Campaign MK AKA Guess What I Bought In My Local Shopping Centre.

In my part of the world we have quite a few game shows that are only 1-2 hours away from us through the course of the year.  Reading usually has two shows, London has one great big one, Oxfordshire gives us another one.  The nice thing is that one of the clubs in our area hosts their own show, and has done since I was little.  I have learned to appreciate this smaller but usually worthwhile event.  It even has something for the whole family as it is run in one of the local shopping centres…

Campaign MK is Milton Keynes own game show and lets regular shoppers see what we the gamers get up to when left alone.  Lots of normal shops and coffee shops, restaurants and bars, 20 or so participation games and a good mix of traders adds up to a fun day for all the family.

This year the family stayed at home and I was let out with the lads for a couple of hours fun.  We played some games chatted with people we had not seen for some time and purchased things we really didn’t need.

My best buy was a copy of Dead Mans Hand from Great Escape Games.  We did play a home brew western game, about 10 years ago, using 40mm plastic Cowboys and Indians. I must admit to having never played this period seriously at all.  Surprising really considering how many western style houses I own.

The benefit of DMH is that it only needs a few figures (always a good idea for getting the painting for a new game done – although this has not helped yet with my Bushido crew).

I wanted some different figures, to play as lawmen or cowboys (or maybe desperados if they were deserters).  One of the joys of this game is that there are thousands of figures already out there that can be used to represent your chosen faction.

I went for Buffalo soldiers. These are from Artizan Designs.  I have never painted any figures with a skin tone other than pink.  Even that gives me trouble sometimes.  This time brown skin was the only option.

My reliance on shading with inks was never going to work here so eyeballs would need to be painted and dark hair made them even more in need of colour to bring them together.

Nice blue uniforms and yellow trim (not exactly authentic) helped to lightened them up a bit as well.  Calico shirts were planned but a happy accident resulted in some pink shirts too.  The white I was using picked up some old red ink from my pallet.  I kept it that way as it reminded me of the pink underwear you sometimes see them wearing in cowboy movies…

The western town got enlarged by the purchase of a two-storey hotel at Campaign.  This one comes from a small company named products for wargamers that is run by one of our local gamers. A great guy and great item.

The town is coming together nicely… A couple of bits need finishing off and I need to see what else I have that will fit in too.