Go West, Young Monster

 I got an invite to join a group of gamers locally who are gearing up to start a fresh campaign of Osprey's Dracula's America - a western skirmish that can be played perfectly straight as a historical western game, or can be played as gothic horror in an 1870s America where Count Dracula has become President. Yes, you read that right. 

The game had been kind of vaguely on my radar, I knew I had friends (not local) who were fans, but I hadn't been interested in picking up a new period and a new ruleset. 

So naturally, having been invited to join a group who were playing it and loved it, I picked up a new period and a new ruleset, along with one of Northstar's prepackaged warbands. Or, I should say, my wife Gina picked it up for me - the two Wargames Among the Warplanes days excluded, 2025 hasn't been a great year for gaming, especially (non-solo) wargaming, for me. She was so excited that I'd been invited to join this group that she handed me her credit card and told me to buy whatever I needed. 

It arrived today:

And after dinner I set to work getting everyone cleaned up, flash trimmed and mold lines filed before gluing them to bases.

I also recalled I had another Native American figure in one of my project boxes - a Crow Warrior Woman from Clearco Miniatures, a very small (one-man) operation out of Spain that offers an eclectic mix of Native Americans, Neanderthals and modern zombie hunters. I'd received the figure as a complimentary inclusion in an order I'd placed with Mana Press last year and, not knowing what to do with it at the time, I dug her out and assembled her (her right hand, holding a rifle, is a separate piece), adding her to the collection; she might be subbed in for one of these figures, or be available as a future member of the posse. 

Tomorrow I'll get these 10 figures primed and then I can start painting. The current plan is to begin playing some time in October and I will not be caught with half-painted figures, I can tell you that! 

Figures Acquired in 2025: 167

Figures Painted in 2025: 139

Wargames Among the Warplanes Fall 2025

 Yesterday I spent a pleasant few hours at the National Warplanes Museum in Geneseo, NY, attending my second Wargames Among the Warplanes show (write-up of the first here). I was scheduled to run demos of "Perilous Tales," a solo/co-op game from Mike Hutchinson, the creator of Gaslands about heroes taking on supernatural threats and trying to fulfill objectives before time runs out. 

I'd optimistically hoped to squeeze three games into my time slot (9am to 1pm), but ultimately managed two; the first with three players, and the second with two (who stuck around from the first game). I did not take nearly enough photos.

The first match was against the Gargoyles, which in my experience have been a tricky villain to fight. The heroes had to Stop the Ritual, Rescue the Prisoner and Call for Help as their objectives. They opted to largely ignore the objectives and clear the board of enemies; by staying in groups and planning their actions carefully, they were able to eliminate both master Gargoyles and the various bat swarms flocking in their wake. With all enemies eliminated and time left on the countdown clock, they then easily rescued the prisoner and called for help. 

The second match was against the Wolf Man and his lycanthropic minions. This time, the objectives were Flip the Switches, Get the Evidence and Kill the Master. Again, the players focused on killing villains - to their own detriment, as they killed the Wolf Man before they could take a photo of him! The players tried to argue for taking photos of the Wolf Man's corpse, but I reminded them that upon dying he just turns back into a human and if they want trophy shots of that then the police are going to get involved. 

I once again didn't give myself time to play in anything, but I had a really nice chat with the guy running demos of Osprey's Zona Alfa on the next table over. He had an incredible set-up and like me he likes to furnish the insides of his model buildings. He'd shifted the setting from Eastern Europe to Zanzibar and listening to him pitch the game to players made me pull the rulebook down off my shelf when I got home and give it another look. 

I did a little bit of networking and got in touch with some local wargamers who aren't beholden to Games Workshop and the Warhammer juggernaut, which was very nice, and spent some time in conversation with an older gentleman who'd been wargaming locally since 1976 and he walked me through the history of wargaming clubs in the Buffalo-Rochester area and how they've largely disintegrated into small groups of guys meeting at home versus any sort of larger community. We do have new clubs that have formed - the Whiskey 7 Wargamers, the Greater Niagara Wargamers, etc - and events like this one suggest we're working our way back towards that larger community; he described a time when the clubs consisted of some 200 people between the two cities, with about 10% traveling from one to the other in any given week for game.

I had a really good conversation with the organizer for the event, and he made a point to thank me for running these smaller indie games, and showing players that there's more out there than just Games Workshop and Bolt Action. That really meant a lot and made me feel good; I'm thinking I might run a similar demo table of Perilous Tales at Running GAGG next year as well. Maybe finally pick up some winter terrain like I've been meaning to, since the convention's in February. 

All in all it was a really good day; I don't stay for the whole show because I hate being away from my wife for very long given her health issues, coupled with a 2 1/2 hour round trip drive. I do need to invest in some good inserts for my shoes for next time though; only six hours standing on a concrete floor and my feet were feeling it! 

Perilous Tales Refresher Game

 With me running Perilous Tales this coming weekend at Wargames Among the Warplanes, I thought it best I run myself through a refresher game to make sure I knew what I was doing! It's not an endlessly complex game but it never hurts to remind myself how it goes. It also gave me an opportunity to try out the character cards I made for the assortment of heroes I'd selected.

In Perilous Tales, figures are divided into two types: Leaders and Teammates, with the number of each appearing on the table being dependent on how many players are involved. Playing solo, you have one Leader and four Teammates; if two players are playing a co-op game, each of them has one Leader and one Teammate, while with three players everyone has two Teammates and no Leaders. I made eight character cards, each with both a Leader and Teammate version of each character.

My wife supplied the index cards out of her colorful stationary collection, saving me a trip out to the store. I also had her select five characters for me, and decide which one would be Leader. 

So we ended up with:

• Billy Ray, the Mechanic (Leader)
• Lisa, the Veterinarian (Teammate)
• Larry, the Lousy Bum (Teammate)
• Cliff, the Mailman (Teammate)
• Klaus, the Thug (Teammate)

I got the table set up, and selected my villains: the Gargoyles, who are a fun and unusual menace. They operate like the "Weeping Angels" in the modern incarnation of Doctor Who - if two heroes can draw line of sight to a Gargoyle (there's two in the villain roster), it's incapable of moving. If they manage to successfully hit a hero, it's an automatic kill, and they are accompanied by bat swarms that limit heroes' line of sight. The villain roster also includes "Darkness Falls," which once activated limits line of sight to 6" for the remainder of the game. 

The heroic objectives were to Kill the Masters, Flip the Switches and Call for Help. The environmental hazards were Putrid Stench, Utterly Horrible (everyone in 6" takes a Horror Check at reveal) and Earthquake (everyone within 6" falls down automatically at reveal). The Threat Markers (covering both the villains and the environmental hazards) were arranged in the "Aggressive" pattern as determined by a die roll. 

I'm going to cut to the chase.

This game did not go well for the heroes. 

FIVE of the eight Threat Markers revealed at once. Both Gargoyles, a Bat Swarm, "Utterly Horrible" and "Earthquake" all went off at once. 

"Go ahead, Klaus. Try flipping the switch."

Klaus and Billy Ray were taken down by Gargoyles almost immediately. Lisa, Larry and Cliff spent most of the remainder of the game getting swarmed by bats as the Gargoyles crept forward slowly but surely. Cliff, especially, kept getting swarmed by bats, failing Horror Checks, falling down because he was being swarmed, and then getting up, getting a new swarm of bats on him, failing another Horror Check, and falling down again. He was up at down like three times. All three of them were killed "death by a thousand cuts" style by endless bat attacks. 

The heroes were all wiped out and didn't score a single victory point. 

I haven't laughed this hard during a war game since last Wargames Among the Warplanes when the taco truck got weaponized. 

I do think I may have unwittingly penalized the heroes with the big moving truck in the middle of the board. The heroes might have been able to do more against the Gargoyles if that hadn't been protecting the villains from heroic line of sight. I may replace that with the taco truck or leave it off all together. 

All in all, the game took about 45 minutes so I may be able to squeeze in more games on Saturday than I'd originally planned. Or I can wrap up early and finally play that Biplanes vs. King Kong game! 

Figures Acquired in 2025: 158

Figures Painted in 2025: 139

Wargames Among the Warplanes Fall 2025 Show Next Weekend

This coming Saturday is the fall show for Wargames Among the Warplanes, my localish (about an hour and 20 minute drive each way) twice a year one day wargaming show. It kind of feels like this one snuck up on me; I feel like the spring show was just a couple weeks ago! While I'd initially planned to bring Devilry Afoot to run a demo table of at the fall show, I feel like I haven't practiced enough with the system to feel confident teaching it. So I've pivoted, and will have a demo table of Planetsmasher Games' Perilous Tales going. I figure I can get at least three games in during my time slot, so I'm bringing three different villains and an assortment of modern figures to respond heroically. I'll keep the terrain set up the same between games so that I only need to bring a couple of buildings and a 2x2 mat.

Mayan Warfare

 I'm committing myself - not to be confused with having myself committed - to put on a wargame featuring Mayans at a future gaming event. At this point, I'm looking at Wargames Among the Warplanes' Spring show in 2026 as being the most likely event. I blame my friend Chris for gifting me some Mayan figures and sending me down this rabbit hole. 

I'm looking at using Mana Press' "Tribal" for this game, which will involve warriors from one Mayan city-state raiding a rival polity for sacrifices and trophies. 

Tribal features units of five figures under the leadership of a warlord (accompanied by heroic single warriors), and is particularly interesting for not using dice or rulers - combat and movement are resolved using standard decks of playing cards. I haven't played yet, but the second edition rulebook is one of the most user-friendly rule books I've ever seen. I feel like once I get a few games under my belt, I'll be good to go for teaching it to others at an event. 

Figures and terrain have started to arrive, and working on getting all of this painted up will be a good way for me to spend the winter.

First up, I found that Acheson Creations is still vending at a reduced scale on Etsy, selling items whose molds hadn't been sold a few years back when the owners decided to close up shop. I bought a pair of Aztec stone houses (which, despite being from another culture a thousand years later, should be close enough for my purposes) and an Olmec Colossal Stone Head, which will be incorporated into a jungle terrain feature; while the Olmecs predate the Mayans, the ruins of their civilization still dotted the landscape centuries later. 

Craig at Acheson also let me know that he'll be re-releasing some of the other styles of Aztec house in the near future, so I'll be collecting a couple of those as well to put together a full village. He also included a complimentary pile of severed heads in my order that will make a very thematic objective marker. 

Next, at Chris' suggestion, I picked up a couple packs of "Maxzans" from Lucid Eye Publications; they're a little more fantastical than strictly historical, but they have a variety of poses armed with both spears and hand weapons, and are really nice clean casts with excellent sculpting. I ordered enough figures to assemble two units each with "long" and "short" weapons, as well as a missile unit armed with thrown wasp's nests (which is apparently not too fantastical - the Mayan text the Popul Vuh apparently attests to wasps being released in warfare!).

Given the current state of things with the United States, it was also much easier for me to order Lucid Eye figures from Badger Games, their US distributor, than to order strictly historical Mayans from Gringo40s in the UK and risk US customs simply throwing them in a dumpster if there were any errors with the tariff paperwork. 

The plan as it stands is for each warband to consist of three units of five, accompanying a warlord and a single additional hero, for a total of 17 figures. I think it's doable to paint a total of four warbands and do a 2 versus 2 fight on a 6x4 table with plenty of terrain.

So let's figure out what I need to get done before June 2026:

• Paint four warbands of 17 figures apiece (68 total figures) plus a couple of objective markers featuring lootable goods and trophies and civilians to be captured. 
• Manmade Terrain - 6-7 houses, a central temple complex, maybe some cornfields? Houses will be Acheson, temple will be MDF from Things From The Basement. I think I have enough neoprene cobblestone road pieces to cover my needs. 
• Natural Terrain - Jungle terrain bases in varying sizes, probably following Mike's lead from his Vietnam project. At least one of these will have an Olmec stone head or other ruins incorporated into it as well. 
• Playtest playtest playtest! If I'm going to be offering to teach Tribal at the table I need to have it down. 
• Sort out good storage and transport, especially for the jungle terrain which will be a bit more fragile by its nature than the solid resin houses. 

That feels really doable, I think. I have nine months to get through everything. 

Figures Acquired in 2025: 158

Figures Painted in 2025: 139

Cro-Magnon Boss finished

 I'm pleased to say my Cro-Magnon warlord, for use in paleolithic games of Mana Press' Tribal, has been completed as of tonight. This is "Sterm Stonelund, Cro-Magnon Boss," from Lucid Eye Publications, intended for their "Savage Core" skirmish game - which I still haven't tried out; I managed to buy the first edition of the rules a week before the second edition was announced -- and the announcement went out a week before the book released! This is one of three Cro-Magnon Bosses Lucid Eye makes, more than they offer for any other faction in the game, incidentally.

I'm really pleased with how the base turned out; some torn corkboard pieces built up to form the rock outcropping, some Woodland Scenics fine "earth" flock, a few different colors and lengths of Gamer's Grass brand tufts and then some Army Painter snow over the top after everything else had fully dried. 

Here's where the Wolf Clan, my Cro-Magnon warband, stands now:

A unit of Warriors, a unit of Marksmen, two Heroes and a Warlord. One unit of Warriors left to assemble, base and paint up, and I should do a couple objective markers for them as well. 

Figures Acquired in 2025: 158

Figures Painted in 2025: 139

Fighting for Focus

 As you might guess from my posts in the month of August, I've been kind of scattershot. I haven't really been focused on any projects lately, just painting a few odd figures here and there - painting for the sake of putting paint on figures, versus having any sort of goal in mind. And while painting for the sake of painting is laudable in its own way, I would like to feel like I'm finishing something and moving towards playing a game with something. So it's time to set some goals.

I've got figures on the way for Mayans, to go with the "Forest of Kings" figures Chris gave me last week (I also ordered a few officer figures from Paymaster Games here in the US to round out a pair of small armies). 

I think I want to commit to putting on a game with them (maybe requiring some allied forces) at next spring's Wargames Among the Warplanes show. That gives me about 9 months to paint...let's call it 70 figures overall to cover four players, plus terrain, and playtest and master a set of rules well enough to feel confident refereeing it for strangers. About five of those months are going to be too cold and wet to do any priming or varnishing outside. 

Once the figures arrive, I'll probably spend a week cleaning the first 40 of them, gluing them to bases and getting them primed. Anything I can have prepped before the weather turns in November, I intend to. 

In the meantime...

A couple months back I painted a dozen cavemen with the intent to use them in Mana Press' "Tribal." This is also the ruleset I intend to use my Mayans with, so I think it behooves me to get them finished and on the table so I can practice the ruleset! 

I think it's fair to require myself to finish these before I can work on the shiny new Mayans, right? 

This week I've circled around and started painting their opponents, a band of Neanderthals from Northstar. I took the opportunity to use a friend's collection of Army Painter speed paints this past Monday, and got 10 warriors almost fully painted in the span of two hours. 

Pretty much just fine details, especially in the faces, and touch ups left to go on these, and bases. And boy do they need some touch ups! Unfortunately I'm the new guy in the group I paint with on Monday nights, and my spot at the painting table has less-than-ideal lighting - not an intentional thing, it's just something they never noticed when it was just three people at the table. Under my workbench lamp at home, I'm finding tons of spots I missed! 

Fortunately I made a list of the speed paints I used, and I'll be picking some up this weekend to do the touch ups that need doing under good lighting. 

I've also been working away at a warlord figure for the Cro-Magnons; Tribal calls for leaders to be based on larger bases, and given the Frazetta-esque posture of this figure, I decided building things up with cork was called for.

The top of the rock shelves will be flocked, tufted and given some snow to match the rest of the Cro-Magnons; I still have some detailing and highlighting (and again, touch ups) to go on him before I start flocking though. 

So what's left to paint for the paleolithic warbands? 

• Five Cro-Magnon Warriors
• Five Neanderthal Marksmen
• Two Neanderthal Heroes
• Neanderthal Warlord
• Two Neanderthal Civilians (objective marker)

Fifteen figures isn't too bad. With the aid of speed paints, I'm confident I can knock those out within the month after finishing these. 

Finally, I'm finishing off the last two figures I need for the Fall 2025 Wargames Among the Warplanes show which is...in just over a week. I feel like it snuck up on me a bit. 

These adorable little moppets are from Midlam Miniatures, and will be Innocents in games of Devilry Afoot - especially a scenario involving rescuing a couple of kids from a pair of hungry Bogeymen. 

So that's where I'm at. Finish these two kids, finish two warbands of cavemen, and then I can start working on armies and terrain for next spring's wargaming event. 

Figures Acquired in 2025: 158

Figures Painted in 2025: 138

Lord Shield Jaguar and Lady Xoc in 28mm

 On Friday, I had the opportunity to meet up with Chris Regan, a local gamer who I'd interacted with on social media quite a bit over the past couple of years, but this was the first time we'd gotten the chance to meet up; we weren't able to get a game in, but he picked up a copy of one of my RPG scenarios and was generous enough to gift me copies of a pair of miniatures he'd commissioned. Chris runs a Facebook group called "A Forest of Kings - a Maya Wargaming Project", and he'd had these sculpted and cast up to commemorate the group reaching 500 members. 

These figures are based on Yaxchilan Lintel 24, currently in the British Museum. Lintel 24 depicts King Itzamnaaj Bahlam III, aka Lord Shield Jaguar, and his wife, Queen Consort K'abal Xoc; he is holding a torch aloft, illuminating her as she performs a bloodletting ritual. She's pulled a rope studded with obsidian shards through her tongue (AH!), allowing blood to spill on to a codex in front of her, which will be burned as part of the ritual. 

So, now I'm contemplating a Classical Maya project. And by "contemplating," I mean I just pulled the trigger on an order over at Badger Games. Since they carry Lucid Eye Publications' miniatures, I picked up nine packs of their "Maxzan" figures, slightly fantastical Mesoamerican-style figures that work well as Mayans. I bought enough to assemble 10 spearmen, 10 warriors with hand weapons, and six "Hornet Throwers," men armed with wasps' nests! I believe I've got another six that I'd bought a few years ago as well. Mana Press' Tribal would be a perfect ruleset for this, and 32 infantry gives me a total of six units (two armies of three!) with a couple figures leftover. 

So adding 28 (2 for the figures from Chris, 26 Lucid Eye figures) to the Acquired side of things.

Figures Acquired in 2025: 155

Figures Painted in 2025: 138

White Russians Back on the Table

 Being pretty much done with prep for the fall Wargames Among the Warplanes show, I'm finding it hard to focus on any one project for long, and I'm finding myself painting a few figures here and there without any rhyme or reason, just in order to be painting something. The mood took me to get some more historicals done, so I brought out my White Russians. The last time I worked on these was back in January, right around when Atticus passed away. I'm not sure if that played a role or not in me getting derailed away from the Back of Beyond, to be honest. But I'm glad to have them back on the table!

First things first, I added an officer to the Izhevsk Rifle Detachment:

I also got my Field Gun painted and assembled. As best I can tell, this is a 76mm divisional gun M1902, originally fielded during the Russo-Japanese War and continued to see use all the way up into WWII. 

Getting the wheels on straight was the most challenging part. I wasn't sure about the green of the gun at first but it's definitely grown on me. 

I've also started painted a half-dozen Cossacks to add some cavalry, and cleaned up, based and primed a second unit of White Russian infantry; if I get to them right away, that's great, if not, hey, it's about time I start priming towards the winter, right? 

We'll count the gun as an extra figure, so this adds six to the painted side of things:

Figures Acquired in 2025: 127

Figures Painted in 2025: 138

Yo Joe!

 Casting about my workbench for figures to work on after finishing the Off-Track Betting parlor, I pulled out a mix of converted metal and 3D printed figures for my ongoing GI Joe project which I'd primed some months back. In a Modern gaming state of mind, I was happy to get working on them. 

First up, a pair of named characters for the villainous Cobra forces: Croc-Master (in the crocodile-skin vest and boots and gimp mask) and the diabolical Dr. Mindbender (in the purple pants). These are definitely sillier characters that were introduced later in the series' run back in the 1980s; Dr. Mindbender was an orthodontist who accidentally turned himself evil and became a master of robotics and genetics (as one does) while eschewing shirts in the laboratory (but not elaborate metal codpieces held up by suspenders). Croc-Master trains reptiles for aggression on Cobra's behalf, and initially joined the terrorist organization after failing to sell "Trained Security Crocodiles" as an anti-burglary system to Cobra Commander. 

I'm making none of this up. And these aren't the silliest characters on Cobra's payroll. These are resin 3D prints of STLs designed by Random Miniatures on Patreon, which my buddy Dave printed out for me a while back. They're a little oversized, but it's less noticeable with these two. 

Next up, continuing with Cobra, we have a machine gun team that I converted from a Crooked Dice "Army Heavy Machine Gun" set, using a set of "ASP Trooper" heads also from Crooked Dice. 

No ineffectual, children's-television-approved, blue lasers here! Once we get a little sanity in this country and the de minimis exemption on tariffs gets restored, I'm hoping to order and convert a few more of these, because I think it worked out very well.

Finally, two additions to the heroic GI Joe team, though probably not characters whose action figures childen were clamoring for in the 1980s. In green, we have "Tripwire," the Joes' explosives disposal specialist, and next to him "Cutter," who was the Joes' token representative from the US Coast Guard. Tripwire is another Random Miniatures 3D print, while Cutter is again a Crooked Dice figure (one of their "X-Commandos") with a head swap to a mustached head wearing a ball cap. I suspect that the number one factor driving sales of Cutter's action figure in the 1980s was that he was packaged with the "WHALE" Hovercraft, which was one of the more impressive vehicles in the GI Joe motorpool. 

You can really see the size difference with the 3D prints here; I'm less worried about it since I don't anticipate Tripwire showing up in a lot of games, but with future prints I'll ask Dave to scale them down slightly. 

So what's next? I don't anticipate doing a lot of hobbying this weekend as Monday morning we're getting a new water meter installed as part of a city-wide initiative - and our water meter is right next to my workbench, which means cleaning up and clearing space to ensure the worker(s) from the city can access everything they need to as easily as possible. After that though, I've got eight Crooked Dice "ASP Troopers" to paint up for my GI Joe project; instead of the usual Cobra blues, they'll be wearing the green, gray and yellow of the "Python Patrol" sub-team, just to mix things up a bit and to justify them having a slightly different style of uniform from the rest of my Cobra troopers. I also want to get started on my next terrain build, an "Urgent Care" building my wife got me for my birthday. It has interior rooms, so it'll be a more complex project than some of my other buildings. 

Figures Acquired in 2025: 127

Figures Painted in 2025: 133

Wanna Gamble on the Ponies?

 Last weekend, my wife and I were out socializing on both Saturday and Sunday - and given that we're both introverted potato-people, it meant going into the work week feeling absolutely drained. We agreed that this weekend we'd "stay home and enjoy what our mortgage pays for," and I spent most of the day in the basement at my workbench, putting the finishing touches on "Mean Streets Storefront #5" from Atomic Laser Cut Designs. And by finishing touches, I just mean the MDF kit itself; I'm waiting on some 3D-printed furnishings to fill it with. 

I decided I wanted an off-track betting parlor, to go with the sort of run-down, Rust Belt feel my terrain collection has been built around. For the building itself, that just meant a pair of OTB signs - identical to plenty I've seen over by my local airport and even on the main shopping strip near me. I put a sign on either side of the building near the front, since the awning over the door and front window prevented me from putting one over the front, unless I put it up on the roof. 

The walls got some graffiti decals, as I mentioned previously, and to that I added some printed paper posters and signs - "no entry," "emergency exit," and posters for concerts from Blue Oyster Cult and Black Sabbath - the latter in celebration of the late, great Ozzy Osbourne. 

I also cut some acetate plastic to fit the front window and the door. I find this step really adds a lot to the model when viewed from outside; unlike my previous two kits, I didn't have any signs to glue to the window this time around. Happily, I did manage to get the doors aligned right when putting them in so that they open and close freely. 

So that's it for this building until I've got the furniture ready to paint; I pulled out the Urgent Care Gina got me from Atomic Laser Cut Designs and began test-fitting, but I think that's going to be a much more involved build since it has multiple interior rooms. In the meantime, I think I'll work on some more figures. 

Figures Acquired in 2025: 127

Figures Painted in 2025: 127

More Modern Terrain and Some Early Modern Monsters

 I made my way to the print shop tonight after work, and printed our some floors and a sheet of posters I'd made by resizing images off the web, which means this weekend I can make some serious progress on terrain. To begin with, tonight I finished off a piece that's been sitting *mostly* done for a few weeks.

This is a construction office made from a shipping container, produced by Things From The Basement, who I highly recommend checking out if you're in the United States. This is my first kit from them, though I have my eyes on a few more; they use a thinner sheet of MDF than I'm used to from companies like Sarissa or Atomic Laser Cut Designs, but everything was really cleanly cut and fit beautifully. Each side of the shipping container is built up in layers to allow more depth to the detailing. 

I sprayed everything but the roof with "Sahara Beige" from Montana Gold spray paints, and did the roof in a flat red paint and primer combo I got at the hardware store. The door was picked out in "Deep Red" from Reaper Miniatures' paint line; I'm not sure why it cracked like that but I think it ended up looking good. 

I tried using some Green Stuff World weathering pigments my wife got me as a gift along the bottom of the container, but it just went on like paint and didn't dry to the texture the packaging promised. I tried to salvage it with a heavy drybrushing of tan craft paint, which I think will remain my default method of weathering model buildings.

Inside, I've glued a table stacked with cash and a money-counting machine that I got from Miniature Building Authority; could it be that there's something illicit going on in here? Money laundering? Drug dealing? Or is this just the payroll office for a junkyard or chop shop? I'm really pleased with how perfectly the table fit. 

Finally, I added a pinup of Tanya Roberts from her time on the TV show Charlie's Angels; I like having my "Modern" games seem to be a blend of everything over the past 40-odd years, with smart phones, CRT TVs, classic TV shows and the like all appearing side by side. I'm planning to put some old "Joe Camel" cigarette ads on some model billboards in the not too distant future. 

In other news...

I'll be returning to Wargames Among the Warplanes for their fall show next month, bringing Devilry Afoot with me; I've planned my gaming around having to paint as few figures between now and the day of the event as possible. I've finished off the last couple figures I wanted to use as monsters in games on that day.

On the left is a Black Dog/Hellhound/Dire Wolf type, intended as Dracula's wolf form, from Crooked Dice's relatively recently released Dracula set of figures, and accompanying it are a pair of animated scarecrows from Crooked Dice's Folk Horror line. These will be appearing as a Barghest and a pair of Bogeymen in the games I'll be running in about 4 weeks' time. All that's left to do for these three is a good coat of varnish, and all that's left to paint for Wargames Among the Warplanes are a pair of Innocents for the Bogeymen to menace. 

Figures Acquired in 2025: 127

Figures Painted in 2025: 127

Plague Toad or Poisoned Lasher?

 I received this 3D-printed resin "Plague Toad" a week or so ago as a freebie from an Etsy seller; it's clearly intended to be something affiliated with Nurgle, the Chaos god of disease in Games Workshop's various Warhammer properties, but I decided to do something different with it, using the variety of textures on the figure to have some fun with washes and glazes in colors I don't use all that often. I wanted something unearthly and alien-looking, suitable for a future game of Majestic 13. 

Monster profiles in Majestic 13 are intentionally left vague to allow you to fill them with whatever fantasy or science fiction figures you might have handy; I try to use things with wings or other means of achieving flight for profiles that have flying listed as a mode of locomotion, but beyond that I'm happy to be extremely loose with it. 

That being said, I'm thinking I'll treat this as a "Poisoned Lasher" in game - a monster with extended reach due to tentacles, a poison attack, and the ability to grab player characters and drag them around the map inflicting additional damage. I think he's a perfect fit for that description! 

Figures Acquired in 2025: 127

Figures Painted in 2025: 125

More Terrain Building

 I'm not sure what it is, but there's something just very peaceful and relaxing about making terrain, even if it's just building and customizing a kit. Gina got me a pair of modern MDF buildings from Atomic Laser Cut Designs for my birthday a few months ago, and I decided to pull one out and get it built up and customized. This particular kit is "Store Front 5" from their "Mean Streets" line of brownstone buildings, a single-story shop with a removable roof and opening doors. Despite the pulpy 1930s aesthetic of the Mean Streets line, there's plenty of buildings that look exactly like this within easy travel of my house (fun fact: because Buffalo, NY has so many old buildings still standing, films set in the first half of the 20th century are often shot here), so it's more than appropriate for the Rust Belt aesthetics of my modern games.

The pieces have been spray-painted, and I've applied graffiti decals to the exterior walls and given them a tan drybrush to weather the brickwork. The decals are a mix of Green Stuff World and Dave's Decals - the GSW decals go on more smoothly, but honestly half the decals on the sheets are misprinted and cut off, limiting their usability. I'll probably be putting another order in with Dave's Decals in the near future - I want to add some two-story buildings to my table, and "Ghost Signs" on the sides of the second story would be very fitting. Dave offers a variety of them. 

The fit on Atomic Laser Cut Design's buildings are very tight, necessitating some sanding on the pegs before painting - a lesson I learned the hard way! These were well-sanded before I got out the spray paint, but it's always worth it to continue to check fit as I go:

I'll be printing out a paper floor and some miscellaneous signage to glue in - a "no entry" sign on the back door, things like that, maybe some "lost dog" posters to stick to the sides near the front. I might talk to my 3D printing guy about printing up a rooftop air conditioning unit to add up top as well. I will be needing him to take care of printing some wall-mounted TVs and a bar for the interior. 

Speaking of the interior, I sprayed it a fairly obnoxious orange, with the intent being for it to look like the interior decorating hasn't been updated since the 1970s. 

I think it works.

To offer another update, I've finished pouring the resin for my gator-infested swimming pool. I haven't had a chance to get to the game store to pick up a bottle of "Dirty Down" moss effect, but I'm debating whether I even want to bother with it; this looks fairly decent as is.

The most I'd be doing with the moss effect would be some dirtying up of the rim. Not sure if that's worth spending $20. 

Figures Acquired in 2025: 127

Figures Painted in 2025: 124

WIP: Pool's Closed

 The mood struck me to start working on a bit of modern terrain again; I think this might be becoming a "hobby home" for me, something I can just always get stuck in with and putter for a while and have a smile on my face while doing it. 

This week I got out a piece my wife got me for my birthday - an above-ground swimming pool from Bad Goblin Games. The product photo on the website adds an alligator and UV resin "water" and I knew I wanted to do something similar. I'd gotten a pair of crocodiles from Wargames Foundry, and dug one out and got it primed and painted this week, with a coat of gloss varnish; they're a bit smaller than the one in the product photo but that's fine. I figure any crocodile in your swimming pool is a problem. 

The pool was sprayed white inside and out, and then I masked off the outside and sprayed the inner surface a bright blue. I gave a tan drybrush to the bottom of the outside and applied some Reikland Fleshshade as "rust" around some of the mechanical bits. 

After that was all dry, I started adding layers of UV resin. The first layer had a bit of GW "Athonian Camoshade" mixed in, a dark olive green shade. The second layer I mixed a bit of OOP GW "Waywatcher Green" glaze into the resin, which is a brighter green; once this layer was spread out but before I cured it, I put the crocodile in. The third layer also had some Waywatcher Green mixed into it, and was poured around the crocodile to help submerge him. 

I'm thinking I'll do one more layer of resin - I'd really like to have the crocodile mostly submerged. Then maybe apply some washes or glazes to really sell the algae-scummed look. 

This has been a really fun and really quick project; I'm now half tempted to get another swimming pool from Bad Goblin and make a "clean" version! Maybe see about getting a 3D printed pool floatie to have on top of the water in that version? 

Figures Acquired in 2025: 127

Figures Painted in 2025: 124

Majestic 13: Operation Acid Reflux

 It's been a few months since my last game of Majestic 13 from Snarling Badger, and I decided this week I'd get the table cleared off and and play a game this weekend. A big part of that decision came in the form of a complimentary 3D printed "Giant Plague Toad" (totally not a Nurgle beast, scout's honor) I received from an Etsy seller, TableTopTradesman, earlier this week that immediately struck me as an excellent monster for Majestic 13.

Unfortunately, last night I had to take my wife to the Emergency Department at our local hospital following an accidental over-ingestion of medication. While she was discharged after a few hours, neither one of us slept much (or at all, in my case) afterwards, so I'm more than a little foggy-headed and prone to slight nod-offs currently. Naturally, this is the best possible state to be in when playing a game and writing an after-action report. 

The Force Discreet were once more deployed to a wilderness battlefield, this time to oppose a creature called an Ichor-Spitter. These creatures are capable of flight, ignoring terrain penalties on movement, and can spit powerful acid. 

Left to right: Javier, Pilar, Ortiz, Emilio, Anna-Maria

Secondary objective was a medical supply pickup - each of those neon green radiation symbols marks a piece of terrain with a supply point on it. I got a little hosed in two different ways with this mission:

1. Rolling for bureaucratic foul-ups as part of the mission generation, I got "Drop Zone Confusion," meaning my team deployed in a randomly-selected board quadrant. 
2. Rolling to see which terrain pieces on the table would be Clear, Difficult or Dangerous terrain, I rolled abysmally. Almost every hill and forest, plus the bridge and cabin, were Difficult Terrain, meaning movement was halved moving over them. One hill was Dangerous Terrain, meaning figures would potentially take wounds trying to cross it. Trying to obtain secondary objectives just got twice as difficult. 

Rather than do a full play-by-play since my brain's packed to capacity with cotton right now, I'll just touch on a few highlights:

• In my mentally fogged state, I was looking at the "Phase 2" profile for the Ichor Spitter (in Majestic 13, once your team has a certain number of victories under their belts, the monsters upgrade to a second, more difficult unit profile) for the first two turns, meaning it was hitting my operatives more easily than it should have and the negative side-effects of its attacks were harder for them to resist.
• The Ichor Spitter caught four of my five operatives in an "Acid Spray" blast, wounding and blinding half of them because they'd stayed clustered together pouring firepower into the monster instead of spreading out. 

• On turn 3, I rolled for the game's FUBAR mechanic, came up positive, and rolled on the results chart. A randomly-determined terrain piece, in this case one of the escarpments along the riverbank, collapsed, injuring any figures (human or monster) within a certain radius. Only Ortiz was in range, and I rolled almost minimum damage; I think he only took three points of damage from the collapse.
• Javier got caught in one Acid Blast too many, and was reduced to a steaming puddle on the forest floor.

• Ortiz scored a critical hit with his light machine gun, dealing an exceptional 34 points of damage to the monster in one go, which was enough to put it into its "In Extremis" state - every monster in Majestic 13 has an "In Extremis" threshold, where if it's reduced below a certain hit-point total it gains an extra action, but also takes extra damage as its body consumes itself with violent rage to fuel that extra action. 
• On Turn 4, Pilar successful performed a Call for Aid, calling down a drone strike on the Ichor Spitter and finishing the terrible beast off.

I didn't really accomplish the secondary objective of collecting all three medical supply drops; I got one, but the Force Discreet really is spec'd around pouring as much damage into the enemy as possible, and everything else is a bit of an afterthought. 

In the post-game:

• While Agent Javier did die of his wounds, he was successfully cloned and Javier Jr. will be ready to join the team in the next game. 
• The Force Discreet filed requisition requests for two Medic Kits and received one. Requisition requests to add a rapid response helipad to their base were also denied and/or lost in the bureaucratic maze. 
• Ortiz and Pilar used accumulated XP to improve their Dexterity scores, while Javier Jr. put XP carried over from Javier-Prime to improve his Combat score. 

Next game is a Special Mission, pitting the Force Discreet against the shadowy puppetmasters dropping these alien monsters on Earth. 

Additionally, in the aftermath of last night's Emergency Department adventure and my willingness to sit up all night making sure Gina didn't experience a seizure or cardiac troubles relating to her accidental overdose, Gina asked me to fill a shopping cart with miniatures she could buy for me. I had a coupon for 30% off from Etsy seller TableTopTradesman (see the top of this post), so I picked out enough gribbly 3D printed monstrosities to get us free shipping and we placed the order. So soon enough I'll have another five twisted brutes on 40- or 60mm bases ready to try and gnaw through the Force Discreet. 

Time to update the counter:

Figures Acquired in 2025: 127

Figures Painted in 2025: 123