Da Pain Train - Panzy Panza Update (Orks' Eldar Looted Wagon/Locomotive)

Hi everyone,

It's been a while since we've worked on Da Pain Train - Da Panzy Panza.  And, with everyone in the house under the weather today, rather than head down to Bay Area Open 2015 (which was our plan) did some work on looting instead....

 Here is the Da Pain Train so far....

Our progress so far....

Side view of the Panzy Panza

- Picked out a donor Lionel locomotive.  This time, using the GE 44-Tonner as our base.

- Found a first batch of Eldar parts.  On eBay, found an Eldar Falcon (?? we think ??) which was in pieces.  Turned out it had been hot-glued together -- so easy to disassemble and reassemble.

- After some thinking decided it looked fun upside-down on top of the  44-Tonner.  This is cool because we can have the landing ramp instead act as a hatch for a Grot of Ork Boy to shoot out of.

 The landing hatch of the Falcon set up to swing open so that Grots or Boyz can shoot out the back

- Took some carving, but got magnets mounted in the original turret -- and also the "bottom" (now the top) of the Falcon.

It was a bit tricky to carve a spot for the magnet on both parts - but we managed to get it done -- and reasonably centered, too

 Turret works - and the Eldar weapons swing up and down still as well....

- And, got the two epoxied together....

- Next order of business was putting an Ork into the cockpit of the turret.  Easier said than done.  Orks have much bigger and bulkier legs than Eldar. 

We had to do some "surgery" on the Ork gunner's legs to get them to fit into the cockpit.  Main problem was that the ankles weren't really set up in any sort of reclining position.

Here he is -- just barely fitting in there....

Decided that this was a good time to use one of our Fantasy Orc heads we were planning to use (great helmets).  And, had to move the little control viewer to make room for the Ork. 

 Our Ork gunner :)  You can see our repositioning of the display/control panel....

So now, we're ready to add Dakka.  Going to need to think of more ideas, but here is what we are thinking so far....

- Maybe some kind of spar-pole with a bomb-squig on the end at the front?

- Going to mount the skewered Eldar pilot somewhere (maybe also on the front)....

- Thinking of mounting some machine guns (big shootas) in an underslung fashion to the "wings" of the falcon

- Need to figure out more places for buzz-saw type weapons

- And, also planning to mount some engines inside the engine compartment -- and then run hose-cable assemblies up to the falcon -- to make it more fun to think about how Ork Meks have gotten this whole thing running

 Side view of Da Pain Train....  Took quite a while to cut (with our Xacto saw) through the side to open up the "doors" on the locomotive.  But, that's going to be key to run our cables and hoses from the engine in the engine compartment up to the falcon.  Whether the Falcon is sending power to the locomotive -- or the locomotive is sending power to the Falcon is something only the Mek knows.  (Maybe it's both!!)

- The "cabin" of this locomotive is actually quite filled up with the motor of the model train.  So, we may put grots in there instead of Ork Boyz for drivin'.

Paint wise -- this one is going to be the yellow color scheme of Supreme Warboss Fork (not the pink of Supreme Warboss Spork)

Links to other blog posts:
- Our looted steam engine - the Dakka Chugga
- Earlier Pain Train post

Warhammer 40K in the Park -- Playing a Game Outside!

Hi everyone,

Just played a very fun game of 40K with our friend Mr. Z!

 Playing 40K (Outside!) (In a Park!) -- Orks vs. Eldar

Both Mr. Z and we have had very busy days the past few weeks -- and we were struggling to figure out a time to play which we could both manage.  Overlaying those challenges with the times when our local game stores were open -- and we were really in trouble.

So, we decided to break with convention and try for an early morning game.  And, to make it easy, we figured we would play at a big park with lots of grass and paved areas -- right by a skate park....

Set-up:

We searched, searched and searched, and could not find a "card table" which was 4 feet by 6 feet.  6 feet long was not an issue -- but they were all something like 30 inches wide!!

Then, digging in the garage, we came across one of our old train table boards.  We had cut 3 sections which were 8 feet long and 3 feet wide.  Took a few minutes of staring (and for mental cobwebs to come off) to realize that if we cut this in half, we'd have two sections 4 feet long and 3 feet wide -- AND, IF WE PUT THESE SIDE BY SIDE -- it would be 4 feet by 6 feet :)

So, that's what we did!

• We bought a low cost 4 feet by 6 feet folding table (fits in the car easily)
• And, [taking care to be quiet] we used a hand-saw to cut the plywood in half [at 5:30am this morning]....

Our portable 4' x 6' Warhammer 40K table!

 Sure enough, we could fit the portable table into the car....

Our Army:

We were playing this battle as part of the campaign we've been playing -- and the scenario was that Mr. Z's Eldar were attacking our HQ.  We were out-gunned -- some 1100 points of Orks defense against 2500 points of Eldar attack....

So, we had worked to set up 600 points of fortifications -- and 525 points of Ork army.  Everyone had agreed that an unbound list made sense for a cobbled together HQ defense.

Problem was -- other than the big cannon, we didn't really have much for fortifications.  And, we had been planning to do some camping just before we played this battle (which was part of the busy schedule)....

Coaching from friends on Dakka Dakka encouraged us to use models like a Landing Pad, Pain Boy, Lootas, Mek-Guns, and Vengance Weapons batteries.  We had also managed to get our hands on a Plasma Obliterator.

Reading up on the Landing Pad, that seemed like a key to keep things alive.  But, how to find one?  We tried every single one of our usual game stores -- and nobody had one.   It was a special order item for everyone!

Finally, we found one at Apokalypse Games in San Jose.  A bit of a drive, but we managed to pick one up!!

And, while there, we got to see their terrific fortification terrain (what we really needed against the Eldar!)

The very cool terrain at Apokalypse Games :)

40K While Car Camping:

So, we did some 40K model building on the camping trip to get ready.  [We stopped short of playing 40K this camping trip - maybe next one....]  We packed up our model glue, snippers and file -- along with the 40K kits to build -- and we were in business.

Here is our Landing Pad assembly area (while camping)

Working on the Vengance Weapons Batteries

The Battle:

The all-stars of the battle were -- no question -- the Mek Guns.  Wish we had had even more of those.  Since we had an unbound list, we used them as single units -- and they couldn't really fail morale against the oncoming Eldar attack.

Also -- the "D-1" flamer weapons the Eldar wield were pretty tough!

Some good lessons:

- Although the Plasma Obliterator was fun to build and fun to play, it would have worked better to spread our points out and use more of the Vengance Weapon Batteries.

- We should have put our Weapon Batteries on the edges of the table -- not in the center where the Eldar could use them against us as screens from the other weapons.

- Need to do a better of knowing the range of each of our units.  In the first round we were thinking that the Lootas had a range of 36" -- not the actual range of 48"!!!

Found a Turbo Laser Turret - Looking forward to another session of X-Wing with our Death Star Trench!

Hi everyone,

We were browsing in the scenery section at Game Kastle on Friday night and stumbled across something we had been searching for -- a Death Star Turbo Laser Turret!!

In our most recent post about the X-Wing Death Star Trench model we had made a first attempt at building Turbo Laser Turrets using pink foam.  Several issues:  They were too small; they weren't nicely symetric; they were super light and jiggled around easily.  Bottom line -- it's not easy to build a Turbo Laser Turret!

[Here's a link to our earlier posting.  <-- We have notes here on playing X-Wing with a Death Star Trench as a cooperative game.]

Here's our first attempt at a pink foam Turbo Laser Turret.  Pretty humble.  It got a little bit better with nails poked in to create the barrels of the turbo lasers.

Here you can see our first-pass Turbo Laser Turrets at work.  Not much to look at....  Also a bit small compared to the models.

So, this is a very exciting discovery.

The box with the picture :)

The TLTs come from JR Miniatures (JRMINI) here in the Silicon Valley area.

The box -- in case anyone would like to see the details!

Here's a link to the product page for the Turbo Laser Turret

And, here's a quick look at our model.

Here is our first Turbo Laser Turret :)

Game Kastle had one left over from a holiday X-Wing session they had run.  So, we bought that one -- and ordered more (for a fully populated trench)....

Here is the Turbo Laser Turret next to an FFG X-Wing.  Great scale -- just what we were hoping for!

We'll post more as soon as we get some paint on our turrets and try the Death Star Trench Cooperative Game once more :)

Powered Play Bases and Objective Markers Arrived Today!!

Hi everyone,

Very exciting -- our PoweredPlay Bases and Objective Markers Arrived Today!

[Here's a link to the PoweredPlay webiste]

Here's what arrived today!  Light-up bases and Light-up objective markers!

We had first met the Chris from the PoweredPlay team at the Bay Area Open convention last year.  Had a great time chatting with him -- and learning about his plans.

Then we bought one of the basic kits -- and still working on fitting it into our Ork Steam Train / looted wagon, the Dakka Chugga.  (Going to be sweet having the burna of the locomotive lit up!)

Then, our friend Corey at Gator Games showed off a Warmachine model he had cored-out to add an early prototype of the PoweredPlay team's 'light-up-base'.  Extremely cool!

And, now our set has arrived....

Have to say that we're pretty excited about the light-up objective markers.  Reason:  we tend to be subject to forgetting things -- and among those things we might forget -- where the objective markers are.  If they're lighting up, it's gotta help!  [Here's one of our blog posts / rants about our poor remembering skills while playing 40K!]

Here's how the objective markers look once we got them assembled.

 First we loaded the button cell battery into the LED assembly

 That fit into the bottom holder

 We placed the two slotted pieces above to create the "light pipe" to connect to the marker

 And, Shazam! here's our marker lighting things up :)

We'll glue the assembly together and work on painting things into a nice color scheme.  (Fork will likely pitch for yellow; Spork for Pink....)

We have some ideas for the bases already -- will post more about those soon.  (Some ideas as part of our Pythos IV campaign -- Supreme Ork Warbosses Fork and Spork working on some more looting -- and going to light those up!

D&D using Story Cubes [Story Dice]

Hi everyone,

We've been playing D&D off and on for a while now -- and just implemented something we had been scheming on for a bit....

Using Story Cubes to embellish the situation of battles and interactions with NPCs.

"What are Story Cubes?"

We first discovered these at Gator Games -- got ourselves three of the little expansion sets -- gave two away as gifts and kept the third.

 Here are the first Story Cubes we used -- the expansion set of prehistoria, clues and enchanted dice

Story Cubes -- officially "Rory's Story Cubes" https://www.storycubes.com/ are nice little sets of dice -- each die having unique icons or images on each of the six faces.

Here is the "basic set" of story cubes...

There are several different sets -- The Basic Set, Actions, Voyages, and two sets of expansions (which is what we had found at Gator Games).

How we've been adding this to D&D....

• When our party charges into a room (which has 5 skeletons hitting in a pile of rubble) one person reaches into the bowl of Story Cubes -- with eyes closed -- and grabs two.  Then, he or she rolls these.  And, we come up with a way to build the result into the story. 

• When somebody rolls a 1 we do the same -- and work the fumble into the story

•  And, thinking that it would be fun to the do same for a natural 20 critical hit [but haven't tried that yet]....

It took us a while to come up with a system which worked.  At first we had all of our Story Cubes out in a pile -- but didn't have a very good way to decide which of the dice to use....

Our D&D set-up with our Story Cubes ready for business

Then we came up with the idea of putting them all in a rather high-rimmed bowl -- and having someone at the table pick with eyes closed.  This worked out really well -- added another aspect of excitement to the game -- and also let the players feel that they had some involvement in the DM's management of the game.

Our bowl full of Story Cubes!

And, here's an example where the party was fighting skeletons.  Wouldn't you know it -- a skeleton rolled a natural 1 -- and we had agreed that for fumbles, this would mean (you guessed it) -- Story Cubes....

Rolling the story dice when a skeleton has rolled a 1 and fumbled....

We decided that these dice indicated that rather than executing a proper strike with its spear, the skeleton lost its grip and threw the spear into the wall....

In terms of other things which are helping us to keep the game moving -- snacks (watermelon in this case) are certainly helping.  Thinking hard about the the "overhead projector" we had seen one person write up in his/her blog.  This sounded sweet.

Here's our table set-up....

Have to say that the D&D Spell Cards are really helping us to keep things going.  No more flipping through the only (dog-eared) copy of the Player's Handbook to find out how long "Protection from Evil" lasts.  Now it's all in the players "hand" so to speak.  :)

Here are the cards set up for Ms. P's Bard character :)

We'll report in as we continue to refine ways to add fun to the game!

And, here is a link to our earlier posting about playing D&D 5th Edition:  D&D 5th Edition First Try

40K Campaign is Underway -- A Battle for Pythos IV

Hi everyone,

Today we headed over to Game Kastle to meet up with Mr's M, L and Z to start our 40K Campaign!

Fork and Spork were in attendance as we rolled off to see who would select their landing zone first :)

This is us rolling a 6!  And, get to deploy first....

Mr. M (our Game Master -- or Campaign Coordinator) had placed a map on his blog so that we could study things before hand.

Here's a link to that:  http://battlefleetbadgerhound.blogspot.com/2015/06/pythos-iv-campaign-maps-initial-maps-of.html

With four players, he nicely crafted the military zone of Pythos IV to have 4 Spaceports -- and so that each of us could take one if we so desired.

We were lucky and rolled to land first -- and after a bit of bashing back and forth, Fork and Spork elected to land in the southern-most Space Port:  Hex 1-34.

Tyranids and Eldar then landed -- and things ended up with Tyranids to the left of us; Eldar to the right.  Mr. M's Space Marines are directly opposite.

After considerable argument, Fork and Spork summarized things as follows:

Fur Pythos Numma Four, dese are da Orky Know-wotz:

- Supreme Warbosses Fork and Spork 'ave seezded da best spotz
- Sniffed ou' Panzys landin' to our righ' 
- An, dos' Bugz is 'ere too -- on our lef'
- Humies is far off on da udder side (no worriez)

Spork:  "I sayz we charge direkly at them Panzys and fight 'em now!"
Fork:  "Shet yer pie hole, Spork.  Dat's empy headed talk.  Take da Hive City, says I!"

Map showing the results of Ork Rekon

Haven't decided on our orders yet -- likely to have a bit more arguing between Fork and Spork before we can share the plan....

Here's the layout with the hex IDs....

Created this fancy map to show where everyone holds territory right now.

The big decision is whether we go after Mr. Z's Eldar (with his powerful new Codex behind him); or Mr. L's Tyranids; or charge to the Hive City to unlock the Moon!

We'll post more as things develop :)

We'll also post more about how Fork and Spork are coming along!

And, here is a link to Mr. M's write-up of the Pythos IV back-story:  http://battlefleetbadgerhound.blogspot.com/2015/06/a-brief-history-of-pythos-iv-discovery.html

"Use Real Things for Real Things!" - Update on how to make pipes, tubes, wires, cables, etc....

Hi everyone,

Wanted to post an update on what we've found to be a better way to do things....

Few weeks back we were posting about using our little press (from Poland) to make wires, tubes and such out of epoxy putty.  (Here's a link to that blog post.)

And, we mentioned that when we chatted with Seth at Game Kastle about this -- mentioned that we wanted to add wires and hoses to our Ork Supreme Warboss (Spork) -- and also that we wanted to add bigger, more involved ones from the "engine" to the "Eldar unit" on our newest locomotive conversion "Da Pain Train"....

And, after being super patient and indulgent, Seth said "use real things to model real things."  :)

So, we've been working at that!  Here's our update.  Spoiler alert:  Of course, Seth was right.  PS:  Got very similar and excellent advice from friends on DakkaDakka.

1) Wires / cables.

Where to get little cables?  Well, around here, if you need old electronic stuff, you can buy recycled electronics at nice low prices:  Weird Stuff Warehouse!

So, we headed down there -- and got some small spools.  You can see the prices on them ($0.50 and $1.00 and $3.00).  The super small gauge wires were cheaper (30 AWG) the 18-20 AWG bigger stuff was a little bit more....

Here are some spools of wire - and a short length of multi-conductor wire we got at Weird Stuff!

Then, we brought out our trusty hand drill (some good advice from a different DakkaDakka set of questions and help from friends)....

Here is the little hand-drill set we got on Amazon

After a little bit of experimentation -- found that one of the small drill bits is JUST right for the 30 AWG wire.  Don't even need to strip the wire.  Slides in with insulation on!

For the larger wire, we used one of the middle-sized bits -- and there we did have to strip the wire to get it to fit into our drilled hole.

What we were going for on Spork was to run "power" from his backpack (which we had built up from some bits) to a) his leg; b) his head; and c) his POWER SPORKA....  So, we used little wires for his head and his leg.  And, then we used the bigger wire for the POWER SPORKA.

After cutting the wires -- we primed them.  (Ended up with lots of paint on our fingers.)  Then a little bit of painting and super glued them into place.

Here is how Spork is shaping up these days.  Going to add some spikey bitz to that front pink part of the POWER SPORKA.  Had put the chains and skull there.  But, when we decided to change his pose to "OVER DA HEAD" had to move those.

We were also really eager to find a way to do pipes and tubes (so that we could run LIKWIDZ and GASSEEZ between the engine and the looted Eldar flying on Da Pain Train)....

So, we found that on HobbyLink we could order miniature PVC tubing, rods -- even I-beams!

Weren't very expensive -- and just arrived....  They are going to work out well.  But, as you can see we've got a little bit of work to do to get 'little tubes' which fit nicely inside 'bigger tubes' -- to resemble tubes, fittings, unions and the like as you'd find in real plumbing systems.

The tubes, rodes and I-beams we got on HobbyLink

So, now (in addition to finishing up Spork) we're ready to start work on Da Pain Train :)

Da Pain Train - Gotz rodz and pipez.  'Ere We Go!

And, with the plastic I-beams we got -- what'll we work on?  Well -- mostly likely a gantry for the Grot Rokkit so that we can use it with the Ork Pulsa Rokkit rules in the up-coming campaign!


As for the little press -- it's still going to see action.  As we see it now -- it's still great for making tubes of different sizes -- particularly when we need them to bend very tight corners.  So, planning to use it on Da Pain Train to make 90-degree elbow piping pieces  :)

Kublakon, Cool War Train and Rivet Wars!

Hi everyone,

This past weekend we spent a little bit of time at Kublacon 2015!

We're still pretty much gaming convention rookies - but we did have a great time :)  Here were several highlights for us:

1) We got to meet our friends from Game Kastle.  Was fun to see them at the convention -- especially in the middle of so many games.

2) There were some really fun displays -- like the guys selling dice.  Had never seen so many dice in one place.  So many colors!  The random grab bin was fun.  And, even found a 24-sided die.  A d24, we guess you'd call it....

One of the racks from the big dice supplier!  Great colors!

Here is a photo of some of the ones we found and brought home....  We figure the Pink Orkys might use the top one for "VERY KRITIKAL" dice rolls.  Don't know what we'll use the 24-sided one for yet.  And, thinking to use the smiley-face die for random D&D encounter generation.  We liked the colors of the others :)

Our fun dice finds!  (We asked the dice guys if the grab-bin dice came in great big boxes.  They siad "yes, and those boxes are REALLY heave!)

3) We spotted a game called Rivet Wars -- and bought it from our Game Kastle friends -- got some fun game promo models since we bought it at the convention.

  4) We got to *play* Rivet Wars in the room where they had two games set up.  And, hey! we like Rivet Wars!  So, this was very good.

Near the end of our first game of Rivet Wars.  Putting our single grey guy into enemy territory helped us to win some key victory points!  Our opponent was very gracious and made several strategy suggestions :)

Here are some quick points about Rivets Wars:

a) It's a fast game.  Maybe 30 minutes to play?

b) The little models are funny and fun.

Here we are playing at home.  Deployed our tanks right away to enjoy the cool look!

c) There are lots of choices about what to try, what to move, how to attack.

d) You can add different upgrades into the "sockets" of different models.  For example the crawler tank above has the "Turret" upgrade added -- instead of the starting cost blank plug which can go in the socket.  (There are character, "pilot" type upgrades as well -- very cool look to have your general commanding from inside your tank.)

d) It's easy to temper the game for different skill levels.  You don't ever really "run out" of army units -- you can simply keep generating and generating them turn-after-turn.  So, if you have a skill delta, it's pretty easy to agree that the game plays on even if one person reaches 10 victory points early.  [We actually enjoy "continuous mode" where you simply skip Victory Points altogether and just keep on playing and playing!]

e) We are still a little bit fuzzy about the moving and shooting rules in the game -- but after watching a Youtube video with the game creator, think we have it figured out :)

5) We got to see a VERY COOL War Train!  Someone had set up a display with a very long Germany WWII armored train.  Studying the locomotive and gun-cars, had lots of ideas for how to continue our work on the Ork and Space Marine trains!

[Link to our Dakka Chugga Post; Link to Da Pain Train Post]

We thought that this car with turret and anti-aircraft gun was pretty cool.  Worth thinking about making an Ork version (or - just loot this one!)

A very cool armored train model.  Hard to even see the locomotive and the tender here -- but if you stare long enough you can see them.  Cool ideas for a Space Marine train, maybe ??

All-in-all, we had a great time -- looking forward to Kublacon 2016!