HAWKs Begin 2nd Annual Armies-For-Kids Project

Last Saturday, November 12th, the HAWKs (Harford Area Weekly Kriegspielers)began work on their 2nd Annual Armies-For-Kids project. The purpose of the club's annual project is to give away free armies to kids, in an attempt to help grow the hobby. The initial project was launched last year, after the club received a sizable donation of unpainted 25mm American War of Independence figures from the Wally Simon estate, with the simple request that the club see the figures got into the hands of kids. The HAWKs then held several painting bees to paint the hundreds of donated figures. The results of last years project was the presentation of painted opposing armies, as well as a gift bag of terrain and playing aids, to 8 children who participated in specially designated kids games at Historicon '11.


This year, the club is working on a Seven Years War project based on the generous donation of 15mm figures from Robert Piepenbrink, as well as the donations of additional SYW figures from Erik Engling, and Ed Mohrmann. The club has been aided this year by some financial donations from folks who generously gave the club money at Historicon, and the painting support of John Spiess, who offered to paint two of the giveaway armies for us.
Last Saturday, eleven members of the HAWKs got together to begin work on painting the armies for this year's giveaway. These armies will be presented to kids at Historicon 2012.

For additional information contact me at CNJPalmer@aol.com

For details on last year's project see: http://bucksurdu.com/blog/?p=541

Fall-In Report Part II: Saturday

I woke up Saturday morning to a light rain, and by around 9:00 AM it had already started turning over to snow. Snow grew heavier as the morning progressed, and the snowflakes were huge, so it accumulated quickly even though the temperature was still above freezing.

A couple hours after it started. Folks heading over to the dealers hall.

Early afternoon, and it's starting to cover everything.


Mid afternoon and it's really piling up.

At 9:00 I started my first game of the day, 'The Lost Legion of Venus by GASLIGHT.' This scenario had a small French force being assaulted on three sides by native Parrotmen and Lizardmen. Unfortunately in my morning stupor I forgot to include some of the modifications that had been developed during playtesting, so the game turned out to be very one sided in favor of the French. I learned a valuable lesson to write stuff down, rather than trying to remember it all in my head.

A wide view of the table.



The Parrotmen's pet dinosaur moves to cross the river.





A unit of Parrotmen and one of Lizardmen try to come to grips with the French invaders.





Another one of the Saturday morning games,Buck Surdu's 'Look, Sarge, The French are Counter-attacking', using the Look,Sarge, No Chart: WWII rules.





Another view of the table.

Players moving their troops.

French tanks and infantry assault a German held wood line.

Also, running Saturday morning was Greg Priebe and Todd Harland-White's, 'Dr Who: Victoria Hawkes and the Steel Menace' game. This game turned out to be a real crowd pleaser, with lots of bad impressions and classic dialogue exchanged during the action.

Union troops and townsfolk face the Cyber menace.

Cyber troops are everywhere, but where's the Doctor?

Sam Fusion ran his 'Look, Sarge, the Americans are Landing in France' game starting at 2:00 PM. The scenario depicted action on the southern coast of France during WWII, and used 20mm figures.

A German held town.

At 3:00 PM, James 'Tank' Nickle ran his, 'Look, Sarge, It's the Largest Cavalry Battle of the Civil War' theme game. This scenario was the battle of Trevilian Station in 1864, and featured lots of beautifully painted 10mm ACW cavalry.

A close up of two Rebel cavalry brigades as they deploy to hold off a Union advance.

As evening approached, we began setting up the 'HAWKs 1000 Great Race' game. This game was to commemorate the club's 1000th convention game in the last decade. A group of 20 players rotated between four tables each featuring a different race, and accrued points for winning or placing as well as achieving certain objectives like rescuing lost explorers and finding treasure.

A great time was had by both the game masters and the players.

Buck Surdu's dogsled portion of the race.

My zeppelin race table as the zeppelins approach the finish arch.

Don Hogge's desert car race.

A close up of some of the racers battling over treasure.

Todd Harland White's boat race.

A big thanks to all the gamers who visited the HAWKs room during the con, and helped make it a big success for the club.

Fall-In Report Part I: Friday

I arrived at Fall-In Thursday night, and was up early Friday morning to help Buck Surdu set up a pick-up game of LSNC: Napoleonics. I had a great time playing in the game, and am pleased how the rules are coming along. We had several passing by gamers ask to join in for an hour or so before the games they has registered for began, and then opting to stay and play the whole game because they were having such a good time.
After the game, I had lunch and then went shopping in the dealers hall and flea market and got lots of goodies. In the afternoon, I set up my evening LSNC:WWII game, 'Look, Sarge, the Germans are Rafting on our River", but was disappointed when only two gamers showed up to play. I was able to find them a spot in Eric Schlegel's LSNC: ACW game, 'Look, Sarge, It's the Hornet's Nest', at the next table over, and I too took a command as this game was short of players s well.

Friday evening's 'Look, Sarge, It's the Hornets Nest' game. Players got to take command at the battle of Shiloh using "A Union So Tested" (Look, Sarge, No Charts: ACW) rules.

A Union Division tries to form up as Confederates launch a surprise attack.

The battlelines drawn up around Shiloh Church.

Meanwhile, Buck Surdu had a full compliment of gamers for his 'Captain America by GASLIGHT' game. In this scenario, Captain America and a group of commandos need to blow up as many secret weapons as possible in a heavily defended Hydra military base.

Buck Surdu advises a player, during the Captain America game.

Germans and Americans skirmish around two of Hydra's flying wings.

Captain America surveys the situation as his commandos sneak up on some unsuspecting Germans .

Two of the players discuss tactics during the Captain America game.

Also running Friday night was Todd Harland-White's Halloween themed 'Panic at Space Station Accipitor: The Problem with Pumpkins' game. This game features homecast 1930's era Buck Rogers figures, and a beautifully scratchbuilt space station made by Duncan Adams.

Players try to figure out who's who, as all the figures were wearing paper costumes for the Halloween party on board the station.

A close up of the action.

Next up: Snow, Snow Snow!

Sponge Bob Idol at Walmart

I found this cool Sponge Bob Idol in the aquarium section of Walmart today for $6.00. I see so many possibilities for it! I may have to get another one to paint in a more brown and tan scheme for desert/Mars settings. Shown with a 25mm figure for scale.
I wonder how easily I could saw the top of head off above the eyebrow to put an upper floor in it to make some sort of observation post or gun position.

Eureka "Corpse & Musket" Bridge For Use on Venus

At Historicon this past Summer I bought one of the sets from Eureka Miniatures' new Corpse & Musket Range that contained "Napoleon Blownaparte" and several zombified Revolutionary French soldiers, as well as a zombified Arcola bridge. (You can see this set in this TMP news item, http://theminiaturespage.com/news/504825/ I couldn't find it on the Eureka site.)
The bridge, which is all draped with vines, and growth, and slime, struck me as having potential to be (beyond a gateway for the dead) a nifty jungle terrain piece. I immediately saw potential use for it in both my Venusian project, and Buck's and my Frog Wars project.
The bridge comes in three pieces: a resin deck, and two metal rails. I encountered only a couple problems in assembly. First, some of the holes for the railings' pegs needed to be drilled out on the deck; and secondly, the bridge when assembled sits almost flush with the table top. This wouldn't work for me as I planned to use it with my Miniature World Maker latex rivers, which sit at least a quarter inch high on the table. To solve this problem I cut a pair of riverbank risers out of foamcore to glue to each end of the bridge allowing it to pass nicely over the river.
Once assembled, I sprayed the bridge with black primer. I then dry brushed the bridge decking and rails a mottled assortment of greys, tans, and grey-greens. Then I painted some of the larger vines with dark green. My next step was to pick out an assortment of green shades and working from darkest to lightest, I dryburshed them here and there where ever vegetation was sculpted into the bridge. Finally i picked out some details in the vegetation sculpting with reds and oranges to give some color interest. After that I glued the bridge to the two foamcore risers, and spackled the foamcore, sprinkling some sand on the wet spackle, to give it some texture and help blend it into the bridge. I painted the risers brown and then drybrushed a dirt path on them. Lastly I flocked the foamcore and glued on an assortment of plastic foliage.
The end result is shown below from four different angles. I have posed two Kroot/parrotmen on the bridge to give a sense of scale.

Moss Mounds On Clearance at Jo-Ann's

I was at my local Jo-Ann's craft & fabric store over the Labor Day weekend, and was pleasantly surprised to find these really neat "Moss Mounds" on clearance. There were two kinds; large ones that are approximately 7 inches in diameter by 6 inches in height, and were priced at $2.97 each, and smaller ones that were approximately 3 to 4 inches across that were priced at .50 cents each.
These will be very useful for my Venus project. I'm not sure if I want to leave them as is, or add some bits of foliage to them to give them a little visual interest. Perhaps I will use them as Parrotmen burial mounds and add a few small flowers to them. One of the downsides of them is that you cannot easily stand figures on them without them sliding off. So, adding some foliage might make some nice anchors to catch figure bases on, so as to help solve this problem.
They are shown with 25mm Kroot 'parrotman' for scale.

Firestorm Armada Dollar Tree Scratchbuilt Freighter

Last week I wrote about a 6mm sci-fi terrain piece I made using handgrenade squirt-'gun' party favors that I had bought on a recent trip to the local Dollar Tree store. Today I am gong to show a Firestorm Armada scale freighter I made using the these same party favor grenades. Shown below with a US quarter for scale

For the hull, I used the handgrenade pretty much straight out of the package. I removed the squirter handle and the cap that inserts in the water well. Then, once again, I raided the bits box to get suitable spaceship 'looking' parts.

The exhaust is a pony bead glued to a goblin shield. The bridge is the front end of a Space Marine bolter. The laser port is a seed bead. The top tower is the water well cap (turned around and covering the hole it went in.). And the two side fins are the muzzles off of Kroot rifles.

Once all the parts were glued on I sprayed the model with black primer. It is shown below next to a Firestorm Armada Sorylian frigate to give a sense of scale.

I then painted the model. I first gave the whole thing a coat of dark navy blue, then painted it with GW Shadow Gray. I then washed it with dark blue ink, and then drybrushed highlights with Duncan Decorator Acrylics Slate Blue. the final touches were to pick out some detail in metallics and then apply a couple decals. The results are shown below, again with a FA Sorylian frigate for scale.