Monthly Archives: March 2018

First Gaslands Build: Coughin’ Joe!

I discovered Gaslands by reading Miniature Wargames magazine a couple of months back. It’s a game of post-apocalyptic vehicular combat put out by Osprey.  It’s designed to be played with standard Matchbox/Hot Wheels cars that you convert into Mad Max-esque death machines, and it looks like a lot of fun.

While my experience with Osprey Games has been hit-or-miss so far, I figured why not give it a shot? After all, the entry cost to a game like this is minimal; you only need the rules and a bunch of toy cars to play. The rules are reasonably priced at under $20, and toy cars are easy enough to come by. They’re pretty cheap even brand new, and better still; there are tons of thrift shops, flea markets and secondhand stores where you can pick up used and banged up toy cars for even less! (If you have kids, you can probably find a bunch laying around your house on inconvenient places, like stairs.) You’re going to convert them anyway, and cosmetic damage is the look you’re going for!

I went by a thrift shop and bought a bag of 6 cars for $3.00. It contained this car, a “Plymouth Hemi Cuda” by Maisto.  I actually know a guy who owns a 1969 Plymouth Barracuda. He drove it all through high school and still has it to this day, some 30 years later. It gets about 3 miles to the gallon, but it’s absolutely the coolest car I’ve ever been in, and it hauls balls, to put it mildly.

I decided this is going to be my first Gaslands conversion.

Images abound on the Interweb of Gaslands vehicles; simply Google “Gaslands” and you’ll see for yourself. There are also many Youtube videos to view on the subject. One particular creator, JH Miniatures, does a terrific series entitled Wastelands Workshop. It’s a bit technical, but you don’t need to get as fancy as he does. I highly recommend his videos.

If you’re like me, i.e. an obsessive hoarder of bits from previous kits, then rejoice, for Gaslands is the game for you. I played a lot of Warhammer 40K back in the day, using Space Marines (of course) and Imperial Guard. In other words, I have a lot of old vehicle bits that have been sitting in boxes for a very long time. But you don’t need to have a ton of fancy bits like me, or be as technically savvy as JH Miniatures to get to work on Gaslands conversions. DM Jim over at Game Terrain Engineering does a bunch of Gaslands videos, and this one in particular shows how to use common junk items as weapons and armor. Good stuff!

But back to me…I decided not to go too crazy with my first car. I’ve opted to use some bolters from some old Rhino kits and smoke launchers from a Leman Russ tank as conversion bits. The bolters are machine guns, and the smoke launchers could represent turbo boosters, caltrop or glue droppers, oil dispensers, or…well, smoke launchers, which is what I’m going to use them for. Coughin’ Joe, get it?

For armor, I used some old material I had laying around: these textured craft foam sheets. Each package cost me a dollar, and you get six different texture patterns. Four of these have patterns that are useless (like the one pictured), but there are two that could work.

The orange stuff is the craft foam. It’s easy as pie to cut and glue, and the grid pattern makes it look industrial enough to serve as armor. I also clipped some plastic mesh from a needlepoint sheet (I think that cost a dollar, too), and glued it around the front wheel wells to offer the tires some protection.

The smoke launchers glued easily to the back of the car. The bolters have little mounting pegs on them, so I decided to drill tiny holes to accommodate the pegs. This was surprisingly difficult, even with my Dremel on max rpm. Turns out I needed a cobalt drill bit to get through the car. One quick trip to Home Depot sorted that out, and voila! Front mounted machine guns!

Once assembled (it took less than 20 minutes, not counting my trip to Home Depot), I primed it black.

I used a mixture of Vallejo, Cote D’Arms and GW paints. I based the car in Military Green (V) and highlighted it with Cayman Green (V) before giving it a thorough wash in Nuln Oil (GW). I painted the armor plating Gunmetal Grey (V) and the guns and wheel rims with Gun Metal (CD) and washed all the metallics with Armour Wash (CD). Then I liberally applied some MIG rust pigments to the armor sections and the rims. I used some Stirland Mud (GW) on the wheel wells and the front and rear bumpers. A light drybrush of Dawnstone (GW) on the windows, and that was that.And here he is, in all his grimy glory…Coughin’ Joe!

Rear view. Most people never see this on account of the thick black smoke pouring out of those launchers…

If you see this in your rear-view mirror, you’re about to get shot. A lot.

I read somewhere that it’s easy to get addicted to converting cars for Gaslands, and I am already hooked. I have a bunch of toy cars and bits scattered around my hobby space as we speak. More Gaslands conversions soon!

 

Making a Fighting Arena Board

A couple of weeks ago my region was hammered with about 17 inches of snow, and I got to stay home from work. With blizzard conditions raging outside all day and well into the night, I wasn’t going anywhere, even if I could have. I figured it was a great day to get some painting done! Or it would have been, if I hadn’t lost power at 6:30 am, ten minutes after I woke up.

In such instances, my standby generator powers most of my palatial estate, with the notable exception of my basement, which contains my hobby space. When assigning which circuits would be backed up, I obviously prioritized important things like heat and water over painting space. (It’s nice to be able to flush a toilet when you need to.) Consequently, most of the basement didn’t make the list.  However; since my furnace is located in my tool room, that part of my basement has power. I couldn’t paint without moving everything, so I decided instead to start work on a project I’d been considering for a while: an arena board.

I’ve been toying with an idea for a martial arts skirmish game, something along the lines of the Street Fighter and Tekken video games. I purchased Osprey’s A Fistful of Kung Fu when it came out, but I was put off by the many charts and tables, and also by the fact that it’s a faction-specific game. (The figures by Northstar are admittedly impressive, but I don’t want to have to buy them.)

The “arena” board I have in mind is a 2′ x 2′ board with a fighting circle inscribed in the center. As it will be made of flagstones, the board can double as a dungeon floor, a ruined courtyard, or anything else that would have a stone floor for use in other games. Picture a sumo ring, or the courtyard in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and you get the idea.

Designing the Arena

My starting materials are a 2′ x 2′ board made from 10mm thick MDF, some craft foam sheets, some PVA glue, a T-square and a razor knife. I bought a 2′ x 4′ MDF board from Home Depot for about 5 bucks. I had them cut it in half for me there, since their cutting station can make a much straighter cut than yours truly with a jigsaw (I hate jigsaws). I drew a roughly 18″ diameter circle in the center of the board, and then drew a perimeter 10 cm in from the edge all around the square.

As a side note, my brother once told me, while making my gaming table, that there is no such thing as a piece of wood from Home Depot that is truly “square”. The picture above proves this. I didn’t want to fuss with making it perfectly square (I lacked the tools to do so, anyway), so I just went with it. Also, as another side note, there is absolutely no whisky in that coffee cup. Honest.

Assembling the Board

After cutting the craft foam into 1 inch squares, I moved the project upstairs to my living room. While the blizzard raged on, I turned on my TV ( I love having power) and settled down for what I knew would be the most tedious part of building the arena board: gluing the “flagstones” down. I decided to watch a movie while I worked, and I picked Kong: Skull Island. I guessed it wasn’t the type of movie I needed to pay close attention to in order to capture all the director’s subtle nuances, and I was correct. Still, I enjoyed the movie. It’s King Kong, with no real pretensions to anything else, and it’s got a great cast. What’s not to like?

I measured the center point of the circle (and the board) as best I could and started laying down the squares.

I used this piece of wood as a spacer, to ensure the squares were more or less evenly spaced. Due to my own imprecision cutting the foam squares, they weren’t exact; but I thought uneven stones would give the board a rustic, imperfect character for the end result.

I worked from the center of the circle to the inside circumference, then I began trimming the stones so they would not overlap the inscribed circle.

Then, working from the perimeter, I started laying down squares to meet up with the outside circumference. I was careful to make sure that the spaces lined up as best I could with what was already down on the board. Again, I trimmed the pieces so they wouldn’t overlap the inscribed circle.

As you can see, the pattern is taking shape. Once everything is finished, there will be a visible circular pattern in the flagstones. I’m not going to lie, this was pretty boring and tedious work. (I have newfound respect for people who lay tile for a living. It sucks.) I finished Kong: Skull Island and had time to watch another movie about an autopsy subject who is really a dormant witch who starts killing people in the morgue. It was surprisingly watchable, but then again, my attention was split.

Once the board layout was complete, I used a ball point pen to inscribe some cracks on the craft foam flagstones. Hint: don’t do this with a pen you care about, as it will stop writing permanently.

This was also tedious work, but it took much less time than laying out the foam squares. Once complete, the board looked like this.

Adding Texture 

With the squares laid out, it was time to add some texture. I used Elmer’s wood glue and squeezed out a line throughout the gaps, being careful to make sure the circular gap was covered as well. I used an old, shitty paintbrush to spread the glue around.

I did it in sections to ensure the glue didn’t dry before I got to it. Then I dumped sand over the whole section.  I let each section absorb the sand and dry before I moved on, which enabled me to collect surplus sand (be sure to lay down newspaper, folks) from a dry section for reuse.

Once the whole board was covered in sand, I filled in any gaps I had overlooked. I scraped most of the sand that had adhered to the flagstones away, leaving a little bit for added texture. Then I moved on to the first phase of sealing the table: Woodland Scenics Scenic Cement. This stuff has the consistency of milk and brushes on very easily. I used it to soak the “grout” areas and let it dry overnight. Then I added another coat the next morning, before I had to go  outside to deal with the 17″ of snow in my driveway. With two layers of scenic cement on top of the wood glue, the sand wasn’t really going anywhere and should stand up well to painting.

Painting and Sealing

A week later, we got more snow. Not enough to be an issue, but enough for me to have an excuse to stay home again. Time to paint the arena!

I had some Asian-themed terrarium scenery I thought would go well with this board, so I decided to match my color scheme to that. Another trip to Home Depot and I got two small sample pots of Behr paint: Native Soil (basecoat) and Safari Vest (highlight). With the sand pretty well glued down, I applied a thorough coat of the Native Soil to the board. (That swatch there isn’t Safari Vest, it’s a color called Woven Straw. I thought I was going to use it as a highlight, but it’s too bright.)

Unfortunately, this somewhat obscured the cracks I had so painstakingly inscribed into the flagstones. I decided to give the whole thing a black wash, both to reinforce the spaces between the flagstones and to highlight the cracks. I used watered-down black craft paint and applied two coats of the wash over a day or so. (I didn’t really have to wait that long, but I was doing other stuff in the meantime, and it’s not like I was in a hurry.)

Once it was done, I gave the board a drybrush of the Native Soil, followed (once it dried) by another drybrush of Safari Vest. I actually regret buying the Safari Vest sample pot, since I used so little of it. I could have probably got the same effect by using craft paint (and it would have been much cheaper, too).

Anyway, I decided that the board would benefit from some flock in between the flagstones, to simulate  the irregular growth of weeds. Anyone who has ever seen a flagstone driveway, or even a sidewalk for that matter, knows that plants tend to grow in the cracks despite anyone’s best efforts.

Once the flock was down and dry, I decided to apply a coat of matte polyurethane to seal and protect the whole board. And done!

Or so I thought. Something was missing, so I decided to make a viewing platform where VIPs could watch the fights. I used plasticard for the flagstones and insulation board for the body of the platform. A little glue and textured paint (same colors), and it fits right in.

The evil Hai Feng observes the battle between his two lieutenants, each intent upon joining the ranks of his celestial bodyguard…

The beginnings of a tournament of World Warriors. Who will be crowned champion?

At the Shaolin Temple, Master Tsu Kang teaches the Iron Palm technique to his initiates…

The stone board can be used for other games as well:

In a tomb somewhere deep in the jungles of Ceylon, Lara Croft confronts Helmut Von Jurgen and his unsavory henchmen.

In the sacrificial shrine of the Reptile God, a small band of adventurers faces off against a Lizard Man shaman and his minions…

Not a bad way to spend a snow day or two. I’m mostly happy with how it looks, but if I had to do it again, I would make a smaller circle. 18″ is a pretty big diameter for a 24″ board, but I can make it work.

Now I just need to get crackin’ on those skirmish rules!

 

 

Poison Ivy

Poison Ivy has become one of my favorite Batman villains, although it wasn’t always so. (Take the movie Batman and Robin, for example; like Arnold Shwarzenegger’s Mister Freeze, the less said about Uma Thurman’s portrayal of Ivy, the better.) I didn’t really start to like her until the Batman: The Animated Series episode “Harley and Ivy”, in which the two ladies team up to take over Gotham’s crime scene, at least until Batman and the Joker find out about it.

Ivy appears in all but one of the Rocksteady Batman: Arkham series of video games, of which I am a huge, obsessed fanboy. And now, with a particularly cold-blooded version of Poison Ivy running amok on the current season of TV’s Gotham, I thought it was a good time to feature her here.

This repainted Heroclix Ivy is from the DC Cosmic Justice set. It’s the classic, early version of Ivy, before she got chlorophyll for blood and became more plant than human. I based her on a small piece of Spanish moss. Behind her are some of her pets: the big monster plants are Dragon Plants, new from Reaper’s Bones collection. The pod plants are also from Reaper Bones; they’re Death Star Lilies.  The big Man-eating Plant in the middle is from Armorcast.

 

The little plant people are Vardu Sprouts, from Hydra Miniatures’ Primal Dawn range. When I ordered them I thought they would be bigger than they are, but they’re sprouts, after all. I just based them two to a base. I plan on having the pod plants spit them out as a renewable source of plant henchmen.

Lastly, the big guy is an old version of Reaper’s Swamp Shambler. I painted him years ago, and he looks a lot like a certain…bayou-dwelling…Plant Elemental…known for…punctuating…his speech…with lots…of…elipses…but in this context he’s Ivy’s bodyguard, should Batman ever get too close. He’s better than that horrible version of Bane in Batman & Robin, anyway.

Man, was ANYTHING in that movie any good? No. Not a thing.

Anyway, here is my Super Mission Force build for Poison Ivy:

Poison Ivy (Wild Card) Minor: Barrier, Entangle, Summoning, Telekinesis

I can hear some of you already: “Now hold on a second, Angry Piper! Barrier and Entangle, I can see. But since when does Poison Ivy have Summoning and Telekinesis?”

To that, my friends, I would say you must think outside the box a bit. What is Poison Ivy’s main power? Plant control. Unfortunately, there is no plant control power in SMF. Ivy can get plants to do a lot of stuff, like entangle enemies or form barriers…or grapple enemies at range with super strength, bear herself aloft to higher elevations (a’ la Jack and the Beanstalk), or manipulate objects at a distance using plant-y tendrils. (In other words: Telekinesis, only using the plants instead of her mind.) She can will plants to fight for her and pretty much instantly mutate normal plants into killing machines. Kind of sounds like Summoning, no?

Of course, if you don’t like my version of Poison Ivy, you could substitute some or all of these powers with others you may find more thematically appropriate, like Armor, Damage Field, or Enhanced Senses, to name a few. When using Ivy in a scenario, I would let her have a few plant guardians and/or henchmen in place at the start of the game. She’s really not that tough, otherwise; and she would likely be defeated before she could use her powers to summon reinforcements. Just my 2 pesos.

 

 

Juggernaut and Black Tom

Juggernaut is a classic X-Men villain, a physical titan who is counterpoint to his brother Charles Xavier’s mental mastery. Unfortunately, he often hangs out with Black Tom Cassidy.

Black Tom is the cousin of Sean Cassidy (not to be confused with Shaun Cassidy, the Hardy Boy), better known as the X-Men’s Banshee. Black Tom was created by veteran X-Men scribe Chris Claremont, a man responsible for many great X-Men storylines and characters. Unfortunately, he’s also responsible for many horrible X-Men characters (like Black Tom Cassidy), as well as the nightmare “alternate-reality/timeline” clusterfuck that characterizes the X-books to this day.

I have mixed feelings about Mr. Claremont. On the one hand, his X-Men work with John Byrne in the late 70’s/early 80’s is iconic. But then, in the 90’s, he created Gambit.

No matter how conflicted I feel about Mr. Claremont, my feelings about Black Tom are crystal clear. Like many of Claremont’s characters (Moira Mac Taggart, for example), Black Tom suffers from ridiculous ethnic stereotyping. He’s all “begorrahs” and “boyos” and “blimeys”.  I get that he’s a comic book villain, but fer Chrissakes, man. Black Tom also channels his powers through a shillelagh, because of course he fucking does. 

In case you can’t glean as much from the tone of this post, I actually hate Black Tom Cassidy more than I hate Gambit (I didn’t know that was possible). Nevertheless, he hangs out with Juggernaut, so….

Here are my Heroclix repaints of Juggernaut and Black Tom. I look at these and while I’m happy with the repaints, I have a slight problem…Juggernaut is way too small. According to the Marvel wiki, Juggernaut is 9’5″. The fact that he’s hunched over (no doubt plodding forward) doesn’t help, but I feel like Juggernaut should be HUGE. Take this screen shot from the Marvel Super Heroes video game:

Yeah. That’s Juggernaut. Not someone slightly larger than Black Tom Cassidy. He can fit his whole hand around Iron Man’s waist! (In the video game, he’s actually bigger than the Hulk.)

There are other Heroclix versions of Juggernaut, but, IMO, this one is the best sculpt. I wish it was bigger, but I’ll live with it.

As far as Black Tom goes, his sculpt is fine, although the flame coming out of his shillelagh (why does that sound dirty?) is made out of that translucent ‘Clix plastic I hate so much. I painted flames over it, for better or worse.

Here are my Super Mission Force builds for Juggernaut and the reviled Black Tom Cassidy:

Juggernaut: (Super) Major: Super Strength, Minor: Armor, Density Increase, Resistance, Tough

Special Rules: Unstoppable: Juggernaut’s Density Increase power is ALWAYS on. He doesn’t have to activate it, nor can he choose to deactivate it. This makes him immune to knockback at all times. It also means he can’t charge, only move at his normal rate. Juggernaut can be Entangled, but only until his next activation. He automatically wins any opposed roll to escape an Entangle. He just plods forward. Juggernaut can be grappled normally. (If you want try grappling Juggernaut, good luck.)

Black Tom Cassidy: (Blaster) Major: Power Blasts, Minor: Clever, Rapport (Juggernaut)

Note: this is the old version of Black Tom, the one I know and hate from a few decades ago. Apparently, Black Tom is now part wood, and can control wood. If you prefer, I guess you could give him Armor and Melee Specialist instead of the minor powers I gave him to reflect his current version. He’ll still suck, though, because he’s still Black Tom Cassidy.

 

Khelden Josek, Dwarf Brewer

Today, I present to my readers my favorite role-playing character of all time: Khelden.

Khelden is an Ultangen Dwarf, a race from my good friend Owen’s fantasy setting, Gandaria. (Owen used to have a whole website dedicated to this setting and some of his other gaming and writing endeavors, but he took it down a couple of years back, which is a real shame.) Like many dwarfs, Khelden was a soldier for decades, a veteran of countless battles and a formidable warrior. But Khelden left the Dwarflands to start a life elsewhere. A brewer by trade, Khelden set up a prosperous business in the large, mostly human city of Brimshire. His wealth and character allowed him to achieve some status among the merchant class and the nobility.

Khelden is immensely strong; and while he is no deep thinker, he possesses the canniness of one who has lived by his wits and skills for many long years. He is an exceptional fighter, but he considers brewing his profession. While he excels at brewing (it’s his highest GURPS skill, in fact), he is constantly being called away from his brewery to battle monsters or deal with the intrigues of evil beings. Khelden wields Arshavir, a dwarven mace of great power and a relic from many centuries past, long thought to be lost. The mace has an adverse and dangerous effect on the weather the longer it is used in battle. Luckily, Khelden finishes most fights quickly.

This miniature is a perfect representation of Khelden as a Master Brewer in his later years, assuming he ever got to live that long (unlikely, considering the lethality of Owen’s campaign). He has finally settled down and retired, enjoying the fruits and rewards of a life well-lived. At long last, he has perfected his recipe for his dwarven stout, better known as Khelden’s Black. Unfortunately, this miniature does not have a mace, but a hammer instead. Khelden used a hammer in his early years. I imagine that since he is now old, Khelden has passed Arshavir on to a younger, worthy dwarf; and is content to take up the hammer again.

The miniature is the Dwarf Brewer from the Reaper Bones line. The ale casks on the right of the picture are from Deep Cuts, part of the Pathfinder scenics they’re putting out nowadays. Both Bones and Deep Cuts claim they do not need primer and that paint can be applied directly to the model, but I primed everything with Vallejo surface primer and I’m glad I did. I like the ale casks. At $3.99 for the three pack they’re priced nicely, but they don’t sit levelly. It’s a minor quibble, but it’s there. The Reaper dwarf miniature was only $2.50! I’m starting to find a new appreciation for Reaper Bones…

If you’re interested in yet another of my old characters, I posted a short write-up of my monk, Brother Jerrod, way back in March 2015.