More Heroes and Villains

So I'm back with some new figures for the kids' superhero games.

First up are two members of the Avengers:

Hawkeye was made from Crossover's Fletch hero.  I've gone for the more traditional comic look rather than the movie costume. Overall a nice figure that was easy to paint.

 Thor is a repainted Heroclix figure.  The original paint job wasn't too bad, just a bit flat.  The sculpting is actually rather nice. 

Next up is our S.H.I.E.L.D. scientist, Professor Kiyoshi Mamba, one of the world experts on aliens and mutants.  This figure comes from Reaper's Chronoscope line.  He will play a major role in our upcoming cross blog game.

Electro is the first of our two new villains.   This is another Heroclix repaint. Again, the original wasn't bad looking (the eyes were actually great, so I left them alone), just rather flat.

Last is Sabertooth, another Heroclix figure. The sculpting is just ok (his head is a bit big), but as you can see, the original paint job was absolute crap and had to be completely redone:

More Ostafrika Terrain

Since my last hill came out better than I hoped, I've gone back to work on some additional terrain.  First up are some trees and bushes:

These were built on flat wooden disks I picked up at the craft store (I think they were about 10 cents each), which have been covered in the long felt/teddy bear fur I prepared earlier.  The bushes are the same plastic plants I used previously on the last hill.

For the trees, I was hoping to build something a bit taller, but was unable to locate appropriate pieces of natural wood, so had to go the Woodland Scenics route. They make tree armatures in various sizes, but the taller ones all have very pronounced central trunks.  For the pictures of east African plains I've seen, the trees seem to fan out without a central trunk, and have a very flat canopy of leaves.  As such, I picked the smaller armatures of packet TR1122, which are 3-5" in height and lend themselves to that sort of shape. I bent the branches down to create a wider canopy, giving me a clearance of of about 1 1/2-2" under the trees. Not great, but still big enough to fit a figure under them. 

The trees were dry brushed in a couple of shades of tan, and then covered with Poly Fiber (FP178).  The Poly Fiber is much less dense than the normal Woodland Scenics clump foliage, so it gives the tree leaves a wispy appearance that I think looks much more appropriate. The Poly Fiber was attached using superglue, which gives a pretty strong bond.  The only down side is the fiber can whiten when the glue dries on it.  However, a bit of dry brushing with some green during highlighting can help cover that. 

Using my previous experience, I decided to tackle another hill.  I even  remembered to take a few work in progress shots this time:

Cork bark section, with pink foam added around it.  A plastic tree will be included.

Spackle added.  It will turn white after drying .  The tree armature can be removed from its base, making prep work much easier. Resin texture sand to be added later.

After painting and the addition of grass. Sealed with a matte spray varnish.

This small hill is steeper than my last, so I left more exposed rock on the sides.

Still a lot more work to go on this project (additional plants, hills, and trails), but I'm happy how things are moving along.

S.H.I.E.L.D. Team 6: Alien and Mutant Threats

After the events in New York city, S.H.I.E.L.D. needed to be better prepared to deal with alien and mutant threats.  Using the U.S. Navy SEALS as their model, special teams of elite agents were trained to act as the vanguards during hostile encounters. Their mission is to provide reconnaissance, recover any useful alien technologies, and coordinate initial resistance until a larger S.H.I.E.D. force can arrive. 

Team 6 is located on the west coast of the United States.

I wanted to get my kids inserted in their superhero games in preparation for the cross blog game we'll be conducting with Maj Guiscard.  My kids didn't want to create their own superheros, so I decided to make some S.H.I.E.L.D. agents instead.   We have a figure for each member of the household, with IDs on the back of the helmets.  The figures are Nova Corps Troopers from Reaper which I would highly recommend. In the movies the agents are shown in black and blue uniforms, but I think they would be a bit dark and not show the details of the figures very well. As such, I've opted for the more classic blue and white look. They ended up looking a bit more clone trooper-ish than I planned, but as my kids like Star Wars, it actually got them more excited about the figures.

I still have additional items to paint, but we should be ready for our game in July.

African Terrain: Hill

I've been on the road for work most of the last month, so haven't been able to get much hobby work done.  However, over a few scattered days of free time, I manage to make my first scratch built hill, and I'm really happy with how it came out:

The sheer rock face

Living in warmer coastal California, it hasn't been easy to find dense foam insulating sheets for hill construction; generally all you see is the expanded white foam that just isn't dense/strong enough for this kind of work.   I had almost given up hope and was looking into using cork tiles, when I discovered one of the local DIY stores had some Owens Corning Foamular in convenient 2'x 2' squares.  Needless to say, I bought a few sheets not knowing if I'd ever manage to see it again.  I believe it ran about $6 per sheet.  I also picked up a tub of DAP DryDex spackling to texture the hill.  This particular type goes on pink then turns white when it dries, making it easy to see when you can proceed with final texturing and painting.

Hill construction supplies

For the exposed rock face, I've seen several people recommend cork bark, which I was able to locate at a pet store.  The section was about 1'x1' and cost me $20.  Besides the wonderful texture, it had a lot of really nice color variation and strata layers, and some of the edges even had nice green coloring from lichen.  Since I'm going for sandy colored stone, I decided the leave my bark mostly unpainted.

So as to have a strong base, I drew out the shape of the hill base onto some scrap fiberboard I had around the house, then cut the shape out using a hand jigsaw. I used this template to trace out the first layer of foam, which was also cut out with the jigsaw.  Sections of cork bark were removed from the strip, using a combination of sawing and prying (it actually took more work than i expected), and I then cut back the first layer of hill foam to accommodate them.  I originally tried using a utility knife for this with mixed results, but found my jigsaw cut through it like butter and continued to use it for most of the build. I then shaved the sides of the foam before flipping it over and using the top as the template for the next foam layer. Again more cutting and fitting until I had a rough 2-layer hill with a gentle enough slope to let figures climb one side of it. Using wood glue, the fiberboard, two foam layers and two cork sections were glued into place.  There were some gaps, so I filled them as best I could with the scrap foam left over from the carving.

Small gully between the cork rock faces

 Once the glue had dried,  The foam sections were covered with a layer of spackle, using a spackle knife for the large sections, and some small sculpting tools for the nooks and crannies. Additionally, some of the spackle was pulled onto the cork to better blend it into the hill.  I left the spackle fairly thick and lumpy to give it more of a rock like appearance, so it took a while to dry (overnight). The pink/white color change was really helpful to see when it was ready.  Once the spackle was dry, I added some Liquitex texture gel (available in various levels of coarseness) and real rock to areas that were going to be exposed so as to provide an additional level of detail.

Backside of the hill with trail leading up it

 Once all the texturing materials were dry, I gave the hill a shake and gently ran my hand over its back to knock off any loose stones.  For the ground color, I started with a medium brown drab, and then built up with bits of dark brown, dark grey, light grey, and flesh tone to blend into the colors found on the cork bark. I also dry brushed a bit of light green onto some of the bark to match the lichen already present.  Once all this was done, I hit the entire hill, including the bark, with some light sandstone paint to blend it all together.

I wanted the hill to blend into the fur felt mat I had made previously,  so I decided to have the grass run up the hill. I used the base of the hill to cut out a rough section of spare felt that was slightly on the large size, but not by much.  As I planned to have sections of exposed rock, I didn't worry too much if it wasn't enough to cover the entire hill.

Another shot of the hilltop

I tried to pick out logical sections of hill that I could cut out in large sections of felt. The felt was placed against the hill and I trimmed it to cover the sections I wanted, using the contours of the hill to guide me.  Now I did not want a really blunt edge where the grass was going to end, so I made multiple small cuts along the fabric edges and stressed the fabric by pulling in hopes of creating frayed edges. Additionally, I also cut some holes in the large sections, and then used the scrap cuts to make small plugs of grass that could be added near the edges to add a bit of further fade.  All of this was glued down using wood glue.  At the end of this, there were still some felt edges that were more obvious than I would have liked, but overall I think it looks good.

Lastly, I added some plastic shrubs to the hill to make it look a bit fancier and to hide some of the worst of the felt edges.  These were made from plastic plant mats made by Ashland. I found these at a local craft store for about $14 for a 1'x1' square.  This particular type came in a few shades of green, so I went with a more yellow green to better blend with the yellowed grass.  These can be easily removed in clumps from the sheet, and the clumps can be then further cut down to get plants of various sizes. I drilled some small holes to hold the stems, which were again glued in place using wood glue.

The wood glue residue and the plastic plants were rather shiny, so the hill was finished off with a generous amount of matte spray sealant.

Figures for scale

I have to admit that I was originally a bit intimidated by this project, as I wasn't sure if I could pull off a grass coat that would look reasonable.  However, it actually came out better than I expected and I feel blends into the mat really well.  Sadly I am headed back out on the road shortly, but hopefully I'll soon have more time to build several additional hills for this project.

The Lost Outpost: A Colonial Africa AAR

 Today Axabrax and I finally managed to meet up at the local shop and play our first colonial Africa game using the "In the Heart of Africa" rules, with 600 points allotted to each side.  Steve fielded a Ruga-Ruga force, while I had a German force.

Our table consisted of a lost trading outpost on the edge of swamp.

 A local German commander was tasked with reclaiming the outpost.  For this dangerous mission, he was given a detachment of crack naval troops, with help from some Azande natives and a Boer settler acting as scout.  As they approach the outpost, things look quiet.

 Little do they know, a force of Ruga-Ruga and local tribesmen are waiting in the jungle for them.

 The Germans station a machine gun on the hillside to cover their advance. One naval unit heads towards the tall grass, while another moves towards the outpost.  Azande are hidden in the jungle on their right flank in case there are surprises.

The naval troops headed towards the outpost are suddenly hit by artillery, instantly killing two of the five sailors.

A sinister witchdoctor explores around the outpost, attempting to flush out any hidden troops. 

The surviving sailors from the outpost attack run to join their colleagues in the underbrush, hoping to hide from additional artillery fire.

A group of Masai warriors in the employ of the Ruga-Ruga follow behind the witchdoctor, while additional Ruga-Ruga move around the outpost and head for the stream.

The witchdoctor finally succeeds in flushing out the Azande, who manage to kill him before he can place a curse on them.

Meanwhile, the advancing unit of Ruga-Ruga reach the stream. After loosing a few members to crocodile attacks, the Germans open up on them with machine gun and rifle fire, eventually doing enough damage to drive them away.

The Masai now engage the Azande.  The Azande manage to hold their ground for a while, but they are fewer in number and are slowly being killed off by the swarm of Masai.

 The commander and his forces take cover in the undergrowth, hiding while the machine gun does its best to dominate the field.  The Ruga-Ruga artillery attempts to pound the machine gun into silence, but is unable to hit its target.

 The Ruga-Ruga take a significant amount of punishment from the machine gun, but manage to hold their ground.

The Ruga-Ruga artillery switches targets to the Germans in the grass, wiping out one of the Naval units. Native archers emerge from out of the jungle to engage the remaining Germans. 
 

German forces sweep right out of the undergrowth, eliminating the archers.  The machine gun continues its attack on the Ruga-Ruga at the jungle's edge, further reducing  their numbers. The Ruga-Ruga artillery is still unable to silence the machine gun. 

 The Masai finish their slaughter of the Azande warriors.

From the hilltop, the Germans spot the advancing Masai, knowing they bring certain death if they can reach the remaining sailors.

The sailors reposition the machine gun, mowing down the advancing Masai, until the losses are so severe that the Masai must flee.

With the machine gun occupied, the Ruga-Ruga artillery finally manages to dial in on it and destroy it.  The remaining Ruga-Ruga infantry pour through the undergrowth towards the Germans.

Finally it comes down to hand to hand combat, with both sides nearly equal in numbers. It's anyone's victory!

It's looking bad for the Germans; everyone has been killed except the command group. Doom seems certain!

Little did the Ruga-Ruga leader know that the commanding officer was a devil with pistol and knife, reducing them all to bloody corpses.

The outpost may still be lost, but one lone German commander survives to journey back to civilization and share this tale of bravery and death.

It was a great afternoon and both of us were happy to finally have someone local interested in African games.  As our schedules allow, more African adventures will be forthcoming.