Photos of the new game table and very first game on it!

[Deleted]

I have posted the photos from yesterday's game session with the new game table and revamped game room and game lounge on my Photobucket page for your amusement:

s1283.photobucket.com/user/chirinebakal/library/?sort=2&page=1

Please have a look, and let me know what you think! The game was Shunned Ones vs. Humans, and was a very good time!

yours, chirine

[Deleted]

Hmmm... sorry, Chirine, my Infernal Viewing Device of the Ancients doesn't seem able to find the photos.

[bestialwarlust]

looks like part of the url is missing

[idrahil]

Photobucket loves to throw confusing additions to there links to throw off linking.

The album is here:

s1283.photobucket.com/user/chirinebakal/library/

Looks really cool!

[Torreny]

The problem is that the link is to url 'http:///', as opposed to the text of the link itself.

Chirine ba Kal's (chirinebakal) Bucket

[geoffrey]

That looks like a lot of fun! What is the surface of the table made of? It kind of looks like tiles.

[Deleted]

May 11, 2014 10:56:15 GMT -6 @gronanofsimmerya said:

Hmmm... sorry, Chirine, my Infernal Viewing Device of the Ancients doesn't seem able to find the photos.

Well, that'll teach me to cut and paste URL. I think I fixed the link; try again, or use the links that the smarter people hereabouts have suggested...

- chirine

[Deleted]

May 11, 2014 11:14:46 GMT -6 bestialwarlust said:

looks like part of the url is missing

Thanks for pointing this out - I'm new to this Internet thing! I think I fixed the link in my original post. (I hope.)

- chirine

[Deleted]

May 11, 2014 11:40:35 GMT -6 idrahil said:

Photobucket loves to throw confusing additions to there links to throw off linking.

The album is here:

s1283.photobucket.com/user/chirinebakal/library/

Looks really cool!

Thank you! - chirine

[Deleted]

May 11, 2014 17:16:05 GMT -6 geoffrey said:

That looks like a lot of fun! What is the surface of the table made of? It kind of looks like tiles.

Thank you! The game was indeed a lot of fun, as everyone tried to hide in the trees. It didn't work.

The basic table is some plywood and lumber; I stained the drinks and dice trays and added a layer of clear coat for spills. I painted the plywood 'well' / playing surface with a nice greenish tan, so that we can play right on that if we want to. The 'well' is sealed, so we could put down a layer of sand for that ultimate pre-school gaming experience.

Having said that, the table was built with my sets of terrain tiles in mind; about five - six years ago, we were doing a lot of 'big table' games at one of the local FLGSs, where they had a sandtable with a plywood cover painted green for games. I made a set of 22" x 44" 'tiles' to cover this; they were made by gluing a layer of 1/2" expanded styrene (that white 'beadboard stuff') insulation to 1/4" MDF panels. The MDF provides the structural support that the soft extruded styrene needs, and also provides a bit of weight to keep the 'tiles' from moving around during games. I painted the tops and edges of the tiles with a nice tan color paint, and covered the paint with fine sawdust before it dried. I then airbrushed the sawdust with various colors of paint in irregular blotches, and there you are - nice looking terrain that is easy to transport and easy to maintain.

Due to some changes in the retail focus of the store, we no longer game there, and so the 'tiles' were kicking around doing nothing. I cut the tiles down to a standard 9.5" x 9.5 " each, as twenty-five of these (in a 5 x 5 array) make up 47.5" x 47.5", which nicely fits a 48" x 48" playing surface. You get a nice random selection of these on the table, and the look of the table rarely repeats. Add in the trees and other scenic bits, and I think that the table looks pretty good. The trays keep the drinks, rulers, dice, and snacks off the playing surface, and also provide a 'penalty box' for the casualties to be removed to.

This. by the way, is the 'Temperate' set of tiles; I have an 'Arid' set and a 'Wet" set as well, so I can replicate any of the various terrain types Phil was fond of sticking us in. With the addition of the vegetation sets - 'Temperate Woodland', 'Desert Oasis', "Trackless Jungle', "Fetid Swamp", and "Highland Conifer" - I can simulate any of the terrain areas on Tekumel. All of this stuff lives in plastic tubs, and all I need to do to set up a game is pull the tubs from the inventory list and put the stuff out.

We've found in practice that the tile lines get ignored, and nobody think of them in terms of a grid or anything.

Does all this long-winded stuff help?

-chirine

[thorswulf]

It certainly looks nice to play on!

[Deleted]

You've only gotten better over the years, Chirine, that's gorgeous.

What's the white object on curved legs? Did somebody find a small Lightning Bringer or other Device of the Ancients?

[Deleted]

May 12, 2014 11:17:10 GMT -6 @gronanofsimmerya said:

You've only gotten better over the years, Chirine, that's gorgeous.

What's the white object on curved legs? Did somebody find a small Lightning Bringer or other Device of the Ancients?

Thank you! Given your experience in miniatures over the years, that's a real compliment!!!

And, unlike Phil's dang Ping Pong ball table, this table doesn't shake all over the place if you bump into it. (Used to drive us crazy, folks!)

The Fiendish Thingie on the legs is a Shunned Ones walker, complete with alien commander brandishing his Staff of Power. There's a very talented gent who does 3D sculpting and printing, and he's been doing Tekumel subjects for some time now; he's kind enough to send me samples of his work, and in return I do research for him and suggest things. He's simply brilliant, and quite faithful to Phil's design esthetic; he's done a Hlyss nest-mother, as well as Hlyss warriors, and I had nightmares for a week after putting all their little arms on them. He's also got a sense of humor, too; his Ssu magic users are all wearing fezzes.

It's quite wonderful - he's gone through and filled in all of the gaps in my collection, making many of the alien horrors that Phil used to scare us with, and also some of the more obscure non-humans. His Nyagga are both creepy and cool; he did both 'on the surface' and fully 3D 'underwater' figures, and I am working on how to do a fully three-dimensional aquatic game. Poker chips to indicate depth under the figures' stands, maybe? The Sro-howdah infantry are a stich, too; both archers and very long pikemen, so now I have to read up on elephant rules.

He has also done some very nice Lighting Bringers, by the way...

Loved seeing your sand table photos from Gary Con, too!

yours, chirine

[Deleted]

May 12, 2014 7:49:52 GMT -6 thorswulf said:

It certainly looks nice to play on!

Thank you! It's very fun to play on as well; the texture looks very nice, even up close, and the trees' bases tend to blend right in to the surface. I can now do real river and stream banks, and you can hide under bridges if you want to. And the usual stuff we use, like the periscopes, rules, dice, and lasers all stay in the trays and off the playing surface - no more dice on the floor!

yours, chirine

[Deleted]

Okay, the idea of Ssu mage-priests wearing fezzes amuses me no end. I wonder if Phil would laugh, or swallow his cigar butt...

3D printing is going to be a gods-send for gaming; I'm glad a Tekumel enthusiast has one!

[Deleted]

May 13, 2014 9:57:01 GMT -6 @gronanofsimmerya said:

Okay, the idea of Ssu mage-priests wearing fezzes amuses me no end. I wonder if Phil would laugh, or swallow his cigar butt...

3D printing is going to be a gods-send for gaming; I'm glad a Tekumel enthusiast has one!

I think he'd laugh, then do his level best to try to kill all of us with some really high-buck Ssu spells; the fezzes give the Ssu better access to other-planar power, doncha know...

What I need to do next is a model of a tubeway car - I need to post those drawings, too! - and then have hordes and hordes of Ssu pour out of it ala those little cars that have a nexus point in them that hundreds of clowns charge through...

Seriously - or as least as seriously as I'm likely to be - the ability to do prototype figures using the 3D printers is amazing. The current resolution detail is not as good as the current generation of commercial plastic, resin, or metal miniatures, but for those of us who started painting on Hinchcliffe, Greenwood & Ball, Scruby, and Minifigs it's good enough. Yes, you have to work a little harder to paint them up, but the difference is like that of a injection-moulded plastic model kit vs. a vacuformed plastic kit. Each has their own niche, and their own uses on the game table; I'm very happy with the 3D figures I was given, as they fill gaps in the collection that would be very hard to fill otherwise - I have a penchant for the obscure, even for Tekumel, and these fill the niche in the market for what are effectively prototype and very short run figures. I mean, I don't think there's enough interest in Hlyss nest-mothers to warrant doing up the tooling and production for what would probably sell a dozen miniatures.

On the other hand, where the process really shines is in the 'one-offs' that you and I used to have to fabricate from scratch for the game we used to do at the Little Tin and Coffman; the process economical, and the resins used in the printing process study enough for occasional use - I would be very anxious about using them at a game convention, given the casualties we used to take from ham-handed gamers at Gen Con and Origins.

For example, he did a wonderful memorial set for Phil, after the Professor passed away; it's two Thunru'u carrying a bier into the mastiba with a Priest of Ksaul officiating. Very fitting, and very poignant!

yours, chirine

[Deleted]

Poignant indeed.