Rockin out

So,

Tonight I am doing a little rock work for terrain for Gathering in the Desert Operation Torch. I need a few rough ground sections for a few of the tables and here are a few. It's just Pink insulation foam cut out with a wire cutter and some of my super secret method of doing rocks.

Here is the other side before I do my "rock method" so you can see a difference.

Here you can see the right side done and the left side getting ready for the rock treatment.

So what is the super secret method you may be asking? Well its a simple rock out of my front yard, big secret huh? I just use a rock and press into the foam, basically just embossing the foam, that's it. Pretty simple really and the results are awesome.

TK

Dirty Dozen

So,

Been working on some terrain today, getting ready for Gathering in the Desert Operation Torch. Here is a quick picture of one of the tables. This board will be used in a scenario called Dirty Dozen, which I will keep under wraps until the event.

 

 

The newest part is the board base, which is MDF and sprayed with textured paint. Once that dried I painted over it with a dark brown followed by a dry brush of desert sand color. pretty simple really and a quick board for this scenario is complete. You may notice that the board is sitting on my regular game table which is 4'x6'. This board is a lot smaller and this will work out great for the scenario as well as games of Pulp Alley.

 

TK

Ragnarok 2015

So,

Today was the big (or small) event for Saga her in the Valley of the Sunstroke. We had eight folks that committed to the event. But life got in the way for one person so we had seven total folks. The breakdown of players and armies were as follows:

Tom O - Vikings
Robert B - Vikings
Jerry A - Vikings
Mike W - Vikings
Matt W - Scots
Al R - Brentons
Tim K - Anglo Saxons

We played three scenarios that were set on each table and we rotated to each table with a different opponent. Table one had Clash of Warlord on it, table two was Battle at the Ford and the last table was Home land.

We kept it simple just tracking wins and victory points. Since we had an odd number of players, we had one player take a bye and get a win, I took the first bye since I was running the event. It all worked out well with only one issue with paint judging.

So here are a few pictures from the event: .

Clash of Warlords Board

Battle at the Ford board

Homeland Board

Jerry with Vikings vs Tom and his Vikings

Al with Brentons vs Matt and his Scots

Robert and Vikings vs Mike and his Vikings

Mikes Viking Raiders

Jerrys Vikings run to defend their village!

Toms Vikings looking for trouble.

Roberts Viking Jarl viewing the battlefield in the shade.

Mats Scots proudly displaying their banner.

Al's Breton force, looks like a WAB army on the table.

My Saxons forming up a shield wall.

Jerry's Vikings advance through the rough ground.

Mat's Scots defending their homes!

Tom's Viking warriors.

Tom's small Hearth guard unit.

My Saxons charge across the ford to engage the Vikings.

Another view of the epic ford battle.

Saxon Hearth guard and warriors cross the ford.

Vikings cross the ford

So after all the dust settled, I added up the win/loss of all the players.

Tom O took overall winner, Robert took the best painted and then everyone else got to take turns claiming their prize.

All in all it was it was a great time and everyone enjoyed themselves. We had a bunch of folks come by and watch the games.so their you go, Ragnarok is in the books, we will be doing this event again in the near future.

TK

Bolt Action Month Wrap Up

So,

It has been a pretty crazy month of Bolt Action madness around here and I think things will get back to normal here at the blog. As some know, I had been getting ready for Gathering in the Desert Operation Scorpion, a Bolt Action 2 day tournament. I had been building and repairing terrain leading up to the event as well as gathering prizes, printing out packets and preparing for the best event I could.

Well we had 14 players attend this first Bolt Action event and we had some great looking tables. Games were played, players rolled dice and all seemed to have a great time. Now we did have a few minor glitches, like the Battle points that Warlord came up with need to be adjusted (3 pts for a win, 1 pt for a draw and 0 for a loss). there were also a few other issues with the scenarios (which were the Top Secret and Demolition scenarios). But all in all, it was a great event.

One of the highlights was that the Store owner Darren Johnson of Imperial Outpost games had high praise for the event. In fact one of his employees was blown away on how organized and well run the event was and would love to see more events run this smoothly. That made my weekend hearing that, as well as hearing that same thing from many of the players. In fact the four guys that traveled from Chicago and only gotten in a few games of Bolt Action and were coming out based on previous GitD events. That means a lot as well and made the long days worth it.

Now this weekend (a week after GitD) saw another Bolt Action event held at Crusader Retreat. This one was run by the local Warlord employee and was the total opposite of GitD in how it was run. The guy did not communicate very well, was not prepared and did not put much thought into it. Granted this event was free, but it felt like he phoned in the event. The best part for me was the fact that the prize (a US Marine army) would have to be sent to the winner since he did not have one. Wow, that is priceless!!!So in my opinion it was a night and day difference in how each event was run.

So now I can get back to regular blog updates...

Oh one more thing, I will be attending Adepticon this year! Yes after years of riding the bench, I will be going back to Adepticon to play some games and run a few games, so stay tuned for some Adepticon updates...

TK

"The board is set, the pieces are moving. We come to it at last, the great battle of our time.

Well,

Tomorrow Gathering in the Desert 2012 kicks off at 5:00pm with the March to Mount Doom. But for me and the staff, we will be getting a start on moving all the terrain to the venue (Imperial Outpost Games). Then it will be set up and getting everything ready for the whole weekend. My wife has to make sure the lunch is ordered for the weekend and then there is the important stuff, making sure we bring the M&M's to the event!

My wife who has been helping with GitD for the last three years (yeah you married guys are jealous, I know it!) hit upon a great idea a few years ago, she brought big bags of M&M's to give out to the players. while she entered all the stats. And speaking about that, my wife enjoys data entry sort of things, so it was pretty easy to get her to help out.

Well Saturday the real battles begin, this year GitD is doing something a little different. I am matching up players Good vs Evil. I had the players sign up for either side and will be awarding Best General awards to the best Evil and Good General. This is something that few tournaments in the states do, hopefully it catches on.

Once this weekend is over, normal posting will happen here at Cursed Treasures, and there are a few new things that I am itching to show off, one being a new paint challenge, so stay tuned...

TK

Build it and they will come...

Okay folks,

Well we are now under way with 2012 and for this update I wanted to show off some new buildings that I recently picked up for Gathering in the Desert and other projects.

The name of this awesome company is Game Craft Miniatures and they do terrain from as small as 6mm all the way up to 28mm. Mike over at Da Green Skins pointed me to these guys. Well after looking through their online store, I decided to pick up two kits for GitD for my Harad table. They offer middle eastern buildings that have that Harad look to them and they can also stand in for Pulp games or anything else. I also picked up the Gallows for some Legends of the Old West/High Seas gaming. All of these kits that I purchased were made out of MDF and cut with a laser.

It took about a week for my order to get to me and this is what I got below (all three kits).


First up is kit #28mmdf012 Middle East One Story Building.

Here it is all laid out, pretty simple.

Here is the building test fit together, total time to assemble, less than a minute! Nice thing I like about this one is the window and door openings, they have that Middle east feel to them, which once again is perfect for Harad.

Here is a 28mm figure to give you scale.

Here is the second kit#28mmdf015.

This one went together in the same time frame, less than a minute!

One other thing that I like is the brick effect that is laser cut into some of the spots on the building, here is a close up shot.

The last kit #28mwest014 took a bit more time to assemble as seen by the parts below.

One thing I did to change my kit up, was to install wood slates on the sides of the stairs. I did this for two reasons, one it would make the stairs a bit for sturdy and two, I broke some of the railing while assembling it. I always like to do some sort of modifications so it works for me.

Here are a few figures for scale, now all I need to do is make up a nice noose (that has the proper number of wraps) for it.

So there you go, a couple of new buildings and a nice Gallows. I really love these kits, they are sturdy, look good and are pretty cheap. All three kits cost $32.35 plus shipping. I will be doing some work on the Middle Eastern buildings tomorrow and will post up what I got done. so stay tuned...

TK

Moria Table Done!

So,

Khazad - Dum, 'the Dwarrowdelf or Mines of Moria, this is the second new board for Gathering in the Desert 2011. Here is an overall shot of the new board.


It may seem that the board is pretty open and lite on terrain, but it is rather a tough board to play on. First up is the main road that runs down the middle of the board. It has no few than 12 pillars running down each side of the road, giving you 24 total pillars. Were this may seem like a no big deal, if you try to get line of sight for shooting it starts to become a mess. Also would like to thank Mike from Da Green Skins blog for helping me lay all the tiles on the road and gluing down the pillars.


I also include this hallway that has dwarven doors on both ends of it, which once again creates either a great place to hide or chock points to defend. Nice things is that I it is removable and I can use it for other projects.


On the other side of the board is Balins Tomb, which I followed the plans loosely from the Fellowship of the Rings Journey book. The pillars have enough room for a single 25mm based figure to hid behind (from a troll perhaps?) as well as having a ledge that runs around the inside of the tomb. The only thing that is different came from Drunkensamurai, that there is no back door to get out. In the journey book there is a collapsed exit that you can leave from. But in the movie I swore that the Fellowship leaves from the main door! Anyway, this will make an interesting feature on the board with only one way in. Do you hold up and defend or pass it by, hmm the decisions.


Also on the board are a few rock castings from a Woodland Scenic mold set that I have. Once again Mike from Da Green Skins stepped up to help me cast these bad boys. The are made with dental plaster castings and blue foam for the backing. Than they are mounted on Masonite and painted, so that means they have a pretty good weight to them.


I also made them to go in he corners and the edge of the table. This was done to give the feeling of being in an underground environment like in the movie.


So there you have it, another board for GitD 2011, if you are in town, stop by to see these in person...

TK