South Seas Village House

Another Sarissa Precision kit here, the Low Planked-Style Village Hut.

I bought this kit for my jungle table (see here), which actually got some use last night but I forgot my camera.

 I wanted to experiment with some material I bought at Michaels, though the tag has come off the bag and I can't find it on the web store so I cant tell you what it is called... naturally.

It's like dried broad leaf grass. I thought it might make good roofing material like a tiki hut has; made from broad leaf plants as opposed to grass thatch.

I am a bit ambivalent about the results. It comes in long lengths probably about a metre all rolled up,  and doesn't glue down very easily. Not only that it is a little coarse for this scale.

In the end it turned out OK but not quite as good as I had hoped. I also discovered a new basing technique that I really like but I kind of screwed up the colour. As you can see it is rather orange, not yellow like the sand of the beach or dark brown like the jungle floor.

I might add a little brown and/or straw coloured turf or static grass to tone down the orange some what but that will wait until we roll this table out again. 

Rumble in Chinatown

We started a new Pulp Alley campaign yesterday, 3 of us using our favourite leagues: the Yellow Peril, Rodio and the Mandalorians. Set in the Chinatown of an un-named North American city, each league had its own objectives. Rodio was in search of adventure; the Yellow Peril were on their home turf and trying to prevent a rival gang from committing arson and the Mandalorians were in search of a vital piece of equipment that would allow them to return to a galaxy far, far away and a long time ago.

Although the table featured fewer pieces of terrain than in the past it was loaded with NPCs that the leagues had to interact with to try to achieve their goals.

The local youths, just maxin' relaxin' an' actin' all kool:

Right off the hop the Yellow Peril were on the right track ; WuFang and Tong question a thug...

... who promptly bolts and is tackled by ping:

Rodio narrowly avoid starting a brawl with some local tradesmen:

This suspicious dude attracts the attention of both a lovely lady as well as the Mandalorians:

A new gang is introduced (lower left hand corner in blue) and they seem intent on interfering with the Mandalorians, one of whom they have nearly surrounded. As things start to heat up, the police arrive and the Mandalorians are forced to resort to violence to get what they want, taking out the stranger:

Much of the action happens inside the buildings (no photos as it proved awkward) but in this last photo Wu Fang and Tong investigate suspicious crates only to find they have been duped (Red Herring).

Next episode, the leagues converge on a tropical island...

A Picket Fence

Two weeks out from our next game of Pulp Alley and I am finished what I hoped to get done.

We had a hedge to line the canal but I thought some fencing would be nice for the railway track. I did some sniffing around online and although the MDF offerings were inexpensive they lacked the detail I was looking for. I settled on Rubicon Models plastic Picket Fence Set 1 (it also comes with a couple of street signs which I don't have a use for yet).

It come with 4 sprues with 4 sections of fence,  a gate and a sign post on each . I would only need two of these sprues for my 3' by 3' Pulp board. 

You could easy just prime and drybrush these as they have very nice but subtle wood grain texture , but I wanted a white washed fence that looked like it was in need of a touch up. I thought it would look nice on a green backdrop. 

 But really it's for the urban table:

 In Pulp Alley I imagine a single success on finesse or might to leap the fence otherwise go through the gate.

A Railroad For The Urban Table

You may recall the urban table I made for Trumpeters Salute 2018 (see here). The plan was always to be able to replace the canal with a rail way. To that end I bought some Sarissa Precision MDF track and a signal. I raised the track using some cork and blended it into the foam with some Spackle.

After sanding down the Spackle, I lay down a mix of floor adhesive and sanded grout, sticking the shrubs directly to this mix as well as the first layer of 2mm static grass:

To blend into to the rural side of the tracks I used a mix of Peco Scene's 4mm Spring and 6mm Summer static grasses

The shrubs are a mix of Woodland Scenics clump foliage and my home made bushes using static grass and Scenic Express SuperLeaf foliage.

Although we will probably use the hedges next time we use these tables (some time in November) I would like to find some appropriate fencing to line the border between the town and the tracks.

A Game of Pulp Alley

I managed to squeeze a game in with Murdock and his son this afternoon, christening the abandoned airstrip table. An outdoor game on Murdock's deck, Dangerous Delivery the scenario:

 In this scenario, the Deathwatch lead by Mandalore are trying to get to the archaic, human flying machine to escape with a rare automaton. Here they are, having recently bailed out of the stolen police cruiser:

This will be a tough task as both the Yellow Peril...

...and Radium Inc...

...have teamed up to stop them.

Opening moves see the defenders push up aggressively ; Radium Inc flanks left, the Yellow Peril right:

The main plot point  has tumbled from an over-turned truck, apparently something of such value to a Renowned Professor that should it be lost, his family's honour would be stained for centuries:

Lin attempts to resolve a plot point stashed behind the quonset hut and fails, but Mao succeeds. Feng rushes over to take control:

The Deathwatch advance is cautious and they find them selves a bit hemmed in:

In fact it isn't  long before the setting sun reveals that time has run out for the Deathwatch, and they will have to find another way off this island:

 I don't recall the exact scenario details, but I believe the Attacker had to exit the table with more plot points than the Defneder controls after 6 turns. In any event,  I think  a bit of a challenge for the league trying to get to the plane. The only real strategy for the Attackers is to bust straight toward the main plot point, maybe a minor one as well, and then up the table; not a lot of time to dilly dally.

Airstrip Complete

The last major piece for this table is done, the Sarissa Precision Airfield Hangar. The kit as a whole is very nice: the trusses look good; the laminated beams and posts go together dead simple and also look good. The weak spot is the card roofing. MDF can be a lot of things but detail like corrugated sheeting is a bit of stretch. Not a problem for me though as whenever I visit a hobby store I always look to see what they have by way of Evergreen and Plastruct styrene products. As a result I happened to have some Plastruct corrugated roofing on hand, purchased some years ago. The picture below shows the original card roofing, followed by my Plastruct solution.

I could have used more 1.5mm x 3.2mm strip for batten but I was all out and the local hobby store has slim pickins' when it comes to styrene supplies.

As my impression of the original hangar was that the trusses where steel I went with that. Painted a faded light blue I then went a little nuts with the rust...

The corrugated roofing was basecoated/primered light grey and then some discolouration was added with Golden's  High Flow Acrylic Titanium Buff and a Ceramacoat Rain grey thinned with a combination of Golden Glaze Medium and Flow Enhancer. Then, of course, more rust; stippled Ceramacoat Burnt Umber   followed by some Burnt Sienna thinned with Flow Enhancer and painted in streaks:

As this is the last major piece to be added to this table it seems the right time for some family photos (who knows when we all be together again like this?):

So... on to the next project...