Fraud, Babies, Excuses and Crowd-Sourcing

It’s all been a bit quiet on the gaming front recently. I was going to have a terrific article going into more detail about planning terrain, but it’s a little too dull and rambling at the moment. I’ll probably have to edit, re-write, and maybe completely ignore it before the end. Instead, I was planning to get on with actually building the terrain. Unfortunately, my bank account was targeted for fraud (didn’t lose anything, but my card was blocked) so my bits and materials order has been put on hold while I wait for a new card to come through. While this does prevent gaming-related expenditure, I’m aware that a certain minimum amount of expense is necessary in certain circumstances. Hence – no building, no blog post. Also, as this post isn’t going to be too interesting (it is mainly a list of excuses, but there is a point near the end) I won’t count it as my monthly quota of blogging and I’ll try to make it up in June when things get back on track.

On the actual playing side, I’ve been unable to get in a proper long game for a while as a work deadline looms up (seventeen and a half hours overtime last weekend, whee), and home life gets slightly more hectic as we are expecting a baby any minute now (due date is less than two weeks now). And being nine months pregnant isn’t easy on a person, so I’ve picked up extra household tasks, and reduced my gaming time.

The aforementioned conferences are interrupting my weekly RPG session (we’re English and Scottish heretic hunters in a slightly homebrew RuneQuest game set in the 15^th Century with demons and magic, chasing down French leper monks for the ampulet of anointing oil used to crown the French kings, if anyone is interested) – probably the first one I’ve missed – and last week’s was off as the GM and half of the players were in Italy at a medieval re-enactment event. I did manage to salvage that one with a game of Talisman with other non-combatants, which was surprisingly easy to remember the rules for and a lot shorter than some previous games – I thank Lady Luck for that one, as my wife’s Dwarf picked up a Talisman early in the first couple of turns, and my Wizard managed to engage in psychic combat and steal it (then grab an axe and sail off to the end, out of reach of retaliation).

Now that all of that’s off my chest, I’ll get to the point of the post. In trying to get parts for my Necromunda scenery, I’ve gone to all of my normal ‘small plastic parts’ web stores, and even visited Antics in Bristol to get a better look at things. It occurred to me after reading Shadowbadger’s blog (recommended to me by @Bjoyhoy on Twitter) that everyone has a different set of go-to shops to get their hobby materials from. Where does everyone get their materials from? I’m not thinking of models themselves, but the plasticard, thin rod, tubes and chain that can be used for conversions and the like. Also, I’m not after the cheapest, just a range so that prices can be compared – an expensive shop may have a great deal on one thing or an exclusive item that’s perfect for a particular project.

What I hope to do is to create a list of these shops in a separate post that we can keep updated as we find new shops and sources, to save raw Googling (with Bing), to be a reference to hobbyists like ourselves. Suggestions in the comments below, and thank you very much!

Losing with my army and then against it...

Hello all,

It's been a busy week!  If you've been following me on twitter (you really should, I'm remarkably interesting), you'll have seen that I played some 40k (played twice, lost twice) and I've been working on completing my snotling pump wagons.

The 40k was against my regular gaming chum Lawrence; he had kindly agreed to lend me his Tau army so that I could play against my n00b gaming friend who would be using my Dark Eldar.  It was a rather good game; I really enjoy using the Dark Eldar, but they can be a bit fragile and susceptible to being shot at (aren't we all?) although the wyches and grotesques are amazing in close combat.  As I say, I lost the game, but I learned a lot from it.  I'm being far too cautious with my force.  I keep hiding them and trying to blast the enemy from a distance, what I really need to start doing is throwing them forward and getting them into combat as soon as possible, even if it means taking a few casualties on the way in.  Next time I imagine I'll have a good haul of slaves and a satisfying victory at the end of the game.  You heard it here first.

So Lawrence left and his Tau remained behind for me to use the following evening.  This was the first time 'The n00b' had played 40k and to cut a long story short, he won and loved it (I wonder if the two are connected?), he keen to try it again so expect more n00b 40k updates.  I'm glad he enjoyed it, but I was really hoping he'd get into Necromunda which we played last week.  There's been some talk at the club of setting up a Necro campaign, so I may have to get involved in that instead...

So yeah, a good week, with plenty of projects on the go as well.  Hopefully the snotling pumpwagons will be complete in the next week or so; when they're done I'll post a full 'how to' guide on their construction. I've also got another conversion project for my orcs and goblins in the planning stages, based on a Heresy miniatures kit, are there any guesses?

Happy Gaming!

Building a Talos in a Week - Day Six

At last it's done!  The last lick of paint has gone on, the static grass has been added and even the talons are nice and neatly varnished.  Yes, after six busy evenings of work, I have scratchbuilt and painted a Talos Pain Engine for my Dark Eldar army in Warhammer 40k.  Tomorrow I'll be taking my Dark Eldar down to the club to join forces with Shiny and his Tau to take on some Space Marines.  I hope it does well!  I'll collect all the photos together in the next few days and put up a full step by step guide on what I did.  Until now, feast your eyes on my poorly painted beast of terror!

 

Building a Talos in a Week - Day Five

Only one more day to go!  The model has got to be finished tomorrow, ready to go the gaming club on Thursday evening.  I've shaded and highlighted, so all I need to do now is finish the detail and the base.  I'd also like to do a bit more shading as well, but I'll have to see how much time I have tomorrow evening.  Here's where I've got to this evening, come back tomorrow to see what the finished article looks like...

Building a Talos in a Week - Day Three

Okay, it's not perfect, but time is pressing!  Here's my Talos at the end of Day Three.  I'm planning to paint the greenstuff on the head and back as beaten bronze (to cover my terrible sculpting skills).

Tomorrow will be priming and basecoating.  And perhaps a bit of panic re-sculpting...

Building a Talos in a Week - Day Two

More basic building today.  I've made a start on the detail as well.   My plan is to finish the detail tomorrow so that I can prime and basecoat it on Monday.  I hope.  Anyway, here's where I've got to today:

See you again tomorrow!

Building a Talos in a Week

Hi all, a bit of a strange one this week.  Last night while at the local gaming club, I was having a game of 40k with Shiny.  After we'd finished (I got beaten.  Twice) we were asked if either of us fancied a game next week, as it turned out we decided to team up.  To cut a long story short, we now both need to bring our 1000pt forces up to 1250pts.  To go some of the way towards this I decided to knock up a Talos for use in the game.  Of course, this means that I now only have a week to build and paint a Talos from scratch (as well as the usual hectic mix of, you know, real life and stuff).  Agh!

Here's my progress at the end of day one.  It's a mix of chaos spawn, giant parts, odd Dark Eldar pieces and bits from a 1:35 WW2 German Sturmtiger kit:

There's plenty more to do, I'll update again tomorrow.

Happy Gaming!

Go go Goblins!

The last couple of weeks I've gone Warhammer crazy! Well, not quite, but I have splashed out. After playing WFB with Matt a couple of weeks ago, I've really got the bug for the game and the idea of collecting a Goblin Army started whirling in my head. I put up a half decent resistance (a week or so) then, while passing Games Workshop, picked up a plastic Giant kit and the Orcs and Goblins Army book.

Although I'm a committed Frugal Gamer (this year), I've always said that this means I'm prepared to pay a little bit more to get a quality product (link to previous post). I know I've criticised GW in the past, but the giant kit is absolutely fantastic (and ripe for conversion) and the Orc and Goblin Army Book provides a huge range of options to play greenskins. I was a little worried that by choosing to take the all-goblin route I'd be limiting myself, but there are myriad options for armies comprised entirely of the little guys. And one very big guy...

As often happens, the buying didn't stop there; I came across the GAME OVER blog run by Von (hello Von!), also based in Plymouth. It's a really nice blog, currently focusing on non-GW games, such as Warmachine and World of Warcraft, so if you play them go and check it out, in fact go and check it out anyway.

On a recent post, Von mentioned that he had a load of plastic goblins to get rid of (and a few metal ones), so *sigh* I had to get in touch and take them off his hands... This now means I have nearly 100 goblins to paint (1 big tin of green paint and 1 big brush?), I can't see them getting done until next year, but I'm really looking forward to it and looking forward to getting some games played!

My next painting priority is my 40k force, I'm still planning to have my Dark Eldar all painted by January of next year, this way I'll be able to enter into PAW 2010, with a fully painted force (and go for the painting prize!).

All this planned gaming leads me to start thinking about gaming surfaces. At present I play Necromunda on home made terrain tiles, but if I get into 40k and Fantasy more, will I need a new gaming surface? I've currently got a fold out cloth gaming surface that I put over the table and that seems to suffice, but I suppose a full size textured and modelled gaming table would come in useful...

Make sure you come and visit the site next week when I'll have big big news, it affects you all and will herald a whole new year of Frugal Gaming!

By the way, the blog currently has 49 followers, who's going to make it 50?

I'm back!

That's right, after moving into a new flat I have finally had some time to game, then sit down and write about it!

My gaming buddy Matt has returned from a long spell away with work, so we were both keen to catch up and throw some dice. We settled for a game of Blood Bowl as we now both have fully painted teams. We've been looking at starting a Blood Bowl league, but I hadn't had chance to get a team roster worked out so we just played a normal game. It was a good job really, as my Dwarfs got resoundingly spanked by Matt's Dark Elves, 4-1! Ah well, it's not the winning, it's the taking part. To be fair, it's not as though I'm a bad player, it's all the dice's fault, all I needed was for them to keep giving me 5's and 6's but they wouldn't cooperate!

I'm hoping to get back into painting soon as well, I need to get my Dark Eldar painted (or at least assembled) so I can get some 40k played. Matt, Kenny and I are looking at starting a small 40k campaign which should be good, and I also want to enter into the 40k championships at the Plymouth Association of Wargamers annual show in Feb, which seems like plenty of time, but it'll soon pass.

And of course in the last week it was announced that Space Hulk is being re-released, (woo hoo!) so I'm expecting a few games of that. Busy busy busy....

A bit of a break...

Hi guys (and girls),

Just to let you all know that I'm currently in the process of moving to a new flat, this is turning out to be a bit of a pain in the bum so I won't be blogging for the next couple of weeks.

In the meantime, keep being Frugal and most importantly, keep gaming!

Battle for Skull Pass

After a very busy couple of weeks, I have returned! Last weekend I was in the glorious metropolis that is Blackpool. Of all the places in the world that I'd like to visit for a weekend, Blackpool has never been particularly high on my list. However, it was my Brother's Stag Night so I couldn't refuse. Anyway between traveling there and back, drinking lots of horrible watered down beer, and throwing my bro's pants (as in underpants, not trousers) onto the roof of a bar I didn't have much chance for blogging.

However, I have been busy during the past couple of weeks with painting. I say painting, but it's mainly just been cutting, filing and gluing. My Dark Eldar force has now been mainly put together and I've thrown a few colours onto them to get some idea of how they're going to look. I'm going with the idea that they're a raiding force that's grown over time with new recruits from all areas, giving a mix of uniforms and colours. I'm still not sure, but we'll see how they turn out...
This week I've got my 11 year old son staying with me. He's quite keen on gaming so I took the opportunity today to go into Games Workshop and pick up a copy of the Warhammer boxed game. We've since spent the afternoon clipping plastic and rolling dice, he seemed to really enjoy it and I must admit I think I did too!

Of course I need to get into another gaming system like I need a hole in the head. Well, I suppose one more wouldn't hurt...

Busy busy busy...

Hello all!

I'm afraid that's there's not much to report this week, well there is, but there isn't much time to tell you all about it!

I've been gaming and painting as per usual, I played some more 40k this week at the Cross Swords club, as per usual I borrowed an Army and promptly lost. This time my opponent was Chris and my army du jour was Space Marines. Yes, dear reader, this week I must ask your forgiveness as I have succumbed to the filthy list that is the Space Marines. I must say that I can certainly see what all the fuss is about, lots of saving throws means that you can push them around the table with impunity. However, it does take a bit of the fun out of the game, and I must commend Chris for not slapping me in the face when after a couple of minutes of rolling dice, I managed to save every single shot on numerous occassions.

I'm getting a bit of a feel for 40k now, and I've decided that rather than initially go for a Guard army (though it's definately on my 'to do' list), I fancy something faster and nastier. To that end, I've decided to go in for some Dark Eldar action. I have since thrown a few of my old metal miniatures (from the unpainted pile) on ebay to fund this new endeavour. This serves the double purpose of clearing out the unpainted to pay for the new; roughly within the bounds of Frugal Gaming.

In other news, I've nearly finished my Blood Bowl team and I have some Necromunda terrain that I've been working on for a while which is almost done.

The reason for all the rush this week is because I've had an Open University assignment to get in, fortunately, I'm doing a design course at the moment so I get to make models. For my latest assignment, one of the tasks was to design a children's playground, so after numerous sketches, here's a model I made to illustrate my idea:

All the best, look forward to next week's post which is my 6 month (half-way) review!

A Day of Frugal Trading

Hello all, and if this is the first time you've visited my blog, Welcome.

I always appreciate new readers and I've hopefully gained a few more after handing out dozens of flyers this weekend. The reason for all this, as you probably know, is my visit to the Lincombe Barn Wargamers Table Top Sale yesterday. One of the aspects of my Year of Frugal Gaming was to see if I could raise money with my hobby. Not huge amounts, but enough so that my gaming, painting and modeling came close to paying for itself and my trip to Lincombe Barn was my first try at running a small stall to sell gaming items. I'd decided to try and sell some of my hand made terrain, as it's something that I've always enjoyed doing and I think that it's an area of the hobby that I'm reasonably good at. The past few weeks have been spent cutting, gluing and painting to get plenty of pieces ready, and yesterday my girlfriend and I loaded up the car and set off to Bristol.
To cut a long story short, I didn't sell as much as I'd hoped, but I had a great day. I made enough to cover my travel and entrance costs and had enough left over for a couple of cups of coffee!

Everyone I spoke to seemed really friendly and a few had even been following the blog, which was great, I spoke to a few other traders, including a house husband who makes trees whilst the kids are asleep! I think he was doing about as much trade as I was, but he seemed remarkably philosophical about the whole business. If you're out there Mystery Tree Man, drop me a line and I'll 'big-up' your products. I also spoke to Mike from the Plymouth Association of Wargamers (those guys get everywhere..) who was also selling some pieces of terrain and some minis. He was really promoting the club, so I really can't excuse not getting along there in the next couple of weeks...

So, as mentioned above, at the end of the day I had a few more pieces left than I'd thought, which means that I'll be selling them off on ebay (with some remarkably cheap postage), so I've added a link to the auctions on the right hand side of the page (over there somewhere --->). The items up for sale will be changing over the next few days, so keep checking back.

This made a bit of a mess of the sidebar so I've had a of a tidy up, adding an FAQ which gives my contact details and the information on the ongoing 'Frugal Challenge' to game and figure manufacturers. Click the link and have a look.

Remember that as well as any comments you may have on the content of the site, I'm always happy to receive comment on the layout and style of the blog as well. Though if you want me to change my background to the generic brown wargamer map style, often used in blogs, then I'm sorry, but I'm sticking with my neons!

See you next week, happy gaming!

Saturday - Finished Terrain... Hooray!

Well at long last, the train making is finished. Here are all the pieces finished and ready to go. If you want to pick one or more of these pieces up, come along to the Lincombe Barn Wargamers Tabletop Sale in Bristol on Sunday!

The prices are:

• Tanks Traps: £5
• Rocky Terrain:£4
• Buildings:£10
• Defensive Walls:£5
• Defensive Emplacements:£6

Click on the photos for larger scale photos, all the best

Dave

Friday - Batch construction

After spending the last few weeks making large amounts of terrain all at once, with a deadline, I thought I'd share some of the lessons that I've learned:

• Buy ready mixed paints for large areas of drybrushing. If you have to mix paint for your mid-tone drybrushing (your final highlights should only require a small amount of paint so it's fine to mix thema s you need them) you may find it trick to get the colours right with every new batch, you also run the risk of mixing far too much and wasting paint. I advise buying three colours, the base colour, a mid tone highlight and white. You can mix the final highlight using the midtone and a little white paint.
• Maths is your friend. Work out the amount of materials you will need, it doesn’t need to be exact, just some rough calculations to estimate the amount of MDF, Foamcard, Sand, Glue or paint that you will require. There's nothing worse than running out of glue on a Saturday evening when the shop doesn't open again until Monday morning.
• Plan ahead. Making a lot of terrain takes a lot of time. Make sure that you allow yourself time to make the pieces you plan to, work out how long it will take and then double it, this will allow for all the unforseen hiccups that get in the way. If you have time left at the end, make some more terrain!
• Be aware of your abilities. You should set realistic goals for what you want to achieve, make a few test pieces to ensure that you have the skills to build that gothic cathedral or landing pad, before you even begin. Be honest with yourself and don't set unachievable targets, you'll only get demoralised.
• Work smarter. Terrain making involves a lot of waiting so stagger your work. While you are waiting for the paint to dry on one piece, you could be gluing another. It can be frustrating to find that you have a lot of pieces drying or setting and you have no work left to do while you wait!
• Work in batches. Try to make no more than 5-10 models at a time, depending on size. If you have 20 buildings all being painted at once, the paint will dry on your brush before you finish them all.
  
• Make space. A lot of terrain takes up a lot of room. Placing ruined buildings up and down your staircase, doesn’t impress anyone, especially when they’re all covered in wet paint. If you're building at home, make you confer with your significant other and let them know there may be a scale model of Stalingrad in the bedroom for a couple of weeks before a show.
• Plan around the project: Okay so you’re amking a lot of terrain. But what else do you need? Boxes, packaging, price labels, flyers to hand out, all these take time as well so don't put them off until the last minute.
• Have fun! Remember, this is your hobby, not work. Don't get angry or stressed and certainly don't snap at family or friends. If you're getting fed-up, go and do something else, have a cup of tea and relax, come back to it later.

I'm nearly finished making all the pieces I'm going to sell. Expect plenty of pictures tomorrow!

Wednesday - Airbrush and Compressor

One of the things I have found when making terrain over the past few weeks is that it takes a long time to brush paint terrain, mainly due to the rough nature of the ground; sand, gravel and rocks make a lot of little cracks to get paint into.

I decided to dig out my old airbrush and see if it was any faster. After a few minutes messing about connecting it to a can of compressed air, mixing the right consistency of paint and getting the spray setting correct, I got to work.

The paint went on like a dream and I managed to get a rocky outcrop painted in a couple of minutes, but then the problems began. As I was using a can of compressed air, the pressure soon dropped and the spray was affected. I waited for the can to warm up but it didn’t help, the spray was still poor and I soon gave up. I then had to spend ten minutes cleaning out my airbrush and putting it all away. All together, I didn’t really save much time at all, and I was about ready to give up on my airbrush.

While looking around on the internet later I came across some posts on The Miniatures Page where people were talking about their airbrush woes. There was plenty of advice, but the main recommendation was that compressed air can were bad, air compressors were good. There were plenty of other bits of advice, but this was the main one.

I had no intention of buying a compressor yet (maybe later in the year), but I thought I’d pop into my local Machine Mart to see what range they had and check out their prices. Unfortunately for me, they were having a sale. All Clarke products (the company that made the air compressor I’d been looking at) had the VAT (15% sales tax) taken off, and it was for that day only. Naturally I couldn’t turn down an offer like that, and quickly bought one.

When I started my Frugal Year, my girlfriend was quite impressed with the thought of me not spending lots of money on games and gaming accessories. So it took me a while to build up the courage to tell her that I’d spent £70 on a very noisy air compressor…

After getting it all set up (which involved a lot of PTFE tape and sourcing a suitable adaptor to fit my airbrush hose to the regulator) I was ready to go! At first my results were even worse than with the compressed air can, but I realised that I hadn’t thinned my paint properly. Some more looking on The Miniatures Page came up with the best formula if using Games Workshop paints: 10 parts paint, 9 parts Water and 1 part Acrylic Flow Enhancer, this works fantastically, though you do get through a lot of paint when making numerous large pieces of terrain (I got through three pots of Codex Grey in an afternoon!).

It made painting the terrain much easier and faster, the paint got into all the nooks and crannies and gave a very good final finish, ready for drybrushing.

Overall, the airbrush with air compressor is now one of my favourite modelling tools and it’ll certainly come in useful when painting all those Imperial Guard tanks and vehicles!

So in my experience, the following tips are vital when buying an airbrush:

• Ensure it has a holding tank
• Ensure it has a pressure regulator
• Ensure it has a filter or water trap
  

And when using it, remember:

• Thin your paint properly
• Set a suitable pressure
• Always clean your brush fully after use

As a frugal gamer I couldn’t possibly recommend buying an airbrush and compressor as you’re looking at about £150 to get a decent set-up. Though if you are going to be making a lot of terrain and large models, if you don’t mind a lot of noise and the smell of oil and if you don’t mind stripping and cleaning your airbrush every time you use it, then you can have a lot of fun and get some fantastic results.

See you again tomorrow.

Tuesday - Tank Traps

One of the things I decided to make and sell at the Lincombe Barne Wargamers Table Top Sale in Bristol on Sunday, was a Tank Trap area of terrain. I've seen these made by a number of manufacturers and seen 'how-to' articles that describe how to make them. The results are generally mixed, with some looking amazing and some looking pretty shoddy. I thought I'd give it a go and see how I got on. The first stage was to find some inspiration, after a few minutes flicking around on the internet I found this picture which really struck me.
The traps are quite simple, but also have a bit of character in the shape of the top, allowing troops to use them as cover and fire through the hole, very similar to medieval crenelations.

I decided the best way to make these would be to make a couple of master models and cast moulds which could then be used to make plaster traps.

The master were made from layers of foamcard stuck together, cut to shape and then coated with thin layers of plaster to hide the joins. The bases were made using strips of plasticard with small sections of plasticard rods pushed through (carefully drilled) holes to represent rivets. The master are shown below:
The moulds were then cast, using the method I've mentioned in previous posts, and then I could start casting plaster models, shown below:
I'm really happy with how the traps came out, the detail of the rivets was still obvious and the plaster coating on the foamcard gave it a rough concrete look.

All I had to do then was make dozens and dozens of casts! This took a few days and involved me pouring plaster into moulds every time I had a spare five minutes and then drying the casts out in the oven after every meal!


Eventually they were all done and it was just a case of hot-gluing them to MDF bases, adding plaster and sand to texture and then painting them up. I've just finished all the drybrushing, all I need to do now is add a little flock and pick out some of the details. As always, you can click on the photo for a larger picture. Hope you like them!
That's all for today, see you again tomorrow!

Monday - Asking Advice

My old Dad used to say to me 'Son, whatever you do, make sure you ask trading advice from people on the internet.'. Actually, on reflection, he said something about lifting things properly so I don't hurt my back. But I think the point stands.

Last week when I registered to attend the Table Top sale in Bristol, I though I'd place a post on The Miniatures Page, asking for advice on running a stall as it's something I've never done before. You can find the thread here.

The main points that I took away were:

• Take a lot of change
• Clearly mark the prices
• Take Bags and Wrapping
• Sell cheap!

I was also advised to take a bumbag for the money, but I think I'll give that one a miss. It'll have to be an old biscuit tin instead...

I'm very keen to sell as much of my terrain as I can, so If you're there, come over to the stall and say hello, If you mention that you read the blog, I may even give you a discount!

The start of a busy week...

Hello all,

It's been a busy week at Frugal Towers this week. As well as the usual pressures of going to work, getting the washing up done and keeping Mrs Frugal in the style to which she has become accustomed, I've been going crazy making terrain.

It's also going to be a short post today, but fear not for I'll be posting again tomorrow and the day after and the day after that... The reason for all this silliness is the Lincombe Barn Wargames Society Table Top Sale, which is being held next in Bristol next Sunday. As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I picked up the new Imperial Guard Codex for 40K and I've now got the notion in my head that I need (not want, need!) to buy a Guard Army.

This presents two obstacles to my frugal mission:

1. I've already got lots of minis that need painting.
2. Buying a large army for 40K costs a lot of money

So, I decided to leave off buying my Army until my birthday (August) as this would give me time to clear my painting backlog and earn some cash to buy all those minis (and tanks!). This has given me three months to earn the money to buy the army, which brings me to the Table Top sale next weekend; I booked a place and got to work making terrain; Ruined Buildings (using the techniques I used for my Necromunda terrain), some Tank Traps and Defensive walls using moulds (mould making advice can be found here) and some Rocky outcrops made using polystrene foam.

I've almost finished them now, but I thought that in the run up to sale, I'd post every day to show you how I got on and talk about the techniques I'm using in a little more detail.

Anyway, I'd better get off, See you again tomorrow!