Sunday 29 April 2018

Gaslands - Gas Station, Diner and Gun Turrets

I've been eyeing up the Blotz 20mm scale Petrol Station and Diner for use with Gaslands for the last few weeks. Then whilst browsing the Sgts Mess stall at Hammerhead yesterday I found it and so I had to buy it.

With another Gaslands game looming tomorrow night I thought it would be nice to get it ready for then, so having a free day today I set to it. I've painted the diner to be extremely shiny as many US diners are and it is named after my son. As such it only serves his favourite foods. There's definitely no Chicken available. The petrol station has become a gas station owner by international oil conglomerate "Yith Gas".

Overall I'm rather happy with this MDF kit. There are some great details like the moving doors. I'm looking forward to it being used in game. I may come back later and glass to the windows when I've got time.

Also for tomorrow night I've been busy making Gun Turrets for the Arena of Death scenario. 2d6 of these are needed in the game, so I thought I better make sure I had enough. Finding a way of making 12 inexpensive gun turrets is quite a task, but I think I've managed it. These cost me nothing at all.

The main bodies of the turrets are spent 9mm pistol shell casings (completely inert!!), that I was given several years ago. These were drilled and the tubes from watch strap spring bars were put in for barrels. With the addition of some filler to hide the tops of the bullets, small MDF bases and the addition of paint and some 40K decals they're done.








Friday 27 April 2018

More Gaslands Cars and Terrain

There's something about Gaslands that is incredibly addictive. I don't know if it's the readily available cars in all the shops or the hunt for a specific car, but I seem to be buying new stuff for it every day.

Of course it's not just about the cars. I've also been drawn into collecting terrain.

Since the last post about Gaslands I've managed 3 new cars, 5 new bikes and 4 billboards.

Two of the 3 cars seem to be the start of a Rutherford team. Rather military in look. Not surprising when I used the same paint I used on my Flames of War Sherman tanks I suppose. The third has some spikes and barbed wire... impractical, but look great!

The bikes are just a small sample of the massive number that I received from Ramshackle Games.

The billboards were loads of fun. Made from coffee stirrers I decided to make them without bases so I can use them on any terrain.

Next up is a monster truck and some machine gun turrets....








All the cars so far

Medieval Crane and Forge

A few weeks ago I bought some more 3d printed terrain from Irongate Scenery. This time two of their newer items, a forge and crane.

The forge comes with an transparent insert for the furnace and a small adaptor to allow it to take the components from an LED tea light. Of course me, being me, that wasn't advanced enough so I've instead wired up a switched pair of flickering LEDs. Two LEDs is better than one and the effect is really great. Also since the model had loads of small components which would be freestanding I decided to add a base made from Hirst Arts blocks.

The crane came ready assembled. Almost everything in place. All I had to do was paint it and add the ropes. I decided to use some of the scale rope that I'd bought for use with the dockyard rather than the stuff that came with the crane kit itself.

Overall I'm very happy with both of these items and they'll look great on the Kobolds and Cobblestones table at Hammerhead tomorrow.






Saturday 14 April 2018

Gaslands - More Cars and a Family Death Race!

More Hotwheels and Matchbox cars have been through the Gaslands chop shop having weapons and drivers and other modifications from Ramshackle GamesS&S Models, and hendarxxiii on eBay.

Scrabbling through old flames of war scenery and cheap deals on plastic cars on ebay has produced plenty of terrain.

Enough cars have now been made that today we had our first Heath Family Death Race. It was a great game with the whole family involved. My 7-year-old daughter romped in with first place with her Lotus, her Mummy in second and my 11-year-old son in 3rd. I was the only one not to cross the finish line my son managing to blow both my cars to smithereens with his turret mounted MG.

The contestants lined up on the Start line.

The race is to be run around an old railway line in the desert.

Cars jockey for position to cross the first gate

The lotus drops oil as it speeds into the lead.


My latest conversions and repaints


Getting the working lights in the Screamliner was harder than expected, but I'm happy.




My daughter's winning Lotus that I repainted/converted for her.

My son did his own Pickup Truck and Buggy.



Tuesday 3 April 2018

Gaslands....

Continuing in their attempt to have a ruleset for every genre in the wargaming hobby Osprey have produced a set of rules for post-apocalyptic vehicular mayhem... basically an up-to-date "Car Wars" style game.

Using a set of templates with a style very familiar to X-Wing players, but introducing a very, very clever "Skid Dice" system, the game system looks very interesting and tactical. The rules are intended for converted Hot Wheels and Matchbox scale die-cast cars, that are abundantly available for not very much in many high-street shops. So you can make your teams up fairly easily with loads of customisation options already in many a wargamer's bits-box.

I had to give it a go...

My first cars are from my son's old toy car box and have been converted with bits from old Warhammer 40K sprues. Once I saw them with their built-in transparent warning lights I had to make those lights flash.

So far we've only played a couple of test games, but it looks like a very good system indeed. A ton of fun! I've amassed a large collection of Hot Wheels and Matchbox cars that have been disassembled and stripped. I just need the accessories from Ramshackle Games to arrive and I can start customising the next few cars.

I'm also working on terrain...