Crisis… What Crisis?

The assembly guide has the accessories being built first. Skylight, rooftop access, water tower and two billboards. Probably need to find a different picture for at least one of the billboards. Four fire hydrants too.

Bottom right in the photo is a fire escape that I may or may not use.

Already have the other items: trash containers, cars, traffice lights and street lamps.

And finally the two buildings.

As you can see from the photo I have left each building in two pieces. I didn’t think the middle floor was sturdy enough to be a separate component, so I built them like that so I can create: two three storey buildings, or a four storey and two storey.

There are windows to attach, but I want to paint the building and windows separately where possible to make process easier.

There are some spare parts left over and few bits to add to the exterior… and six pigeons to scatter about the rooftops as I see fit.

That’s the most of the assembly done. The rest will occurs after painting.

Started with the easy stuff… the Daily Grind and Daily Bugle.

The same building with a couple of minor differences. Simple build.

The truck was an easy build too. I primed the parts before assembly and plan on keeping the flatbed separate so I can use the Garbage or Chemical load.

Much easier to build than Bolt Action truck although to be fair the Bolt Action is more detailed.

Slight miscalculation on the size of the parking lot. I made the pavements too wide and so it was impractical to have spaces for six cars as planned.

Rather than dismantle it, I decided to change it to hold three cars which is something you may find near to a coffee shop, or newsagent.

The world is not perfect (well I’m certainly not), so adapting was required.

NYC City Block has arrived and I’m impressed.

Shopping around I found it for £106 instead of £135 and the box is heaving with stuff. Going to take a few days to build everything and even longer to paint.

Not 100% sure, but looks like the truck has both the Garbage Truck and Fuel Truck components. If that’s the case I will try magnets so that I swap it around for versatility.

Also plan to build the buildings in such a way that they can be dismantled. Useful for storage and if the two buildings are same size I can vary the height from 1 to 6 floors (admitedly with a six floor building I will have only one, so probably stick with 2 to 4 floors).

Looking forwards to starting to build all this stuff.

And the box is really subtstantial. Definitely going to use it to store as much of the terrain as I can and possibly the big figures like the Sentinels.

When stuff is drying I am writing my first supers adventure in fifteen years and thoroughly enjoying that part of the creativity too.

I’ve been worried about a health issue the last week and still waiting for some tests, but the doctors strike probably not helping there, so in the meantime I’m distracting myself with hobby stuff.

I had some TT Combat tiles that were a little too tall for the Battle Kiwi ones I bought, so I trimmed the sides to make them level.

Layer of sandpaper on top with PVA to represent the road surface like the other tiles I prepared and then I primed it black, followed by a skimming of dark grey. Road marking to follow.

I had some A3 sheets of MDF that I have trimmed to make pavements around the edges of the car park. They will need texturing of course, probably with a few cracked slabs.

Then I will seal with PVA and prime dark grey with a skimming of light grey to match the rest of the tiles.

I have several more tiles I can use to expand my options for the MCP board. This tile takes my total to eleven for a 3×3 board.

Not sure what the other tiles will be, or how many.

So… I might have spent another £100 on Marvel Crisis Protocol… the New York City Block Terrain Pack is due to arrive soon.

Two large buildings, two kiosks, two cars, two street lights, two traffic lights, two dumpsters, a truck and a billboard.

And I decided I wanted to run a supers rpg as the last one was Mutants & Masterminds about 15 years ago. Marvel Multiverse RPG arrived today.

I already have the basics of my universe… it’s a dark time… Reform has won the general election and declared mutants (and other supers) to be illegal aliens.

That was my starting point and I’m already creating information on villainous and heroic groups.

Whether the players will choose to be rebellious mutants fighting oppression… or mutants working for the state and hunting their own kind… well that’s for them to decide.

Is there a size limit on projects? Because this one is experiencing… growth!

I gave up on purple. It was too dark against that blue.

So I painted white over the bits I wanted purple and then painted it purple to see if that would provide more contrast… it didn’t.

I tried red… that didn’t look right.

So I went for Plate Mail Metal by Army Painter. Just a few plates here and there to provide some contrast. I know it’s not an official X-Men paint scheme, but my game is set in the UK and they use a different paint scheme.

Still need to touch up the mistakes, add the hands… apply a wash and drybrushing perhaps.

Maybe a thinned down purple over the silver will work… I’ll test it on a spare limb…

They might not look that different in the photo, but after airbrushing with Ultramarine Blue Air by Army Painter they look a bit shinier and I’m happier with that.

Applied Matt Black to some areas and I may dry brush with silver (or use a metallic speed paint) over the black next.

Then a tidy up over my mistakes where the black went onto the blue.

I dug out my Excalibur comics. Not for painting inspiration, just something to read between coats of paint.