Tuesday 16 December 2014

Star Wars Imperial Assault - Scale?

Whew! The postman really must hate me today since Myth, Shadows of Brimstone, my FFG DUST order and Imperial Assault all showed up at the same time! Anyway, here's a very quick photo to give people an idea of the scale of the minis. Generally, the bad guys are a little bit taller than the heroes (especially Vader and the Stormtroopers) although I suspect this is intentional on FFG's part:


From left to right: GW 40k Dark Eldar, Imperial Assault (Stormtrooper), Mantic, Imperial Assault (Luke), Infinity Prowler, DUST, Imperial Assault (Trandoshan), Imperial Assault (Hero), Wizards of the Coast droid.

Thursday 11 December 2014

Old Town Scenics - Townhouse A

So, another day, another Townhouse from TTCombat. Yet again they have produced a really nice kit with a larger footprint than the previous building and a second floor, too! 5 sheets, about 50 minutes build time and only two "Huh?" moments!

A few tips for this build:

1) I would suggest building one floor at a time.
2) Be aware that there are differences between the sheets and the images on the eBay auction. Notably, the window frames are a little different and the large window and frame on the front are quite different. Also, note the side wall on the ground floor that only has one window. The window is towards the back on the eBay picture, but towards the front on the sheet.
3) Since I kept knocking off the window frames during the previous build, I cut them all out first this time and as each wall piece was cut from the MDF sheet, I glued the frames on immediately. That way they were all dry by the time everything else was cut out and the building was ready for assembly.




The first "Huh" moment occurred while I was building the upper floor - I couldn't figure out where the triangular roof pieces were supposed to go. But then I realised the front and back outer walls didn't have any tabs on them to take the roof so I figured they should be glued to the inside of the front and back walls.


The second "Huh" moment occurred while I was about to call it done - I noticed that the stairs don't actually reach the ground floor..they are about 2 steps shy. More on that later.




All things considered, this is another great building for Malifaux or WWE and - as is the theme with the TTCombat range - very reasonably priced at £12. While I would have once again liked to have seen some detail on the ground floor / upper floor, such as some wooden planks, my only real complaint here is the stairs. While this can be remedied quite easily by cutting up some of the MDF left on the frame to create a raised platform at the bottom of the stairs.. or by TTCombat extending the length of the stairs.. the real concern is the way it is attached to the upper floor. 

Because it is slotted in and not in anyway attached to the ground floor, every time you lift off the upper floor you are taking the stairs with it and thus you risking moving / knocking over models that are inside the ground floor and any models unfortunate enough to be on the stairs are probably going to fall off. Even if you remove the upper floor successfully, you will have to slide off the stairs before you can set the upper portion of the building down somewhere and they might be easier said than done depending on how many layers of paint you have applied to the MDF. Instead, I think it might be better if the stairs are glued to the ground floor and the top of the stairs simply butt up against the upper floor without slotting in. 

Tomorrow I will hopefully tackle Townhouse B, then it is on to the tower! Next week I'll probably return to eBay and pick up a bunch of the new buildings that just popped up today. Dare I say it, but they look even better than the ones I have built so far!



Monday 8 December 2014

Old Town House A

Another MDF building from TTCombat, this time one of the western-themed dwellings suitable for Malifaux etc. 3 sheets, 35 minutes build time (including sanding) and definitely no need for instructions here since we know what a house looks like.


 
For the price, this building has a nice footprint on the table and I can see that it would be pretty easy to pick up 3-4 of these (or maybe two of these and two of the Old Town Scenics - House B) and call it done. The only piece of advise I have is.. don't glue the two halves of the roof together. Because they sit on tabs that are at 90 degrees to the angle of the roof, you won't be able to lift the roof straight off without having to bend it along the join.. which is probably going to break it unless you use some tape along the inside of the roof. Instead, I would suggest leaving the two halves separate and only glueing the ridge to one of those two halves. You'll just have to remember to take them off in that order.





The only oddity is that one of the side walls has a cut for an extra tab that doesn't exist on the front / back. It isn't a big deal though. I would also liked to have seen some interior detail on the walls but that would have required etching on both sides of the wood which TTCombat don't / can't do just yet. Some wooden plank detail on the floor would have been nice, too. Despite all this, "House A" is still a very nice, cheap dwelling for the tabletop. 

I also picked up the two larger townhouses, as well as the tower. Hopefully I will get the chance to build them during the week.



Tuesday 2 December 2014

Whew! Mokmurian sure gave me the runaround..

..but after encountering him 5 times and failing to beat him 3 of those times, I finally got him. Scorching Ray / Blessing of Lamashtu & Poison Blast / Blessing of Pharasma isn't my normal one-two boss finisher but it's hard to say no to all those D12s.

PACG Time!

Huh, how about that? It's midnight and just to change things up a little,  I'm not working. Time for a cuppa and some Pathfinder! I still have two more adventure decks to go before I wrap up Rise of the Runelords..