More buildings and fences

I was quite pleased to find a rooming house at the model train swap meet as Gotham is almost devoid of places were people actually live.

This was a nice model. The only difficulty was installing window glass after the fact. The interior of the building is narrow and, in places, very constricted. Even tweezers were trick to manipulate when doing the top floor.

I also completed the painting of 20 sections of stone walls. Man, there were a lot of surfaces to deal with on these fences! Dull-coating took forever. The effect is nice enough though and fences are always useful.

Up next: Two more buildings (including a fire hall) are underway. Then I need to get back to some 54mm AWI guys.

Congo at the club

Bruce hosted another game of Congo at the club last night. Each player came in from a separate corner. Winner was the person with the most victory points at the end. Victory points could be gained (at least on my briefing sheet) for killing units, digging up the treasure hidden in the village in the middle, killing the guardians of the treasure, and spiriting the treasure off the board (exit point determined by game play).

Bruce's terrain was very nice, including a couple of animal bases from an old Airfix zoo animals set.

The open stages saw two-on-two conflicts emerge, as Bruce's forces (below) tangled with Terry's forces near the village.

Richard and I duked it out on the other side of the board, fighting over a marker to determine which corner of the board would be our exit point. Some very bad die rolls during the evening meant most combat was ineffective (although Terry's dice were notably hot).

Below, Bruce's soldiers advance on the village while Terry moves to intercept.

The first wave of locals greets Bruce's soldiers. Bruce was very focused on the treasure and sacrificed some units to buy time for his snipers and diggers to get to work.

Eventually, Bruce cleared the guardians, dug up the treasure, and then the chase was on! Bruce's exit point was my starting corner. This worked out well for me as my own efforts to deploy had been shabbily organized and poorly executed so I had a lot of guys in front of him.

Meanwhile, Terry and Richard started converging behind him! Most of Bruce's forces were wiped out during delaying actions. Some how my last few pictures have disappeared but the upshot was I greased his remaining treasure carriers (below) and picked up the treasure and continued running towards my corner.

Terry tried everything to interfere and then Richard made a last ditch effort with Tarzan to pin me. Fortunately, neither of us could roll worth beans and I managed to retreat in a helpful direction. We called the game with a close win for the Emir.

More beasts and tiny Trek

I finished up a few more figures this week. First up were some more Horrorclix figs. These include a scarecrow, two terrifying clowns, a lizard in a lab coat and a child surrounded by flames.

The scarecrow was a very mice figure and much better sculpted than the Batman Scarecrow that I have.

I also finished up a stray zombie and three Creatures from the Black Lagoon.

I then got back to some of the teeny Trek ships I bought this summer from Shapeways. These are hard to both paint and photograph.

The bases they are on are about 20mm across. I put in a 28mm figure for scale. I think I am doing a creditable job given the size! Only another 20 to go. Then some Klingons... .

Up next: I have a fair bit of gaming to catch up on and I'm painting some more 28mm buildings.

Congo!

I missed Congo at the club last week so Bruce kindly offered a replay in his basement.

The objective was Kong.

I play the locals and we had to capture Kong (i.e., knock down his hit points to zero) before the visiting team did. The trick of that was Kong attacked anyone who attacked him and got weaker as his hit points declined. So my plan was to let Bruce grind Kong down and then swoop in.

 Bruce play the visiting team, a mixture of locals and some ringers plus Tarzan.

We advanced from the corners towards the ape in the middle (Kong's movement was limited). Below you can see some of Bruce's shooters moving up to Kong.

Kong then jumped ahead and no more shooters.

Bruce's rolling was true to form (perhaps Scott is contagious?).

Near the end of the game. My guys in foreground with Kong while Bruce advanced down off the ridge. My reinforcements are just out of frame on the left atop the ridge.

They were the scary cannibal unit and despite some stress, were pretty powerful by this point of the game (other units being badly attrited).

In the end, my shooters and chieftain managed to sack Kong and win the game. Mostly thanks to Bruce's poor rolling.

Overall, a slick little game. Mechanics are simple and there are tough choices in which cards to use to activate (I could never do what I wanted) as well as how much stress to risk to shake off hits and how much time to spend shaking off stress.

Pulp Alley on Remembrance Day

Terry hosted his annual Remembrance Day game on the weekend and he and Bruce cooperated to run a game of Pulp Alley. Six teams were pitted against one another to capture the Or of Ra (?). Details of how to do this were sketchy so solving plot points brought clues.

Below, the British team (including Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson) are approaching a sphinx statute when a giant hand appears.

I drew the Nazi faction and immediately got most of my troopers killed. Nevertheless, Captain Heinrich and his goon Stutgard managed to decipher enough hieroglyphs to figure out where to go to move the adventure along.

Our irritating Anglo-Saxon cousins were close on our heels as Captain Heinrich tickled the lion under its chin and opened a secret passage.

Various other factions helpfully gunned down the Brits while I was out of the room seeking more coffee and dodging the booby-trapped stairwell.

Stutgard was stumped by the first door in the catacombs and had to wait for Dr. Watson to open it.

Meanwhile, various evil creatures were triggered as other players secured victory points by examining various statutes of the dark gods. Below, Terry's troops are running from rats. I missed Craig's fellows being savaged by dogs.

Meanwhile, in the catacombs, there is a tussle in the entrance way which became a bottleneck. At this point, I thought I was so far behind that I mostly tried to control the activation sequence to keep the guys up top from having room to get into the catacombs.

This was mostly successful.

As figures explored, the catacombs were reveals room by room. The mummies were foughts, skeletons were dismissed, and Chen was wounded when someone got fancy with a pistol in the entrance way.

Eventually Dr. Watson tackled the mummy and they managed to knock each other out of the game.

This allowed Stutgard to grab the orb and snag enough victory points that I won (no one was more surprised than me).

Overall, it was a fun game and I think we have found the practical player limit for Pulp Alley (6). Terry's terrain was excellent and Bruce put a lot of work into the story and various behind the scenes mechanics (e.g., doors below ground opening only when tasks above ground were completed).

The incomplete information was a good mechanic and Craig proved the better man when he turned down the $20 I offered him to shoot Jonathan's gang up while Jonathan was getting coffee (do I have to do everything myself?).

Buildings and walls

In late October, I attended the model railway swap-meet that happens twice a year. There is a lot of rolling stock here but I was specifically interested in picking up a few extra buildings (ideally built and at a discount) for Gotham.

Two fellows sold me six buildings for $45 (built, significant discount). I was very happy to get a police station and a fire hall. I was also hoping for a church, a bank and city hall, but no joy. There was a cool rooming house, however. When I got home, I noticed that the one on the back right is actually N scale (the rest are HO). I would think, by replacing the doors, I could make it work as a low warehouse. The water tower is cool.

I did some minor repair work on the buildings and then sprayed them all black. Why is it that so many railroaders don't bother to paint their buildings? None of these had any paint--just a few decals

The police station turned out okay, I think. There was a bail-bond place around the back (which made me laugh) but I didn't have a bail-bond decal. I did have a guns and ammo decal. That seemed more appropriate for Gotham, anyhow. I think the metal grill on the back windows is a nice touch. Also, cool HVac arrangement on the roof.

There was also a generic building. I had to replace the door with some card. I figured a bar would be a good addition to my buildings so I decaled it as such.  Added a few of the painted adverts (from an old model train decal set) that I often see on the old warehouses downtown.

Just as I was finishing up the building, I somehow got a huge painty finger print on the other side (arse!). This totally pooched the dry brushing on the brick pattern. Rather than start over, I recalled Terry had some graffiti on one of his buildings. So I blacked out the print, then made up some graffiti. I think graffiti-ing "graffiti" is meta.

Terry also turned me on to some Xmas walls at Michael's. I bought five sets (maybe 4 feet of wall for $24). I decided to paint them (original colour was cream, which was also fine). I sprayed grey, blocked the brick, drybrushed, detailed ,and washed two sections as a test. I think this is good enough and now will go back and replicate on the other (sigh...) 14 sections.

I'm not totally sold on the balusters. Even accounting for the different scale they are intended for, they look a bit wrong. But good enough for ornamental walls for the price.

Up next: Probably some more buildings then I should get back to some 54mm AWI figures.

25mm Star Trek and some clix

I continued to push more stalled projects off my painting bench this week. In the spring, I ordered some 25/28mm Romulans to match with some Klingons and Federation figures I had. Still looking for a fourth race with 12 figures--best bet is probably Gorn as there are a lot of lizards out there.

These are actually supposed to be ST:TMP Klingons (think black jump suits with gold vests) but I already had some ST:TNG Klingons and finding other races is tough. So I fell back on the old "paint job conversion" approach using some ST:TOS pictures I had (basically grey jump suits and silver vests).

Not great in the end but they will do. Below you can see some size comparisons. The Federation are old school 25mm while the Klingons and Romulans are more 28mm. Good enough for my purposes.

I've also been painting up some more Horrorclix figures. The sculpts on these are great, they just need some help with the paint!

I had three of these Creatures from the Black Lagoon. Left to right above is original, highlights, and highlights plus wash (so you see the whole process). Below is original versus finished (I will rebase to clear plastic discs later). The difference that 10 minutes of work makes is significant.

Up next: More Horrorclix and maybe a weekend game with Terry.