Building a world on a budget. Part eight

 Building a world on a budget

My urban construction has been ticking along quite well. After finishing two street tiles, I thought I would turn my hand to a building. I thought I would be able to get it finished in August, but things just didn’t work out, and I didn’t manage to get it done until 1 September.

Project eight: A biscuit box building

Construction

The pair of terrace shops started their life as the lid from a box of biscuits, whose shape and size seemed perfect for my urban tiles. 

The first thing I had to do was give the box a little more structural strength by gluing some supports into it. I used some offcuts of foam board for the supports. Like the Wombles, I don’t really want anything to go to waste.

I am not the most precise of people, which is why I wanted a box lid, as it gave me a regular shape to work with. Once I was happy that the box could hold up to the rigours of the tabletop, I drew up a plan of the building on paper. I tried to make the most of the square edges that the paper gave me to stop the building from being too wonky when I was drawing the plan.

With my plan in hand, I transferred the design onto the sides of the box lid, and then I used styrene to frame the building out. I had hoped that this would give me a precise, regular building that was true, but sadly I was not as precise as I thought I had been. Framing the building out was a mistake, which I didn’t realise until I moved on to the next stage and tried to clad the building with plasticard.

The cladding was a complete pain. I wish that I could think of something positive to say about this stage, but it was just very frustrating. At least I won’t make the same mistake again. My idea to frame the building first made it really hard to cut the plasticard into the right shape. It was all compounded by my less-than-stellar measuring, which made it impossible for me to get any of the cladding to fit flush with each other. I persevered with it, but by the end I thought that it looked like a right dog’s dinner.

Being really unhappy with the exterior look of the building, I thought that the best idea would be to cover it with modelling putty. I chose Tamiya Smooth Finish Modelling Putty, but other brands would also work. I use Tamiya putty because I am used to how it works, and it is the most readily available where I live. The putty work took the best part of an evening to do, but it saved the building for me. While I waited for the putty to dry, I used the time to make the doors out of plasticard.

I forgot to mention in the previous section that the roof surface was made from very fine-grit sandpaper. I really like the texture it has once it has been painted.

The overall paint scheme was fairly simple. I started by undercoating the building in white, then I gave it a base coat of Vallejo Desert Yellow. On top of the base coat, I first sponged on a layer of Dark Sand, and I finished it off with a layer of Ivory. The doors and the window frames were also given three different layers of paint in green and brown.

Once the paint had dried, I added the downpipes and signboards. I learnt another lesson here, one that I already knew but somehow slipped my mind: painted surfaces are not very good for getting a strong bond when gluing things together. I ended up having to scrape off the paint from the areas where I was sticking things to. It wasn’t much more work, but I could have avoided it pretty simply.

The next thing I did was to wash the whole building with Agrax Earthshade. The wash really helped to bring out the texture and details on the building.

The final detailing on the building was what was going to turn it from an okay piece on my table into a pretty good piece. I started by finishing the windows using some leftover pieces of UV-cut sheet that I had put on the glass doors of my apartment. I like the reflective blue effect that they give to the side and rear windows.

I had planned to just put some names on the signboards using transfers, but Uglub had been following the progress of my build on his Discord channel and kindly offered to make some artwork for me. If you are unaware of Uglub’s work, I can recommend his YouTube channel Uglub`s Armoury; it is a great source of inspiration for tabletop gaming. This artwork was the finishing touch that my building needed.

Now I need to get back to making some more streets, so that I have somewhere to place this building.

Building a world on a budget. Part seven

 Building a world on a budget

It has been nearly six years since I wrote about my attempts to scratch-build some terrain, which seems like an inordinate amount of time when I think about it. I have made a few pieces during that time, but I have never really felt the need to write about them.

What, I hear you ask, has spurred on this sudden desire to feature one of my terrain pieces on the blog? Well, I am embarking on one of my bigger projects. It is not huge compared with what some wargamers get up to, I'm looking at you, Yarkshire Gamer, but it is big for me.

Most of my games, and the subsequent battle reports, are fought on the edges of society, away from urban areas. I thought it was time to change that by building some urban gaming tiles and the terrain to go with them.

I am going to build four 1' × 1' tiles: two with straight roads and two with corners. I hope these will give me enough variety in the layouts to keep things interesting.

This first blog post will outline the process I used to make the first tile.

Project seven: An urban street-one

Construction

The urban tile started out as a collection of bits and pieces from the 100-yen shop. For a solid base that I hope will not warp, I chose a 30 cm × 30 cm pegboard. The holes in the pegboard should help keep the weight down when I am carrying the tiles around.

On top of the pegboard, I used thin foam board for the road and thicker foam-core board for the concrete areas. The pavement and kerbstones were both made from cardboard. I am hoping that using these different materials will give the finished tile some interesting textures.

I wanted to protect the various materials from water and add a little more texture to the tile before I started painting it, so I mixed some PVA glue with baking powder to make a thick, gritty paste. I then applied this to the entire tile. Once it had dried, I applied a coat of dark grey paint as an undercoat and base coat.

I wanted the tile to have the look of old, weathered concrete, so I grabbed a few different pots of grey and black paint. My original plan was to apply the paint with an airbrush—I do not own one, and probably never will—but the effect did not look right, so I stippled the paint on with a piece of kitchen sponge instead. I was really pleased with the overall effect.

To tone things down, I applied the last of my Agrax Earthshade. It means that I will now have to venture into a Games Workshop once again to buy some more. I have not been to one in years, so I hope the staff in Japan are not as pushy as they were in my experience of the UK.

To finish the tile off, I used a stencil for the road markings, which are a little oversized, but I like the effect. I also added some mud-effect paint to the gutter.

I am pretty happy with how the whole piece turned out. My only worry is that I may not be able to make the other three tiles match the first one, as I am not the most precise person or the best record-keeper.

A Quick Game of Close Wars-Returning to Venus and the Cruffin expedition

 A Quick Game of Close Wars

Returning to Venus and the Cruffin expedition

There are times in life when work and the responsibilities of being an adult make it a little difficult to find enough time for a ‘real’ game, but Donald Featherstone, in his seminal book War Games, has the answer. In Appendix 1, he outlines a very simple set of rules for fights between small numbers of men. These rules are not as comprehensive as those found in his book Skirmish Wargaming, but they are very quick to set up, and a game with about twenty figures on each side takes around 30 minutes.

I have a rather eclectic collection of figures, but over the last couple of years I have been building up terrain for 15/18mm sci-fi games, so the scale was not a difficult choice. Choosing which range to put on the table was a little harder. I decided to settle on my Venusian project, which I originally started for Congo and which I will, hopefully, finish one day. The figures have not seen the table since March 2024.

Skirmish Narrative

After weeks in the forests of Venus, Reginald Cruffin and his men had seen more than any previous expedition had managed, but with supplies dwindling and sickness beginning to spread through the column, Cruffin decided that he would have to approach the Vhiss'tal tribe and see if they would be willing to trade.

The chieftain of the tribe, Ssthevar, was unwilling to deal with the interlopers. His cunning reptilian mind reasoned that he had no need to trade for something that his warriors could seize by force of arms.

Hearing the whoops of the approaching Vhiss'tal warriors as they ran through the crystalline forest, Cruffin put Alana Quartermain in charge of the right flank while he took personal command of the left. The approaches of the two leaders could not have been more different. Quartermain spoke softly in the Martian tongue, while Cruffin barked out orders as though he were still aboard HMS Thunderchild. No sooner had the troops dressed their ranks than a howling mass of Vhiss'tal warriors burst from the undergrowth.

The crack of the Martini–Henry and Snider-Enfield rifles punctuated the war cries of the tribesmen, but the effect of the section volley was less than Cruffin had hoped for. His Martian Askari and Ruga-Ruga fired wildly, their shots going far astray. Only the disciplined volley of the seconded men of the 50th Foot found its mark, bringing down several of the advancing tribesmen. But even their success was not enough to check the charge of the ferocious Venusians.

The Vhiss'tal warriors entered the fray like whirling dervishes, their spears stabbing left and right, cutting down Martian Askari, Ruga-Ruga and men of the 50th Foot alike. Horn Pipe Bill, Cruffin's batman, threw himself before a spear thrust meant for his commander, saving the officer from being skewered alive but joining the growing number of bodies that littered the field.

The moment of respite allowed Cruffin and the last surviving Askari to flee the combat.

The valiant members of the expedition bent but did not break beneath this primitive fury. On the left flank, Captain Theo Kretschmar-Schuldorff steadied his Ruga-Ruga and, in a characteristically clipped manner, directed a devastating fusillade into the Vhiss'tal braves, shaking their resolve before they could close for combat. Many of the Ruga-Ruga fell beneath Vhiss'tal spears, but they had done enough to throw the attackers into confusion and force them to retreat.

While on the right flank, Alana Quartermain rallied her troops with her cool, steely voice. She ordered her men to show the Venusians what the Pattern 1876 felt like when wielded by troops of stout heart. Both the Ruga-Ruga and the Kentish men did good service with their bayonets, finally breaking the resolve of the Vhiss'tal warriors.

A valiant cheer broke out from the surviving members of the expedition; they had survived a clash with these deadly warriors.

Reginald Cruffin smiled with pride at the way the expedition had performed. He would have to see to the training of the Askari; they had not been up to muster.

The fates had smiled upon him, though. Horn Pipe Bill had escaped a fatal wound when a spear thrust was deflected by a hip flask, leaving his old Martian shipmate bruised but not seriously hurt. His thoughts turned to Ssthevar, the chieftain. He had learnt that trade conducted down the barrel of a Martini–Henry rifle exacted a heavy toll in blood. Cruffin hoped that, now the unpleasantness had been dealt with, the two sides could come to some kind of agreement.

Painting the Dark future

 Painting the Dark future

The Dark Future game is stacked with goodies, from the rulebook, road sections and tokens, but the pièce de résistance is the plastic cars. They do not really stand up to modern models, but they have a definite aesthetic that ticks all the boxes for me.

I had not done much to them since I bought the game in 1988; only one car had any paint on it. I am not sure when that happened, but it was probably at some point in the 1990s. The cars needed a few repairs: some of the wheels were broken, and the plastic struts on the Renegades had all snapped, but they were all fairly quick fixes. I decided to take the cars apart so that I could paint each one separately and because it would make adding drivers a lot easier. Luckily, I had not used much glue when I originally put them together, so they came apart really easily. In a fit of inspiration, or perhaps madness, I decided to magnetise all of the weapon hardpoints on the cars. This was not that difficult, but the plastic was quite brittle in places, so I had to take it slowly.

If I thought that putting magnets into the cars took a little work, it was nothing compared to trying to get the North Star Military Figures Gaslands drivers into the cars. They seemed a bit too big for the Dark Future vehicles, so I ended up having to shave quite a lot from the bottoms of the figures to make them fit. The Interceptors were particularly difficult because the windscreens reduced the amount of space beneath the roof. I am glad that I persevered with them, though.

I probably spent too long painting the interiors of the cars; once I put them back together, you can barely see what is inside. This is particularly true of the Renegades because I added some mesh to the windscreen area. They looked like death traps without it. The mesh certainly makes the vehicles look more Mad Max-esque, but it does obscure the view of the drivers. I may have to hit up eBay at some point and pick up a couple more that I will leave open.

Painting the bodies of the cars was not much of a chore once I had decided on the paint schemes. I wanted to go for a dark, grimy look with the Renegades, so I started with black, dry-brushed several layers of grey over it, and finished everything off with an Agrax wash. The transfers came from a small-scale Maschinen Krieger kit that I got from a gacha machine. The skulls came courtesy of the GW Box of Skulls. I thought that a Bloodletter skull and a Plaguebearer skull suited these hooded scavenger drivers rather well.

Most games of Dark Future seem to be asymmetric, with one Interceptor taking on two Renegades, so I decided to paint the Interceptors in different liveries. The only thing that ties them together is the semi-gloss varnish I used on them. This makes them look sleeker and cleaner than the Renegades, which were given a matt varnish.

The first car has a police theme, as that matched the driver. Getting the white right took a few layers, but as I seem to paint a lot of figures in white, I am getting the hang of it. I am not sure why I keep giving myself that cross to bear. I guess I am just a sucker for punishment.

The paint scheme for the second Interceptor was inspired by two things. The first was Nigel Mansell in his days with Ferrari. Not that I am a follower of Formula One, but as a child in the 1980s it was hard to escape his name. The second, and more important, inspiration was the parody of Nigel Mansell, Steve Pising, in the short-run series Man to Man with Dean Learner from 2006. I really like the series and thought that the reference was obscure enough that most people would not get it, but it would make me smile each time the car hit the tarmac.  Is the car perfect, no it`s not, if you look closely you can see that the p on the front number plate is a bit wonky, but it is good enough for my table, for now, at least.

Is the car perfect? No, it is not. If you look closely, you can see that the “P” on the front number plate is a bit wonky, but it is good enough for my table, for now, at least.

The next things that I should paint for Dark Future are some of the weapons that I magnetised, but I would like to finish the major components from the game first. So, I will probably slap some paint on the motorcycles that came with the game. I am going to paint two of them in the same scheme as the Renegades, while the other two will be painted to match the Interceptors. I will probably put some skulls on the bikes that will be joining the Renegades to help them fit in better and to add a little detail to these somewhat crude sculpts.

Are they my favourite figures? Far from it, but they deserve to get some gaming time.

I may have also made a smallish eBay purchase of some of the metal motorbikes from back in the day, but they will have to join the painting queue, as I have other figures that need painting. My poor 20mm Zulu project has been waiting for four years to be restarted. That being said, I should probably strike while the iron is hot and plough through the Dark Future stuff. It is definitely something to ponder.

Returning to The Game of Highway Warriors

 Returning to The Game of Highway Warriors

My first game of Dark Future in decades

In my last post, I teased that I had received my copy of Dark Future from my younger brother in April. I originally bought the game back in 1988 when it first came out. The game is far from pristine, but all of the components are there, along with White Line Fever and all of the articles from White Dwarf that I cut out back in the day. My older self almost cries at the destruction I meted out to those magazines, but it does mean that I have all of the rules that were published for the game.

As I went through the box more carefully, I noticed that all of the road pieces are a bit warped. The corners are worse than the straights, and even the spin template is showing a bit of a twist, but they are nearly forty years old, so what can I expect? All of the pieces are still usable. The cars and bikes are in surprisingly good condition, and once I slap a coat of paint on them, I can get them on the table.

I took about a fortnight to go through the rules before I was ready to play my first game. Fortunately, the rulebook comes with a series of six learner games. I thought that I would give them a go.

Game one

I broke out two of the cars that I made for Gaslands to try the first scenario. It is a very simple game in which one car is trying to get to the end of seven road sections before the other car destroys or disables it. You may have noticed that my table is a little too small for seven road sections, but I simply removed the rear section after no vehicles were on it and placed a new section at the front of the road. I may try to play my next game on the living room floor, but I am not sure that my knees will be up to it.

Battle report

Along a lone strip of highway, Paz and Baz Chuckle were in pursuit of Lawford Featherstone of the Westbury Warlords for encroaching on their territory.  

Paz opened fire with the machine gun, scoring a critical hit on Lawford's engine and destroying the carburettor.

The brothers could not avoid the oil slick that Lawford had dropped, and Baz panic-braked to keep the car under control.

Lawford sped away from his pursuers, dropping oil slicks as he went. His buggy was constantly being hit by machine-gun rounds.

Hitting a second oil slick at 100 mph, Baz lost control of his vehicle.

The car skidded, heading towards the verge.

Baz fought to right the car, but it started to spin.

Hitting a third oil slick, the car went into a roll.

The Chuckle brothers were thrown clear as their car bounced along the tarmac.

The wreck finally ran out of steam and shuddered to a halt.

Lawford Featherstone drove away from the scene with only minor damage to his car.

Thoughts

The first question that might have crossed your mind is how this compares to Gaslands. The best thing that I can say is that it plays differently. It has a bit more crunch than Gaslands, but not as much as I have often heard on YouTube. I am always a bit disappointed when a YouTuber shows off their copy of Dark Future, or any old-school game for that matter, and declares that they will never play it. For me, these games are there to be played and enjoyed. That is probably enough of a rant.

Dark Future is not a game that I would bring out for a pick-up game on a club night. I think where Dark Future shines is in the campaign rules and the slightly more granular combat. In Gaslands, there is no degradation to your vehicle; it can continue to take damage until it is destroyed. Not so in Dark Future. Cars get worse as they are riddled with bullets, and critical hits can destroy a vehicle really quickly. I enjoy both games because they scratch different itches for me. I am glad that getting into Gaslands has led me back to an old favourite from my childhood.

Dark Future is also packed with glorious images like this: the 80s at their best.