Plastic Hex Builder Scenery

There are many really nice industrial\sci-fi laser cut terrain kits about just now. I keep looking at these from a distance partly due to my thin wallet thesedays but also because I know I have a mostly unused alternative sitting around in the hobby shed - plastic Hexagon system box sets. These kits have been around in various guises for a while now, in the past under the banner of Robogear, Urban War to name just 2. I think Pegasus Hobbies currently market them.

I've had a few sets, mostly in bits, sitting in the hobby shed for too long to remember. I'd picked up a few small boxes from Poundstretcher when the Airfix Robogear line went down the pan. My recent games of Urban War, however, have prompted me to properly sit down an try to put some useful terrain sections together, ready to be quickly put on the table.

 The main piece I wanted was a multi level tower structure a table centrepiece. 

 Next on the construction menu were some platform\outpost pieces (along with a couple of bridge sections). This gives more elevation and routes round the table. The can either be used stand alone...

 ...or connected together.

And with the remaining odds'n'sods I managed to put together some ground cover.

The upside of these kits is that they are pretty versatile, even if some of the shape combinations make my head hurt. Also my fingers hurt from trying to push in click-in joints, mostly from the edges of the clips. They are very metallic grey. I've seen some painted, even with just a wash, to good effect, but I am still undecided as to whether I want to mark some degree of permanence to my constructions with paint, or if I can even be bothered to be honest. I suspect it'll depend on whether I get fed up with the look.

More Wild West Action

After the fun of the first session a second night of Dead Man's Hand was in order. No report, just some stills of the action. We played a full strength game of 21 Rep points (which only used 6 figures each).

One outlaw slips upstairs with the intention
of moving forward and covering the front street.

The first outlaw bites the dust, as the duo find themselves
 caught in a crossfire from two sides of a building

The Cowboy breaks the window shutter with the butt
of his shotgun to get a shot at the outlaw inside.

If  dice rolls aren't going your way, sometimes those close
range bonuses need to be exploited.

Highlights of the game must be

1. the look on MacSver's face when I played a card allowing me to shoot through a building wall (I missed unfortunately). 
2. My Man-With-No-Name blasting away 3 shots at MacSver's Outlaw boss from point blank range, hopelessly missing with all of them, only to have Tim's gunslinger sneak up and shoot him in the back of the head through a window. 
3. Starting the premise of home ruled cinematic extra actions. In this case using an action of break down a window blind to get a clear shot in. I can see this being extended to other fun things: pushing a cart down the road to act as cover? Starting a cattle stampede? Rolling barrels?

More Woodland Friends

Painting progress on my Wood Elves has been slow ( torturously so) but I had a wee delivery today to add some more variety to the Woodland Defenders ranks.Both are from Ral Partha Europe at bargain prices.

Firstly there is Adler, Giant Eagle. Pretty cheap for a Giant Eagle I thought when I ordered it. Now it's here, it's more a large Eagle. Not the Tolkien Taxi type of Giant Eagle. Nice figure though, so can still be used to swoop down on foe.

More than making up for any slight disappointment is my gang of mushroom men. 4 different figures in the pack, small and full of character. Can't wait to get them painted and on.

Making Warp Portals

Been making a few warp portal markers for my Urban War Koralon (although there is nothing stopping me from using them for other games). U.W. provide counters to represent the portals, but as they are small and sit flat on the table surface they've never seemed to represent the technology that is described in the rulebook. If my scary aliens are to charge through space I want them them to do it through a swirly magic door!

So I had a google around for images under "warp portal", "magic portal", etc and picked a few I liked. In the end I plumped for the one above as it had the swirly-ness I wanted and enough of it in the centre of the picture to be shaped.

Then I loaded it up in my graphics software (I used the free software GIMP) to size and shape it into the desired doorway shape. Somewhere in the Urban War forums there is a thread mentioning that portals should be 40mm wide, so that is roughly the size of the base.

The picture was then mirrored in GIMP, printed and cut out and folded to make it double sided (the mirroring in GIMP keeps the swirls going in the same direction)

The final part was laminating to give it a bit of durability and rigidity before slotting into a stand base (I bought these from EM4 Miniatures).