Oily Johnson's Gaslands Championship

An Escalating Gaslands Campaign for Fun, Glory and the Promise of Mars 

Round One- Death Race at Whiteout Wasteland

The first gear phase was a smooth start for all racers. With multiple cars having drivers with the hot-start perk there were some early pack leaders. The Idris teams picked up quick audience votes by going flat-out in the early phases.

Early accidental collisions from Slippery Gitz gave Horsepower of the Apocalypse a chance to make an early slip-away break. In efforts to avoid the mass of collisions Josh decided to take an alternative route but due to unlucky dice rolls and limited manoeuvrability his pick-up fell prey to several obstacles. Failing to shift-up, the pick-up driver fell to the back of the pack.  

  

By phase four, The league of Exceptionally fast Gentlemen had gained a lead but coming under heavy fire from the two Rutherford teams after passing gate one, the driver could not avoid wrecking on the post-gate 1 obstacles.   

Passing round the outside of the gate one obstacles, Tony’s Rutherford performance car was able to gain a foothold on the outside track, whilst James’ Rutherfordians dominated the inside track. Through an astounding moment of glory, Tony closed the gap on the pack leader, both in top gear. 

Having sat inconspicuously in the middle-rear of the pack, Vostok’s villains unleashed their hitherto silent arc-lightning projector, wreaking havoc and scattering Horsepower and Slippery Gitz. The latter’s buggy exploding in the pyroclasm of three boxes of grenade fire.   

By the return of Phase 1, the League had inspired the audience to riotous applause resulting in a respawn at gate one. Wheels spinning and guns blazing he chased the pack on the inside track, James’ Rutherfordians held the lead and returned fire but to limited effect at gate two. Josh’s languishing Rutherford death-truck was making back ground but at too slow a pace to be a threat.

With speed advantage, the Villains unleashed a further lightning bolt, dealing significant damage to the second-place Idris team as well as the race leaders. After sustaining damage themselves, the Mishkinites careered into heavy obstacles becoming neutralised.

Pedal to the metal, Tony’s Idris driver charged up the rear of the Rutherford car resulting in James’ driver wrecking. With one final push, the League limped to second place.

With the hard-fought race-battle coming to a close, the chequered flag was raised at time. With no racers crossing the finish-line, the Oily Johnson official made a judgement. With the two Idris teams neck and neck, 8 championship points were divided among the drawing Idris teams. As the next un-wrecked vehicle, Horsepower seized the third-place championship point.  

Through rotten luck and dodgy power-steering Josh’s Rutherford team retain a small advantage going into stage two of the competition, being the only non-scoring team not to have wrecked. This puts them in fourth place on wreck difference. The standings can be viewed in the table below.

Of course, the only true winner will be proven to be Oily Johnson’s loan sharks.

Team Name	Sponsor	Championship Ranking	Championship Points	Round 1	Round 2	Round 3	Round 4
Tony’s Team	Idris	1	4	1 (4)	-	-	-
The league of Exceptionally fast Gentlemen	Idris	2	4	1 (4) W	-	-	-
Horsepower of the Apocalypse	Rutherford	3	1	2 (1)	-	-	-
Josh’s Team	Rutherford	4	0	6	-	-	-
James’ Team	Rutherford	5	0	3 W	-	-	-
Vostok’s Villains	Mishkin	6	0	4 W	-	-	-
Slippery Gitz	Slime	7	0	5 W	-	-	-

Championship ranking based on number of championship points. If tied for a place, advantage is given to players who had a wreck-clear round.

Parker... anywhere you like really



When I found FAB 1 (Matchbox, 1992 approx.1:64) at the bottom of my toy car bag I couldn't resist. Apart from being iconic and already harbouring hidden machine guns in it's original guise in Thunderbirds, the theatrical look along with the executive appeal of the car fit too well with my Limo not to make this my next project.

The club were talking about a monster truck race so I couldn't resist trying to do a monster truck conversion.

Construction and Painting:  So this one was a bit more involved. I drilled out the rivet under the chassis to access the upper part of the body. I disposed of the rest. I bought a Hot wheels monster jams pickup truck for 50p at a carboot sale to bastardise the chassis. I drilled the rivets out and switched the chassis and glued. The quality of the car is pretty decent, especially the solid rubber wheels.

The heavy machine gun is 40K TAU, the ammo 'picnic basket' on the back is Imperial guard. The external V8 was bought for the occasion from Dice mechanic games' Autokill The look is incredible, I had some difficulty removing the parts from the sprues without damaging them as the plastic/ resin in tough.

 Chaos Black Undercoat, Warlock purple basecoat followed by a lighter 50:50 mix of a purple and lighter pink. I then overbrushed the edges of the vehicle to highlight. I know some people like a smoother look but I quite like the cartoony style of 'lining in' the edges and having contracting dark shades and much brighter highlights. The wheels and lower parts of the chassis were lightly drybrushed with about 4 colours of progressively lighter browns. The depth of the tread on the tyres really made this simple technique really effective.

I went for a similar thing with the roof canopy, cantor blue base then a lighter blue layer, finishing off with a white drybrush.

I used mostly boltgun metal for all the metallic areas including engine but played with some tin bitz areas to make the chassis look rusted but not heavily corroded. This was then black ink washed. I used a lighter metallic runefang steel on the most raised areas to strengthen the effect.

 Gameplay: This is actually a pretty standard vehicle in terms of gameplay and quite cheap to field. The machine gun is forward facing so the tactics I use are not subtle. Drive right at things and shoot if they get in range of you. Especially handy for zombie squashing too. This vehicle is an undefeated champion but you cannot take it if your crew is Miyazaki sponsored.

Gaslands- CARnage in a dystopian Future

Thanks to my new pals at my local gaming club I have recently discovered the joy of the tabletop racing and destruction-derby style Gaslands. You can read all about it at the Gaslands website.

I was drawn to the game because it has such a potential low cost and after playing a test game and reading the fairly straightforward rulebook realised how much fun it was.

The designers of the game do not manufacture loads of parts you have to buy so you are free to use their recommended suppliers, make your own or use whatever you choose. The playing pieces are matchbox style cars (of which I already had a somewhat beaten-up collection from when I was young) and scenery and obstacles can be as simple as a few books and on your table or as involved as a full gaming setup.

Despite the gameplay being inclusive, funny and nuts at times, what I have really enjoyed is the free reign to use your imagination in choosing and modelling the vehicles. Having only played in the larger 28mm 'heroic' scale previously, it was also a nice change to paint something different. For some reason it has helped me feel more confident to try a range of painting techniques and I have included my first effort below.

My approach has been to create something I thought looked cool, and then pay the points cost accordingly WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) style. This has resulted in some less than tactically ideal vehicles but they have been great fun to play.

The Neck Stretch

Construction: My first attempt started as a Mercedes Limousine made by Majorette in 1:58 scale. I wanted to start with something a bit theatrical so I added some Warhammer Fantasy Dragon horns and skull. The bumper and wheel protectors are from an Italeri barricades set. The sod-off railgun on the top is 40K Tau.   
  
Black spray undercoat, dark green basecoated with a light green drybrush. This was then followed by a light-yellow dry brushing. I then did a green wash over the whole vehicle to bring down the yellow highlights and blend the layers together.

The bone was basecoated dark brown and then layered bleached bone 95% coverage and then then the tips were given a skull white layer. The whole lot was then washed in gryphonne sepia.    

The Railgun was basecoated in Mephiston red and progresses in thirds from red to yellow and finally white to give it the impression that the muzzle is glowing hot.  The metal elements were boltgun metal with (seriously old-school) black ink. Inks are tricky to use but are a more extreme wash. They deepen shadow and are really effective in dulling the metallic paints which works really well on high detail surfaces like chainmail. I've found you can get a similar effect by drybrushing the metallic directly onto the black undercoat but its a shinier finish.  

Decided to keep the blacked out windows as this was fitting for a limo. 

 

Gameplay: Ok, so when I've played this vehicle I've played it as a truck as it makes sense that being a stretch it should have lower handling capabilities. I gave it additional armour plating. The most fitting weapon was a 125mm cannon which whilst lethal has the unfortunate effect of instantly applying three hazards to the vehicle. In combination with it's already poor handling and physical length, its a bugger to steer but it is hilarious fun! Don't make this vehicle the only one you take in the race. 
























 

A Long-Awaited Journey

From the moment I had heard that The Hobbit was coming to the big screen I begun a long and patient wait... you could say I had been waiting for 12 years since I was introduced to the Hobbit novel at school. Reading the Hobbit with my English class at school was a moment of significance for me as it developed my growing interest in 'fantasy' as a genre. Many of my classmates were glad to have finished the book and be moving onto a new topic but at the age of 12 I was already an avid reader, every spare minute I could pilfer I would have my nose in a book. This included the short walk from classroom to classroom between each period. As soon as I had put down the Hobbit I couldn't wait to lay my hands on the Lord of the Rings. Hunting through piles of old and musty tomes at the local carboot sale my fingers stumbled upon 'my precious.' At the princely sum of 20 pence I could hardly have bartered the seller down by much.

I flew through the trilogy at an alarming pace and was often found by my mother in the small hours with my bedroom light left on, sound asleep gripping my copy of the book. My love of Tolkien's writing and Fantasy has not waned and far from being dragged to the cinema reluctantly, my girlfriend couldn't wait to see 'The Hobbit' on the big screen either. Rarely do I follow a film as closely, invest in magazines or treat myself to much generally but seeing that Empire was running a special on the film I bought a copy and eagerly read the 'behind the scenes' reports and interviews with the actors.
       
I cannot say that I was without reservations before seeing the film such as 'how do I feel about the Hobbit being another 3 film saga?' and 'How will Jackson deal with the Trolls having dialogue in the Hobbit where they had no grasp of speech in The Lord of the Rings?' the result of the film was very pleasing.  

Apart from the incredible cinematography and musical score, costume, sound and artwork I really felt that The Hobbit allowed for a greater focus on the ability of the actors and characterisation. I somehow felt 'closer' to this film perhaps due to the scale being less 'epic'. Martin Freeman's Bilbo was right on the nail for me and growing up in the English Westcountry I felt I could relate to his portrayal of the quintessential rural British everyman in local characters I can think of! The direction and acting of the Dwarves was balanced, no mean feat considering that numbering 13 makes characterisation a challenge with such competition and little dialogue for some. Ian McKellan's Gandalf was warmly familiar and there is definitely more 'practical magic' in this film meaning that the audience gets to see a bit more of what the Wizards can do beyond the hack and slash of melee and Gandalf The White's Ultrabrite Energy saving staff trick at Helms Deep.

For me though, my perhaps slightly unexpected favourite was Sylvester McCoy's performance of Radagast the Brown. One of my favourite literary archetypes is the Wizard; wise, mystical, powerful and often humorous guardians and advisers. I have always found what we don't know about the Wizard to be the most interesting element to them, they can always surprise us. This is what makes Radagast so much fun for me, although he doesn't get anywhere near the screen time as Gandalf there's depth of character and he doesn't just serve as comic relief.

One of my favourite depictions of the Wizard on screen has to be Nicol Williamson with his somewhat bizarre and beautiful vocal work in Excalibur (1981).

Certainly worthy of a mention is Barry Humpfries' Goblin king and of course the scene of the entire film has to be 'riddles in the dark' with the exceptional Andy Serkis playing a seemingly more carefree Gollum once again.

I'm not going to say that I'm not incredibly frustrated that I am going to have to wait two years to see the conclusion of the new trilogy but I am certainly used to it now! Like his cast and crew as well as avid fan following, I have faith in Peter Jackson and the very talented team he has put together to work on these films. If you haven't seen this... you should.

The Flaming Assasin, Finished

Until fairly recently I have found it very difficult to call a miniature "complete" and always manage to find a few missed spots or areas I would like to touch up a bit. I think this is down to the fact that I don't think I'm really very good at this painting malarkey! Somehow, I believe that a couple more days sitting on the shelf will somehow help to bring me the inspiration I need to make it just that little bit better. However, here is a rare finished article for my flaming, duel tomahawk wielding elf.

 

The Salvation Project

As a child I had appalling hand-eye co-ordination and very little patience for frustrating and fiddly things but one day my father helped me with my first 'scraper-foil' which is an image the 'artist' reveals by etching away a film placed over a foil sheet. It was definately the first stepping stone to picking up a whole host of fiddle and frustrating pastimes and sports I never thought I would be able to do. Even fifteen years on I would still consider myself to be a beginner or students of most of my hobbies although I love challenging myself to improve. If anyone is reading this blog with children or friends of children with limited motor-skills I hope this encourages hope that with determination and will these challenges can be overcome.  

The project I am working on at the moment is a terminator tabletop game I am devising with 28mm miniatures bought from range of suppliers. The period I am aiming for is the fourth film in the quadrilogy in the reality where Judgement Day has not yet occurred. The range of drones and machines represented in the film 'Terminator Salvation' leaves a lot of opportunity for imagination. Below are some of my most recent developments.

Above: Light transport in urban camo I believe this is from Games Workshop's Gorkamorka and is a Ork transport. The driver and gunner are Imperial Guard crewmen from 40K. The standing troops are from the Foundry.

Left: These merceneries are from Copplestone Castings.

Right: I'm currently keeping my eyes open for some reduced price Copplestone 'scavengers' because they look great and would fit nicely with the time-scale and look of the period 21C demise.

Right: Resin Scenery is from a 40k Barricades pack of five although so far I have only managed to paint this one which itself took me a day of drybrushing (yes that's quite slow.)

The Terminator models which entirely look the part are from EM4 and Copplestone Castings, the flying dronebots are pinched from 40K Tau and I think are quite fitting.  

Left: Finally, this model is from Reaper Miniatures and had to be bought because it is an awesome looking model. Its an elf dual wielding tomahawks (what's not to like?) what made it a have to have for me though was the fire/shadowlike effect of the cloak which I really wanted to make her look like she was exploding out of the fire in attack.

This took an undercoat, basecoat, foundation, three shades of red, one of orange, two of yellow and then highlights of white. However, I think its been worth it and now all I need to do is not screw up the rest of the model.

That's it for now. Flamin' brilliant.