have been painting. This week I have been painting scatter terrain. It's an exciting one, folks.

Now bear with me dear reader, this post is for the hardcore wargamer. I am going to deep dive on this one and compare the different price points I recently purchased for adding to my gaming table. Before I start, let me add that when looking for terrain for my table I have to consider a few things.

• Storage. Space is limited in my home, so if it is large, if it folds down all the better, although in this case I am buying small items, so if they fit in my handy terrain drawer, brilliant.
• Price. We're all on a budget, I don't need to explain this one, if it's going to be pricy, it better be really nice.
• Useability. If an item is less period specific, ie I could use it for Napoleonic, WW2 and futuristic gaming, then it is actually worth triple its cost to me. Also, am I going to regularly use it?

As you may know I enjoy a game of Legends of the Old West, a 28mm scale skirmish game in the old west. Like a lot of skirmish games, having some cover on the table significantly improves the game. I have a significantly sized cowboy town for this game, but most of the table consists of Sarissa precision building kits (which usefully do flat pack down for storage) and then nice open streets. Time to give my cowboys some cover to duck down behind. All these items were purchased at Colours wargame show unpainted and were not given free for reviewing.

So, the first items I bought were from Iron Gate Scenery.  Each pack cost me £2.50 and contained five of each, crates and barrels. Now these items are 3D printed and if you look closely, you can see the horizontal lines of the printing process. Now, they are clearly advertised as such, but I obviously didn't notice this in my showday excitement. I don't have a 3D printer myself, but I do know people who do who could probably have printed something up something pretty similar. The detail isn't high end, but that is reflected in the price and these are good choice if you need to cover a lot of table on a small budget.

We go slightly up quality to a set of large crates from Grendel. I purchased these from Coritani Magnetic Displays. I have shown some terrain I have painted from this company on my blog before here. They sell their sets unpainted or painted. (It is very tempting to pay for them painted but although I am a terrible painter, I am tighter with my money.) The large crates are three identical "piles" or "stacks" of crates cast in resin for £8. They take paint really well and the detail is pretty good. The resin is a little brittle, you have to be careful not to drop these, they chip really easily. Obviously being identical they may look weird next to each other, but I think spacing them out with the rest of the terrain will work.

Finally we've gone slightly exciting. I picked up the food supplies basing kit for £10:

and the cargo supplies for £16 from Bad Squiddo games:

Now these are obviously slightly pricier, but the detail is awesome. I'm a terrible painter, so I've not done them justice, but you can make out carrots, sausages and lettuce in the food supplies. They are all cast in resin that takes paint really well and isn't brittle at all. The basing kit I have obviously stuck on my own bases through choice, they separate really well if you want to use them for details on a diarama or the base of a model. I couldn't afford to fill my entire cowboy town with this range of scatter terrain, but it definitely will come in handy for a few different game systems.

So, there you go, I told you it was an exciting one. I think I'm going to have to choose something nice a colourful for my next painting project. Put the brown paint away for a bit. Maybe something neon and cyberpunky...

Newbury and Reading Wargame Society Colours 2019

So, another year, another traipse around Newbury Racecourse. Well, I can definitely say I had a jolly good time. The day started out with grey skies, but the weather held out and I got to the Racecourse nice and early, coffee in hand to join the front of the queue. Once again the team of volunteers from NRWS (Do they call themselves by that acronym?) have done themselves proud with all their hard work. A perfectly professionally looking run show. The venue was great, the volunteers were all really helpful and friendly and everyone I chatted to seemed to be having a fun day. I managed to meet up with the Illustrious Opponent and have a good natter with him as well as some of my other wargaming friends. I rolled some dice, chatted to some traders and some other gaming groups and enjoyed my favourite show of the year.

So, what did I see? What caught my eye?
Firstly, I was intrigued by a new game, Contact Front by Gods Eye Games. From the chaps that brough Sons of Mars, this system covers modern warfare from 2000 to 2016. It was described to me as a rules light platoon level system, where after a short while one double sided reference sheet is all you need to play. As a wargamer who struggles with overcomplicated rulebooks this idea did appeal.

I was impressed by the multi-level table for the participation game to introduce the new fantasy skirmish game Thud and Blunder from the Ministry of Gentlemanly Warfare. http://bit.ly/TNBebook . I didn't get a chance to try it out (something I definitely will seek out in the future) but it was fun to see a table that wasn't on one plane.

Talking of tables that aren't flat, this participation game of Romans vs Icenci also impressed me. With a massive campaign map showing Boudica's progress across the south of England.

The Boscombe Down & Amesbury Wargames Club (why are all club names such a mouthful?!) had a mightily impressive tower for their fantasy siege game. My son pointed out it was as large as he was.

On that note I must add that yes, I brought my youngest son to his first wargame show. Earlier in the year on a video call to him on the way back from Salute he told me how much he missed me and wished he could come to the wargame show with me. I had explained that London was a long day for him, but he could possibly come to the more local show later in the year. So, after lunch, Father in Law very kindly brought my son over for the experience. (He had a good browse of the book stalls as well though.) Earlier in the week my son had read a book from the library about chocolate, including the history of his favourite food. He is now obsessed with conquistadors, I'm not sure if the uniforms and weapons, or if he just likes saying the word. So, we go upstairs to see what game to play and Crawley Wargames Club are running "Escape from the Aztecs." My son is sold when I tell him he gets to be a conquistador.
We had so much fun playing this game I only remembered to take one photo.

The idea of the game was to avoid the Aztecs, various wildlife, (giant snakes, crocodiles etc.) and quicksand and get to the fort at the other side of the table. Most of the adult players didn't make it and lost all three of their lives, but the three junior players had decided early on to try and stick together (the photo doesn't show it but they did stick close together most of the game) and they made it all the way across the table. In a wonderful act of kindness, the young lady playing on her last but one turn had the option to move another player an extra move. Instead of moving my sons piece nearer the Aztecs to distract them so she could escape, she moved my sons piece into the fort so he escaped. A wonderful demonstration of kind gaming.

The final game I managed to photograph was from South London Warlords. I had a brief chat with John Treadaway from Miniature Wargames ( a lovely chap and may I add an excellent publication.) who told me about the Dark Side of the Moon. A US Marines versus Chinese Peoples Space Force game based on the old tv series Space 1999. Figures and vehicles for the game are from Ground Zero Games. My photos don't do it justice, a mightily impressive table.

So, what did I buy? After all, that is the main reason we all go to the shows, to add to our lead mountains. Firstly I did as previously mentioned grab some of the new releases from Bad Squiddo.

God Bless Bruce for giving me the last Action Heroines blister. I am so grateful, I shall begin undercoating forthwith!
I picked up the following from crooked dice, now bear with, but I think they are actually perfect for my western town.

I have been promising myself a copy of this book for a while, after being impressed with Frostgrave I have high hopes for this follow up from the same author. Now I have a copy in my hand I can confidently say it really is a doorstop of a rulebook and I actually got it a bit cheaper than the cover price from Paul Meekin books. From a quick flick through I  can tell already I am going to like it, any book that mentions Johnny Mnemomic as inspiration gets my vote.

Finally, regular readers will know there is a tradition for one of my fellow gamers to always buy me random models of livestock. previous purchases have been pigs, buffalo, (useful) chickens and dodos (not so useful.) This year he has not failed. I shall now be imagining four Liverpudlian voices in my head asking each other "Whadya wanna do?" repeatedly as I paint these vultures.

Colours 2019 preparation

photo taken from newburyracecourse.co.uk

Well, its here again. It snuck up really quickly. Next weekend is the Newbury and Reading Wargame Society Annual fair. Or as we all know it to be called, Colours.
Regular readers will know this is my favourite show due to the minimal commute, but also as it just seems to be just the right size of show to be a fun day out without being too huge and overwhelming. Plus being close to home means I soak in the whole show and not miss anything and still be home in time for afternoon tea.
Bizarrely as I said, this has snuck up on me this year so I haven't really put much thought into research this year. Regular readers will know of my meticulous research for show days out and yet I have done none of that for Colours 2019. I haven't even done my annual delve through the under bed boxes for things to sell at the bring and buy. You can see the list of traders on the website here. Last year I produced a handy list of hyperlinks, but it looks like the club have added web site addresses this year so I shall not bother.
So a brief list of things of note. Perry are a last minute addition, as they don't always  come to Newbury either, will be good to see them. Bad Squiddo will be getting a visit from myself, I'm hoping to pick up some more of the new terrain resins, always useful. I may finally bite the bullet and invest in a Deep Cut Studios gaming mat for the dining table. I always drool over them at shows but you all know how it is, terrain isn't as much fun as soldiers. Finally, I have noticed Debris of War do some Gaslands conversion kits reasonably priced. I may have to make a visit to them to pick up some bits for my hotwheels collection.
Otherwise I'm thinking I'm just going to browse and take in the atmosphere. I may actually be persuaded to join in some participation games this year. After deciding to do more than just retail at a show earlier in the year and having fun at the speed painting competition,  I'm beginning to think there is more to these shows than just spending monies.