More VSF Tanks

Since my first little tank made from the toy bulldozer, I decided I wanted to make a couple more with gatling guns instead of a cannon.  My problem was where to find a gatling gun? 

I was walking around Target, and found this in the toy section:

Its hard to see, but it had a double gatling, two more gatlings, and a little thing that will probably find its way into a 15mm science fiction building.  They are customizing parts for toy cars.  I went to the website, which is badly organized and I never could find a listing of all they had available.

Anyway, I cut up the double gatling and put that on the tanks, as you can see above.

I now have a rather nice little force for GASLIGHT.

In addtion to the the tanks, I have a small unit of mechanical men.

Two units of infantry.

And a couple of little gatling armed spider walkers I got at a convention.

On seeing these pictures my wife expressed her displeasure at the trashed out work table background, and said we are going to make a background specifically for taking pictures of toys.  How any of us survive without women I will never understand.

And They Shall Beat Their Bulldozers into Tanks

I recently found some small construction toys for children, called Construction Buddies.  Two of them were trucks, a dump truck and a cement truck.  The other one was a bulldozer.

Original bulldozer

I bought one, and it turned out to be put together totally with screws, so you can disassemble it easily.

After taking out all the windup parts and taking off the blade, I started the conversion.  I cut off the top of the  smokestack, and added a longer straight one.  I put a cannon in the front, after covering up the hole left by the mechanism for the blade.  I finished it off by adding small googly-eye rivets and painting.

I put a 28mm WWII French infantryman by it for scale, but this is going to be in my GASLIGHT force.  I also bought two more, at about $3 each.  If I can find a suitable gatling gun, one of them is destined to be more of  an infantry support tank.

Plastic figures

I recently have been working up forces for two sides for VSF using GASLIGHT.  I have two units of Russians, and decided to try some plastic figures for the British.

So I bought a box of the Warlord British Line Infantry figures.  How I feel about these is mixed.

Pros:

Price:  You get 20 plastic and 4 metal command figures for around $30.  Not bad.
Detail:  The detail is very nice.  Its crisp, and because you assemble them the detail is present in areas you don't normally see it in metal figures

Cons:

Fiddly:  Seriously, assembling these is a chore.  It took me about 3 days coming back to it each evening to get them done.
Light:  I fixed this with using metal fender washers to base them.  I am using them for skirmishes, and I think they would tend to be too light if they weren't based this way.
Kneeling figures:  I am not a fan of kneeling figures.  Each sprue has 4 figures.  Two are standing, and 2 are kneeling

These are ok.  I guess I would still tend to buy metal figures.  I am 60 years old, have been gaming for over 40 years, and it probably has something to do with being more comfortable with plastic figures.

All in all, they are nice figures.  It just won't be my first choice in the future.

VSF on Thursday

Thursday night was the regular game at Jaye's house.  On tap was a VSF game, with Prussians defending an outpost against a mixed force of British, French and Americans.

On the first turn, the Lady Hussars in the tower with the electrocannon managed to destroy the small spider vehicle on the Allied side before it could even fire.   A heavy blow for the allies.

As the British and French attacked from the front, on the left side the French and Americans came in supported by Le Feu, the French rolling electrocannon.

The Lady Hussar infantry fired on the opposing infantry, doing great damage.  The bicycle Uhlans which had remained in reserve. came forward and attacked Le Fue.

They managed to get a penetrating hit (unsupported vehicles in the game can be overwhelmed by melee) and was forced back.  They came back later, after the Killen Kannon had decimated the infantry, and remaining Uhlans managed to destroy it.

The game was called due to time.  The Prussians had been beaten up, but still held the compound, and it was called a minor Prussian victory.  Rules were our version of Gaslight.

We used an activation method Jaye came up with.  Each player got a number of cards equal to the number of units.  You assign the cards to the units upside down, then everyone turns over the cards and game proceeds.  Aces, Kings, etc go first, with ties being decided by suit order.  It worked well, and was fast.

More VSF figures

These are some more figures for my VSF contingent.  I plan on buying some more of these soon to bump the force up to two squads of 10 figures.

On a lighter note, today is my 60th birthday.  My wife emailed everyone we know and got them to send me cards with the hope that I would get at least 60 cards.  It worked!  I got over 60 birthday cards.  She also gave me 60 presents.  Most were very small, in some cases small pieces of candy to fill in.  In addition to clothes, I also got $60 in gift certificates to my local hobby shop.  That should get spent this week!

New VSF figures and new project

I have been trying to build a force for GASLIGHT.  I recently took some Robot Legionnaire figures from Hydra miniatures.

 http://www.hydraminiatures.com/index.shtml

I painted them bronze, with other metals for the weapons and details.  They are done except for a Dullcoat finish.

I have some more figures I am working on, plus some vehicles and an airship.

My new project is to finish up as much terrain as possible.  My wife is out of town around the beginning of February for several days, and I am planning to base trees, make hedges, and paint up some new terrain pieces from Amera.

I have a friend who has had some Bellona terrain pieces, which were vacform pieces made many years ago. The technology was not that great, and Bellona was made from fairly thin plastic.  It tended to get damaged over the years, and this stuff was made back in the 60s.

Amera is made from significantly thicker plastic.  It is still vacform, so the detail is not exactly what you might get on a resin cast piece, but its also cheaper and much lighter, while still being very sturdy.

Amera is an English company.  The URL is:

http://www.amera.co.uk

At their suggestion I ordered from one of their US stockists, Noble Knight Games.

www.nobleknight.com


They were very prompt, the order arriving within 3 days of ordering.  The prices were reasonable, but when I went to look, they were out of these items.  Apparently I ordered what they had.  They do indicate if something is out of stock, but don't give the price if it is.

My plan is to get all of these painted and detailed with flocking and extra rubble in some cases.  When they are done i will post them.

I looked on the Amera website.  The first piece here was 6 pounds.  I think the prices are about double in $.  This first piece is about 12 inches across.

Amera also makes pieces that need some assembly, but make up into quite nice ruined buildings suitable for 28mm science fiction or post apocalyptic games.  The plastic is heavy enough to support the models.

VSF Russians

I finally finished a couple of units for my VSF contingent for GASLIGHT.  It is 2 units of 10 figures, Russians fom the Russo-Turkish war.

The figures with the chevrons on the base are the NCO's for the units.  I had no idea what the insignia for a Russian NCO was, and I need to be able to identify it quickly in the game.

I have some more figures coming for this that I hope to get posted soon.  I am also doing some figures for Pulp Alley.

In a lighter vein, my friend Ken had posted questions on his blog that I thought I would answer:

What was the very first wargame you ever played (board, strategy or miniature

My father bought my brother and me a Civil War game one Christmas.  It was a boardgame, but had little plastic figures of infantry, cavalry and artillery.  We loved it.  We played it till it fell apart.  My father bought us Panzerblitz next, and we played boardgames for many years.  I had a subscription to Strategy and Tactics for many years, and had a large collection of boardgames that I ultimately sold when I got into miniatures.

What was the first Miniatures focused Wargame?

I was living in Cheyenne, Wyoming in the late 70s.  A friend introduced me to ancients gaming with WRG 3^rd Edition rules.  He was using 15mm figures.  He only had one army done, so we divided it in two and played against each other. 

What was the first Wargame Army you collected and fielded as your own (painted or not, but your own)?

After playing my first ancients game, I went to the local hobby shop.  It had almost no 15mm ancients, but there were some of the old Minifigs 15mm strips of figures.  They were molded 5 to a strip, as I recall, and you had to cut the bases apart.  I bought three strips, some Humbrol paints and a brush, and started painting.  They were Greek light infantry slingers.  I ended up with a fairly large Greek army after going to Denver and buying many more figures at Bonnie Brae hobbies.  The paint job back then was awful.  I didn’t realize that priming the figures was a good first step.  J

I went to England in 1978 for two years.  I was in the service, and ended up at a base about 30 miles from Cambridge.  I met some gamers down there (who were astounded anyone would drive 30 miles for a wargame) and started doing 25mm Greeks, again for WRG. 

I gave up on ancients years ago, but doing that first army was terrific.

What has been your favorite Miniatures Wargame you have played?

After gaming for most of 45 years, its hard to pick out one.  I did play on American Revolution game with some friends back in the ‘80s.  We started after work on Friday night, and it was a set of rules we were playtesting for two of the players.  It was a fun tactical situation, and when it started getting late, no one wanted to stop.  The game was finally over around 3 am, by which time we were all punch drunk and laughing nonstop.  Larry’s wife finally got up, came down, and told us all to go home.  J  Any time I think of that game, it brings a smile to my face.  Then, to make it perfect, my standard transmission locked up in 2^nd gear and I drove 20 miles home at about 20 miles an hour.