A Few Turnips More

 Cranking out the Turnip28 troops. 

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With all the available stls, I have so much choice for variety. Artillery next!

A Fistful of Turnips

 I've been a early fan of #turnip28 since it came out, but a late painter. I dig the weird aesthetic of a mud filled world of endless battle mixed in Medieval meets Napoleonic obsessed with root vegetables. I didn't really have the time to do all the kitbashing required for when the game first came out. But now there are multiple 3D artist with lots of printing choices. Time to get out the brushes.

I enjoy making my own uniforms mostly because there's no wrong way to do it. No Nappy button counters here!

 I like the look of a tightly packed base vs moving individual figures around, especially when we're talking brittle resin. I added small dice holders the track casualties. That way I can use different rules. We've been playing a lot of Dragon Rampant and these bases will lend themselves nicely to that game.

 

 Lots more weirdness to come!

Back on the blog

Hey everyone! I'm back. Work and real life has kept me from adding to the blog for a bit, but I promised myself I would start posting more often.

I've been itching for soe old school fantasy big battles and wanted to use that as an excuse to paint some new troops.

Enter the Dwarves! It's an army I'm used to playing or painting. But I saw these digital sculpts by MOM miniatures and it was time to fire up the printer!

 They fared really well in their first outing, but last weak they got routed. I'm blaming my Northman allies and their tricksy wizard who got us in to the whole fight.

This bad boy pin cushioned quite a few enemy bowmen. But the trade off of a huge bolt for a single lowly bowman seemed out of whack.

The King and his Boar Riders seemed fearsome, but they never quite got to close with the enemy. Shot full of holes from a distant. I'm sure the enemy had a BBQ after.

My scouts were another poorly used ynit. I should have kept them in the tress.

Stalwart clan warriors.

The Iron Beards. They held the line so the rest of the army could escape.

Finally, my Berserkers. They got their freak on a turn or two, but ultimately the drugs wore off.

Next I'll be painting up some Hearthguard and Miners. 

 

 

 

 

 

TaKtiCon 2025

 We had a great time (and a few sales) a couple of weekends ago at TaKtiCon in Kansass City (see what they did there with the K and C in the title?). While it's still a new convention it was bigger than last year's first ever. Three tournamnets, and plenty of non tournament games in all scales and genres. Including mine!

Friday I ran Battlesuit Alpha. Space Pirates had landed to steal precious fuel from the refinery. They almost got away with it too if it hadn't been for those pesky Panetary Defense Forces and especially Fancy Dan, mech pilot extraordinaire. 

 

 

Fancy Dan takes on all comers! 

 

The cavalry arrives! 

Then Saturday it was a game of Glorious Adventures in the Age of Steam. We got a few fliers in the game to take the action vertical. Zee Germans were stopped from crossing the board.

 

The Rokkitruppen and Unicycle Uhlans died spectacularly as usual. All in all a great couple of days. Make sure to check it out next time. 

Battles and Brews 2025 (Backyard Edition)

 Battles and Brews is usually held yearly at our local brewery. This year I decided I wanted to change things up and design a wargame that could be played outside (more on that later). Thus Yardfighters! was created. St Louis based Basement General McMurray got onboard and designed a naval to play outside too. Wiley Games HQ became the venue.

I had some criteria for the outside game: no rulers, minimal record or status keeping, no dice because I didn't want the action to stop while players moved somewhere to roll the dice.

I decided on airplanes, but I wanted rockets and missiles involved so I moved it up to the early jet age. And because I wanted a mix of different jets I had it take place in a mythical Africa Imagi-Nation where all types of surplus aircraft were dumped.

Rather than build 8 different kits I designed and laser cut out all the planes out. Some quick spray paint with details from paint pens and those were done. I decided paper airplane size was good. For bases I use octagonal  bases. Why? face changes of 45 degrees would be easy as each face is 45 degrees. It also makes for a handy fire arc. I attached the planes to the stand with magnets for easy storage and facing changes.

Turns are divided into two phases: Movement Pahse and Shoot Phase. Players receive two cards each turn. One is for movement order, one is for shooting order (player's choice). Highest player goes first in each phase. Suit is only used to decide ties and aces are wild.

Maneuvers and movement are decided by strides and steps with facing turns made. Extra facing changes could be made at the expense of gaining G-shock.

When it comes to shooting we use Washers (a US backyard game similar to Horse Shoes or Cornhole). Distance was imply from jet to jet so players could chance it from a distance or get in close (where they still missed regularly). The box was divided into 9 squares which determined the damage location on the jet. Getting it in the center meant the attacker could choose. Every player had washers equal to their munitions load out. Whe they ran out, they were out of ammo. The washers were divided into missiles and machine guns each with a colored side and a white side. If you pilot is in G-shock, washers that come up white don't count. Simple!

Despite the heat and incredible humidity, we had a dozen folks come out to give it a try. It turned out really well. Many players said they couldn't wait to play again. That's why I'm leaving details of the game hazy so I can sell it!

We moved inside to the blessed A/C to cool off, have some pizza and run some more games. Steve ran a Terror Island game (using Fistful of Lead of course) while CluckAmok ran an Armored Storm game. 

I played in the Terror Island game and had two members of my elite team, the Howling Aces, taken out by enemy dogs first turn. I was down to my team leader by turn 3 and left with a sad amount of treasure. 

Then as the sun went mercifully down the backyard turn into the Pacific for a duel between British destroyers and Japanese ships. The Japanese had to run a guanlet and almost made it. It was brutal

Once again, hits were decided by tossing washers. 4 hits started a ship sinking. Torpedoes hits were decided by tossing a large foam die. If it landed touching the ship base, the face showing determined the number of hits. Great game. The only change that decided needed to happen was the addition of a bunch more ships! 

The whole thing has me excited to run another Yardfighters! game in the cooler Fall. This time with WW1 biplanes. I'm thinking I'll cut them out and send them out to players to paint their own plane designs like a real ace.