Throwback Thursday - Gamer Style

 Or how it all started for grubnards....

Recently I was moving some boxes around in my basement and as I was going through them I found some old books and games that I still have in my possession from 30 some odd years ago. Like many of you out there, my lifestyle of gaming goes way back to my early teenage years. I was born in 1970 and growing up in the mid to late 70's really didn't have much to offer us kids, in terms of gaming, other than established board games like Monopoly, Stratego, Battleship, and of course Hungry Hungry Hippos. In my pre-teens and early teens I was captivated by anything Sci-fi or Fantasy. My favorite books at the time was the Lord of the Rings, Conan the Barbarian, the Dune series, and of course Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica and Alien/Aliens rebooted the whole science fiction genre for a new generation. We used to visit a local book store in a nearby town that carried a huge selection of books, art supplies and gaming material. The book store was in a college town and that was probably the only reason they carried anything to do with gaming. Whenever I would visit the store I would spend some time looking over the novels but I always seemed to find my way wandering over to the gaming section and looking at all of the cool looking RPG game boxes, book covers, and miniatures.

Creating City Terrain: Tanglewire

Concertina wire, also known as razor wire or trip wire has military applications dating back to World War 1 when soldiers would take barbed wire and string it along the trench lines and in the no-man's land to make it difficult for enemy troops to quickly charge their trenches. At first it was strung up between posts or stakes but during artillery barrages the wire would become a mass of loose and tangled wire which provided to be more hazardous to enemy troops trying to overrun the trenches. The troops learned this lesson and started to deploy the wire in loose coils to hamper enemy movement. After WWI concertina wire became massed produce for military use. The wire was harder to cut and came compressed in flat coils that could quickly setup by a few men and did not require posts or supports and is still in use today. In the 41st millennium, concertina wire, or tanglewire, is still in use by defenders as a quick and easy way to block open avenues of attack in clogged city fights. As per the rule book, tanglewire counts as dangerous terrain and confers a 6+ cover save to untis behind the barricade. In this article I'd like to walk you through how to create your own sections of tanglewire to use with your terrain to add an extra element of realism to your table.

Mini Review – Citadel Paint Station +

     After a recent incident of paint spilling on our couch (a minor accident, I assure you), my wife made it clear that my old paint setup had to be reinvented. I was using Tupperware containers to store models, and a rectangle of MDF as a tray, but that no longer cut it. Knowing that I would drag my feet on purchasing a paint station ($55 on a paint station or maybe a new Monstrous creature?)  my wife leapfrogged me and bought the GW Paint Station +.

     I think the paint station works wonderfully, and its value increases when you use the accessories built for it. The build quality of the station itself is solid. GW’s old paint station used to be made up of MDF, and was susceptible to water spillage and deformation. This one is a heavyweight plastic, and it’s a different plastic recipe than our models, so spilled plastic glue won’t harm the surface. It also has spaces designed to accept GW paint pots, and paint brushes of virtually any brand. 

Tyranid Conversions

     A couple of weeks ago the rumor mill was saying that the highly anticipated flyer release was imminent. While I’m always excited to see new minis hit the shelves, especially the long awaited Harpy, I’m pretty sure that the rumor of a flyer release has been around every month for the last few years. I wasn’t too disappointed when I saw that next month’s release would be Warriors of Chaos, but it got me thinking about some of the conversions that I’ve made for the Tyranid units that didn’t have an initial release. Here are some of my conversions.