Scatter Terrain Rules

Shamelessly stolen from Alex's blog, Epitude Rusk

ONE WEEK PEOPLE, IT'S ONLY ONE WEEK AWAY! ARE WE READY?!? WHERE'S ALEX, HE HAS ALL THE SCENERY!! CAN I PANIC? NO, DON'T PANIC!! MAYBE A HEALTHY LEVEL OF PANIC IS GOOD?? LIKE WHEN THE GOONIES SEE THE FRATELLIS ON ONE EYED WILLIE'S PIRATE SHIP!! NO, THATS TOO MUCH PANIC!! UH, UH, OKAY, MORE LIKE WHEN SOMEONE ALMOST DISCOVERS THAT HANNAH MONTANA IS HANNAH MONTANA IN THE ORIGINAL DISNEY SERIES, OKAY, COOL, THAT MUCH PANIC!!

It's almost time for us to stop banging on, and on, and on about Critical Engagement; however, that said, it is not quite time, so before I get to the meat of this post, I just have to say...

If you have no plans on Saturday 8th July, come down to London and play some Dropzone Commander with us at Critical Engagement! If you do have plans, cancel them, and make new ones with us!

Details can be found on this post and on Facebook!

Developing the Warzone: Industrial Beginnings

So with Critical Engagement in a few months we've all decided that we want some more variance in the terrain on offer in the tournament just trying to break up the monotony of the urban environment. I'd like to make two boards, one industrial and the other a little more rural. So the easiest one to start with, in my mind at least, is the industrial one.

Developing The Warzone: Resistance Barricades part 1

One criticism of Dropzone I've heard is that although the game is tremendously cinematic with it's towering 10mm cityscapes, it loses some of the theme when you start to focus on the terrain and debris in the battlefield, or rather lack thereof. Although it's possible that the Scourge operate a 'tidy desk' policy on a world-wide scale, using a few of their years in charge to focus on breeding bin-men and ladies to clean our dirty streets (ideas are sparking for a Scourge road sweeper vehicle; the Sweepressor), it is unlikely that even in this scenario all the debris would have been cleared, due to sanitation strikes and the like.

It's with this in mind that I am approaching the beginning of our preparation for Critical Engagement, our yearly summer tournament. The tournament may be in July, which is so far away the Daily Mail haven't even started scare mongering about this being the 'hottest summer on record' yet, but I would like to see the streets of Orbitalbombardmentonville strewn with the debris of war and years left behind. So, we had better get started on making some scenery then, hadn't we!

Is the Broadsword getting some Flak?

Good morrow avid readership.

It is I, Lord MegaMike, back to regale you with stories of artistry and war......

Almost an age has slipped past since (as some of you longer-term readers may remember) I was reviewing the newer units from Reconquest Phase 2.

The Broadsword was one of the units that I was not immediately smitten with. Well good news - I have grown to like it. So much so that I have even painted it.

Pimp My Ship

They say patience is a virtue and that learning to wait will make you a better, stronger and more well-rounded human being. Well I'm not sure who 'they' are, but they can stick their virtues up their waste hole. Impatience, impulse and general knee jerking is in the water here in OB Towers (be careful of drinking from the water coolers) and we can't wait for squat.

Corvettes seem important, we all think. Troops will win you games in Dropfleet Commander, so stopping Dropships and Bulk Landers getting to the surface could be key. The most efficient way to stop troops landing is to knock out the Frigates and Cruisers which send these men and ladies to their doom, and destroying the ships in the loneliness of space and committing partial genocide. And what's good at killing Frigates which are bound to be in atmosphere? Corvettes! So yes, they seem to be important.

There is an issue though, in that there are no models out, and there aren't even any on the release schedule at the moment! So before we all get the arsehole with waiting and staple Dave to CAD, we have decided to kit bash our own!

I mentioned in our first battle report that we had kit bashed our own Corvettes, and I'm here to not only show you mine, but also give you a guide on how to build your own!

Critical Engagement: The Videos

The most glorious of all the generals from Critical Engagement

I go away for one week, one single week, and I come back to dust on the mantle, cobwebs in the pantry, and worst of all no new posts for all you lovely people! They mumbled something about work and honeymoons, but if you ask me their just a bunch of stinky slackers.

As my holiday is well and truly over, it's time to get the feather dusters out and give the bunker a good ol' polish with ample amounts of elbow grease (y'know, that weird sweaty stuff that your elbow bend produces), and bring you all some video footage from Critty E! Tech Boy put together some two scrap books for our visual pleasure; the Day Of Spray, a grand day of scenery constructing, and content from from tournament itself. Enjoy!

New Build, Red Horrizons

I love my yellow Shaltari. They were the first 10mm models I ever painted, as well as the first Dropzone models my brush had laid it's sweet bristles upon. These striking Hogs romped wildly about the DzC tourney scene for a while, blinding all in their way, and even made it into a copy of Tabletop Insider!

That yellow though. Oh boy, the yellow. I can't- I just can't. Even thinking about painting it again gives me the shakes! You see, I painted these a long time before I had my airbrush, and any of you out there who have painted yellow by hand can surely feel my pain. Starting with a red coat I built up to the yellow, which required a few coats because of the stupid, weak yellow pigment.

OB Podcast Episode 13: Escalating Matters

Those of you who frequent the site, or are simply observant, will have noticed that it has been a little quiet on the OB front lately. Why? Well, put simply we are lacking muse to write with at the moment, partly due to a lack of movement from the company which produces the splendid war game that we hold so dear to our hearts. (This may read slightly passive aggressively; it was meant too. We just want something to get excited about!)

Never fear though, stopping our mouths from chatting off is like trying to stop a conservative from selling a public asset; it can't be done! Join us for the worst news section ever recorded by a human, for an update on our general hobby, and to hear more about the much whispered about escalation campaign!

DarkOps scenery review

Something a little different for you today.

Whilst at Invasion I got chatting with Steve Perry of DarkOps - check them out here. I've met Steve previously at the Expo and had seen his amazing board via Facebook, but didn't really get to talk much.
At Invasion he was showing off some really stunning sci-fi scenery pieces. He asked if we at OB would do a review of his product, to which I said yes.... obviously!

Picture from Epitude Rusks blog

This will be an honest review. We have not taken payment or sponsorship in any form.
Although Steve did give me The Blade as the review piece.

Invasion 2016 Scrapbook and Best Painted Pics

Sgt Slaughter's giant, gaping face. Just one of the pleasure's you'll
find in our scrapbook!

Greetings and salutations, I am Associate Dan, what seems to be your boogle?

Let's not be silly, I know what your boggle is, you yearn for more video content! Well never fear, Tech Boy has patched us together a rather inviting scrapbook of Invasion 2016, which is full to the brim of fun and naughty words, so here is your NSFW warning. It is likely to be Saturday heavy, as Ed was doing rather well at the end of day 1 so needed to focus on the Sunday.

Also, the best painted winner, a Mr Simon Jones, has sent over a host (get it?) of pictures for his award winning Scourge for your viewing pleasure! I am led to believe he is a commission painter, so get in touch with him if you like his work (I don't want to add his email, just in case he isn't. Just comment on this thread and he'll see it).

Walking the Grid

Come here Often?

So after much promising and false starts here's a post with more pics of my Tron PHR. Some things have changed since I last posted about these guys, some techniques have altered a little. I also started the practice of having my command units in the MCP (Red bad-guy) colours to differentiate them and give a nice variation to the army. I also used the red scheme to make my two Medusa look different. The only thing in the MCP colour scheme I changed was the red power lines which really are closer to oranges than red. I kept the coal black highlight on the body the same which I think looks really nice and gives great contrast to the model.

Anyway I also wanted to use a better technique for taking pictures of my models hence why it took so long as I had to research how to 'Focus Stack' while not perfect I think I managed to get some good images. But mainly to my eyes it shows up where I've skipped a little in the rush to get the job done!

Anyway hope you enjoy!

Getting Boots On The Ground

Unlike Mike's (not-so-secret) secret Resistance project, I have been very open about my junk town project. Also unlike Mike, while he has been grafting away behind the curtain (and I will say, they are looking very nice) I have been, well, stagnant in my effort.

This weekend though I found a bit of time and had a go at my Occupation Veterans, and I am very happy with the result!

The aim of the infantry in this army is to replicate the look of being inside a building, or in the case of my vets in and around it. I was lucky enough to win a three tier MDF Blotz building at a tournament in Brighton, and decided to use the top tier of the centre piece to help make these...

Revving Up The Engine Again

All I have so far, and this is about a third done...

With Invasion now in the past, I have decided to put my Scourge to bed (do Scourge dream of electric hosts?) and bring out the Resistance once more. I got my first game in with them for a while last Friday, against as fate would have it another Resistance army; even more coincidentally, the same one I played at Invasion (The gent attends our club, and had lent his army to my foe the evening)! Having stopped playing with our friends from Fury Road to practise with my Jelly's for Invasion, it was refreshing to jump back into a weather beaten, written off wagon and take it for a spin.

UCM hobby update; it flies

You may or may not remember from my post a few weeks ago where I was showing off my new Praetorians, that I mentioned a little project that involved a couple of Neptune's and a Ferrum.

Well I have finally finished that little project so you can the fruits of my labour below.

Hobby progress: Praetorians and mystery project

You may well have seen ZombieStates really funky Free-riders. They are damn sexy.
I thought I'd share some of my hobby too............yes, I can hobby too.

I'm not a great painter, I can paint to a decent table-top standard, and I'm happy with that, sometimes I can do some great stuff, but with me, it's all about motivation...........

I'm Running Free (Yeeaaahh)

No amount of road waste can stop us!

One of the reasons I chose the Resistance to be my next army was for the sheer amount of conversion opportunities available. The scrappy and characterful units already ooze charm, like oil leaking from a faulty engine, but the desire to put my own stamp on the army has taken over. You see, I need an army to be unmistakeably me. With Shaltari and Scourge I painted them bright and fairly obnoxious colours, as the finite nature of the sculpts didn't leave an opportunity to be constructively creative.

Resistance however, give me a much larger range to play with. The units aren't polished which means I can bolt things on and cut pieces away, much like an aggressive resistance mechanic. Instead of a blowtorch and spanner though my tools will be a craft knife and super glue!

I Can't Wait To Get Feral

Why won't Hawk allow this?

Scourge are fun. Fact. They are probably the most fun race in the game to use! There is something about their full on aggressive nature which is simply delightful, and can cause the most subdued gamer to start laughing manically as their opponents remove all of their models from the warzone. But...

I have been using the Jellys pretty intensely since last September, and I yearn for something else. Something different. The red mist which falls once I enter 'host mode' is becoming a little too claustrophobic, and the play style all too familiar.

Enter the Resistance.

Building in Style: War Mage Games

Creating a cityscape, and loving it

“DAN! What is all this wooden crap, and why does the lounge smell like TCP?!”

These were the cries of my wife the day I received the package from War Mage games. I had ripped open the battered cardboard box like an expectant child at Christmas, and filled the room with the obnoxious scent of burnt MDF. Man, that smell is like catnip to a wargamer.

Anyway, a little explanation first. After my loving reviews (rants really) regarding the 4Ground buildings, a chap at War Mage Games decided to contact us directly to ask if we would be interested in posting a review of his kits. Always in the search for great products to add to our warzones we happily accepted the offer, and now having received the buildings and put my own together, I am happy to be able to review a great product!

Losing the High Heels

Do you feel lucky punk?

You may have noticed that fairly ironically after our 100^th post, declaring that we going stronger than ever earlier in the week, that we haven't posted anything since... Well, between general life stuffs and waiting on a few things (five to be exact...) we have been a little light on posts.

So, what better time to tell you about the pain staking, almost-not-worth-it conversion I have done on my Annihilator!

Beautiful Blotz Buildings Become Board

Hello fellow enthusiasts today I will be showing off my work-in-progress board. The premise behind the board will be for 4 versatile 2'x2' sections. What I mean is, that they can be positioned in multiple ways. This leads me on to my first problem - designing a map, or many maps that will work. The designing of the layout will have to wait though; as I need to buy the roads and lay them out to see where they will go.  

The 4 2'x2' sections will be hardboard with some 20mm thick insulation foam. This will give the board some depth.