Its over for another year..

I will do a full report for Gauntlet 2012 Show shortly, but not got the time right now.
So just to keep you guessing, here are a couple of photos.. of my Dungeon bash.



7am Saturday Morning.

A few turns in. The fog of war slowly rolls back.

I will post some more shots this week and do a full write up as time allows. But suffice to say, it was a late setup, but a great two days of gaming. The show was busy, the WRG 6th Ed tournament went well both days, though simon has its running down pat I think from many years of experience. The 40K tournament I ran on sunday, went really well.

All in all.. a great weekend. Still recovering today. But then there is no gain without pain.. or at least lugging several large boxes of Dwarven Forge up and down stairs.

Dungeon Accessories - Part 2

So I have made a bit mor progress on painting my Dungeon Accessories for this coming weekends game at Gauntlet.

Most are done in vallejo model colour flat earth, but a nutt brown ink wash.
The yellow ocher is looking on. I was trying for a lighter colour wood and went with a german pale cammo brown, but now quite sure how it will look.
So far all they have had, is an undercoat, and base colour and washes. Some of the washes are not done fully yet. I tried to dip them in the wash and be lazy, but all that happened was the pieces stuck to the board and pulled paint away when i removed them.

So now I am painting it on with a paint brush and doing about hard of each piece at time to avoid this.

So this is it so far!

Progress so far on the dungeon accessories.

 My attempts as making a weapon rack or three have so far gone now where.
First my " NWSL The Chipper II ", has got too thin a blade and I am getting deflection when cutting even thin strips such as 1.5mm thick styrene.

So had to revert to a craft night. I was struggling to come up with a sturdy design that would survive gaming handling and still look "authentic" as it were. So in amoungst all those clips is the first propper attempt. Using some 1/4x1/4 balsa strips.

You can just see on the right, the liberated and cleaned up fenris weapons items.

The first aseembly of what I hope will be a solid design.

Hmmm need more clips!

Liberated from their sprues - Fenris fantasy weapons.

So now I need to wait for the glue to dry and whilst that is happening. I will undercoat the fenris weapons. I planned to mount this to the weapon stand permenantly, but have decided not to now.
I think they will be better to use as scatter items and treasure rewards in the game but also in future games.

Having realised how much DF I have, and how small an amount of accessories I had and the lack of time. I decided to cheat,, well I ordered some bits form Morgar (off the DF forums) and some painted barrels. These arrived today. By pegasus and not too bad for the money.

I bought some of these to suppliment the ones I was painting.

Will post some more as they come along. Only 4 days including today. Eek!

Dungeon Accessories - Part 1

Well only a few days to go till Gauntlet and I am trying to get a few dungeon accessories painted for my game.

Here are a few shots of what I have managed today.

Some resin and white metal barrels and chests and bits.

 The first shot is of some part painted resin and white metal pieces I have just started painting. I am experimenting with colours for wood effects.

The pieces are by Irregular, Ansty Castings and some barrels and resin chests from a defunct trader on ebay.

Being undercoated.

 This is the second batch. Some small barrles and bits like treasure chests. Most from Irregular again, but with a few older GW. Went with the white undercoat to give brighter colours but it does mean you have to accurate with the paint, or it shows through where you missed.

Fenryll resin weapons pack.

In addition to the barrels, chests and sacks etc, I want some Diablo style weapons racks. So a while go I picked up for 99p on ebay, a fenryll resin weapons pack. Not a bad selection.
I will scratch build the frames/weapon stands and then glue them into place, so I can represent armories and guard rooms.

This pack would be good for anyone with heroic fantasy figures interested in converting too. Though the resin is brittle I found. The morning star has already lost its head. But some glue and drilling should fix that.

Will try and get a few more photos as these projects progress this week. All have to be done by end of play thursday. Nothing like time pressure eh??

Blooming Ekk! - Only three weeks go! Arrhhhhh..

Ok, the realisation has just dawned on me.. err.. its three weeks to go now.

Yes, Gauntlet 2012 - Our clubs show is only three weeks away.. scary!

In the past I have put on big games. And that has usually involved a rabbid painting rush and mad last minute secenery painting to get the game done even painting thing on the friday night before.

This year, due to one reason or another, I have not embarked upon such. Mainly due to other life concerns.. so this year, I am rolling out a Dungeon Bash. Good old fashioned, bash the monsters and grab the treasure. Partly because I like games like that. Partly because it means I can roll out my large collection of Dwarven Forge in a big layout for a couple of days.

So.. having made that decision. I need to design the dungeon.. (hmm or at least the plot and story for the players). It has to be simple as its a turn up and play game. So I am toying with going with basic D20 RPG. Six stats, a handful of skills, an AC and hit points as I want.

My other option is to use Bladestorm by ICE. But that is a bit more complicated and more a skirmish battle system, which is fine if you have the time to invest. But I do like the system. Hmm choices, choices.. The gaming system and plot aside. I also need to get some stuff to fill the dungeon with. I have a fair few figures from the D&D prepainted plastics miniatures range, so they should give me enough things to populate most of it and give each player a representative figure.

Its then a case of filling in rooms with furniture etc. I have bought a couple of packs of scenery pieces, barrels etc here and there from various makers such as Ainsty castings and some off ebay, in the past, but they will need painting. So it looks like it could once more be a mad rush to get things painted again! Oh joy.. at some point I will remind my self why I do this every year and swear I won't next year and so on an so forth..

So here are a few shots from various places on the web of some larger layouts. Hoping to do something long these lines, but of course not an exact copy..

From - http://www.wethegamerz.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/gallery_layout_dungeon.jpg

From - http://www.the-back-row.com/media/blogs/TBR/dwarvenforge.jpeg

From - http://www.dwarvenforge.info/bibliothequeimages/IMG_3944.jpg

Hmm.. looking at those photos, I really better get some planning done soon. :)

There are some more photos of lovely layouts here too:

http://www.dwarvenforge.info/bibliothequeimages/selection/selection.htm

Club Gaming Weekend 14th & 15th of April 2012

Last year in addition to running Gauntlet, our clubs annual tournament and gaming show. We ran a gaming weekend in the same venue we use for Gauntlet. The Wings Social Club Dining Hall.
We hold our regular club nights down stairs in the dance room.

So this year, we chose to hold another in April. Over the 14th and 15th. I spent the friday afternoon hauling my boxes of Dwarven Forge out and then loading it into the car. In the evening a small group of us gathered at the club to lug the tables from our storage room up stairs to the hall and dig out some of our club scenery for the games.

Having got the tables setup, I carried in my dwarven forge boxes and we left after getting Security to lock up. And it was time to head home, via the super market for tea and coffee etc for the weekend and a take away for my dinner. (Tea, coffee is free over the weekend to attendees, covered by entrance fee).

So up bright and early saturday and down to the social club to open up. Setup the kettle and get that on. (One has to get their priorities right, you know).

Then it was a case of starting to setup for our game. Colin was running a game of Warrior Heroes, using my DF pieces to represent what was intended as a two level realm belonging to some dwarves that our party were trying to find. But instead it was filled or at least the first level was, with goblins, ogres and some blackmoon orcs.

So sometime around 11am we were ready to go and our group some 8 strong, all controlling their chosen hero characters from the campaign, began.

So here are a few shots from saturdays games and then some from sunday.

I will do a seperate write up of the warrior heroes game.

The initial layout for the Warrior Heroes Game.

Part of the general layout of tables.

Waiting for the rest of our players to arrive for the Warrior Heroes game.

Len and Peter, kick off their game of Dystopian Wars

The initial British deployment.

Slightly blured sorry, but Pete has done a nice paint job.

Warrior Heroes.. will do a seperate write up.

Ogres 1, Elf 0

The saturday FOW game in flow.

The game that never got played.. Will was without an opponent, so the game got postponed till sunday, and slightly reorganised.

Simon, very happy about something.

Len tries desperately to hold off the British from getting through to St Laurance bay estury.

Considering we had 8 players in our WHAA game, it went smoothly.

FOW carnage.. the germans crushing the allies.

Looks like carnage about to ensue.

Allied air power fails to win the day.

Else where, games of Flames of War, Dystopian Wars and board games were being played.
As unfortunately not everyone could make both days, Colin was tempted away to play a game on Warhammer Fantasy on the sunday, and I planned a game of Blade Storm with Jon.

So having cleared away and tied up, headed home on saturday night for another take out.

And back again sunday morning with fresh milk and supplies. Yes we have free tea and coffee at our gaming weekends. We only charge a £1 a day.. and infact, due to me getting stuck into a game, I forgot to collect the pounds on sunday, but saturday had covered our costs so that was ok.

So, sundays games.. consisted of Warhammer fantasy, more board games, more flames of war with folks from our neighbour club in chester, the RGMB, comeing over, and playing a very big game of Flames of War with severl of our guys involved too. Looked a right old carnage fest.

Will who had laid out his Black Powder games yesterday, discovered he was without an oponent on the saturday, so Jon and I decided rather than have a game of blade storm we would give Black Powder a go. 1700s or so, dainish/belgium game. I had to stop a carvan reaching a town.

Was quite good fun. Not a rule set or period I had played before, but was enjoyable and quite quick flowing once we had the basics down. So cheers Will, it was a good and interesting game.

So here are some photos from the sunday.

Daves Force on Force game, from road to Bahgdad book.

Great setup.

US Armour rolls forward.

Just before it all goes wrong..

Suicide car bombers and all sort lay in wait for the poor US troops.

Cans of rice pudding, make great over pass buttress pieces.

Sundays large Flames of War game.

My sunday game of Black Powder.. I had to stop a caravan reaching the town.

My cavalry after their initial charge was repulsed.. but one group reached the caravan and held it in place.

On the right flank I tried to get across the river. My cavalry made it, but my infantry got bogged down and kept being dissordered.

My oponents view, down onto the caravan as my troops and cavalry just about hold on and keep it locked in place for another turn.

On the right flank, my cavalry sweep up the but his cannon take a heavy toll.

My general lends his support to the left flank to rally troops.

My cannon kept up steady fire, but did not achieve much. Long range is not good.

In the end, we agreed a partial victory. My troops were at the caravan, and delayed it. Some of my units were across the bridge and the right flank my infantry were finally across the river and progressing. It would have been fun to play on, but time was pressing.

Sorry i could not put more detail about the FOW game on sunday. If one of the guys does a write up I will link to it.

My write up of the Warrior Heroes Game will follow shortly with more pics.

So a weekend well spent and thoroughly enjoyed. Relaxed good natured gaming. You cannot beat it!

A big thanks to everyone who helped put the gear away at the end of play on sunday. It was greatly appreicated. Speical thanks to Steve White who helped me lug my DF sets back to the car. I really need a trolly!