Tactica 2016

The annual Tactica tabletop convention took place on February 27-28 in Hamburg. As in the previous years before I went on Saturday and had a great time.

Again lots of great tables and participation games could be enjoyed. A table that particularly impressed me was this Frostgrave board. What I like about it is that it contains many of the Tabletop World buildings that I also have except that these were modified to turn them into ruins. Very cool!

Probably the most impressive table was this 16th/17th century Japanese castle by Frank. You can read more about it on his blog here (and part 2 and part 3).

Another highlight was this board from Freebooter Miniatures to promote their rules for playing with ships. I am already used to Freebooter bringing very cool gaming boards to Tactica but I liked this one especially because it is so unusual and effective despite its relative simplicity.

My 'preview highlight' of the show were these miniatures for a field bakery at the Black Hussar Miniatures booth. These Prussians from the Seven Years' War range are very cool looking unique civilians and I can very well imagine using them for my pirate games. They will be released in about a month and made available as several packs.

Another teaser was this crane at the Thomarillion booth. It would be a great alternative for my current crane and I don't think you can have too many cranes around the docks.

The Game

We managed to play one participation game of Jugula. My friend Jens was very interested in these gladiator rules from Studio Tomahawk so we took the opportunity to learn more about the game. It was indeed a quite enjoyable game and I can see how you can have a lot of fun mastering all the tactical possibilities. It would make for a very nice side project as you need very few miniatures and you can can build a great arena table if you like.

Treasure Hunter

I had a very specific shopping list this year. Firstly, I wanted to stack up on my pirate figures collection. In my opinion, Foundry still has the best range of pirates (aside from Black Scorpion, but the two don't mix that well). In addition, I chose to go with North Star Figure's Blackbeard model as a captain for this new crew. It really is a shame that their sets are so expensive (23 GBP for 8 models, compare with 12 GBP for Foundry's sets of also 8 models)

Then I picked up the rulebooks for Frostgrave and En Garde!. With Frostgrave being all the craze these days I wanted to take a closer look at the rules. I might even end up making a small warband. Or I guess I could use my existing gang of gypsies.

I have been a big fan of wagons and coaches since I first used a Stage Coach in Mordheim. So when I saw the coach from Schilling Figuren it was another immediate must-have. I already have a lot of unpainted wagons and coaches from West Wind's Empire of the Dead: Requiem kickstarter and the Berlin Carriage from Warlord Games but I just had to add this to the lot.

Finally, my most important haul: Elmar Fischer aka Elladan of Stronghold Terrain made these custom casts of his beautiful building fronts for me. I talked to him about my Port of Gierburg project and how I plan to have a huge facade on one side. He was so amazingly helpful to make these pieces from his out-of-production houses and fronts so that I can build a big facade from them.

In conclusion, the Tactica has been another fantastic event. I am especially happy about my purchases and super grateful for Elmar's help and support. I already look forward to next year.

Ocean and Cobblestone Gaming Mat from Deep-Cut Studio

Two new gaming mats have arrived for my collection: The ocean mat and cobblestone mat from Deep-Cut Studio.

After my great experience with the cobblestone gaming mat from UrbanMatZ I was looking for an appropriate sea mat for playing piratey ship battles. I found a suitable mat design from Deep-Cut Studio. At that time their mats were available only in two versions: PVC and cloth. I hadn't really seen any good feedback on those materials and I was very happy with the "mousepad material" which I got to know from UrbanMatZ. Just recently Deep-Cut Studio (DCS) made their mats available again in that version as well so I gave them a try. While I was ordering the Ocean mat I thought why not save on the shipping costs and try their cobblestone mat as well?

Unlike the UrbanMatZ mats, DCS mats do not come with a free carrying bag. If you already have one this is no big deal as you rarely need to carry many mats around. For storing the original package is sufficient enough, if not nearly as nice as a proper bag, of course.

The first thing I noticed is that the DCS mats have sharp corners where UrbanMatZ has rounded corners (true mousepad style!). I think I do prefer sharp corners although it doesn't matter much to me.

Another thing I noticed later on is the smell: The DCS mat smell a bit of rubber. It didn't last long, though - after a few days it was gone. But I didn't notice this with the UrbanMatZ mat.

The Ocean Mat

Detail image of the Ocean mat from
the Deep-Cut Studio website

I chose the large 6' x 4' version because - well - ships! If you plan on running 28mm ship battles you better go with the largest option.

Surprisingly, the design of the actual mat appears somewhat different to what you expect from the pictures on their website. The pictures show an uneven curly surface. Of course, I am not talking about the physical surface here - I mean the graphic design. The actual mat is more like a flat blue surface with the occasional white foam. The curly design is just missing (as if you had hidden a layer in Photoshop). Here is a photo to show the difference:

Detail of the Ocean mat from Deep-Cut Studio

I have to say that the design looks a bit better on photos than in reality, yet is still nice enough.

The different design aside, the mat is quite nice. The production quality is high and I look forward to playing my first ship battles on the mat. I believe gaming mats like these are the perfect solution for representing water surface. The material is perfect for moving ships about as the models slide smoothly across the board.

The Cobblestone Mat

I ordered this 4' x 4' cobblestone mat as a kind of bonus. I was already quite pleased with the UrbanMatZ mat but I wanted to have a comparison (and I was too impatient to wait for the Kraken Mat that would come sometime in May).
When I rolled out the cobblestone mat I was quite pleasantly suprised. The design is very nice. The details are sharper than those of the UrbanMatZ mat. The cobblestones are nicely small, very well fitting for 28mm scale. I also like the colours: The UrbanMatZ mat is kind of blueish while the DCS mat has a more "normal" brownish grey tone and fits my buildings much better.

A scenic shot with some buildings and highwaymen

A comparison between the UrbanMatZ cobblestone city mat and
the cobblestone mat from Deep-Cut Studio

The mats from UrbanMatZ and Deep-Cut Studio and their backs

All in all, I can definately recommend the mousepad version mats from Deep-Cut Studio. Of course, the different design vary a lot and it is very subjective whether you like them or not. At least the cobblestone mat I find absolutely excellent.

Cobblestone Gaming Mat from UrbanMatZ

UrbanMatZ produces gaming mats for the tabletop. When I saw the cobblestone mat I immediately ordered one.

Until quite recently I had never even considered using gaming mats. I am quite picky when it comes to terrain and building a gaming board. My personal gaming board project, the Port of Gierburg, has been going on for many years and I am willing to take the time, effort and costs that are neccessary to make it as perfect as I possibly can - with little to no tolerance for making compromises. A flat illustrated mat for a surface definately does not fit into this concept.

The Cobblestone City design
from Kraken Mat (4' x 4')

This was until November last year, when I saw the Kraken Mat kickstarter which, among many different designs, featured a cobblestone pattern. Before that I had never seen a cobblestone mat and even though I wasn't particularly interested in getting one I did find it surprising that there weren't any around. From fantasy settings such as Mordheim or Frostgrave to World War II settings you would think there is enough demand to justify such products. The story and photos of the Kraken Mat had me curious enough to give it a try. That's when I first overcame my inhibitions.

As of today, I am exictedly waiting for the Kraken Mat to arrive (which is currently planned for May I believe*). However, although the Kraken Mat looks absolutely beautiful from what I can see I still had one concern: With all the streets and pavements printed on the mat you are quite restricted when it comes to placing terrain features such as buildings, barricades, etc. To allow for all kinds of scenarios with different terrain setups it makes a lot of sense to have a "general purpose" mat - a full cobblestone pattern with no other features that restrict the placement of terrain.

So I was pleasantly suprised to see exactly this in a comment in the Mordheim Facebook group: the Cobblestone Battlefield mat from UrbanMatZ. I thought "I already got one, might as well try this one too", and ordered the 4' x 4' version.

The Cobblestone Battlefield mat from UrbanMatZ

Close-up on the details

The design consists of very nice irregular cobblestones. There is dirt, grass, blood stains and what I believe are manhole covers, all of which make the design more interesting. I would have actually preferred that there was no blood since I find that to be better suited for fantasy settings whereas my games are more on the historical side. Funny enough, such a blood-less version is available since yesterday.  So a bit of bad timing for me but very cool overall for all other potential customers.

I do not want to go too far into detail with reviewing this. There are a lot of (obviously positive) video reviews on the UrbanMatZ website and I will simply say that I concur: This is a really great product. I was a bit worried that the surface may be a bit problematic since this is mousepad material and I could see the fibre texture in the close-ups in some of the video reviews. But during normal usage you don't notice this - you have to get very close to the mat to see the fibre surface so I don't find this to be a problem at all.

We actually ran a game on the new mat just yesterday and it was great. The surface is soft and smooth (if you know mousepads, then you know this). This is perfect for moving miniatures and placing buildings. Before, the models regularly caused little scratches on my IKEA table. Moving figures across these mats feels a lot safer. Also rolling dice on the mat is a pleasure as the mat deadens the sound.

A little setup to give an impression of the gaming mat in action:
Highwaymen and Thief-catchers fight it out in the city

So all in all, does this gaming mat replace a properly modelled 3D gaming table? Of course not! But as my "proper" gaming table will turn out similarly restrictive in terms of terrain placement as the Kraken Mat I am super happy to add this piece to my gaming inventory. While my scratch-built table will be the obvious pick for "flagship" scenarios and photo-taking this gaming mat will be the choice when variety is needed. And because of its flexible design I believe it will actually see more play than my "main" gaming board. For only 45 EUR and a super nice carrying bag included I think this is not too bad a deal.


*Update May 28th, 2016: The Kraken Mat arrived today. Read more.

Using SketchUp for Gaming Board Building

The free 3D modeling software SketchUp is a great tool for planning tabletop wargame boards and I have started to use it for my own projects.

I had a brief look at SketchUp years ago when it first became popular after being acquired by Google. Then, I totally forgot about it until I read a recent blog post by Clarence Harrison over at Quindia Studios. He is building a new game board and uses SketchUp for the early layout work. This seemed super useful and as I have been somewhat stuck with my own gaming board - the Port of Gierburg -  because I am rather clueless as to how to continue with the layout and set-up of buildings and everything, I decided to reproduce my current board in SketchUp. This would give me a good basis to start experimenting with different configurations of buildings, walls and levels.

Workflow and Asset Structure

After a bit of fiddling I quickly settled with a "workflow" and structure for my assets:

1. Individual terrain pieces such as buildings, board sections, etc. are created and saved in separate files.
2. Another file is created for the entire gaming board. This is where everything comes together as the individual assets are imported as components.

I found this to be the easiest way of handling things as it allows me to focus on individual pieces and later combine them. This is not so important for the board sections, but if I ever end up with buildings, barricades and other items which are also "movable" in reality, I can try out things in virtual reality. Similar to how you would experiment with different furniture configurations of a room.

The Port of Gierburg in SketchUp

For my Gierburg gaming board this meant that I created the following three pieces (corresponding to their real-life pendants):

• Dock Section I
• Dock Section II
• Water Board

The digital version of Dock Section I

The digital version of the current state of Dock Section II

The dock sections put together

To get a better sense of scale I also made two quick sketches of the Town House and Tavern models from Stronghold Terrain. They are particularly well suited because of their simple architectural structure. I only did very rough versions of the buildings without detailed timber-frames, windows, etc. I might spend more time on such details if I am ever in the mood, but for now these models will definitely suffice.

Sketch of the Town House from Stronghold Terrain

Another view of the Town House

Sketch of the Tavern from Stronghold Terrain

The current board with the two houses

Now I have a great basis to try out different things for Dock Section II. I have a couple of ideas and visualizing them like this will hopefully help me make a decision so I can finally continue working on the board. Last but not least, this is also a great way of working on my game board when I am not in the mood or don't have the time to do actual modeling or painting work, yet still want to be a bit productive.

Tavern from Stronghold Terrain

The Tavern by Stronghold-Terrain is the latest addition to my collection of 28mm houses. Let's take a look!

The contents of the Tavern kit

I already painted up a couple of buildings from Stronghold-Terrain's range of medieval terrain: the Townhouse, the Guild House and the now out of production Facades. The Tavern now is the last building from their range (except for the Stables, which I am not interested in for now).

Like their other houses the majority of the pieces is made from hard plaster, except for the roof, the base and a few extra bits, which are all cast from resin.

Porcelain (tooth)brush stand

This is a little thing I wanted to share: A small toothbrush stand.

The Porcelain Toothbrush Stand
from MUJI

After a couple of months pause I recently got back into painting. And I finally got around to see how this little piece worked out... A few months ago my girl-friend dragged me into a MUJI store (because they seem to have very good pens). Even when on a hobby break I'm always on the look-out for things to put to use in the hobby. When I saw these small porcelain toothbrush stands I immediately thought that they will probably work well for holding brushes. It was also cheap enough to give it a try.

So, short and sweet: Yes, it does work well and I love it! The stand can easily hold a number of brushes (especially the thin ones used for wargaming/tabletop/modeling). What I like about this solution is that the stand is such a small elegant piece and the brushes are perfectly accessible (in contrast to the usual bulky brush stands). When I am working on a certain piece I usually keep using the same 4 to 8 brushes and they all fit into the stand. A great addition to my workbench, well worth the under 3€.

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.