Whatsup?

It's been a long time since my last post and indeed I did as little hobby activity as the lack of updates would make you believe. Nevertheless, as the year draws to a close I feel like a little looking back and ahead.

The Port of Gierburg board is still a big work-in-progress. I find it hard to decide on how to proceed with the intended upper level and I really need to make up my mind and just go with something.

The British Unrated Cutter
from Games of War

In October/November, Games of War secretly released a new ship: A British Unrated Cutter. I immediately purchased the ship as their quality has always been absolutely top-notch and I don't want to again miss the oportunity - like their Sea Prince, which went out of production before I made sure to get one. What is funny is that I actually previewed their work-in-progress ships back in 2012(!) on this very blog (under the tag line "coming soon" too). How time flies...
Anyway, if you are only slightly into pirate gaming you should absolutely pick up their products. The cutter is a very very nice ship with superb quality once again. I shall do a review some time soon. In fact, the ship is already primed and it shouldn't be too hard to paint. Probably a good way to get back into the hobby.

The huge stunner last month was the release of the gigantic Town Gate by Tabletop World. This thing looks mind-blowing. Fortunately they also made the Guard Tower available again. My order is on its way and I can't wait to see these two pieces in the flesh.

The Town Gate from Tabletop World

Then I recently backed the Kraken Mat kickstarter because of their Cobblestone City mat. Usually I am not fan of gaming mats but their unique approach to producing the designs won me over. They actually build the terrain and then photograph it and only make final touch-ups in Photoshop. This gives the mats a very realistic look - realistic in the sense of wargaming terrain, of course. This will make it blend well with the actual terrain pieces on top of it. So that's the theory. I really can't wait to get mine. Hopefully it will be a great alternative to my never-ending Gierburg board so that I have a great board for setting up my finished buildings.

The Cobblestone City mat from the Kraken Mat kickstarter

So lots of toys to draw me back into modelling and painting. Also, I already look forward to next year's Tactica convention at the end of February. The visit always gives me a huge motivation boost to finish some projects.

I also heard that Games Workshop intends to resurrect the Specialist Games section. Will this mean an eventual return of Mordheim in some way? This is definately something that would spark my interest - even it were in the weird Age of Sigmar setting. Though I hear that all the (attention, pun incoming!) cool kids  are playing Frostgrave these days. Hopefully there will be a demo game at the Tactica to get an idea of the rules. After all, I was playing Mordheim in the snow already years ago.

Weather Dice

Recently I ordered a couple of different dice. Among them was a set of six-sided 16mm Weather Dice, which I mostly bought out of curiosity. Now let's see what we can do with them.

Once I held these dice in my hands and rolled them for a few times I immediately felt the urge to come up with a way to put them to actual good use. With all the pirate gaming there must be uses for them!

Here is a table with the six different weather outcomes and some game system agnostic effects. The idea is to always roll two weather dice and apply both results. However, the sun will result in overall good weather, negating the other dice's effect. The "cloudy" symbol represents a simple "no effect".

	Sun The sun is shining and the weather is fine. Dot not apply any other weather effects from the other dice.
	Clouds The weather is slightly cloudy but still fine overall. No further effects.
	Wind Wind is blowing, making it difficult to aim with ranged weapons.
	Rain It is raining. Blackpowder weapons may not function and need to be reloaded.
	Thunder A thunder strikes a random target on the board.
	Snow Snow is falling, decreasing sight and limiting the models' movement.

For a properly piratical weather table I would probably change "Rain" to "Heavy Rain" and "Snow" to "Light Rain". This is where things really depend on the specific setting and system at hand.

What do you think?

Broom Binder House from Thomarillion

At this year's Hamburger Tactica show I bought the newly released Broom Binder House from Thomarillion.



Usually the buildings and terrain I collect for wargaming are made from resin. The buildings from Thomarillion (produced by Ziterdes), however, use a very different, unique material: a light-weight, dense hard foam. Ever since I first saw their products I have been both intrigued and sceptical, but never found a good reason to buy any of these products. That was until I saw the new release the Broom Binder House, at the Thomarillion booth at the Tactica. It is a bit bigger than what I have seen from them and I immediately thought it would fit perfectly with the Stronghold Terrain buildings, such as the Town house.

Town Houses and Mansion from Tabletop World

Tabletop World released some very nice timber-framed fantasy houses over the last couple of months. After their latest release - an impressive mansion - it was time for my yearly order. As always this means another review of these new products on the blog.

There are few things in the hobby these days that excite me as much as when Tabletop World release a new building. And although I was quite critical with their Coaching Inn (specifically its size) that piece too is an absolutely beautiful eye-catcher on the battlefield once it is painted. So naturally I was very excited when Tabletop World showed a preview image on their website for their upcoming release. Between the announced release date and its final release date I was checking out their website daily to see if it was out already. Once the full gallery for the Mansion was up it were minutes until I placed my order, catching up on their latest products since the release of the Coaching Inn: Townhouse II, Townhouse III and the new Mansion. Let's take a closer look!

Townhouse III, II and the new Mansion next to each other

Golden Tom 2014 - Tom's Boring Painting Competition 2014

Games Workshop may have dropped Mordheim, but the community is still well alive. And what better proof could there be than the announcement of Tom's Boring Painting Competition 2014 over at Tom's Boring Mordheim Forum.

From Tom's announcement:

Did someone say “Golden Tom”? YES! It is finally here again by popular demand! After 6 years, TBMF is (finally!) back with hosting the second Golden Tom Painting Competition!
And this time, we beefed it up with an amazing, REAL, PHYSICAL, 300g BRONZE CAST, MAHAGONY BASED trophy!

THIS is YOUR chance to compete once more in the only Mordheim themed painting competition in the world and take the amazing Golden Tom statue home (well… technically you are not taking it anywhere, we will send it to you by post)
So wet your paintbrush, get the sculpting putty out, shake the paint pots and DAZZLE us, because who knows when you will get that chance again… maybe in 6 years?

This time there is a very special prize for the winners: These awesome statues were sculpted by forum member Ben "floedebolle" and one will go to each of the top three places:

So head over to Tom's for the full rules and start painting!

The Port of Gierburg - Part 4: Dock Section II Ground Level WIP

After completing the first section of my Port of Gierburg gaming table it is time to start with the second module. This one will be a lot more difficult and a lot more exciting. Due to its complexity I will handle the (under)ground level first and then tend to the rest later.

Similar to the first module this one is based on a solid 5mm MDF board. Following my initial plans (see Part 1) it measures 45cm x 72cm.

The concept for the port modules with two dock sections encapsulating a water board

Review: More Wargame Terrain by Tony Harwood

Recently my copy of "More Wargame Terrain" arrived in the post. Let's take a look!

After the excellent first volume "Building Wargame Terrain" Tony Harwood has released the follow-up book: "More Wargame Terrain" with more articles on how to create top quality terrain for the tabletop.

From the Outside: Production Value

This perfect bound, full colour soft-cover book has a total of 118 pages from front to back. The layout and production is pretty much the same as the first book so nothing new to explain here.