I'm back with the latest installment in my "Terrain Triptych" series, where I kitbash urban terrain using toys found at resale shops. Click here to read the first post, about a multi-level construction site. Here I'll show you how I took this Hot Wheels car launcher and transformed it into a power station.



Though not terribly tall, it's a great line of sight blocker for infantry and small vehicles and is short enough to fit under the other two large buildings you'll read about in the Terrain Triptych series.




Where would science fiction be without giant fans?

 
Along with the power station, I also had a lot of fun with a toy construction set I found at Target. It's called "Power City Construction Extension Pack," and I used pieces from the set to create I-beam bits to use as scatter terrain.



Turns out it's the old Kenner Girder and Panel system from the 1950s, which is still in production, but is also licensed to the "Power City" line of toys. It's made of polypropylene, so you've got to use Krylon Fusion spray paints, but it's a great set for wargaming even at the full price of $8 (I paid about a third of that).

Here's the contents of the pack and how it compares in size to a 28mm miniature.


For those interested in measurements, the vertical columns are 50mm, the horizontal beams are 70mm, all the beams are 5mm thick. Clearance under a beam that had been clicked into vertical columns is 45mm.


One box could make about a dozen of these and I've got half a dozen boxes, so expect to see more I-beams in future projects.

I hope you like these terrain pieces made from toy kits and resale shop finds. The piece de resistance is coming up in the third installment!

-- Karl, Chicago Skirmish Wargames club member

In a previous post, I showed work-in-progress pictures of a number of larger terrain pieces. For my "Terrain Triptych" series, I'll be revisiting three of these projects, as well as some additional bits. The miniatures used for scale throughout these reviews are Urban War Gladiators, Void Junker Buggy and a 1/56-scale Mad Cat mech from Joyride.

The painting method used for all these projects is my typical get-it-done-fast method:

• Black Primer 
• Drybrush base colors, plus texture paint where necessary 
• 1-2 heavy washes of dark ruddy brown, letting it pool in places to dry. 
• Drybrush of tan 

We'll start the series with an item that began its life as a parking garage for Hot-Wheels size cars. It's from Toys R Us's "Fast Lane" line.


I did what I could to disguise the parking garage origins, including putting junction boxes in the center to imply an elevator shaft and HVAC ductwork. 


I filled the empty back of the wall panels with counting bricks, which added much-needed texture.


The bare grey wall in the lower right and in the earlier picture will hopefully one day be covered with graffiti from one of our more talented club members.


Here's a look at the exterior construction lift (non-functioning, unfortunately).


And its mechanicals.


The junction box on the bottom level is a separate piece, giving more flexiblity in terrain arrangement.


I need to pick up more of the large electrical junction boxes shaped like the one above. It's much easier to greeble and modify than the one used on the roof, which has an interesting shape, but lends itself to fewer applications. 

Here are a few more action shots.




Though I didn't use the "rivets-rivets-everywhere" aesthetic, it was especially enjoyable to build a structure that is so strongly reminiscent of the Necromunda terrain I found so exciting in my early gaming years and still fuels my imagination today. Should I ever get the club to play some Necromunda, this building will likely figure prominently.

-- Karl, Chicago Skirmish Wargames club member

(Editor's note: This week's post is written by Karl, a prolific gamer, terrain builder and painter, and also one of the founding members of Chicago Skirmish Wargames. He wanted me to point out that the opinions below are his and his alone ... but if you perchance happen to game with us, you won't find an unpainted model anywhere on our battlefields. Also, a portion of this article appeared in Dakka Dakka.)

I frequent a number of forums, and periodically discussions arise regarding painting and whether or not it is a necessary part of the hobby. This often comes up among players of popular games like Warmachine, where players are rewarded for buying entire factions at once just to have a competitive option against every opponent. Similarly, Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 require a player to buy many dozens or hundreds of miniatures just to play the size of game most people at the local game shop will enjoy.

Some folks inevitably chime in with "it's just a game" or "it would be just as fun with chits." In the end, the discussion usually settles around a philosophy equivalent to: "Those who don't choose to paint their models have a different approach to the hobby and it's just as valid as yours."

Balderdash, I say! Pish posh and poppycock!


I will endeavor herein to make the case that painting is an essential part of the hobby, and a standard not to simply overlook. Like many here, I have a "live and let live apart" attitude towards folks who don't paint their miniatures. My philosophy is generally, "That's fine for you, but you'll have to find someone else to play against," though I'm wiling to make exceptions for folks whose painting is in-progress.


Still, I'm not so relativistic as to be willing to give some sort of tacit approval to those who don't paint and say that they're involvement in the hobby is just as good as mine. It's not, nor should we delude ourselves to think that it is so, simply for the sake of good feelings and avoiding offense.

Like any activity, there is a hierarchy of involvement. In the tabletop wargaming hobby, those who play with painted miniatures bring more to the table, and those with grey hordes bring less. It may sound elitist or harsh, and no one seems to like the word "hierarchy" anymore, but consider that every other hobby activity has standards by which they judge a member's degree of involvement and commitment to the hobby.

Why should wargaming be any different than other hobbies that require painting?

• If you're a part of a car club, but don't paint or keep your car up, you're going to be viewed differently. 
• If you're part of a fine-scale modeling club, but just assemble and convert your models, and don't paint them, no one is going to think that you've "finished" them or want you to display with the club. 
• -If you show up to a train club with a bunch of ready-to-run "Bachman" models with plastic wheels, eyebrows may be raised.

And holding to standards is not unique to hobbies requiring painting. They exist in every sphere of life.

• In sports, it's the better players who make the varsity team. 
• In music, it's the better musicians (or better promoted musicians) who get the gig. 
• In business, it's those who get results and profits who become executives. 

Likewise, if you show up to the table with grey hordes and aren't actively painting them, you simply "aren't there yet." You have neglected an important part of the hobby, and I'm not going to applaud you for your personal "approach" to the hobby. That does not make you (or me) a bad person. It does not reflect on your character, your behavior outside of wargaming or your worth as a human being.



However, make no mistake, painted models are part of wargaming and have always been. If you're content to repeatedly bring your Bondo-patched Camaro to the car show, that's your choice, but don't expect the same degree of esteem and approval from your fellow enthusiasts. Like any hobby, there are loads of people out there ready with tips and techniques to help you get your stuff done, and many more are willing do it for you for a price, but it's up to you see that it gets done.



I do not hold myself apart from these same standards and fully realize that they apply to me as well. I paint most of my minis with fairly quick block paint schemes followed by a Minwax dip. It's a standard I'm happy with and looks good on the tabletop. I even have a few prepainted miniatures that have been rebased and dipped!


But I don't ever expect to get the same kind of props or respect as someone who paints their miniatures to a higher standard any more than I would expect a best-painted award at a convention. In fact, sometimes I'm actually a tiny bit disappointed when I receive kudos for my fully painted figures, because it means that so many gamers are used to seeing hordes of unpainted models at their local game store.



To sum up, the hobby has standards. If you choose not to meet them, or your local game scene chooses to ignore them, then that's up to you and them. However, they do exist. Pretending they do not may give a warm fuzzy feeling to a few people, but it lowers the the hobby as a whole and does no one any favors. As one of the thousands of players who was attracted to wargaming by the spectacle of painted armies clashing on a battlefield of beautiful terrain, it's simply not a standard I'm willing to let go. Nor should any of us.

-- Karl, Chicago Skirmish Wargames club member

(Photos from the four-year history of CSW and the many games we've played during that time)

Last week, Jon, Mattias and Tim and I got together for the fourth session of our summer fantasy campaign. However, we decided to mix it up a bit and play a round of Kings of War, the mass combat fantasy ruleset from Mantic Games. The game operates at about a company level, and the rules and army lists are free to download.

Kings of War's army lists cover a wide variety of fantasy armies, with units that represent or proxy virtually any fantasy unit. Jon and Tim allied to face off against Karl and Mattias. Here's what we played.

• Jon - Clan War fantasy Japanese mostly using the Kingdoms of Men army list
• Tim - Celts and Tharks using the Kingdoms of Men and Ogre army lists 
• Karl - Chaos troops using the Kingdoms of Men and Abyssal Dwarves army lists 
• Mattias - Chaos invaders using the Twilight Kin (dark elf) list 

We played the "Pillage and Kill" scenario, where points are scored for both seizing objectives (six in this case) and killing the enemy. For the purposes of the game, we added a few more rules.

• Players were allowed to keep units in reserve and bring them in at any turn. They could enter the battlefield on either flank up to a number of inches equal to their standard move times the number of turns played. 
• A move conducted entirely on the road gives a player a movement boost of 50%.

Both players on a given side would conduct their turns simultaneously. We each fielded 1500 points. As we were playing on a nearly 7 by 6 foot table -- two feet deeper than a standard Kings of War table -- the first turns were mostly moving.



Tim used the road to great effect moving his Thark cavalry (which counted as six ogre chariots) rapidly towards the center. I moved up my dragon (listed as an Overlord on Winged Abyssal) and flying vampire (General on Winged Pegasus in the army list) to counter his advance. The dragon made quick work of one of Tim's Thark shooters, but went down in the following turn. The flying vampire met his end shortly thereafter.





On the opposite side of the board, the werewolves' nimble characteristic allowed them to quickly maneuver around the table, causing much havoc before being taken down by a flank attack by Jon's units.


My Chaos Knights, the only unit I placed in reserve, charged out on the fourth turn into the left flank of Jon's dragon. They looked impressive charging down the hill and made some early damage, but were shaken the next turn and routed the following.

In the center, Tim pushed on the attack. His hordes of Warriors supported by the impressive Thark Thoat riders.



Mattias was finally able to defeat the rampaging Thark cavalry, but had moved too far (or not far enough) forward, choices that would hurt him later. I managed to take down a couple of his units, but Tim choose his targets carefully and continued to chew up my force relentlessly.


As we hit the seventh and last turn, a few more of the chaos units went down. Too late, we realized Mattias's movement choices had left him unable to claim one of the objectives on our side of the table, as his artillery was just a bit too far away.


Further, through over-zealous attacking early in the game, I had lost the two flying units that I had counted on to contest the objectives on our opponents' side of the board.


Kings of War requires that an opponent score 20% more points than their opponents in order to win. By the end of the game, Tim and Jon were holding more objectives (300 points per objective) and had killed far more of our units than theirs, so with a 36% lead, the union of Celts, Tharks and Japanese had thoroughly trounced the chaos hordes.

Having only played this Kings of War game about five times, I'm still working out a good strategy for the initial deployment of my units, and I've yet to discover how to use archers effectively. This game was also a good lesson against recklessly charging into battle, even with one's most powerful units. I think we will all be more mindful of the scenario objectives in the future.

Once again Kings of War proves to be a fun game for mass battle fantasy. It's remarkably streamlined, but I still felt that there is enough depth to reward good generalship. Players who enjoy the detail and wealth of flavorful special rules found in Warhammer Fantasy Battle will likely find Kings of War to not be as quite so satisfying. However, Kings of War provides a package of rules that are quick to learn and satisfying to play. This is certainly the largest fantasy game we've ever played, but I look forward to trying even larger games sometime soon.

-- Karl, Chicago Skirmish Wargames club member

Karl and I managed to find a free evening last week to play a second game of Nuclear Renaissance, the post-apocalyptic skirmish game from Ramshackle Games. We're pretty excited about this game, as it gives us an excuse to use our prodigious collection of post-apoc vehicles and figures in a fast-playing skirmish ruleset.

Our first game, a 5-player affair played out on a 4x8 foot tabletop, was a bit too large to really get into the nitty-gritty of the rules, so we were glad to get an opportunity to try out a one-on-one game on a 4x6 foot tabletop. We bumped up the point total to 1000 to get more figures and vehicles on the battlefield. Here's the table at the start of the game.


Karl's task was to move across the battlefield and seize two objectives: the blue fuel pump on the right side of the map, and the fueling station itself on the far side of the table (the building with the vertical slats). He deployed most of his guys aboard a big, armored truck and roared across the shattered cityscape toward the fueling station, while a smaller contingent of foot soldiers hoofed it to the fuel pump (which was much closer to his deployment zone).


I deployed my post-apoc raiders (Kolony Ferals from Pig Iron Productions, if you're interested) near the fueling station, and my intent was to send them into the ruins and stop Karl's advance somewhere in the middle of the table.


Alas, it didn't work out that way. We quickly learned that Karl's truck (with a driver and gunner in the armored cab and 4 gun-wielding gangers perched in the back) was a virtually impregnable rolling fortress, capable of motoring at top speed across the map while everyone aboard sprayed bullets in all directions. This is exactly what happened in our game.


In Nuclear Renaissance, it doesn't matter how fast you're moving -- all passengers can fire out of a vehicle, and they can also claim a cover bonus when targeted by return fire. In practice, this meant that Karl could race his truck forward each turn, while it served a mobile bunker for the guys aboard.

I tried attacking his truck piecemeal with my few guys who had firearms, only to watch it shrug off the damage. I also tried charging into combat with the various passengers which, despite looking cool in photos, didn't even slow the truck down.


Finally I mobilized my buggy (converted from a G.I. Joe toy) and moved in close to use my flame cannon against the truck. At last I scored a decent hit! But by this point my guys were fairly decimated and Karl had seized the fuel pump, so we called the game.


I'll have to chalk this one up to a poorly designed scenario (by me). Because we played on a 4x6 foot battlefield, my guys never even got close to the secondary objective on the other side of the map. The entire game came down to a small two-foot-square area around the fueling station.

When we play Nuclear Renaissance again, we'll need to really compress the battlefield (4x4 feet square, maybe?) to encourage mobility. Either that, or convert all the ranges from centimeters to inches.

Also, we only had 1 melee combat in the entire game, and it was a guy versus a truck. This game was dominated by shooting. This seems to be the norm for our games even though it seems to run contrary to the design philosophies of Nuclear Renaissance, which makes firearms extremely expensive to encourage fisticuffs. We've even talked about some formal house rules to limit the more powerful firearms, like the vehicle-mounted heavy machinegun, which basically splattered any target without much effort each turn.

After the game, Karl and I agreed that Nuke Ren works best within the framework of a club that can self-moderate so ultra-shooty gangs and munchkin characters don't dominate. Most any generic system with unit creation mechanics can fall prey to this phenomenon; it's not unique to Nuke Ren.

We also agreed that Nuke Ren is best suited for casual gaming or campaigning where scenarios and narrative gaming are paramount. For a competitive campaign or a tournament, the game might well devolve into an arms race. And of course, this scenario would have played out completely differently if we had added a third (or fourth!) player. Doubtless we'll continue to tinker with the rules to find the right balance for an ideal game. So far Nuclear Renaissance is a very decent framework with endless room to explore and experiment.

-- Patrick, Chicago Skirmish Wargames club member