Kraag for a King - part two

This is part two of a multi-part series on the building of a mountain fortress or Kraag for the (soon to be) Great Martian King Antevaxx. Part one is here.

With the main structure laid out, Antevaxx decided to add a few access points for his soon to be burgeoning army.

For the openings near the edges of the columns, a scroll saw was used to cut in through the edges.  However, Antevaxx was not happy. He wanted more doors!

So what is a poor contractor to do? Enter the Forstner bit:

These bits cut a smooth sided hole with a generally flat bottom. In addition they can be used to drill overlapping holes. Using a drill press makes for neater holes but that doesn't count for much on this job.

The centre section was punched out and some clean up was done using a knife. For heavier material a jigsaw would be handy.

With all the access doors cut, it was time to test fit the floors again.  It looked good

As you can see, I added some screws to better attach the support blocks. It would have been too hard to add them once the outside is covered. I pre-drilled the holes to prevent the blocks from splitting. This reinforcement complete and starting from the bottom up, I spread a liberal amount of glue on the blocks then slid the floors into place. Just visible through the upper opening is on of the screws I put through the floor into the blocks to act as a clamp. I haven't decided if these will stay in place or be removed. I also added three blocks at ground level. They were glued as usual and screws run up through the baseplate to hold that on. I decided to set the tower off centre back on the baseplate to give more room at the front for scenery and gaming room.   

But something was missing - a place to land. Using some scrap MDF and the outside of the tube as a template, I made a series of landing platforms. 

These were cut to shape using the scroll saw but some work with a knife was needed to make them fit tightly to the columns. The circle is the outline of a flying  base washer. It ensures there will be enough space to put the model during a game. Lots of glue was applied to the curved inner edges and finishing nails were run through pre-drilled holes to add strength and pin everything together.

Antevaxx's growing army takes a test flight to ensure everything is working well.

Antevaxx buzzes the tower!

Next up we start on the external scenic work.

Part 2.5 is here. 

Tourna - Miniatures rules you can play with your kids

Getting new blood into the hobby has been a topic of discussion in  he war gaming hobby for a long time now. On his blog, Bill Sempf posted  Tourna a simple set of rules he uses to play with his son.

Tourna lets you use any figures to hand from that old Warhammer army to Lego minifigs to plastic dinos.  A game is balanced by allotting  each player the same number of dice with more dice making for a larger game. The players then assign these dice to figures with generals getting two and regular figures 1. The rules easily allow for machines and monsters - just assign the figure more dice from your army pool.

Players can move a unit or battle (melee or shoot) in each turn.  Movement is in inches or whatever units are appropriate to the playing area.  As expected from its Warhammer inspired roots, Tourna takes a bucket of dice approach. Roll to hit, roll for damage with each damage point taking a die off the target figure. Melee takes place between units in base contact and shooters can hit anything in line of sight but at reduced hit and damage factors. Simple to understand tweaks allow for mounted units vehicles or other type of units. For example, mounted units move further than foot and can charge (move into contact and melee) an enemy unit in range. Victory goes to the last person standing.

Tourna looks to be a fast and easy way to introduce miniatures gaming to the youngest players.