Product Review: Proxie Model Bases

Miniature bases are not something that I will make a fuss about. I have bought plastics from various manufacturers, wood discs from craft stores and of course, metal washers.  Plastic is my preference but if it is 30mm round or 25mm square, it will probably do.  Occasionally however, the search for bases leads to a genuinely cool find.  

I stumbled across Proxie Models on eBay, but their webstore is just as good and probably better for the company's return on the dollar.  The bases themselves are black and with a slight textured surface.  That possibly helps material adhere better to the plastic, or it may just look good.  A $4.50 package contains four sprues of eight bases.  Added bonus - the round center sprue makes a good stump or log for terrain builders.  

The bases have a slight lip, which is convenient if you are adding some kind of basing material.  I like a mixture of fine sand, latex caulk and paint. The base edge creates a nice border which holds the material better than a flat base.  

Their products are made in the USA and shipping speed is excellent.  I have placed two orders with them so far, and my bases arrived in less than a week.  They also have some 28mm modern/futuristic terrain, including a pre-fab building that makes me want to play Fallout 3 with miniatures.  

Proxie Models 

Characters and Monks for Ronin

It has been a while since I posted, and the big Ronin game never happened.  A sad, but not unexpected family loss took precedence last week.  This never has been a blog where I discuss personal matters, but insofar as it relates to the hobby - any hobby - recreation and creativity are great ways to work through sadness and loss.  However, family and responsibilities always come first.  Now, some minis...

Hopefully I can run this game in the future, but here is a look at some of the characters and terrain I had planned for that game. Most of my figures are from the early Samurai period (11-13th century). This era also saw the rise of militant Buddhist monks, in which rival temples fought over relics, property and imperial favor.  In this four person scenario, a sacred scroll currently possessed by one temple of monks has been awarded to another - but the owner's won't give it up peacefully.  The owners of the scroll, along with nearby villagers who have a vested interest, are fighting to keep the scroll and the pilgrimage income it generates nearby.  Two players would then control the monks and villagers respectively.  On the attack are the monks seeking the scroll, along with a small group of warriors who wish to see the imperial orders carried out.  Each set of allies has to work cooperatively to win, but victory points are awarded based on number of enemy killed and who has possession of the scroll at the end of 7 turns.

These two characters are from West Wind and would have been the leaders of the peasant faction.

Added to my previous sets of monks, was this unit of Sohei in red, to match their temple. 

Here is the temple that housed the sacred scroll.  It is from lasercut MDF by Renaissance Miniatures. It was from their second Kickstarter and it assembled very quickly.  

The roof is removable, but a bit fussy to snap in place. It is in three sections, which is better than a single section, but it can be difficult to get all three to snap into place.  With any MDF kit, the larger the pieces or span of assembly, the more likely that small gaps will develop that can prevent an exact fit. The gaps can be from using too little glue and not clamping it long enough so that the parts drift as they dry, or alternatively using too much glue, which spreads into spaces meant to be left open.  

The interior is large enough for a combat scenario, or to add some small furnishings. 

A statue of a Buddha from a home store ($3 on markdown) makes an appropriately sized massive idol. The small building is also from Renaissance Miniatures.  

If you are into pirates or Old West, Renaissance Miniatures has a few days left on their third Kickstarter. I am still undecided about it - pirates are an era I have considered but I am not sure if its the right time to add more projects - but the company is very good at customer response, updating and delivering in a reasonable time.  Check it out if you are interested.  

In the City - A Byzantine Urban Skirmish

Very little figure painting was accomplished this past week. Non-hobby related duties took precedence, but I managed to put together a few movement trays.  I did also play a new skirmish game which I think shows some uses for paper terrain for the historical wargamer.

The rule set was a Song of Blades and Heroes variation based on urban violence in the Ancient era - think HBO's Rome TV series.  It did not take much effort to convert some of the character types to medieval Byzantines.

Different characters have different special abilities, and what appealed to us was game mechanics involving the civilian characters.  If violence occurs near civilians, they may either run or join in.  Also, characters with certain abilities can try to recruit civilians to their side.  Buildings can be entered and exited, and rooftops can be an additional combat surface.

As with all of the SBH rules, it is fast moving and easy to pick up.

 In this scenario, an emperor's relative has stopped at a small Mediterranean or Black Sea port and is heading from the market back to the jetty where a small boat can take him to a ship.  Unfortunately, somebody high up wants him dead and the local governor, the Praetor, and some spearmen are to eliminate him.  The town guard (archers on the wall) are not in on the plot, but might be recruited to either side.

The emperor's brother and his Varangian bodyguards at the market:

The two side's assassins pursue each other through an alleyway.  

Shortcut through the alley now that the enemy assassin has been taken care of: 

And, like most skirmish games, strategy and tactics devolves into a melee free-for-all in the end: 

The terrain is mostly from Fat Dragon.  Many of Fat Dragon's PDFs have different layer options so tile roofs and shingles give the buildings the medieval Mediterranean look.  It's not exact by any means, but even with the cost of inkjet cartridges, it is less expensive than resin buildings and streets. On the downside, construction is time consuming and getting an exact fit can be fussy as some of my pics show.

Ganesha Games has Song of Shadows and Dust  as does RPG Now, which is where I bought the Fat Dragon terrain.

Review: Happy Seppuku Basing Stamps

The impact of Kickstarter on the gaming hobby exploded in 2013 - judging by the amount I funded this year (6) compared to 2012 (2). Most of my experiences were good, but the Happy Seppuku basing stamps were the rarity that delivered on time and as promised. They delivered shortly before Thanksgiving, and after a month of use, I have some reasonably presentable results.

The stamps are in the form of a stiff rubber-like mold, about 3x5 inches.  A bit of two-part putty can be placed on a base and pressed into the stamp to give it a certain texture.  Also, some of the accent stamps can be used to produce small bits for your terrain or scenery.  

Across the top: swamp accent, brick, treasure horde and tavern accent.   On the bottom row: snow/mud, sand and the sampler stamp.  

Below are some bits assembled from the tavern accent stamp:

Above, a primed mini pressed into the wood grain texture.  Below, the finished result.  

The swamp accent stamp used to add a stump detail to a terrain piece.

Final recommendation: For the historical wargamers, these stamps are probably of marginal use.  Basing a large army of figures to this detail is not an effective use of your time. The swamp accent piece might be the best choice for adding details such as vines, limbs and stumps to bases. However, if you are also an RPG GM or have an interest in fantasy/sci-fi skirmish games, these bases become a lot more of a value.  

Speaking of value, two part putty isn't cheap and that is perhaps the main drawback of basing most or all of your figures this way. On the other hand, an $8 pack of Miliput could easily create 50 or so bases and bits so the cost might not be too much of a negative incentive.    

I am still exploring the potential of these stamps, such as combining or overlaying textures and pining figures flush to the bases.

www.happyseppuku.com  

Bring Out Your Dead...Or Wounded...Or Maybe Just Drunk

This past week's painting project was to create some casualty markers out of wounded or dead figures I have acquired and not yet used.  The four following pieces were inspired in toto by a Rick Priestly article for Hail Caesar.  A dice sized square was cut from a 60mm plastic base, glued on top of a piece of heavy cardstock and then prepared accordingly.  The die face can be used to indicate fatigue in SAGA or casualties in Hail Caesar.

Below, a couple of vikings dead in the snow.

Above: I suppose he could be wounded, but I picture him as a drunk Varangian for a Byzantine urban skirmish I'll be running soon using Ganesha Games' Song of Shadows and Dust.

Above: a Viking casualty for a ship combat scenario. The basing was created out of putty pressed into a mold from Happy Seppuku. I'll do a full product review on their basing molds later this week.

One other note and a word of warning.  Most of the vikings that I have posted recently were purchased on ebay in a lot from a single seller.  They look to be Gripping Beast, Crusader and Wargames Foundry; not in blisters but shiny new.  The models also had a bit more flash than what I have usually experienced from those manufacturers.  With that, and the amount of figures the seller continues to offer, leads me to suspect recasting.  Not knowing more about manufacturing and casting prevents me from naming the seller and carrying it further, but it is something I will look closer at in the future.

Saxon Church

The  church was central to village life in the Dark Ages and so it is an almost mandatory element of a town game board.  I have already built a small stone chapel, and I was interested in a larger piece that could hold about two dozen figures, possibly large enough to have a portion of the combat inside the church.

Small early medieval churches that are still extant are rare, and rarer still are those that have been unaltered in subsequent centuries.  Nonetheless, a general purpose church for western Europe is not hard to put together. The basic elements are a rough stone walls, and a small tower of stone or timber frame.

For this church, the stones are cast from Hirst Arts, mostly molds #70 and 71.  The tower is made of foam core and craft wood, and the removeable shingled roof is from premade plastic sheets used by model railroaders.  

The good Brother points out a roof in need of repair to the local noblewoman, hint, hint...

For the interior, I am looking at purchasing an altar/pulpit and benches from some fantasy makers. Temporarily, I might go with some papercraft furniture.  

I am make no claims of full authenticity, but it fits in with the period.  Some research I did (post construction) showed that most of the pre-Norman invasion Anglo-Saxon period churches used double windows on the belfry tower and more rounded windows. A link to the article (with illustrations) is below: 

http://www.medievalists.net/files/08100408.pdf 

Terrain Project: Bamboo Thicket

Skirmish games such as SAGA and Ronin are a compromise between wargaming and miniature roleplaying.  Models become characters whose individual actions or successes can affect the course of the game.  With that sense of individuality, interaction with terrain is even more exact.  For Ronin, a bamboo forest is necessary to instantly evocative of East Asian landscapes.

I started with a number of round wooden craft sticks, about 1/8" in diameter.  They seemed to actually be real bamboo, not that it makes a difference on a scale miniature.

At first, I placed the stick in the chuck for a hand drill and then held a small file against the "bamboo" while turning it. This created the segmented nodes on the stem. Having three hands would have helped in this process.  If one has a drill press (second photo below), there is less chance of breakage and the notches are better defined, but it is a slower process to change out.  

 

The notched bamboo was painted light green with craft paint.  Next, foliage from an aquarium plant was glued to the top and sides.  I detailed the cane with a black wash to highlight the segments, then some drybrush highlighting. 

The bamboo was attached to a CD base with Miliput putty, and then covered with a glue/paint/ballast mixture.

With a couple of these on the table,  the terrain is evocative of so many settings in samurai and wuxia films.  Maybe on my next piece, I'll figure out a way to let my models do this: 

Andalusian Cavalry

My El Cid/Spanish project continues to expand with this unit of recently completed Andalusian Cavalry from Gripping Beast.  The set of ten contained a mix of Christian/Muslim knights, befitting the mercenary nature of some of the Taifa kingdoms' armies.

The only issue I have ever had with any Gripping Beast figures is the choppy or rudimentary look of the horses.  On these, I have no complaints.  The details are sharp, especially on the heads and harnesses.

Also completed this week, after about 6 weeks in the making, is this Norman watchtower.  I originally intended for it to be the keep for a castle complex, but that proved to be too ambitious.  Castles are nice to have, but there has yet to be a rules system that wants to fully tackle the intricacies of ancient and medieval siege warfare. The sides are built from Hirst Arts blocks and the floors from molded plastic sheets found in the railroad modeling section of a hobby store.

With that in mind, I changed it to a stone coastal watchtower with a hay signal beacon on top.  The floors and door are removable and can hold about a dozen models inside. 

The hay stack is made of Milliput and the groove on the side will be used to attach a steel wool "fire." Below, some Norman archers take aim.

I have some WIP photos that I might attach with a write up soon. 

Good Fences Make Good Neighbors (Battlefield Obstacles)

My scenery project for the week was a couple of lengths of wattle fencing.  I experimented with several different materials.  I started by drilling some small holes in a strip of thick card and a strip of plastic.  I glued small craft sticks in the holes and wove the "wattle" material around the posts.

The fence in the foreground uses some packaging material from one my son's toys.  A few years ago, almost all packaged toys used plastic strips to secure the items inside.  The end result was a lot of extra plastic and parental frustration.  Lately, many companies have been switching to tying toys in with some sort of natural fiber material.  It is fairly thick, but wrapped easily around the posts and was held in place with white glue.  The fence in the background used sisal string as the wattle.  Again, weave it around the posts and coat heavily in white glue.

After the glue dried, I painted the pieces brown, dry brushed in highlights and added basing material: 

I almost ashamed to acknowledge the size of my painting backlog.  This particular item below is from Gripping Beast's baggage train.  My wife bought it for me last Christmas and I am just now getting to it.

The baggage train is a nice set, but a bit pricey for something that can be scratch built with a little effort.  You get two ponies, two carts and about a dozen barrels, bags and tools.  One cart is pulled by the animals, but the other is meant to be a fixed piece of scenery. Preferring mobility, I stumbled upon another use for Gripping Beast's plastic Dark Age Warriors - farmer.   

I wish I had painted him with a dark beard to look more like Topol so he could sing "If I Were a Rich Man."  One other conversion with these figures that I am curious about is making a longship rower out of one.  It would take a great deal of time and green stuff to make a small crew, but it would probably work.   

And finally this week, I finished my set of Conquest's Normans with this squad of mercenaries. Standardized shields and clothing were probably unheard of in the pre-heraldic era, but for a small group of swords for hire, it works on the table.  I think they will get some use in an upcoming Normans v. Welsh battle.