TFH compometition reminder

Remember guys, entries for the Terrain For Hippos competition close on the 31st of September! That's less than a fortnight away!

The prizes are beyond the wildest dreams of avarice. Really.

GruntZ 15mm forces announced!

Last week's armies were somewhat improvised on the spot since my computer died the night before. This week I've sat down and actually worked out proper army lists. We are playing a 110 points, simply because that's what they both came out as!

Ghost Legion Mercenaries:

Col. Gil Spectre (commander with auto rifle)

Doc (medic with auto rifle)

Red Squad (six troopers with auto rifle and one with RPG)

Blue Squad (six troopers with auto rifle and one with RPG)

Grav Tank with Rail Gun

Radium Falls Mining Co. Security Team:

Security Chief Guido Antonov

Security Team (six troopers with gauss rifles and one with RPG)

Scout Walker with chin laser

Support walker with missile pods and rotary auto cannon

The Mercs are better trained and equipped professional soldiers. The security team are not as skilled and have lighter armour, however their active camo fields allow them to blend with the landscape making them harder to target. While the mercs have more troops, this is balanced by the RFMC team's pair of mechs. Both sides come to exactly 110 points.

When my latest order from Ground Zero Games arrives, I'll have the troops to produce the infamous Zorn Deathfist and his pirate raiders. This will add a third army with a very different play style to the mix. I'll also play around with some other army variations, including an RFMC force which doesn't need to borrow the Merc mechs!

See you friday lunchtimes!

A winner is you!

Results are in for the LSC Wargames Club painting contest!

Over forty wild eyed gamers (plus a few teachers and the odd perfectly sane gamer) voted, and victory went overwhelmingly to:

Entry 4: Lucas's Teddy Bear! (The miniature is part of a 100 Years Picnic range from Eureka Miniatures)

Second place went to:

Entry 2: James's Gobbo (GW Battle For Skull Pass night goblin archer)

Third place went to:

Entry 9: Dillon's NBC suited soldier in camo gear (the miniature is from Eureka Miniatures)

Well done to all enterants; due to most of the winners being on an excursion last Friday, prizes will be given out Friday 19th August.

Thanks to all voters!

And remember, GruntZ games are running every Friday of Term Three in the I Learn center at lunch time.

LSCWC Painting Competition Entries

There have been ten entries in the inaugural Leongatha Secondary College Wargames Club painting contest, and you get to be the judge! All ten entries appear below, along with an entry number. Pick the one you think is the best painted, and vote using the poll at the top of the right hand side bar.

Entry No. 1

Entry No. 2

Entry No. 3

Entry No. 4

Entry No. 5

Entry No. 6

Entry No. 7

Entry No. 8

Entry No. 9

Entry No. 10

GruntZ 15mm: Real men use tiny figures.

This term we will start to play a full size skirmish wargame called GruntZ. It's a Sci Fi game, so plenty of huge and powerful guns are involved. It's also a 15mm scale game, so the figures are only 15mm tall! This means each figure is tiny, but we can use plenty of tanks and fighting vehicles, so there's plenty of carnage!

We'll be running team play, with each player controlling part of an army. Later on, we might try some multiplayer carnage with each player leading a small force to try to kill everyone else!

Of course, none of LSCWC's terrain will work in 15mm scale, so on Friday 12th August, we'll have GRUNTZ BOOTCAMP where we'll assemble some print-and-glue 15mm terrain and learn the basics of the game.

If you want to take a peep at the new terrain we'll be building, some of it's already on photobucket.

LSCWC PAINTING CONTEST

For the next few weeks we'll be learning to paint. At the end, everyone can enter their best painted figure in the LSCWC Painting Contest.

All of the entries will be photographed and posted to the blog, and people can vote on which they think is best. I'll be posting links to the blog on my other blog and some wargames forums, so we'll be getting impartial strangers voting on your paint jobs; it's not going to be just your friends trying to suck up to you!

The winner will receive his choice of THREE figures from the prize box. Second place gets TWO, and third place gets ONE. I will provide figures, and paints, and the school will supply the brushes. The only rule is that you can only enter a figure you've painted at school - this means everyone has just as much time as everyone else, and no one can cheat by taking their figure home to get their older brother, dad, or gerbil to paint it.

LSCWC in Term Three

Welcome back gamers!

This term we'll be running some painting workshops and probably a painting contest.

We'll also be running a few new games such as Muscle Car Apocalypse, a multi-player free-for-all car combat game, and possibly also GruntZ, a new 15mm scale SciFi skirmish system (although I have to test drive that one and see how long it takes to play a game). Dice Chucker Sci Fi might happen, but I've had trouble getting all the parts done. It's not even half finished yet.

You're also all encouraged to enter the Terrain For Hippos Annual Compometition.

Under 18s terrain competition on TFH

Mister Top's other blog is running a terrain building competition with shiny prizes and a junior, under 18 category.
Check out the rules and prizes here.

This is last year's winner, built by Nick Crawford.

Last year there was no Juniors category, so everyone was competing against everyone else. This year you know you will only be up against people your own age.

You can enter anything as long as it's either based on a project from the blog, or uses techniques from the blog. All of the projects are fairly simple, but there are some really easy beginner level projects.
Here's a list of the simplest projects which don't require any fancy materials. You can make most of these from household junk and a few bought materials like balsa wood. You can replace the foamcore with cardboard, or buy foamcore from the craft ship in Bair street.
Linear Obstacles (fences, hedges, walls etc.)
Cottage and Shack
Steampunk house and Mausoleum
Egyptian style tomb
African huts
Tiny Tuna Towers
Packing Crates
Timber frame medieval house part one and part two

Dice Chucker

DICE CHUCKER

From Friday 6th we'll be running mission based games with experience and power dice bonuses for completing mission objective and good role play. That means playing in character, behaving like your character really would behave and contributing to the success of the mission through teamwork.

Youcan find the Dice Chucker rules at Oversoul Games. They are a free download, but we're using a modified version. They're also a generic rules set which can be used for all sorts of game worlds, so they include all sorts of weapons and rules we're not going to be using.

No arguments will be entered into over players wanting to run Barbarians in hover cars armed with M-60s.

You can find the print and play paper figures and dungeon tiles on Mr. Top's Photobucket account. For best results, print onto matt photo-paper using a high quality printer. A glue stick will work, but I find a Pentel glue pen to work much better.

Useful websites and resources

Terrain making:
Terrain For Hippos (a blog featuring step-by-step easy terrain projects)
Terragenesis (a website about making terrain)
Necromundicon (another website on terrain)

Painting (note: I learned to paint from old magazines, trial and error, I have no idea how good any of these sites are):
How to paint miniatures (basic painting information)
The Miniature Painting Guild (more basic painting info)

Online stores:
Maelstrom (UK based, discoutned and free postage)
Defiant Gaming (Canberra based and very quick)

Warmachine Armies

For our first Warmachine battles, we'll be playing Rhulic Mercenaries Vs. Rhulic Mercenaries (basically a lot of dwarves hitting one another!). I've just recieived a large box containing 20 points worth of Khadorans (basically large angry steam-powered Russians!), and when those are painted, we'll start using those against one of the Rhulic forces.

The armies we'll be using are:

Gorton Grundback controlling a Gunner light warjack, Blaster light warjack and Driller heavy warjack.

Greygore Boomhowler and Co.

Horgenhold Forge Guard

vs.

Durgen Madhammer controlling two Gunner light warjacks, and a Rockram heavy warjack

Hammerfall high shield gun corspe with officer and standard

Herne and Jonne

Both of these forces are worth 16 points, and are nice, small learner type forces. Each player will be part of a team of three and will have control of one element of the army (the warcaster's battlegroup or one of the units).

LSCWC dates and times confirmed.

The Leongatha Secondary College Wargames Club will start on Friday 11th of March at lunchtime in the I Learn centre. It will run every friday during term time (with the obvious exceptions of when Mr. Top is not around)

New games!

This year we'll be introducing three new games right from the start.

First off there's Super Munchkin, a frantic card game of super heroics, back-stabbing and looting. Super Munchkin can be played by up to six people at a time, and many of you young 'uns in Yr.7 will have seen it on camp.

Then there's Warmachine, a steam-powered, magically controlled brutal monster of a table-top battle game. Think Warhammer, but with hug magical robots, lots more guns, and a more intuitive combat system. We'll be playing 20 point games, with three players on each side, one controlling the Warcaster's battle group, and the other two controlling the other units in the army. You can download the quick-start rules here.

Finally, there's Muscle Car Apocalypse, a game of Mr. Top's own design which pits rival gangs of post-apocalyptic desperadoes in heavily customized cars against each other on the highways of the wastelands. Think Mad Max meets Death Race. The rules are still undergoing some development, but there should be extra rules for motorbikes and riding beasts soon! You can download the rules here.

Meanwhile, to whet your appetites, here's some pics of the minis we'll be using:

LSC Wargames Club for 2011

Leongatha Secondary Wargames Club (LSCWC) will be starting again soon!

We will be playing an exciting range of new games, including Warmachine, Super Munchkin and Muscle Car Apocalypse. As always, there will also be painting and modeling events and prizes!

This year things will be a little different - we'll be in a different room now that the primary school has taken over the old West Library. We'll also be running two games at a time - a Munchkin card game, and a table top game. We'll also have a painting and modeling competition somewhere in the middle of the year.

For the moment, the timetable is looking like this:

Term One: LSCWC starts again about Week 5. We'll play Super Munchkin and Warmachine.

Term Two: We'll play Super Munchkin and Warmachine, with some Muscle Car Apocalypse as well.