Laser Infrastructure - Part 1

This past summer I got a divorce and bought a new home to live in. One of the unfortunate consequences of this is I have to re-build all of the support infrastructure that is required to operate my laser engraver. Although the laser is an amazing tool for both my wargaming and radio-control aircraft hobbies, it does require a large amount of infrastructure to operate safely. This is part one of what I hope will only be two installments on this subject. This does include efforts that spanned several months, but for brevity I am including them all here in one update.

To the left two switches and an outlet. The outlet is an always-on 110 volt AC outlet to power the laser. Not shown are the two receptacles that the switches operate, both are elsewhere. Eventually this wall will be covered in drywall. On the opposite side of the wall will be an airbrush compressor run by the left-most switch. This blows compressed 30 PSI (2 bar for you non-Imperial types) air in the path of the laser to clear smoke which would impede the laser's ability to cut.   

The right-most switch is a three-way switch that operates this 600 CFM (0.3 m^3/s) exhaust 'blower' that evacuates the combustion byproducts from the laser. This keeps the air in the laser cabinet clear of power-sapping smoke as well as prevents it from asphyxiating the operator. Very important that this works properly! The other partner to the three-way switch is located where my spray booth will be, allowing me to use the exhaust system for both purposes by adding in some 'blast gates' for the vent pipes. 

Finally, an all-metal vent added to the exterior of my new home. This was by FAR the most nerve-wracking part of the operation. I needed to buy a proper mounting plate and line up everything so that it fit properly over the vinyl siding. As far as I'm concerned, it looks pretty good to me!

Part two of this will be running all of the interior piping for the exhaust system, including the blast gates and junctions for the spray booth and laser. Some of this is going to require me to order some specialty parts not offered at the local home center. Luckily, now that I have the external work done, I can do the exhaust piping even during the winter months - possibly during Christmas break since I won't be doing a lot of visiting with family due to the ongoing pandemic. 

28mm Baleric Slingers for Saga Age of Hannibal

Another unit of mercenaries for Saga Age of Hannibal. These are eight Baleric slingers. They're from Warlord Games Hail Cesar line. I tried experimenting with mixing the brighter colored GW contrast paints with some of the light browns to make some of the colors more muted to represent ancient plant-based dyes. I think they came out well. 

I still need to base them but I'm under four hours for the eight figures, and I'm happy with how they came out. Eight more figures added to my annual painting totals.

28mm Ligurians for Saga Age of Hannibal

These are eight Old Glory Ligurians. I still have to base them up, but the painting is complete. Shield transfers are LBMS. 

I've painted these up as mercenaries for Saga age of Hannibal. I'm not entirely sure which army I'm going to paint up, so I decided to start with some decent mercenary units instead of picking core troops to work on.

Eight figures for the 2020 painting totals.

Next up on the painting table, some more Saga Age of Hannibal mercenaries: Baleric Slingers.

28mm WWII Finnish Infantry

 These are twelve 28mm WWII Finnish infantry that I recently completed painting and are ready to base up. They are a mix of Artisan and Warlord figures. The SMG-armed figures are Artisan while the others are Warlord figures. I painted these in two two-hour streams on my Twitch.tv channel. Total time four hours, or 20 minutes per figure. 

These figures will be used for both Continuation War and Lapland war using Iron Cross, Chain of Command or Bolt Action rules. I'm still unpacking from moving this summer, so my laser engraver is still out of commission. As soon as it's back on-line I'll be cutting up bases for everything that I've been painting recently and I'll have a giant basing party for all of these recent projects.

Next up on the painting table will be some Lugurian ancient infantry for Saga "Age of Hannibal"

Fallout Wasteland Warfare - Heroes of Sanctuary Hills

I've been interested in trying my hand at painting some of the Fallout Wasteland Warfare figures for a while now. I'm a big fan of the Fallout 4 PC game and the figures are right out of the game. I don't plan on playing the game, so the figure cost was a significant deterrent on trying the figures out. In came my friend Gordon to the rescue. He offered me a chance to paint a box of his figures for him. I chose the Heroes of Sanctuary hills. 

I'm not completely thrilled with the sole survivor's jumpsuit, but Dogmeat and Cogsworth came out great. I don't think I'll make a steady diet of these figures, but they were a fun diversion from the hundreds of ancients figures I've been painting lately. Three figures added to my annual painting totals.

28mm Macedonian Companion Cavalry

Apologies for the lack of posts lately. I've been laid up with a bad back. Things seem to have calmed down enough for me to get back to the painting table this week. Here are twelve 28mm Macedonian Companion Cavalry that will become a division of four stands of cavalry for Hannibal at the Gates. 

The figures are from Aventine Miniatures and I'm very happy with the sculpts. I've used some GW Contrast paints on the tunics and helmet decorations as well as extensively on the horses. The rest of the work is traditional paints, washes and glazes. 

Twelve riders and twelve horses that I'll count as 24 figures in my annual figure totals.  Next up on the painting table a rare divergence from historicals to paint up some Fallout Wasteland Warfare miniatures.....just for fun.

28mm Destroyed Cottage Terrain Pieces

These are six pieces of resin terrain that I've had for about 20 years. I'm not entirely sure of the manufacturer. They'll make a good set of 'ruins' terrain for Saga, but they can also be used for any period from the dark ages through WWII. 

I've given these some age with some green algae growth on the bottom of the walls. I was going for a 'burned down years ago' look. Some of the walls can be put together into larger corner pieces in multiple different configurations.

My favorite piece in this set is the fireplace piece. I think of it as the 'scene of the crime'. 

This will count as 6 'terrain/misc' created in the annual totals.

28mm Macedonian Generals

The past few of my Twitch.tv streams I have been working on these 28mm Macedonian general figures. They're from the Warlord Games SPQR range and are the Macedonian Heroes pack.

The personalities include Alexander himself on his horse with the leopard skin horse blanket he's always pictured with. This was my first attempt at leopard skin. I like the effect, but future attempts will include more spots.  I'm counting these as six figures in my painting totals due to the horses (as I usually do for cavalry)

I also worked on a test piece for what will eventually be six 'ruined cottage' terrain pieces. These are some very old, manufacturer unknown resin pieces I bought most likely about 20 years ago. They'll be useful for Saga as 'ruins' or any period medieval to WWII as ruined buildings. I will be finishing the other 5 pieces of the set on a future stream.

Cruel Seas Weekend

This weekend was all about Warlord Games Cruel Seas rule set. On Saturday I hosted friends Michael and Mike in my garage for an 'outdoor' gaming venue. Mike and Michael played two games of Cruel Seas while I watched, learned the rules and kibitzed. They swapped sides and each won one game. I had a great time hosting. The weather was nice and breezy and cool, the open door and windows in the garage made for excellent airflow, allowing us to feel safe without masks as long as we kept a reasonable distance for 'personal space'. 

 

 

On Sunday, my friend Mark D from Mark D's Gaming Site blog invited me up to his place for some airbrushing and a game of Cruel Seas between the two of us. Mark wanted some tips on cleaning and using his airbrush which I was happy to help him with. In return I got a few figures zenethil primed by Mark as he practiced cleaning the brush between colors.

After the airbrushing Mark and I played a game of Cruel Seas that he had set up. The scenario pit a German force escorting a freighter against an intercepting force of British ships with a rogue American Elco PT boat added in for educational purposes.

 

This game was pretty crazy. Mark's gunnery was good all game with a particularly devastating strike on one of my bigger boats exploding a torpedo on deck and sending my ship to the bottom. I returned the favor a couple of turns later with a ridiculous string of gunnery dice myself. This helped as early on all of my torpedoes either missed or were duds.

Later in the game I got a torpedo to hit and finally finished off his largest ship with gunnery. Mark sunk my largest ship with gunnery, and I got one of his S-boats with a torpedo. The cargo ship was finished off with a torpedo and gunnery. During the final turn four ships went to the bottom. At the end, Mark's fleet was hanging on by a thread, but mine was gutted. Victory for this one goes to the ocean, claiming nearly all the ships.

This game was good old fashioned fist-o-dice fun. Thanks for hosting Mark!

28mm Macedonian Thureophoroi Ready to Base

I have been slowly working back into 'the groove' painting. I've also re-engated with my Twitch.tv stream painting on my old schedule of Tuesday and Thursday evenings and Sundays late morning to early afternoon. I'm still without a full studio and my laser cutter/engraver is still offline awaiting proper infrastructure in the form of power and exhaust system.  My preferred method is to complete a unit, base it then photograph it for this blog. For the near future, that process will be not adhered to. Completed figures are going to pile up for a bit until I can set up my full studio. 

These figures will eventually make up four units of Macedonian Thureophoroi for Hannibal at the Gates. They will be used along side my previously finished Thorakatai, based similarly in a HATG soldier wing. The photo above in the box probably gives the best color representation. Below are some additional photos. In addition to my basing materials being hidden away among various moving boxes, so is my photography set up.

I've also made some additional progress on repairing and touching up over 130 Macedonian pike that I purchased from Ebay. I still have to put decals on the silver shield figures, then they'll be ready to re-base.