Miniature wargaming battle mat project

I took a stab at making a battle mat for MERCS games recently. It is just a prototype of sorts. Now that I tried it out, and discovered just how easy it is, I am sure the next one will be even better. If you are at all curious about making your own its so cheap and simple its crazy.

Essentially you will need some sort of substrate for the mat. Many on the interwebs speak of using fabric painter's tarp. However I had some foamboard in my basement that I wanted to try since the foam board was essentially regulation size for a nice game of MERCS. In the end it held up really well. I guess the tarp would be nice since it can be lightly folded up when not in use.. however the goal was spending as little as possible.

So here is what you need:
* aforementioned substrate of some kind (tarp, foam board, etc)
* caulk gun
* acrylic white painters caulk (2-5 tubes, depending on surface area) I just needed 2
* large, plastic, cheap, putty knife

Apply blobs of caulk to the substrate and make sure to cover every inch of it.

Next its time to add texture and there are lots of cool ways to do it - but my first attempt is with a crumpled up grocery bag. Take the bag and blot, blot blot everywhere.

Then take a break..... a lonnnnng break. It took a better part of 5-6 hours to dry. I essentially turned in for the night and started work on it the next evening.

The rest is easy... just blast it with some spray paint. This part was a lot of experimentation for me and I will likely take more time and thought into the colors but really with zero effort, I created a decent battle mat for next to nothing.

Anyone else have tips or ideas on battlemat making? A special thanks to the Wargame Consortium Youtube video on the subject they helped me a lot in getting ideas.

Sorry for the nasty basement shots and the lighting issues but this is where the wife puts me for the hobby :(

A renewed focus, bad paint jobs, and violent-hostile takeovers with MERCS

Well my blog has obviously taken a bit of a backseat to life. I have had a ton of stuff going on that forced me to let my little blog go stale. Oh well.. it just depressed me all this time that my new little blog idea had become cliché to so many other blogs out there – ya know by the first few months, you notice that the writer ends up starting a post like this after a 3-6 month dry spell...

<sigh>

Anyhow I am making a valiant attempt at blogging again about stuff.

With work changes and a home on the market I had to give up my tabletop RPG pursuits for now. My schedule was unpredictable enough then throw in 5-10 other people's life schedules, it gets really tough. However – miniature wargaming I am still going strong with (as strong as can be). The nice thing that I have found with wargaming is that I can play on an afternoon and then move on... only committing to a few hours – its seems to be a lot easier to play with less commitment. In fact I have devoted more time to gaming (of the wargaming sorts) than I probably ever have in recent time.

I still do enjoy role playing and I am starting to get the itch again. However mini gaming seems to fit me right now so that is probably going to be the focus on here moving forward. Thanks to my friend Michael, I have also gotten introduced to several new game systems and having a blast – if anything too many minis and not enough time to assemble and paint – I definitely have a good size backlog right now and no lack of things to discuss from a mini standpoint, that is for sure.

Months ago I picked up a Mercs starter set (House 9 FCC faction) and I kinda tipped off Michael to the system he picked up he rulebook and a few other factions. It look like great fun and so did the miniatures... but it collected dust – until recently. :)

Michael and I decided to give it a go after a 40k session in October after son got a chance to see his Necron army fry his Orks. We proceeded to try a basic rules game with my FCC faction vs. his USCR. Even though we didn't play with all of the rules this system proved to be a blast. I suggest everyone give this system a go. The rulebook can be found pretty cheap and the faction starter sets can often be found at a nice discount (sub $50). It is a skirmish game with some really cool twists.

Mercs is not a new game – it has been around for 3 or 4 years now I think, and at launch got a good bit of press. But now has been a bit dormant for a year or two now that the company that created it, MegaCon games have been working on other game projects (Myth, Mercs:Recon, etc) Anyhow – I am a bit late to the party and still have some reading to do but this game is where my attention is right now.

If you'd like more information here are a few links.

http://megacongames.com/games/mercs/

Nice fan site/podcast/you tube collective: www.snap2cover.com

Blog that I have just discovered mostly regarding Mercs: http://sync-wargaming.blogspot.com/

Here are some photos of my recent trial game of Mercs and a few shots of my painted FCC. 

Week of sick but miniature - wargame productivity

Well it was bound to happen with this extended and bitter winter here in N.E. USA, I would finally be hit with some sort of nasty cold. It wasn't all that bad but pretty much killed last week for me. So because of that it has been a pretty slow table top role playing game week for me but for getting some painting done - it most certainly helped! :) So there is the positive side of things.

After the fun I had with the Dungeonslayers RPG intro game last weekend I felt compelled to get some of the Reaper Bones fantasy minis completed for the players. I am still a newbie to painting but I am enjoying the heck out of it and seem to be getting better and experimenting with new techniques.

My work on my Deadzone Enforcers strike team is almost complete. I used the clay method to glue up the captain and a few others.

I just finished up the Sniper -see right- (mostly, and my son took a stab at painting up a Reaper Chronoscope mini -see left- (matching the color scheme that I was playing with)

He did amazing.. but after about an hour, his interest fizzled. Keeping it nice and simple with just a few colors certainly helped him get a lot accomplished. On the Enforcer-sniper I tried a bit of dry-brushing.

That's about all folks.. feeling better and yep.. more fresh snow today. Good times. :)

Dungeonslayers Game Session #1

As I mentioned in my previous post it was my plan to get a proper game going of Dungeonslayers RPG. I was hoping to give it a try at a local game shop to introduce some new players to the system. But I was unable to get time out of my busy week, last week, to see if we can get a free game table from the hordes of Magic the Gathering ( or insert card came here) attendees. Generally speaking it may not have been that hard - but I just decided to enlist a few fellow gamers over to the house this afternoon for a try-out. To my luck there was a player invited that had never played a tabletop game before which was great.

We played a Dungeon2Go one-sheet adventure (No. 8 The Mistress of Spider Mountain) and it was killer. Though I did find a few tweaks that I would change. In fact the adventure is going to be a two-part session due to some long combat sessions with some Monstrous Spiders that just didn't want to die (ie. lots of high attack rolls and low defense rolls) It was just one of those things really...

Even better news is we had all three new players making CTN rolls in no time. The concepts are easy to grasp and just simple and fast. Slayerpoints were a total hit with the players that were accustomed to RPGs as well as myself - it added spice and made the game play unique. Slayerpoints are an optional rule that you can add to combat. A player earns a slayerpoint for every time he/she inflicts damage to an opponent. These slayerpoints can be collected through the course of the the encounter and cashed in to receive perks, bonuses, and mulligans.

I think one thing I might look at is how we can add good RP to the use of each slayerpoint spend. Such as having the players describe their special action, or even myself do the description as to the how/why this special bonus occurred. But I will have to give that more thought and perhaps see if other DS GM's have tried this in some way as well.

Even though this was a real hack-n-slash dungeon crawl they all seemed to dig it and understood that this was probably a good way to learn the system. Once the players finish this adventure I hope to get the real campaign rolling. :)

I also want to give a thank you to Dextolen on the Slayerforums for his DS Placemat creation. I printed these on card stock paper and gave them to each player as a crucial quick reference it was a godsend.

Here are some quick and dirty photos of the session. (sorry I was really to busy to take nice and arts-y photos) Please also forgive the Pathfinder paper counters too. :) They are handy as hell.

Possibly the coolest, easiest, most fun tabletop fantasty rpg you may have never played?

I have been following the game Dungeonslayers RPG for some time (late 2011 I think). My son and I had a go with it when I first became aware of it and at that time he was gosh.. maybe 8? It really helped open up the world of table top roleplaying games for him and this game is responsible for rekindling my love for gaming after decades. Because of that I guess Dungeonslayers RPG holds a special place in my heart but I got to tell you, regardless of my little sappy story - there is a lot to like about this little game and here are some highlights that come to mind. This quick little write-up is likely the first of many about this game.

A character can be created in less than 10 minutes if you choose - but can be added with nice details and fleshing out to keep any character creation freak happy enough. So there is simplicity and depth that you can turn on and off when you want. There are hero clasess  (level 10+), lots of Talents (skills) to play with, Slayer Points, optional firearm rules, and a race tool kit to try as well. All within a neat little 170ish page book (electronic version is free for download)

Dungeonslayers is released and available licensed under the Creative Commons license 3.0. So you can really contribute and expand the game how you see fit. Please take a look at what others have added in the way of optional rules, monsters, alternate magic/spell systems, etc. etc. to get your creative juices flowing. English 'Slayerforum' & International Forum

This is a hack and slash, beer and pretzels game to the core... but also offers plenty for players / GMs to start up a nice long campaign. Within the book is an introduction to the game's fantasy world setting, Caera, to get you started as well as over 80 monsters to sprinkle in.

The game revolves around a single d20. In combat, one roll of a d20 will decide hit/miss and also the damage inflicted based upon the attacking party's melee attack or ranged attack value. This interesting mechanic makes for some fast and bloody encounters, and also a quirky-cool factor that I love. 

There are several "kid friendly" RPG games that have been released recently. The problem I had for some of the systems is you take one look at it and I am like...yuck... too "kiddie for my taste.. look at it, its like a bad PBS cartoon". There is no reason why an adult should have to bite their lip and resort to playing a game with crayons. Dungeonslayers RPG is so easy to grasp the basics that it is a really cool gateway for the young ones. My daughter (7 years old) got a kick out of designing her female elven wizard (Josie) and within minutes she was blasting giant rats in the dungeon with her fire beam spell in giddy laughter. If anything, you need to reach for this game if you have any desire to introduce a child to gaming, no question and ITS FREE.

Actual Play Recap with the kids - Session #1

As I mentioned in another recent post, the printed rulebook showed up in the mail recently with much delight. And since his first introduction to DS and RPGs, my son that has moved on to playing Pathfinder with me and a loose local group, as well as other game systems, has been talking about Dungeonslayers since we got the book and finally, last night, we had some time to create some characters and play one of the introductory adventures in the book as the kids are home from school on their winter break.

Essentially, in Adventure 1 : The Lord of The Rats the party meets in an Inn after a long journey. The party, hungry and thirsty order up the mead only to discover that the tankards are empty. The innkeeper explains that they have run into a rat problem in their cellar that is destroying all of their stores. The adventures are lured into a deal to help the innkeeper rid his cellar of the pesky rats and the rodent extermination fun begins. I must admit, its very basic but a great way to run through the combat mechanics, the "check" system, and earn a few coins and treasure for new players in about an hour to and hour and a half. The kids had fun battling the nasties and searching rooms, we had a great time going through the first half of the dungeon before we had to call it a night, last night... but it left them in a bit of a cliffhanger, and thirsty for more. We hope to pick back up and finish with Session #2 before the weekend hits us.

I am really thinking about setting up a pickup game at my local game store/meetup  and see what others think of it too. Wish me luck. :)


Purchase Printed Copy

Throwing Paint Around

Last night I had great time getting to work on my Enforcers Strike Squad for Mantic's Deadzone skirmish wargame/boardgame.

Assembly is somewhat of a pain with these guys. Glueing the limbs and gun was tricky as they (the arms) are not recessed at the shoulder area allowing a good fit. Its pretty much a flat surface. I elected to try clay and I found some great stuff at Michaels Craft Store for $1.79 a package. (Fimo Effect from a co. called Staedtler) just a tiny piece rolled and warmed in your hand can hold an arm, torso, gun, etc. in place to allow the glue to dry. It worked like a champ. This stuff will be at my reach at all times from now on that's for sure.

The funny thing was that the silver/grey color was such a oddly close match to Mantic's unpainted models that I neglected to take some of the clay off of the models once the glue set (forgot it was even there) So when I threw primer black on them and noticed the clay.. I really had to give them another hit.

Once assembled, I blasted a black primer coat and was planning on trying to do a Mantic paint style for the Enforcers. However working with white/bone/grey is not something I am that good with, so I decided to go with a different approach and went back over the models with Caliban Green spray from GamesWorkshop. I wanted to go for a more hard-scifi/grunt style look... in my opinion I achieved it. It is nice to see my feeble skills starting to improve. :)
The only regret and lesson that I took away from this session is back off of the dry brush metallic a bit.. it caused some issues for me, oh well...

So this is the second post.. and really I haven't gotten too serious about this blog. I just have been toying with the idea mostly.

I saw this as a great way to share what I have been doing with friends and fellow gamers that I have known over the years but no longer get a chance to game with in person due to distance, or people I have been talking with online. I also am kinda putting my neck out to see if there are some people in my area with similar interests in gaming that might want to join a few of the groups I play with here and there. Needless to say I have kinda received second wind regarding doing a little blog so I hope to post regularly. Now time to catch up. :)

Soooo what have I been up to...

Last month I ran a One-Shot test run at my home using the West End Games D6 Space system with my son and a few friends. It was wild because it was the first time I ran a game in like (holy crap..) 22 years, I think. It was a good challenge as WEG D6 is pretty "loose" in the rules department. All in all - its something that I may go back to and try out a full blown campaign with - but the system didn't quite hit the sweet spot for me so I am still on the hunt for the right Space Opera rpg system. I am beginning to think that what I really crave is something more crunchy and more of the hard-scifi vein but not all 2300AD and shit.

Last week I finally received my printed copy of the fantasy tabletop rpg game, Dungeonslayers. I so love this game and I am thrilled to finally have this little book. I promise to revisit this game properly and hopefully give a report back about my first game in the near furture.

Yesterday I had the chance to play a SciFi Horror game powered by the Fate Core rules system at my friend Matt's house.  I was worried that I wouldn't be able to because of my kids and wife getting hit with the cold/24 hr bug that has been going around. At any rate we pulled it off and it was pretty cool. Though character creation was different and honestly it took me a bit of time to wrap my head around how to deal with 'Aspects' and stuff - but it was fun putting my character together and creating his "story". I am looking forward to returning to the adventure next weekend.

Mini Wargaming took a backseat a bit other than getting my hands on a sweet deal at my local games store that was practically giving away Mantic's Warpath starter set, "Fate of the Forgestar" for just over 15 bucks! So friggin crazy of a deal, I had to. It turns out Mantic just might be, no it IS, the game company that I think I really can get behind. They are the anti-GamesWorkshop in a way. They really seem to want to create a great community and also not rip the player off. I highly suggest that you check out their stuff. Ironically I recently found a Mantic fan in my area. He has been a big help in educating me about their rather new game releases. It looks like we are going to be playing Deadzone soon and I am starting to put together my Enforcers faction now. Look for pictures of my progress soon as well as a battle report. Thanks Michael!

http://www.manticgames.com/mantic-shop/warpath.html