Now I’ve painted my Orc Border Patrol force, I’m looking to expand it to a full Orc and Goblin army. I was steeling myself to pay full retail prices, until Daniel pointed out Imperial Games sell Games Workshop below retail in New Zealand. To my knowledge that makes them the only discount Games Workshop retailer in New Zealand. They carry the entire Games Workshop range, not to mention several other superb independent companies like Pig Iron, CNC Workshop and Ziterdes (excellent for terrain) and if you order more than $75nz worth of goods they’ll ship for free within the country. I had a few questions about my order so emailed them and was pleasantly surprised to find Imperial Games are also run by professional and responsive folks, which is exactly what you want from an online retailer.

I’ve ordered the following from them to bulk out my Orc’n'Gobbo force. I’ve put the GW NZ retail price in italics for comparsion:

$49.50 ($55) Night Goblins Regiment
$22.50 ($25) Night Goblin Fanatic Box
$49.50 ($55) Orc Warriors Regiment
$36.00 ($40) Orc Warboss
$67.50 ($75) Warhammer Giant
$225.00 ($250) Total

That’s a 10% discount on GW retail and free shipping. I’ll be using Imperial Games from now on for most of my hobby purchases, particuarly since they carry several other lines I’ve mentioned in the past and the Ziterdes range includes lots of useful terrain.

I also have no problem recommending them to any gamer based in New Zealand. It’s fantastic to finally have a professional, discount Games Workshop web-store based here in New Zealand.

Dustan recently posted in our forum about his homemade paint station and I’ve edited his posts into this blog entry. There are more photos and details of construction in the forum posts if you’re interested - Stu.

I decided to revamp my tired old painting table with a stepped shelf system designed for more comfortable painting and protection from my daughter Pagyn (almost 2 at the time of writing). I wasn’t alone on the mission as my boy Shaun lent a hand and was a wonderful help to keep things flush while I screwed them.

The materials were all scavenged from about the garage. I had a 1200×600mm sheet of 4.5mm MDF, the chipboard was about 200mm x 595mm at 20mm depth. The screws were the only part I needed to buy, about 85 screws all up at $0.10 a piece. The tools used were a jigsaw, skill saw, coping saw, a couple of clamps and a drill.

The table has been kicking arround with me for the longest time, it is an old TV table and I have been using it as a paint station for years. It’s a good size for hiding between furniture when not in use and the lower part of the table is where my current models, bitz and tools are stored.

I sketched up a diagram of roughly what I wanted it to look like, then after cutting the back and sides I drew the plans straight onto them. This first shot shows the table with the back and splash shields in place. I didn’t have any hole cutting drill bits so I used a coping saw to make the water jar hole. The cuts were made by clamping a guide rail onto the material to cut. The shelves are made from a system of screwed together steps with MDF tops and chipboard walls.

Here’s a shot of the fully stocked table so far. I am also over half way through building a breadbox style lid, made from old ventian blind slats, which will slide into the void above the top shelf.

So far construction has taken about six hours, and the design and measurements where largely made up on the fly. Painting at the table is nice as everything is available and arranged tidily, and the high sides limit Pagyn’s angles of attack which has made it much easier to get things done.

Very nice work Dustan. I admire both your scavenging and DIY abilities, and I particularly like the inclusion of a large storage area underneath the work surface. I’m also slightly jealous of your collection of GW paints. Most of mine have been used, or dried up and I’m left with the horrifying prospect of purchasing some more, at $7NZ locally for a single bottle! - Stu.

I changed jobs late last year and was pleasantly surprised to discover that a number of the find computer geeks I work with are also card and board game nerds too. In a given week we seem to get through three to four games of varying pedigree over the lunch hour. Naturally we play a common games like Carcassonne and occasionally Magic, but also a bunch of games I’ve not been exposed to before.

A group favourite from Adam’s collection is Race for the Galaxy, which as the title suggests is a race to build the highest scoring galactic civilisation. Also like a typical race, there’s no interaction between the competitors. It does however have an interesting mechanic where players decide which phases of a turn occur in any given turn, so a canny player can sort of parasitically benefit from the other player’s choices. This is a card game you can finish in under an hour, even with four to five players and each game is varied enough that we’ve gone weeks just playing Race.

Andrew has dragged out Clans once, which I found to be an enjoyable game of diminishing resources and escalating scoring with a single core mechanic that sort of feels like crystals forming in a solution. Possibly it’s a little too simple though as we haven’t replayed in the three months I’ve worked so far, although I’d happily try it again. It plays quickly too so you can get a couple of games in over an hour.

Zombie Fluxx is a card game that Adam bought in for comparison after I purchased a copy of Munchkin from Board-Games.co.nz. Having played Zombie Fluxx over a lunchtime this week I have to say I wish I’d purchased it instead of Munchkin! It has the same kind of ‘beer and pretzels’ feel of Munchkin, plays in a similar fast and furious fashion, and has the same large element of luck but the Fluxx mechanic of playing cards to change the game rules (including the victory conditions) is just a little deeper and more interesting than Munchkin. Plus you know, it’s got a Zombie theme, which actually works quite well with the rather abstract game.

In closing I’m also surprised to find how relaxing a midday board game is. I work in IT as a software enginner, which while not a physically draining job, certainly can be a mentally tiring one. Board and card games are an intellectual exercise too of course, but they’re also social affairs. Something about a game over lunch keeps my mind sharp enough to head back into the code in the afternoon, but is sufficiently different to refresh me as well. Possibly it’s the invigorating smack talk that goes on during the games. If you have the means I’d seriously recommend getting a gaming group together at your office.

I’m also interested to hear any recommendations for interesting board or card games that can be played with three to five people in around an hour. Any suggestions dear visitors?

It’s time for another annual round up, and I have to say looking back it’s been an un-productive year here at Tabletop Terrain. My personal life had a lot of ups and downs in ‘08 which made it hard to concentrate on anything, including hobby work. Frankly I’m glad the year is over and I’m looking forward to a more positive 2009.

January, February

The Hirst Arts Cathedral saw some good progress early in the year, but has stalled again as I’ve run out of Ultracal 30. In the new year I’m definitely going to visit TopMark in Auckland and grab a fresh pail.

March, April, May

February saw the start of a Flames of War three month painting challenge which I largely failed to complete. I painted a series of DAK Panzer turrets using an interesting weathering technique. To date I’ve only finished two of the Panzers that use these turrets, but as all the tanks have been based with dunkelgarb, I don’t believe my gaming buddies have noticed my laxness to date. I also sculpted an original little Flames of War objective for my DAK Germans, but haven’t got around to painting it yet.

I reviewed a couple of 28mm sci-fi products, Pig Iron Kolony heads and Hasslefree weapons that I intend to use for scratch building a Necromunda scavvie gang.

June, July, August

June and July were very quiet because it was the depth of winter and our whole family was fairly exhausted and often sick. However August I painted some 15mm Ancients, and knocked off a bunch of my Corvus Belli Carthaginians. This was an army I had intended to finish in 2008! I should certainly be able to knock them off early this year.

September, October, November, December

The release of Fallout 3 pretty much put paid to any hobby work at the end of the year as I played Fallout 3 for over a month straight each evening. All I achieved in these months was to start my Necromunda scavvie gang, which is based on a bunch of figures Daniel handed to me, and to finally build some 15mm flexible road strips for my North African Flames of War table.

Well that’s it. Goodness me, I really need to get stuck in this year. The recession means my hobby spending has also reduced, but like any hobbyist I have a large list of incomplete projects anyway. So 2009’s focus will be on finishing some of these - much like 2008’s was supposed to be! Anyway, hope you’ve all had a good Xmas and New Year! Roll on 2009.

Fallout 3 on the PC from Bethesda is the sole reason there’s been no blog updates here recently. It’s been years since I’ve played a game so damned enjoyable and downright addictive. I highly recommend it. It’s based on the Oblivion engine, which I played only briefly, finding it to be rather dull fantasy fare. The Fallout 3 post apocalyptic setting, 50’s swing band soundtrack and the addition of lots of awesome firepower makes for a game that’s streets ahead of Oblivion in my humble opinion.

However after playing at least 6-8 hours a week for the last couple of weeks I’ve maxed out my character and am plan to finish the main story line before Xmas. So hopefully normal programming will resume in the New Year. I’ve certainly got a slew of hobby projects backed up that I really want to knock off - mainly because some require almost minimal effort to complete.

Stu: In this post a gaming buddy Dustan, talks about his current project - painting a set of HeroQuest figures for gaming with his young son.

Way back around 1989 Games Workshop and Milton Bradley got together and produced HeroQuest. Set in GW’s Warhammer Fantasy world it recreates the adventures of four Heroes who battle the minions of the evil wizard Morcar (Zargon in America). I decided to paint up this set as something to play with my son who is turning six soon. This is the fourth set I’ve painted, for some reason they always seemed expendable when it came clearing out the cupboards, now it’s out of production I wont let this one escape me!

HeroQuest is a game for 2-5 players and comes with 35 miniatures, 15 pieces of furniture, 20 doors, a large game board and a host of cards, counters and dice. The rules are brief and simple and the quest book contains 14 Adventures. There is no system for creating dungeons as you go however a blank game map was supplied and later an adventure design kit was released.

The board consists of a grid of floor tiles with fixed walls, rubble tokens would block access to some areas to help change the shape of the map. In later expansions overlays were used to radically change the map by adding grassy caves, chasms and other special features.

The Heroes (Barbarian, Wizard, Elf and Dwarf) move around the board with 2d6 movement and are able to search for treasure, traps and secret doors. Combat is resolved using a special set of combat dice, the number of dice thrown in attack or defense was dependent on the combatant’s stat lines.

Searching for treasure allows the players to draw a random treasure card which could be anything from potions, gems, gold, items and even traps or wandering monsters. Each quest has an objective for the Heroes to complete, if they failed either by leaving the dungeon or being killed the Evil Wizard claims victory.

The game is not without its flaws. These issues were addressed by the later GW release of Advanced HeroQuest, which sadly is a little to complicated for casual play. HeroQuest’s flaws are:

• It’s designed more as a board game rather than an RPG it seems to suggest the Heroes  are competing against each other for treasure, this is of course dependant on your players.
• The random movement distances can really slow down this game, particularly if you are a low roller.
• Due to the use of equipment and treasure playing cards expanding the game relied on MB releasing expansions.

Despite this HeroQuest is a good gateway game and I hope it will encourage my son and later my daughter into the hobbies that have permeated my life.

There are many resources out there with new quests, printable tiles and house rules. I have included a few of my favourites to get you started.

• Ye Old Inn - Build your own set with complete scans of all the card components and rules
• HeroScribe - Mapping tool for quest building.
• Old Scratch’s HeroQuest Forum - Dedicated forums, some of the 3d dungeons are neat.

In the next post I’ll show you my work on painting the Heroes and furniture.

An article appeared on Tabletop Gaming News recently highlighting One Monk Miniatures’ latest release. I’ve haven’t stumbled across this company before (they seem new) but they do a nice cheap range of printable 30mm printable paper Fantasy and Sci Fi armies. There’s also a free sample PDF of 30mm Fantasy Monsters.

These figure collections seem squarely aimed at Games Workshop Warhammer Fantasy or Warhammer 40k players and they look like a nice cheap way of throwing together a representation of a GW Fantasy army in a few evenings. Alas at the moment One Monk only sell an Undead Battalion, but it seems they have plans for a range of Fantasy armies, amongst other things.

Given that it takes me a few evenings to paint one GW 28mm scale figure, I’m tempted to buy a few of these PDFs print them out and break out a sharp scalpel to round out my incomplete Warhammer Vampire Counts army. Building a paper army like this is also probably a more cost effective way of trying out a new Warhammer army before committing to purchasing hundreds (or thousands) of dollars of expensive GW figures - assuming you want to try Undead at the moment!

Another good use for this kind of army would be introducing your kids to Games Workshop games without the worry of having them game with your collection of fragile, hand painted figures! I’ll be keeping an eye out for future One Monk releases.