4GROUND Laser Cut Wooden Outhouse/Storeshed

I picked this up recently at my local games shop (hello to Wayland's Forge), mainly on a whim, but with thoughts I could use it for a number of settings: pulp; contemporary (a rickety old storehouse on an industrial site or an abandoned shed somewhere); western; Victoriana; Weird World War II/AE-WWII. Obviously the VBCW guys could make use of it I reckon.

This is the first laser cut kit I have firmly assembled (dry-fitting with my Sarissa Precision City Block stuff has not led to full assembly of those yet...), and I thought I would just do a brief post.


The kit if from 4GROUND, who do a number of kits in what is the growing laser-cut terrain market. At £6 GBP I was happy with the price and so I decided to pick it up and see if I was happy with the product.

Well I like what I have so far, but the truth will be in painting it ultimately. in the mean-time here are my thoughts.

Build Time
It took me 15 minutes to cut, clean and assemble the basic frame up to the wall, but excluding the doors.

I then allowed some drying time to do other stuff, and finished it off with 10 minutes more work. So 25 minutes cutting, building and gluing spent on this, but with a break.

Not too bad, and I am sure it could be done a lot quicker by more experienced laser cut kit modellers. no time to get frustrated as I can by anything requiring a lot of effort (GW terrain kits - I am looking at you).

Value For Money
It is a nice simple kit but has etched detail to differentiate different planks of timber; has wear and tear cut-outs and the larger of these are optional. the roof can be removable depending on gluing preferences as can the door.

At £6 for a building with a lot of potential utility I am very happy with the price.

Utility
As noted I can see this being used in a variety of settings - a 'good thing'. It has a footprint of 4 inches by 2 3/4 inches and a height of 2 inches sloping down to 1 1/2 inches.

In game terms pretty useful for blocking terrain and for many games with 4-6 move rates perfect for nipping around in a single move to get out of sight but not much further.

Overall
I like the kit and will very probably buy more 4GROUND stuff. Definitely recommended.

Salute 2012

Maciej (l) and Karel (r) at Pulp Monsters

I enjoyed Salute 2012 immensely, attending with main gaming buddy Rob (his blog is here). As is usual for us we travelled down by train, and as usual I mused whether I had planned the journey well enough to avoid being at the end of the queue. While in the queue Rob found a winning 'golden ticket' for KR Multicases which he later handed in a for a marvellous bag. Very cool. Into the hall and my first stop was Pulp Monsters stand for my favourite game (Pulp City). On show there were some sneak peeks of new stuff (which I blogged about here).

At the Pulp Monsters stand I finally got to meet with Hendybadger, (of the Tales of a Tabletop Skirmisher blog here), along with Mrs. Badger and the very mellow Baby Badger (replete in pirate outfit - Hendybadger is nothing if not consistent!). It was great meeting Hendybadger at last, and I reecieved two very kind gifts from the Badger's - a cake baked by Mrs Badger (thanks!) and a lovely mini which will be painted and shown on the Pulp Citizen blog very soon!). It was great to meet you guys.

Empire of the Dead demo board

My next stop was West Wind's stand to buy a copy of Empire of the Dead which came with a bonus free miniature - result! The rest of the day I was wandering around with Rob, chatting to Maciej, shopping a little, taking mostly blurry and useless pictures, shopping a little more, and generally enjoying myself. The shopping list included: Some paints - Empire of the Dead book
- Pulp City (Night Fright) spare that I want for a specific reason - Some hills from Kallstra (like them a lot
- I will be buying more in the future) - Power Generator hard-foam piece from Micro Arts
- Wolsung mini
- Maximilian(?) mini from Gringos 40's
- Not-Daphne toting mini-gun from Hasslefree
- Zombie-Elvis-Halfling from Heresy
- Some Cobalt aliens from Black Hat
- Some tree bases from Tablescape (look for a hobby tip post soon on these and their trees).

So it was mainly bits and bobs from various manufactuers.

7TV board

A number of boards caught my eye. My pick of the bunch was the Crooked Dice 7TV main display board.

I wish my better pictures were the ones covering more of the board, but alas not. The board was brilliant and a great advert for 7TV and its ethos, reflecting its heritage from Bond movies and in this case of course from On Her Majesty's Secret Service.

Two more boards especially caught my eye. There were so many good ones, but some stood out.

Wolsung board.

Micro Art Studios were previewing their upcoming (Autumn 2012) Wolsung laser-cut terrain across two wonderful boards. Wow. I cannot wait to get hold of some of this.

This terrain is stuff that will be pressed into use for Pulp, Supers/Pulp City, Victoriana, and maybe Zombies gaming when i do get hld of some. It was simply stunning and looks to be truly modular with so much possibility for inter-connection and multi level gaming. As I say, I cannot wait to get hold of some of this stuff.

Scarlet Thunder

Lastly, great mention has to go to the Scarlet Thunder board. I have no idea what was going on with the game, but the board was fantastic, so very worthy of mention. I just wish I have better pictures of all the boards I enjoyed but this is a rough guide to what I got to see, and what I enjoyed.

Red Skull

Okay not in any way a Red Skull mini, just one that conveniently was close enough to paint up as Herr Johann Schmidt. Whew - safely navigated that minefield.

This not-in-any-way-at-all-like the Red Skull is a mini from What The? Now I believe their lines have been taken over by another manufacturer, so may still be available.

This one got started as an afterthought when painting another mini, Sgt. Bale Extreme (on Pulp Citizen), mainly to pass time while paint dried on Bale.

I decided this week to at least clear a couple of minis so this and the previous Boss Zombie fitted the bill and voila - one super-baddie that can be used for supers, Weird War II and probably other stuff as well (pulp maybe?).

Big/Boss Zombie (3)

It has been a while without a new mini around here, hasn't it?

This Big Zombie is by Tengu Models, and has been painted according to my usual recipe for Zombie flesh. It may not be the most realistic skin-tone paint scheme for undead flesh, but I am pretty happy with it as it fits my sensibilities.

Please embiggenify by clicking the images.

This one was started amid the big push to get a lot of zeds painted last summer and then just sat unfinished for quite some time. I decided to knuckle down today and just get it done as I have not been painting much to a finishing point recently.

I do have a number of other partially completed zombies so look out for them to appear eventually.

I also under-coated two more Boss Zombies today, which should fit niocely with the rest of the freaky looking Big Zeds.

Blood For The My Little Pony?

A mash up of Dawn of War Dark Crusade sound-bites and My Little Pony (?) animation. Mad as hell!

Love this - I think a genius mash-up by the originator. :)

My 'Ahem' New Blog

I have been captivated by the Anima Tactics range, and have started yet another blog (Anima Tactician) which can be followed by following this link here.

Fear not, this will not mean Pulp Citizen or Eclectic Gentleman Tabletop Gamer being overlooked, but my acquisition of Anima Tactics minis needed an outlet!

Ah, The Smell Of Burnt Wood In The Morning (New Laser Cut Paint Rack!)

I already posted this on my Pulp Citizen blog, but thought I would re-post for any who don't read that one.

Some things arrived in the post this morning, and among them was this paint rack (bottom picture)! Ah, the smell of burnt wood in the post - laser-cut MDF is on the way then, as any hobbyist should agree!

I don't know about other painters, but I have accumulated a sizeable selection of paints over the years. trying to keep them in a manageable order is part of the battle. A few years ago I switched from mainly using GW paints (I still rely on their washes however) to using Vallejo Model Color. A massive range of colours meant a burgeoning array of paints bought over the past few years.

That in turn led me to trying out a couple of different paint racks. I quite like the ones I had from Miniaturicum, for 30 and 80 bottles apiece (seen among my painting table debris in the topmost image), but the banked design means that the more bottle capacity that a rack gives, the greater its 'footprint' on my painting station. I also tried some CNC designs (their 'corner' efforts), but felt that the design and construction was both flimsy and fiddly so I stopped using those.

Recently I saw that Iron Mammoth (click for blog post link) had created his own paint rack, and the two-tier design looked just the ticket for me, although without the bottle capacity I wanted. So I shot Iron Mammoth an enquiring PM via Lead Adventure Forum, and after an exchange of emails, we agreed a price on a my bespoke 104 dropper bottle rack, which has a smaller footprint on my work area, and less depth meaning that the way I work with stuff in front of the rack is better accommodated.

Very easy assembly and minimal gluing and I am very pleased with what Iron Mammoth delivered. Note that this is not yet a commercially available product, but if you are interested, it may be worth getting in touch with Iron Mammoth.