Desert Town - Accessories

Built:  April 2012

The ability to accessorize, is what separates us from the animals....

Balsa wood Merchant stalls.
With replaceable divided table top sections - as this will allow me to use these for a variety of time periods - colonial, VSF, and modern - simply by changing what the merchant is selling - fruits & nuts, ancient books & tomes & elixirs, etc, etc.

 

Bamboo skewers lashed together with thread (liberally coats with white glue, for security), make the sun covers for the stalls.

Cheese cloth, covered in white glue make the aged canvas material.

Still wet (above).  Dry (below)

Revisco tent & barrels (I believe), 28mm.
I found these very light weight, and as I dislike my terrain moving, I added some modelling clay for weight.  However, when the clay dried, it had shrunk, and I had to super glue the clay into position.  They have a nice heft now, and don't feel like hollow plastic items.

The cheap plastic fountain centre came from a Dollar Store Cinderella kit  - which also came with 2 40mm female figures, and a horse drawn coach suitable for 28mm!

A large flat fender washer in the bottom, once again for added weight - with a smaller washer to raise the fountain up that little bit, above some additional glue to make the water in the fountain smooth.  Pink insulation foam, cared into a ring makes the outside of this.

Resin 20mm items here, but close enough for 28mm work.
The resin explosions on the Right hand side I couldn't decided what to do with - as I had no immediate need for  explosions markers.  These got painted red, and used as vegetation for VSF games on Mars.
In the back, a resin African drum, a fireplace, and a 54mm+ Victorian Xmas decoration hand pump (rather out of scale for 28mm, but by itself, it looks ok).
Everything mounted on fender washers, and texture with drywall compound - and soon to be painted to match the table top.

Plastic wishing well, from the Cake Decorating section of the local craft store.

 

Stalls, mounted on fender washers.
In the middle row:  2 plastic Cots, a resin African Oven and large pot...  suitable for Cannibals I suppose.

Desert Town

Built:  March 2012

Having 1 or 2 of these one each recent trip to the Dollar Store over the years, I figured I better start this project, before I ended up with an entire bin of wooden boxes!

I later learned, that these boxes are the cheapest source of Hinges for doors !  2 hinges and a wooden building for $1.25 !

A little Creativity, and a model saw, and presto, a town was born.
The box with one mesh side, became a garage type thing, with large double doubles.
Using the rounded ends of pop sickle sticks in the corners of the rooves, these became the support tabs for keeping the roof on the building.

Dollar Store bird feeder.  These were hard to take apart, had to hammer it some, and cut it some.  They use good glue wherever these are made.  However the wood is soft, so its easy to cut.
Added a disc under the roof, for support to keep it on the side walls, and cut out a door.
I think these make better storage huts, then living spaces - esp with the lack of windows.

FAILURES

Not everything I build works out.
Sometimes the Devil is in the Details.
Sometimes my Imagination exceeds my Ability.

 

These are a variant of boxes from the Dollar Store.  Notably a couple are in the perfect shape of a peaked roof building, one has a curved top, and another is cylindrical for holding a wine bottle.  All great shaping for buildings.

I decided to build some Jungle Huts out of these boxes, and cover them with various materials, to get that bamboo & grass roofed hut feeling.  - a Straw Crafting Mesh, Burlap Bag, Straw Place Mats  (all from the Dollar Store).

After cutting the building (dam that card board material was hard to cut by hand!) (note also the sloped roofs on a few of these with shorter rear walls), and applying the burlap, I noticed a problem.  While I accounted for the the width of the material while soft - once glued, they became rather hard, and difficult to get the roofs back on.  Unacceptable.

These was to be a arabian tower of some sorts.  The dome was a half a styrofoam sphere, and cork sheet was used to make the balcony floor & walls.   Once again, this material was bloody hard to cut, and produced some un-level edges.  The interior steps are reinforced balsa, and wit the sections being removable made the tower very playable for single 28mm figures.  However... when I went to paint it, turns out that the paper is plastic coated, and paint doesn't adhere to it!  Too much wrong with this project, so it went to the Unacceptable pile.

Pack Rat ?!?

One or two fellow wargamers over the years have labelled me a bit of a "Pat Rack".

I am unable to walk past a Dollar Store or a Yard Sale, without looking at everything - as you never know what you might find, that can be turned into something else.

The problem then becomes storing all these bits & pieces.  However, as you can see, everything gets put in the proper bin - there is nothing "rat-like/rat nest" about my storage system!  It makes scratch building easier, as well, opening a box filled with inspiration is a good feeling when the "mood to build something" strikes.

However... i do love a cluttered workspace....   sigh.

Armoured Cars

Built:  March 2012

Requiring some  pseudo-historical vehicles for my mish-mashed Colonial/VSF forces, i decided to scratch-bash some quick models, using Balsa wood.

The E-V/4 Panzerkraftwagen Ehrhardt fit the bill, so I made a sketch, figured out what balsa wood shapes I could purchase (angled wedge like pieces were very handy for this project - as well as a variable of square & rectangular stock).

Wikipedia: 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ehrhardt_E-V/4

Landships:
http://www.landships.freeservers.com/erhardtkit.htm 

For the rather fast pace I made these, I was pleased.  They aren't as detailed as I'd like, and cutting perfect angles with soft balsa wood is a challenge - but suitable enough for a wargame, but not a good example of model making.

They are in need of a more detailed paint job, but even just a solid grey colour made them look formidable on the table.

One note:  these had a large crew, and were able to simultaneously fire most of the MGs shown at the same time!

Zombie Game

Game played, January 2013.

Mixed lighting (sunlight & regular light bulbs) and Automatic White Balance turn my lovely green table, into a dusty red.  Reader be assured, this happened on earth, not Mars.  (note the wooded areas, top & bottom, the felt is the same colour green, but looks bluish at top, near the sunlit window, and dark green by the camera edge.

The Bus, Gas Station and Rusty Car:  see previous posts for details.


Scenario:  the survivors are out of gas for their bus, and start near it.  The zombies start near the top & bottom table edges.  There are a few different types of zombies, however the ones with the Red bases had the most impact on this game - they are the "Rage" zombies popularized by the "28 Days Later" zombie movie.  The survivors must get to the gas can (adjacent to the gas pumps, far right hand side), and return it to the bus, at which point, they can refuel the bus and escape.  Victory is based on the points value of the Survivors that escape the table by bus.

Terrain:  The Gas Station can't be entered, and most of the terrain is along the edges.  Tactically the situation is pretty straight forward - but not easy.

All the Zombies are paper cut outs, as i don't have any zombie figures (yet).  Red for Rages, Green for Bloaters, Yellow for Leaders, Orange for Tanks.  (Leader provided to be kind of useless for this scenario, as zombies can't be moved any faster or slower then they already are!)
All the survivors are regular metal figures.  Green dots for Extras, Stars for Co-Stars.

The Rage Zombies are roughly twice as fast as all the other zombie types, which makes them fairly deadly.  These two are approaching from the bushes, while the survivors begin to step off from the bus.

Note in the 7TV rules,  only about half your models activate each turn, you get to choose which ones activate, but you can not activate everyone, which means some models are going to get left behind in a race like this....

BRAINS !!!    BRAINS !!!   BRAINS !!!

The Survivors had some good event cards, and excellent luck for most of the game when it came to initiative, and were able to entirely outrun the 2 Rage zombies for about 2 turns.  Just barely... as the Rager's charge fails by millimetres this turn.

The survivors  took the hill in the centre of the table, and the only figure with a firearm (a pistol) was able to get off a few shots, while the others raced for the gas.

Unlike the survivors, ALL zombies get to move once per turn (whether activated or not), however they still don't get very far.  An active figure gets 2 Actions per turn, however zombies can only use 1 for Moving, while survivors can move twice per activation.

I like the telephone poles !

In 7TV figures are divided into 3 types:  The Stars (who are rather powerful), the Co-Stars (who are fairly capable), and the Extras (how include cannon-fodder, mooks, victims, etc).
The Ragers finally get into contact with a couple of Extras, and quickly turn them into snacks.

One survivor gets to the gas can, jumps on his scavenger bicycle, and scoots about 4 moves back towards the bus!  Lucky cards ! 
Every dead figure whether a zombie or a survivor, and unless shot in the brain, is marked with a "living dead" counter, and at the end of each turn can return to play as a zombie!  This didn't happen much, but could be very useful.

However, he gets separated from the others, out ahead on his own on the way back to the bus, and falls to a coupe of regular zombies.  The other survivors scramble to get to the can again, losing a couple more, as the zombies finally get within range of their bites.
On the 2nd last turn, the survivors had gotten the gas can to the bus, and were all on board, but one Co-Star was just outside the door - there was much debate as whether to leave them behind or not, they decided to wait for him, feeling they were fairly safe for a turn from the advancing horde - if their initiative held out.
However... as they were under half numbers and failed their Morale test, the 1 last remaining Extra fled off the board.  Hilariously she was already on he bus, and so, fled out the convenient emergency exit!
The last 2 remaining survivors, both Co-Stars, were able to get off the table.  However they had lost too many of their companions (5, all Extras), and the Zombies won the game by a slight margin.

Rusty Car

Built January 2013.

Forgot to take a "before" picture.  Dollar store toy racing SUV.
Wheels, plastic chassis, seats, dashboard, and headlights removed.
Judicious hammering used for that "seriously wrecked" look.
Cork base added.

Painted rusty browns, and a Grey wash over top.
Bushes from the dollar store, standing by to germinate inside it.

Finished model.