Paint Remover

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So you messed up the paint job on an expensive miniature. Now you have to remove the paint without ruining the figure by turning the paint into an impossibly gooey mess. In the Two Hour Wargames group, Ken Hafner writes:

We have had good results with Castrol Super Clean, Tough Cleaner
Degreaser. It is found mostly in automotive sections of stores, and is in a deep purple bottle. I have used it on both metal and hard plastic
figures on plastic bases, with excellent results. It doesn’t harm the
plastic at all. I prime with spray paints, paint with acrylics, and over
coat with various dullcoats, including Testors and Krylon. It removes
them all with the aid of a toothbrush.

One caveat: be sure to use plastic gloves when you are scrubbing. It
is an EXCELLENT degreaser and will remove all natural oils from your
hands, and cause the skin to crack. We use it full strength.

How To Make Craters

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This video tutorial teaches a technique for making craters. It’s a useful thing for modern, post modern and full-blown science fiction games.

Book Review: Crecy 1346 – A Tourists’ Guide

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Crecy 1346: A Tourists’ Guide
Publisher’s Site: Pen and Sword

Crecy 1346: A Tourists’ Guide is a neat concept. It looks exactly like a traditional tourist guidebook, such as those published for Disney World, or various cities and attractions around the world. Inside are photos, maps and directions guiding the reader on their travels.

The difference is that this guidebook focuses not on restaurants and the birthplaces of dead poets but on the route of the English army across northern France, and the environs of the battlefield at Crecy. Instead of advice for the best place to stand while watching the light parade, it offers advice on where to go to see the places important to the campaign.

The book offers five “tours”:

  • St-Vaast-la-Hougue to Caen
  • Caen to Elbeuf
  • Elbeuf to Poissy
  • Poissy to Abberville
  • Abbeville to Calais via Crecy-en-Ponthieu
  • The Battlefield

Each tour comes with an historical introduction, a map identifying significant points, and detailed information and photos on the stops. There is also advice on how to travel (including bicycle guides) and places to stay and eat.

Even if you are not headed to Crecy for a vacation, but still have an interest in the battle, I think this would be of interest. There is plenty of history in the book, and the modern photos are more useful than the typical period illustrations

You can also get the book in Kindle format, which would be great, since you could have it on your phone and reference it while travelling.

Thanks to Pen and Sword for providing a review copy.

Exosolar RPG

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Exosolar is a free rpg

about robots struggling to survive on an alien planet. Players will have to make the most of their limited resources as they overcome obstacles that threaten their mission. This is a rules­light RPG with a focus on narrative. One player is the GM (game master) and controls the world while the other players are the robots.

Miniature Village of Bourton-on-the-Water

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Amusing Planet has a terrific series of photos on the miniature village of Bourton-on-the-Water in England. Imagine playing wargames with action figures in this one.

The best part of it is that, since the one of the houses in the actual village has the miniature village in its backyard, the model also contains a miniature village. And in that miniature village is a house with the miniature village. And in that miniature village …

It zooms down to 5x.

Wow.