Painting displacement activity on a budget: FPS

Posted on August 29, 2011 by Justin

You know what it’s like. Sometimes you just want a quick break in the middle of the painting process between priming and base-coat or top-coat and varnish

Or perhaps you’ve staggered back from work, had dinner, bathed the kids and are now resisting going through to watch the latest installment of Big-Brother-Got-Freak-Factor-Talent.UK with the rest of the clan. You don’t want anything too strenuous. Nothing too taxing. Just something satisfying that doesn’t come in a bottle or a can.

Well, whilst World of Tanks has been distracting the rest of the groggy-blogosphere, I’ve been a relative late-comer to Red Orchestra. By late, I mean distinctly eleventh-hour as the game was released in 2006 and its souped-up successor, Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad, is due out on the 13th September:

Red Orchestra is one of those multi-player first person shooters (FPS) set on the Eastern Front. Red Orchestra’s uniqueness resides in its committment to authentic modelling and ballistics. You won’t find illuminated crosshairs here and, invariably, 1 hit and – well – you’re dead. If you’re interested, check out my antics with a panzerfaust:

The imminent release of RO2 has meant that prices have dropped as low as £2.99 and because it’s old it even works on my machine (Minimum: CPU: 1.2 GHZ or Equivalent, 512 MB RAM, Video card: 64 MB DX9 Compliant, 2 GB free hard drive space, DX 8.1 Compatible Audio, Windows 2000/XP | Recommended: CPU: 2.4 GHZ, Video Card: 128 MB DX9 Compliant with PS 2.0 support, Sound Card: Eax Compatible).

Owning a copy entitles you to 20% off Red Orchestra 2 (if you pre-order) and opens up free access to exciting total-mods like Darkest Hour, a late-War Western European Theatre revamp. Here’s me on JUNO beach:

If this doesn’t float your boat, check out the free demo of SPACE MARINE. Relive your teenage years with this splendid gorefest by downloading the much reviled STEAM and clicking on this link to enure UK access:

Model Dads Poll

Posted on August 23, 2011 by Chris

We are rolling out our new design for the website and blog over the next couple of weeks.

To help us shape our future content, Model Dads would like your feedback on what you enjoy on our website/ blog. Please complete the poll and leave any comments.

Cheers!

Model Dad in Death Valley

Posted on August 14, 2011 by Justin

I realised that I hadn’t thought about Little Men for a week. My wife tells me that I haven’t talked about Little Men or Flames of War for just over a week.

And now, here, in Death Valley, with access to the Internet I’ve got an itch I can’t scratch. So I thought if I logged on I could at least say hello.

Hello

Las Vegas next. Now, what do you reckon the odds are on my wife lifting the figures embargo if I win a ton on those roulette wheels?

See y’all in a week now!

Back to the Future. a small AAR

Posted on August 8, 2011 by Chris

Chris here.

My old mum came to see me at the weekend. We live a long way from each other, so it was really very nice. Awww bless.

On arrival she beckoned me to the boot of the car. My old table football, which I hadn’t seen for over 30 years was produced, and a box of old soldiers I hadn’t seen since the early eighties. In fact these were the last soldiers I ever played with, until I took a three decade break entirely from gaming until last year when Justin encouraged me back to the dark side and Model Dads was born.

Having been kept in a children’s room at the top of mum’s house, they had most likely been well played with, trodden on, thrown against the wall, pitched against each other until they were chipped mercilessly, discarded, stored and then opened up a few months later to face a fresh assault.

And here were the handful that had survived the the massacre, returning to me after three decades of internment; a few musket wielding English line infantry, Highlanders, Prussians, French Jagers, the Royal Artillery reduced from an entire regiment to now just 5 soldiers without even a single cannon, and a tiny clutch of Imperial Guard.

Yes they had been decimated badly, their hundreds of fellow brothers in arms probably now molten into lead fishing sinkers or perhaps solder – but these rag tag survivors still seemed to hold themselves with dignity.

As my three year old son gazed on, the moment suddenly seemed right for our first ever war game.

The troops lined up against each other.

He chose the British line.

I was stuck with the rest, which included the RHA to make up the numbers.

Rules.Each side advance, then take turns to roll to hit with one die.

Turn 1: The two sides close:

Turn 2. He rolls a four:

I roll a five. But he doesn’t want to knock his over. He begins to sulk. We talk. They eventually go over and he is pleased to hear he has another turn: