HAWKs' BARRAGE XVIII Con a Huge Success!

This past Saturday the HAWKs (Harford Area Weekly Kriegspielers) hosted their one-day gaming convention, BARRAGE XVIII.  The event, held at the Community Center in Havre De Grace, Maryland, was a huge success with record attendance and a full slate of beautiful games to choose from.
  Here's some photos of the action.

An overview of the hall.

Bill Molyneaux's Little Big Horn Plains-War game.

One of several beautiful Musket & Tomahawks demo tables that ran throughout the con.

A well attended Flames of War tournament was also held during the con.

There were several flea-market dealers to get bargins from.

And a number of dealers attended offering the latest in rules and figures.

As always, the friendly snack bar staff  provided food for the players throughout the day

Buck Surdu's G.A.M.E.R. WWII skirmish game

Duncan Adams' "Look, Sarge, No Charts: WWI" game.

Greg Priebe's "Battle of Cananry Wharf"  Dr Who game.

    For more pictures of the con see the HAWKs Blog.

    After the con was over, the club celebrated by holding their first ever live-action wargame using the "Blood & Swash" Pirate skirmish rules.  A "tavern" was set up in the hall using the game tables, with drink coozies for beer mugs, and paper plates for dishes.  Armed with foam swords and Nerf guns, the Pirates tried to be the first to carry a treasure chest out of the tavern. The more dressed up in costume you were the better ranked your character got to be. Much hilarity ensued and all had a great time.  It was the perfect way to end the day.

Buck Surdu briefs the rules to all the Scurvy Dogs.

Rob Dean does his best attacking-figure pose, as Sammy Surdu draws her sword.

    For more photos of the club's LAWG (Live Action War Game), see the HAWK's Blog.

"Bear Yourselves Valiantly" Rules Sent to the Publisher!

I just wanted to give everyone the latest update on our rules for Fantasy, Ancients and Medieval  mass combat, "Bear Yourselves Valiantly".  The rules were sent out to our publisher, On Military Matters, today and we are on track for our planned release of the rules to coincide with Fall-In; where we will be running several demo games!
  Here is a sneak peek at the final cover:

For more information, see the rulebook's website.

Dollar Tree Bubble Microphone 6mm/10mm/15mm Terrain: Part Two

Those of you who read my blog will remember that a couple weeks ago I posted an article (Click Here)  about some nifty microphone shaped bubble-wands I found in the toy aisle while on a trip to the local Dollar Tree store.  I thought the tops had good possibility to be converted into some sort of sci-fi building for my upcoming 10mm sci-fi project.  Perhaps storage tanks, or a communications center of some kind

And, so I came up with these, seen in the photo below, which were the subject of the article I linked to above. When I shared these constructions on The Minaitures Page  someone asked if I had done anything with the handle parts.  I hadn't, and in fact had tossed them into the recycle bin, seeing only the tops as being useful.

The question, though, became something of a challenge to me and was a bee in my bonnet. So, it wasn't long before I rescued the handles from the bin and pondered their usefulness. I immediately got the idea of some sort of towers.  So I sat down at my work table, and after a little cutting and gluing, came up with this:

The central piece is a left over part from the oxygen apparatus when my Dad was in the hospital a few years ago, and it had been tossed into my parts bin.   I thought it would make a nice central unit for my two towers.

I think it turned out really nice, and am pleased with the addition to my 10mm Sci-Fi scenery.

South Polenburg Enters the War

Readers of my blog may remember that last year I started a project to recreate in 10mm the 40mm Imagi-Nation forces of my North Polenburg country. See here for more on that.  The goal had been to create armies suitable for using with the "Look, Sarge, No Charts" family of rules.  I had hoped that more of my club-mates might join in and and do their Imagi-Nations in 10mm as well, but so far interest has been small, with only Buck Surdu participating in the project.  So, I realized I would need to build more forces on my own in order to have enough to play games with.

The first Brigade under General Adelie. The Emperor's Regt. in the center, with the 3rd Regt. on the right in the photo, and the 2nd "Chinstrap" Regt. on he left in the photo.

I therefore decided that I would start mirroring my North Polenburg armies with the creation of her counterpart, South Polenburg's, forces.  The logic being that South Polenburg could act as both an ally to her northern sister, or as a break-away enemy, depending on the needs of the game.

This week I completed the South Polenburg 1st Brigade.  When considering the theme I was going to use for this army, the obvious idea that hit me was to go with a South Pole motif; so the Infantry uniforms are penguin based, as are the unit and officer names. The artillery uniform resembles the color of sea elephants or walruses.  For the South Polenburg flags, I decided to use the negative image of the North Polenburg flag's star motif.

The General with the Emperor's Regt. , and the 1st South Polenburg Battery

My plan is now to complete a second brigade so I ill have a full division, and paint a cavalry brigade as well.

The South Polenburg Emperor's Regiment, on the left, shown with the North Polenburg Queen Jennifer Regiment on the right. Photo taken during a time of alliance between the two countries. :)

Dollar Tree "Tombstone Corner" Gargoyles Painted

   I had time this week to paint the Gargoyles I recently purchased from the Dollar Tree's new line of Halloween scenery. See my post here for more details.   I bought two sets, one to use for 28mm gaming, and one to use with my 10mm armies.

For the 28mm ones, I mounted them individually on washers, and painted them in a stone-like paint scheme.

They are shown below with a Reaper Paladin for a sense of scale.

The ones for 10mm, I painted as demons in a red color scheme.

Below they are shown with some 10mm skeletons for a sense of scale.

  Overalll, they are not too bad.  The sculpting is a little rough, but hey, they were only a $1 so I can't complain.  The other problem is that their facial expressions tend towards the "cute", which I found hard to disguise with paint.

Dollar Tree Bubble-Wand Microphone 6mm/10mm/15mm Sci-Fi Building

While on my trip to get the new Dollar Tree "Tombstone Corner" Halloween Scenery (See my previous post), I also noticed these microphone shaped bubble-wands in the toy aisle.  I thought the tops had good possibility to be converted into some sort of sci-fi building for my upcoming 10mm sci-fi project.  Perhaps storage tanks, or a communications center of some kind

Shown with a U.S. Quarter for scale.

The tops unscrew easily, and the attached wand was easily pulled from its mounting inside the cap. I then gave the tops a scrub with soapy water (using the bubble fluid inside the handles! :)  )  I started to try to remove the sticker label on the tops; but as is so often the case with these labels, it tore apart into little bits rather than come off easily.  So, I decided that the labels were centered enough on the side panels to probably not be too noticeable after painting.  I cleaned up the one panel where I had tried to remove the label, and left the rest in place.

I then cleaned up the molding seams as best I could and glued the microphone tops to cut-down old hotel key-cards.  I then cut out some simple doors from thin cardboard and glued those on.   Finally I added  little plastic toy bit to each piece for visual interest.  After the glue dried, I painted the buildings with flat black spray paint.

 When the spray paint was dry, I painted the buildings with a simple tan color scheme, then gave them a brown ink wash, and finished with a light drybrushing to bring out the surface texture on the "domes".  Next, I glued sand to the bases and painted it with a series of drybrushings.

I'm really pleased with how these turned out.  They are shown in the photo above with some 10mm Mechwarrior figures for scale.

Halloween Scenery at The Dollar Tree Stores

Going by a tip I read on The Minaitures Page, I headed over to my local Dollar Tree store to see their new Tombstone Corner line of scenic decorations.  This line is very similar to their Christmas village line of buildings, figures, and scenic accessories.
   I was pleasantly surprised to find some useful stuff.  The buildings are great, and nicely don't have any of the snow glopped all over them like these decorative plaster buildings so often do.  I didn't buy any, as their size is perfect for 15mm figures which I don't game with.   You can see a picture of them at the link above.
I did however find a nice set of gargoyles,  bare trees, a spooky gate, a mausoleum, and a bone gazebo; all of which I think will go super with 28mm.  In the photo below these items are shown with a 28mm Reaper Bones Wizard.

  There were some other scenic items in the store, but I felt they were scaled to big for use with 25/28mm figures.