General Update - 6/19/2013

Hello all,

I've gone a bit quiet for the past couple of weeks.  Another work event has had me tied up and then of course I'm having my backyard completely redone, so I'm building out my deck myself as a part of that ... which has cut into my gaming and hobby time.  I'm still very much going to continue on my Dead Man's Hand project -- I've actually based the buildings I've put together on MDF bases and I'm in the process of painting up some barrels to blue to the bases before I sand/paint them.  I'm also going to be putting together the buildings from BattleFlag - although they are more involved then the 4Ground buildings since I need to paint them.  I going to use my air brush to paint the parts before assembly.

My friend Roy Scaife had some sturdy and removable legs laying around his house that I can use to attach to my custom table for Dead Man's Hand.  I have the next couple of days off so I'll be attaching those to the table and continuing work on my backyard deck.  Things at work quiet down in the summer so I'm looking forward to getting back in the grove on several projects.  I've signed up to run demo games of Dead Man's Hand and the Fort William Henry M&T scenario at CelestiCon this year (labour day weekend).

Couple of pictures below of the MDF based 4Ground buildings.

MDF bases on the 4Ground buildings.

MDF bases on the 4Ground buildings.

Dead Man's Hand Project - Update #2: Table Complete

Just a quick update today.  I've managed to complete the table - so now it is off to basing and details on the buildings ... then gang painting.  Making steady progress.

Sanded and ready for basecoat.

Basecoat of GW Steel Legion Drab
(colour matched at the local hardware store)

Drybrushing complete. Used Foundry "Base Sand" 10C
for this stage (again, colour matched at the hardware store)

Another angle - drybrush complete.

Added some buildings (which need to be based/detailed)

The town is founded ... more work to do though ...

Dead Man's Hand Project - Update #1: The Beginning

It begins!  I've got everything in that I need to complete my Dead Man's Hand (DMH) project.  I officially kicked it off today.  I have a mighty 8 buildings - 5 from 4Ground and an additional 3 from BattleFlag (plus a gallow).

To make the project and game special I decided to build a custom table.  The table itself would be a little larger than 3 foot by 4 foot (added 5" on each side to account for my stained wood lip).  I will build a stained wood (and sealed) lip around the edge, include an area between the wood lip and actual play area that is green felt (like a poker table), then finally at the center is the playing area - sanded and drybushed to a nice old west color.

Basic table layout.
(a little over 3'x4')

Table top and  frame completed today.

As you can see above I was able to finish the basic structure of the table today.  I've started cutting the wood for the "lip" and should have that done tomorrow in a addition to the center "raised" main playing surface.  I also have the felt for the dice/card area.

I've also managed to get the 5 buildings from 4Ground assembled (order the special deal for the whole set from Great Escape games). The guys at 4Ground have really outdone themselves with these buildings by including lots of cleaver little details and a much improved "hinged" door vs. the plug and pray doors included with the WW2 buildings I have from them.

All 4 gangs, cards, MDF markers, and the buildings,
all part of the "Legends of the West" offer
from Great Escape Games.

Great Escape Games as signs you can print off for the 4Ground buildings. You can download them from their DMH download page.  Only one of the buildings doesn't have a sign ... not sure why it was left out. That being said, I'm working on a sign I can use for the fifth building.  I'll also be putting the buildings on MDF bases with some extra details around them (like barrels and such).

Need to file a claim?

Gambling time!

Take a picture, it will last longer.

Mop chop.

No sign just yet, but I'm working on something ...

More to do, but need to get the
airbrush out for these buildings.

The buildings from BattleFlag are also truly excellent - and they include high quality signs!  The only downside is I'll have to paint them (although they'll do that for you if you give them enough $$).

I've managed to get one of the gangs (the Lawmen) cleaned, sanded, based, and primed --- ready for the paint brush.  I'm going to assemble all the gangs to the same state as the Lawmen so I can start playing some games to get familiar with the rules ... but paint is rapidly forthcoming for the gangs once I finish up the table and buildings.

Ultimately I'll be running demonstration games of DMH at CelestiCon in the fall (the labour day weekend in the US ... con is held in Fremont, CA - so just down the street).

Stay tuned - more updates to come.

Regiment de La Reine and Canadian Milita

Finally finished up basing on my new (and last) French regiment - La Reine.  I also now have two units of Canadian Militia and a leader so I took some photos of them as well (even though I think I included them in another post - but I did this just to show small units using my new picture taking knowledge).

The La Reine regiment uses all Conquest Miniatures (Warlord Games).  The Canadian Militia is a mix of Galloping Major Miniatures and North Star Military Figures.

Having learned something useful about my camera over the weekend I set about using this new found knowledge to take these pictures using some different lighting.  I now see why having a "natural" light bulb is critical (vs. the yellowish light of standard bulbs).

Actually, this one little tip has served to change everything for my picture taking ability.  I'm still nowhere near pro, but this one is key.  I have a Nikon D3000 SLR camera.  I'm a meat head when it comes to cameras so I'll attempt to explain this in my own terms.  There are two key things you need to do on the camera itself:

1. Adjust the "picture mode" knob to "A" (means aperture).  To date I had used auto and the flower (called "macro") - with and without the flash - not good for what I was attempting to accomplish (that "depth with clarity" in the pictures).
2. When in the aperture setting, you can adjust the "F" setting.  My default F setting is 5.6 - whole insufficient for shooting pictures of miniatures.  The F setting adjusts how much light (exposure) will be taken when the picture clicks.  Now, the more light you let in (the higher the F setting number), the more light, and generally as a result, the longer the exposure time. For standard 4x6 foot tables it was recommended to start with an F setting of 22 (a far cry from 5.6!).  To adjust the F setting on my camera I need to rotate my wheel located at the top-right side of the back of my camera (it is used to adjust other settings as well - like the flash setting for example).

Now, since the exposure is going to be longer than the quick click that most of us are used to it is critical to keep the camera dead still.  This will require a tripod of some sort and the usage of the picture delay (my delay is 10 seconds).  The reason for using the delay is to give yourself time to click the picture button (causing the camera to move) and allow the camera to settle and be dead steady for the exposure.  Note that exposures can take many seconds ... so be patient and make sure the camera doesn't move until you hear the second shudder snap.

Regiment de La Reine
(just using sunlight coming in from the garage door being open)

Another angle - showing depth. Again with the natural
sunlight coming in from the garage door.

The garage door is now closed, this is the light
from the ceiling lights.

Room lights with my painting lamp pointed at the front
of the unit - it uses a natural light bulb.

Another angle using the natural light bulb lamp.

Canadian Militia unit #1.

Canadian Militia unit #2.

Canadian Militia unit leader.

And there you have it.  Clearly I have more I can learn (no doubt about that on any topic) - but a big step forward.  I saw the pictures the Wargames Illustrated lad had taken of my M&T demo games and the depth and clarity of the game pictures was just astounding.

I hope you all find this useful -- I never had the patience to really dig through learning all there is to know about photography - I wish I met this guy many years ago and got this tip!

KulbaCon 2013 Report

KublaCon, the San Francisco bay area's largest gaming convention, was held this weekend.  I took Friday off of work and headed over the convention around noon after packing up all my stuff.  The main plan was to play mostly board games throughout the weekend, but I did bring along Muskets and Tomahawks, X-Wing, and my SAGA stuff.

R2D2 ... and Yoda backpack.

Friday was mostly board games, playing lots of games of King of Tokyo, Gloom, and of course the first of the many rounds made through the dealer's room. My favorite dealer at this convention is always ZombieSmith and they did not disappoint.  They had several new releases for their Quar and the much anticipated Shieldwall rulebook for their War of Ashes game. I picked up some newly released Gwynt to compliment my Royalist armies (I love the bicorns on these guys along with their red jackets). For Shieldwall I was able to play in a large demo game and had a blast - it is a truly unique system that focuses on the ebb and flow of large bodies of troops smashed together in a chaotic shieldwall.  I have a 4 banner army for this (after spending some money at their booth) and will post up a review of the system and armies in a separate blog post.  I also picked up some armour for my Coftyran army for Quar.  Pictures below compliments of my phone.

New Quar.

I managed to get the last stretcher bearer.

A mix of whimsical one offs.

Demo armies for Shieldwall.

Various factions from Shieldwall
(of which there are four).

Quar - Royalist Coftyrans.

Quar - new releases for Fidwog, including some
splendid looking new cavalry.

Quar armour options.

Quar stuff.

Shieldwall - the Kuld are a hoard army and my
first army I'll be playing for this system.

Shieldwall - a buddy of mine picked up a 4 banner
Vidaar army - looking forward to playing against him.

A Kuld army for Shieldwall - and the army I used in
the demo game.

The Vidaar army I played against in the demo game.

The Shieldwall demo games photos are below:

Cool game for kids/younger wargamers called Wooden Wars. The Kickstarter for the system just ended (funded). They had a large setup with lots of kids playing.  They move units and roll little bouncy balls to knock over the other sides troops when shooting.  Since I have a 4 year old, I just couldn't resist and picked up some units so I could get him started with wargaming early.  All of the miniatures are laser cut thick MDF and can stand up to a hell of a beating.

Wooden Wars game in progress.

Dan Kerrick, a good friend of mine, ran a regional qualifying X-Wing tournament. John Lantz, another friend, managed to take home first place using his Tie Fighter swarm list.  He won a free ticket to the national tournament in Seattle this year - congratulations John! Even more shocking than that was the rather attractive girl that played in the tournament!  I was heading back home about this time so couldn't play in the tournament myself, but watched a little into the first round.

X-Wing regional qualifying tournament in progress.
(girl in black, third table from the left)

Traffic jam!

Nice trophy!

I brought along my Muskets and Tomahawks stuff. I had just finished basing my new French infantry regiment and my last Indian unit.  I had more than enough to run two game simultaneously so I setup my two 4x4 tables and ran some people through the game.  I was setup in the main hallway to the miniatures rooms, so I had lots of foot traffic and people asking about M&T - so hopefully we'll see new players as a result!

One of the best parts of this was Wargames Illustrated was here and they stopped by to take some pictures and chat.  Being rather camera challenged myself, I spoke with him about taking pictures of miniature battles (he had a Nikon SLR like I have).  He filled me in on how to really capture the clarity and depth of tabletop games in progress!  I look forward to providing much improved pictures of games in progress in my future posts.

My British F&I stuff.

Indians with some civilians (most of them where already
out on the table).

My French F&I stuff.

Getting setup.

Kicking off the first turns.

Josh (head zombie at ZombieSmith) showing
in theme tattoos - sword and musket - nice! 

When I got home my Dead Man's Hand stuff had arrived --- whoot!!!  Oh wait, incomplete order --- for some reason they didn't include any of the card decks (I should have two) and out of the four gangs they only sent two???!!!! I contacted them immediately, the good news is that even over the long weekend they responded within an hour letting me know they'd get the missing stuff in the post on Tuesday.