Thinking Outside the Box

Star Trek: Attack Wing is the first game I've bought into in quite some time that has any kind of tournament or organized play program. With each expansion ship coming with an included scenario to play, I'd probably be happy playing the game without the OP, but I do have to admit that I've enjoyed having an event  to go to for the game. Not only does it allow me to get use out of the game components I've purchased but I also get to play against other interested folks, rather than me foisting the game onto my friends. I'll sadly admit however that I have not actually played any of the ~16 scenarios that I have from the booster packages... The current play program is a six month long campaign recreating the Dominion War which took place during the Deep Space Nine television show. I'll admit to having not watched all of that series, so my knowledge of the actual story is rather limited. However, I have had the chance to play in an event for each of the first t...

Even though I've been playing a lot of Star Trek: Attack Wing in the past few weeks, I have also been painting. With Fallcon fast approaching and me slated to be running a tournament / demos for Dreadball , I wanted to get another team finished up. To my disappointment, I wasn't able to conjure up the energy to get them completely done. After almost a week of required rest following Fallcon (required because I caught a brutal cold during the event), I finally mustered up the fortitude to finish another season 1 team: The Royal Eternian Rams ! When I played in my first league early this year (January thru March) I decided to play with this team so that the Forge Fathers would be represented. We had one player drop out and I took up the slack by also playing a human team as well. ( The Avion Warriors have already been showcased on my blog, you can read about them here .) Like most of the other players in that league, none of us had fully painted teams. A few were primed i...

So far I've only had time to put together a few of the wave 2 items. The Hurley drones are very nice. I'm not sure why they're the only ones done in that blue plastic, but they are excellent. There was almost no clean up needed on them. They're a little large compared to the Hurley model itself...I don't see any way he could store more than one of them! I've also cleaned up and put together all of the bone crabs. These things have pretty prevalent mould lines, made worse by the fact that they have lots of legs. After being cleaned up they look good. Over the top disgusting, but good. I do wish the tails were a little heavier, because they're quite fragile to bending and having stress marks. I might prime these using gesso instead of spray primer just to give them a little extra protection. The last items I tackled were Ramirez and her necroform model. My casting of the necroform was almost flash-free and has good detail. I'm not thrilled with the nec...

Since getting into Tannhauser  earlier this month I have been casting my net far and wide across the internet trying to find fan-made materials to add to my games. With Halloween fast approaching I happened upon a fun sounding "Zombie Survival" scenario created by Miah999 over at Front Toward Enemy . If you want to have a look at the scenario rules for yourself you can find it here . I downloaded the zombie card and glued it to a piece of cardboard off the back of one of my notepads. When I cut the backing cardboard piece, I cut it a little larger to allow for a border around the card. Once it was glued down I finished the edges of it with black electrical tape. I didn't think to take a photo of my card, but you can see it in the photos below, on the left hand side of the game board. I decided to set up the scenario on the crypt map from the core game set, and grabbed some of my painted zombies that I showed off earlier this year.  With the board set up, zombies and ...

Not too long ago I mentioned that I picked up a copy of the Tannhauser core game, a set of equipment cards and the revised rule book. It was pretty much a "hey that box looks spiffy" kind of purchase. I had never to my knowledge heard of the game, so before I bought it I watched some videos online and read a few reviews. It sounded like with the revised core rules, a game I could enjoy. If you look at the tags I classified this post with, you might ask why it's marked as "Weird WWII" instead of WWI. Based on the fluff, I think it sort of falls into being the same thing in this case. In the story line the great war (WWI) ended up continuing all the way into the late 1940s and early 1950s. It's just the Reich instead of Nazis playing the role of bad guys, so the WWWII label seemed close enough. During my web travels, I happened upon an online US retailer with a huge amount of Tannhauser stuff on discount. Miniature Market 's sale was pretty comprehen...

A few months back my boss purchased himself a 3D printer. He's brought in some samples of things he's printed: a coffee mug, a pill bottle, and most interestingly...some geographic layered tiles based on 3D models from our CAD department. Those were pretty neat. This week he brought in something quite a bit different. Can you guess what it is from this printing-in-progress shot? I wouldn't be surprised if you had a hard time guessing. The shape is there, but it's hidden underneath several support structures that had to be removed after the printing was complete. After removing all of those,and spending a little time with my airbrush and paints, we ended up with this. You might be able to tell that it's not full scale by comparing it to the size of my hand. The texture of the print is a little rough, and I certainly could have cleaned it up some more with a little sanding and filing. However since we're planning on implanting it inside a pumpkin an...

I received my first shipment a while back, two buildings, from my pledge on last year's Kickstarter campaign for Blackwater Gulch . Monday morning on my way out the door to work I found another package lying on my doorstep. Not having time to go through it, I tossed it in my backpack to await cataloging...either during my lunch hour or at home when I returned. I went in for a Marshall pledge of $150, but added on some extras as well. Here's what I got. Starter gang boxes: -  Banditos Mexicanos -  Bloodwolf Tribe -  Widowmakers -  Tranquility Crew -  Wilde's Rangers Unlocked extras: - 6 colt-45 dice (these are a lot nicer than I'd expected!) - The Norwegian - John Blackwood - Mickey Finn - Kurt Wyatt - Doctor Kilmer - Nevada Dave - Father Al - Marshall Stewart - Rooster Morrison - Clinton Wales - Doc Lloyd I also splurged out for some add-ons: - Secret Weapon bases: #1 (desert mesa), and #2 rocky bluff - Shamus McFox: an unreached st...

As I mentioned last time, I was at Fallcon during the last weekend of September. One of the big parts of the convention for me is the game auction. There are a few hundred games up for grabs in the auction every year, and I had looked over the list to see what gems I might be able to pick up. I had a list, but only ended up with one item from my list, that being Doom: The Board Game . I played a lot of Castle Wolfenstein , Doom and eventually Quake during my teens. I'd heard of the board game and that it was quite good, but had never given it much thought. When I saw there were a few copies of it up for grabs in the auction I decided that if I could get one for less that $40 I would. My copy cost me $35, and the second one went for $28. I know at this point it's unlikely I'll find a copy of the expansion, but maybe someday! The figures are quite nice and there are a lot of them. I'm sure they'd take paint well, although it's unlikely I'll be doing tha...

I've been around a lot of gaming in the past few weeks, but not actually done much myself. Let's get started with last weekend. Fallcon 26 ran Friday thru Sunday and I was lined up to help host three events on the first two days. Friday night's event was Dreadball . Unfortunately we only had one person registered for Dreadball, which I found to be quite disappointing, not in that the fellow was there, but in that none of the local players who've bought into the game bothered to come out to support it. It's really hard to build a gaming community when the players don't help out. On the plus side we did end up running three full games and everyone seemed to enjoy them. Saturday morning was Hordes / Warmachine . There were two guys from out of town in with their armies to play and Sebastien and I ran a demo game for another attendee. Well received, but lightly attended. Part of the trouble might be that it's a miniature game at a board game heavy conv...