Ravings of ageing gamer

 Descent was fairly easy to do, Hirst Arts has a page which details the moulds, number of casts, and how to build the pieces you will need. However the follow up, Descent 2, started to vary the types of tiles and had a lot of detritus on them, and the killer was multiple levels on one tile.  I made a few but eventually gave up. Tiles for Descent Example of the easier tiles for Descent 2 with the original tiles for comparison

 Welcome to Space Crusade! For this I used the Hirst Arts Sci-Fi tiles.  I used their 1" square floortiles.  However this would have been a tight fit for the figures, so I spaced the tile apart by 1/4" and filled the gap with filler. I decided not to create the walls within the each board and just painted the gap between the tiles white, like the card board provided.  I also only created doors and walls for the inter-board walls and docking claws.

 Pimp my board game I have many games that use figures and have special boards.  I like dungeon exploration games and have several of the Dungeons & Dragons board games.  As my background is from Wargaming and Role-Playing I don't like playing with basic card boards and unpainted minis. As a basic pimpimg I try to paint the figures before we play with them.  Then I try and build the board. Some games have boards that are multilevel on one piece of card, like Warhammer Quest and Descent 2.  These can't be made to look good in 3D as having two levels on one piece will not sit right with the pieces around them. I started by creating a 3D board for my Space Crusade game and painting all the figures. I used the moulds from Hirst Arts  to cast up the walls and floors in Herculite casting plaster until I had enough.  Then I used XPS Extruded Polystyrene Foam sheets to build the boards from. Hirst arts has many moulds that will make different styles of Fan...

 Various Figures for Age of Sail Wargaming I have various figures for my Age of Sail Wargames.  Some of them are cheap and cheerful, others are expensive works of art.  I have reviewed them for anyone wanting to know what they are like. Navwar Navwar 110, 74 and 38 mounted on card bases Navwar was started in the 1970's to provide affordable ship models for war gamers and that’s exactly what they do. For the price of one of the more expensive manufacturers models you can have 3 or 4 of these.  The ships are cast in a soft white metal and are supplied as a complete kit. Hull, Masts with sails, Bowsprit sail, Driver and ships boats.  They paint up fairly easily and can be rigged enough to look the part. Website http://www.navwar.co.uk/ Scale 1/1200 Hulls These come as a 1 piece casting with holes drilled for the masts to sit in.  They tend to be on the small side, especially in height. Masts & Sails The sail set provided is Easy Sail with courses furled an...

Over the years I have tried various Age of Sail Wargame Rules.  Here is what I think of some of them.  Rules for Wargaming Author Arthur Taylor Published by Shire Publications Ltd 1971 & 1976    I first came across these rules back in the 70s.  I used the Airfix kits cut along the waterline to play them. These Rules were published as part of the little 'Discovering' series of books. Arthur Taylors main premise for all the rules in this book is that no dice are used.  Success depends on the players skill at seeing the potentialities of the board and not the luck of the dice. The only time dice are used is to set and possibly change the wind speed and direction. Ship orders are written at the start of each turn and there is no initiative system so I assumed moves and firing were done simultaneously. I remember a lot of ships were dismasted and crawling around on jury masts. Advanced and Basic There are only the basic rules.  No Advanced or optional r...