The Daemon's Claw

This weekend was supposed to have been another gaming weekend. However the rise of Omicron (there's a Scifi movie title) has resulted in a massive surge in demand for inoculations and the vaccination clinic has taken over all the church we use. It was also supposed to be the club AGM where I was going to be elected as President of the Galactic Senate again. Now that has to be postponed. I suppose I will have to soldier on with these emergency powers, I wonder where representative Binks has got to.  Sometimes hobby projects don't fit into nice easy weekly blocks. I have been working on Star Wars themed miniatures for the last few weeks. Desert Dwellings I have gotten some more work done on my desert dwellings. Mos Churton is taking shape. All these buildings have a good coat of paint on them. Next will be detailing and highlights and shades. All the roofs are removable. I'm debating about doing internal walls. I might settle for fabric style hangings to divide the space with

In this mission I was playing against James's gang. In this mission we were trying to make contact with an Imperial Security Bureau who had information about the location of some rogue scientists unaccounted from the clone war. James's crew contained several members that had undergone significant chemical, genetic or cybernetic enhancements so he was interested in the same information or perhaps hoping to locate medical specialists that can support his crew. The Empire would also be interested in these specialists. Weapons division will be able to find a use for them. In this game I thought I would bulk everyone up to form a Schwerpunkt and then mass enough firepower to overwhelm part of the of the table while the Rodians acted as a distraction.  The team advance through the building. The Rodians start their distraction. I'm not sure whether this involves folk music or Improv at this point. The next phase of the advance is going well. Darth Vader has secured the first loot

 On Saturday we started our Stargrave campaign. Alan, Richard, James and I played a couple of 2 player games. I am using my Star Wars list. Lord Vader is leading a team in search of clues about the locations of possible force sensitives or Jedi that escaped Order 66.  Richard and I were playing the "Botched Deal" Scenario. Some Weequay pirates have set up a temporary camp and are selling some information and other goods they have pirated away from previous owners who could not look after them properly. The empire force close on the pirates, we have laid down a smoke grenade to minimise the return fire. Richard and I both rolled so low for initiative we woke up some additional pirates. The Weequay are guarding their loot and trying to work out who is attacking them. Richards corporate team are approaching from the top of the picture. Darth Vader has made it the first treasure and unlocks it with his lightsaber. Greedo is engaging the Weequay hoping they have some bounty on the

After watching a number of terrain and diorama experts like Kathy Millat. I got inspired to have a go at building some Tatooine style buildings out of offcuts of polystrene. After one former monitor box and some recycled scraps I have enough buildings to make a settlement for a game of Stargrave. Here is what the buildings look like with the bits glued together and attached to a base. I have also applied a coat of poly filler to smooth out some of the joints. I also dug out some of my bits from my Mantic Scifi terrain crate and some resin bits I think I got from TT combat. This will add nice extra detail to the buildings. Here are a selection of the buildings. They have been coated with layers of tile grout. Initially I tried to make a slurry but this alternated between too runny and too thick in the same batch. I got better results applying a layer of glue and then sprinkling the tile grout on and then spritzing with water to soak it in. The buildings have removable roofs to allow the

I got in my first game of Stargrave on 2022 on Saturday. I tried out my Empire crew again. Again we used the modified Bounty Hunters scenario. We increased the number of locations to 5 and the size of the defending warband.  For this mission we needed to defeat a weird alien Pondo Pondo who has mysterious psychic powers. Pondo Pondo and his crew have set up camp in an abandoned quarry to sell arms and information. Pondo is waiting for his clients to arrive when the Empire and the Corporate Alliance arrive to crash the party. Another view of the quarry showing erosion cut rock seams and what you can do with polystyrene. This is my Revel AT AT kit. The model comes like this in the box. Next will be to improve the paint job. The legs are fully articulated and the head can move. Here is part of the team. Unfortunately I positioned my machine gunner badly. Darth Vader leads the rest of the team through the defiles and canyons. Pondo's crew start to respond to the incursion. A barrage of