Crescent Root Studios have just released their new 28mm scale Middle Eastern buildings. I regularly play Flames of War over a set of their 15mm ME buildings and have been eagerly awaiting these larger models for Pulp Gaming.

Initially they’re offering four individual buildings for sale, ranging in size and price from $16.99us for a single level dwelling to $25.99us for a three room, two story building.

All of the buildings have interior spaces with open doors and windows. The roofs are removeable and the doors can be opened and closed as they ’slot’ into the walls in a cunning manner.

These buildings would be ideal for Pulp and modern 28mm skirmish gaming. They would also be fine for sci-fi gaming and I imagine with the addition of a few suitable details they’d make a great Ork ’scavenger’s village’ for 40k. I will definitely be ordering a set of these as soon as I can round up sufficient modelling funds!

Warhammer: Mark of Chaos is the latest Games Workshop licensed PC game in development and it’s shaping up nicely according to this article from Hexus Gaming.

I’m a big fan of the excellent 40k: Dawn of War RTS from Relic so hopefully Mark of Chaos will be the Fantasy equivalent, albeit from a different development house (Black Hole Entertainment). The screen shots are certainly lovely, we’ll just have to wait and see how it plays!

Well, it’s about a month late but Model Military International #2 (June) is available in New Zealand now for $13.70nz. I picked up a copy from Queen St ‘Mega Mags’ on the way home last night.

This issue is great because it primarily focuses on weathering so hopefully there’ll be some useful techniques that I can adapt to 15mm DAK tanks. There’s some fantastic examples of large scale weathering too as the cover shows. I also notice they’re not above reviewing ‘wargaming’ figures and vehicles which is nice to see.

In an odd coincidence the cover features the Sd Kfz 9 (18t) Famo and I’ve just had a Flames of War Sd Kfz 9 arrive to complete my FoW DAK Armored Company.

Presumably MMI is surface shipped from the UK publisher which explains the month delay. I must remember to keep an eye out for #3 around the end of August!

Here’s the results of our last poll. I’m having a hard time coming up with monthly questions, so from now on I’m leaving each poll up until it gets at least one hundred votes.

Giving up Games Workshop games?

• 18% (18) No! Never! GW is the best!
• 37% (38) No, but I play other systems too.
• 36% (37) Yes, other systems are better!
• 9% (9) Never bothered playing GW games.

Total Votes : 102

I think those are quite interesting results from those of you that voted. It seems most (91%) people have been exposed to Games Workshop’s product at some point in their gaming lives but many of you have, or are moving on from GW, with only 18% of voters still playing their games to exclusion.

Speaking personally GW was the first serious tabletop miniature game I played way back in 1988, prior to that I was only using small numbers of figures for D&D and Runequest RPGs. I happily played 40k for years (15 give or take) until becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the costs involved as well as the rules themselves. This led me to investigate other, more exotic beasts in the GW ’stables’. Mordheim being the one I’ve played the most (I must also try Necromunda), which in turn led me back to Warhammer Fantasy briefly, before I discovered the Vampire Counts force I’d thrown together sucked. Most recently my gaming has started following my reading habits, with my interest in WWII history leading me to play the excellent Flames of War system produced by a local New Zealand manufacturer no less and my long term love of Raymond Chandler’s novels (and the related film noir) driving me to try Pulp gaming with .45 Adventure. I’m having great fun playing both these systems at the moment and my GW figures are slowly gathering dust.

As promised the next poll does not relate to GW, well not directly. I’m curious, what’s your favourite figure scale to model and paint in? I’ve also added a new discussion link for this poll too.

I finished my first Artizan Design DAK Soldier over the weekend for .45 Adventure pulp gaming. Here he is seeking shelter in the ruins from an approaching haboob.

Not a bad figure to paint, the only problematic parts were the tiny Iron Cross he wears on his chest and his MP40 which is a little bland as it doesn’t have a lot of surface detail. If anybody can suggest a good way to paint a 0.5mm white stripe around a 3mm Iron Cross feel free to suggest it! I notice most of the Artizan Design DAK Germans I picked up are sporting crosses as well. I guess they’re all veterans of North Africa.

You can see why modern soldiers wear camouflage. Maybe I should have photographed this figure against a background that’s not the same colour as his uniform…

This 28mm scale resin African Steamer from John Jenkins Designs appeared on Tabletop Gaming News recently. I have to say it’s a lovely sculpt and is actually based on era photos. Unfortunately at $68us (or $110nz, or 38GBP) it’s way out of my price league, particularly when you compare the Steamer with say a Forgeworld Imperial Guard Tank for the same price.

However given my past experiments (still not finished) with building boats from balsa I’m confident I could scratch up a steamer in a similar style. The only problematic part being the paddlewheels and housing. So that’s one to add to the ‘inspiration’ list I guess!

John Jenkins Design do also sell a cheaper, smaller Steam Launch which I am tempted to pick up, depending mainly on shipping costs to New Zealand!

There’s an interesting article on the UK Games Workshop site - a photo essay of the construction of the large Cities of Death table featured on both the site and in the CoD rulebook.

With an inexhaustable supply of CoD sprues in their hands it’s no surprise the table looks great, but I did find it interesting how they went about prototyping it with full scale cardboard buildings before actually committing anything to foam card and plastic.

Using different heights of ‘riser’ for the various city blocks also adds gaming opportunities, which is something I learned first hand when constructing my own Mordheim table.