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Song of Shadows and Dust: Kymmes is on the Case

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Join Mark as he returns to Pattayavium for another episode of Song of Shadows and Dust . There is a problem with pickpockets in the streets of Pattayavium. It wouldn’t matter too much if it affected only the lower orders, but some prominent citizens have found themselves unexpectedly without cash at embarrassing moments, and they and some of the traders and merchants have petitioned the Prefect for more effective enforcement action. The thief-taker Kymmes and his underlings have been ordered to initiate a crackdown. Pattayavium loves a crackdown. Still does. Here they are (Photo #1). L to R: Kymmes Q3 C3; Determined, Disarm, Leader, Stealth. Luke & Solon Q4 C3; Bellicose. In fact, unknown to almost everyone, most of the crime is attributable to Sulpicious and his gang of professionals. But it seems they are becoming too successful. Kymmes gets a tip-off that Helios Street would be a good place to stake out, around the Ides of the month when a religious festival will bring even more...
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Scaptember - scatter terrain 1

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Continuing with Scraptember, we have the first batch of scatter terrain. These originated in a collection of barrels and crates scaled to 15mm ranges that were given to me by my good mate, Andrew, quite a few years ago when I was exploring a 15mm sci-fi project. However, a box is a box, and a canister is a canister, so they have all made there way into my 28mm terrain. The smaller 'wooden' boxes are resin, the other crates and barrels etc are all metal. I'm afraid I've no idea who manufactured them. This centrepiece is built around a print of a 3D scan of some 19th century statue fragments that we have in Ballycastle Museum. Here I wanted to give the impression that Scraptown was built over the ruins of something much, much older and it's something that carries through various other terrain pieces in the collection as well.  The posters are from a batch that I made up to try and make the town seem lived in. Again, they repeat across various bits and pieces to help b...
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Scraptember - Scraptown buildings

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In the process of designing Wargears , the wacky racing game set in the grim darkness of a war-torn future, I have accumulated a nice little collection of post-apocalyptic/sci-fi terrain which has long been over due. Most of the pieces have been 3d printed from freely available .stl files found on Thingiverse, and so the financial investment has been reletively minor. Over the course of the month, I'd like to showcase some of it, and give a shout out to the awesome creators out there. First up we thave the buildings. This 'orky building' was designed by  Terrain4Print , available on Thingiverse. Given it's robust structure, size and the battlements, I like to think that maybe it's the guard house or sheriff's station in Scraptown. The 'Shack' was designed by ThunderChrome , available on Thingiverse. When ptinting this one I missed one of the files that come with it which includes extra side panels and a chimney, so it all looked a bit strangely open and ...
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Scraptember - wee Boaty McBoatface

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Having built up a small collection of post-apocalyptic/sci-fi terrain for Wargears , I have decided that September shall henceforth be known as Scraptember - at least for this year. Across the month I'll showcase a a few pieces at a time, but for now, something a bit more ... mobile. Kicking off Scraptember, we have the ninth wargear for the collection so far - Boaty McBoatface . The model is a 3d printed sculpt created by Tersus based on the Bambu brenchmark model, Benchy (below). Benchy is an inbuilt free model on a Bambu printer, while the scrap tank version by Tersus is available as a free download on Thingiverse.   The skipper is a space halfling 'Half Guard Officer'  (certainly not a commissar) from Max Mini, painted up in marine whites. He was a wee bit short to look out the window, so I made him a wooden box to stand on. Of course you can barely see it, but I know it's there! 
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Dark and devious developments for Devilry Afoot

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With Halloween looming into view, work has been going on in the background to bring a new free expansion booklet to life for Devilry Afoot . This year, the focus will be on running hunting parties entirely composed of wolf-bitten characters or secret witches, delving into those existing notions with expanded rules.  Along side those new ways of playinging, the expansion will include a capricious new monster, the Gentleman, and rules for boggy terrain and will-o'-the-wisps. Realisticly, anything from a sphere of light, a candle, or even just a piece of coton wool would workfor a will-o'-the-wisp. However, I chose to go with this little  is a 15mm air elemental from Alternative Armies. You can't see it in the photo, but the mud textured base has a layer of clear nail varnish unter the tufts to simulat water-logged terrain. The Gentleman is a Wargames Foundry English Civil War civilian, cut off at the knees, with his lower legs replaced by some goat legs from a spare 3d printe...
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More wacky wargears!

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Recently I've been working on two more racers and terrain for Wargears - the forthcoming wacky racing game set in the grim darkness of a war-torn future. As with most Irregular Wars wargames, Wargears is very flexible around the way you build your wargears/vehicles. If it drives, walks or hovers, it’s eligible to race. First up we have a beetle-rider, sold as a carabax beetle, 3d scultped by Print Minis. This is a great mini with loads of detail. I tried to go for a glossy-blue-black beetle with a jumble of scavaged kit strapped to its back. It's a bit chaotic, but hopefully works as an ensemble! The other newcomer is a second goblin biker from Mezgike Miniatures; the first was a wee red racer painted in May . These guys are just so goofy and charismatic, and great fun to paint. There are more wargears on the way, and I've also been building up terrain for WarGears and other scifi/post-apoc wargames, so I think maybe September will become Scraptember, and I'll showca...
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2nd Edition 40K - 500 point scrap in the city

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Jumping back to the days of yore, Andy T and I played our first game of Warhammer 40,000 , 2nd edition this week. Andy played Rogue Trader back in his youth, and then took a break and came back to 3rd edition, so he's never played 2nd ed before. I last played second edition in 1998 - almost 30 years ago - indeed that was the last time I played any Games Workshop game. So this was very much a learning/re-learning game. Running 500 point 'armies', I had two Space Marine scout squads led by a chaplain hero from the Éireannach Preservers , supported by a squad of ratling snipers. Andy had a single Spacemarine tactical squad of a Spacewolves-like chapter led by a captain. The opening shot of the game - Andy's rocket launcher - evaporated four ratlings, causing the fifth to scatter into the ruins. Closer at hand, my first scout squad left the cover of the purple shipping containers and occupied that combat squad for the remainder of the game, trying to whittle them down - bu...
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Another Achaean ruse - Ilium: A Game of Heroes

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Andrew and I brought our Ilium: A Game of Heroes campaign to a close last week with a gripping playthrough of the Trojan Horse scenario. Andrew, once more reprised his role as the wiley Achaeans, while I led the heroic defenders of Troy. Diomedes was the first Achaean hero to descend from the belly of the horse, catching the Trojan defenders scattered and in disarray. All three Trojan heroes (Aeneas and two generic heroes leading the remnant Paionians and Amazons) were concentrated in one area (top right of the photo), but their contingents were widely spread out. As Agamemnon and the men of Mycenae dropped from the horse, Diomedes and his Argives made a dash for the gates, cutting down an Amazon promachia, but failing to wound the remaining defenders. As the Trojan promachoi warriors tried to rally to their chiefs, the archers scattered around the square mostly turned their bows on the exposed backs of Diomedes' followers. Two archers decided to try and regain their contingents r...
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