That really grinds my gears

Our Wild West Exodus games are going to need a variety of terrain.  Rich has been making various elements, such as the water tower and the mesas.  We are in the process of creating the town buildings that we want.

Some of these pieces will be more steampunk in nature, as the WWX universe does have some very interesting power generation sources.

So it was time to gather up my collection of various junk and set down to making a power generator!

You can see leftover sprues, straws, pill containers, pink foam and more.

The new element for me was the plastic gears, fresh from Amazon!  Yes!

After I put the first few gears on, I realized that I could also use them on some of the pipes as valve shut offs.  I had to file the end that would be attached to the various tubes with a rounded file to make sure they would adhere more easily.

To make the container more like a boiler, I added a few simple pieces of polystyrene tubing to the sides.  This has worked very well in the past for other similar terrain pieces.

Getting there!

The top section will have some red glow, appropriate to the Lawmen/Union/Outlaw power sources.

After waiting for the glue to set up, I had to get some primer on this.

I decided to mix a few metallic colors into the primer to speed up the process.  I primed the area of the red glow as white as I could, so that the glow would be more intense.  The little round things attached to the main boiler will be pressure gauges!

I will probably fill those in with green stuff or a piece of plasticard.

It's all in the cards

Once I saw the special Decapitation ability of Doc Holliday, I couldn't resist making some tiny, blood soaked playing cards to scatter around the base.

He can slice off your head with the mere flick of the wrist, sending lethal playing cards with razor sharp edges.

I made these out of very thin plasticard, since I wanted them to be as stout as possible for positioning in the tree.  Of course, that meant painting both sides!

The cards are now sliced into individual pieces... and it was time to glue them to the base.

I started placing a few here and a few there...

I didn't want to cover up the entire base... nor did I want to cover up too much of the tiny cards that I had been laboriously painting!

I had envisioned a tree with bloody cards as leaves.  The hope was that the tree would allow me to do that, and that I had left enough forks in the tiny branches to hold them!

Once the leaves were in position, I painted the blood stains on them.

Now he's ready to 'deal' a little death. :-)

Unbearable weather.

Well, I think the only way we are going to be spared these incessant downpours is for winter to take hold.  The choice is... do you wish to drown, or freeze?

 Shoveling snow is way more fun than trying to bail water!

I bet this bear loves the snow even more!!

It's from Mierce Miniatures.  The base is about 60mm.

Lots going on with this figure.  I really tried to get the fur to have as many different colors embedded as possible.  Warm tans, greens, a bit of blue... even some pink.

I was trying to reflect the snow, yet also provide some contrast with those warmer colors.

It was quite the beast!

No Bones about it

Here we have some finished images of the Palette Cleanser miniature.  It was definitely the right sort of mini to put out in front of the brushes at the time.

Again, since it was a Bones mini, you don't get too wrapped up in all sorts of exotic plans.  All you are trying to do is have some fun :-)

It was also handy to have this base sitting around that had been waiting for a miniature for years!

The Good Word

With the first test fight out of the way, we set down to a second matchup between the Lawmen and the Outlaws.

We each made slightly different lists.  Rich took a different boss, and a Dark Council.  Yay... Outlaws with even MORE influence!

Here's my force... Wyatt, Deputy Berenger, the Interceptor, some hired hands, and so on.  I really wanted to make better use of the Interceptor this game, as well as Wyatt!

I tried to do the Forward Echelon thing, but that is really not all that helpful, at least with my style.  I prefer to create more angles against the opponent, and FE wants to put you all in one big mob.

With only 3 possible activations per round, it is even more difficult to keep that up.

Here's the board, with the Outlaws on the left.

The Lawmen advance through the streets of Wappelville.

In this game,  I was going to try to stay out of buildings, based on what happened in that first test match.  The Outlaws blew up the buildings with me inside... so that was not gonna happen again!

These buildings were already ruins, so I figured they would be safer :-)

Speaking of blowing things up... remember that big water tower?  This is what it looked like after a shot from Deputy Berenger!  The heck with the citizens and their need for vital water!

It caught one guy under the rubble, and the second was now exposed to close in fire from the two Rifle Hired Hands waiting nearby.

I advanced the Interceptor to keep dropping templates on Outlaws attempting to move into town.

The Deputy strikes again!  BOOM!  Template goodness, taking out snipers.

This group in the center had a very commanding position, and could drop a variety of weapons fire at all angles.

The Dark Council could only stand by and watch as more and more Outlaws were taken down, one by one...

The local Preacher attempted to intercede on behalf of the residents, ordering the Lawmen to end their attack on Wappelville.

It's a very cool element of this game... random citizens that roam around the battlefield!  They really are fun, as they can even get in your way... or provide cover if you are ruthless enough...

This heroic Lawman stood right in the way of Friar Tuck, preventing him from using his shotgun template on my big group in the center.

The Preacher moved to the Interceptor, pleading once again for them to stop the carnage.

But the carnage continued, until only Billy the Kid remained.

Forced from his hiding place, all the Lawmen concentrated their fire, cleaning up the Town of Wappelville once and for all.  Or did they?

Big 'n Nasty

OK folks, here's something rather giant for you.  This is the Thanatar Siege Automata.

The picture below gives you some idea of the size of this thing.  The Castellax standing next to the legs is Dreadnought sized... on a 60mm base.

I knew I was in for a treat when most of the on line searches for how to assemble this ended (or began) with "Good luck".

I won't horrify you with my screams of delight as I assembled the legs and arms prior to painting.  I am sure I created all new words.  A language of vulgarity at new heights of creativity :-)

These types of ball joints can be very deceptive, in that you think it offers you loads of ways to position the arms.  I learned from the smaller Castellax that this was definitely not the case.

The massive torso.

Topped with a massive gun.

Figuring out how to get these pieces together and mounted on the base was not something I had looked forward to doing.

It took at least an hour just to get this far.  Right now the torso is sitting on the pin, which is stuck into the leg assembly.

I actually used the gun as additional weight to keep the feet stuck to the base as the glue dried.

I tried to position the arms in an interesting way, but this is where I was reminded about the restrictive way the joints work.

The final challenge is to get those ammo feeds to fit.  I don't even know if that will be possible right now, but I need to let all this set for quite a while.

With the Castellax, I had to nearly melt the ammo feeds with a hair dryer to get them into position.

I am sure that will be required here.  To make it more difficult, there are two ammo feeds stuck together.  I predict more interesting words to describe the heritage and genealogy of whoever created that particular idea.

Wish me luck!!!