Friday, February 11, 2011

Hiatus for a couple of weeks

Sorry to break it up to all readers.
But things just turned for the worse in terms of my schedule and pretty much everything else.

As such, I am going to stop posting for the next few weeks to sort all things out before I get on track with posting the usual stuff on Toyconstruct. Sorry for any inconvenience and Cheers to all who support the blog!

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Arleigh Burkes Flight I in Micro Scale

It is finally time for me to show what I have been up to in terms of GHQ. The newly embark wargaming system catered to my Modern Military hobby scope that I take lots of interest in.
In fact, I shall also be reviewing their products too.

GHQ provides miniatures for Micro Wargaming for the Great War, World War 2 and Modern Warfare. Specializing more on WW2 and Modern Warfare.

In all my time delving into Military model kits, Military tabletop gaming and Modern Warfare stuff, I have never come across a company that provides such an extensive range of miniatures that would put even the big model kit companies to shame in terms of range of models.

Furthermore, at micro-scale which is 1/285 for armour and aircraft and 1/2400 for ships, that is pretty darn small, they manage to put much details and intricacy in the miniatures they produce.



Today, I shall feature the Arleigh Burke Flight I destroyer from the GHQ miniature productline. This model can be used under a game system called Harpoon for Modern Naval Warfare.


The game system pretty much provides a realistic battle simulation of modern naval battle.
While many critics have point out that the last modern naval battle was the Falkland Wars and much of this system is based on speculation, it provides the next closest thing to what Modern Naval Warfare could possibly be.



Note that all GHQ miniatures are made of Metal and as such, it enables more details in the casting of it. These ships were quite a hassle for me as I had to do a lil conversion to make it look like the actual Arleigh Burke. If u look at the horizontal bars (one short one and a longer one) on the Tripod mast of the ship from the second picture, those were made out of staple lead to the appropriate length so that it has a more better resemblance of the ship. I add a few smaller metal piece to the longer horizontal bar to make it look as close as the real thing as possible. This is shown in the highlighted picture of an Actual Arleigh Burke Destroyer.



I have more in store for you in terms of Modern Naval Miniatures. And while I have not read the concept rules of Harpoon, the Modern Naval Warfare game, I am expanding my miniature collection of Modern Naval Warships by collecting from GHQ and other companies.

However, I will be painting up more GHQ stuff for Micro Armour. Of which, I will feature it along with the gaming system that I have vaguely browse through, so stay tune!

Furthermore, I shall be starting up the Chinese Army that I have collected before I proceed with the U.S Forces I have bought from GHQ. Till then, Cheerios!!

Friday, February 4, 2011

Duty Calls: The Calm before the Storm

Hey Everyone

Thanks JQ for putting up those awesome posts on the Men-o-Art, aka his Men-at-Arms that look really good on camera but have lousy weapon skills. Unfortunately I left most of my WFB stuff at home, and I will be taking pics of my other action figures really soon (eg. Star Wars, Transformers, Marvel).

Here's a piece of really interesting gaming news. Bulletstorm is a FPS by Epic Games and People Can Fly, which also happen to be under EA...the very arch-nemesis of Activision and subject of a lawsuit for enticing Infinity Ward members away and arranging for their departures. When I first saw Bulletstorm, I thought it was a contender to Duke Nukem due to the over-the-top action sequences and "tough guy" attitude that exude from one of the characters.

So instead of making a demo for the game, the creators decided to make a mini-game with tongue-in-cheek references to the wildly popular Modern Warfare franchise. It's free to download, and it gives you about a few minutes of play. But if you're not planning on playing it, here's a video by Jacob VanDerWerf of (firingsquad.com) had recorded while playing the game:



Reactions anyone?

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

A close-up on the New Version of Men-at-arms

Good day to all again,

And I hope u readers are satisfied with the increase frequencies of posts and also the intermittent posts updating you guys on the activities that Joshua and Myself have been up to.

Its been a pretty wild ride for both of us and we are trying our best to give u the maximum pleasure of being able to come and check Toyconstruct more than once a week and see new stuff!

I can't promise we will always be posting this frequently but at least once a week you will get something from us. :)


So here is the follow-up to the last feature of my Old Men-at-arms and the one lone shot of my new men-at-arms. This time round, the new models due to a better sculpt (as mentioned before), enables my brown washes to fill into more of the crevasse around many areas as compared to the old models. This makes the figures look more distinct and defined compared to the old ones.


One thing you can also notice about the new figures is that they are more proportional in body and size compared to the old ones. Furthermore, the regiment comprises of more dynamic expressions in each model than the old one.



I really like how this new Men-at-arms look like and I tried to be as detailed and smooth with the painting of their faces and all. However, I must admit that in terms of painting white, I might have not been too good in painting white well.

Still have a problem in making a smooth white finish that doesn't look too watered down. And because I apply too many layers of white, i normally end up with one thick grooved-like white paint layer , or a watered down with a bit of gray showing from behind. This can be seen a bit on the shield of the figures.

If anyone has tips in preventing this from happening, let me know!


In this pic, We see the Men-at-arms march towards their enemy. On a side note, I hope that when the new Bretonnian Army book is released, the Men-at-arms would get a boost of their weapon skill because they are pretty horrid and that 2 WS makes it harder for the Men to land hits.

Nonetheless, we must give credit to the peasant/Men-at-arms of Bretonnia as they are the backbone in which the kingdom and its Knights sit upon. Without them, the army of Bretonnia would not have its numbers.


With the many customizable parts in the new Men-at-arms model sprues,I was able to have added a few trinkets in the New Men-at-arms. Therefore, each individual carries something that is pretty unique to him. On top of that, this regiment has a guard dog as the mascot of the regiment. (You don't get such extras in the old versions)



With the leader looking very much more grittier than the old Men-at-arms, I would like to think that they would perform as well as they look. In fact, I hope to field both old and new men-at-arms efficiently in battle. So far though, they haven't been much of a impediment against enemy charges (From experience against my friends' armies). :S

But they do serve well as good cannon fodder. :S

Ahh.. such is the tragedy of being a lowly peasant. So while they remain the foundation of Bretonnia, their quantity doesn't really make up for the quality of enemies that chop them down easily.

Train harder Peasant! so u can get ur WS back to 3!