Welcome to the Jungle... (Nick)

Finally an update from me for our Bolt Action 'Pacific Theatre' project.  Unfortunately not hordes of painted Japanese infantry, but nevertheless a very important part of the overall theme.

These are the first few pieces of jungle terrain to populate the gaming table and create a suitable environment - only a few to start with, just to test the techniques and materials I wanted to use:

...and a few close ups:

       

The palm trees and dissected plastic aquarium plants are courtesy of eBay, and both types of long grasses (more aquarium plants) are from Products for Wargamers which I bought at one of the many UK shows they attend.

The bases are randomly cut from hardboard, sanded smooth and given a quick blast of anti-shine to seal the surface and stop them warping when the basing material dries.
The plants are hot-glued into place, rocks are just pebbles from the garden glued into place and painted, then the whole base is covered in Basetex from Colour Party with some chinchilla sand sprinkled in patches and painted once dry.

There will be a LOT more of these to follow, with more variety and more overgrown 'jungly' pieces.  After these generic and hopefully 'realistic' sections which could be used in any jungle or Arab desert setting, I want to add some really funky, wildly coloured stuff to go more sci-fi/fantasy for use in my games of Beyond the Gates of Antares and Fanticide.

WWII Bolt Action Japanese - a few reinforcements: Nick

So still no painting from me I'm afraid!  All is not lost however, the SAGA tournament at the Stoke Challenge led to the purchase of these pack mules from Tiger Miniatures - a new company to me, but one with lots of tempting goodies:

Although not part of the army as such, I will find a use for them as a mood/terrain piece or objective markers and wish I'd got a few more.




Also one of my many visits to Warlord Games has procured me a few reinforcements in the way of these Snipers and Spotter from their excellent range of WWII Japanese miniatures:

...as well as some alternative head sprues for a bit of variety or conversions:

So not the update I was hoping to write after so long, but more to come soon and hopefully some actual progress before Xmas!

Breaking the Silence - part 2

So as I mentioned last time, we have both been suffering distractions from our projects on the Tale of 2 Gamers blog.

Some of these 'distractions' can now be found appearing on our alternative blog Battling a Lead Mountain, which we set up to run alongside and allow us to start displaying some of our other work without cluttering up To2G with irrelevant or erroneous posts - feel free to take a look and let us know what you think?

Hopefully normal service will be resumed here soon, especially with the promise of our first game before the New Year!

Breaking the Silence - part 1

Ok, so it's been far too long since we (especially me!) posted anything here?

Unfortunately there hasn't been much to show from myself in the way of progress... a SAGA tournament, regular playtesting and some demos of 'Beyond the Gates of Antares' with Rick Priestley and the guys from Warlord Games have all been a distraction - not to mention real life in general, including learning to play guitar and the small matter of getting married!

I also know Carl has been very busy with other things as well, the same SAGA tournament for one thing and a lot of work getting his excellent skirmish rules -
'Open Combat' published - which included painting random historical and fantasy miniatures and terrain for photos in the publication!
Although I'm sure he will be here soon to tell us all about any progress he has made.

Bolt Action ...and so it begins: Nick

Those of you that know me, will not be surprised that I still have no painted miniatures to show!

However I have managed to stick together this guy, the first of my Imperial Japanese Army - a Suicide Anti-tank squad, armed with a Lunge Mine.

As he forms a one-man squad, he will be ideal as a test piece and won't look out of place if he ends up painted slightly differently to the rest... it is also one of my favourite miniature options in the box.

I've chosen not to use the plastic Renedra bases included in the box, so that I get consistency with the other mdf bases I will be using for prone figures and support weapons in the future - I did consider using 2p coins as I often do for plastic miniatures (and I believe Carl has used on his US Army), but with such a small contact area between the figure and base I wasn't confident of a secure bond.

Hopefully I will be able to throw some paint at him this week, I'm planning on using the infamous Army Painter 'dip' with extra highlights after the 'anti-shine' stage... I will see how that works out before tackling the rest of the box.

I will also try to post the army list I'm working towards, as I've said before the plastic box set on its own is 500pts and I will show how easily this can be achieved for anyone else that might be interested?

Epic Armageddon - Choosing an Army (part 1): Nick

So it looks like Carl is racing ahead with his first batch of Chaos for our Epic Armageddon project, that means I really need to sit down and decide on which army I want to do!

Now whilst I already have several ongoing or half finished armies, I really wanted to begin with a clean slate this time where I have nothing even started - both as a fair challenge, and to give me a full 1000pts of 'new-shiny' to put on the table rather being drawn into old habits which would undoubtedly mean MORE Orks!

Having collected so much stuff over the years means I could pretty much create any army I wanted to, without having to purchase anything else unless there is a particular 'gap' that I want to fill.

Looking at the current army lists on Epic UK, the most tempting/suitable at this stage of the project are Imperial Guard, Eldar, Chaos Space Marines, Lost and the Damned, Tyranids or even (yet another!) Ork army - either using units I don't currently have, or a dedicated 'Feral Orks' list.

However, wanting to get something on the table fairly quickly means choosing an army that doesn't really require much converting or kit bashing (well not in the initial 1000pts at least), so Lost and the Damned or Feral Orks will probably have to wait for another time.

Any comments or suggestions welcome, and next time I will try to explain my decision having finally made one!

Bolt Action - A New Army: Nick

Bolt Action was never really on the cards as a game I was likely to play with Carl, let alone a project like this... however some recent playtesting of 'Beyond the Gates of Antares' (Rick Priestley's latest Sci-fi game based on Bolt Action mechanics), led to some discussion and Carl starting to paint his US infantry.

I'm not an avid WWII gamer, but on the occasions when I do I always side with Mother Russia.  I already have more than enough Soviets that have needed painting for years, so I really didn't need anything new for the lead mountain!
Not a fan of blue on blue action though, something had to be done.  Then I remembered my soft spot for the Japanese army (probably the fault of some Airfix kits in my youth), and the excellent Japanese Infantry plastic box set by Warlord Games which I had already managed to resist buying when it was released last year!

A quick play with Army Builder revealed I could easily construct a full 500pts army from the contents of a single box of 30 miniatures, what's not to like about that?

Next thing was to order the 'Armies of Imperial Japan' supplement from Amazon (to go with the main rulebook that I've had for nearly a year now), and while I was there I picked up the United States one as well for completeness:-

Then a quick order from the friendly guys at Caliver Books and this is my starter army for our 'Pacific Theatre' Bolt Action project/challenge:-

I already have plans to expand this lot into a full 1000pts in the future, but we both have plenty to get on with before that and I won't need to buy anymore for a while.

Epic Armageddon - A Fresh Start: Nick

So Carl has already covered the whys and wherefores of the project, although I have been nagging him to play Epic for ages!

I already have the 'Epic Armageddon' rulebook & 'Swordwind' supplement:-

...so all we needed was a quick check for the latest updates on the Epic UK website.

Having been a fan and collector of Epic miniatures since it first appeared, I've a bit of an advantage over Carl and have amassed quite a substantial pile of miniatures to choose from:-

Red = Xenos/Chaos
Blue = Imperial
Green =Orks





...and yes that is TWO boxes for the Orks!!

Even though I own several tournament ready armies of 3000pts or more, I haven't played since 2005 and decided I wanted to start a new 1000pt force as well and so the project/challenge was born.

All I need to do now is decide which of the many armies I want to pursue, and get cracking!