Jon Tuffley from Ground Zero Games, makers of Full Thrust, Dirtside 2, and Stargrunt 2, is working on a new set of rules called Stargrunt: Assault Company. They are geared to reside between Stargrunt and Dirtside in terms of scale, with multiple 15mm figures per base. I'm sure the rules will be great, just like all the other GZG rules, and I will probably buy them just to have them, but I just don't see myself playing them. I've never seen a single multi-figure base Sci-Fi game in the US. I've seen pictures of a few in the UK, so maybe they're more common there. Jon seems to be gearing rules towards his better selling 15mm line, and after 14+ years, FMA Skirmish seems to be officially Jon's lowest priority, which makes me quite sad and disappointed.

Yes, the time when the craft stores carry Halloween and Christmas village things to use for terrain!Hobbytown USA, where I get my terrain supplies, closes at 9:00 PM. At 9:05, the sprayer on my Woodland Scenics scenic cement breaks on my second hill, shutting me down for the night!

Doesn't look too badly, does it? It's pretty simple, too. I bought a bottle of olive greenish craft paint and a cheap "chip" brush. I poured the paint on the hill, painted it with the brush, and then covered the wet paint with Woodland Scenics green blend blended turf. Let it dry, dump the excess off, and pour that back in the bottle. Then, as long as you have a functioning sprayer, mist it with scenic cement. This is basically a 50/50 or so mix of elmer's glue and water, but the Woodland Scenics brand works better, enough so that I just buy it rather than making it.

Yes, the time when the craft stores carry Halloween and Christmas village things to use for terrain!

A buddy turned me on to the "Moss Display Mats." It's basically a mesh with reindeer moss glued to it. This will do really well for the wood outlines for my SG2 game. The alternative was to cut MDF with my jigsaw out in the garage...not something I was looking forward to. Also, I found these Christmas village hills-- two identical sets! Hard to beat, although they were $13 each. That sucks when I have bunch of foam board laying around, but then, it's been laying around untouched for a looooong time. Taken out of the box, painted green and flocked, and I've got my two identical sets of hills. I can see the finish line... Also, a small Christmas tree that will become 40mm corn fields before too long.

Woot! I finished up my buildings last night...

I wasn't really sure how many I would need, and they seemed a little small, so I made a few extra. They are paper residential and commercial buildings from Dream Pod 9's Heavy Gear line. They're based on plasticard (the yellow piece is the remained on a NO TRESPASSING sign) and flocked.

I'm not really done with this project, as I still need to make sure I have some matching table features, which will probably mean making a couple of hills and some bases for woods, but I'm pretty close. Still, between work, two young kids with music and soccer lessons, and spending quality time with the wife, I am hard up on time for me and my hobby!

Will I finish my SG2 stuff before the end of the month? I'm not doing too badly with it so far, but I don't think I'm quite going to make it. The Real World (curse it!) has thrown me a couple of left hooks this month, and I just have not had the time to work on things. If it were just me slacking off, I'd feel a lot worse about it, but it's been mostly legitimate, so no complaints. I'll at least keep the queue unadjusted, and maybe I can catch up a little bit in the next month.

Not much. Not much that was any fun, at least. I was oncall for work, and got called in early on Friday morning. It seems our data center's air conditioning failed, and it was as bad as I've ever seen it. I had equipment so hot, it would burn your hands to touch it. One CPU outlet was registering 58 Celsius. Friday night, a major data circuit failed. Saturday, a tech at a property wiped his core switch configuration trying to do a password recovery. Plus, each kid had a birthday party to attend, but not together. Whine whine bitch moan. Anyway, I did start on some buildings...

I had intended to scratch build the buildings, but decided I just didn't have the time, so I poked around for some 15mm buildings. There wasn't a lot, but I decided to use some from Dream Pod 9 for Heavy Gear. They're a little small next to the figures, but the ground scale works out nicely. Putting the buildings in scale with the figures makes them almost 50 yards long. I kept my scaled-up test for a large warehouse, and will print out several smaller buildings to accompany it. They go together quickly, and I will probably base them on thin plasticard (tip: you can get cheaper plasticard in the form of For Sale and such signs at hardware stores).

Finished the rest of my 15mm GZG SG2 infantry for my August project.

That's 56 15mm figures (counting crew served weapons as a half figure) completely finished since Historicon, or in about three weeks. I figure my average time painting each was about 10-12 minutes, including the bases. I'm using the "Velas Technique" described in my Historicon AAR. I'll go more detail into exactly what I'm doing in a later article. I've gotten a lot done, but it's been a bit of a pain-- a month isn't as long as it seems once you start including family and work. Still, I have made myself stick to it and I'm going to get it done. In the meantime, I will now have to start on the buildings for the game.

In an effort to keep myself more consistently productive and to channel that productivity towards specific goals (which is my real problem), I've decided to keep track of everything I've finished as well as commit to future dates when specific projects will be finished. You can follow along in the right hand column here towards the bottom, under the links. My real goal is to have a new project once a quarter. My definition of "project" is fairly liberal, pretty much a new scenario I can run that requires some creative effort on my part. Examples would be maybe a small scenario in a new scale/genre, or something which expands things I already have.

Initially, I'm being a little aggressive, with two projects in two months. The first is to run a double-blind Stargrunt 2 game. I have been threatening and threatening to do this for at least a year, maybe longer, so now I'm just going to knuckle down and get it done. Fortunately, I don't have an extreme amount of work to do to get it done. My buddy Mik has one of the forces, and I'm nearly done painting the other. I will need to create some new hill and trees which match items I currently have, and I want to make some buildings for it. I should be able to get it done by the end of August.

The second project would be woodland Indian skirmishes. This is currently somewhat tentative. I bought the 40mm Sash and Saber FIW packs at Historicon, and gave ten to Mik for his birthday. This would let us start painting them and getting them on the table. I have some rules in mind, but I haven't received them yet, so this might still change.

I've been finishing up some 15mm Sci-Fi guys, mostly 15mm GZG Free Cal-Tex guys, and wanted to convert some specialists not offered. I think they turned out pretty well.

Every pack includes this sniper figure, which seems weird to me, but the rifle barrel trims up nicely into the regular trooper rifle. I've done this to all the others, but I did need one sniper, so I give his rifle a funky scope and a head swap.

I need a figure for Electronic Warfare, so I converted up a regular trooper.

The SAW gunners weren't very obvious, so I added a bent wire bipod. GZG only supplies one per pack, and I want two (I don't see any trend towards getting rid of SAWs!), so I converted some regular troopers into SAW gunners.

I cut the commander's arm off this guy and sculpted a new one carrying a bag for a medical officer. I realized after taking the picture that I didn't get around to sculpting the shoulder pad back on yet.

My first conversion, FCT as a Zulu/PAU.