Cangames 2026 - Random Table Shots

Howdy folks,

As has been tradition for myself for sometime now, the past weekend was attendance at Cangames time! A great way to pass the long weekend, and this year was no exception, in fact I think the Con was even better this year. Not only did I build up the courage (and fight procrastination) to run a game, it was fully attended and then some...more on that in a later post.

This post is all about the 'random' table shots that I was able to grab...the games and tables that I was able to fit in between the schedule. It felt like there was an increase in games overall, and the miniature table top was no different in that respect. There were some classic, some that I wasn't familiar with, and some new favourites.

Hope you enjoy the pics.

Force on Force (FoF) has become somewhat of a classic staple at Cangames, and there ware folks who travel from abroad to make it just for the FoF. Chris ran another scenario this year, I wasn't able to get in on the game, but this one looks like a different setting compared to years past. Chris runs his FoF in 20mm scale and always has a very dynamic scenario for players.

Ed and Andrew came in from the Maritimes for the day and topped it off with running a 15mm Rapid Fire Ost Front scenario. I tried this one out last year, and really liked the ruleset. I think this scenario is a similar Soviet push against German defenses, but in this case was a little more dynamic with added defense in depth that challenged both players to maximize resources and priorities - do the Sov's get bogged down in mop up or push for the objective prioritizing the threat; do the Germans commit all at once or whittle the Sov's down.

Michael Ball and The Face of Battle was a staple in my 'early' years of attending Cangames, and while he had taken a break from the Con, last year he returned with version 2 of his ruleset. His table is always a treat to look at. I believe he runs his games at 20mm, and in this case we're looking at D-Day-esque adventures.

Last year, Duncan had run a Korean War scenario with B-29's getting bounced hard by North Korean Migs...it was an excellent scenario, and he brought it back this year. The table was pretty straight forward and lots of top gun excitement by everyone. This is the Mig Alley expansion to Blood Red Skies by Warlord Games. The models are great, and hey...who doesn't love a good air combat game?

Chris also ran a couple of serials of The Walking Dead in 28mm. Again, a very popular setting and a lot of fun was had by folks.

Brian always runs a game or two at the Con. This year he had a Pirates inspired game, not sure the ruleset, but the minis looked excellent.

Marvel Crisis Protocol - Starter Box Terrain

Howdy folks,

I hope all is well on your side of the winter...which we have actually had a fair share of since the new year. In the past month we've gotten just shy of a metre of snow, thats a bit over the 3 foot mark and we're easily sitting with over 2 feet on the ground, and definitely higher where snow has been cleared. Some of the drifts are starting to get as high as cars which is always fun. Looking at the forecast, it also looks like we're getting a real couple of days of Canadian winter; the windchill is expected to be almost as low as -40 to -45, so yeah, a real Canuck winter.

So with the winter that has suddenly become, I was able to finish up the terrain pieces for the Marvel Crisis Protocol starter box - pretty pumped by hitting this milestone. I don't have a good track record for finishing off all the bits that come in the various boxes, so yeah, gonna chalk this one up as a clear victory. I'll have to get a victory photo to mark the venture.

I gotta say, between the figs, vehicles, and terrain - the starter box had a lot packed into it, and a very good value given the cost of the individual expansions and figs. These were definitely some of the larger models that I had tried painting and the Daily Bugle shop that came with the starter definitely fell into this category. Given that I painted this up between December and January AND I don't have a winter or indoor airbrush station I tackled it all by brush. 

Admittedly, it took me a bit more than I would have liked, but it was a very good challenge and an opportunity to try out various techniques. I think when all is said and done, I probably painted it 3-4 times over, lol...but again, I got to test my contrast paints, my stippling, shading, and weathering on a larger scale than I'm used to...so again, progress!

I thought I'd go with extra weathering for the Bugle...J. Jonah has to be a bit of a cheap...fellow...so I thought that would fit. And I figured its NYC, so there has to be some graffiti, and I thought it would be fairly Spiderman focused.

Anywho, enjoy the pics.

Painted

15mm            10

28mm+          9, +5 (MCP Starter Box pieces)

Bought         24

Progress      -5

Marvel Crisis Protocol - Starter Box wheels

Hello everyone,

As the season of change is upon us and for those who may be ‘enjoying’ the white stuff…I hope all is well on your end. On the corner of my workbench I have a collection of starter boxes, some collecting dust, others not…but all vying for time under the brush. Nonetheless, after having completed the core characters from the MCP starter, I have slowly been moving onto the terrain pieces that came with this box. 

I started the cars a little while ago…actually not long after I finished the 3d printed consoles from my buddy Duncan. Anywho, the cars were a lot of fun to paint up…I think these may have been a couple of the larger models that I’ve tackled…and they gave me a chance to try out a couple of new paints (Warcolours…I found them quite challenging to work with) and try out my rust and weathering techniques. To help guide me through I also had Sorastro’s fabulous NYC Truck pdf guide to help me, and yes it is available from his website for free.

Hope you enjoy the pics.

Painted

15mm           30

28mm+         75, +2 (MCP starter box cars) 

Bought          34

Progress      +71

Here we go X-Force!

I know, its a little derivative…

Hello everyone,

I hope all is well on your particular front. Those of you Ontario way, I hope you and yours are safe and sound, given the events of this long weekend it has been quite challenging for some. If you are reading this on the tail end of the weekend, then hopefully you are sharing good fortune and have had power and some normalcy returned. 

As the title of todays post says, we’re talking X-force baby! Now to be honest I did not partake in the super hero comics when I was a kid, mostly historical or WW2 for this kid. However, thanks to the MCU and the success of those movies, they certainly helped bring MC Protocol to my door. So, all that to say, characters like Cable and Domino are relatively new to me. A huge shoutout to my main painting mentor Sorastro for his first takes on these figures…very inspirational and some great elements.

Cable was a real challenge to paint up, the model is very dynamic and the shield required a certain amount of faith and OCD for me to get through. The various armour components really gave me a chance to test some new NMM techniques. Not to mention, I really liked some of the ideas that Sorastro brought to it, specifically the smoldering cape. Also stealing his idea of showing some wear/heat on Cable's weapon, I took a look at my photo albums and got a great reference from Forward Observations Group of a suppressor showing great heat damage/wear after a day at the range. The colours were really neat to see...so I tried to emulate that.

 

As for Domino, she was a fairly straight forward figure with some great dynamic action. It was a challenge to decide on an overall colour scheme, again there were some great internet images of previous comic book covers and I had the artwork that came with the packaging. In the end I settled on a mix of a couple of covers. I really liked the action around her riding a piece of concrete hurtling through the air, and the explosion was a great test of colour...I really liked how the heat of the explosion shows on the underside.

I hope you enjoy the pics.

2022 Lead Mountain Climb

Painted

15mm               24

28mm+             23. +2

 

Bought             10

Progress          +37

Marvel CP - Doc Strange and Wong

Howdy folks,

 

I hope all is well on your side. Just a quick post for today, I recently had the chance to finish off the Doctor Strange and Wong expansion pack for Marvel Crisis Protocol. As has been my experience with these models to date, they are a double edged sword for me, lol. On one side, they are such fabulous and dynamic poses, on the other, they sure can take an extraordinary amount of time for me as my OCD grapples with getting them just right.

Now that’s mostly on me and my process. Funny enough, when I have a reference guide to go with my OCD tends to be even stronger. Again, the other side is that these guides have been a great way to further develop my style.

In this case, Wong was definitely a quick paint job for me, and the guides were helpful with various elements. But because there was no dedicated guide I had to develop my own plan…and it worked well for me. Now, Doc Strange was an interesting figure…quite dynamic with the spell effect and quite finicky with trying to attach him to it. My main disappointment is that the spell effect aside, the sculpt of the Doctor felt somewhat underwhelming and this one may be my least favourite of the range so far.

Regardless, the figures presented some great challenge and I hope I nailed the spell effect. Overall, my main frustration was having the glue crystallize on me after I glued the Doc to the effect…sigh, could always be worse.

Cheers. Enjoy the pics.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2022 Lead Mountain Climb

Painted

15mm               8 

28mm+             21, +2

 

Bought              0

Progress          +29