Another Kickstarter - Critical Mass Games - ZAS 15mm Mercs

CMG has decided to take their ZAS mercenaries and expand them into a full range through Kickstarter. Talk about bad timing for me! With Traveller5 getting ready to ship by the end of February I know I'll need some kind of major military force (not really) to go along with the miniatures that I have been slowly working on for the RPG campaign. And then there is the Tomorrow's War rules that have just been sitting around gathering dust but I have been itching to crack open and work up a game or two. So I'm jumping in on this Kickstarter. I'm in at the mechanized company commander level, which includes £56 of vehicles, so its looking like a pretty good deal especially as stretch goals get hit and more stuff is added.

And because you know you want to look: CMG ZAS Kickstarter

North Star Military Figures - Nickstarter - In Her Majesty's Name

I received an email newsletter last week that definitely got my attention. North Star Games is essentially doing an inhouse version of a Kickstarter which they are calling a Nickstarter for a new, licensed, miniatures line that will support the release of Osprey's In Her Majesty's Name Steampunk Skirmish Gaming by Craig Cartmell and Charles Murton.

What's the difference? First off this is not a Kickstarter but it is, in its own way another form of crowdfunding. This is not being done through Kickstarter it is a pre-order for the miniatures and the rules. The core miniatures for all of the factions have been completed and additional "Nickstarter" only miniatures are being sculpted based on stretch goals based on the amount of pre-orders raised. Basically you are seeing a pre-order system setup like a Kickstarter project. Its a neat idea and we will see how it goes.

I like the project, I'm not sure I will jump in on it but it lets North Star take advantage of the Kickstarter mania and still maintain control over everything.

So far they have already achieved their first goal of adding another adventuring company; the Scotland Yard Company, and the second goal of adding a miniature for a master criminal. The Nickstarter closes on April 18th



Here is the link to the site so you can check out the details. In Her Majesty's Name

Building Calamity - Tinkering with the board

I have a ton of buildings at this point, 24 built, 12 of those have received their initial weathering treatment and 1 has actually received paint. The remaining 12 have been primed and are ready to be weathered. Now that the painting stage is rushing towards me I need to think about the board.

There are a few things I know already:
1) 6'x4' table (I have two tables rescued from the closure of Attactix, which I had designed and built for the store).

2) Semi-modular; only in the sense that I want to be able to transport and store the boards so I will build it in 3 2'x4' sections. This will also give me the ability to expand if I want to.

3) Buildings will be removable; Right now I'm thinking that each building will be built on its own 'sabot'. If I can keep the sabots down to a couple of different sizes I should be able to re-arrange the buildings to a certain extent and introduce new ones. That will change the look of Calamity. Maybe I'll take it as far as having brick building replacements for when the massive fire sweeps through town (not an uncommon occurrence in western history).

4) A river or stream; mostly to provide a terrain feature below the level of the table surface. This requirement will be the one that really determines the thickness of the foam I'll need to use for base. If the sabots are on 1" foam I'll need at least another 1" layer underneath that, maybe just go for 2" for a 3" thick board.

5) A railroad; Since I have already been acquiring S Scale equipment and track the railroad is definitely in.
6) Bridge; The citizens of Calamity are going to be a frugal bunch so rather than build and maintain a gallows they will be hanging folks from a the railroad bridge as a cheaper expedient.

7) Alignment and locking mechanism of some kind. I don't want the boards to separate during play and I want them to stay lined up correctly. This especially important since a number of the buildings are going to be located across the seams. Right now I'm thinking something simple like pegs to handle this job.

8) Hide the seams. I know that players aren't likely to be disturbed by the seams very much but I'm looking at a lot of seams if I go with the sabot concept. I'll definitely have to work in scenery to hide those as much as possible.

And here are a few concepts that I have been doodling with:

Poor Research Rant - The Switzerland Trail of America

Engine #30 of the Colorado and Northwestern Railway. She is cosmetically restored  but not to the original condition she  was in for the CNW. This is the final configuration she was in when working for her last employer as #74 for the Rio Grande Southern (RGS). Incidentally the RGS is the railroad that developed and built the seven Galloping Goose rail cars.

I was reading, with great interest, this morning about the City of Boulder sending Engine #30 and the rest of its rolling stock to the Colorado Railroad Museum for display. I was doing a little research on the Colorado and Northwestern's livery colors (Red, Light Blue and White not the prettiest colors by any means) when I stumbled across this. Now, I already knew the equipment had been moved since I had seen it there when I was at the Goosefest in 2012. What interested me was the pdf on the site that gave a brief summary of the history of Engine #30, the passenger car and the Rio Grande caboose. Then I read it and was appalled at the number of gross inaccuracies about Engine #30 (#74 on the Colorado and Southern and #74 on the Rio Grande Southern). I don't know who wrote it but I imagine it was an employee of the Boulder Parks and Recreation department. There is entire book (The Switzerland Trail of American, Forest Crossen) written about this railroad by a local resident and the last time I was at the Boulder library (something like 30 years ago granted), there were three second edition copies that could be checked out and three first edition copies in the rare books section. Even the information available on the net is more accurate than this abomination of a document! Okay, I feel better now.

Building Calamity - Weathering Update

This past weekend I sat down and applied the weathering techniques to about a dozen buildings. There were some successes and some lessons learned during this long session. First the original article that I consulted used Kilz as the primer, this is a very strong white primer. I ran into some issues with it where the water based fabric dye and the inks were actually repelled by the primer in spots. You can see this effect on in a number of the buildings, most notably on the railroad station, they look like little white blotches. It didn't happen on a consistent basis either, one building wouldn't give me any problems while another would drive me to frustration. I tried roughing up the surface before applying the fabric dye and that didn't seem to help. What worked in the end was rubbing in the first coat and sometimes subsequent coats in with my finger. I have no idea why but I'm not going to question it either. I think the problem may stem from to thick a coat of primer. The Kilz really comes out in quite a strong burst and you only want a light coat of primer on these buildings. My preferred priming technique (which I use for my miniatures as well) is to spray from right to left starting the spray of primer before I get to the building and not releasing until I have passed beyond the other edge of the building. This avoids a heavy coat of primer right at the leading and trailing edges.

Overall, I'm pretty pleased with the results. I'm going to go back in and fix the areas where I have the white splotch problem and darken up some areas that I feel came out to light. I haven't done much work on roofs at this point either. I love the wooden shingles from Builders in Scale but they are a bit expensive, so are the paper ones from Wild West Scale Model Builders. I downloaded some texture files from Clever Models that I can print out on my color printer and I would like to try those. In the long run I think printing my own will be cheaper, despite the cost of the ink! I purchased S Scale texture downloads for the roofs along with some other textures to be used on the inside, particularly for floors for the Knuckleduster and Gamecraft models. I probably won't work on these again, at least in any significant form, until after Genghis Con XXXIV which is coming up next week running from the 14th - 17th of February.

I took some pictures during the process over the weekend, but the light wasn't very good. I took some replacements the other day on my desk where the lighting is much, much better. At this point I can't get all the buildings lined up on the workbench, I'll have to find a place with better lighting and a table and try to lay out the town. I have been doing some sketching on what I want the boards to look like, but I haven't stumbled on anything that says "build me" yet.

On to the pictures!

Battle Flag - General Store and Gunsmith's Shop

Battle Flag - Saloon and Sheriff's Office. The Saloon is definitely lighter than the Sheriff's office, I think  I will go back and darken up the Saloon, Gunsmith and General store.

Battle Flag - Photographer's Studio, Undertaker's Building

Gamecraft Miniatures 

Old West One Story Building - 28MWEST006

Gamecraft Miniatures 

Old West One Story Building - 28MWEST006

Knuckleduster/Tri-City Laser Inc - Barbershop, General Store, Small  Shop

Sarissa Precision - Railroad Station, the white blotches are particularly evident on this building. I'll have to go back and fix that.

Sarissa Precision - Railroad Station, more white blotches and the freight door  is way to light and needs to be darkened.

Sarissa Precision - Railroad Station - shot of the platform

Sarissa Precision - Mix of  Small Heroic and Medium Heroic buildings . From the right, Small Heroic Plus, Small Heroic Plus, Medium Heroic and Small Heroic.