MFCA 2012

MFCA – The Miniature Figure Collector’s of America – held their 71^st show on May 18^th and 19^th. It’s billed as the oldest and largest show of its kind. I have not been to the MFCA show since around 2006 but made the trip this year in an attempt to get my painting mojo back. I haven’t painted a non-gaming figure in years, and I feel like even my gaming figure painting skill has stalled. So with hope in my heart I pilgrimage was made, and I found a show changed in many ways, and perhaps due for some bigger changes in the future.

In the plus column, the level of painting is jaw-droppingly-fantastic. Basically what I saw as the best in 2006 is now closer to the run of the mill. Participation included some greats from Europe, entries have diversified to include more game figures, more fantasy, anime and garage kits.

Also great was to see the gathering of Grand Masters. To quote from the MFCA’s website “A unique institution of the MFCA is the Grand Master. In the early 70s, it was noted that certain artists were winning a lot of awards at MFCA Shows, due to their excellent and unique work. It was thought that this might be discouraging to others who wanted to exhibit their work but were intimidated. It was decided to declare these multiple winners Grand Masters and make them ineligible for regular awards, thus giving the average person a better chance. Once a few Grand Masters were picked, the MFCA decided that the best judges to award this accolade to others were the previous winners themselves. So, over the last thirty years, a member of the MFCA and all the Grand Masters attending the Annual Show gather and debate and discuss the merits of the artists present and their work, and the uniqueness of their contribution to the hobby. “ At this year’s show they had displays by every Grand Master all the way back to Mr. Numero Uno – Shep Paine from 1972.

For those of you who are either young or mostly confine yourselves to game figure painting Shep Paine is one of the greats who moved painting figures from a craft to the art that it is today.  It was a real thrill to see in the flesh the boxed diorama by Shep called “Below Decks of the Trafalgar” (probably screwing up the title). I remember seeing this when I was a teen back in Military Modeler  back in the 70s (a US mag not to be confused with the British Military Modelling). Shep may also be known to some for his great articles on diorama building in the instruction sheets for Monogram model kits during that same period.

I saw Shep at the show and it was nice to see he was still alive. I didn’t actually speak to him, cause, well, I’m a little shy around the gods.

And last in the good column is that I got to say hi to a great number of friends in the hobby who I have known for decades. It was very heartening to see so many still painting after all these years.

On the down side, the MFCA has been for years (with one or two minor exceptions) at the Valley Forge Convention center. As mentioned in one of my Historicon entries, the convention Center has been partially converted into a casino.

Cause eastern Pennsylvania needs more casinos.

Anyway, the result of this is that the vendor area was about one half to one third of what I remember it once being. I am assuming reduced vendor area makes it harder to support a prestigious show of this type. I would not be surprised to see the MFCA show to either down scale and move, or cease to be in the next couple of years.

I snapped some pictures and I am just showing a sampling here. All of the pics I took are in a Photobucket directory here. It is but a fraction of the incredible work that was seen.

So net-net: inspired by the work, saddened those that have passed, curious about the future. Who knows? I may even try and get something painted for next year!

GZG-ECC 15, Part.3

Part.3 …. and also Part-The-Last. You can all breathe a sigh of relief now.

So, here are a couple other games from Saturday night. Stuart Murray expanded the city from Friday night’s “Battle for Lancaster” game for use in “Exterminate! Exterminate!”, a bit of Who-vian splendor using Stargrunt. I was tempted to cancel my own game so I could play. Got to love the Doctor!

The folks from Osprey were there and ran a couple of scenarios, one Force-on-Force and one with Tomorrow’s War. These shots are from “Apache Down” which used FoF.

Sunday morning I played “The Hermoine Inident”, an Aeronef game by Mark Kochte. I played the Americans versus the Japanese (two players) competing for a small German convoy (4^th player) allegedly carrying some choice treats. Sadly this game had me so busy I never had a break to take a few pics of other games going on.

 I really like VSF, the problem I have with Aeronef is that, for me, it’s just too simple – simpler than Full Thrust. All guns have the same range. I tried it a few years ago and thought I would give it another go. While I had more fun than the last time I played, I still feel it would have been more fun if playing a Full Thrust variant.

Purchases

GZG is about gaming but there are a few vendors. This year’s lineup was Starmats Plus, Osprey, Bad Idea Games, and a guy who had been part of Battle Works Studios (sadly now defunct!).

I picked up Force on Force from Osprey, Ares High and some supplement craft from Bad Idea, a couple buildings and scenery bits from the end of Battle Works.

All and all, a great con as always!

You can see all of my pictures in Photobucket here.

And I highly recommend Mark Kochte’s time laps video:

GZG-ECC 15, Part.2

Nnnnnnuts! I had this entry done Saturday, but I had foolishly written it directly into blogger. One random motion and it was wiped. So Part.2, Take 2.

Saturday morning I played “D8 Galactic Derelict”. It was a Space Hulk-ish kind of scenario using the D8 System by Bad Idea Games. The D8 system was created for their Fantasy WW1 game “Arses High, Orcs in the Sky” (AH for now). It utilizes some custom D8s that have Lite, Medium, and Heavy on them. Different characters types accept different results from the dice. If I recall correctly, there was an opposed die roll. Anyway, I had wanted to play AH, but I had promised another GM to play his game which was in the same slot. I thought I would give “D8 Galactic Derelict” a try to see what the mechanics were like. I’m glad I did. The mechanics are fairly simple but had after a few turns you start to see strategy options that made the game a lot of fun.

The game was played with some particularly amazing paper scenery that the owner of Bad Idea games had created. I had thought it was a professionally available set, but no.

Everyone had a squad and an objective like kill of X number of aliens, or drop a bomb down an airshaft. Each player took turns moving the aliens about and making rolls for them. At the end of the game, no one had achieved their objective but everyone had a great time. It was a blood bath.

Sadly, Bad Idea does not plan on releasing these rules and they might, just might, sell the corridors. I hope so.

I did have a chance to take a few pictures of other games going on in the Saturday morning slot. Here are some from the “Skirmish at Obelisk Point” by Jeff Aubert, a fantasy skirmish game using Hack and Slash rules.

And here is “Battle for Aldensport” by Jon Davis, a 6mm scenario using the Strike Legion rules.

In the afternoon slot, I played “Dune: The Spice Must Flow!” by Brian Phillips. I ended up partnered with Clambo again. We played the Fremen with Clambo taking on the role of Maud’Dib. The game used a combination of rules that are tough to describe. It had elements of the proto-rules from GZG called FMA Skirmish coupled with some dice pool mechanics. Somehow it all worked – we had a blast.

Brian went crazy and modified a ton of GW figures to make Fremen – I think the were Eldar. He did head swaps, added weapons, add breathing hoses. Very cool! The photos really don’t do the justice.

He constructed s spice harvester out of a salad bowl and other odds and ends. Brian also made a sand worm out of dryer ducting. The man is nuts!

He also dropped a chunk of change on ebay to get one of the old Monogram ornithopter kits, which I believe is the rarest of the Dune kits. Gotta admire that dedication to theme.

Needless to say the Fremen kicked booty, despite Maud’Dib wasting time skirmishing in the hills. Yeah, I’m talkin’ to you Clambo! It fell to your humble servant Gurney Halleck to blow up the harvester! I think this is the time for the now mandatory Clambo photoshop'ed picture:

"Clambo is a killing word!"

Other games Saturday afternoon – “Arses High” by Bad Idea. I liked the minis so much and enjoyed the D8 system from the morning I picked this game up. My gaming buddy Krimso played it with his son and really enjoyed it. He picked it up too. In a move typical for us, neither of us has had the time to paint it up and get playing. Perhaps post Historicon?

Other Saturday afternoon sights: Tom McCarthy ran a Stargunt game, “Ambush Along Route 34-Alpha”. Love seeing those Kryomek figures coming out and getting used.

And I think this is “Coming of Shadows” by Aaron Newman using the Earth Force Source Book rules. I had to take a picture of this as I LOVE that planet. Aaron tells me after a long search for a suitable he found this 50s light fixture (close to 18" across). Takes a lot of care to pack and transport, but WOW, that’s great looking!

A brief pause in the action to talk about Saturday night’s dinner: Saturday night krimso, krimso jr., and I  headed to downtown Owego in search of something different to eat than the fast food available around the hotel. We stumbled upon “Las Chicas Taqueria”. It refers to itself as a California style taqueria, and while I still don’t know quite what that means, I do know it was jaw-droppingly awesome! If ever find yourself anywhere near Owego, NY, go immediately to 208 Front Street and get some good eats. They’re on facebook.

Now back to our scheduled program.

Saturday night I ran Super Mega Hyper Mecha Smackdown (Lite). SMHMS is an arena style game of transforming Mecha (giant, piloted robots for those without anime training). The game is based on Full Thrust with some relatively slight mods.

Mecha take on two forms: Battroid, which is human-like, and Gerwalk, which is halfway between Battroid and a jet-fighter. I’ve got an early revision up as a page you can reach from the link on the right, I’ll get a newer version of the rules up soon.

I plan on running this game every year at GZG with a perpetual trophy that names are added to. Tom “Killer” McCarthy was our first champion. Congrats Tom!

Well, I seem to have run on a bit, so I will wrap up with Part.3 in a few days.

GZG-ECC 15, Part.1

Well, sure it's two months after the fact, but it's still more timely than my reportage last year!

Once again, if you are missed this convention, you are missing the best three days of SF gaming. Fun games, great people, and mellow.

This year we were blessed by unseasonably good weather so the drive up was quick and painless. What did take me by surprise was the hotel was under reconstruction. The hotel sits along the banks of the mighty Susquehanna river, and apparently the huge snowstorm that hit the east coast in October of 2011 resulted in the first floor of the hotel being flooded. All of the rooms on the first floor were closed for remodeling - the place was gutted. Our room on the second floor was fine though, and the restaurant had been restored, so other than the somewhat spooky walk through the first floor hallway to get to the lobby, everything was copacetic.

So let's jump to what it's all about, the games! This year was an experiment: non-GZG games were permitted with convention director approval. This was an excellent addition which not only provides greater variety, but will hopefully attract more folks to the con. My first game was a non-GZG game; a neat 4 player game using Ambush Alley rules with touches taken from Tomorrow's War. It was called Battle for Lancaster by Stuart Murray. (All these pics should enlarge by clicking)

Basically veteran troopers starting at the closest edge in the above picture needed to retrieve trapped folks by the flipped bus (by the very rectangular modern building. Insurgents (GZG Crusties) worked to prevent the veterans. Two players played the troopers and two were the insurgents. Ambush Alley was fast enough that we could play the scenario twice in a single game slot, giving everyone a chance to play both sides.

First game I played troopers with my oft-GZG-gaming-partner Clambo (of Daddy's Little Men). In the above pic, Clambo is skirting up the left side. That pile of kill tokens on the right? Yeah, that's my squad save the one unscathed trooper and the two wounded guys to the left of the yellow car. Did I mention Ambush Alley is bloody?

And when a pile of Crusties started raining death from above, it was "Game Over, man!"

Above is a shot when we reversed sides. Note all the kill markers on the buildings with the Crusties. Is having a Epic Fail regardless of what side you play evidence of a balanced scenario? I don't know, but no matter what, it was an extraordinarily fun game, I definitely want to give Ambush Alley another go. I'm also impressed with how a fantastic scenario can happen in a 2'x2' area.

Here are some quick picks of games going on during Battle for Lancaster:

Battle for Cormorant Moon, a Full Thrust game run by Jon Davis.

Mayday! Mayday!, a Starmada scenario by Richard Meaden.

So ended Friday night. Saturday games in part 2.

Blue Moon SF Update #1

Well, I have started working on building #1 and in the priming/basecoat stage I have noted a few flaws I thought I should pass along. I've also taken the precaution of calling this "Update #1" if things continue to pop up on this build.

Let me be clear up front - despite these flaws I still think these are freaking awesome buildings!

First up, there is some kind of wave in the rooftop fencing. Note how the line of the barrier moves away from the roof edge.

While I was adding locators to the underside of the roof, I went to great pains to get the top and bottom portions of the tower to line up. When you do that, some gaps are revealed at both ends on the roof. The roof overall is shorter than the building itself.

This is compounded by the fact that the base is not square an true. Not sure if this is due to the master or due to mold distortion.

In the final analysis, I don't think we, as gamers, expect perfection (at least I don't), but the gap on the one end is more than I like so I will tack on a styrene strip and feather it in. I'll post a full blog report when the building is complete.

Vines - Part 2

For my second foray into vine making, I used another model that had been sitting around unpainted since time immemorial; a bridge that, if I remember correctly, was by Gallia USA bought just before they went out of business. Probably in the mid 90s. Here is the bridge painted up. Nothing fancy mind you, just a base coat and a couple shades of dry brush. I think I may have textured the road surface to be more road-surface-like.

To make the vines, here is some copper wire I bought at Home Depot (DIY store).

I cut the wire into lengths a couple inches long, twisted some of the strands into separate branches, and primered them white.

I gave them a light wash of brown craft paint and glued them to the bridge.

Attached at various point is a combination of Woodland Scenics clump foliage. Here is a final shot.

I’m pretty happy with the results of this second attempt. I think it works well for 28mm, I’ll have to try some experiments for 15mm. I have a 15mm bridge on the “to-do stack”.