‘PN SUD Modelisme‘ makes some very nice looking 1/72 scale WWII ‘Atlantic Wall’ bunkers. Such a shame they’re not 1/100 or 15mm scale really!
Feb 172006
My dusty Imperial Guard force have been languishing in the garage for almost exactly two years now. I think mainly because I found that 40k 3rd Edition is just a dull game to play with Guard.
However last night I played my first game of 4th Edition with them and I have to say it was great fun! As sceptical as I am of Games Workshop’s endless treadmill of new rule and army books I think they’ve actually done a good thing with 4th Edition 40k.
In my opinion the main changes for Imperial Guard are in the Rapid Fire weapon and Vehicles. Finally the tanks can move AND fire the big guns and sponson weapons are useful too. They actually feel like tanks rather than the static gun emplacements of 3rd Edition.
Rapid Fire weapons just get to fire more often in which is nice for pin cushioning your tougher opponents to death.
Hmmm might have to paint a few more IG to round out my force…
A couple of weeks ago I ordered $50us worth of 15mm North African buildings from ‘Crescent Root Studios‘ and they just arrived this morning.
I have to say I am a completely happy customer! The buildings look fantastic and Mark Neimeyer from Crescent Root Studios was very helpful and friendly, indulging me with both a custom order (I wanted just the buildings, not the bases) and working out shipping costs all the way to my home in New Zealand.
I will definitely be keeping an eye on CRS for any future product and see they also have a line of 25-28mm Fantasy buildings. I notice they’ve also recently added 15mm European buildings too.
My $50us gave me one of each of Mark’s 15mm NA buildings with a few extra copies of the smaller buildings. All of the buildings are well detailed with doorways, windows, trap doors, stairways and cracks and exposed brick work.
They’re cast from a robust resin product by the feel of it and I think they’ll hold up to painting and gaming well. I also noticed no issues like bubbles etc. in the casting at all. They’re reasonably light as I suspect they’re cast over a foam filler so they may move during gameplay unless based on something heavier like MDF. I will probably base them anyway as I’d like to add extra detail like boxes, etc.
All of the buildings in these photos are unpainted and straight from their well packed box. The buildings come in three sizes:
Large
The large buildings will hold at least one large Flames of War infantry base on their rooftops, probably two for the left and right buildings.
Of the three the right building is probably the most versatile with it’s large square roof and staircase. The central building is a very characterful split level and the left building will be great for blocking LOS, even from elevated opponents.
Medium
The medium buildings are all good for hiding infantry behind and placing observers on.
A staircase is nice but all the buildings without staircases actually have subtle trapdoors sculpted into the roofs. They’re hard to see in the photos, although you can just make one out slightly off-centre of the right building’s square roof. A bit of careful painting will make them more obvious.
Most of the medium buildings also stack onto the large buildings too which is nice for some extra variety.
Small
The small buildings are all for extra detail. You can stack them, or rest them next to a larger building as an extension.
Many of the Crescent Root building sets also come with those flat side pieces. They work really well to convert a house style building into a more market or shop feeling building. I don’t quite know why that is…possibly the arched doorways and tiled roofs? But combine a few with the normal buildings and you end up with a very nice ‘town square’ or ‘market’ feel. I’m debating whether to fix these to buildings before I paint everything, or keeping them separate for variety. Hmmmm or perhaps I should just order more buildings!
In conclusion these buildings are exactly what I was after, they’re very nicely sculpted and well cast, their scale is perfect for 15mm and Crescent Root Studios were a absolute pleasure to deal with. So if you’re after reasonably priced 15mm, 20mm or 28mm scale terrain I say definitely check them out.
Feb 132006
Well, I’ve just ordered another four molds from Hirst Arts so hopefully I’ll see them in a week or so. I picked up the following molds:
- #203 Cracked Floor Tiles. Chris has this mold already and I’ve even done a ‘preview’ cast from it so I’m quite happy to pick up my own copy. It’ll be very handy for buildings and dungeon floors.
- #250 Small Brick Mold. This mold has been on my wish list for years and finally made it into an order. I suspect I’ll mainly be using it for chimneys and fireplaces.
- #42 Gothic Arena Accessories. At this point in time I have no real plans for these two gothic molds, but they’re just so packed with excellent looking detail pieces I had to pick them up.
- #43 Gothic Panel Accessories. I suspect they’ll see use either in some City Fight/40k ruined gothic terrain or some vaults and sewers to slide under my Mordheim table.
Once again I can’t recommend Bruce Hirst’s products enough. They’re just so incredibly versatile and you can produce fantastic 28mm terrain with minimal effort once you’ve mastered high detail plaster casting.
Feb 102006
Dlonnon from the DarkWing blog commented on the previous post, filling in a little of the missing information. This post is an edited version of his comment:
Stargrunt 2 is a game put out by Ground Zero Games. It is best described as Vietnam in space. It has a miniature line (fairly “realistic”) but the system itself is generic. Probably most famous for it’s complete lack of point system.
That reminds me of Starship Troopers by Mongoose Publishing which we also didn’t see in the poll results. This game has some great looking ‘sci fi bug’ miniatures that would look at home in any futuristic wargame.
Points systems are an interesting topic in themselves. Numerous people criticise Flames of War for it’s rather artificial inclusion of a GW-like points system in a historical wargame. However for any tabletop game that features regularly in tournaments points would seem to be the easiest way to go.
Speaking of Vietnam, can anybody recommend a good 28mm scale moderns skirmish ruleset? I’ve seen some great moderns terrain on Terragenesis which has piqued my interest.
Warzone is the original 40k clone (at least the first that was fairly successful). It was originally published by Target games (about 8 years ago), and briefly died when Target’s parent company went belly up (Warzone itself was said to be profitable). The rights were bought by Excelsior Games and they’ve slowly been revamping the rules and miniatures. A side note: Void was founded/started by ex-Target employees. The base rules for Void are almost identical to the old Warzone rules (except they 1/2′d the stats and used a d10 instead of a d20).
Interesting…although after 15 years of playing GW games I do prefer a D6 based game so I’ll stick with 40k and the three armies I already own.
I’d guess that “Railway Wars” was really the Great Rail Wars. It was put out by Pinnacle Enterainment Group. It was the miniature game that went with the RPG Deadlands. It is also the basis for the RPG/miniature game Savage Worlds. Savage Worlds is weird in that it’s both an RPG AND a miniatures game. Rumour has it will be re-released shortly after Deadlands Reloaded (a rewrite of the Deadlands RPG using the Savage Worlds rules), which should be out within the next month (in the US). The miniatures are still available from Jeff Valent’s Studios. They are good Western figures, but a smidge on the large size.
On further reflection those Jeff Valent figures aren’t the ones I’ve seen on the web. That range had a number of interesting figures like Chinese railway workers etc. It was probably one of the figure manufacturers listed on this ‘Wild West’ page however.
As an aside Jeff Valent Studios are an excellent supplier for sculpting tools and putties including very cheap ‘Green Stuff’.
Probably more than you wanted to know.
No that’s great information! Despite being a confirmed GW fanboy I’m always interested in other game systems…particularly since many of them come with their own unique figure ranges.
Feb 092006
The results from our previous ‘Favourite Tabletop Game’ poll are interesting.
First we have the games I originally listed in the poll. I suspect most of our visitors are Games Workshop gamers, because this site is heavily dedicated to Mordheim. Although it’s nice to see we have about the same number of Flames of War visitors too.
- WH40k, 39 votes.
- Mordheim, 30 votes.
- WHFB, 29 votes.
- Flames of War, 29 votes.
Several visitors expanded the poll by adding the following entries, including many games I’ve not heard of. First are those that got multiple votes:
- Stargrunt, 4 votes. This seems to be a sci-fi skirmish game. Although I can’t find official rules for sale, is it out of print? Any of our readers care to enlighten me?
- Warzone, 4 votes. Boardgame Geek has a couple of listings for ‘Warzone’ although they all appear to relate to the same game family – Warzone, ‘Universe Under Siege’. Its sounds suspiciously like a Warhammer 40k clone to me and seems to have no online resources, once again readers please feel free to enlighten me!
- Warmaster, 3 votes. Another Games Workshop Specialist Game, although I’ve never played it the idea of massed Fantasy battles with 10mm figures has a certain appeal.
- WH Ancient Battles, 2 votes. I was surprised to learn that Games Workshop also have a line of ‘ancients’ rules.
- Heroclix, 2 votes. A WizKids Games err game. Games with pre-painted collectable figures fall into the same realm as collectable card games imho and they’ve never really interested me that much.
- Wargods of Aegyptus, 2 votes. I’ve seen this game is the past, mainly because of the interesting fantasy Egyptian miniatures they have. Any GW Tomb Kings player should definitely check their miniatures out!
- WarMachine, 2 votes. This is a very slick looking skirmish game that has sorely tempted me in the past. Something about the combination of steam driven killer robots and magic ‘warcasters’ just appeals. Plus I’ve also heard the rules make for some interesting tactical play. Nice miniatures too!
Finally here are the single vote games.
- Railway Wars, 1 vote. I have no idea what this game is…although I do recall seeing some alternate timeline Victoriana figures somewhere on the web. Alas I can’t find them now – can any reader enlighten me?
- Urban War, 1 vote. Yet another sci-fi Skirmish game set in the Void 1.1 universe apparently.
- Star Wars Miniatures, 1 vote. This game looks a lot like Wizards of the Coast’s answer to Heroclix and essentially seem to be a line of collectable, pre-painted plastic figures with rules so you’ve got something to do with them.
Feb 072006
I’ve always enjoyed web comics and one of my favourites is Copper on Bolt City mainly because of the simple, clear style the creator Kazu Kibuishi uses.
Fortunately Mr Kibuishi has been kind enough to include a tutorial of the process he uses to create this fine comic. Of particular interest to me was the computer colouring he does over his crisp pen and ink drawings.
These days there’s just so many great, free tools out there for creating computer art that it seems a shame not to use them!
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