6mm-Minis

6mm-Minis is Maksim-Smelchak's blog to discuss gaming, miniatures, books, movies, food, Israel, Judaism, life in general and other funny crud. My favorite scale of miniatures is 6mm, which is also called 1/285 or 1/300 scale. I enjoy many different kinds of games including ancients, Napoleonics, WWI, WWII, the Arab-Israeli conflict, Car Wars AKA Autoduel (a sort of crash'n'derby automobile combat game), 6mm Godzilla AKA Kaiju games, and science fiction games. I'm open to everything though!

Monday, November 05, 2007

MINI WARGAMING: "Wonders of 28mm Paper Pulp!" (5 November 2007)

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TOP: It has that awesome B&W feel, only it's in 28mm Pulp Nils-O-Vision!
Hi All,

It was just a month or so ago that I attended ConQuest San Francisco 2007 and this year was a breakthrough for me in finally seeing the incredible value one can get with paper scenery. My buddy Nils ran an awesome set of three linked 28mm pulp games and the paper scenery he used was nothing short of amazing. I had helped him playtest some of the games early on... before he assembled his paper scenery. My last major experience with paper scenery was the paper castle that came in a Dragon Magazine back in the 1980s... and what a change has come over paper scenery since then. Nils has all sorts of awesome paper scenery goodies: a loading dock, a mad scientist's headquarters complete with a giant ray gun and much more!

My other semi-recent experience with paper scenery came from a buddy who has since moved back East and has played with making paper models. I'm including one of Chuck's links below so you can check out the awesome Eldar grav tank he designed.

Link to my buddy Chuck's site with a cool paper model of an Eldar grav tank:
http://www.brothersdigital.com/portfolio/GrabBag.html

TOP: 28mm pulp G-men with wooden Walmart trucks!

Nils is a master of cheap materials... his wooden trucks came from Walmart and he often posts at TMP under his stage name of Black Cavalier. A coat or so of paint and the Walmart trucks went from OK to looking pretty snazzy. Nils does wonders with his minis.

And his experimentation with paper scenery prompted me to see what's out here. I'm including a link below to a great round-up article on 28mm paper scenery manufacturers.

Link here:
http://www.tabletop-terrain.com/archives/2006/03/08/522/

TOP: Awesome paper scenery with accessories!
Crates from Wartorn Worlds!
TOP: Awesome 28mm paper scenery.

When I eventually work up some 28mm modern zombies, I think I'm going to go with paper scenery despite having witnessed the awesome 3D splendor of the Zombie Town games. It's a heck of a lot less expensive to go with paper scenery and even when you consider assembly time, it's easier to print, cut, and glue paper models than having to do the same with non-paper miniatures scenery made of resin, plastic, or other materials which require cleaning, preparation, assembly, and painting. Being able to skip the painting step really saves on time. At any rate, I was very impressed with the 28mm pulp paper scenery I saw at ConQuest San Francisco 2007!

Link to Zombie Town games:
http://www.recon-in-force.com/Skank/index.html

Link to Wartorn Worlds, maker of fine scenery made of innovative materials:
http://www.wartornworlds.com/

Link here to World Works Games, makers of fine 28mm paper scenery:
http://www.worldworksgames.com/store/

Update (5 November 2007 at roughly 9:30am):
Nils wrote in to make sure that the manufacturer of the terrain he used gets proper credit. Nils used paper terrain from the The Mean Sets made by The Virtual Armchair General. Thanks, Nils!

Link here:
http://fauxtoys.com/tvag/620-Mean-Sets.htm

Update (5 November 2007 at roughly 1:00pm):
Nils updated his blog with a snazzy battle report and better photos of the game.

Link here to Nil's Intro:
http://blackcavalierswargaming.blogspot.com/2007/11/northern-california-pulp-project-intro.html

Link here to Nil's "Building the Board" article:
http://blackcavalierswargaming.blogspot.com/2007/11/virtual-generals-warehouse-unmodified.html

Have a great Monday!

Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.

Notes regarding photos / pictures / videos: These are not all my images and videos. I am using various images and videos from around the web, mostly from public sources and/or private sources used with permission. I have tried to include only images and videos under public domain, creative commons, or fair use. If I have inadvertently violated any copyrights, please inform me and I will remove your image/s (if it is indeed an infringement).

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Monday, April 24, 2006

PERSONAL NEWS: "I attended the PROM very pinkly."

Hi Everyone,

I had to share this:

PROM, 2006.

Well that's that then. Lisa and I attended the final event of the fellowship year very pinkly.

Cheers,
Chuck.

"You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door. There is a small mailbox here."

And that's Chuck if you know him... always full of off-the-wall jokes and quirky... well... quirks. Little quirks like using colors for adverbs...

Anf if you look at his signature line, it's a line from the early computer era from a classic game called "Zork."

He, Eric, Ralph and I got together a number of times during the past year or so and had "guys day/night out." We always had a good time together just being happy geeks.

Chuck's wife, Lisa, enlisted me in the planning for Chuck's surprise birthday party last year... I think we surprised him too! My job was to keep him out of the house and distracted... an easy job for a game geek.

Chuck and his wife, Lisa, are away on this huge work trip / scholarship around the world right now. She's a journalist that works for The Sacramento Bee and won a fancy award that has allowed them to travel to Argentina, Turkey and I don't know exactly where else!

That's a picture of Eric above... taken at the ConQuest Sac 2006 gaming convention. I still don't have a photo of Ralph even though we have saw quite a bit of each other. Chuck didn't get a chance to see the photos from conQuest Sac 2006 so here's a link to them:

http://s44.photobucket.com/albums/f23/Maksim-Smelchak/ConQuest%20Sac%202006/

Have a great Monday!

Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.

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Wednesday, July 06, 2005

MINI WARGAMING: The Demise of Epic-Armageddon in Northern California?

Hi Guys,

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I'm unhappy to say that it looks like Epic-Armageddon is very possibly dead in my area.

I went by Hobby Monkey, a local gaming shop, yesterday evening and met my good friend, Eric-Chern there, author of the Epic Army Card site and... he has had it with Epic.

Eric and I were the biggest local supporters of the game. Now, it looks like it's down to me.

My friend Chuck is getting ready to move as well in the Fall.

That leaves a very small conclave of Bay Area E-A players and that's about it.

There are still some players in the Los Angleles / Southern California area, but it looks like all of the changes at Specialist Games and the decision to not publish hard copy books anymore has driven off the local E-A fan base.

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There are three games locally that are dominating the market:

- Flames of War
(A 15mm WWII skirmish game from New Zealand.)

- War Machine
(A 28mm VSF skirmish game with giant robots and magic from Privateer Press in the USA.)

- A Call to Arms
(A Bayblon-5 starship combat game from Mongoose Publishing in the UK.)

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Eric is a huge B-5 fan so he has naturally gone over to the "Call to Arms" game.

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28mm 40k is all but dead in Sacramento although it is still being played somewhat at Great Escape Games, another hobby shop in town. GW's games are taking a big hit here.

I'm seeing local bulletin boards getting swamped with notices of 28mm 40k armies and other GW miniatures for sale.

An interesting occurrence is that Necromunda is making a local comeback with at least two Sacramento gaming clubs running campaigns that I know about.

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Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.

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