Dead Man's Hand

A month ago [how time does fly!], I had the chance to play a game with Stew and P at P's Palace.  As always, P is a splendid host, and provided everything necessary for a gaming afternoon, down to dinner with three choices of meals and even accommodations for those gluten intolerant. 

This time we played a game new to me called Dead Man's Hand, which as most of you know is a Western gunslinger sort of game, which is also how we played it. P and I had four dastardly fellows each, with the aim of preventing a hanging, and Stew had the eight "good guys" who were going to stop us.  Well, they planned to at least.  What was planned as a hanging became a massacre. 

My original setup at the start of the game

Two went left around the yellow house

Beatdown at the gallows

My dastardly crew

The lovely board laid for us

Stew also posted a couple pictures of the game at the end of this post.   Great game, and great fun.  Hopefully Stew finds his terrain and such to expand the options. 

I have dabbled in the Old West before, as documented on this very blog, but not for over a decade.  Cameras have improved tremendously in that time, so here are a few updated photos of my miniatures. 

Otherwise it is all Necromunda around here, several games played, with any bits of hobby time going into various scatter terrain. 

Irony, MT - Part 3

Here are some improved photographs of the figures from my Irony, MT project.  As I mentioned in part 1, these are Foundry figures, with the exception of  the first figure in picture three, who is from Artisan. 

I wanted to show off the weathering on this coat, but unfortunately at four times the size and with the colors slightly off it is hard to see.  I painted in the ground colors to the duster, to represent ground in dirt and then sponged a bit of a lighter color on top for dried dust.

I enjoyed painting these figures, and would certainly welcome the opportunity to paint a few more, although some terrain would also be nice...

Irony, MT - Part 2

One of the most important parts of a RPG game (for me anyway) is the map, so when I was putting together a set of western RPG materials for my wife's birthday [see previous post here], I knew that I wanted to make a map to go with it.

Since I had decide to use the Montana Territory for various reasons, I spent some time looking at Google maps, trying to find a town that was in mixed terrain, and was not too changed from its late 1800's plan.  The idea was to then look for a period map of the town, and use that, or a modification there of.  After some work, I finally found the prototype for my town of Irony: Bannack, MT.

Bannack, named for the local Bannock Native Americans, was a gold rush town that boomed quickly, then nearly disappeared before guttering out into the ghost town that it is today. I found a tourist map of the place, which had the look I liked, and drew a simplified version of it in Google Draw.  The pictures are either period pictures of buildings in town, or modern ones of the remaining buildings in the ghost town.

Click to enbiggen

After I drew the map with Google Draw, I then used MS publisher to put together this version, add in the photos, and the border.  I then printed it, and yellowed the paper with coffee and some dirt, folded it about 1000 times and there you have it.  I rather like it.

Irony, MT - Part 1

For my wife's birthday this year, I somehow hit upon the idea of giving her a set of miniatures and rules for western role play. 

Rules were easy, as I went for a hard copy of Go Fer Yer Gun, printed by Lulu. I also managed to get a PDF or the rule book when it was a free item from Drive through Games. This system is based on D&D, and should be pretty easy to pick up.

For miniatures, I went with Foundry figures, sculpted by Copplestone (OW9/2, OW11/8, and DA1/6). At $15 a pack, the Foundry figures were a pretty good deal, although the flat rate shipping was a little harsh, particularly considering that it took longer than expected for them to get to me.  I was pleased with the sculpts, but there were more mold lines that I was expecting, some of which were too difficult to remove.  I also painted a random Artisan figure, which had character, but was less technically accomplished than the Copplestones (particularly in the hands).

I painted the figures predominantly at work during my lunch hour, and had pretty good success with that.  My office gets fairly good light, so it is not too bad for painting. I did run into some technical issues, mostly having to do with the Citadel screw top paints having dried up.  My flesh wash was a solid mass, and the propellant from my DullCote had long since vanished, necessitating a trip to the hobby store to procure more.  I experimented with some new techniques whilst painting these up, including using a sponge for some of the weathering on the clothes, painting reflections on a bottle, and I used the Perry Miniatures article on Painting Dark African Skin by Steven May to inform my painting of this first fellow.

For basing, I tried out grass tufts for the first time, and was somewhat pleased with them.  It seems like the particular set of tufts I had were more irregular than clumped, but I think that the overall effect is good (and quick, which its own sort of good).

Enough words, here are the first four of the miniatures (out of 13)

  Clearly I need to work on photography, since they are much better "in the hand" than they are showing here.  Limited in this case by taking pictures at night with a cellphone.  More to come, including a map of Irony City, Montana Territory.