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100. The Big One-Zero-Zero!

Hello, thrill-seekers and conversationalists.  Or should I say, "Howdy," since this is going to be a Western-centered post.  And I do say, "Howdy," quite a bit in real life, what with being a Native-born Texan who routinely wears cowboy boots to work.

This is also my post #100.  Yippee!  Yippee-ki-yay!  Others have surely reached this milestone many times over by now but  I don't post very often, since Life©® tends to get in the way, and it also seems like Blogging has diminished compared to it's heyday.  Now everyone vlogs or does the Tube-o-You's.  But back when I posted my first placeholder message on August 11, 2009, I didn't really even know what I was going to do with this little corner of the Web.  (My third post, wherein I attempted to solve that age-old problem of painting more really works, but ask me if I live it.  Physician, heal thyself, right?)

Anyhow, on to this post's subject:  the Old West.  I've fallen in love, for the first time, all over again, with the Old West.  I've been watching lots of old movies, many that I've never seen before, thanks to the streaming service Tubi.  They've got lots of really good stuff on there, and not just Westerns, but Westerns are what I've been watching.

And painting.  What really got me started was when Too Fat Lardies debuted their new game "What a Cowboy!"  I watched their videos and thought that looked like it captured the feel of a Western gunfight pretty well.  I already owned Great Escape Games' "Dead Man's Hand" rules, but for some reason they never captured my interest.  Then shortly after "WaC!" arrived, GEG Kickstarted a new version of DMH, which I backed and that got me keen to play their game too.

In between, I had purchased six buildings from GEG to make a small main street and spent several fun hours putting those together.  That was a new experience for me, working with laser-cut, pre-painted MDF wood.  Somewhere in there I "discovered" the rules called "Gunfighter's Ball," from Knuckleduster Miniatures, and more importantly, their own line of miniatures.  I still don't have a copy of the rules (yet!) but I absolutely love their miniatures; they are some of the finest sculpted figures I've ever seen, ESPECIALLY since they're made to look like famous actors from the movies.

So I went deep in on several sets of Knuckleduster's miniatures, buildings from GEG, GEG's Kickstarter (which included 3 new plastic buildings, among other things), *AND* I bought some more Western laser-cut, pre-painted MDF buildings from Black Site Studio, from their Tomb Canyon range.

I'm set for a while.  I've played a few games of WaC! with my son and we enjoyed it, and now I'm ready to try DMH Redux.  One of the nicest things about Old West gaming is that you don't need a lot of figures to play.  The buildings are the most expensive and time-consuming part, but once they're done then you've got all you need.  (Mostly.  What miniatures gamer can ever truly say they have all they need?  AmIRight?)

And now, on to the pictures, which is enlarge if you click on them.  These are all from Knuckleduster, unless it says otherwise.

Fresh off watching "Tombstone," I painted these Earp brothers.  L to R:  Wyatt, Virgil, Morgan, and Doc Holliday.

Lots of dark colors, those Earps (and friend).  Black can actually be a very difficult color to get right.

This is the image from the movie I used as reference.

These are two Cowboys who end up helping the Earps, Turkey Creek Johnson and Texas Jack Vermillion.

The real history of the West is just as fascinating as the movie versions, if you ever get the chance to read some of it.

It was very difficult to find good still images of these guys, so I made do with what I could.

These are the Cowboys.  L to R:  Curly Bill Broscious, Johnny Ringo, Frank McLaury, Tom McLaury, Billy Clanton and Ike Clanton.  The McLaury's and the Clantons were the ones at the O.K. Corral.

A slightly different angle.

I tried to copy the correct colors as much as possible.

That finished off Tombstone.  These were enough for me to play a few games of WaC!

Next up, The Man With No Name; and "Once Upon a Time in the West."

On the left is Harmonica; and Frank.

I'm pretty happy with how Harmonica's jacket turned out.  However, it was after taking this picture I discovered that I had missed painting his hair!  So I went back and fixed it.  (Something about not seeing the forest for the trees....)

Here we have the Spaghetti Western icons:  L to R:  The Man With No Name (although sometimes called Blondie, etc, he never GIVES his name) as seen in all three of his films but here he is primarily "The Good"; Angel Eyes "The Bad"; and Tuco "The Ugly."  Rounding out the foursome is Ramón from "A Fistful of Dollars."

I always found it interesting that the same actors were in the two of the three movies, in different order, but playing different characters; only Clint was in all three and he played the same character.  In other words, Angel Eyes was in #2 & #3, Ramón was in #1 & #2, but Tuco was only in #3.  What's more, film #3 was meant to be the first in the story order, but was filmed last.  That's why Blondie only wears his classic look at the very end of the movie, when he takes the items off a dead soldier.

I think this is enough for now.  I do have more painted figures that I was waiting to finish to add to this post, but now I think I'll wait.  Which means I could have posted #100 a long time ago.  Oh well.  I want to end on a high note here, and the next set of painted figures...well, you'll see.

But for now, THANK YOU for reading, pardner!

99. A Little Bit 'o Dis, A Little Bit 'o Dat

Edit Update:  It appears I update here SO infrequently, that even I don't remember what I've posted about.  Apparently, blog #98 has details on my Stargrave figures.  But hey, these are all new photos, so it warrants a whole new blog post.  I guess.

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Ah, my sadly neglected blog.  Well, I guess I better throw a few bones to the hungry masses clamoring for more content.

What's that?  No one reads this because I never post anything new?  How dare you blame the person responsible!

Anyway, with that silliness out of the way, here are some pictures of 28mm miniatures I've painted recently.  (And by "recently" I mean sometime in 2023.)

First up are some Stargrave Crew miniatures, although I actually bought them to use in Space Station Zero.  This link is from North Star, but I think I got mine through Wal-Mart.com.  The box makes 20 figures, but I only built 10; 5 for my SSZ Explorer team and 5 for my son's Pirate team.

From L to R:  my Commander, Medical Officer, Ace Pilot, Soldier and Chief Engineer.  I went with a blue color scheme.

I added lots of add-ons that are in the kit.

This is my son's team.  From L to R:  Commander, Soldier, Engineer, Ace Pilot and Medical Officer.  I gave them a green color scheme.  According to him, his Soldier and my Commander are brothers.

He wanted lots of bits added, too.  Fortunately, he wasn't picky about much else.

One thing he wanted in particular was some sort of insignia on their left shoulder.  He drew out what he wanted and told me what color to make it, and I did my best.  You'll have to click on the image to make it larger to see it, though.

Next up are some Pulp Figures 28mm miniatures that I've had lying around for a long time.  These weren't for any particular game that I have in mind, but they were a good "different" thing to paint after lots of plastic sci-fi.  But I was also in a bit of a hurry, as I sometimes feel the need to "get-it-done," so these are actually a bit plain.  I was going more for rich colors than I was for adding intricate details and paint-y bits.  "It is what it is."

These are "Evil Hooded Minions 1."  I went with a deep rich purple, as Purple Hooded Minions just has a nice ring to it.  The little round ball at the end of the pistol is, I think, a blob leftover from molding, but I thought it looked kind of cool.  Is the gun firing?  Is it a ray gun only the zombies have?  Who knows!

Purple is a difficult color to do well, for me, anyhow.

These are "Evil Hooded Minions 2."  I did not paint whatever-it-is-they-call-it when a lantern casts it's light on the miniature.  I'm not that good, and I really don't care.

I painted all of their pants' legs a business-suit grey, because it totally fits with my idea of Corporate Suits Worshiping Great Evil.  They do that anyway, right?

But not all Great Evil is the same, and some Corporate Suits want to worship some other, alternative Great Evil.  So that's this group, "Cowled Cultists 1."  I wanted a menacing color scheme (that wasn't purple), so I went with a deep, rich, blood red.

Deep, rich, blood red is also a difficult color to do well.  I tried my best.

The blood red cult has got a better idea of things, in my opinion, 'cause if I'm going to join a Great Evil Worshiping Cult, I'll probably join the one with the hot women in it.  These figures are "Cowled Cultists #2."

Obligatory action shot:  the two opposing factions meet!

Here's a look at what this Cultist is reading.  Careful, or you'll go mad!

Anyway, that's it for the moment.  I do have a few more new things but they'll have to wait until next time, the big 100 post.  Feels like it needs something special....

Thanks for reading!

98. Space Station Zero

Having seen a play-through on the Lead Adventure Forum about this new game called Space Station Zero, I had to check it out.  It's blend of horror, sci-fi and campaign play really caught my fancy so I purchased it in print.  The original post of the write-up also had pictures of their BattleSystems cardboard terrain, and that seemed to fit the bill just right.  That got purchased eventually, too.

I didn't really have dedicated miniatures that I wanted to use for it, and I really wanted to play it in 28mm scale, so my son used some old Star Wars pre-paints, and I dug out my Necromunda Escher gang, while I ordered and then painted some Stargrave miniatures.  You can see those closer to the bottom of this post.

One of the things about the game that I found difficult was being able to tell which miniature represented which character, since for me the miniatures were obviously not originally those characters, so I took a photo to help remind me.  In the game, different characters have different skills, so it's important to be able to know who is who.  My son, who has a much younger brain, had no problem with this.

Be warned, there are LOTS of SPOILERS below.  Stop now if you don't want the game Challenges spoiled.

I chose to run an Exploration crew of 5, with a Commander, Medical Officer, Soldier, Chief Engineer and an Ace Pilot.  (See the photo above for who is who.)

My son ran a Pirate crew of 5, with a Commander, Soldier, Engineer, Ace Pilot and Medical Officer.  (I think, L to R:  Commander, Engineer, Pilot, Medic, Soldier.)

Our first game began with Challenge 1, "Docking Bay Access Port," with Poison Gas and Ancient Sentries.  It's a good introduction scenario for learning the rules.

I used Space Marines to represent the Ancient Sentries.

I took these photos very quickly with my phone, so they are what they are.

We survived Challenge 1, and a random roll led us to Challenge 5, "The Medical Bay," where we had to overcome Medical Drones and Control Pods.

I ended up mixing Nightmares from Legions of Steel and Imperial Probe Droids to be the Medical Drones.  I only had 3 Probe Droids, so I had to use the Nightmares to supplement.

We were once again successful in surviving the Challenge, which then led us to Challenge 2, "The Darkened Hall."  There were Laser Traps and more Drone Sentries.

That Challenge ended up being fairly easy, so we moved on to Challenge 6, "Pod 6."  This Challenge had a Virus Bomb, Deranged Mutants and Gun Turrets.

I got to use some zombie figures for the Deranged Mutants.

We only just managed to survive that one, and moved on to Challenge 7, "Science Lab."  This had Experimental Mutants and a Black Hole.  By this time, I had finally finished painting the Stargrave miniatures for myself and my son.  Here they are:

Meet my Commander, Medical Officer, Ace Pilot, Soldier and Chief Engineer.  Going along with my not being able to tell who was who, I tried to differentiate these, by painting my Medic with a red helmet/white cross, the Pilot has cool sunshades 'cause pilots are cool, the Engineer has a wrench to fix things, etc.

These are (L to R) my son's Commander, Medical Officer, Ace Pilot, Soldier and Engineer.  I tried to paint them so it would be easy to tell who was who, but went mostly by what he told me he wanted them to look like.  I did talk him into letting me paint them with green jackets, in order to make them easier to distinguish from my blue jacketed figures when on the table. 

One thing he wanted was a "shoulder patch," identifying them as belonging to the same organization.  He gave me a basic design and that he wanted it an "aqua" color, and so I did the best I could.

These were recently shown in my previous blog entry about Blasters & Bulkheads, but here they are in greater detail.

I used some old Hormagaunts as the Experimental Mutants in Challenge 7, and a black hole as the Black Hole.

We continued to enjoy our good luck, and moved on to Challenge 9, "Chemical Lab."  This had Freezing Protocols, Anti-Fire Protocols, and a Chemical Reaction that, if not stopped, would kill all crew members in play!

We managed to strategize this one before starting, and gamed it pretty easily.  It helped that there were no monsters to deal with, more just a time-limit aspect.

Next we moved on to Challenge 11, which is where we left off.  Other interesting games have reared their beautiful/ugly heads, diverting my limited time and attention away from SSZ (or is it SS0?).  We'll get back to it eventually.

Never fear, the Stargrave miniatures have gotten a lot of use in those other games.  I really like the figures, and the box has 10 more waiting to be put together.  We never named our characters, partly out of laziness, but also because we were both afraid of the dying in the depths of Space Station Zero.  Maybe it's time to give the names.

Thanks for reading!