Hover Tank!

 A while back I picked up a military play set that scaled about right with 28mm.  One of the vehicles I got in the set was a simple little tank.  It is about the size as a Games Workshop Predator tank and I considered just painting it up as is.  Then I decided to make it look more futuristic so I added some bits from a 1/35 scale X-wing starfighter kit.  That looked ok but it still wasn't right. 
Then I decided to turn it into a hover tank by cutting the tracks off and adding some hover drives made from cheap razor handles.  I think this looks much better.  There are some areas I could cover up like the fact you can still see some wheels and track but I don't think it will look to bad with paint.  For a cheapo toy with some junk added to it I'm pretty happy with it as is. 

Moving house at the end of March!

We are moving house at the end of the month to a new location that is much closer to our work and babysitter and just about everything else.  Right now we live about 6 miles outside the town where we work is a pretty nice community but gas prices are going up here and it's getting difficult for us to afford to stay.  The rent at the new place is only a bit more and we will have about twice as much house including some really cool options for gaming space. 

We plan to finish up a couple more projects tomorrow and play a game or two of AE Bounty while we pack but that will be the last game and set of projects that we plan on doing until we move so I will have perhaps a post or two more between now and the end of the month.  I also have one more "Maxed Out" game report to write which I hope to get done soon. 

We are all really excited about the new location and our new game space!

Old MacSpacey had a farm, ee i ee i oh!

 I just wanted to show off a brilliant space farm that was made almost entirely by my wargaming wife.  We built this for our generic and as yet unnamed sci-fi game setting.  It represents a farm in the area surrounding Station 42 and is part of that setting although this farm could be used in just about any sci-fi setting even the "Grim and Dark" ones I suppose.  Here are the buildings from left to right.  The pig barn, the hydroponics lab, a fuel tank, a com station, the farm house, a water tank, the garage, and the tool shed.  Below are some close up shots with several 28mm miniatures for scale.

Modular Tables Made Stupid Easy

I haven't made a productive post here in a bit so I thought I would share with you my stupid easy solution for modular game tables.  The only materials you need for this project is cold hard cash, or credit, or debit, or checks I guess.  That's because the perfect modular game table has already been made for you in the form of 2'x4' folding tables you can get from hardware or department stores. 

 These are "Lifetime" brand folding tables we picked up at Lowe's.  Several years ago we picked up two similar folding tables from Walmart but they are slightly different heights so they need to be shimmed up to work with these.  We wanted to have four tables so we could make up to a 4'x8' table without this hassle.  However we can put up three 4'x4' tables at this point which is pretty handy for RPGs or Wargame night.  The best solution is to try and get the same brand so that the heights will match up.  Each table cost us roughly $35.00 so it's not the cheapest solution but it's not too bad either. 

 Here are two of the tables put together to create a 4'x4'x table.  We have a number of different table tops for 4'x4' tables made from Masonite.  Another nice thing about these tables is that they can be used for project tables when you aren't using them for games.  They are plastic and clean up easily but you don't even need to bother cleaning them really since you will be putting some kind of top on them or some kind of cloth surface down to game on. 

 Here are three tables put together to create a 4'x6' table.  It's nice that these tables fold up so you can store them easily in a corner so you can put up or take down a good size table quickly and store them quickly if you have limited space to game in. 

Here are all four tables we have put together to make a 4'x8' table.  I'll note here that these tables make for a less sturdy surface than a dedicated game table but of course if you build up a large table it's hard to move.  You pretty much need a dedicated playing room to make a permanent 4'x8' game table and even a 4'x4' table will get in the way unless you have a special area for it.  These are more sturdy than slapping a 4'x8' piece of plywood on some saw horses but they are not jostle proof. 

We also have four 2.5'x5' tables so we can make a massive 5'x10' game table which we use for for our space port but it takes up most of the space in a two car garage and because the tables aren't the same brands we have to shim some of them up a bit to make them match. 

As I said this isn't a very cheap solution but it's super easy to deal with and store away when we don't need them.  We've tried other types of game table solutions but this is the one we favor because it's so easy to deal with.

2 New Games: Infinity and Star Trek Tactics!

 I picked up two new game recently.  Two very different games.  Infinity is a skirmish level 28mm game that I have been looking into for some time.  The figures are very nice and the setting seems very compelling.  We picked up three factions: Ariandna for myself, Nomads for my wife, and Pan Oceania for our daughter.  We are starting out with just the boxed set and then if we like the game we are going to build from there. 

I normally don't play clicks games and I'm not a big Star Trek fan but this game actually looks fun and my wife and daughter both like Star Trek so it might be a good game for them.  The Starter set comes with four ships.  for the Federation you get; The U.S.S. Enterprise - A, and The U.S.S. Rhode Island.  For the Klingons you get; The I.K.S. Bortas, and The I.K.S. Rorarran.  Hopefully this will be a fun game to just set up and play without much hassle.   

Station 42 "Outskirts" update!

 We've been working on several projects for the outlying points of interest around Station 42.  I've been working on "houses" for Hardscrabble and Ramshackle.  I made several buildings out of cork tile to serve as basic residential houses for the two villages.  I wanted to do a simple roof treatment for some of them so I chose to make it look like they had tar paper roofs. 
First thing I did was take a paper grocery bag and cut it up.  Then I crumpled the paper and soaked in water.  I then used an Iron set on "cotton" to flatten and dry it. 

 After that I cut rectangles out and glued them to the cardboard roofs with a slight over lap.  This way it would look like it was rolled out over the roof. 

I spray panted the roofs black after I got the paper glued down then drybrushed each roof with grey to bring out the texture. 

                                    

 Here are the six buildings I finished with simple roofs.  The com station in the back row has a more complicated roof which I plan to use on some of the other buildings. 

 Another project we are doing for the outskirts of Station 42 is this farmstead.  In fact we plan to build a few farms that can be re-arranged to represent several different farms.  This farm is a small subsistence farm.  The building in the foreground will be a pig barn.  The small building is a utility shed.  The painted building in the center is the farm house and the building in the upper right corner is going to be the hydroponics lab.  There are also water tanks a silos.  We also have a garage for this set that isn't pictured. 

 For the hydroponics lab we are building little container gardens.  The containers here are made from water bottle caps.  We then glued a cardboard disk in them then glued sand over that for the "soil". 

 We picked up a number of different fake plants from Hobby Lobby for the "crops".  We tried to pick ones that looked like they would make good scale crops.  We figured with genetically modified crops we didn't have to make them look like anything specific. 

 Here were the first three I made as test subjects.  The one on the right is the most exotic.  If I ever make an alien jungle I'm using these extensively.

 We had nine caps made up so here are the results of a couple of hours of clipping and gluing.  I really like the way these came out and this seems like a reasonable number of containers for the Hydroponics lab.  Of course we will be making more for other farms. 

 My wife has built most of the buildings for the Station 42 project.  Here she is adding detail to the hydroponics lab. 

 Just for fun I thought I would include this "Bag of Cthulhu"  I picked up at a local game store.  I can't wait to build a temple for my Call of Cthulhu games. 

Finally I picked up a copy of Tomorrow's War by Ambush Alley.  We plan to use this rule set for larger scale battles in our 3031 setting that Station 42 is part of.  I've barely looked through the rules but they look interesting so far.

"Maxed Out" Episode 2:

New Vladivistock on Ceres, M.S.S.R. After their first attempt to work their way to Ceres aboard the heavy freighter "Ugly Betty" Jennie and Rocky decided to take a commercial transport to New Vladivistock to avoid trouble. They planned to find an used ship dealer there named Tommy "8 Toes" who they had purchased a "Skysweeper" attack craft from that they planned to use for their bounty hunting career. They were to meet their contact Johnny Walker at a pub called the "Red October".
New Vladivistock on Ceres is the most open city in the Martian Soviet Socialist Republic and is the most important trade city in the Republic. It is much easier to do business in the city for foreigners but it is still a tightly controlled city.
Upon their arrival Rocky and Jennie head to the "Red October" but their contact is no where to be seen. They wait for a couple of hours but he still does not show up or answer his com. After doing some investigating they find out where Johnny lives. Rocky also discoverers there is a small bounty out for him. On their way to Johnny's apartment they are stalked by a man in a long coat but aren't able to discover who he is.
After trying to contact Johnny a few more times Rocky and Jennie decide to break into his apartment. As they are investigating his apartment a number of his friends come in and hold them at gun point. Johnny eventually shows up and after some negotiation decided to help them get ahold of Tommy. He helps them acquire guns and forged papers to get them outside the city to where Tommy's business is.

After a little trouble getting out of the city they arrive at Tommy's place of business.

Jennie and Rocky investigate the office with Johnny and Trisha his girlfriend. They find the office door forced open and the office ransacked. Even Tommy's dog 'Scraps' is missing.

As they are investigating Tommy's office three vehicles pull up and a number of armed thugs get out.

A shootout takes place around the office area. Trisha is badly wounded and Johnny takes here back to the city for medical help. Rocky and Jenny question one of the wounded thugs that attacked them and find out that Tommy was taken by a local crime boss named "Bad Boris" for failing to pay his protection money. Boris had sent some of his goons back to Tommy's office to find the access codes to the ships on Tommy's lot. After searching the office and a ship that Tommy was working on they find a data terminal on the ship that is powered on. After a couple attempts to hack it they try using "Scraps" as the password and gain access to the information. On the terminal are the access codes to the ships on Tommy's lot. After fixing up the ship they had purchased using parts from some of the other Skysweepers on the lot they call up Victor "Bluetooth" Jones the illegal arms dealer Johnny had sent them to so they could purchase guns to find out if he had any ammunition for the 40mm cannons on their ship. After about an hour Victor showed up with about 100 rounds for the ships guns. Not a lot but it would have to do.

Rocky and Jennie loaded up the ship and took off to the location they had got from the thug they captured. When they got their the found an old Martian style military bunker that had a communications array on top. Rocky opened a channel and demanded that they release Tommy or she would level their bunker.

The gangsters called her bluff so she swung around behind the bunker and destroyed one of their vehicles with a burst of 40mm cannon fire.

Undeterred the gangsters fired back with assault rifles and a light machine guns. Their ship took a hit and Rocky lost control. Fortunately Jennie managed to help her re-gain control before they crashed.

All the fire they received had come from the top level of the bunker so Rocky hovered their craft just high enough to target that level. Jennie then used the cannon to start shooting the gangsters inside.

Their ship took a few more hits but nothing substantial. Rocky kept hovering the craft around the bunker as Jennie fired the cannon.

Eventually Boris and his gangsters decided that they weren't going to win the fight especially after loosing their light machine gunner.

They released Tommy and Scraps. Tommy was very happy to be released and he helped Rocky and Jennie do further repairs to their ship which they decided to name "Maxed Out".

Note: This was the 2nd episode in my home RPG campaign "Maxed Out". This is set in our 3031 setting. We used the "Savage Worlds" roleplaying system for this game but we also used other rule systems for games in this setting. This is also the setting for our "Station 42" project which will frequently be used in this campaign.