Cheap and Easy Space Game Mat???

   
 Found a bunch of pictures from the Hubble telescope site. Science! Next, I went to a vinyl banner site, Banners on the Cheap, and picked out one that would look good on a 3 foot by 3 foot square.

It is in the mail, now, so I will report back with pictures when it shows up. The website even has a gaming section for printing your own role-playing mats. From my research of other bloggers, players have even used dry-erase markers on them since they are made of vinyl. Handy dandy, Mandy!

If the mat is nice then this opens up the Pandora's Box of gaming tables. I could....
1) Print a Blood Bowl pitch
2) Print streets for an urban table of Infinity or 40k
3) Print an ocean mat for Dystopian Wars
4) Print costumes dungeons for role-playing

Oh, the potential. I hope that the image that I selected is not of too high a quality, so the details don't get washed out with the brightness. We shall see, readers, we shall see.

Class dismissed.

FFG X-Wing Ship Repaints: Revenge of the Painter

     Got 2 games of FFG's X-Wing Minatures today. Two buddies of mine opened up the Pandora's Box of painting X-Wing ships. I washed the X-Wings with GW Nuln Oil. I washed all of my Imperials with GW Blue wash to make them blue. I repainted the Firespray and used a sponge with Vallejo Grey-Black and GW Silver for battle damage. Finally, I painted engines on all of the ships.

The far left is a stock X-Wing, where the two on the right have been washed.

 

       I really cannot give this game enough praise. It is very fun and captures the feel of the Star Wars universe. Don't download the Android Star Wars dice app because it is rubbish for $4.99. I do like hearing Admiral Ackbar yell "It's a trap!" every time I go to roll dice with the Rebel sound pack though.....

     The games 2 strong points are the maneuvering and character combos. You have to really thing through your turns, especially with the activation order and bumping into other ships, which causes you to lose your action and make you unable to shoot what you bumped. The character combo is the list creation process. There are some really fun combos to be made by combining character abilities with weapon upgrades. It makes the game very fresh, but not in a sense that make sit unbalanced or broken.

 I wanted my TIEs to be blue!!

Bolt Action - Sikh (British) Army

     I am following my Flames of War decision of playing Indian Sikhs in Warlord's Bolt Action, a 28mm WW2 system. I find the Sikhs' look unique on the tabletop, and I admire their religion's goal of fighting oppression and injustice. Their mission explains their willingness to volunteer for military service in WW2 even though The Sikhs couldn't stand by and let innocents be killed. Amazing in my eyes.

     Sikhs can be found in almost every battlefield of WW2. A Sikh RAF pilot even took part in the Battle of Britain. This rich history will make it possible for me to field my army in Africa, Italy, or Asia.

     The picture above shows some Sikh in Monte Cassino at the Gustav Line, which they played a role in. My game group and I are forming our forces around this encounter. Thus, I will be running Sikh foot soldiers backed up by Canadian Army (Sherman tank).

     Warlord makes a batch of Sikh heads, which I am placing on my British infantrymen. Here is my first assembled figure that I will experiment with for a paint scheme.

     The Sikhs were famous for the courage on the battlefield.

     I am intrigued how this soldier has camo-netting over his dastar (turban).