Systema Gaming Scenery Power generators assembly and review

I've got the power!

Impressed by the Storage Silo I reviewed previously, I bought a pair of Power Generators from Systema. A sheet of 5mm MDF and a small sheet of orange acrylic is enough to build two of these babies. The assembly was -- as with the Silo -- very straight forward. No instructions are included but it's hardly necessary. It would be nice though for the more inexperienced builder I think.

I used ordinary white wood glue thinned with a little bit water and applied with a brush. It gives you a little wiggle-room and enough time to pull the pieces apart if you make a mistake, but dries fast enough so you do not have to wait long periods. All parts can only fit in one way so if you have to shave or file down a lug to get it to fit, you are trying to assemble it wrong!

I did however hit a couple of snags. The first was that glueing the acrylic pieces was harder than I anticipated. The fit is not as good as with the MDF parts so they move around a bit, and trying to align eight pieces of plastic between to circles of MDF at the same time was quite interesting. I thought of using superglue to first glue them rigid to one MDF pieces, but then I wouldn't have been able to adjust any of them if they weren't glued on 100% straight.

The second problem was that when popping out the parts I ended up with a cog-wheel shape that was left over. It was simply superfluous material used between two other parts on the MDF sheet, but I thought it was used to align the acrylic beams. For half an hour I tried to get it to fit before I realised my mistake.



I did a time-lapse video of the assembly and you can see how I try to fit the part around the acrylic beams, and that I try different ways of holding the acrylic. In the end I just held and pressed them in one hand. The acrylic does not absorb the glue like the MDF, so I had to wait a while for the glue on them to dry before I dared touching them. While waiting I undercoated the base with white primer. The whole process took about two hours, including trying and refitting the acrylics, brewing coffee, talking to my wife on the phone and undercoating the base. Next time I will start with the acrylic beams and then I can do the base while the first parts dry, so it should take less than an hour. The "power" assembly can be removed so you can use the base as it is if you like, which gives you a bit more variety.

At 12 Euros for a pair they are very good value for money. As evidenced by the Plague Marine in the picture above they are quite large as well. While not exactly gothic they could be a piece of Eldar or Tau machinery and would also fit very nicely into a game of Infinity or Star Wars. Systema provides good service and are very nice to deal with.

I give the System Gaming Scenery Power Generators 4 out of 5.
Recommended and good value for your money.

Systema Gaming Scenery: Storage Silo review

Systema Gaming Scenery is another one of those small businesses that sprouts up here and there; one-man operations benefiting from the Internet making them easier to get noticed by potential customers and the world smaller. This is fortunate because there are lots of creative people out there with access to a stockpile of MDF board and a laser cutter making beautiful things. This one is located in Slovenia, a country I know very little about to be honest.

The Storage Silo in all it's glory.

System Gaming Scenery doesn't have a proper webshop, instead they have a blog with a catalog. If you want to order something you email them and you get a PayPal invoice back. Simple and efficient. Shipping to EU countries is free for orders above 50 Euros, to non-EU countries it's free above 70 euros, and to the rest of the world shipping is free on orders above 100 euros. Not bad considering that MDF board weighs quite a lot. This kit cost only 16 Euro which I think is a great price!

Kickstarter frenzy, sponsorship and give-away

A bit of mixed bag today. Let's get the elephant in the room done with first.

Some of you might have noticed that I have a banner for Wayland Games now -- it should be visible on the left, please let me know if it doesn't show. This is simply a click-through to try and generate some hobby money for me. The way it works is if someone places an order with Wayland by going through the link here on my blog, I get a small percentage as a kick-back. So if you are going to order from Wayland, please consider going there through my link. Besides, I do shop from Wayland Games myself and am very happy with their service and goods. They have Games Workshop, Fantasy Flight Games, Vallejo... ok, I'll stop the sales pitch. But they are really good. Did I mention they have X-wing?



Yeah, ok, that was the last one in this post. I promise.

So, Kickstarter next. There's a ton of interesting Kickstarters out there, and I wish I could have supported them all. The most interesting is the Winter War project from Baker Company. They are doing 28mm figures for the Finnish-Soviet Winter War in 1939, which as far as I know is a first in this scale. There's three days left and they have blown past their goal by a mile, meaning you get an awful lot of stretch goals. For one platoon you need to pledge £60 but you will get more than double that amount's worth. Just take a look at the graphic on the right. There's just three days left, so hurry up and pledge now! Sadly I do not have any splash money right now, so I will have to sit this one out. Two of my mates are supporting it though, so I look forward to playing with their toys. (Hi Thomas and Jocke!)

A spanking brand new kickstarter that I have pledged to is the Mars Attacks! kickstarter from Mantic Games. It is based not on the Tim Burton film by the same name, but on the Topps trading cards that the film was also based on. It started today and achieved funding in about 90 minutes, currently it's on about $168.000 with a $50.000 goal, so it will be produced and there will be stretch goals. The question is how high will it go? $100 is the minimum pledge to give you the game with miniatures, board and some add-ons, although you can pledge for just a digital rulebook should you wish. The game includes martian and human soldiers as well as a couple of civilan survivors and the evil Martian General Tor, and some nifty looking brick ruins which I bet will find their way into various zombie games.

"Nak! Nak! Nak!" Although the crater is not included, the brick ruins and the martians are from the game.

Lastly, this is my 195th post. I missed celebrating my 100th post simply because I didn't think I had written that many, but I'm thinking of having something of a give-away when I reach 200. I have too much crap anyway, might as well shift some of the lead mountain on someone else.

So watch this space.

Warlord Games Ruined Farmhouse Review

As I was proof-reading the Chain of Command rules from TooFatLardies I got inspired to restart my WW2 28mm project. I had a bunch of models already but lacked any terrain. Renedra has a bunch of nice generic stuff, and I was curious about Warlord Games' Bolt Action range. I decided to order their Ruined Farmhouse kit during their Free Postage offer in August. It costs 15 pounds which seems like a fair price, on par with the Renedra houses, and is also available in a "Ruined Hamlet" box with three identical kits for 35 pounds.

A whole house in that little box?

So what are my thoughts about it?