Saturday, May 29, 2021

Dead Man's Hand - The Horse Soldiers



Even when you're actually being quite productive hobby-wise it can sometimes be difficult to update the blog. Such is the case currently for me, so apologies for the radio silence the past two plus months. But, as you'll see, I've been quite busy with the usual myriad of projects.



First, I had several games of Dead Man's Hand at the club with Jeff, but more importantly we're introducing the game to new players and even have plans to put on a demo table at local game store. 


A few weeks ago we introduced a club member, Lance, to the game as well and these pictures are from that game.


Something I've always wanted to get to the tabletop in some fashion is the sequence from the movie "The Horse Soldiers" where the Confederates attack Newton Station by charging out of the arriving train, and this was finally my opportunity to do that.


The narrative was that the Confederates, in disguises, would attempt to sabotage the local telegraph office.


There was a wagon near the gun shop, loaded with weapons and ammunition, that was a secondary objective.


The Union camp near the edge of town.


Milt McGuiness, owner and operator of the Red Dog Saloon.


I had a couple of Rebels "hiding" out in  the local saloon waiting for the signal to have the getaway wagon ready across the street - this basically gave Jeff, who was playing the Confederates, two deployment points. 


And of course the two models in the saloon both got Queens to start the game off.


On the very first roll of turn one my lawman got taken out of the game with a one shot kill by one of those Confederates hiding out in the Red Dog. Pretty much par for the course for my luck.


One of the things I really love about DMH is the interrupt cards - one card was played on this model by Lance and that meant he joined the side of the Union forces protecting the telegraph office.


He got right into the action and starting shooting at the Rebels jumping out of the boxcar.


He actually ended up with one kill as he took out the model across from him in this photo, who was attempting to hide behind the boxcar.


The boxcar was an area of quite a bit of action.


Lance ended up running his entire unit up from the camp into the fray headlong.


When talking after the game Jeff said that totally took him by surprise and made him readjust his initial plan for attacking the telegraph office.


 Again, you can see all the carnage in this area.


These box pieces are from the Rorke's Drift set and are pretty nice but after putting them on the table and seeing them in play I'm going to need to Dremel down those bases - they are resin so it shouldn't be too much of an issue. This was GEG Jonah Hex model hiding behind the crates.


One of Jeff's models carried a bag full of dynamite and he ended up having that model jump on a horse and make his way over to the telegraph office.


The end result of the dynamite on the telegraph office! Great game and lots of fun as usual, but the best part was we got another new player into DMH 😀


Before this last game one thing I decided to do was go back and do some more weathering and detail work on a few of my buildings.


I went over all the planks of wood with different colour washes and inks to give them a more realistic look.


I couldn't be happier with the results!


I feel the buildings actually look much more "real" now and I'm really looking forward to doing even more little touch-ups to enhance the look as well as cutting down the edges on all of bases of the buildings. 


My original plan on making the bases like this with the hard edges was that everything would be modular and that I could butt each building base up to one another creating different modular town set ups.  I think in hindsight now they will look much better with a beveled edge.


As I mentioned above I've actually been quite busy hobby-wise and very productive. I built and primed all my Zulu wars models - 120 British and 204 Zulus.

 
Multi-part plastics are definitely not a favorite of mine, and it took me probably close to two weeks to complete everything for each side. I will say that the quality of what you get between the Perry models and Warlord models is night and day. Had I known at the time I would have only gone with Perry but getting the Warlord stuff at super clearance prices was a no brainer.


Just to break the monotony of building plastic models for so long I painted up some figures.


I decided to do all the metal heroes in addition to a few of the rank and file models. 


I also got 60 Perry ACW Confederates done.


And some Union Zouves. 


Jeff printed out this cabin from a Kickstarter he backed and I painted it up.


I'm still sorting through the best ways to tackle painting 3D models as it's very different from everything I ever done, but overall pretty happy with the results here.


I will say you definitely get a bit spoiled by the 4Ground kits with the working doors and roofs that come off, something this models doesn't have.

I got this message in Blogger saying that if I have any followers by email that they will no longer get my posts that way. I have to dig a little deeper into this as it does say I can inform those who follow by email of the change but for now, if you do follow by email and would like to continue it looks like you'll actually have to hit the "follow" button on the top right.


On a personal note, our son graduated from the University of Cincinnati last month with a degree in architecture 😀


His final project was "incredibly ambitious" as stated from his professors.


Looks to me like there's some possibilities of designing 3D buildings for tabletop gaming if this architecture thing doesn't work out lol!


I really like how he took an idea for a five year plan to convert vacant and unused buildings into something new and unique to the area. 


Incredibly proud of all his accomplishments over these last four years and I'm certain he's off to bigger and better things in the future. 

And finally welcome to new follower Lance King, appreciate you hitting the follow button. 

Until next time, thanks for looking!
Ivor

16 comments:

  1. That Dead Man's Hand terrain looking amazing! Quintessens of great game :))

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  2. So much content, where to start ! Firstly the DMH table and models look excellent, looked to be an intense game, and great you got somebody new involved.
    You've been busy with so much prep work, and onto the painting of a lot of them as well.
    Congratulations to your son, and what an end of year project, if we could make use of ideas like this, we would have a brighter future.

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    1. Thanks Dave! We're getting more people at the club involved in games they've never played before which is really great 😀
      Agreed, fully behind these types of reusable ideas 110%, and he really knocked it out of the park on this idea, a well deserved A on his project!

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  3. The DMH games looks superb and a very intersting scenario to boot.
    Having looked at the DMH rules and the prices and extras I do wonder if it all makes for a better games than the other many gunfight rules on the market atm. - I'll be looking at a few more reviews...
    Well done getting so many other figures assembled (I hate this too) and painted up - no wonderyou haven;thad time to post, especially with all the real-life going on too.

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    1. Cheers Joe! DMH is really fun, and very over the top like a movie, and honestly so easy to play all you'd really need to purchase is the cards - the QRS are free from the Great Escape Games site and that would give you all your rules 🤷‍♂️
      Could work really well with all your old west figures. I'll be doing a review on Gunfighter's Ball as well soon, so be on the lookout for my thoughts on that old west rule set too.

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  4. Congratulations to you and your family; especially your son. It’s nice to see proof that children do grow up. I’m told it happens fast but so far I beg to differ...

    Anyway; awesome western actions going on there. I have some DMH stuff but haven’t gotten around to it. And that is a crap lot of Zulus as well. Looks like you’re having a good time in the hobby lately. 😀

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    1. Thanks a lot Stew! And mate, it absolutely does go fast, it may not seem that way now but one day you'll remember picking them up out of the crib and then 22 years later graduating from University.
      DMH is a lot of fun, if you get the old west bug I highly recommend trying to get it on the table, I don't think you'll be disappointed 😀

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  5. Well done to your boy! Here’s hoping for fantastic new creations in the future.

    Love the setup for your game! Best looking DMH table I’ve seen to date easily.

    You’ve been very busy too! Impressive amount of stuff done and only in two months! Good stuff Ivor!

    Hope the next update is soon!

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    1. Much appreciated Dai! If nothing else maybe I can get him to design a few 3D buildings for the printer lol
      I definitely have the old west bug again pretty bad, Gunfighter's Ball is scheduled for this week 😀

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  6. Congrats on the offspring achieving escape velocity :-) Love the details - dead dudes, furniture ... lots of layers of details - love it!

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    1. Lol! Thanks Jay 😀
      Yeah, some say I go a bit overboard with the details 🤷‍♂️

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    2. You can never overload the details good sir! Zulu's and ACW ... my progress pales in comparison! :-)

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    3. Agreed 😀
      I'm not sure, remember you're the guy who is able to play all three days at Gettysburg with your ACW collection lol

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