Pyramid construction zone

I’ve made quite a bit of progress on my Aztec-style alien pyramid of late. I finally got some styrofoam and got started on the building proper. I used up all the blocks I’d cast from the Hirst Arts molds. In doing so, I went through two boxes of Permastone, and I have another waiting in the wings.

The idea for construction is to make an inner core out of styrofoam, around which is a “skirt” of blocks 1″ high and 1″ deep. The Hirst blocks are 1″ x .5″ x .5″ so I need two rows to go around one sheet of foam.

These syrofoam sheets from the crafts store are 12″ square and 1″ thick. I bought three. If I had bothered to accurately do the math instead of just eyeballing it, I would have realized I only needed two sheets to make the layers I needed. As it turned out, I had one full sheet left over, and decided to add an extra layer (on the bottom) to my pyramid. So my original plan to make it 5″ high has now changed to make it 6″ high. Not towering but respectable.

Here’s the foam sheet I used.

This layer is 12″ wide with a 10″ wide foam core.

And a close up of the corner bricks.

Here are all the layers stacked up. The bottom 1st tier and the 4th tier are not dressed. The top tier is currently just a mock up. I’ll cut it down to a 2″ square and it’ll be 4″ wide when done.

And with Chthulu on top!

Here’s a 28mm Spug for scale.

So when this is all done, it will have dimensions of 14″ at the base, 4″ at the top and be 6″ high.

Now I need to make another stack of bricks, and start thinking about painting and finishing. Suggestions?

New acquisitions and WIP

I went to EndGame, Oakland’s 2nd Annual Miniatures Bazaar on Saturday. It didn’t seem as varied as last year – perhaps everyone sold off a lot of stuff last go-round? Anyway, only Josh had any real variety (the rest being almost entirely GW stuff), and he had some good stuff!

The first good deal I got was these Old Crow Lancers. One assembled, the other still bagged, for $15 for both (they’re normally $32 each less shipping). These will definitely be making an appearance in our Stargrunt games!

Also from Josh, I picked up a boxed set of the old Starship Troopers Cougar Exosuits, which are now quite hard to find and expensive when you do find them. $10 for the set. Unfortunately, it had 5 right arms and 3 left arms (there are 4 exosuits). Mongoose quality control FAIL! I’ll figure something out though. I really like these minis – the exosuits are some of the best power armor in 28mm ever made, even if Mongoose did make them.

And now for something completely different – I am also an avid RPG player and I picked up some Hasegawa 1/48 scale pilot figures for a game called Godlike (it’s a WW2 game with super powers, kinda like X-Men meets Saving Private Ryan). I sometimes use minis for this game, and these figures will be used to represent player-characters in the game. I’ve stuck them on their bases and prepping them for priming.

That guy on the right there is obviously not part of the set. He’s U.S. Marine by Reaper Miniatures I believe, though I’ve forgotten the exact title.

All four of these guys will see some paint in the very near future.

Finally, I bummed a couple Cthulhu figurines off my friend Wayne. These dudes are made by FFG and I’m going to put the big one on top of my alien pyramid when I finish it. The smaller ones maybe go on the corners.

And finally, I’m working on a Spug warrior from Spriggan Miniatures. Just trying to get a color scheme down. No picture yet – I’ll post one when it’s done. Painting up a force of Spugs is going to be my next big project once I clean up all these little ones.

Five Epic Armies

Looking at my blog stats, the consistently most popular post is the one I did last year about my old Epic Space Marine collection. It shows up in the weekly top post stats every week. Over 2,300 views. Impressive.

I love that old game and though I haven’t played in years I would at the drop of hat.

But there is one secret about that post I haven’t let on – those seven pictures were only the tip of the iceberg, part of a set of 44. If you want to see all of the pictures I took of my Epic Space Marine forces, click this link! Enjoy!