Dead CCGs and d24s

Galactic Empires set-up

So, almost a year ago I ordered a 24-sided die, just to see what the monstrosity was like.  It's a bit unwieldy for war-games, but I've thought of another use.

In the old CCG, Galactic Empires, a player is eliminated after taking 25 points of damage.  A d24 is therefore perfect for noting the number of damage points a player's Sector has taken (the 25th point doesn't matter...it's too late).

The pic above is my current Galactic Empires set-up.  I'm playing my first non-solitaire CCG match in 15 years.  I'm playing by forum so it's slow, but it's great to play a CCG again as it was intended, against opponents.  You can follow the game over at BoardGameGeek.

An old article in a Companion Games house publication inspired me to create this little resource track, with the red and green tokens from other projects.  Basically you just count up the number of resources required by all the cards you have in play, and place red tokens on the proper amount.  Then count up the resources generated by Terrain (and other) cards, and put green tokens at those places on the track.  Then, at a glance, you can tell whether you're at a surplus or deficit.

Anyone need two-dozen d24?

When I ordered the d24, the company sent me 25 dice by accident!  I tried to return them, but they said it was their mistake.  So what do I do with 24 d24 that I don't need?  Maybe I can run some Galactic Empires games at a con and give out d24 "damage markers" as prizes.

By the way, if anyone is interested in Galactic Empires, there are opponents out there.  With the internet you can find them and play.  And heaps of cards are available on eBay for cheap.

(Giant) Monster Sculpt WIP

I finally got a weekend free of take-home work.  So, instead of finishing the spaceship miniature I've been working on, I decided to make an addition to my long list of unfinished projects.

The pictures below show a monster sculpt I'm attempting.  I've tried to sculpt 15mm miniatures before, but never finished them.  I hope this monster sculpt will be different.

I know this is heresy but I've never been all that interested in Japanese giant monster cinema.  Sure, I loved Ultraman when I was a kid, but I never knew what it was called at the time, nor have I seen any giant monster flicks since.

After being inspired by some great blogs out there however, I realized that the giant monster genre is perhaps the most absolutely perfect one for wargaming.  Why?  Well, the miniatures are so much larger, so the details should be much easier to sculpt and paint.  And even better, terrain is vastly simpler to make.  It takes me a few good solid weekends with a lot of leisure time (a rare occurrence) to make a single building for 15mm games.  But I bet I could make a whole city block for a giant monster game in one evening.  Oh, and the game board can be much smaller (a meter square at largest).

The figure is a twisted copper wire armature covered in bits of Milliput Standard.  I put way too much putty on the legs and then left it in the putty oven too long, making the Milliput too hard to cut down.  Oh well; I guess the monster will just have very muscular legs.

Once I add the beast's left hand, I will start the actual sculpting.  I'm going to use a mix of Super-Sculpey and Super-Sculpey Firm.  It should be a big project and I don't know when I'll have another free weekend, so expect this one to drag out...

The last shot is my scribbled concept art.  This is what I hope the thing will look close to (or hopefully better than) when it's done.

The first shot shows the monster armature next to an unfinished prototype building.  As the putty cured on the monster I came up with a super cheap way to make this building.  Up close it looks rough but at a distance I think it represents a building well, especially when on a table full of similar structures.

The monster is about 50mm in its pose; it would be about 80mm if standing up straight.

Monster armature next to small building

50mm tall, not counting eyestalks

Concept