The fever rises!

Darn. Although I just wrote that I have but the Zombicide 3D-board on hold, I made a dirt cheap find at the local flea market and I´m sure that you can gues in which game these would be quite perfect. Darn..

 
On top of this, Hasslefree miniatures has had a restock of the soldier miniatures that I was eyeballing. Darn x2..

If I had the time..

Well, what would I play if I had the time and some dedicated opponents? When I want to reset my brain from daily activities and all of the normal stuff I often, if I´m not working out, I browse through interesting games. I keep a list in my mind of these games in a hope that someday I will be able to own and play them. What are the top games that I haven´t played? Here is my top list(which is evolving constantly):

X-Wing

Star Wars, enough? I love the mechanics of the Wings of War (which I own) and what I have been reading through internet is that the mechanics in X-wing follow the same principles in a more complex way. All the different equipment´s and pilots make the whole thing even more interesting.

Miniatures are a huuuge plus for me and because those are pre-painted it wouldn´t  be another painting chore when acquired. Of course I would paint them, no doubt about that, but you got the idea. It would be also cool to paint your own galaxy in which the battles would be solved. There are inspiring examples of this on the internet and here is one of them from the DakkaDakka forum:

Mage Wars

In 1987 I won my first ever boardgame from the local fishing competition, which by the way was my last fishing competition to date. I was the only competitor in my age group and because I won, I had the opportunity to choose between VHS-player (yes I know that most of the readers don´t know what I mean, but that´s why google was invented youngsters) and a boardgame Warloc, the game of dueling wizards! My father wasn´t really pleased when I showed what I chose.

I loved the game where up to six wizards battled over supremasy and I like the game even now. It has a really nice eighties feeling about it. As soon as I saw the Mage Wars, I knew that this would be the rightfully successor of the Warloc after almost thirty years! My decision was carved to the stone after Tom Vasel, who´s taste of games seems to be very close to my, give it a straight ten and name it one of the best games in 2013. Remember that I haven´t actually played this game BUT I have read all the rules and watched play throug´s from youtube etc. so I know something about the mechanisms.

Only thing that keeps me from buying this game immediately is that it has no figures. If it would have some figures I could justify the buy by saying that it´s more a hobby project than a game that I can´t play for ages because I don´t have a opponent. I have used this tactic successfully against my rationality many times (Zombicide Season 1&2&3, Demigods..).

Star Wars, Imperial Assault

Star Wars, enough? This is a no-brainer for me. Because it has very cool miniatures it´s more a hobby project than a game that I can´t play for ages because I don´t have a opponent (sounds so familiar, eh?).

I think that this will be the next big FFG game with lots of new miniatures and mission backs in the footsteps of "quite" popular Descent. This also very strongly tickles my brains hobby side "could this be made in 3D?"

Ok, there is my three top games that I would love to play if I would have the opportunity. There are plenty of interesting games flooding the market now thanks to Kickstarter and it´s almost impossible to keep in pace with all of them!

Time goes too fast..

The gaming weekend came and went too quick as always! When you really immerse yourself in to the games the time just flies and when you have this kind of occasion once in 6 months it feels like an eye blink. That doesn´t take anything away from the experience but still feels too short.

We played many great games (unfortunately Warloc didn´t make the cut) but Zombicide was, like so many other times too, the king of the hill. It´s quite odd that a game can create even cinematic moments so often and Season 2 didn´f fail us! The thrill last for the whole game and now with the Zombivor-rules nobody has to be a side viewer for the rest of the game if grim reaper happens to cut you down early. I´m not going to bore you with a gaming report so here is just some photos:

Season 2, mission 1 starting There were few problems about the mechanics that I have to solve some way.

Who wants to go first?

Mission 2. Notice the basketball "players" in the left who just wait for somebody to free them to the hunt!

How about that, both fences were destroyed consecutively! SWARM!

Things looked little bit grim but behold! Glass bottles and some gasoline in the same room. Let the world burn!!

I also had the chance to photo some of my earlier works which are located on my friends bookshelf.

The trophy cup of our yearly Lord of the Rings Yber tournament.

I ordered these figures from UK and I still think that these rock! Can´t remember the game where these figures are from?

The great Mumakil from the Lord of the Rings SBG. Seems that one ear is lost in the fierce battles

Demigods:Rising

I mentioned earlier that I packed up the Zombicide Season 3 with quite a hefty amount of cash. I originally planned just to get the base set but soon realized that there were just too much cool stuff to leave on the shelf and therefore my Visa got a really bad beat down! After this I swear that I wouldn´t pledge anything BUT BEHOLD, something always comes up!

Demigods: Rising had me already with the fantastic figures and the artwork ( I´m a sucker for beauty) but when I saw the Beast of War´s preview of the game mechanics I realized that I had to get this game. Only down side of all my recent boardgames and new-bought games are the fact that I don´t have any playing company in my area. If there would I think that X-wing would have been ordered long time ago to our household.

Well why did I then order Demigods if I don´t have a playing company? Well the figures are one thing but I really hope and wait that my son will be my next hardcore gaming buddy. He is only three at the moment but we have already played chess and ticket to ride (with heavily modified rules) with a great pleasure. Of course he has been with me when I´m painting so his really interest about miniatures also. It´s funny to think that this vision will maybe happen in three to four years at the earliest but that doesn´t bother me.

Although I don´t have regular gaming nights, this weekend will be different as I will navigate to my former hometown and meet my ex-gaming group. There will be fierce battles in Zombicide Season 2, King of Tokyo and maybe my old favorite Warcraft: The board game. I´m looking really, really, forward to this weekend!

3D Zombicide board

When I first got Zombicide Season 1 and got hooked to it badly (and still am), I almost immediately decided to make an 3D-board for it. When I get fired up on something I´m always really burning!! I ordered a box of foamcore boards and cut twenty mdf-boards which would be the bases of the city tiles. Fortunately faith but some minor obstacles on my path (a baby girl) which directed my attention away for a while.

When Season 2 and now season 3 game knocking, I found that the fire still burned inside me. I still had all the materials so why not start the whole project? Blessed be that I´m heavily in to finishing my harbor board and I soon realized that this project would just be something that, at this time, couldn´t be finished. It would be also hard to decide which season would I build. I have played the Season 1 through and now starting to play season 2. I know that this would be a looong project so before the season 2 boards would be finished I would have finished the season 2 game play and maybe starting the season 3. Therefore the the season 2 tiles would not be in good use for a while.

These are the reason that drove me to put this project on hold for a while. I think that I will consider the project again when I buy these Hasslefree soldiers and start to play some modern wargames, I have visioned that I could somehow combine these figures with Zombicide and play somekind of military mission in it!?! Also Force on Force could be played with these soldiers and the 3D-city tiles. Well the future will tell!

Because I won´t tackle this project we can just marvel one hero who did and with a magnificent style! God bless internet! Make sure that you go through the whole thing, it only gets better!!

Lien from France is the wizard behind these masterpieces

Preparing for the loooong winter

In the middle of all the projects I finally started one of the big ones which has been postponed for too long, the rearrangement of my working station. There are three reasons for this.

1. My son is showing some interest about painting and building stuff so of course I will make a place for him beside of my own
2. I need more storage space for my hexes and the town gate so I upgraded one of the cabinets for a bigger one
3. The winter and the cold is coming and that means that it´s almost impossible to paint the underpaint outside for the minis and terrain so I have to have a painting station inside. This means that I have to purchase a spray booth also because I use an airbrush. I will buy this one because it fits nicely on my desk and it has the extension hose which leads all the bad microparticle-stuff outside. This way my son can also try the airbrush safely.

Everything started with some screwing, measuring, mistakes, swearing, doing again, planning and all the usual stuff which occurs when I start to do something. 

I will also relocate the lights, my music speakers and all the cords. Now it´s the chance to make the place well worth of spending some quality hobby time!

Zombicide Season 1 fully painted!

Finally got the time and energy to shoot all the season 1 miniatures. You can find the pics from the Zombicide-page on the right.

It´s always funny to photograph your own miniatures because it gives you some self respect that you have really complished something worth of photographing. Here is my homemade photo set-up:

Sadly I have lost all my backround papers so I had to shoot against white. Have to find those before next shooting session.

Now that the Season one is painted and played through it´s time to start the Season 2! I think that this one is little bit faster to paint because many of the zombies have the same prison outfit ans there fore the same paint scheme. I also backed up the Season 3 so there will be lot´s of zombies to paint in the near future!

Sometimes you just don´t think things through, part II

Well, sometimes all the little irritating stuff just happens at the same time.

After the little drilling accident I fixed the well and glued the magnet in to it´s base. After the glue dried I tried the well on to the well-hex and go figure, the magnet was glued upside down so it rejected the base! Splendid!

I but the well aside and started to do some painting because you can´t really mess up when you paint the base coat. But behold, just if something looks good after the construction it doesn´t mean that it´s easy to paint. What did I think when I build this one with the torches and all?

Sometimes you just don´t think things through...

Thinking process after the situation:

"So you really, really, thought that it was a good idea to use power drill on your half ready, fully handmade and fragile foam terrain object?"

Small chores..

Well, the painting continues..

While the paint dries I had to figure out something to do. I have planned to use magnets here and there and though to give those a try. 

At the early stages of planning I decided to make all the tall objects removable to make the storage of the hexes easier. There will be some pilars and it was easy to try the magnets here. So some drilling, a magnet and a metal ring, glue and some waiting to give the glue some drying time.

When the glue dried I realized that the bond between the magnet and the ring wasn´t nearly as strong as I hoped. The pilar dropped off as soon I tilted the hex. What a shame. I decided to try two magnets with the base of the statue and this was much more better.

This is a minor setback because I had planned to use the exact combo of magnet+ring on the hexes but that would be a hit and a miss if even a small pilar can brake the bond. It will be quite costly to use two magnets so I have to think about this little bit further.

Minor tweaking..

Sometimes it´s worthless to try to be accurate. I realized this when I tried to fit the hexes together. Because all of them are handmade there is always some minor differences and those really show up when trying to make "perfectly" invisible edges. I understood that only the top hex have to be precise. The lower hex and the mdf-base doesn´t have to be perfect and it would be even better that those would be little smaller than the top hex to make the seam invisible.

This led me to make some adjusments to the hexes. I decided to cut 0.5cm off from the edges of the mdf and then cut the lower hex slightly inclinated.  For the mdf I used my strusted and surgeon-precise saw!

It´s quite nerve wragging to cut a nearly finished piece but a man´s got to do what a man´s got to do.

Then some sliceing! (is that a word?)

I also had to file the edges of the hedges after the glue+sand mic because it was not as accurate that I had hoped.

This worked quite good. I won´t post a pic of this yet, because I started to paint the hexes(!!!!!YEAH!!!) and I want to show how this works when the current pieces are finished!

Surprise!!

I was cleaning our storage and stumbled upon a forgotten treasure, War of the Ring boardgame!!

I bought this as soon it was on sale years ago and it was my first BIG boardgame. I remember playing 7-9h straight with my friend and all of the games were thrilling to the very end.

What makes this even more important to me is the fact that the figures of this game ignited my passion for miniatures and terrain. Of course, this game is fully painted and I think I just have to post some pictures of the minis. I also bought the add-on game so I have to keep on searching for that in the depths of our storage.