Done and ready for the next challenge...

Finally, after working through a paint scheme, I've managed to finish all my Diogenes frigates for Dystopian Wars.  In all honesty the first test model took me nearly as long as the other 9 - hopefully now I have a handle on the scheme the other models will go at a reasonable clip as well.

Cheers,
Giles.

The Complete Diogenes...

Here are a couple more shots of the finished Diogenes frigate, just to complete the cycle...

Now to get the others done...

Cheers,
Giles.

Testing Diogenes...

Since getting my starter fleet for the Covenant of Antarctica, and playing our first game of Dystopian Wars, I both absolutely love the game, and was for the longest time absolutely stuck on where to begin painting.

Not long ago I started to wonder what a white-toned fleet would look like.  It would be thematic, and should look good in contrast with a blue sea board.  The only problem is that I have never really painted white tones before.

Never one to let a task obviously beyond my skill deter me from an attempt, I finally put paint to model in an attempt to see what I could do.

The base coat of what I thought would be a very close-to-white creamy colour resulted in a model much more yellow and far from white than I had originally envisaged.  At this point I simply decided to run with it and see what the outcome would be.

I layered some white over the top in a drybrush and then highlighted – again in white.  It was then the details – and I should add that it’s really only when you have paintbrush in hand that you realise how minutely detailed these models are.  Very finely detailed!  I painted the bronze pipes, steel and windows, and finally game the model a wash.  I was originally going to run with a brighter cleaner white and a blue wash, but after my base-coat it was clear that a blue wash might add in too many tones, so I ran with a watered down black wash, and then highlighted with white on the top of that.  In the pictures here the engines are still unpainted – they will be green, reflecting the use of Sturginium – the magic element that has changed the 18^th century irrevocably (according to the background of Dystopian Wars).

After all is said and done I am actually quite happy with the model – the scheme is simple, but I think it stands in fine contrast to the table surface.  It also allows the simple details to pop out.  Now for the rest of the fleet…

Cheers,

Giles.

A road to nowhere...

One of the small side projects I had on my list recently was to finish off some cobbled/paved roads for use in Song of Blades and Heroes and any other of the larger scale games I have waiting to hit the table.  A little while ago I bought some Gale Force Nine static grass to use on the hills I was making, and decided to add a pack of ABS Plastic sheets in as well - these are moulded with a brick or stone pattern, and come in a variety of styles.  I think the one I ended up getting was 1mm by 4mm sized bricks.

Really this one was simple - I wasn't planning on doing too much detail - cut the sheets into strips, undercoat them black, then drybrush 3 layers of gray over the top - from darker to lighter and heavily to lightly.

I wan't wowed by the result, the key reason being I used rather an old and stiff brush for the drybrushing, which left streaks indicating the direction of the brush strokes.  In retrospect I would have used a softer bristle brush - but oh well - they don't look too bad and are certainly serviceable!

Ready to cut.

Sliced at a width of about 48mm.

Undercoated and ready for the final drybrushing.

Drybrushing completed, roads done.  I could give them a dark wash before varnishing - but I think this will do.

Cheers,

Giles.

The hills are alive...

Wow - it has been a month since last I posted.  Much apologies to those following the Castle - it is not dead, simply AWOL.  The last month has been extremely hectic here, with a couple of medical emergencies that have meant we've been away or otherwise occupied.  Sadly during this time I haven't had much opportunity to sit down and blog, and my podcast: Games in Schools and Libraries, hasn't had a new episode posted either (they're recorded and the next will hopefully go up later this week).  Happily however the worst of the medical emergencies are behind us.

Very slowly over the last month or two I have managed to get a couple of modelling jobs on my list done - no I haven't been strutting the catwalk, I've been making hills, forests, roads and the like - which isn't nearly as exciting, but suits the marketing potentials of my physique better.

Earlier this year I got hold of some plastic vacuum moulded hills from Amera Plastic Mouldings.

These came all on one vacuum moulded sheet, which I cut out and then spent a long time mulling over what to do next.  I wanted the hills to be able to serve multiple purposes, both as hills for the Song of... series of games I've been playing, but also as islands for my burgeoning Dystopian Wars obsession.  With this in mind I didn't want to add to much specific detail, just make something that looked reasonable on the table and could pass as either a hill or island.

The plan was to cover them with a little sand, basecoat them in brown and then drybrush sequentially lighter shades, finally adding either flock or static grass to finish them off.  However the brown basecoat I found ended up far too high gloss, so I resprayed them white and used cheap acrylics to add the basecoat and the other layers.

Sand added, the PVA glue I used was very reluctant to adhere to the plastic, but the irregularity suited well in the end.

You can see the brown basecoat I used in this shot - far too glossy, the shine would have come through beneath the top layers of the drybrush, I resprayed white.

These show the successive layers of drybrushing - medium brown, lighter brown and finally a very light layer of skin tone.

Adding static grass (from Gale Force Nine)

Done.

Overall I'm very happy with how they came out - they're not as good as some of the wonderful stuff one finds online, but are certainly more than serviceable for my gaming table.

Cheers,
Giles.

Attracted to the Covenant...

I’ve been generally putting off actually getting any paint onto my Covenant of Antarctica ships for Dystopian Wars.  In part this has been due to the fact that I haven’t settled on a paint scheme, in part because the study is currently out of action and I’d need to cover the kitchen table (problematic to say the least), in part because I’m wanting to do a good job, and in part because if there is one skill I am master of - it’s putting things off.

One thing I have managed to do is magnetise my fleet.  The Covenant of Antarctica ships are fairly unique in that they may change their turrets from one type to another.  I could simply glue the ones I like the look of to the ships and call them what I want, but I saw a forum post over on the Spartan Games website about someone using magnets to affix the turrets - and I thought that sounded a great idea.

A quick search of eBay and I found some 3mm x 1mm rare earth magnets, these arrived earlier this week.  

3mmx1mm is, surprisingly, as small as the measurements suggest.

They were slightly larger that the holes already in the ships, but a couple of turns with a 3mm drill bit and I could comfortably sit two magnets inside the hole (so the turret sat flush with the top of ship). 

A couple of turns of the drill bit were enough.

One thing I can’t stress enough with this is to make sure you work out a system for ensuring you maintain the same polarity when glueing the magnets in - nothing could be worse than glueing a bunch of turrets up only to find that they are repelled from rather than attracted to their housings.  I kept the same polarity across all my ships - and while it was a touch annoying, it didn’t take too long in practice.  Overall I’m very happy with the results.

The magnets are surprisingly strong for their size.

Now I just need to make myself sit down and start painting!

Cheers,

Giles.

A Testing Engagement...

This weekend past hostilities between the Russian Coalition and the Covenant of Antarctica began.

My brother and I managed to get our fleets to the table, and muddle through the rules (even if that was in the wee hours Saturday eve/Sunday morn) enough to play a simple learning game of Dystopian Wars.

For those unaware, Dystopian Wars is a table-top miniatures game that manages to incorporate land, sea and air units into one seamless system.  It is set in a steam-punk 19th century uchronia, which provides the opportunity for some wonderful models of high tech zeppelins and other steam-punk goodness.  Players will have an army that may include mighty land units, sea-borne juggernauts and immense air-ships, or any combination of all three.

We started simple - a couple of ship types, no special rules, nothing that flies... as it turns out this is a good way to learn the rules - but you can’t take the results too seriously.  The devil is in the details as they say, and while the basic rules for Dystopian Wars are simple, easy to grasp and a lot of fun, the nuances added by the extra stuff make the game so much more tactical, interesting and generally richer.  My battleship managed to chew through my brother’s fleet with some harrowing (for him) and devastating broadsides and turret fire.  Had we been using the model assigned rules (MARs), it wouldn’t have been as simple as all of that!

The Covenant - a simple set-up for the first game

The Russians...

Nonetheless this first chance to tackle the game, this first blush, this testing engagement was a great way to familiarise ourselves with the rules enough to allow us to tackle a bigger game, and while we didn’t have the time to finish this second attempt, I certainly feel that the rules are less of a mystery and I am (mostly) ready for a full engagement.

All in all the rules are really solid.  The game is tactical and highly enjoyable, with plenty of opportunities for narrative and heroic events.  Ships can manage to hang on despite a withering assault, or put a dent in even the largest ships with some fortune.  There are plenty of dice rolled, and this means the luck feels more or less even across a game - there might be patches where every gun seems to miss and every shell from the enemy seems to find it’s mark, but these run both ways during a game.

First blood - a barrage of torpedo fire and a broadside sink a Russian frigate...

Some of things I really enjoyed about the game:

Movement - nearly all the ships and air-craft in the game use turning templates when they want to turn, many also have minimum moves they must make prior to beginning any turn.  This means that players need to think a little about the movement of their ships, and where they want them to be in several turns.  Because ships are fielded in squadrons, and squadrons must stay relatively close together, even a slight turn by one ship can have longer term consequences, especially when terrain and enemy ships are also involved.  In both games I played I had ships that pushed too far forward, and in both cases I had passed the point of no return, I had to run the gauntlet of explosive broadside and turret fire to try and get some space.  Planning effectively makes a huge difference, and adds a lot of interesting choices to the game - can I get my squadron through that gap before the enemy arrive? Can I get to that point and turn so my broadsides will be facing the enemy as they come through? There are many considerations that make the game very interesting and highly enjoyable.

No room to move, the oncoming Russian battleship will rain fire on my poor Covenant squadrons.

He had to ram everything. Everything.

I go - you go - Not anything groundbreaking here, but it is certainly a game mechanism that I enjoy, and it’s well implemented in Dystopian Wars.  I activate and use a squadron, then you do the same, rinse repeat until all have been activated and then end of turn.  This system makes the game feel fast, you’re always doing something, or at the least, wanting to do something.  There is much tension to be found in this simple system as well - timing when to activate a unit can mean the difference between a devastating turn and a waste of a turn.  Getting within range at the right time to unleash that barrage of fire, or moving just out of range, or getting into a position for a perfect strike next turn (if you get the initiative) all adds to that something that I really liked about Dystopian Wars.

Game two... a bigger fleet

The Ruskies... and the Lithuanian/Polish allies...

MARs - Model Assigned Rules or MARs - In most games these are called special abilities, and the MARs serve exactly this purpose, they give individual models a special way to break or bend the normal game rules in a particular way, and in so doing they give each nation, and each model, a very different feel and tactical potential.  These add a huge amount to the game, so much that I am more than willing to write that they add a depth I haven’t begun to grasp yet.  Even so I can see that using the models to their potential means taking full advantage of the ways in which their MARs give you options your opponent may not have access to.  They are not overly complex (though there are many of them), but they add enough to make you think about how best to take advantage of them.  A very good layer to the game.

The islands are incomplete, but the game is afoot!

Add the cards, the different combat arms (ground, sea, air), the different weapons, generators, and other options and the game has a huge amount of variability and individuality.  Despite this Dystopian Wars plays fast and feels tactical, there are a lot of choices to make and they all feel important.

There is plenty that I am leaving out, but I have written enough for one evening - if you’re still reading all I can say is that the games we played were fantastic fun, with moments of heroic luck and tension.  All in all I am very impressed with the game and look forward to playing more.  

Special mention should be made of the models, which are fantastic.  Spartan Games has done a wonderful job of designing and producing the miniatures for the game, they are large and imposing models and are wonderfully detailed.  I am looking forward to painting them, and somewhat apprehensive about doing them justice!

I am really looking forward to the next opportunity for my Covenant Fleet to tangle with the Russians.  Cry havoc! and let slip the dogs of war...

Cheers,

Giles.