Crossposted from my Man Of TIN Blog Two post –
https://manoftinblogtwo.wordpress.com/2022/04/02/sk8r-bois-toyboarders-finished-for-splafiti/
Tag: skateboarders
Some more peaceful Tabletop Strategy Games
A quiet shift or reaction on the Tabletop and Painting Table to the disquieting events in Eastern Europe:
Snowball fights, Scouting Wide Games, Splafiti with Toy Boarders …
Blogposted by Mark Man of TIN 25 FEMbruary, 2022
54mm Toyboarder #FEMbruary Sk8r Girl – Stranger Things have been known!
#FEMbruary again!
Crossposted from my Man of TIN BlogTwo overflow site:
The only female figure pose in the Toyboarders tub set rereleased by Vat19 https://www.vat19.com/item/toy-boarders-skateboard-figurines
Finally, Ladies first – I painted the first of my toy boarders for my Spla-fiti game!
https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2020/07/08/spla-fiti-and-skateboarders-wip/
Paint it Red or Paint it Black?
Anyone else play period themed music whilst they paint? I often play themed music whilst I’m painting Toy Soldiers, usually music from the period
Today’s first painting day of the year saw me listening to a mixture of 90s Skate Punk and Spanish Armada music.
A curious mix, I hear you say?
but then I was was basing Vat 19 Skateboarders for my Skrafiti project – so Avril Lavigne’s Sk8tr Boi is good for 90s uniform colours, sorry skater baggy clothes from the late 90s …
First job, start basing the old AJ ‘s Toyboarder’s skateboarder figures (still available from Vat 19) on mdf tuppeny bases as they are forever falling over. Background peeg decal is a freebie with my last Bronte order from Annie Norman at Bad Squiddo, which reminded me of large urban graffiti murals … now to watch those skate punk videos for uniform colour scheme details, unless there’s a handy Osprey on SkatePunk?
For painting Spanish Armada era 54mm figures from Chintoys? Spanish Armada period music for my Arma-Dad’s Army Project, listening to the Saydisc recordings 1588: Music from the Spanish Armada on original instruments by the York Waits.
Arma-Dad’s Army project summary page: https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/arma-dads-army-elizabethan-home-guard-1580s-1590s-operacion-leon-marino/
The red Tudor beret of the kneeling figure has a elite fierce special forces / Guevara revolutionary look. Good Queen Bess and Ralegh undercoated and glimpsed at the back by essential reading matter. A few Hingfat pirate figures have joined in as Spanish sailors.
Paint it Black or paint it Red?
Two black and red colour related songs kept popping into my head about the a-historical cartoon choice of colours for my Spanish Fury reinforcements:
“… I raise my flags, don my clothes / It’s a revolution, I suppose/
We’ll paint it red to fit right in” from Radioactive by Imagine Dragons, 2010s
Or Paint it Black – Rolling Stones from 1966
Why red and black? The Spanish Armada Osprey book title shows a good range of uniform colours, with no one dominant or exclusive national colour for Spanish or British Elizabethan era troops. Both sides had a white flag with a red cross. The St George + Cross for Britain, the saltire type X Cross for Spain. How confusing!
My growing muster of Elizabethan conversions and (right) ECW trained band figures in blue!
By the 1580s/90s various shades of Blue was quite common for English troops (green and white in earlier Tudor times), so my muster and trained band are in work clothes and military green and blue shades.
Black and Red: My previous or first set of Spanish Conquistadors from Chintoys https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2020/10/30/the-spanish-fury/
Inspiration for the black and red came from some vintage figures:
These two Elizabethan Monarch Cherilea 1960s figures have blazing torches. Watch out Cornish towns! Sold – These three lovely vintage figures joined my forces last Christmas 2020.
I really liked these fragile Cherilea figures with their black, red and silver colour scheme with leather brown.
This was it, dark colours, the black and red diabolical colours of flames! I have painted them as fearsome as Tudor Propaganda and the Cornish might have seen or talked about these Spanish ‘devils‘ who fired Cornish seaside towns and churches in 1595.
Before I run into BLM (Black Lives Matter) and Woke history issues / problems, the Spanish raids of 1595 really did happen …
Caption/ image source: https://bradleybasement.wordpress.com/comedy/dads-army/a-soldiers-farewell-tv/
But I have also realised that this whole Arma-Dad’s Army scenario is another long period-costume cheese dream of one Captain George “Napoleon” Mainwaring or a fever dream for Private Frank “Nudgeof” Pike (Stupid Boy!) in the Warmington Home Guard. Thus, this Arma-Dad’s Army Project also links with my Look Duck and Varnish Home Guard Gaming.
That’s two or three ticks on my New Gaming Year Irresolutions 2022 already ..
Phew, useful a-historical “but it was all a strange dream” ethical get-out clause!
So that’s what’s in my ears and on the painting table to start the New Year …
How are all your New Gaming Year’s Resolutions going?
Blog posted by Mark Man of TIN 2 / 3 January 2022.
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B.P.S. Blog Post Script
The much covered sons “Radioactive” by US band Imagine Dragons has a suitably bizarre pop music video with illegal betting on a muppet style gladiatorial contest where kapok and fur literally flies – but don’t worry, justice is served in the end https://youtu.be/ktvTqknDobU
The “Radioactive” video all reminded me somewhere between Pokemon and the plush fur and toy soldier Fuzzy Heroes rules reviewed on Board Games Geek. As a fan of simple games rules I have not tried these yet but there is an interesting write-up on Fuzzy Heroes and role playing games with kids at Wired / Geekdad:http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2008/11/roleplaying-wit/
As I mentioned “Radioactive” is a much covered song, ranging from the genre morphing musical Time Machine of Postmodern Jukebox , the more acoustic covers of Radioactive by the Gardiner Sisters and First to Eleven.
Spla-fiti and Skateboarders WIP
It’s a long time since I fell off a skateboard.
Blue Crue paint it pink – how very gender neutral.
This Spray-Fiti game (very much WIP or Work In Progress) developed out of my Spl-Attack boardgame gridded wargame / chessboard version of Nintendo’s Splatoon video game.
If Spla-fiti has a video game ancestor, this would be Subway Surfers, see the game trailer at https://youtu.be/tYysQOHTimo
It is another exploration of my interest in non-lethal ‘war’ games.
The Aim
** youth skateboard graffiti stereotype alert **
Here the game aim is to cover as much of the city walls with your own side’s graffiti art as you can, avoiding capture by the City Police and overspraying and replacing the graffiti of the rival skate crew where possible.
The Police and the Council Cleaners turn up after 2 x d6 turns to try and restore law and order, clean up the streets etc.
A range of player options – two skateboard crews versus each other
or one skate crew versus 1 police unit and / or council clean up unit.
Or two skateboard crews versus the city police and city council unit.
Victory Conditions? – At the end of so many turns (e.g. throw 2 or 3 d6) count up how many grafitti panels in your colour you have sprayed.
If you are the Council clean up team, you might have taken down and cleaned up more graffiti than the skate gangs sprayed or oversprayed.
WIP Rules Spla-fiti 1.0
You can MOVE one figure in a turn or you can SPRAY a wall in a turn but cannot do both.
IGOYUGO
Council staff and Police on foot are slower (moving two squares each turn) than skaters on boards (moving four squares).
Jumping up obstacles costs half the move.
Note: Adjust the following distances as you see fit.
Spraying a wall panel takes one turn (attach graffiti panel in your crew colour).
Respraying the other crew’s work takes one turn – change their graffiti panel for one of yours. Keep theirs in your base pile.
The Council repainting the wall also takes one turn. Council players – remove the grafitti panel and keep it.
You have limited or unlimited spray cans as you see fit (the Spla-fiti equivalent of ammunition). I have not added cans to the skaters’ hands yet.
Melee?
There is no melee fighting phase. If you choose to crash into another skater and knock them out of a game, a d6 dice throw of 1 knocks out another skater and yourself. However savings throws are thrown for both you and the other skater. Less than 6 knocks out the skater or yourself. 6 is unhurt.
You can decide for how long you or the other skater are out of the game until you respawn at home base.
“Green Teem” make the city streets uncleen with their grafitti tagging – easy!
I didn’t have a big enough chessboard for it to work with 54mm skater figures and their cardboard city buildings so I drew up two cardboard grey city street grids with squares the same size as my chessboard.
To get that rundown urban feel, I made some simple city retail or industrial buildings out of biscuit boxes turned inside out to get the cardboard side. I improvised some downtown urban clutter and street furniture.
The City Council clean up, removing spray-fiti and repainting the city walls.
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Here you can see the magnetic strip by which the spray-fiti or graffiti panels are attached.
I tried the self adhesive magnet strips inside the card buildings to keep outer walls clean but it did not work so well as direct contact with the graffiti panels which have a small square of magnet strip on the back.
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Council Teams clean up the city walls. These are represented by flamethrower figures, repurposed to repaint the city walls.
The police officers are there to catch the skater grafitti artists. They can arrest skaters (if you can catch them) and take them individually away back to an off board jail square (or you can add a set-to-stun “Tazer” option.)
I have yet to add in programmed random NPC (non player character) city types to get in the way (from model railway civilians etc) – a chance to add in my hollow-cast lead tramp figure as a hobo etc.
Before anyone mentions it …
Keith Haring and other graffiti artists like Banksy might classify as Art.
I’m not endorsing spray-painting, graffiti art and tagging, much of the time in the wrong place it just looks ugly.
I did smile at the chalked-up message on the passageway walls into Shepherds Market in London when the Tradition of London toy soldier shop was still there. It simply said in big chalk letters – Cheer Up! It made others walking past smile reading it too.
However much I dislike graffiti in the wrong place, I enjoyed doing the mini graffiti panels. Some were based on examples I found online. In others, there are a few wargamers’ names or initials amongst ones for family and friends here “Tagged in This Photo”. Particularly proud of DF62 and PL15!
Sk8r figures are by AJ’s Toy Boarders – all sold out and now hard to find. I picked up a green and blue pack years ago online, along with their surfer dudes which I found second hand. You may now find them in set 1 and 2 together in tubs at Vat19 in the USA who ship reasonably cheaply to the UK:
https://www.vat19.com/item/toy-boarders-skateboard-figurines
All 8 of the different skateboard move poses are shown here, as listed on the card header. Pushing, Nosegrab, Smith, Cruising 1 and Cruising 2, Manual, Tailgrab and Ollie. Sounds like weird gang names.
Blog posted by Mark Man of TIN July 2020
B.P.S. Blog Post Script
All Sk8r Boys? Sorry Avril Lavigne, sadly there was no skater girl in set 1, she was in set 2 which I couldn’t find for sale online.
If I don’t buy more skaters from VAT19, I might be able to improvise one or two female skateboarders from 54mm model railway civilians on coffee stirrer boards (with cocktail stick wheels?)
Some of the model railway figure sets by Noch and Preiser have roller skaters, inline skaters and skateboarders in HO OO for tiny city scapes.
For a few clues on colours and “uniform painting”, you can now check out the slightly dated ‘skate punk’ music videos by Avril Lavigne such as Sk8r Boi from the early 2000s: https://youtu.be/TIy3n2b7V9k
Man of Tin blog 