067 - House Painting 101

At the local club we recently all pitched in to buy a set of the small buildings from Sarissa Precision and we're all going to paint one up with a personalised sign.

Here's my effort, glamourously modelled by Perdita - slightly grainy photo but you get the idea:

Since the terrain is made of laser-cut wood, and already has the planks and grain marked on it, many people use it unpainted, and I suppose it is kinda the right colour already. However I think it looks much better once it's been primed and properly shaded and highlighted.

The lettering was printed off in the Guild font at the correct size, then painstakingly copied onto the sign. I'm glad I only had to do one building, because it took absolutely ages! I think I'm the first person to finish my building, (despite having it sitting around my house for a couple of months!) so when I take it along next week it'll hopefully incentivise the other guys to get one painted up.

047 - UK Masters Tournament Report: Terrain Pics

There's been some discussion on the Wyrd forums and elsewhere recently about how much terrain to use on a Malifaux board. I took snaps of the 8 tables used at the Masters last weekend and thought I'd share. To me these are a bit of a mixed bag - some definitely had too little terrain, and one in particular had perhaps a little too much, but as a general guide they're probably not too far off.  Most of the terrain is from Maelstrom Games' collection, with the addition of the Sarissa Precision wild west buildings that had been kindly brought along by Dave 'Clousseau' Brown.

Once again forgive the photo quality. I'm yet to work out how to take a satisfactory picture on my iPhone - tips welcome!

036 - Building a Gaming Board - Part 1

A bit over a month ago the Leeds Wargaming Center, where I played the vast majority of my games, unexpectedly closed down. This was a big blow to the local gaming community, who had settled into the place over the last 8 months, and there was a period of uncertainty regarding when and where we'd find a new place to play toy soldiers. A few alternatives have now been organised, but none of them are ideal for me.

The Night Owls gaming club found a community center which could accommodate them on Sundays, but that's no longer a viable day for me. The old HEART club continues to open on Thursday evenings, but this clashes with my martial arts class. A small new club has opened in Keighley, which I hope to get to soon to take a look at, but it's a bit out of my way and the opening times are erratic. All of these places also suffer on the extra count that their tables and scenery will never live up to the incredible standard of Kaine's Malifaux boards at the LWGC.

The combination of these factors means I've decided to start a little terrain project of my own in the form of a modular gaming board, with the plan being that I'll be able to play games at home (enticing unsuspecting victims to my house with promise of beer and/or pizza may be required), or transport it easily to another location if required.

Here's where I'm at so far - I've built three of the 1-foot square pieces that will make up the playing surface. Being a complete amateur when it comes to woodwork, they're going to need a little tidying up, but I'm pleased with the results so far and how easy they were to knock together.

I'm mulling over a few ideas for themes for the board, but I'm currently leaning towards a frontier town type setting.

As you can see I haven't got far yet, and this will probably be a bit of a slow-grow project, but I'll be throwing up the occasional update post over the next few months. I've never attempted anything like this before, so it'll be a learning process, and I'd be grateful for feedback and advice as I go!

Mike