A Place To Call Our Own, MkIII

Apologies in advance for the pictures. I was working on this outside at dusk and did not think to compensate for the light balance on my camera.

Day 2 focused on bridging the gap between the edges of the board and the foam, a small gap of maybe 1/8", and building the hill that would be permanently attached to one of the boards.

The day started off well as I was looking for Elmer's White Glue, since I had used my supply the prior day attaching the foam. I checked Target, Michael's, and Office Depot, until I found a great deal at Wal-mart: 4 oz glue bottles for $.25 each. For $3, I picked up the equivalent of a quart of glue (which cost $8 at Michaels). That should last me a while. Sure, it's washable School Glue, but I don't plan on exposing my board to the elements, so it should suffice.

I started working on the board that would have the hill attached to it since I'd need that board first to work on. In retrospect, bridging this gap was probably highly unnecessary, as the gap would probably not be noticed under the felt and it used the rest of my quart of spackle. I'll need to pick up another quart to do the roads and the cliff face now. But I finished the boards and set them aside to dry. I won't be working on these tonight, but I plan on sanding them down on Thursday night. I will also take my sander to the edges of the boards to ensure the trim and the MDF match up and the two boards fit together tightly. If I had focused on getting a tighter fit with the foam, sanding down the trim a little bit would have handled the gap issue without the spackle, and I could have spread felt last night. Oh well. I'm learning.

If a blade is foam's worst enemy, the a sander is its best friend. I started by cutting our a rough shape in my 10"x14" double-thick piece of foam from the prior night. At one point, I got so frustrated with my dull blade that I started hacking chunks off of it with my spackle tool and ripping them off. Real professional, I know. So I turned to my sander. I have a two-handed Orbital Sander that takes a half-sheet of sand paper. I loaded it up with 100-grit paper and started to shape. A rougher grit would have done the job a little faster, but this worked well. As I was sanding, I discovered that the glue from the prior night hadn't set entirely yet, and the hill had very little lateral strength to it. So I decided the reinforce the join to give it more sheer resistance. For this, you could use toothpicks or a wire hanger, though you'd want to watch where you sand with a hanger, as it will eat through your sandpaper. Lacking toothpicks, I went with some wooden kabob sticks I'd saved earlier in the year. When in doubt about something crafty, save it. I shoved 10-12 1" lengths of these through the hill to hold it tight and continued sanding. For this hill, I wanted height and didn't want it to be stepped. So it is a little steep in the ascent, and models likely won't be able to stand on the side of it. I may ease out the slope a little more tomorrow night, but I'm overall pleased with how well the sander worked on this.

So my work for the night is finished. I had my wife check Weather.com to see if there was a chance of precipitation for the night and there wasn't so I left these outside. Sure enough, at 10pm, we heard rain. I was able to get them in without them getting wet, since they were set up under a tree, but I'm thankful my wife thought she heard rain. We checked the radar on Weather.com and sure enough, there was one lone cloud sitting over our town, with not a cloud anywhere else in the state visible. Hilarious. Thursday night will consist of sanding down the spackle and finally spreading the felt! I'm thinking over how I'm going to spread the felt over the hill, at this point. I'm not sure if I should cover the hill separately, or incorporate it under the main felt. I want to minimize cuts and wrinkles in the felt, but don't want it to look like it is a separate part of the landscape.

A Place To Call Our Own, MkII

Day 1 was off to a running start. It went a lot faster than I thought it would, once I started.

The basic design is 2 pieces of 2x4 compressed board, with a 1"x2" pine frame around it, to protect the 3/4" sheet of polystyrene. Materials and estimated prices follow:

(2) Sheets of Compressed board, $6.50 ea

(1) Sheet of Polystyrene, $10.50

(3) 8' lengths of 1x2 pine, $3 ea

I actually have enough Polystyrene (foam from here on) to do two more boards, since I'm not using a full 4'x8' length. So another $22 and I can have two more modules. I also bought

20 #6 1 1/4" screws for the pine trim, only to discover I had #8s in the same length.

I began by drawing the design on the two boards just to get a scaled idea of the layout. It turns out that the 24"x48" boards are actually 24 1/4" x 49". As much as it bugs me that it'll be off by 1/4" on one side, ripping a 4' length of board, for only a bit more than a blade's width and without a table saw, would bug me even more. Connecting roads won't be off that much. The extra inch on the long side was easily remedied. I then began framing out the board. This would give it more strength and keep the foam from getting banged up.

When I first pictured this board, I had grand visions of perfectly mitered corners and superb craftsmanship (with pine and MDF). Then, I woke up, realized that I did not have the proper tools for miters (I freehanded one with the circular saw), and decided that there was nothing wrong with a simple butt joint.

Someday, I'll make the $5000 table with dovetailed storage drawers, but for now, I'll stick with my strengths. I was able to make it so that the end-grains point toward the deployment edges, so they won't be visible from the side. Small victories... I'm also glad that I made this decision after making only one mitered corner. I was able to correct it, without too much hassle. Anways, I glued the trim, then strengthened the attachment with screws. This board is heavy and durable. After lifting these with only the frame attached, I would definitely recommend 2x2 boards if you are planning on transporting them.

I framed one corner of the board, then cut the foam before framing the other two. This helps to ensure that I have a tight fit for the foam. I framed 1 corner, put a spacer in (of the same width as the trim), and flipped it over on top of the foam to cut it. This worked really well and gave me a straight edge to cut. This foam dulls blades fast, but since the edges will be hidden, I didn't care if they were jagged or at a slight angle. Once the foam was cut, I framed out the other two edges, test fit the foam, then applied glue and pressed it in. At first, I thought gravity and the tight fit would keep the foam in place to dry, but by the time I had finished the second board, the first had popped up in the middle and needed to be reglued. I have an abundance of books, so I took the boards into my office and will now let them dry overnight. I also threw together two 10"x14" pieces of scrap foam for the built in hill.

The hill will be my next step. Also, the foam is slightly smaller than the trim, so I will apply plaster around the edges to smooth it out. This will all be hidden under the felt, and the edges will ensure that the boards are the same heights where they meet up. But this step will prevent models around the edges from being off-balance. So, tomorrow (hopefully) I will work on the hill, smooth out rough edges, and maybe even start on the felt. I am going to do the cliff section after the felt, the hill before. Then, I need to assess my paint supply. I've collected cans of paint over the past few months from the mistake rack and I'm pretty sure I have what I need.

A Place To Call Our Own

Up until now, the preferred gaming surface of the Smib Thralls has been a glass coffee table with a piece of green felt draped over it. The table is approximately 40" x 48". When we want to play a 48"x48" game, we break out two folding tables, with the 4x4 grid marked out on the felt. For a while now, I have been talking about building some modular gaming boards to play on, but have been delayed by one thing or another.

Today was my final CPA exam for the summer, so I now plan on having a lot of time and mental capacity on my hands. I may even paint a second warjack... But the primary focus of my free time over the next week or so will be the construction of two 2'x4' boards that the Smib Thralls will be able to play on.

Here is a rough sketch of my goal.

The main resource I am using in the design of these boards is a series of articles I found at www.quindia.com. The designer did 12 articles step-by-step through his own 6'x8' board and I've found them very helpful. He makes a short case for 2'x4', instead of 2'x2', stating that the modeling possibilities are greater with the larger surface and I've come to agree with him. I will have enough foam and felt left over from this board that I'll be able to create another 2'x6' with the purchase of only 1 more piece of MDF. This other piece I'll construct in the future (likely next month) is also the reason I took the design steps in these boards that I have. Many people prefer to have open boards and add terrain, like hills, for more gameplay variety. But we've been playing on a flat surface for a year, so I like the instant difficulties that will arise from these boards. The top board will have a cliff surface running along one edge. This will limit the usability of the board, since it cannot be rotated, but I think it'll be worth it visually. The second board will have a permanent hill in it, but since it can be rotated, the hill can be either in the semi-middle of the board, creating a narrow valley with the cliff face, or rotated out to be in the deployment zone, as seen in the picture, allowing a large open playing surface. Future boards will incorporate a river and a swamp, but that is a difficulty level that I need to work up to. The last interesting terrain feature will be a space in between the Y in the road on the top board. This space will allow for an old aged tree to be used, or a pile of rocks, interchangeably depending on our desire for visibility and LOS.

So, I've done the write up. I'm off to get to work on it outside. I'll try to take pictures as I go along, and not just in the between steps.

Grind Speculation

Phill just pointed this out to me when I called to tell him about the new Retribution models on the front page.

(On that, the models are exciting me a lot more than the jacks did. I really like the warrior models for Retribution. Not going to collect though. Must save up to begin MkII with Skorne/Legion)

But I'm excited also by Grind. I never played the house rules version that was released in NQ10, but as someone who is trying to get as many people interested in playing PP games that wouldn't necessarily invest time in WM/H, Grind excites me. So here is my speculation of what PP will need to do to expand their current customer base.

1) These need to be fully-painted out of the box. The models are already in plastic, and PPS_Kevin revealed on TGN that they are close, but different, to WM in scale. With 32 interchangeable weapons, this will produce only frustration if they all need to be color coordinated between two teams. Fully painted jacks will allow people to start right away.

2) It needs to cost less than $60. I've seen some really wild speculation that this game will cost anywhere from $90-150, but I seriously doubt a price tag like that attracting anyone who isn't already playing PP's line of games. Even if priced at $60, if they scale is obviously different and the details on the model simple enough, those who would try to use these for WM would look like idiots. These cannot be priced comparatively to WM, even WM jacks done in plastic.

I'm looking forward to this game. I'm hoping to use it at game nights at our church and I want to get my wife playing it. I never did MonPoc, even though it has the two features I just speculated on, because I don't care for Godzilla/Alien warfare. But I like Steamjack sports, since it will be close enough to WM/H and the IK theme to perhaps garner interest in diving further in, but not as complicated to turn people away at the beginning.

Me and my wife play Infernal Contraption a lot. I'm looking forward to a game that gets even closer to the WM mechanic and feel, without the hobby aspects that I enjoy so much. Whatever this game will be, I'm sure it will be 100% PP, which means it will be quality.

Two for Tuesday

I finished up my Vanquisher last week and decided to show him off. Originally, I got the Vanquisher in a trade several months ago and it had a less than stellar paint job. It needed to be stripped and re-painted as you can tell by the picture. After stripping the paint, his morning star chain snapped off so I had to order another right arm. Here is a picture of the model when I first got him.



He's now finished and I'm thinking about getting another one. I really like the first generation Menoth heavy jacks. For me, the side angle is where the real coolness comes in. Here's the end result and ironically enough, the hill/mound he is sitting on got a make over as well. If you can call it a hill.
























I'm quite pleased with the end result and if I do get another one, I'm going to try and reverse the color scheme.