CAV Strikes again!

So,

I love Robot/Mech games, one of the first games I played was the classic Battletech, I would always be buying Ral Partha Mechs and actually started selling these painted models to my local game store back in CA. But as things do, I drifted away from the game and startrd playing on the computer and many console games. BT was great, but it was more better suited for the computer then on the tabletop.

Then a few years ago I got introduced to CAV from Talon Games (was formerly with Reaper Miniatures). I worked with Jon Walker of Talon for a few years. But once my time working ended I drifted off to other games. But I had a ton of CAV models left to paint.

So this weekend I decided to paint up a few models just for fun, here is the results.

I have a few more models to work on, so I will be adding them here on the Old Blog so stay tuned.

TK

A place for a swinging wake...

Well,

Another Monday and another update from this past weekend. So a few years ago I was able to attend Reapercon down in Texas. I had the chance while there to pick up a few items, this Crypt being one of them.

Reaper Crypt

I was going to use this for games of Frostgrave, but never got around to painting it and sadly Frostgrave doesn't get played that much now. But since I had time being stuck at home, I busted it out

Front door, I wonder if anyone home?

I wanted to play around with doing a patine roof, started out black, then dabbed Hunter Green paint into the cracks and roof panel lines. Then a steal color into the center of the panels followed by a Copper color over everything followed by a Strong tone wash. I think it came out rather nicely.

Patine roof

Necromancer and assistant trying to unlock the door

Inside of the Crypt

Someone is home!

All in all this is a great kit, I did have to alter the roof to make it removable, after painting it got snug again, but nothing that won't work. Now just to get this onto the table for some games.

TK

Layout update

So,

Also while I have been stuck at home I am slowly working on my home Espee switching layout. I decided a couple of weeks ago to start getting the rest of the track laid, so here are some shots. I have not been able to complete as I ran out of flex track.

Main Line and Siding total width 6"

This whole layout is going to be tilt up looking buildings as I am modeling this area off of an area along the 5 FWY in CA up near Buena Park. So nothing fancy, just plain own industries to switch out with a SW1500. This area was part of the Anaheim route in the OC and I used to take pictures in this area.

Mainline up front while runaround/team track behind with an industry tucked up in the corner.

Closer look of the industry in the corner.

Team track in use with freight on the mainline.

Below is the plan for the larger part of the layout, it will have more industries and is modeled after my buddy Bill Meyer modules from my old club in CA.

The Plan

Here is all we have done for this section, all the switches, but no track for in the middle.

Far end of layout, that is an 8' run. 

So there you go, I am slowly working on the layout and getting track down. Once all the track is down I will be dropping in feeder wires on each piece of track then wiring to a main bus line.

TK

Halloween Game of 2019 (forgotten post)

So,

Last October 26, 2019 (on my Birthday) I ran a group game of Wiley Games Fistful of Lead Tales of Horror game for a select group of friends. I love hosting games and I had decided earlier in 2019 that I would host a game on my birthday and wanted it to be a themed Halloween event. I used to play and run Warhammer Fantasy Battles Halloween games here at my house years ago, but just never got back to doing it.

Wiley Games Awesome Supplement for FFoL

 So I set out to paint and model everything for the game, it would be a gift to my friends from me and allowed me to get back into hosting games again. All I knew is that this game needed to look nice and have that Wow factor to the game. I have been collecting up terrain and have used it in other games, so all I had to do was figure out what I wanted to use.

Table and groups of figures for the gsme.

Another shot of the board

So with the terrain and figures done I had to come up with a scenario for the game. I had Vampires, Werewolves, Cossack's and Monster Hunters among other groups. The scenario I decided to go with was modified from the Tales of Horror rules. Basically the Vampires were trying to protect their coffins that were scattered around the board so they could return to them at sunlight. While the other creature groups were their to create havoc and of course the Monster hunters were there to burn the coffins and kill all monsters.

Hunters and monsters prowl the graveyard

We had five players, Tom O, Rob B, Matt W, and Bill and his Wife from Tucson play in the game. Tom took Cossack's, Rob took the Frankenstein Monsters, Matt took the Werewolves and Bill and his wife took the Monster hunters each. I ran the Vampires as they were sort of a NPC group and the object of the game was to destroy them. I kept track of the turns stating that the coffins needed to be destroyed by turn 10, if any were left the vampires would get the victory.

Coffins burn!

I was worried that the Monster groups would over run the Hunters, but they held their own and it seemed that the natural hatred of Werewolves and Vampires was in full effect as the Wolves went straight after the Vamps.

Werewolf pack

Here are a few more shots from the game.

Frankenstein not as tough as we thought. 

Creepy woods with a forgotten coffin

The pumpkin patch hiding a coffin

the lower end of the graveyard

The scary road through the graveyard

All in all everyone had a great time, the FFoL rules are very easy to learn and the game flows very fast. I think many folks were sold on the rules after the first couple of turns.

So how did the game end, well the Vampires were able to survive, one coffin that was hidden in the forest went undetected through most of the game only to be noticed too late, I think one Vampire survived but all that mattered was the coffin was left untouched, because after all, we all know vampires are already dead!

Sorry about late post, I thought I had posted this here, but when I looked, it was only posted to FB group I am in.

TK

A long time in painting...

Well,

Came out in 1995

This may not have been the oldest items waiting to get painted, but was definitely took some time. As some know, I was and still am a avid player of the old school Warhammer Quest game. I have pretty much everything you could purchase for the game except the White Dwafs,Journal magazines and Deathblow magazines. I was lucky enough to get the Catacombs of Terror from a buddy a few years ago but it was all the paper products minus the miniatures. A few years ago I was finally able to track down the complete set of miniatures and had high hopes to get them painted.

So since I am stuck at home, I decided to start painting these guys over the weekend. As I posted before in the past about two years ago my brother threw down the challenge to get all of my Warhammer Quest stuff painted, so besides getting old stuff done, this also fits the bill of my brothers challenge. So first up was the main bad guy, the Dread King himself on his throne.

Dread King

 I added a old GW metal floor tile to the model but its pretty stock and straight forward. As much as I dug the old box art I always thought the red yellow scheme felt a bit cartoonish to me, so went with greens for the colors and more metal feel for the throne, I think it works well together. The words on the page of the book was phoned in, I cheated and use Permanent fine tip markers before I washed them. I tried paining them on but my paint was drying to fast on the brush and was not looking right.

Necromancer and assistant with Dread King

I then moved onto the Necromancer and "Igor" assistant to paint. You may notice that the Necromancer is mounted on a round base, I had gotten him before the rest of the miniatures and I was going to use him for Frostgrave as a Necromancer Wizard. So since I am not doing Frostgrave right now, and I already painted up a Necromancer Wizard so I will be putting a square base on him in the next day or so.

Group Shot with Tomb Guard Models

 Next up were the three Tomb Guard models, these guys were pretty easy to paint and I have painted them before when I used to have an Undead Army for Fantasy Battle many many moons ago. All in all very happy to have these figures completed, the sad part is they will go into the box until the next game.

One last project that I did Tuesday was repainting my game table top. I usually do it every few years but have gotten out of the practice of doing it. It was looking pretty beat up and while cleaning my desk area I found the pint of paint I have used in the past. Good thing too as the paint lid had almost rusted closed and the paint was about to harden up. SO I cleared off the table, patched some of the scratchs my cats had put into the table and busted out the roller and repainted it.

Fresh coat of paint on the table.

 And yes that blue paint job on the walls is a camo style that I did for my son years ago before I took over the room. You may also see the Model railroad in the picture, which is getting some love as well, but that will be for another update.

So stay safe, health and more importantly sane!

TK

The Mummy's Revenge - A Fistful of Lead Gothic horror game!

So, last Halloween I ran a Halloween game using the Fistful of Lead Gothic Horror Rules which was a blast. (which I forgot to post here, will have to correct that). Well this year I have decided to run another game but basing the game after the Mummy movies. This would allow me to use most of my extensive Pulp collection for the game.

But first I wanted to finish up a few items for the game, I thought I had much more to work on, but it seems that I had already painted or assembled those. But what i did have was three market stalls from Sarissa Precision that I wanted to jazz up.

The Bizarre is open my friend 

 The stalls include two tables per each stall, but I knew I had to add some wares to the tables. The first vendor would be a container or jar merchant, these were just beads that I had from another Pulp project. All I did was use some green stuff to make the lids on a few of the jars/containers. I also added tissue paper with watered down white glue to the roofs to provide some shade to the stall.

The finest of quality jars for you my friend.

 The next stall I wanted was a cloth merchant because I wanted some color on the table. The bolts of material are just green stuff  again rolled or folded into shape.

Very nice material my friend, only the best here!

 The last stall would be a fruit stand, I built the boxes holding the fruit out of plastic card and then green stuff for all the fruit. I was surprised at how easy it was to do, I had been putting it off, but once I got going it was pretty easy.

The most delicious fruit for you my friend!

 I also wanted to add another group to the mix, these will either be for the mummy or against, not sure which. Most of the figure just had clubs, but I did add a few swords and machine guns to them from Bolt Action left overs. I think they came out great and were nice little conversions to do.

For or Against the Mummy

 Last batch were these three, I wanted a few more townsfolk to populate the town with, a dancer, bad guy and another fez dude. I can use them for lots of different types and need to get paint.

Dancer, Bouncer and Professor 

So there you have it, some of the upcoming characters and set pieces for my next game, now lets see what else I need to paint?

TK

A beast approaches...

Why what a lot of teeth you have!

So,

I with having so much time on my hands i went looking through my models to see if there was anything that inspired me to work on it. Well this little fella jumped out to me, I picked him up about 6 years ago while at Adepticon, was going to use him for LotR or LotHS, but never got around to doing it, this seemed to be the perfect time as any.

Here is the model in bare Bones Material before I started on it.

Pretty good size, at least 13" Long

Close up shot

Another angle

So after getting everything put together and the tentacles in a good place that I liked, it all got hand primed in black paint. Bones material only likes certain spray primers, I have had good luck with Army Painter but I was out and everywhere that sells it was closed. So hand priming with a brush was the option taken.

The beast is changing colors

So since I was not going to use this for any projects, I decided to permanently mount it to a display base, once I found one that worked, I sanded it down and painted it flat black and then hit it with a gloss coat finish.

I then started to cut in the main colors. I spent some time looking at real lobsters and squids (as this had both elements in it. I decided that that hard shell plates would be a bluish color while the softer parts would be more along the colors of purple and reds.

Adding more color

WIP on color

Once I had the base colors down I washed the model in Army Painter Strong tone. I had originally tried painting the eys to match a giant squid, using yellow and oranges, but it looked to fake so I repainted them black with a little white dot for reflection. It looked better. Once the wash dried I Dull coated the model and glued it to its base. Then I started picking out details to bring it to life.

Lots of teeth

The backside of Beast

Close up of back plates

Another view from underneath.

So there you go, a project purchased 6 years ago finally see's daylight and gets painted up in a weekend.

TK