Product Review: Paulson Games Guns

Prior to Adepticon, I had planned to participate in the Gladiator Tournament.  That didn't actually happen, but for the list I wanted to run, I needed additional rail cannons for my Tau Broadsides. Though I love the Forge World XV88 models, I don't love the price.  Tim offered a pair of Paulson Games "Mech Medium Rail Guns" for my use.  After a quick clean up, the addition of a magnet, and painting to match my Tau army... they were ready to go!

(Top to bottom: Sub-munition Rifle by Forge World, Beam Gun by Paulson, Medium Rail Gun by Paulson)

I was pleased with the quality of the castings- enough so that when Tim put in an order to Paulson, I asked him to add a few of the "Long Beam Guns" to his order.  As with the Rail Gun, the Beam Gun was well cast and easy to clean up.  The resin is solid and nicely detailed.  For $2 and $3, respectively, these two items work quite well as alternative weapons for Tau XV8, XV88, or even XV9 suits.  I've decided to use the Beam Guns as Sub-Munition Rifles, which as of now are only available via Forge World with their Shas'O R'alai kit.  For the price- these are very much worth it.

Zombicide

A few months ago I helped with a Kickstarter campaign for a game called Zombicide.  It looked neat and by the time it was fully funded seemed like a rather good value.  After a few weeks, the manufacturers and creators started sending out the games on schedule.  I’ve played two games with my girlfriend and had enough fun to post a quick review here.

The box itself is quite large and sturdy.  It contains dozens of zombies and several Survivor miniatures.  The detail on these plastic figures is excellent, considering their size.  At some point, I may get around to painting them, but for now, the zombies shall remain a basic gray and the Survivors their easily identifiable bright colors.  Game board tiles, markers, and objectives are high density cardboard.  They’re all very colorful and well detailed.

The directions are pretty easy to follow, and turn sequence is well defined.  Essentially, the Survivors get to do their thing, one at a time, and then all the Zombies get to do their thing.  This makes it seem like the Survivors have a huge advantage over the walking dead- and they do, at first.  Eventually, though, the balance shifts, and very quickly.

Survivors each start with 3 “actions” with which they can move, search, trade equipment, attack, and a few other things.  Different Survivors have different skills, so who you select as your Survivor does make a difference.  When you attack Zombies, you’ll be using equipment that you picked up during the game.  Equipment cards define the stats of a weapon (range, damage, etc.), which is what you roll against to determine attack success or failure.  As you start to eliminate the Zombies, you will gain experience.  When you “level up”, you get more skills.  Great, right?  Read on…

Most Zombies are slow and not particularly threatening, but they’ll always move towards your Survivors- even if they can’t see you, they can hear you.  If a zombie starts his turn in the same zone as one of your Survivors, he’ll AUTOMATICALLY hit you.  You can only take two hits before you die.  See- I told you it starts to get bad.  So obviously, the trick is staying away from Zombies.  Then it gets worse- after every round of play, more Zombies are generated, in random numbers, from 4 pre-set spawning zones.  Every time the Survivors level up, a higher level of generation is achieved, so even more Zombies show up.  At the end of turn one, you might get between 2 and 8 new Zombies, but later in the game as you level up, the spawning phase could easily put 10 to 20 Zombies on the board, some of them being faster and tougher than normal Zombies!  Eventually, if the Survivors don’t achieve the objective quickly, they’ll be overwhelmed by the sheer number of walking dead.

Each scenario usually has a primary objective and a bonus.  In the case of the game pictured above, the objective was to get at least one Survivor to the Exit Zone, which was across the board from the Starting Zone.  The bonus was a "medicine cabinet" which would cure one wound on a Survivor.

Simple game mechanics, clear rules, nifty minis- lots of fun.

Spinner

I finally finished these guys about a month ago, but have been too busy to post the photos.  Of the three Spinners (Flying Cars) I picked up from Antenocitis Workshop, I painted two in the classic Blade Runner police blue livery.

Check out the earlier posts for pre-painted photos, but to recap- these were very quick kits to put together with few flaws or casting imperfections to deal with.  Detail was great and the decals went on without a hitch.  I did have to refer to the website for placement information, but that was it.  Highly recommended!

Product Review: Future Cars

"Where are my Flying Cars?"

I got your flying cars... right here. Since using oversized Matchbox toys wasn't really quite my style, I spent a fair amount of time looking online for alternatives. The first option to show up in my search eventually wound up being the one I went with. So without further ado, I give you a very quick product review of two vehicles from Antenocitis Workshop.

"Future Car"

The Future Car kit is composed of only 4 parts... three of which are not particularly essential. The car body is cast in one solid hunk of resin and could be put to work exactly as is without adding any of the other parts. However, if you want to put rear-view mirrors or a spoiler on your future car- the parts are included.


Detail is very good for a one-piece casting. The panel lines are a tad heavy for the scale, but for wargaming use it is not unusual. The resin is firm but not brittle. It carves easily, though there isn't much call for trimming. There are only two or three voids in the casting that will be easy to fill. Quality is consistently good. I can say that because I went out on a limb, splurged, and ordered about ten cars (total, both types) and found them all to be well done- an indicator of good quality control.


Prior to painting, the car will need some light sanding to even out the surfaces. I haven't decided if these cars will get glossy finishes or not, but either way they will benefit from the application of Mr. Surfacer primer to help even things out prior to painting.

"Flying Car with Decals"

A Spinner, by any other name... Six major components, a bunch of smaller greeblies for vents and (optional) police lights, and a decal sheet. The resin and casting quality is similar to the Future Car (above), so I won't repeat myself. The resin and casting quality is similar to the Future Car (above), so I... uh...


The decal sheet is sweet. Nicely printed with fine detail. I haven't had a chance to build this car yet, so I can't say how well the decals react to water or setting solutions. I'm not worried- if I can make decals on my printer at home, I'm sure these will be fine. Also, since the sheet has white ink, it means that more likely than not Antenocitis used an Alps printer which is rock solid.

Unlike the Future Car, the Spinner does require some assembly. The lower fuselage is cast separately from the upper cabin. The mating surfaces will have to be sanded flush. Not a major undertaking, but something to be aware of. It looks like the forward wheels were cast in the "flying position". If you want to show them in the "ground" position, you'll have to do a lot of work. This is not a ding against the product- you wouldn't really know the difference between the two modes unless you spent a lot of time looking at Blade Runner concept art or just watching the movie.


The only real criticism I have of this kit is that there are no directions for assembly. Granted, the basic assembly is fairly obvious, even if you only look at the photo included on the (very nice) packaging, but the police lights may prove to be problematic. The Antenocitis website only has one photo of the police version of this vehicle. As a result, assembly and proper placement of the smaller greeblies will require a bit of research and/or guesswork.

Conclusion:

Worth it? Yes.

At £8.5 ($13) for the Future Car and £11.5 ($18) for the Spinner, these kits are reasonably priced. However, as a customer not living in the UK, I was not charged the VAT, so that brought the cost per kit down to about £9.5 ($15) and £7 ($11). Even though I ordered quite a few of these cars, it only takes an order of 2 or 3 kits to qualify for free shipping (UK or International).

Once I get around to these guys, they'll look good on the board and provide some nice LOS blocking terrain.