Quick 'N Dirty Tournament Tray

...so one of the booths I stopped at and chatted for a while during Adepticon was Broken Egg Games.  They make various cool items, but a big focus is their very cool tournament trays.  "I should get one of these", I thought.

Oh wait.

I did get one of these.

Last year, at Adepticon 2015.

...and it promptly got a half-assed coat of primer, and has been sitting on a shelf in my garage for a year.

So anyway, I decided to remedy that - I've actually been playing every week lately, and am halfway considering a tournament in the fall, and a tournament board would come in handy.  However, I needed it to be done as quick and easy as possible, so here's what I did.

Here's what I was starting with: it's the MDF Large tournament tray from Broken Egg Games.

  I think I bought the unfinished MDF version because 1.) I'm cheap, and 2.) I originally had grand visions of doing some elaborate custom finish to match one of my armies.  As I said, I started to prime it black, but I vaguely remember the primer going on fuzzy, or I ran out, or something else frustrating, and it got tossed on a shelf.

I gave it a couple more coats of primer - I realized later that the MDF was literally soaking up spray primer as fast as I could put it on.  I'd recommend using a brush-on primer, possibly even a latex house paint -type of primer to save some grief.  I touched up the finish with some brush-on primer:

(Note the festive tablecloth, compliments of my wife).

Part of my original plan was to mask the interior of the cutouts to have a contrasting finish - but, I was not relishing the idea of that much time-consuming work with painter's tape and a hobby knife.  I played around with some ideas, like possibly stuffing the holes with poster tack or silly putty, but I'd need a lot of silly putty.  I thought of just using bases, but I didn't have that many spare bases in various sizes I'd need, and I'd still have to mask the slots in the bases.  But wait: remember those MDF blanks I mentioned  I'd bought at Adepticon in my last post?

I think I paid $10 for an entire quart-sized take-out container of these.  I stuck 'em in the cutouts that I wanted to mask:

Next, I grabbed a can of Krylon "Natural Stone" finish paint, which is a very easy way to get a stone-like finish.  (Note: they actually make this in a "coarse texture" version, which is what I wanted to use, but they were out of it when I stopped by the craft store):

Then I gave it a couple of coats:

Then I pulled out the MDF blanks:

Success!  There was virtually no bleed over into the black areas!

Next, I grabbed some black and some white paint and a small brush, and laid down some quick "cracked earth" effects in the flat areas:

Now, I needed some felt for the dice/token storage area on the side.  (The guys at Broken Egg included a piece of self-adhesive red felt when I bought the board, but it's long since gone missing).  I raided my son's arts & crafts bin and stole a piece of bluish/purple felt:

Then I cut it to size:

Next, I raided my wife's scrapbooking supplies and stole her cutter that is used to "round" the corners when cutting paper:

...then I glued the piece into place with some spray adhesive:

I also painted up some spare bases to use as blanking pieces:

(I had a spare 120mm base, since I bought a custom base for my Judicator).

...as a final touch, I added some adhesive rubber bumpers I got at the home improvement store as "feet" to prevent sliding:

(Note my faithful assistant's hand steadying the project for dad in the above pic).

...and there you have it - one (relatively) quick 'n easy tournament board!

Review: Ironheart Artisans Dropper Tray

...so while I was at Adepticon this year, I stopped by the Ironheart Artisans booth.  Mainly to see what new stuff they had, but also just to say hello - I always enjoy talking with them.  They're great guys (& a girl) and, for some reason, are one of the only vendors with the foresight to bring spare hobby supplies (glue, paintbrushes, etc) to a hobby convention.  (They pretty much sell the hobby supplies at MSRP as a courtesy to us gamers).

Anyways, last year I bought one of their paintbrush racks & a couple of their 4-tier stepped paint racks to organize my airbrush paints, and was pleased with both purchases.  This year, they had a really cool prototype paint tray with handles & locking cover, but the problem was it's designed to fit the P3 paint pots - I really don't use that many P3 paints.  But, another item caught my attention - their dropper bottle tray:

See, since my son was born, I've had to go semi-mobile with my hobbying - I watch him a few days per week, so I needed something to carry the essentials.  I grabbed one and brought it home to try it out.

Like most of the Ironheart pieces, it's laser-cut MDF and comes unassembled:

It went together pretty easily (MUCH more easily than their 4-tier trays) and I just put some wood glue on the tabs & edges when I assembled it:

(Now with 100% more festive Easter tablecloth, courtesy of my wife)

And here it is loaded up with 70 of my dropper bottles:

One of the nice things is that the tray is deep enough to hold the bottles securely, but shallow enough that it's easy to read the labels.  This also makes it easy to group certain paints together - for example, all my flesh tones are along one edge:

...and all my "utility" paints are along one edge:

(You might have noticed that most of my paints these days are Reaper, Vallejo, & Army Painter.  I'll cover the reasons for the switch away from GW in an upcoming article.)

Overall, I'm pretty pleased with it - it's cheap enough to buy on an impulse, but sturdy enough that I can toss it on top of my bag and it doesn't break.  (As long as you use a good quality glue to put it together - I used Gorilla Wood Glue).  So far Ironheart Artisans are three for three on stuff I've bought from them - I look forward to seeing what they come up with next!

Review: Litko Gaming Tokens

I got a package in the mail the other day:

It's the gaming tokens I ordered from Litko Game Accessories!

...so, wait, let me back up a minute.  At GenCon 2009 I came across this little booth selling very cool custom acrylic gaming tokens and markers.  My career as a wargamer was still in it's infancy, and I didn't even know what a lot of the items were meant to be used for, but they looked awesome - I wound up buying some of their pop culture tokens, that have sayings like "n00b" and "OMG" just because they were funny to throw down on the table during an epic moment in a game.  As I actually started playing some games of 40k, it became obvious that there are some things that need to be tracked over several rounds (models that have multiple wounds, vehicle crew stunned) or unit/vehicle actions that need to be indicated (smokescreens, etc).  Like most gamers, we usually just marked these things by setting a dice on or near the model and making a mental note - while this works, the Litko tokens just offer a more elegant, and more immersive, way to do it.

The first product I got was the heart tokens:

I intend to use these to track characters that have multiple wounds.

Next, I got the charge tokens:

...hopefully these will break my habit of forgetting to resolve the charge.

Next, I got the alert tokens:

...these will just serve as a general "note" for a given situation - stunned, shaken, etc.

Next, I got the smoke screen markers:

...these actually come in two pieces - after assembly, they look like this:

These are pretty great!  One of the things that bugged me the most in a game was laying down a line of dice to represent a smoke screen - it just really took me out of the game, to see a bunch of dice in the middle of a battlefield.  These solve that problem.


Finally, I got the flaming wreckage markers:

...these are actually four pieces per marker.  Assembly:

These look fantastic!  The black smoke is semi-translucent so it really feels like smoke, and the glaring yellow & orange of the flames & bases looks great!  I've seen some people make wreckage markers from cotton balls or steel wool, and, sorry guys, but those look so ghetto.  I'll take these any day of the week.

Pros & Cons:

Pros:
I am really impressed with all the products I bought - they really manage to capture the "feel" of the situation they're supposed to indicate, while still being really simple and iconic - kind of like the health & power-up indicators when you're playing a video game.  The products are really well made and are made in the U.S.A., and I've made it a point to stop by the Litko booth every time I see them at a convention and they're always tremendously friendly.  Many of the token packs are are geared towards historical wargames / naval games, and include way more tokens than the average 40k/Fantasy player would need - you could easily place a group order with your buddies and split up the packs to save money.

Cons:
My only complaint was shipping time - it took almost two-and-a-half weeks before my order shipped.  I contacted Litko after a couple of weeks-  they responded promptly, apologized, and said that they were currently short-handed and that my order would ship in the next few days, which it did - I wasn't in a rush to get these, so no big deal.


If you're interested, check out their web site or Facebook page for more info.

Resin Goodness!

...as I mentioned before, I'm basing my Black Templars on the "urban wasteland" -style bases that I made in my resin casting tutorial.  The problem was, I only made 25mm bases, and this army is going to have several squads of Terminators.  I didn't want to do another casting run for only 15 - 20 bases, but I certainly didn't relish the idea of making matching bases from scratch.  Luckily, I saw that Jeff over at Dragon Forge Design carries a line of 40mm bases that pretty closely matches my theme:

...while I was there, I also picked up a sampler set of his Power Cables:

Some of these are a bit beefier than the guitar string that I've been using, and should be more useful for some vehicle & terrain projects I have in mind.

I also picked up some resin plinths:

I don't have anything in particular in mind for these yet, I just thought they'd be handy to have around.

Overall I'm really impressed with the quality of his stuff!

Amy Builder

...so something else I bought along with the items I mentioned in my last post was a copy of Army Builder:

...I've seen a lot of hate directed at Army Builder & the gamers who use it on various forums, but I got a chance to try it out one night before lars4life & I headed to the FLGS, and it was soooo much easier than building a list from scratch in a spreadsheet - for a n00b like me, anyway.  I'm really looking forward to using to try out a bunch of different lists...

GF9 Templates

Based on Lars4life's review, I picked up a couple of the Gale Force Nine T.A.C. templates:

I got two so I could throw one in each of my (currently used) army bags - eventually my goal is to have a complete set of templates, dice, tape measure, etc., in every army bag I have, so all I need to do is grab the bag with my books in it & the appropriate army case and hit the door, without having to worry if I forgot anything or having to move a bunch of stuff over from another bag.  To this end, I also picked up a Multi-Template Mk II:

This is pretty slick - I know I've criticized Gale Force Nine's "Hobby Scenics" line for being overpriced, but their "Gaming Aids" line includes a lot of cool, well-thought-out stuff.

I also picked up some spare dice:

The Chessex 12mm dice cubes are cheap enough that I can add one or two to my order whenever I buy some stuff online, and it isn't too painful.  At some point I bought a bagful of scatter & artillery dice, so a few of those will get thrown in each bag too...

New Army Transport Case!

...so once a year at work, we're able to convert our unused sick time into pay (at a reduced rate).  While I usually use this money to pay for my Christmas shopping, I worked a TON of overtime in November & December, so this wasn't really necessary - I toyed with placing a large Forge World order, but, in the end, I used the money to pay off some bills.  (Bummer, huh?)  However, I did allow myself to splurge on one thing:

...it's a Sabol Designs "Division" case - it holds three stacks of figure foam side-by-side, 8-3/4" deep.  I also ordered some spare 4" deep trays, since I think each of my Battlewagons is going to need one dedicated to it - I think I might actually have to order another one of their cases, without foam, just for my Ork vehicles.

I also ordered a few of their "Paint Storage" trays - I need to do some test fitting, but I suspect I can fit these trays into the desktop drawers that I store my paints in, so I'll be able to just pop 'em into my case when I want to take them with me...

You Know The Guy...

...he might be a regular at your local game shop.  He might be a close personal friend of yours.  Heck, he might even be you.  He's a great guy and all, but he's, well, lets say terminally disorganized.  He's constantly asking to borrow your rulebook, or your dice, or your templates.  He has to sneak peeks at the codexes on the store shelves because he forgot to bring his.  He proxies soda cans for tanks, because he forgot to grab the model he had just clearcoated before he left the house.

Why do I bring this guy up?  Because, chances are, at some point he's walked away with your tape measure.  It's now the Christmas season (well, according to the stores, anyway).  The next time you go to the hardware store (or past the hardware department in your local big-box store) you'll see a bunch of "stocking stuffer" gift ideas near the main aisle.  One of these items will undoubtedly be a miniature tape measure:

...these will probably be priced around $1 (I think the fancy rubberized one in the bottom of the pic was the pricey one, at $1.79).  Do yourself a favor - pick up a couple of these.  Throw one in each of the bags or boxes that you use to carry your models.  Keep one in the glovebox of your car.  The next time "that guy" forgets his tape measure and asks to borrow yours, give him one of these as a loaner.  And if he walks away with it, at least it wasn't your good one.

The other neat thing I found was these small clamps:

...I have a few similar clamps for household repairs, but these are tiny versions - they look to be just right for clamping foamcore board or styrofoam when I'm building terrain.