Battleship Pocheapkin

The latest addition to the human fleet for the game I've taken to thinking of as Big Thrust is fully built and painted.  This bad boy was hand made out of foamcore and lots and lots of found items.  Old medical syringes, superglue lids, a pen lid, bamboo skewers (again), disposable razor handles (again), and lots of cereal box cardboard.  The two-tiered level with the red band around it is two peanut butter jar lids glued on on top of the other. The most expensive part of this ship was probably the super-glue used to hold her together.

If you look close you can see two little white doors with blue dotted windows.  That should give you an idea of the scale of this battleship.  It's not as majestic as some others, but rules-wise it'll pack the same sort of wallop.

Frigate Paint Test

So very tired. Operating in a bit of a fugue state at the moment, what with sleeping in a hospital and the every-two-hour feeds. Had a great post showing the paint process for the big spaceships ready to go. Deleted it in my torpor. Not even sure if that's a real word or not, so tired. Anywho, the loss of a bunch of pictures is a bit of a bother, but that just forces me to stop being coy and make with the goods. Two human frigates are pretty much done. Here's a look at the nearly-final look of my first Big Thrust fleet.

These are the first two frigates. The cruisers and capital ships are assembled and spray painted. I made a big push to get them done and spray painted before baby comes home. All that's left to do is the hand painting. And the protective coat. (Gloss? Flat? Which one will look better on the field of battle?) And sleeping, but that'll have to wait a few more days. I'll sneak in a post on the paint job and some shots of the bigger ships in progress sometime in the next few days, too. Might as well tie full advantage of this paternity leave while I can, right?

New Miniature!

Ten months ago, I commissioned a one-of-a-kind miniature, and it just arrived last night...

Something tells me things are going to slow down here at War In a Box.

Foam Core Cruisers

Turns out those deodorant bottles are frigates, and we're moving on to assembling the cruisers and battleships.  At least that's the terminology for Full Thrust.

The first attempt at the bigger class ships didn't go so well.  The plan was to fill odd shaped shampoo bottles with Great Stuff foam, wait for that to harden to give the bottles more internal stability, and start slapping on bits from there.  After 24-hours, the foam inside the bottles were no closer to hardening than they were after one hour.  So those got put into the circular file, and Plan B put into action.  

Plan B for this project is basically the same as Plan B for every wargame project of mine - foam core.  Lots and lots of foamcore.  A big sheet of foamcore provided enough material for the skeletons of three cruisers and one fleet carrier.  Here's an example of the skeleton side by side with a detailed ship ready for painting.

We're looking at all sorts of bits and bobs there.  The most recognizable are the Schick disposable razor handles, bamboo skewers, the top of a 25-cent ball for a dome, and a toothpaste tube cap for the thruster.  It'll look way better painted up.

Big Thrust

Well over a year ago, I posted a teaser for a miniature wargame project using all sorts of household odds and ends.  With a wargamer's birthday coming up in a little over a month and a half, it's time to put this plan into action.  The plan is to host a big game of Full Thrust, and I mean big in more than one sense of the word.  We're looking at engagements of roughly 40 ships total, and ships that are too big to fit on a table.

In less than an hour and a half, I was able to throw together eight small cruisers using empty deodorant sticks  for a base.  They all have slight variations, and yes the design is pretty minimal.  We don't have a lot of time, so we're just looking to break up the profile a bit.  The paintjob is going to really sell these as small spaceships (I hope).

When all is said and done this fleet (the human fleet) will have 8 frigates, 5 cruisers, a battleship, and a fleet carrier.  The alien fleet will use an entirely different construction method, and will have an entirely different look to it.  Instead of the harder edges, it should look much more organic (think phalon or 'nid), and the best part is that it will be even easier to build and detail than this fleet.  Watch this space for more details.

Three Bridges

Put some color on three bridges for Notromunda this week, and they sure are bright.  Starting to worry that my pulp sci-fi urban terrain might wind up being downright garish. I think that the red pearl stickers help bring these together, even if the primary colors I'm using clash at times.   Here they are in isolation, but really, I'm probably going to break out the full table and see how things look when put together so far.  And if it ain't working, then I've still got seven buildings left to paint, so there's time to salvage the table if it winds up too four color comic book.

Long and thin and exposed.

Shorter, fatter, and no exposure.

Longest, thinnest, and plenty of cover and plenty of sniper hideouts.

Tomorrow's War: Scenario Unit Cards

The next name on my dance card is Tigers by the Tail, featuring the hot tank-on-tank action of 5 DPRG Chonma Ho's escaping from a pair of M70 Perkins.  This is the second scenario included in the main rulebook of Tomorrow's War, and to expedite the game I've made up the following unit cards.  Print out one for each tank, and you've got a handy way of tracking whether the commander is buttoned up, which crew members are dead, as well as each tanks special attributes.  Sort of.  I've left off the ones that are already factored in to the tank's stat lines.

The photos aren't mine.  I shamelessly grabbed them off Google Image Search and shamefully forgot to track who is responsible for them.