Update on Samurai for Recruits

Well here's a terrain update for Recruits.

I have been busy on the second temple set, a Torii archway, and some garden amenities (standing stones for cover, garden with miniature stone pagoda).

I hope to finish painting all of these this weekend, and then make some more walls and finish some more river sections. I think I have enough river painted to do about 16' of table.


Standing garden stones, to evoke the feeling of the mountains in Japanese garden design. also nice to hide behind and get cover from.

A sand garden and stone pagoda with standing stones. I will add foliage when I finish painting and basing.

some walls I made a long time ago. I will finish these and will never make walls like them again. A total pain.

The Torii Arch to the shino temple. To pass through the archway is an act of cleansing. It signifies moving from the mundane to the sacred.

Front shot of the Arch. It is an aquarium piece that was busted and I got on discount.

Forecourt entrance to the new temple. It is removeable.

Shot of the new temple from the forecourt to the main gate, and the walled enclosure behind.

Construction is plastic card, insulation foam, wood dowels, wooden shapes, and balsa wood. All available at Hobby Lobby. I love all of the wooden shapes that are available. they are great for scratch building. Liquitex resin sand for ground covering.

Shot with the temple building inserted. I scratch built the temple from balas and bass wood and plastistruct HO scale tiles. In some Japanese temple traditions some temples would be burnt to the ground every generation and then rebuilt for the next generation to do the same. what a wonderful tradition. you can see another gate lurking behind the wall to the left. It will show up on a subsequent project.

The Gate to the enclosure. Door is removeable. All custom made except for the tiles and stone.

Better lighting to show some of the detail of the temple building since its all black.

Shot back to main gate from inside the enclosure. I have since added stone work to the inside and textured all the stucco walls.

Stone work added inside with the first additions of garden elements. Originally I had made them permanently attached. I removed them so I could have more flexibility and mounted them individually as shown above.

There you have it.

Samurai Recruits game

Here is some pics of the stuff I am trying to pull together for our Song of Blades and Heroes - Japanese samurai game at the Recruits convention.

First, some inspiration:

Next, a finished Temple building:

Then, some terrain pieces for the scenarios, and a new temple ground:

And some pics of the painted troops ready to go:

RECRUITS

RECRUITS RECRUITS

Recruits is March 27-29. A local gaming convention that is sponsored by the gaming group at Lee's Summit High School, in Lee's Summit, Missouri, and led by the fearless teacher and all around good egg Duane Fleck.

For this one, ZeBaron and I are going to put on a Song of Blades and Heores game of Samurai intrigue and revenge. Ronins, Samurai, Peasants. And maybe even some other goodness. Mor eon this as it progresses.

ADD update

OK, I didn't make it to the painting stage, so the High elves have been put back into the closet of doom. I have realized that if I start to sort or clean out the Closet of Doom, I get distracted by the next pretty box. So...

On to 15mm WWII. Not sure if i like Flames of War. Everyone I game with says its really gamey. Not a big fan of gamey. I love the concept of Corssfire. I have heard Blitzkreig Commander is very good. So I will take advatage of all the FoW fury right now to get good cheap miniatures, use their basing system, and play whatever I want. I'll try anything once.

High Elves - Progress

Well, I have built and ready to paint so far:

(1) High Elf Prince on Dragon (Hero/General)
(3) Bolt Throwers and crew
(1) unit of 8 Silver Helms (will upgrade to 12)
(1) unit of 10 Armored spearmen(will upgrade to 12) (already painted from a deal on ebay)
(1) unit of 16 Archers (will upgrade to 20)
(1) Commander on Steed with Lance (hero)
(1) unit of 12 Shadow Warriors

Up next:

Unit of Phoenix Guard
Unit of Swordmasters
Unit of 24 spearmen
Unit of 24 Sea Guard
Unit of 12 Archers
Unit of 12 Dragon Princes
Unit of Bolt Throwers
Unit of White Lions

Update

So I was sick last week and so I have been trying to catch up at work. But while I was sick, I worked on some terrain. I did a high fenced impound with chain fence and razor wire at the top. Maybe the fence is a little tall, but I wanted it to be a scure impound area instead of just a fenced off lot. looks good though. Pics later.

I have started the apparently long process of building the plastic box sets of mine and my sons GW High Elf army. I love the value, but hate the fiddlyness of the multipart plastic figs in the current box sets. It takes way too long to clip, scrape, and glue them together. They look good when done, but for a large army, what a nightmare. Glad the elites are metal. Got an old dragon with a swapped mount, the new plastic lord, old lead leftovers from previous editions and a couple of bolt throwers built. Probably build about 6-8 units then base them, and undercoat them. we'll see if my stamina will get me to the painting stage.

I am kinda digging the idea of warhammer/40k armies. rules will suck to play, but the armies are pretty. Al and I decided to play the edition of warhammer that is from the bretonnian and lizardmen box set. 3rd, 4th 5th, i don't know. We remember it as fun. I t may not be. MAy just be old men nostalgia. My brother in law and i are not very gamey, so it may be ok. Thinking hard about writing my own rules to combine all the things I like about a fantasy wargame. More on that later.

Latest Terrain Project for Near Future Sci Fi

Here's a project I did over the weekend in about 10 hours. Its a near future industrial building - transfer station/pumping station/genearting station/power station/etc.

It started as an 18 egg carton. I always looked at it upside down as some sort of sci fi element. I would say that any kind of industrial packaging can be made into sci-fi terrain. And I'll show you in future updates!

Anyway, gator board was used for the bulking up, with plastruct I, H, truss and a set of stairs, and diamond plate. wall caps are from old warhammer chaos spell cards ( a great source of construction card), and the railings are wire screen. Additional valves, screens, hand wheels and corner lights are from a visit to the lego store at Disney. Fill up a bucket of parts that you pick. I have 2 boxes full of random detailing parts that are great.

Paint next.

Also is a couple of pics of my Armorcast soda can tanks. Ready to be painted as well. Armorcast makes some great resin terrain at a reasonmable price.