Thinking Outside the Box

All of these figures are from the first Bones Kickstarter campaign from Reaper Miniatures. First up is one of the fantasy civilians. I've actually had this one painted for a few months, but she languished on the prep table awaiting enough other completed figures for me to do a batch of basing and static grass. More recently, after having done two batches of police I wanted to paint some single figures. So I decided to add some more folks to my western gaming collection. One of the two western figures from the campaign looked a lot like Zoe from Firefly , so that's how I painted her. I tried using more natural colours and think she turned out great. The other one looks quite obviously looks like Lee van Cleef. He was a really easy paint job and looks exactly as I'd planned. Unfortunately it wasn't until I'd primed him that I noticed the one pistol being bent. I tried the hot water trick after I finished painting, but it seems that the paint adds just en...

Hobby seemed to take a bit of a back seat through July. I split my time amongst five projects, which is a quite few more than I'd promised myself I would work on. Here's what happened in my hobby realms...with far fewer photos than I'd like! The first thing I recall finishing in July was actually painting my MDF DreadBall pitch from start to finish. You can read more about that by clicking here . Stuff built for Batman Miniatures Game : - Black Canary and Batgirl - Victor Zsasz and Arkham Inmates set (4) - Titan Bane - Blackgate Prisoners set I (4) - Blackgate Prisoners set II for BMG (4) When I bought my Terminator Genisys starter set I built them the same day. This month I put some basing material on them and got everything primed in black. Although not fully complete I've painted all the endoskeletons (15) who simply lack a few finishing touches. We even had a chance to play through a few games. I may or may not do some kind of game recap or review...

When I made my huge order from  West Wind Productions  for the first wave of  Empire of the Dead  gang boxes (seems like ages ago, because it was) I included a Victorian citizens pack. Ten models that I can use as fodder for various scenarios, or just to dress up the gaming table a little bit. The sculpts are characterful yet simple which makes them easy to paint. One thing I will say is that these took much longer than I'd like to admit to finish. It's not like when you paint a full unit where you paint each part of each figure the same colour. With each figure being unique, I had to spend time choosing colours that suited. I also decided to give the dipping technique another try, this time using Army Painter 's "Strong Tone" quickshade. Every time I use varnish as a shading medium I freak out a tiny bit when it dries. The glossy finish plus the high pigmentation always makes me think "oh sh*t, I've ruined my base coat!" for just a few sec...

For those of you in various parts of the globe, July here is quite an interesting time due to the Calgary Stampede taking over for a few weeks. There are free pancake breakfasts daily all over the city, barbecue parties, concerts, and all kinds of great stuff going on. If you ever want to party for 10+ days, the Stampede can help you out with that. Don't believe me, click here . Having grown up on an actual farm, I think the "costume cowboys" are rather entertaining. Putting on boots and a hat does not make one a cowboy, but it's all in good fun. On the other hand...the costume cowgirls are A-OK with me. Working downtown during Stampede does have some visual appeal to be sure. Wait, I was going to talk about gaming wasn't I? Yes, yes, I do have some kind of point here. Another gamer friend and I have fired up a few games of Blackwater Gulch  to countdown to Stampede. If possible I think we'd like to build up a western town game board and run a day of ga...

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...

Since I made my last post I've had a few snippets of exciting news pop up. I'll start with the most recent and go backwards... Not to long ago the Studio McVey  folks posted another update on Sedition Wars . Sounds like things are finally starting to ship, which is pretty spiffy information. I'm sure it'll be a while yet before anything lands in my mailbox, but at least I know that things are starting to happen. Yesterday, the surveys finally went out for the Blackwater Gulch  campaign too. I had long since planned out what I wanted for my pledge dollars, so it didn't take me very long to fill it out. Or so I had thought would be the case. There was a brief moment of indecision when I tried to decide if I wanted more custom bases, or a copy of the rulebook...I opted for extra bases; two sets of rocky bluffs, one set of desert mesa. The rule book is available for free from Gangfight Games  and is really nice; I hope they continue to keep it freely available to do...

This post may not be of great interest to you, but I wanted to collect all my thoughts together about several items I've ordered, pledged for or am planning to do this year. Not really a resolution list, but more of an...itemized accounting I suppose. I supported a lot of crowd-funding efforts in 2012. Sadly the first one that I supported I've not yet seen anything from and they seem to be suffering delay upon delay: Sedition Wars . As of early this week though, it does sound like they're finally getting on track. This was the first time I really jumped in and pledged for stretch goals or extras, and the amount of stuff I will (eventually) receive for my money was pretty astounding. While I am looking forward to the game itself, I'm also looking at using the Vanguard figures for other things, more likely as Colonial Marines for some Aliens-related gaming. The next thing I jumped on was the now-ubiquitous DreadBall . I went way overboard throwing cash at this beast...

Last Thursday was supposed to be our VS System night but it ended up being only William and I. Neither of us seemed too concerned about playing so we chatted while he sorted through a newly arrived package from Greater Than Games . Seems he had gotten in on the Kickstarter campaign they had a while back to help with the enhanced edition of Sentinels of the Multiverse . Last year I introduced Sentinels to my group to pretty much universal acclaim. I believe it was some time in August that I was trying to track down a local Canadian retailer that could get it for me. I met with zero success and ended up ordering directly from the publisher. Shipping ended up costing me half again what the game did, but I was the first person around to have it. Shortly after making my enquiries at a few shops, the game started popping up with quite a bit of regularity...so I guess my asking around did have an effect. While going through the box William put a few things on the table and said that I was...

Over the weekend I took a fairly lengthy road trip and ended up having a little bit of time to stop in at a game shop on the way. I won't go into my experience at the shop or say what shop it was, because my impressions were mediocre at best. However, I did pick up a few things while I was there. I had never been able to find the original The  Adventurers: Temple of Chac , board game, and so when I saw a decently priced copy I grabbed it. Having read through the rules, set it up and tried a few basic turns I'm not sure how well it will get received in my regular group, but we'll give a go sometime soon and I'll post up my thoughts then. What I was really looking for when I walked into the shop were some reasonably priced western-themed figures. When I asked for something like that I was told, without hesitation, to "go check a dollar store, I don't have anything like that here," but upon looking around a little I found two packs of nicely pre-painted 2...

Lots of little bits to share today so let's get started. One of my favorite card games apparently has a new lease on life! Warlord: Saga of the Storm has been picked up by another developer and will continue. I think this is the third or even fourth incarnation of the game. If you haven't played it I highly recommend picking up a few of the available decks and giving it a go. I'm not sure what the change of hands means to the existing US web store (but I intend to find out as I still have credit there). Click here to see info about the new developer/publisher/whatever. In all the miniature stuff I've looked at in the past few months, it never occurred to me to look into a wild west-style skirmish game. That is until I saw some recommendations for a game called Blackwater Gulch . I've only just skimmed through the rules, but it looks quick and easy to play, and best of all the rules are totally free. They can be downloaded on their website  and I suggest taki...