Author Archives: The Angry Piper

Making Modular Roads

I thought I would share my method of making modular roads for tabletop gaming. My method is not particularly inexpensive or original. But I like the end result a lot, and I think it was worth it to spend the money and time that I did.

I’m using the World Works Games Streets of Mayhem and Urban Mayhem PDF sets. These sets retail for $11.50 each, and in my opinion are well worth it. Each street tile comes in gridless, 1 inch, and 1.5 inch grids; also the streets themselves come in clean, dirty or post-apocalyptic, for use in whatever style of game you’re playing. I opted to use dirty, 1 inch gridded tiles for mine, as I plan on using these roads for both superhero and zombie gaming. Here’s a selection of what you get. There are a lot of other things included, like asphalt/concrete tiles, parking lots, railways, and even a helipad. But I just used these basic tiles to construct my roads: straight, curved, 3-way and 4-way intersections.

Printing these out is where you will spend the most money. I recommend you print them on high-quality cardstock, since anything thinner may cause the glue to lift and/or bleed through when you mount them. Cardstock and ink aren’t cheap. Expect to go through an ink cartridge or two, depending on how many tiles you print. I scaled my tiles to 6″ x 6″. so that I could fit four of them on one of my 2′ x2′ modular boards.

One of these sets uses the TerrainLinx templates and one uses the new, friendlier TerraClips sets;  two different ways of joining these tiles together. Basically, each of these tiles is designed to be printed out and individually wrapped around foam core squares, which in turn clip together through pre-cut slots and pegs. The result is some mighty impressive and strong modular terrain. But who the hell has time for that? Not me.

I got around it by mounting the tiles on matboard, the same stuff you use to mat pictures. A 32″ x 40″ sheet cost me $8 or so at Michael’s. I chose black with a black core, since that was best for the roads. With that in mind I cut the matboard lengthwise into 6″ wide sheets (more or less) like so.

Once I had my strips, I started mounting the tiles. You can fit five tiles per strip with a little left over. I decided to make the road strips varying lengths, i.e. 3, 4 or even 5 tiles. I decided to mount the elbow curves and intersections individually for maximum customizability.

The strips are a little too wide for the tiles, which is something I did on purpose. Better to get them all mounted and trim later than have the tiles too wide for the board. Trimming them down is easy once they’re in place.

For the record, I recommend using a metal ruler with a cork back, as it won’t slip when you’re making a long cut. Unfortunately, I used this carpenter’s square and it slipped, completely ruining a length of road I had just mounted. I used some foul language then, I can tell you. Also, I recommend you don’t get shitfaced on Irish whiskey while making any long cuts, as you may forget and unknowingly allow the tip of your finger to protrude just a little bit into the path of the knife. That hurts.

You guessed it. More foul language.

Speaking of the knife, you may notice the foam board cutter I bought. This baby retails for a ridiculous $17.95 at any office supply or art store.

Don’t pay that much. It’s a fucking X-Acto knife. I got mine at Job Lot for $2.99. (I live in New England. We have Ocean State Job Lot. Folks from other parts of the country should check their bargain stores like Big Lots or Dollar Tree.)

Once mounted, the matboard is heavy enough that it lays flat (mostly). I made most of these roads in the time it took to listen to Led Zeppelin’s Presence.

I found out that 6″ x 6″ tiles are perfect for 15mm gaming. Of course,  I do 28mm. So they’re a little small for my needs. The roads themselves are not too bad, as I can still fit my 28mm vehicles on them with a little room on each side. Where it becomes obvious is the parking lot. I could fit a bunch of 15mm vehicles in the spaces, but one 28mm vehicle takes up half the lot. Oh well.

Here’s an example of what a road system looks like made up of the tiles I mounted.

So there you have it, my way of making roads. Not as cheap or quick as some black felt with white lines drawn on it, but I really like the level of detail in the WWG tiles and wanted to use them.

Comments welcome.

Trying Out the Table (with Zombies)

I’m gearing up to play my first game of No More Room in Hell, by Iron Ivan Games. I figured I’d set up the table with some appropriate terrain and the majority of my zombie and survivor miniatures to see if I need more minis and/or terrain or less space. Plus, it’s just fun.

All the zombies are from Wargames Factory, with the exception of the three or four Hasslefree zombified survivors. Survivors are from various companies. I will endeavor to identify them all in the pictures below.

Here’s the table all set up. The buildings and street tiles are from World Works Games’ Streets of Mayhem sets and from Model Paper World. The MPW stuff is FREE! so that’s always nice, but the WWG stuff is awesome and more than reasonably priced.  The various vehicles were purchased at CVS in their toy aisle. They’re all made in China (surprise) and retail for about 5 bucks each, although I bought a bunch when they were on special for 2 for 1. They constantly rotate their stock so every month I usually grab one or two. Various other terrain pieces are from Armorcast (like the dumpsters), Pegasus Hobbies and JR Miniatures.

Seems like the two chainsaw chicks got the same idea…raid the gun shop! One of them Is Hasslefree’s Ashley Campbell (who is actually facing off against the zombified version of herself), the other is Reaper’s Berklee, Zombie Survivor.

These funkadelic survivors square off against a pack of zombie dogs, from Mississinewa Minatures. Clockwise from left to right, the survivors are Horace “Action” Jackson, Ebony Foxx and Sly Withers, all from Reaper. Out front is Delilah, from RAFM.

Father Thomas tries to ward off the shambling horde with his cross. Good thing Rex has his trusty sawed-off to back him up. Both minatures are from Reaper. The zombies come from Hasslefree, Wargames Factory and Mississinewa.

Hey guys…don’t look now, but…

The not-Shaun and not-Ed are both from Hasslefree: Ray and Tony, respectively. The lurking hairy zombie is from Mississinewa.

Some folks just like to stomp zombies the old-fashioned way… with their bare hands. All the Z’s are from Mississinewa. El Diablo and Butch “Killer” Davis are both from Reaper, while Tanshiro is from Hasslefree.

When do you not trust a couple of clowns in an ice-cream truck? When they’re zombies!!!

The clowns are from Mississinewa, the rest of the Z’s are Wargames Factory.

Besieged by naked (and clothed) zombies. The naked ones are from Mississinewa. The more modest Z’s are from Wargames Factory.

Another view. The Elvis clone is The Pretender, from RAFM. The fireman in his jockstrap is Mad-Dog, one of my favorite Hasslefree miniatures.

Sometimes it’s better to call in the pros. On the left is RAFM’s Gloria with Uzis, center is Hasslefree’s Harby, and on the right is Hasslefree’s Cobra.

Not all cops protect and serve. Some are zombies.

These gangers are from Bobby Jackson’s Thugz line.

After a careful look at the table, I realize I’ll probably need more zombies. Good thing I still have the 40 Wargames Factory Zombie Vixens to paint, plus a few others like Reaper’s Zombie Strippers.

A 6′ x 4′ table full of terrain looks great, but I’m left wondering where I’m going to roll my dice without sending buildings and miniatures flying all over the place. Maybe I’ll only use a 4′ x4′ surface and roll the dice on either side of the play area.

Building a Gaming Table Part 3

So real life and the holidays got in the way for a while, but the gaming table is finally finished. I had to make another trip back to Home Depot for some last minute incidentals. I can’t remember how much I spent, but let’s just say the gaming table cost me an even 400 bucks in materials and beer. A heartfelt thanks to my baby brother.

My brother did a bunch of work on the table on his own, since I wasn’t able to get to his house as often as he liked (not that he ever really needed me there) and it was taking up room in his barn. Notice I referred to his garage/workshop as a barn. That’s because my brother read the two previous blog posts and has since set me straight:

“It’s not a garage, asswipe. It’s a fucking post-and-beam barn. If it was a fucking garage it would be made out of the same shit we built your table out of, not rough-sawn lumber. And it would have been put up in a day, not two months.” That’s pretty much verbatim.

Also, my tabletop is not (emphasis on the not) MDF board. It’s something else that I forget. Of course, it looks an awful lot like MDF board to me, but my brother has loudly and repeatedly assured me it is not.

So on my brother’s birthday(of all days) he decides to load up the table into his truck and drive to my place, where we will finally set it up in a room I have set aside for gaming. Of course, it didn’t really work out that way, because I am an idiot. I didn’t measure the doorway. To put it simply, the tabletop went in fine. The frame didn’t fit.

 Of course, we tried for about 2 hours. In the cold. Still wouldn’t fit.

So since my brother insisted on making this table to his bare minimum standards, the hardware was under facing boards and wood glue. Everything had been sanded. We couldn’t just take a couple of legs off and work our way in. We had to cut the table in half. Well, he cut the table in half. I stood there in shame and tried my best not to utter a sound. 

So, after reassembly with an additional crossbrace and some bolts, here is the table. Right next to my painting area.

My brother constructed the tabletop out of a sheet of plywood cut into three panels. That way I can use it as a workbench, which I will be doing very soon as I construct some World Works Games buildings. When I want to game, the panels lift out to reveal the emphatically not-MDF board game surface beneath. Like so:

Note the shelf underneath holds some modular pinkboard. It’s supposed to be 2′ x 2′ square, but like almost everything else sold at Home Depot, the measurements are off. (“Square” is defined differently at Home Depot.) I bought six and painted one side green and one side gray, for rural and urban terrain surfaces. Once the plywood panels are off the table, the pinkboard fits right in and is held snug by the framing boards. Like this:

At least that was how it was supposed to go. Even foamboard this small warps, and each one of the tiles is warped in some way. That plus the aforementioned shitty Home Depot dimensions makes them a bit of a problem. You can’t really tell from the picture, but it can be a very uneven join. I can get around this by covering the joins with roads, or I can just do what my brother says and get one big piece of foamboard, make sure it fits the table, then make my own cuts. More work and more painting, but whatever.

My brother is insisting I re-sand the table, especially since he had to cut it again. He’s also insisting I stain it and polyurethane it. I told him I’d think about it. But I’m definitely not waiting to do any of that before I use it.

Let the games begin!

Building a Gaming Table: Part 2

So it’s taking a little longer than expected, which is primarily due to the fact that my brother still doesn’t want to build me a basic table. To give him credit, he came up with a much cooler idea than I did. So, to make a long story short, we scrapped the two shelves below the playing surface, instead opting for one. Originally, the tabletop was supposed to be a sheet of plywood covered by the sheet of MDF board. That’s no longer happening, either. Now the MDF will be below the plywood, which will be easily removable for gaming purposes, but able to be used as a workbench whenever I want simply by keeping the plywood in place. That way, my brother said, if I want to play a game ten years from now, all I have to do is remove the plywood sheets and I’m good to go.

A return trip to Home Depot was in order. I returned the two 4′ x 8 ‘sheets of sub-flooring, which were going to be the shelves, and instead bought two more 4′ x 8’ sheets of sanded plywood at my brother’s request (since he can’t stand the thought of using sub-flooring as a shelf when it will look like shit).  I bought some other stuff as well, listed below; and  of course, more beer.

My new acquisitions:

(2) 4 x 8 sanded BC pine plywood sheet: $71.54

(4) 1″ x 6″ x 144″ premium pine boards: $54.68

(2) 2″ x 4″ x 96″ pine studs: $5.44

(1) bottle of Tite-Bond wood glue: $5.47

More beer: $30.11

Subtotal with Tax: $175.81

Credit for returned sub-flooring: -$42.44

Total new charges: $133.37

Add that to my previous total, and I’m into this thing for $337.91 already. Way more than I wanted to spend, but remember that $58.05 of that is just beer (and that number is certain to go higher).

We got the framework for the top of the table together last time. We added a couple of cross-braces to support the tabletop, and got to work cutting the MDF board to fit the dimensions of the tabletop. For the record, MDF board likes to be cut upside-down, otherwise a circular saw will tear the shit out of your playing surface. We tested it first to be sure. A generous application of wood glue and the judicious use of a finishing nail gun, and the MDF was attached to the framework. We clamped it and let it sit overnight.

I went home, and over the next two days my brother managed not only to run his normal landscaping business and single-handedly build his staircase to the top floor of his barn, but he also put together the frame work for the table legs. I arrived last night with more beer (+$9.29) to find this:

We cut the shelf, now made from plywood, and fitted it to the frame with glue and finishing nails. Then he screwed the tabletop to the frame with an impact driver (so we can remove it later if we need to), which, as you can see, is now recessed MDF. The recess is 1 1/8″, so the 1″ modular pinkboard I will use as a play surface will fit nicely and won’t slide around too much. Plus, the remaining 1/8″ recess should be negligible and won’t piss me off when I’m pushing lead around.

Despite my repeated requests, my brother finds it completely unacceptable that this table looks like what it is: a workbench. So he insists we face the studs with flat boards to cover the framework because that way  “it’s better than staring at fucking studs all day long.” We tipped it on its side and did the framing on the front and side legs of one side. And that’s where we left it.

I’m supposed to go back Sunday to finish the rest, which will include framing the sides and the shelf and finishing the top. My brother has already told me we will be taking another trip to Home Depot first, where I’ll get to return another sheet of plywood and buy some more framing materials. He’s not going to let me take it out of his workshop without staining and polyurethaning it, too, so I guess I’ll be buying that stuff as well.

And of course, I’ll be buying more beer.

Building a Gaming Table

I have decided I am going to build a dedicated gaming table. Actually, to be honest, I’m just going to hold the tools and buy the beer and the materials, since I can just about use a screwdriver without losing an eye. My brother is going to build it for me, since he actually knows how to build shit. Like his garage, which he built by himself.

  And some interior shots of the garage/workshop. He’s still adding a staircase to the upper level.

Needless to say, a gaming table isn’t beyond his ability. In fact, it’s hardly worth his time, seeing how he doesn’t share my hobby and thinks that grown men who play with miniatures are obviously dorks.

This table is a kind of last-ditch effort to get my friends into playing miniatures games every once in a while in addition to our regular RPG sessions. The first problem I encountered was convincing my brother to build a gaming table to my standards and not his. Namely, a basic, no-frills 8’x4′ table with some shelving underneath, made out of pine 2×4’s and some plywood. As I get older, I play less and less. So I didn’t want anything fancy. Merely something that could be a game table for now, and one day be used as a workbench, since in all likelihood that’s what it will eventually become.

My brother had other ideas, mostly involving building me an artesanal table out of hardwood, with a fold-away playing surface and lots of drawers and storage options. I had a hard time convincing him that this was a utilitarian piece of furniture. Meant to hold scenery and miniatures and be able to stand up to large men leaning on and over it. He had lots of great ideas on how to make a really nice table, but all I need is a bare-bones playing surface.

My lack of artistic vision and aesthetics, at least when it comes to stuff like  this, disgusts my brother.

After realizing just how fucking big an 8’x4′ table is, I decided to shorten it to roughly 6’x4′. The official dimensions of the table are 74″ L x 48″ W x 38″  H. There will be a 1 1/8″ recess on the top of the table to hold 1″ pink board tiles (which are the gaming surface). There will also be 2 shelves below the playing surface, roughly the same dimensions as the tabletop.

Yesterday we started building the table. Here’s what we got from Home Depot. (The table saw isn’t mine).

(6) 2 x 4 x 96 pine studs: $16.32

(4) 1 x4 x96 pine framing strips: $7.96

(3) 2 x 6 x 144 pine boards: $22.26

(2) 4 x 8 sub flooring sheets (the shelves): $39.94

(1) 4 x 8 3/16th tempered mdf hardboard sheet: $13.98

(1) 4 x 8  sanded BC pine plywood sheet: $35.77

(1) 5lb. box 2.5″ deck screws: $29.98

On the way back to the workshop we stopped for beer. Real, actual beer. Not the “Coors Lite” my brother drinks.

Beer: $27.94

TOTAL WITH TAX: $204.54

We got all the initial cuts done. I even used a mitre saw without losing any digits. We manged to knock together the frame for the tabletop before it got too dark and we called it a day. (My brother doesn’t have lights in his garage yet. Or anything resembling heat.)

I’m going back tonight to finish it off. Hopefully it will be installed and ready for play by the end of the week.

Happy Halloween

In honor of the coming holiday, I’ve decided to post some spooky-themed fantasy miniatures from my ongoing AD&D 3.5 campaign. My players  ran into most of these guys over the course of the last year.

First up is the old good witch/bad witch combo. The players first ran into the nice, pretty witch who was being blamed for the disappearance of some children. After a quick visit to her house in the woods, they had a hard time believing she was anything but  a nice lady. Turns out she was really an evil hag in disguise. The good witch is Reaper’s Selmarina (Reaper 02682), the bad one is Wyrd’s Zoraida the Hag, from their Malifaux line. The gravestone on Selmarina is from a GW zombie sprue, the one on Zoraida was part of the original base of the scarecrow, below. The pumpkins are from Reaper’s pumpkins and jack o’lanterns set (Reaper 02992). The stakes on Zoraida’s base are from Lance & Laser.

After finding out the witch really was to blame, the party returned ready for a fight. They got one from her guardian golem, Gourdy. They were forewarned, however, by her unwilling servant, Cobb the scarecrow, who travels with them still. Cobb is a RAFM Shrieking Scarecrow (RAFM 03856), while Gourdy is Reaper’s Rotpatch, Pumpkin Golem (Reaper 03377). Cobb’s post is scratch-built, and the leaves are from Hudson and Allen studios.

The players ran into these spooky ghosts while plundering… er, I mean exploring a tomb. The one on the left is a Reaper Spectral Minion (Reaper 14327) mounted on a Malifaux graveyard base. The others are from an OOP GW Spirit Host. They were all designed to fit on one base, but I separated them and individually based them. Nothing particularly impressive about the paint job, but it looks ghostly enough for me. I was tempted to paint the spirit hosts ghosts as the chocolate, vanilla and strawberry ghosts from The Scooby-Doo Show S1 E15: The Ghost of the Bad Humor Man, but decided against it.

Last are some odds and ends. Nicodem, the Undertaker from Wyrd’s Malifaux line served a necromancer with a vulture familiar, and was the very first “boss” the party encountered in the campaign. I tried to paint him in a monochromatic color scheme, but found it difficult. Still, I like the overall effect. He’s mounted on a Malifaux graveyard base. Next to him is an old Reaper miniature, Jean-Paul DuChamps, Werewolf (Reaper 02139). He actually never made an appearance in the game, but I included him anyway because I painted him over the last year in between other projects.

Happy Halloween to all!

Gangsters and Thugz

Adversaries for my army of Pulp Cops, these gat-men are also from Bob Murch’s Pulp Figures line. Below is Bugs Malarchy’s Mob (PGJ-02), one well-heeled group of hoods. With three Thompsons (who really believes there’s a violin in that case?), these guys mean business!

My personal favorite miniature is “Chopper” McCoy all the way on the right. He looks like a psycho and reminds me of Eddie Dane in Miller’s Crossing.

Up next is another crew of gangsters from Pulp Figures, These Guns for Hire (PGJ-04) I posed them with a car that purists will know isn’t from the 20’s, but it looks good enough.

Fast forwarding seven decades or so, I picked these guys up from Ed the Two Hour Wargames Guy a few months back. They’re from Bobby Jackson’s controversial Thugz line. I love them, but I’m a little bummed I’m missing two of the coolest sculpts. Nonetheless, here are my modern gangstas, probably for use as a gang  in a zombie game.

My favorite is the guy all the way to the left. I’m pretty happy with the way he came out. They’re all packing heat (even the girl on the right, it’s behind her back), except for the big woman. But take a look at her. Do you really think she needs any help?

Here they are posed with some cops from the (I believe) now-defunct Mississinewa Miniatures line.

Uh-Oh, Five-O!!

Gen Con 2012 and Buyer Remorse

This year, I finally went to Gen Con for the first time in my life.  It was a great time. While I was organizing my vast (and ever-increasing) mountain of unpainted lead the other day, I came across my Gen Con 2012 acquisitions. I bought a lot of stuff there. It got me thinking: Gen Con was an expensive trip. Flight, hotel, admission/registration and car rental cost me over a thousand bucks alone; never mind things like food, parking, miniatures, swag and copious amounts of beer. Was it worth it? Yes and no. Here are my thoughts on both the Con and what I bought there.

Event Registration

Event registration was a pain. Like many others, I submitted my wish list of events with a click of a mouse at the exact moment online registration opened. Two minutes later, I realized my computer had frozen. So I resubmitted it and was informed I was number 2, 632 in line to be processed. Needless to say, i didn’t get into the games I most wanted to attend.

Games

My friend and I played in four events over the course of our stay at the Con. The first was a “marines vs. alien bugs” themed RPG that was completely actionless. It was supposed to last four hours and we were done in two. It was run by a nice enough guy, but it was obvious he had only part of a story in mind. We learned the game creators were going through some legal issues, as well.

We got into the open play Super Dungeon Explore! event on Friday morning, and we had a blast learning how to play this very cool game. Later that night we played “It Came From Beyond the Still”. Mike Williams of Bring Your A Game ran a great game and put a lot of effort into both the board and the miniatures. I got to play the “meddling kids”,  aka Hasslefree’s not-Scooby gang. My friend played the famous hillbilly family, the McCoys. It was the most fun I’ve had playing a miniatures game in years. My team did pretty well…Fred shot a UFO out of the sky with a pistol (while driving the Mystery Machine,no less), Daphne and Scooby-Dum were disintegrated by a gray alien’s rail gun, Scooby-Doo killed and ate (yes, ate) Agent K from the Men in Black, and Velma was stabbed by a cultist. In the kidney. Shaggy didn’t do much (but then again, he never really does). How about that for a game?

The last game we played was on Saturday morning-a Pathfinder scenario called the Tomb of Caragthax, run by the guys at Total Party Kill Games. Nice bunch of guys, and a fun time.

Food and Accomodations

Indianapolis has some pretty mediocre food, with some notable exceptions. The microbrews are terrific. The fried pickles (something you can’t get where I live) are amazing. And the Weber Grille served some of the best food I’ve ever had in my life. The rest of the food we had was meh, and the Denny’s near our hotel pretty much confirmed that Denny’s sucks everywhere.

We stayed at the Candlewood Suites near the airport, and I think that was probably the best move for two guys who don’t want to be aggravated by each other and by gamers LARPing in the hallway at 3 am every night. The hotel was great, but about 5 miles outside of downtown, and paying for parking sucks.

Vendors

Whenever we weren’t gaming, sleeping or drinking, we spent our time in the Vendor Hall. And it is here that I spent far too much money. I won’t go into everything I bought, but I should give some recognition to some of the cool people I met there.

The War Store had a big area, and as always, the staff was terrific. A woman named Phadra (? sp) ran me through a demo of Firestorm Armada. She was pleasant and very knowledgeable and even choked down her lunch so she could run the demo right away. (Which wasn’t necessary, but I appreciated it anyway).

Ginfritter from Armorcast was on hand, and as usual when confronted with Armorcast stuff, I bought a bunch of it.

The guys from Geek Chic were there showing off some of the coolest and most expensive game tables ever made, but boy are they impressive.

I got to meet Larry Elmore, who of course is a legend in the fantasy art world. I told him his stuff was the visual inspiration for all our games growing up, and he seemed to like that. I bought this print of his and he signed it for me. It’s the cover to the Star Frontiers Alpha Dawn game, and it’s now framed and hanging in my home.

I also bought a few prints from  Erika Taguchi-Newton, whose stuff I fell in love with right away. She seemed very nice, but I don’t know her personally and I don’t know how she would feel about me posting one of her images on this blog, so I won’t. But I encourage you to check out my favorite one I bought on her website. It’s called “Night at Karloff’s”.

Buyer Remorse

So what wasn’t worth it? Well, while going through my Gen Con purchases yesterday, I felt a bit of buyer remorse. I shouldn’t have bought the baseball hat with the Yellow Sign on it. Not because everyone who sees me goes incurably mad, but because I’ve never been much of a hat person. But what I feel the most buyer remorse about is miniatures. Specifically, these:

First off, let me say that I love Wyrd’s miniatures, and I love Asian-themed minatures. This would seem to be a win-win for me, and in a way, it is. I don’t play Malifaux, but I purchase a fair amount of Wyrd’s stuff for use in other games. When I saw the concept art for these Thunders, I was excited; and when I heard they’d be premiering them at Gen Con, I planned to buy them. And I did. For 21 bucks.

Now, at the time, I didn’t really think too much about it, because I was caught up in the excitement of the vendor hall. But when I looked at them the other day, I got annoyed. There are three plastic miniatures in this box, all contained on one sprue. I paid TWENTY ONE DOLLARS for this. For three plastic miniatures. That’s actually worse than GW, and they charge $25 for five plastic space marines!

What makes matters worse is that I’m not all that remorseful about spending the amount of money I spent on miniatures at Gen Con, which was a considerable amount. I’m mostly remorseful about this one purchase.

To put it in perspective, I also visited the Wargames Factory booth and bought a box of their Zombie Vixens for fifteen bucks, and they threw in an extra sprue for free. That’s 40 zombie chicks for fifteen bucks. That’s a sweet deal by anyone’s estimation. To be fair, this was a Gen Con special. WF usually sells the box for $19.95, and it includes 30 zombies. But that’s still ten times the miniatures, and it’s still less than the $21.00 I paid for the Thunders. I just bought a box of their Greatcoat Shock Troopers (not even sure why), and that’s 18 plastic miniatures for $19.95…maybe not as good a deal as the Zombie Vixens, but still a way better deal than the Thunders.

Sure, WF may be an extreme example of value for money, and no, the Zombie Vixens don’t look anywhere near as good as the Thunders. But they’re both plastic. The same plastic, as far as I can tell. Want another example? I bought a set of Mantic Dwarf Crossbowmen, ten figures in total, for $12.00. Want another? I bought a box of 24 Defiance Games UAMC Marines for $30.00.

I know our hobby is an expensive one, and nobody made me buy anything. But I think in this particular case, Wyrd is demonstrating some very GWish behavior. It’s too bad I didn’t realize it until after the Con, when I could think straight and wasn’t a drooling fanboy. No way will I ever pay this much for three plastics ever again.

I think Wyrd has some very talented sculptors and some very interesting miniatures, and I will continue to use them in my games. But there’s a point where ridiculousness smacks you in the face like a cold mackerel, and this was it for me.  I get the fact that Malifaux is a skirmish game and in order to play Malifaux you need fewer miniatures than, say, Warhammer Fantasy Battle. But fewer miniatures should mean that playing the game is less expensive, and at these prices I’m not really seeing much difference. I’d hate to see Wyrd go the same way as GW, but it seems to be the case.

 

Thinking of Opening a FLGS

There used to be a Friendly Local Game Store in my area up until about 10 years ago. Now the closest one is 40 miles away.

The owner was a gamer who decided it would be cool to own a store. For a long time there was a dedicated group of gamers that met there often to play and patronize the store. Warhammer and 40K were the only miniatures games played in the store, and it only stocked GW games and miniatures. Privateer Press was in in its infancy, so no one was playing that yet, and Flames of War was the new kid on the block. There was a lot of CCG gaming too, mostly Magic and Pokemon (For the kids. Mostly. Don’t ask…there were some creepy people there.)

It seemed to do well, but the place had its problems. Like the fact that the owner had no use for his regular customers once they had bought their armies and weren’t interested in buying more. And like the owner’s wife.  Whenever she was around she was a rather vocal and annoying presence in the store, and she loathed gaming and gamers and didn’t mind letting us all know it. Plus, she tried (unsuccessfully) to insert herself and her own choice of products into the workings of the store…for example, she famously insisted her husband carry the Thomas the Tank Engine line of wooden train sets for toddlers. (When the store closed, I’m pretty sure they still had every Thomas toy they ever stocked, and they had the whiole line. That stuff wasn’t cheap.) It was poor decisions like this (and like her habit of changing her toddler on the gaming tables) that ultimately led to people deciding not to play in the store as often. I don’t know why the owner eventually closed up shop, as he seemed to still be doing a decent business when he did (and he was a millionaire through inheritance, besides) but I suspect it was more his wife’s decision than his own. Time for him to “grow up” and all that.

So for about ten years there’s been nowhere central to play in my area. Most of the regulars splintered off into little groups, and I have no idea where they play now or even if they still do. All my friends who played miniatures games from that time are now scattered, and I’m pretty much left with a bunch of WFB and W40K armies and miniatures that never get used. So now I’m considering opening my own game store.

A bit about me: I am unmarried and have no children, so I don’t have a family to support. I own my own business and I would be able to continue operating it while running the store on the side. I am not rich by any means, but I am fortunate enough that I don’t have any problem paying my bills. In short, if I were to open a store, I would not have to rely on it to make a living. In fact, I would not have to draw a paycheck from it at all for as long as necessary.

From what I gather just from browsing the forums, this is probably a good thing; as no one seems to be getting rich owning a game store nowadays (if they ever did).

But my reasons for opening a game store are mostly selfish, and making money isn’t really one of them. Of course, no one goes into business looking to lose money, and if I was hemorrhaging cash every month I would probably close up shop fast. But I could live with a store doing a little better than breaking even, if all my goals were met.

That being said, here are my reasons:

  1. I would like to raise awareness of the hobby and promote smaller-press games and miniatures. I would like to introduce people to great game systems like Kings of War, Rattrap’s .45 Adventure, Hydra’s War Rocket, It Came from Beyond the Still, and the Two Hour Wargames stuff. Promoting these kinds of games would show people there’s an alternative to GW and that it’s possible to have a good time with miniatures that don’t have to cost an arm and a leg. (Of course, I would carry and promote GW stuff too, seeing how they’re the biggest company around and most people in the hobby play their games. Even though I don’t like their business model or their practices, ignoring them would ensure my store fails before it ever gets on its feet.)
  2. It would be nice to attract some fellow gamers. Currently I play RPGs with some close friends, but none of them are very big into miniatures games. When we get together, which is infrequently, it’s pretty much solely to play RPGs. I’ve tried to get them interested in some skirmish level games, something that doesn’t necessitate a huge layout of cash and/or time (like 40K), and I’ve had some modest success. But the simple truth is that if I want to play miniatures games (and I do), then the burden of buying and painting miniatures and buying, painting and constructing scenery lies with me and me alone. It would be nice to have other gamers who really love the hobby help out with that.
  3. I’d like to have a great place to play. Although I’m in the process of setting up a pretty cool gaming room in my home, at the end of the day, if my friends don’t come over, I don’t play. And I’m pretty selective about who I invite to my home. I’d rather play games elsewhere with people I don’t know all that well.

So it looks to me that my reasons for opening a game store can be summed up as follows: I want to open a game store as an extension of my hobby, so that I can play more games more often. Not exactly a great business model, right?

My strategy to stay in business would be to stock merchandise from games that people play already (like Warhammer, War Machine, Heroclix and Magic: the Gathering), and slowly bring in other stuff that people may not know about (like A Call to Arms: Star Fleet, War Rocket and All Things Zombie). I’d like to carry Reaper’s stuff, including their paints; and Mantic’s games in order to give people an alternative or supplement to GW’s stuff. I’d carry as much Fantasy Flight stuff as I could, and I’d promote everything with in-store demos, workshops, game nights and tournaments. I would want the store to always have something going on, whether it’s a board game, miniatures game, card game or rpg.

The obstacles to my success, as seen by me, include:

  1. The economy. Like it or not, our hobby is a luxury. No one needs to spend money on this stuff, and with the economy in the shitter, fewer people are able to.  The price hike on metal isn’t helping anyone, really; and even plastic and resin miniatures are pricey nowadays. And that’s not even considering the biggest pig at the trough, GW, whose annual price increases certainly don’t help retailers to sell more of their stuff, and actually puts them in the role of “GW apologist” far too often. But again, ignoring GW isn’t an option, and they’re not about to change, so you’re screwed either way, it seems.
  2. My competition isn’t the FLGS 40 miles away. It’s Amazon.com and Internet discounters. Who wants to pay $50 for the latest Pathfinder Core Ruleset from my store when they can get it on Amazon for $20? Not many people. Sure, supporting the little guy is a noble ideal, but the truth is a lot of us, myself included, shop at Wal-Mart even though we know it’s bad for the economy. Because $25 DVD players are tough to say no to, as are $5 DVDs. I know I won’t be able to match any Internet discount, and I know eBay is a good source for secondary market miniatures (especially GW stuff).  So just getting people to buy stuff from me as opposed to getting it  cheaper someplace else will be an ongoing challenge.
  3. All the financing for this business venture is probably coming from me. I don’t anticipate selling a bank on financing a business of this nature. Perhaps some of you can tell me if they encountered any problems with getting a business loan based on the fact that you’re opening a store that sells (often overpriced) toy soldiers. And how much money do you need to start things up?

I am now at the stage where I will be talking to business consultants about how best to proceed should I decide to take the plunge. I would greatly appreciate the input of brick and mortar game store owners and people in the business. Please offer your opinions and let me know what I haven’t considered, what I have been woefully naive about, etc. Feel free to comment on this blog or email me at angrypiper@angrypiper.com.

Pulp Cops

I got the pulp bug again, although to be sure I never really lost it. I painted these cops a while back for use with Rattrap’s .45 Adventure, which is my pulp rule set of choice. In truth, it’s the only rule set I’ve ever used to play pulp. I like it, though, so I haven’t needed to try anything else yet.

 

All these cops are from Bob Murch’s Pulp Figures line. Some of them are customizable, like the cop on the right in the picture above. You can give him either a billy club or a pistol. I opted for the club.

When the cops need a little something extra, they break out the big guns, like this machine gun here. The shotgun cop on the right is another customizable piece.

The sergeant with the megaphone is one of my favorite models. These cops were easy to paint all at once, considering they’re all wearing the same colors. Now I have more than enough police to take on my gangsters (coming soon).