From the Bongolesian News Agency and the Bongolesian Observer:

"Army Officers look for pay raise this year."

(Sudekia): During a staff conference with high ranking army officers, several of them mentioned the concept of a possible pay raise for them and their fellow soldiers.
"We are proud to serve under the flag of our beloved country and wear a clean uniform of the army that we have been trained to love". said one officer. "However it would be a bit better for us if we could get a few extra Bling-Blings a month to help us out."
"The Army routinely transfers commanding officers to keep them from "Getting stagnant" in one area for too long, and ensuring national security" says Army spokesman Lt. Sp'in Dok'tur. "We are reviewing the pay and benefits package for officers and even the enlisted. It will help morale and will also help many of them from being killed we think."

"Bongolesian Romance Tours cumming soon to your way!"
(Sudekia): It's only natural that all you need is love and in doing so, the National Tourism Industry is putting the final touches before release of their Bongolesian Romance Tours.
"Man I wish I could tell you all the really cool and hot things that this package offers people for the money we get from them." said a Tourism Representative. "But then I would be giving it away too soon!"
It's said that when the package deal is released, that tourists and lovebirds will have the ability to marry, and honeymoon Bongolesian style.
"Trust me." The Representative said. "When we are done with them they will never forget the money that they put out for this stuff!"

FROM THE WORKTABLE:

Well...my painting and building goes quite well. Since Saturday I have finished over 30 stands of figures, including refugees, UN, Looters, and Mercernaries. I've also built up two shantytown sections which will be painted this weekend.
The QRF Hind is coming along slowly. It seems to that the Armory White Spray Primer just couldn't do the job, and a nice respray of grey from Krylon and Wal Mart did the job better...

This week will see me finishing up the shanties, the C47, and about four resin buildings that have been crying for attention.

I'm thinking this weekend of building an even larger garbage dump too...Gawd help me.

And Joanns have foam cutter knives on sale for 20 bucks...mmmmmmm...terrain pieces.....good.

Okay, on that note...more photos to come soon, I hope...

Getting Jiggy on the 28th! GAME ANNOUNCEMENT!

Sat, 28th July: 1300 hrs... Bongolesia gets jiggy once again, as another game of AK47 Republic is coming your way!
"Rescue in Moonbatsia"
# of players 2-4 (Advance notification of play suggested but not required...)
Time is short as the recently kidnapped "party all night long" heiress to the Cocktail Swizzle Stick Industry has been "converted/abducted" by THE Reverend Father Dr. John of the Mysterious "Oingo Boingo Cult", and an all out effort has been launched to rescue her, by a variety of forces. Unfortunately each of the rescuing forces have their own agendas also... Can you as a rescuer, storm the defenses of the Cult, and rescue the "useless but filthy rich" young damsel in distress before she falls to the evil schemes of the "good" Reverend Father Dr. John, (or before your competitors beat you to the prize?).... Or, can you as THE Reverend Father Doctor John with your group of righteous followers hold off the heathens until your "holy work" is done? And why has "The Wild Ducks" Mercenary Group suddenly shown up?... Come join the fun!!!


Her name is Dupree; Vienna Dupree...(or as she says it "Du-PRay...*tsk...siiiiiigh*")...
She's young, pretty, (if you like your girls with a "deer in the headlights" look on their face 24/7, or a shallow smile that means that inside their head is "white noise"...), shallow, vain, conceited, obnoxious, and abnormally stupid...You may have seen her on the covers of Gossip magazines...where she spent $100,000 on neon unicorn lawn sculptures, or rented out a shopping mall for 6 hours and did a power shopping spree with her and her cronies..err..friends.
Yeah...that's her.
She's also immensely rich, and her daddy has powerful friends in his pocket.
She's the heiress to the cocktail swizzle stick industry, (yeah...the little swords in your wifes froo froo drinks at Applebees...), and has more money than you can count.
And unfortunately...she's missing.
Well....she WAS missing.
Intel has picked up that "somehow or another" she has fallen into the clutches of "THE Reverend Father Dr. John" and his followers of "The Mysterious Oingo Boingo Cult" in Central Bongolesia.
It's not known HOW she ended up in Bongolesia or with the OBC, but she's there, and daddy is not happy that his "little princess" is with "those weirdos".
So he's offered a BIG FAT LUCRATIVE REWARD for anyone rescuing her.
Naturally the National Defense Forces are jumping at the chance....
And the UN has decided that this is "The opportunity" that they need to get "things moving" in Bongolesia.
Unknown to everyone else, "Daddy" also hired a group of mercenaries to go in a rescue his babykins...
The Wild Ducks.
Known throughout Africa, The Wild Ducks is a group of British, Irish, Scottish, German, and South African Ex-pats who's only skills involving pulling triggers and solving problems with a suitable application of high explosives.
So yeah...they are on the scene too.

This should be a fun game...

Poor stupid little rich girl....

Primers...a primer...

Grey Krylon auto spray primer...cheap at Wal-mart, (.99 - 1.25 a can), is currently the best primer that I have found for resin.
Armory White Primer sucks...

100 stands and counting!!!!

Okay...so for a quick update...
This weekend I finished over a dozen stands of civilian refugees.
Last night I did a "stand count" out of curiosity and realized that I have over 100 stands of figures (300+) painted and ready to play. Almost 2 dozen + vehicles and more on the way.
Sitting on my table right now is another 10-15 stands worth of figures...Mercenaries, rebels, media, SF teams, etc...
Plus I have an upcoming battle announcement to make in a future post...

More to come...

FROM THE WORKBENCH: A very productive weekend!

Wow...For the first time in what seems to be "Ages", I spent the majority of the weekend at the table, building, painting, ummm...cleaning up the mess that is the "game/work room"....and finishing and starting new projects.

Mucho stuff to talk about...

First off:

In May of this year I went ahead and asked on TMP (http://www.theminiaturespage.com/); about a 15mm scale garbage dump. I didn't want the standard "junk yard", of stuff...I wanted "Garbage"...since in most third world countries garbage dumps are picked over by looters and scavengers, most of the things that you would see in a US Garbage Dump, would be taken in a 3rd world.

I didn't get much in the form of answers, but I did get some good ideas on building my own.

So I did.

It took me about a month, (in between life, work, sickness, 2 dead computers, 2 ACW reenactments, and a ton of "other" projects)....But I got it done.

Here's the end result... (The pictures are a little larger than usual, due to the fact that I wanted the readers to be able to see "what" is in there.

(Eeeeewww...what's that smell???...and the green stuff leaking from the pile???)

The Pile of Rotting Trash measures about 3 inches long by about 2 1/2 inches wide. It's a nice little square of mouldering smelly nasty stuff. At first I was perplexed about how to make it, but after thinking about it, I experiementsed and it was successful! (Instructions below)...

(All that is missing is the swarm of 15mm flies...fun fun fun...)

INSTRUCTIONS:

Materials needed....

1: Sheet styrene/plasticard: Thin

2: "Grey Pumice" Groundwork material. (Grey Pumice is a waterbased material that comes in a plastic container, (which has a future as an oil storage drum), and has a gritty, lumpy feel. It can be spread on and worked while wet. It's easily painted, and makes good groundwork.

3: Toilet paper...(clean preferably..unless you want a realistic "smell")....

4: Parts of "stuff" from your bits box.

MAKING IT:

1: Cut the styrene/plasticard to the desired shape. (I made mine square so that I could make 1-2 more piles and attached them in any variable shape.) You could also make the bases irregular circles, etc...

2: Plop on the Grey Pumice. It's like working with sticky wet sand...I found out that using a popsicle stick is a good way to slop it onto the plastic. No need to be neat on the project...slop that stuff on!

Make sure that when you put it on, that you put it on IRREGULARLY...(lots of it forming a shapeless "mound")...Be creative...make little piles, and open pit areas, etc...

3: Now SLOWLY cover the wet gooey mess with toilet paper. For best results use the cheap 1 sheet/1 ply stuff and apply it 1 sheet at a time, overlapping in layers..wrinkle some of it up, mash some of it up...This is going to be a nasty pile of "stuff"...so neatness does NOT count here...

4: When you are done giving the messy pile "form" with the TP, look in your bits box and find those parts that you are NEVER going to use...(old pieces of styrene beams, old wheels, broken sprues...pieces of "crap" that you can't figure out what to do with...) Start to insert this "stuff" into the wet pile at random, at all angles. Put some on top of each other, set others off to the side. Don't worry about ripping the Toilet paper...that's what it's there for and it adds to the effect.

5: Let dry for about 3-5 days...

PAINTING:

1: Best thing to do is start with a dark coat of BURNT UMBER (don't use black)...

2: Thin the paint with water so that you have "runny paint", (like a wash), and start to apply it to the entire pile, (You will notice that it soaks in...good...try to get as much "white" TP painted as possible. Yes you will miss spots...don't worry. Let each layer dry for about an hour.

3: Next is to get a color that says "Mouldering nasty stuff"...I used a mixture of thinned black, hilighted with shades of dark green, and then drybrushed with "Velvet Teal"... I did this pretty much over the major pile.

4: Then I added the rest of the colors...shades of brown...mixed with green for moldy soil, light green mixed with jade green for "chemical leaks"...painting and weathering the "Crap" (bits), that are in the pile...a light drybrush of black...some bits of color...it's a good chance to see how many colors of paint you can put to one project.

5: Seal it and you are done!

And that's it...

All that is missing is the "smell" and the buzzing of the flies...

Let me know what you think....

FROM THE GM'S SIDE: AK47 Rep. Version 2???

Recently, word is out that AK47 Republic has been re-released as a "Version 2.0", with updates, errata fixed, issues taken care of, rules explained, etc...
That being said, I haven't seen a copy of it yet, but I think I shall order it this weekend.
That also being said, one only has to wander over to the Yahoo Group "RFCM", and still see a LOT of questions about possible "errors", having to do with transports, tanks, gun systems, etc.
Sure AK47 is simple, (That's the beauty of it). It's a nice engine, but I like mine with a little more "tweaks"...(Example: In AK47...a HMG will stop a tank...ummm..oooooooookay..., and a "tank" is a "tank"), which I also have probs with, (Example: Common sense tells me that a 35mm Gun mounted on a "light tank", will almost definately NOT knock out a M1a1...track hit and immobilazation, maybe...KO?...come on...); but AK47 has this...
I think that is why we as gamers like to tinker with the rules, and I like to use the Cantwell Modifications to AK47 Republic. It gives a bit more...
I shall be checking out AK47 Republic Version 2 this weekend when I order it from Brookhurst.