I'm Just About Recovered

Well, that's a relief! My cold seems to have eased off just in time for the bank holiday weekend. I haven't had the energy to do much in the evenings this week apart from prepping the Bulgar cavalry I picked up at Salute.

However, with all the random sneezing and coughing, I didn't want to take the risk of trying to stick all the bits together until today. And there was a lot of sticking together to do:

all 24 riders needed to be glued to their horses
8 riders were separate torso and legs (to allow some variety of position)
4 of the riders had open hands for spears, swords, axes or maces
20 had separate bow cases to be glued on
all 24 had shields to be glued on

Lots of fiddly work with superglue and bits pinging off all over the place and needing to be found. But I got there in the end after much swearing and cursing. it left me wishing I'd gone with the "Originals" rather than the "New Era" figures.

After letting the superglue set for a few hours, I set up the spray booth and airbrush, then primed them.

I'll crack on with painting these tomorrow. I doubt that they'll be finished in time for Monday's pre-Campaign practice game, but they should be done in time for the weekend.



"The Right Of Way Goes To The Biggest Guns"

You remember when I said "no new armies"? Thank goodness I didn't say "no new projects"!! A few weeks before Salute, I saw a post on a blog or TMP or somewhere about Car Wars. I have fond memories of that game from my teenage years and the germ festered. I had found out that it had been re-released and decided to look for it at Salute, but came up empty. However, I knew that Orcs Nest had it, so I took a quick trip down there on Monday after work and bought a copy. The rules are expanded a bit from the original version with more chassis types, more weapons and with motorbikes included.

Of course, one could stick to playing using the counters and maps provided, but that wouldn't be as much fun as playing with minis.

This morning I went to the shops and had a look for some diecast cars to use. In Wilko I found these:

The single is a Mercedes Benz and cost 90p, the packs of 5 cost £4 as did the truck with police car and chopper (also available as paramedic and fire brigade). A bonus is that these are held together with screws not rivets, so no drilling to do (unless I add turrets or weapons).

In Poundworld I found these:

Ten cars for £1 - cheap as chips, but the wheels look horrible. These might end up as wrecks.


I'm currently soaking one of the Poundworld cars in nail polish remover to strip the paint off (having removed the plastic bits first). This will be a test model.

The vehicles all seem to be roughly 1:64 scale. That is 3 times the size of the counters, meaning I'll have to scale up ranges and bits appropriately and make myself an up-scaled turning device. I'll probably want to get some appropriately scaled figures and weapon bits. I'll also need to make up some "counters" for mines, caltrops, oil slicks, paint, smoke and debris.

Fun times ahead!