I have been involved in only a few challenges to date but this is the only one that really engaged me and kept me motivated to get things done. Thanks Dave.
Things never really started until the apocryphal nightmare on July 26 when I decided to get my ass into gear. Things morphed from the Skull Cave to include the skull mountain and then the caverns of Skull Cave.
Some skull objective markers were also completed along the way.
The submarine finally received its crew and spare periscope for when submerged.
The Skull Cave caverns were completed.
Twenty four tombstones were made from left over mdf kit “punch outs” and some grave crosses.
I then decided to build a ruined church that I had in storage to go with the tombstones.
This then morphed into a huge diversion as all of my gothic mdf ruins were put together, based and painted.
Skull Mountain was finally completed.
Finally the skull Cave which started it all was completed. First to start and almost last thing completed.
Lastly some odds and sods were done today while waiting for things to dry. Rowboats, anomalies and some dead trees.
Phew all of this in thirty six days! Know wonder I am tired.
Today was a lot of frenetic work on the Skull Cave and then a lot of time waiting for things to dry before more frenetic work. During the intervals I was able to get a few more scenery items finished.
Twelve rowing boats put together and painted. Three required me to make balsa wood bases. Two “anomalies” for Zona Alpha made out of Halloween ping pong balls. Finally I painted and based the dead trees I picked up from Terrain Crate.
So that is that for Dave’s Season of Scenery challenge. Thanks Dave without the challenge only a fraction of this would have been completed as I frittered away my time jumping from project to project!
Despite the hassles over the last few days everything I wanted to get completed has come to fruition with four hours to spare AEST!
With the kind help of my son I was able to finish cutting out the mdf bases. we are the only ones we both lend tools to (not even my other son who wouldn’t know one end of a screw driver from the other!).
Ready for the vegetation.
Why is the Skull Cave so hard to find?
REASON 1
REASON2
REASON 3
REASON 4
REASON 5
REASON 6
REASON 7
As you can see there are some very good reasons why only the Phantom and the Bandar pygmies know where the Skull Cave is!
With two days to go I achieved absolutely zero today on my scenery projects!
I went to cut the bases for my jungle trees on the “Skull Cave” and the jigsaw was broken!
It is one of the only power tools I have that is not cordless and battery operated. The upside is I will get to replace it with on that is! Downside is it is not pay week to next week so I had to borrow one from my son at dinner tonight. This will make things tight to finish on time but I WILL get there!
Instead I was able to work on a few projects that are almost done and will be in posts within the week.
Firstly my ten Reaper Bones Yetis. I have a Shaman, Chieftain, two shredders and six warriors almost done.
I have finished painting my Footsore Miniatures “Death and Taxes” Kickstarter and today started gluing them all on their bases reading for flocking.
I only chose the Villagers and Outlaws in my pledge, as I had plenty of Norman foot and knights. I will gradually get Robin and his Merry men (and Woman) done over the next few days.
It has been over a week since we played this game so I have been a little slack in posting it. We hadn’t a chance for some time to get together so most of the chit chat was just catching up on what each other was doing and how we were all going. So much so that I didn’t get an opportunity to take many photos. The French Indian wars has always been a favourite period of mine and I decided to treat Blake and Steve as guinea pigs with the Fistful of Lead rules. Like all good sets of rules they are easy to learn but have another layer of complexity which makes the a great tactical game as well.
The Horse and Musket set of rules with the FIW supplement below.
The game was an Indian raid on a small farm, but unbeknown to them a force of Rangers was staying with the farmer ov er night on their journey back to the local fort.
The force of FRangers.
The farmer, his wife, and two children.
The Indian force consisted of three groups of Indians each with a leader. The game was played without traits as I wanted to see how the game mechanics worked.
The farm on the road to Fort Disappointment.
Indian booty!
The Indians attacked across the open ground but the rangers couldn’t even find a barn let alone hit one.One ranger has a gun jammed (two bullet markers) while the other two are still loading. An Indian leader has crawled over the fence and is hiding amongst the pigs (green footprint).
Another Indian lead is crawling towards the farm house but has been shaken by musket fire from a ranger behind the supplies outside the cabin.
Meanwhile the farmer does what the rangers cannot do and opens up at an Indian in the woods and takes him out.
More Indians shaken, but at this stage three rangers were down and their leader was engaged by and Indian leader and another brave.
With the Indian force mostly intact and nothing to protect the civilians from the three Inian groups we decided to call it quits as it was still at least three more turns before reinforcements arrived.
The consensus was that we liked the unpredictability and tension created by the card activation system, the rules simplicity, and we could see the importance of choosing the right activation card at the right time. The traits would also add further tactical nuances to the game.
I loved it and we all thought it was worth more games to learn the system better.
I put a satin coat over “Skull Mountain” to both help protect the high density foam hill and to “fix” the grass scatter.
When this dries this piece will be completed.
I then spent a fair bit of time on the mdf bases for the jungle on “Skull Cave”. I first needed to get the paper patterns more accurate than the rough ones I had drawn a month ago.
A lot of this was trial and error but I ended up with fairly accurate paper patterns to cut the mdf from. In hindsight this would have been a very straightforward task if I had completed it before the hill tiers were glued!
Using the paper patterns I then traced them on to a piece of 4mm mdf board. Unfortunately I do not have a band saw which would have made this an easy task, but I will have to make do with a jigsaw which is not as easy to cut 4mm mdf with even with the right blade, We will see how I have gone tomorrow!
Two and a bit more days to go as I assume we are using GMT which gives me another 12 hours!
A German crack down on the civilian population has caused the Partisan popularity to rise and recruitment has increased allowing them to field a slightly larger fifth squad. The Partisan leader has sent out messages to indicate that they cannot support any further recruitment.
The Fifth squad with leader, 3 Partisans with SMG, one Bren gun crew, and twelve Partisans with rifles.
