Whilst bimbling around on the YouTubes I came across a little documentary about the history of model kits.
I had the pleasure of meeting Mat Irvine at the Model Engineers Exhibition some time in the mid 90s. He was a gent and whilst I knew him from his sci-fi TV work, I was stunned by his impressive collection of car models.
Also in attendance at the show were a TV company looking for engineering contestants to enter into something called "Robot Wars"... Whatever happened to that?
The star for me was the Fantastic display for the upcoming movie Judge Dredd. Alongside the Hammersteinesque ABC warrior anamatronic puppet they had a Land Rover City Cab.
I think this is still one of the greatest futuristic vehicle designs ever to have made it onto the silver screen and, given my love of Judge Dredd, one model I would love to create in miniature for my 15mm Judge Dredd RPG Vehicle Fleet. If anyone knows of a good STL pop it in the comments below.
All in all 2023 was a pretty fucked up year but there were a few highlights for me.
My Collection
I added a few RPG things to my collection this year including:
Caravans (Al Qadim) - One of the missing campaign box sets for my favourite D&D setting and getting rarer as every day passes.
Citi-Block Floorplans for Judge Dredd - Completing my Games Workshop Judge Dredd collection has been a long awaited event. Now Sector 55 can grow upwards.
Flotsam: Adrift amongst the stars - A little indie RPG by Joshua Fox which has quite a cool refugees in space vibe going on.
Cairn RPG - An interesting mini RPG which should be perfect for those inbetween sessions when the regular DM can't make it. I also picked up the Cairn Bestiary to populate the forest with some pretty cool old school monsters.
The White Box RPG - An OSR inspired mini RPG which looks like it might be a great first introduction to OSR roleplay.
Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master - I've been a long time follower of Professor Dungeon Master who highly recommended this tome of DMing Shortcuts, Tips and Tricks.
Cthulhu's Vault - Not an RPG per se but a story telling card game of two halves where one player gets to become an Elder God and fight the other players to the death. A lot of fun.
Kickstarters Backed in 2023
Ultracryl Paints - I just liked the look of these paints and wanted to check out the ultra pigmented neon colours.
Tiny Epic Cthulhu - I have been a big fan of the Tiny Epic series of games since I first played Tiny Epic Galaxies back in the day. I backed this without hesitation as there is definitely a space in life for another
Movies I Enjoyed
Whilst Hollywood imploded upon itself this year, I got to see a few absolute gems:
The Dungeons & Dragons movie
was a pretty good experience all round and whilst it is a shame that it
didn't do more business than it did, I firmly expect this to be granted
cult status and have a long life on streaming sites.
Sisu - A goldminer makes a big score in Lapland and all he has to do is get from the mine to the bank in one piece. In his way are a bunch of Nazis who are hellbent on capturing his horde. Bloody good fun if you like a Tarantino style revenge movie or are a fan of Scandinavian movies. Axsel Hennie doesn't dissapoint as the evil SS captain
Renfield - Who could pass up the combination of Nick Cage and Nicholas Hoult. A popcorn movie which sheds a new light on Dracula and his man servant.
Blood and Gold - If you enjoyed Sisu then you will love Blood and Gold which has a similar premise.
They Cloned Tyrone - John Boyega stars in this made for Netflix sci-fi movie. Done in the best possible low budget blackploitation style it's a really good story with an epic twist. I really hope to see a sequel.
Day Shift - Jamie Foxx lives a double life as a gardner come vampire hunter in modern day LA. Good fun and a welcome antidote to the likes of The Walking Dead.
Rebel Moon: Part One - A Child of Fire - I'm not a Zack Snyder fanboy but I thoroughly enjoyed this sci-fi version of The Seven Samurai. Very watchable and I can't wait for part two where hopefully the world building will continue and we will get much more of Jimmy the robot.
Glorious- If you enjoy strange tales of with strange premise you will love Glorious. Effectively a one room play if your room is an out of the way roadside rest stop with a glory hole. Full of twists and turns and epic bait and switch, so don't be afraid, watch it today.
2023 saw the club continue to grow with a steady influx of new players and our future is looking very secure indeed.
The Rivenlands - 2023 saw the culmination of this homebrew D&D 5e campaign which was an epic adventure for all. The fun will resume in part 2 where we descend into Hell to retrieve our fallen comrade Derek.
Delta Green - I haven't played this modern interpretation of Cthulhu in years and Mark did not dissappoint. Some weird AF, X-Files inspired alien shenanigans occurred and I set the club record for having two characters die in the same session!!
Where the Monsters Come From - A change of pace was in order as I joined our younger roleplayers band of misfits as Freddo the Frogling. Whilst we have not yet completed our epic quest to prevent the Arch mage from destroying everything to summon his demonic master, it has been a riot.
Sadly I was unable to attend the Manic Tournament this year but well done to Josh who picked up the trophy.
The Nadir of RPG
As I get older I get more and more immune to being triggered by the manufactured "panic" which seems to be the currency of social media. However, even I could not ignore some events.
The OSR Scandal
which consumed social media in early 2023 until WotC realised they had just alienated
their audience of both players and publishers. The jury is still out on
whether WotC are going to see a resurgence in good fortune when they
release the next edition of D&D and players buy into the new online
experience. I have it on good authority that the VTT is very IRL play inspired but as I do all my play IRL can I be bothered to subscribe to play the new version of D&D when 5e works well enough?
I'm old enough to have gone through a few edition wars in my lifetime and know that whatever happens I will still be able to play great fantasy roleplaying games.
The Hasbro Lay-offs left a sour taste in the mouth
with just 2 weeks to go before Christmas but I am sure that the talent
will rise to the top and we will see a raft of new RPG projects and imprints as a result.
As soon as I saw this model I had to have it. For those of a certain age growing up in the UK our childhoods were indellibly etched with the presence of Mr Blobby. Spawned by a creative monster he graced (or rather bumbled) onto Noel Edmond's House Party on Saturday evenings circa 1996. This was a time before streaming and there wasn't even channel 5!! Options were limited and most people flocked to the most popular variety program of the day.
Sadly Blobby could not be contained in just a 1 hour TV slot and soon there were comic books cartoons a pop song and Blobby took over the UK. Of course this stratospheric rise to fame took its toll and overexposure led to a meteoric collapse in Blobby's popularity.
Needless to say this makes him ripe for a Judge Dredd appearance. I imagine that the residents of the Noel Edmond's Annex of Thatcher Block (Sector 55) are itching for a House Party with those Smurfs from the Jean Claude Van Damme block.
These are multipart minis with lots of options for arms and weapons. I printed some test pieces at 15mm and realised that I was going to have a hella fiddly time gluing individual arms on the blobby bodies. I resorted to loading the files up into meshmixer and created 10 different poses which I could then print en masse at 15mm scale. Meshmixer For The Win!!
To further embellish my Mega City One Miniature Storage Block
I thought I would add a couple of signs which can be magnetically
attached to the side or top of the case. This wall art was perfect when
scaled down for miniature use.
A commissioned print for my Dragon's Keep Roleplay Club chum Kat. We are currently playing in a Delta Green (Cthulhu meets the
X-Files) game as special agents and being the world's biggest Gillian
Anderson fan there was only going to be one FBI agent she wanted to
play.
I was a little dissapointed that these models came
as rar files and when opened I could see that they were designed in a
statuette scale for multipart printing. They are both very nicely
sculpted and I managed to support the files easily enough. Mulder also
came as a one piece print and Scully came as a two part print with
options for skirt or trousers which was also very nice. I would have
preferred a complete model in both skirted and trousered versions making
it easier for 28mm printing but this is a minor gripe.
However, the biggest problem with scaling statuesque prints down for tabletop games is that they are anthropomorphically correct. This means that they have spindly ankles, wrists and gun barrels which snap off at the slightest glance. To try to combat this I made them 5% bigger in the X and Y dimension in the hope of fattening and strengthening them up.
The quintissential Cursed Earth chariot and a must print for my 15mm Judge Dredd RPG games. This multi-part model is an excellent sculpt but originally intended for FDM printing. I scaled it down by 50% to fit perfectly my 15mm Lawmen.
Those of you familiar with the history of this iconic comic car will know that it was part of the Matchbox Adventure 2000 range and came in Avocado Green (1977-79) or Metallic Blue (1980-81), Neither of these colours befit the Justice Department of my youth and so I went for a Dark Blue with Yellow and Red accents.
I don't know what it is about airbrushing blue but I just don't seem to be able to find the right blue. I did get to try out some of my colour shifting space paints from vallejo on the turbine and exhaust which was nice. I think I need to airbrush an entire vehicle to get a really good idea of how they might work.
Justice Department insignia greeblies were sculpted in milliput and the windows got the classic Car Wars wasteland reflection treatment. You can find my poster art in my Judge Dredd mini posters collection
Regular readers will know that my scale of choice for Judge Dredd miniatures is 15mm.
I chose this scale because it is cheap, easy to paint and the legendary Laserburn Lawmen are a perfect proxy for my favourite era of Judge Dredd, the 80s. The problem is of course as with any tabletop game storage and transportation. Taking a leaf out of the old Kenner Star Wars playbook I resolved to create a miniature storage case in the shape of a city block which could add some play element to my games whilst hiding away all the neat surprises I have in store for my players.
The Framework
Fans of Aldi (a German discount retailer) will be familiar with the wonders of the middle aisle, and one such grocery shopping trip resulted in me bringing home this cheap plastic crafting drawer unit. This was swiftly clad in sheets of foam core on three sides and a carry handle printed on my FDM printer was bolted to the top.
Balconies
I wanted to extend play in 3 dimensions so the inclusion of some elevated features was essential. These consisted of 25mm wide strips of foam core hot glued at regular intervals up the block. Most of my minis are based on 1p coins so this is perfect for stationing high level snipers or as a launchpad for boingers or skysurfers.
Exterior Features
I
always picture these smaller blocks as being the work of brutalist
architects. They are concrete monstrosities more akin to prisons than
homes but they attempt to offer at least windows and air conditioning.
I
modelled a couple of "skins" featuring a door and windows which could
be 3D printed and then attached to the foamcore facade conveniently
hiding some of the wiring from the lights. This could easily be made
from mountboard, cereal packet or even thick paper if you do not have a
3D printer, but I have made the files available on thingiverse for free
just download Tower Block Apartment Front Skins.
Greeblies
No sci-fi model is complete until it is festooned with greeblies. Some are necessary to hide wiring but all of them break up that monotonous concrete facade. I downloaded some air con units from Thingiverse which were then printed out and positioned in the space between the apartment skins.
If you are interested I have written a blog about printing some of the Judge Dredd Greeblies.
Lighting and Signage
One
of the core features of any block is its plethora of crappy. Battery powered christmas lights are perfect for this and can
also perform double duty as balcony illumination. These were strung in a
zig zag pattern and then embedded in the underside of the balconies.
I then modelled some light covers to hide the tiny LEDs which added a certain amount of light diffusion aswell.
Block Name Signage
I then modelled a light box and frame to house paper block name signs for each of the blocks in my sector. This is a versatile system which incorporates 5mm magnets and magnetic strip so you can attach the sign to either side or top of the case. The hand drawn lettering I feel really sums up the art style of Judge Dredd during my formative years and they are super easy to knock out. Here are just two
I also modelled the infamous Peach Trees Block sign which I
printed in transparent resin on my Photon Mono 4K.
The lightbox design
incorporates hollow areas in the corners for the magnets to attach the frame (also magnetised). The inside of the box is covered with
aluminium foil to aid light reflection. Signs are easily attached and detached in seconds as your scenes change.
The Roof
The
top floor of the block would inevitably invite play so I made sure to create a 1" grid in the roof which was then further emphasized with short clippings of PLA filament to create a grid.
This was then painted and covered in some flock to make a rooftop garden. The carrying handle sticks out a bit but it's form over function
It's Magnetic Man!
Storing miniatures is the key goal, so it was crucial to make sure that they didn't move around during transport. I stuck some A4 magnetic sheet into each tray which has enough holding power to stop my minis from skating around uncontrollably. This is quite cheap on eBay and a good solution for smaller minis or ones which don't weigh much.
For those of you using 1 pence or 2 pence pieces to base your minis, make sure that you use only pennies from 1992 onwards, These are made of copper coated steel and are therefore magnetic. If, like me, you were using up your penny jar and didn't know this when you based them, then you can use thin steel foil or more of the sheet you used to line your trays.
