Fat Dragon Self-Service Ramen

 Last night, after I finished posting about yesterday's game, I put the finishing touches on another building kit from Atomic Lasercut Designs. This was a blank storefront that I bought a month ago with an eye towards turning it into an automat-style self service restaurant. 

The sign out front (and interior art) is all just stuff I grabbed off Google Image Search and mocked up in MSPaint, printed out on the laser printer at my local copy shop. The graffiti decals are from an EBay seller, and the furnishings on the interior are mostly from Oshiro Models, with the booths and arcade cabinet from Miniature Building Authority. 

And here's a better look at the drinks cabinet - I used UV resin to give it a "glass" front.

What's next? Well, a buddy of mine is setting me up with some 3D printed modern buildings and street scatter, I have the three gangs of Mafiosos to paint up, and I picked up a set of Mantic street scatter at my local hobby shop yesterday:

I also found out that Harlequin is hosting their next Demo Day event on June 14th...one week after my game at Wargames Among the Warplanes! So it sounds like I should maybe not bother unpacking my car after I get back from WATW...

Figures Purchased in 2025: 58

Figures Painted in 2025: 70

First Game of Warhammer: The Old World

 I had a really nice afternoon at the game store today, got to chat with a couple of good guys, picked up a bit of scatter terrain for my big game at Wargames Among the Warplanes in June, and of course got my very first game of Warhammer: The Old World in!

I had the worst dice luck I can remember ever having in 20 years of gaming. I could not pass a Leadership test. My trolls, even with a babysitter, could not pass a Stupidity test, and remained irreversibly stupid. I could not successfully charge. 

But that's fine - I'm not playing orcs to *win*, I'm playing orcs to laugh when things go awry - for example, my trolls spending three turns staring in befuddlement at a giant eagle before getting obliterated by it. 

The High Elf General charges my orc spearmen.

My General charges the High Elf General and is promptly killed.

The last of my trolls falling to the Sky-Cutter. 

Even in losing, I enjoyed the experience, and my opponent was a gracious teacher (who, unfortunately, is moving out of the area next week). Another guy I talked to offered to meet me for games any time I'm available so this will not be my last game. 

Figures Purchased in 2025: 58

Figures Painted in 2025: 70

Happy Easter and Some Gaming

 Happy Easter to all my readers who celebrate. We're having a very low-key Sunday here, nothing too fancy on the menu or any visiting planned. Except...

On Friday, I found out that my local game store, Harlequin Hobby, is open for gaming today and there were people looking to play Warhammer: The Old World. I happen to have an army for Warhammer: The Old World. With no other plans, I cleared an afternoon spent at the game store with my wife, and asked if anybody would be open to a 500-point game to help me learn the ropes. Having confirmed that someone would be happy to do so, I drew up plans for a 500-point army that would be easy to transport.

I threw my back out earlier this week and am still on the mend, and it's situations like this that might maybe make me curse my deep love of metal miniatures. 

So here's what I'm taking to the store today:

Orc General on Boar. Figure by Knightmare.

Goblin Wolf Riders with Bows. Figures by Foundry/Warmonger

Orc Spearmen in looted Empire uniforms. Figures by Foundry/Warmonger

Trolls originally from Satyr Art Studios, currently OOP. Goblin handler by Knightmare.

I'll be back later with a play report or two!

Figures Purchased in 2025: 58

Figures Painted in 2025: 70

Street Violence

 I've been plugging away at a large batch of figures, and after tonight I finally have some finished figures to show! These are mostly from Wargames Foundry's Street Violence range, and most of them will be on the table for my game at Wargames Among the Warplanes. 

First up, a set of regular uniformed police:

These regular police won't be on the table in June, but they'll be useful in games before and after nonetheless. My favorite's the fat guy on the end with his coffee and bag of doughnuts.

Then, two teams of police in SWAT gear with more intense weaponry - SMGs, a sniper rifle, a grenade launcher, even an automatic rifle. These two groups will be included in the game in June; they'll be tasked with arresting the various gangsters running wild on the table. 

Also in the mix were three non-Foundry figures. A pair of bodyguards from Copplestone Castings' "Future Wars" line, and a SWAT bomb disposal specialist from The Assault Group. The bomb disposal guy was an impulse buy a few months back, and has a robot that I haven't painted yet; I figure he'll be a good scenario figure somewhere along the line. 

The two Copplestone figures will be incorporated into gangs for June's game - the fellow in the trenchcoat will be in one of the mafia gangs on the table, while the woman in the green dress joins the Jamaican Kings:

The other four figures here I painted late last year and are from Wargames Foundry; the fifth figure in the pack, a woman in sunglasses wearing a trench coat and carrying a katana, seemed out of place. This figure from the Copplestone bodyguards pack fits in nicely, I think. 

So what's next? Well, I got a package the other day containing a mix of Foundry and Copplestone figures that'll give me enough mafiosos and well-dressed gunmen to give me the three Mafia gangs I need for June. Plus, the Foundry "Mob" pack has a fashionable young woman in a short dress and tall boots, who will be a major scenario figure for the June game. 

So that's another 18 figures painted, and I've already factored in the 18 I've bought, so let's update the tracker:

Figures Purchased in 2025: 58

Figures Painted in 2025: 70

Committed: War Games Among the Warplanes, Spring 2025 Show

 There's a small, localish one-day wargaming event that takes place twice a year for the past few years; it was actually more local when I was living in Rochester, but between relearning how to socialize post-pandemic and just not realizing it was going on until day of, I haven't made it out there yet. 

War Games Among the Warplanes is held twice a year at the National Warplanes Museum in Geneseo, NY (the town where I went to college) with tables set up among the displays. Because my brain isn't wired to let me just go and play games other people are putting on and I have to feel like I'm contributing, I'm bringing Fistful of Lead and putting on a game.

Since I've got a good sized (and growing) collection of modern urban terrain, it was an easy decision to make that the setting of my scenario. Mike Demana over at Lead Legionaries has an urban game called Mean Streets, and his after-action reports from running the game at conventions are hugely inspiring for me. I knew I wanted a scenario with up to six players where alliances were possible but double-crossing each other was incentivized.

I decided I wanted something with rival gangs - organized crime as opposed to street punks. Sopranos-style Mafiosos, or drug cartels feuding over territory. Or both! Maybe a new drug cartel moving into traditionally Mafia territory? 

I did some brainstorming, and came up with a scenario in which the daughter of a mafia don was kidnapped by a rival gang, and the don's lieutenants were sent out to get her back. The lieutenants, however, have their own motives and rivalries, and this becomes an opportunity to get rid of their competitors. After all, once the bullets start flying, who's to say who shot who? 

So I have quite a bit of painting to do for this - a few gangs' worth of figures (which shouldn't be too bad since most of them are wearing suits, or turtlenecks with sports coats over them), and I'll have to do some more buildings and scatter to fill up a 4' by 4' table. 

I've got some building STLs that I'll be taking to a friend of mine to print out for me - a video store, pizzeria, shoe store and electronics store - which will likely be "quick and easy" paint jobs without detailed interiors. I might try to squeeze in a few more buildings from Atomic Lasercut Designs as well, but that might be iffy. 

I'll probably be playtesting this in bits and pieces as I get stuff painted up. One thing I do want to do is add secondary missions, possibly randomly assigned - which might be "collect the laundered money from the pawn shop and move it off your gang's starting table edge" or "pick up a pizza at the pizzeria and deliver it to Fat Paulie at the shoe store." This is intended to encourage more movement around the table and also to distract from the main mission - that way every gang isn't sending five guys directly towards the end goal and maybe we don't end up with every gang clustered at one point on the table shooting at each other. 

The figures I need are all purchased and on their way, so I'm updating my tracker now. 

We'll see how this goes! Stay tuned for updates.

Figures Purchased in 2025: 58

Figures Painted in 2025: 52

Welcome to EZ Pawn

 I took yesterday, March 31st, as a day off work, and used some of that free time to finish* off the EZ Pawn Shop I've been working on. I got the front doors and the surrounding frame glued on, the sign on the roof assembled and weathered, some signage in the windows, and a few pieces of art on the walls. 

So why the asterisk? 

Because there's still a few things I want to add. 

I've got an air conditioner from Oshiro Model Terrain that I'm getting into the priming box today so that I can paint it up and glue it in next to the back door. 

There's some furniture to paint up and add in - I've got a cashiers' counter and a couple shelving units to paint up, and there's a safe and a gun locker that's on its way from Miniature Building Authority. There will probably be various other odds and ends added going forward. 

But!

It's finished enough to where I'd be fine with having it on the table during a game and not feel like it's unfinished. 

Pawn Shop Progress, Continued

 I've gotten a good amount of work done on the MDF pawn shop I posted about last time since Friday, and have probably one or two more sessions to go to finish the building proper; resin and MDF furniture will be another session or two on top of that, in all likelihood. 

The original red spray paint I bought to do the doors, window frames and signage in ended up being a weird neon red-orange that wasn't what I was looking for, so I painted over all that with ordinary red craft paint. Everything was given a light drybrush of a pale tan to weather and dull down the brightness of the red. I've glued in the back door, it's frame, and the window frames, plus used pieces of acetate sheet to make window panes; I've glued them in because I want to varnish over them, which will make them frost and look dingy and unwashed. The front door frame is test-fit and sanded, but not yet glued into place. The furniture inside has been assembled, but is not glued down because I'm going to hit it all with a can of black spray paint and then just give it a little drybrush to help the edges pop. There's a few resin bits and bobs I'm waiting to come in the mail as well. 

Around the side of the building, I've applied a graffiti decal - I bought a couple sheets of these off a seller on ebay; they're designed for model railroaders to add realistic graffiti to train cars, but O-Scale is close enough to 28mm for my purposes. This one worked really well; I was nervous about it tearing during application but it went on like a breeze. I've got a dozen more designs, and I'm anticipating using maybe one per building at most as I grow my modern terrain collection. 

The colors are really crisp and bright; I'll probably apply a very light drybrush of the tan over it to weather it and tie it into the wall behind it a little more. 

In addition to this, I started doing a little bit of work on my next building. One thing I regret not doing more of with the pawn shop is sanding down the lugs on the pieces; the fit on everything is exceptionally tight and once you add a skin of paint over it, almost impossible to get the lugs into their slots. So for the next building - a blank storefront that I'm building as the "Fat Dragon Self-Service Ramen Eatery" - I'm starting off by sanding all the lugs down! 

The furnishings are from OSHIRO Model Terrain - there are two noodle vending machines, a drinks vending machine, recycling bin and (not super visible by the front door) an ATM. I'm waiting on a set of booth seats from Miniature Building Authority to finish off the furniture collection for this one. The exterior is going to be the same color as the pawn shop, but I'm thinking a light blue for the interior walls. Flooring is going to be the same wooden plank pattern I used for the pawn shop. 

I'm debating if I want to do some flower pots on the sidewalk under the window and next to the front door. 

I'm hoping, given the lessons learned on the pawn shop, that the ramen eatery goes even faster!