What's been did and what's been hid!

 You may have noticed that I haven't made a painting table post for a couple of months.  I doubt that many people will have missed them, if I'm being honest.  A monthly exercise in showing a seemingly random selection of part painted stuff on an untidy table isn't that enthralling really.  Mainly I was using those posts as a way of motivating myself to clear at least some of the lead mountain, and to a large extent it worked.  In fact the posts were victims of their own success.  I have shifted a goodly amount of my 28mm back log but then I went and added to it!  I was also posting to show completed work which left very little positive news for the painting table posts.  So I have done away with them instead I will continue to post when I complete something or hit a milestone on a project.

On that latter point then; July has seen the completion of a mini-game board intended for a gunfight at the OK corral game (but you sort of knew that anyway).  The good thing about the OK Corral is that it can be modelled with a really small playing surface and minimal buildings.  My board is under three feet square and only required four buildings and a few odd and sod items of street furniture.  In terms of figures it needs eleven plus two horses and that includes Sheriff Behan who doesn't do anything other than act as mobile scenery.  I made a second, smaller version of the Harwood House using foam board and card to replace the shack which was proxying for that building.  I took an idea from another site to use the frames from an MDF kit to draw around (on the inside of the space where the kit parts had been cut out) to create the shapes of the foam walls.  That made things easier than having to measure and check angles for corners and the like.  All in all it worked rather well.

Smaller than the MDF parent model but the original was also smaller than the main house

Wargame terrain standard is good enough for me

I also made some amendments to the Old West Skirmish rules I use.  The main ones being that wounds no longer knock down the wounded party in every case.  My reading shows that the vast majority of people don't realise they have been shot and continue to act as if they are not seriously injured for a longer period then you would expect.  With that in mind I reduced the cases that cause a knock down to serious leg wounds and light head wounds from a high impact weapon.  Characters still have a moment of being stunned (the "what the hell just happened" moment) but generally stay on their feet.  Near misses cause a flinch effect that causes either a duck back into available cover or a pause unless a bravery test is passed.  Reaction speed and draw speed are now two separate things based on the fact that reaction time is a mental ability thing, while draw speed is a manual dexterity thing.   However, in a fast draw situation both shooters will have to check reaction and draw speeds to see who gets the drop on the other.  I also created a wound location and key rules summary sheet so that new players (or me) don't have to refer to the rules book.