Something for the Modern Zombie/Cold War Gamer

This is the 26th St. Armory build in 1904 it's the home of the 165th NY National Guard Battalion. The 165th was partially deployed during the immediate aftermath of 9/11 and I believe provides the National Guard troopers currently stationed at Penn Station, Grand Central and a few other transit hubs since then. For all you Zombie gamers the 165th troops are deployed with minimal kit a canteen and a pistol.

Many of the 165th's vehicles are parked on the street around the Armory. As you can see from the first two shots many of the National Guard vehicles still sport the woodland camo all US vehicles were painted with during the cold war. You will not that the newer vehicles are painted in a basic tan.

Temporary Interruption

My landlord is painting my apartment so I was unable to get any work done as all my wargaming shelves are shoved into a corner in the kitchen. I'll take a moment to mention the Allied Heroes I'll be using in my 20mm Weird World War 2 project, first I have a 20mm plastic figure with a trench coat and two pistols I'm converting into the Torch of Justice  the Hellboy version (pictured above) not the later version with Radio Girl the figure from a Twilight Creations board game. Next a kind soul has donated a Zebroz Heroes Captain America to this project they are 1" tall and will fit in with the 1/72nd figures.

I don't know who the Nazi villains will be yet.

Tale of Two Scales

Early test figure from 6 years ago?

My first ever entry into wargaming was with my collection of 1/72nd scale Arifix figures and model vehicles, yes dear readers I played ww2 in 20mm with some high school friends Command Decision I think it was. 20mm has remained to this day, due entirely to the plethora of plastic 1/72 kits, the best scale to play ww2 games in. Now I'm but a poor city apartment dweller so the largest playing field I can muster is 4'x4' perfect for skirmish games, but not good for larger 28mm games. I want to do some www2 games with a number of vehicles impracticable in 28mm but possible with a 4'x4' board in 20mm. So I will be dividing my weird ww2 antics into 2 different scales, 28mm for small Hellboy skirmishes with the Artizan, heroclix & Dust Tactics figures; larger battles with 1/72nd scale plastic figures & kits.
Can I really do Weird WW2 in 20mm you ask? Here is a my 20mm Kriegaffe again by Monsterpocalypse. Looks like the right size to me.

I can use my DC android toy for both scales.

The infantry are mounted on 20mm magnetic square bases they give a nice weight to the plastic figures. Now I'm notorious for storing my miniatures haphazardly but this time I decided to make some do-it-yourself storage boxes for the infantry. Cheap plastic fishing tackle boxes form K-mart with metal washers glued on. The infantry will be very snug in these.

Rise of the Spambots

I don't know if its just me but every once in a while I like to use Google stats to check on my blog audience. I've always had my largest viewership from the United States not surprising. My next largest viewership has always been the United Kingdom. I’ve regularly watched my UK viewership  not because its my largest audience but because my Uk readers are the ones who regularly comment. Last week I noticed something different Russia was now my largest viewership at 265 views to 249 views for the United States and the Ukraine was the next largest with 76 views to the United Kingdom's 45 views.

I like to check my referring sites as well its always nice to see were my referrals come from. Now Tamsin’s wargaminggirl, google, and google.uk have been regular referring sites for some time but last week I notice some new referring sites like pornogig.com. I’ve always imagined that viewers log onto porn sites not vice versa but the girls of pornogig just edged out Tamsin’s site in the number of referrals last week sorry Tamsin.  If the Legatus travels to Russia I'll ask him to make discreet inquires with the pornogig girls to learn what Fiends in Waistcoats content they enjoyed the most.

Busy Bees, Readers Products

Joe5mc of The Renaissance Troll is the author of Osprey's new fantasy skirmish game Frostgrave. The wargaming community has been looking for a good fantasy skirmish game (at least I have) for some time now this could be it. The frozen city setting takes this away from a run of the mill D&D clone. Northstar is producing a line of figures for Frostgrave the first figure sculpted by Mark Copplestone is pictured above.

Roebeast of Roebeast's Magical House of Sunshine is having his third kickstarter campaign Trash Bash Bits. Trash Bash Bits very simply offers cheap sci-fi doors for your terrain builds. There are 5 designs on offer ranging from retro sci-fi to Judge Dred and with pledge levels as low as $9 & $15 US how could you not pledge? Now I'm not a big KS promoter I'm a little off KS after the EOTD KS but Roebeast has run two previous zombie themed KS in the past so I feel I can recommend this.

TheBigRedBat of TheBigRedBatCave is releasing To The Strongest v1.1 his ancient & medieval rules system in a new glossy book. UK readers may have been lucky enough to see or perhaps even participate in one of the many demonstration games Simon has put on. If you haven't search him out at Salute and share a biscuit with him.

Last but not least Millsy of Canister and Grape and Wargame BloggersQuarterly fame has started offering commission design and layout services to the gaming community. The beautiful design & layout of Simon's new To The Strongest book is his work.

So if your are looking to put out your own game you might want to look Millsy up.

Finally I'd like to welcome a new follower Imarthil of Kuznia Imarthil who is following through Google+. 

Having Windows Issues

I had a number of Windows issues today I had to have MS Support take control of my computer for some hours today. This calamity did give me an opportunity to put paint to miniature today.

Linkas Test

I've made some casts of the Linka molds I acquired last year I cast most of the molds twice and here are a few things I learned. Number one the molds cast up real nice the details are very sharp.

Its recommended you use PVA glue to put them together. My figures were a little dusty when I applied the PVA here as you can see.

I also noticed that these molds are designed for 20mm! See the Westwind 28mm EOTD armed Brother next to the door for scale comparison.

Linka World says that you can upscale these by adding a couple of rows to the bottom of the floors.

Axis Robot

This is a toy I bought back in the late 1990's in a comic shop it has DC 1998 make in China stamped on the bottom of it. If I remember correctly it's a robot created to fight Superman, I just thought it looked cool and was a good size for gaming. Here is both the front and back next to Fritz the Artizan German 28mm figure. The robot is 63mm from foot to visor (eye). It has an irregular shaped base which is slightly larger than 40mm. I'm going to try to shpe the base into a 40mm circle.