Seasons Greetings

Well, it's that time again when our noodly master, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, decrees we should all have some time off and relax. I, of course, obey my carbohydrate rich master and so have 2 weeks off work. I have plans for a number of posts in the new year, including some scenery projects I'm working on and my planned entry for the Ambush Alley Strikeforce competition. In the meantime, lets do a year in review for Glue In the Carpet.

On the gaming front it's been a bit slow. The halcyon days past when I would have a ready crew of fellow nearby gamers is past and I think I've probably managed less than one game a month. In that time I've been active in the playtesting and design of Gruntz, and had some of my writing included in the rulebook, decided to give up on Flames of War and then failed totally to sell my mountain of US miniatures, taken up 6mm gamin and replicated my mountain of 15mm WW2 US figures in 6mm....

The modelling front has been much better. My parents gifted me with an airbrush and compressor last Christmas and it has been a joy to learn and use. I'm still very much a novice, and I've stripped more than one set of paint that just didn't cut the mustard. AGG's suggestion for a new painting station was a stroke of genius and has meant that I can now paint as an when I please, without having to disrupt the whole house to do so. I'll do a post on it in the new year. I've also expanded my repertoire of techniques and now regularly use weathering powders, decal softeners and setters, various basing mediums scatter and static tufts which I think have improved the quality of my figures no end.

I did try the frugal gamer challenge last year - no buying new figures until I had painted what I already had - but failed miserably, with two entirely new 6mm forces and more new 15mm Scifi than I can bear to think about. I'll have another go next year, and limit myself to profits I make from the sales of unwanted hobby products, I think.

The last year has seen some major changes for me personally; I married AGG and had an amazing honeymoon with her in Hawaii and San Francisco. The wedding day went to plan with only minor hiccups (she got to the registry office before me whilst I was in the pub with my best men...) and was exactly the day we wanted. On the work front, the company I worked for was bought out and many jobs were lost, including many people that I've worked with for a number of years. My role is safe and there are even opportunities for advancement, but it's still a shame to see friends go. There were also a number of periods of illness in my family, including my mother being hospitalised three or four times - although all are fully recovered now, I'm pleased to say.

So, to wrap up, I'd like to wish everybody happy holidays and may the new year bring you health, prosperity, happiness and noodly goodness. 

NAC and FSE Powered Armour

Following on from the Japanese powered armour from September, I have painted up two more sets of the GZG powered armour, old style NAC and FSE. In both cases I have beefed up the squad support weapons. The original ones were a bit meh in my opinion. In fact, the FSE one was almost indistinguishable from the standard trooper. I'm not sure if this is the norm or my figure was a miscast, but I couldn't see any difference. I scanned around in my bits box, but had nothing of the right size. Instead I turned to a set of the GZG RAM Mortars. A few quick cuts and files later and we have something much more impressive.

FSE PA Squad

NAC PA Squad

Both sets were undercoated with Tamiya fine grey primer. The NAC suits then got a very simple Knarloc Green scheme with an orkhide shade wash and then a Devlan mud wash. Visors are blood red with a dab of red ink. Guns etc are Chainmail and Boltgun. The NAC suits have Windsor and Newton Texture Medium on the bases, which is waiting to be painted. I totally forgot that they still needed doing until I got them out to be photographed. The texture medium is funny stuff - a bit like slightly gloopy toothpaste that you can add to the bases. It has small bits of pumice in it to give a rough texture. I tend to use it quite sparingly, but Robin over on the Gruntz website uses it a for his figures to great effect and has a couple of tutorial videos on how to apply and texture it.

The FSE suits were painted with Coat d'Arms paints, using the WW2 US army paint set. They had a base coat of the Buff Brown with Desert Tan and Olive Drab camouflage added. Visors are the old GW Electric Blue and the markings are various GW colours. All suits have a Devlan mud wash.

The NAC suits are fine, if a little dull. The FSE suits are quite muddy, and the camouflage didn't come out at all how I wanted. I've based them up in the usual way now, but may strip them back and start over in due course.

GZG have recently re-sculpted and re-released the NAC suits, but I think I actually prefer the old versions.

Comments....

For some odd reason Blogger currently won't let me comment on my own posts unless I change the comments setting to remove embedded comments and instead have them in a pop-up window. I quite like having the comments below the post instead of floating about in their own bubble universe, so for now, until I figure out why, I may not be able to reply to comments. I do read and appreciate them all, though.

New Vistula Legion Test Paint

I first saw the Oddzial Osmy New Vistula Legion on The Miniatures Page a few weeks ago. I'd seen a few previews a while ago and liked the look of them. I already had a few different hi-tech forces in full body armour, the new and old UNSC from GZG, ARC Fleet from CMG and a few others, so I was looking for some more mid-tech troops. I'd recently purchased some OUDF from GZG and have some NAC as well, but these guys were a must.

I bought about 8 assorted packs from Fighting 15's and their response was very quick - I had them in just a couple of days. I realised I hadn't ordered any SAW's so placed another order and bought the US Army Coat d'arms paint set at the same time, as I have both 15mm and 6mm US armies to paint as well and Fighting 15's had a minimum order value.

The figures are very nice close up. They had very little flash, but quite a few runners on the bases from vents in the mould, I assume. The metal they are made from is very hard, much harder than other miniatures, and these were quite sharp, as I found out to my cost (perforated thumb...).

As usual the figures were glued to lolly sticks with white glue and then undercoated, GW Chaos Black in this case. I then gave them a quick, light blast with Army Painter Army Green undercoat. I wanted this to just hit the highlights and leave some black in the hollows.

After letting this dry I started in using a mix of the new Coat d'Arms paints. I was aiming for a fairly straightforward WW2 US Army/Vietnam Marines/Aliens Colonial Marines look, so no fancy camo patterns but simple, basic colours. The Coat d'Arms paints were much more liquid than I was used to, as I've been using GW foundation paints a lot, and it took a little while to get a coverage I was happy with. I think over a white base coat they'd be fine, but the black kept showing through, so it's going to be a bit of a chore to paint all 60 of the buggers.

I also noticed whilst painting them that a good proportion of the figures are female, which was a nice surprise. Several of them are smaller than others and there are several with ponytails as well. There are satisyingly no figures with "fantasy cleavage" or boob-shaped armour sets in there (as an aside, AGG recently did a post on fantasy armour on her blog here).

Once the basic colours were on the figures got a generous wash of GW Devlan Mud and were superglued to 15mm round bases from Warbases. The bases got a coat of GW Bestial Brown, then a 50/50 PVA and water mix was brushed on and they were dipped in the medium brown Woodland Scenics ballast. The PVA mix was then dropped on again and they were dipped in flock.

I really like these guys. They are senisbly proportioned, sensibly armoured and the poses are all natural and have plenty of variety. I have some Old Crow 15mm (Sabre tank and Claymore APC) vehicles on order for them, and I think they will fill a nice niche for low/mid-tec troops to face off against all the high tech, grav armoured hardsuited troops.

15mm Terrain from IMEX Hexagon kits

A while ago I was pondering the IMEX Hexagon and Platformer kits as potential sources for 15mm terrain. I had seen some of the terrain that was used in the Gruntz Demo games and recognised it as being constructed from these sets.

So, when I saw two unopened sets at the bring-and-buy at SELWG for £5 each I snapped them up.

Here we have Katrina of the NVL showing us a few of the resulting pieces. First up we have a... thingy... Designed to be an objective, or a bit of scatter terrain, it's a simple build that can be all sorts of things. Power node, rescue beacon, grundulating trundulator - whatever.

Next we have a very bijou hab unit, with a couple of additions from the GZG Buildings and accessories range.

Finally we have the power station, again with a few GZG additions. Don't press the red button!

I'm very happy with the way they've turned out and have several more waiting to be painted and based.

Crusty Mecha Part 2

Back in August I posted some pictures of the conversion work I'd done on the GZG Crusty Mecha. I've now completed and painted it.

I tried to capture the battered, worn look seen on the original inspiration.

Paints were GW Chaos black undercoat and a couple of drybrushes of Boltgun, Adeptus Battlegrey and then a very light Dheneb Stone. Details have a white basecoat and then blazing orange highlights. The "eyes" are scorpion green. There are a couple of panels, details here and there and some markings in Midnight blue. The whole thing then got a black wash and then a targetted Devlan Mud wash for grimy bits. The base was done in the usual way, Bestial Brown paint, PVA, Brown ballast, PVA, flock, cork boulders and Silfor Tufts.

Overall, I'm really happy. I think it captures the well used look of the original, and the revised torso blends in well.

Tomorrow's War AAR and review part 2

I finally got a chance to play some Tomorrow's War at the weekend. Not, as I had expected, with my two nephews, but with my brother and another friend. They took control of the two forces and I umpired and looked up the rules as we went along. We played the 1st scenario in the book, which pits a USMC patrol against the loyal forces of the Democratic People's Republic of Glory. A US pilot has been shot down, and the US squad has to retrieve him, whilst the DPRG have to prevent the capitalist running dogs from retrieving their Yankee Sky Pirate and capture as many of them as possible.

The initial setup was as follows:

The red dots are the DPRG squads, the yellow the USMC and the black dot the pilot. Light woods were scattered around, along with a couple of buildings and a crop field surrounded by hedges. Troops by the bank of the stream could also claim cover if they were up against the bank (i.e. standing in the stream).

The first turn saw the USMC begin with initiative. The DPRG troops are hidden at this point. The USMC troops to the south by the crop field spend their turn trying to spot the enemy. They do so and transmit the information to the other two squads. USMC Squad 2 moves up to the edge of the wood and opens fire on the DPRG squad in the northern woods. This prompts a reaction from the DPRG in the building to the north who will try to fire on the USMC first. The US troops win the quality roll and get to fire first, dealing four casualties to the northern  DPRG. The DPRG in the building return fire, but it is ineffective. The USMC squad return fire on the DPRG in the building and score two casualties.

USMC Squad 3, on the far right, moves up to the edge of the woods and fires on the DPRG in the buildings, and scores a couple more casualties.

In the end phase the two DPRG squads on the left move up.

Here is the situation at the end of turn 1.

The first thing we did in turn 2 was make first aid checks for the DPRG casualties. The squad in the woods was in bad shape, with four casualties. Three of these turned out to be serious wounds, and one light wound. The squad in the building were better off as they had the medic with them - who hadn't been hit. They managed to get only 2 light wounds out of five casualties - clearly the medic was earning his pay. For turn 2 we needed to roll for initiative. The DPRG had more units, so were rolling more dice than the USMC, but the US's greater quality meant they still managed to draw with the DPRG. On a draw whoever held initiative last turn keeps it, so the US continued their advance.

The first squad advanced across the crop field and opened fire on the remains of the squad in the woods to the north, easily turning the last two figures into casualties.

Squad three, on the far right, opened fire on the DPRG squads in the building and caused another five casualties. The remaining two DPRG soldiers returned fire for no effect.

Squad two in the centre moved out of the woods and headed for the river bank. The DPRG squad on the left in the river tried to react to the movement, but weren't quick enough and the marines managed to get out of their line of fire before the DPRG could open up on them.

In the end phase the last DPRG squad moved up behind the building.

Situation at the end of turn 2 (actually, it's the start of turn 3, after we did the first aid rolls but before anybody had moved):

Turn 3 started with first aid rolls. The medic was a casualty in the building, so the basic first aid table was used. In the building there were two deaths and three serious wounds, which reduced the squad from 7 to 2 operational figures. The medic, the squad leader and both heavy weapons were lost (and nobody else was able to use them after failed quality checks). In the woods there was another death and a light wound, reducing this squad to 2 men.

The DPRG lost the initiative this turn, again, despite having more units and thus initiative dice. The USMC elected to put squad 3, in the woods, on overwatch. Squad 2, in the river, moved along the riverbank and opened fire on the DPRG in the building. The DPRG again lost the reaction test and the last two figures became casualties. USMC squad 1, in the crop field, opened fire on the DPRG squad in the woods and again the DPRG lost the quality check, and the last two figures became casualties.

At this point we elected to end the game, as the DPRG player was feeling pretty glum, after having two squads wiped out without even landing a single shot on the USMC.

So, what were our thoughts after the first run through? Both of the players liked the initiative and response mechanic, and could see how it related to real world experiences. Only one Fog of War card came up, which wasn't relevant, so we had no real feelings about that. The fire combat worked well, and we were quickly used to toting up the number of firepower and defence dice each side had.

However, there were three areas that we though were major shortcomings.

Firstly, whilst it probably was an accurate reflection of how a firefight between the Marines and "North Korean conscripts in space" would have run, it was no fun for the DPRG player to be continually losing each quality test to the marines. The DPRG had quality of D6 and the marines D8, but the DPRG just seemed not to be able to get a break. Even if they scored maximum on all their dice, the USMC could still do better.

Secondly, even though the DPRG had more men, the combination of the USMC tech level advantage (the Marines had better guns and armour, which meant the got an extra dice in attack and defence) and their higher quality meant that even when the DPRG did get a shot out at the marines, it was easily negated. UPDATE - I've re-read the relevant sections in the rules and noticed a couple of things we did wrong. Firstly, I missed off some of the modifiers for shooting and defence dice, so the DPRG troops who didn't move and satyed behind their cover should have got the "in cover" bonus, in addition to bonuses from actual cover. So, for instance, the troops in the building would have got +1d for being in cover and +1d for the cover from the building. I also capped the defence dice pool at 10 the same as the firepower pool, but there is no upper limit on defence die that I can see. Also, I didn't reduce the firepower pools for movement or reactions.

Thirdly - and this could be me reading the rules wrong - there seemed to be no penalty for having figures as casualties for morale rolls. The DPRG at one point had 5 out of 7 figures down in a squad, and had to take a morale test, but there seemed to be no penalty for all the casualties? Once the first aid roll is made and the extent of the wounds known then there may be effects, but morale rolls are made at the point when fire is taken, and thus before the first aid roll is made and thus before casualty effects are taken into account. It seemed to us that there should have been a penalty for casualties to the rolls. - UPDATE - Ambush Alley games confirmed that this was an editing error on The Miniatures Page. Apparently the wording should indicate that only combat effective troops can make morale tests, which would exclude those taken as casualties and those with Serious Wounds.

Despite those drawbacks we enjoyed the game and will have another go next time we are together again. This time we'll try with a couple of vehicles and maybe some more closely matched troops and see how we get on.

Older 15mm stuff

Some shots from the archive now. AGG took these pictures as part of a photography course she was doing about 18 months ago. These are the first ever 15mm figures I bought YEARS ago. The chaps here in green were part of a Laserburn set that came in a giant ziplock bag with figures, dice and maps, Assault on Tarim Towers, I think. The paintjob is a simple green ink wash with brown camo splodges. Details picked out in chainmail, black, flesh and a few other colours.

These chaps are more guys from the Lazerburn range, now carried by 15mm.co.uk. These are the Blackguard (DUM DUM DAH!). I took the name literally and painted them black. The skulls motifs were picked out in bleached bone with a brown wash. metaly bits are the ubiquitous chainmail. Very eeeevil looking.

The next lot are GZG Kra'Vak that I bought to be Kafers from 2300AD. The paintjob here is even simpler: white undercoat, old GW Armour wash on body and old GW flesh wash on the heads and hands, pick out the guns in Chainmail. I was going for speed, clearly. They aren't great paintjobs, and I'd undoubtedly do better now, but it got them on the table fast.

The next lot are GZG UNSC hardsuits. I painted these in two batches. The first half were sprayed with a light blue that I got from somewhere and then ran out of. I then had to mix a batch of matching light blue to hand paint the rest of them. I got a pretty good match, I think. They then got a wash of grey-blue to pick out the details and some black and chainmail accents on visors and guns. The light blue was supposed to be like the modern blue helmets and berets that troops operating under the UN banner wear. Again, not a great paintjob, but it got them on the table fast.

I used all of these guys in a number of games of Stargrunt II. I loved the rules, but everybody else hated it, especially the chits on the table to mark quality levels. Oh well, horses for courses and all that.

The last picture is of a Brigade Models dune buggy. At the time it was part of their Israeli forces, but now it's French. Its brown. And spotty. My camo patterns (and ability to paint the right bits - look at the over paint on the side of the canopy - shocking!) have improved since then.

Tomorrow's War - Review Part 1

Tomorrow’s War- First Impressions.

I’ve been lucky enough to be given a review copy of Tomorrow’s War by Osprey Publishing and Ambush Alley Games. I’m not affiliated with either, and haven’t been involved in the playtesting or development of the game, so beyond getting a free copy of the game I hope I can be reasonably objective.

I have only skimmed the book so far (in casualty whilst I was waiting for Amazing Geek Girl to get her head X-rayed after a nasty collision during her adventure race yesterday), but I’ll give you my first impressions.

The book is hardbound and full colour throughout (like the new version of Force on Force). The interior text is crisp and readable, and the pages are well laid out with good use of art and graphics. Pictures of models from a variety of Sci-fi ranges including (that I have seen so far) GZG (of course...), Khurasan, Old Crow, Pig Iron and Combat Wombat.

The first section of the book details the default setting for the TW universe, which I dipped in and out of. It seems perfectly serviceable, but I already have a background in mind for my games, so will probably just steal bits from it. I do like the names, though - The Republic or Arden and Democratic Peoples Republic Of Glory - with its Dear Leader Mk1 and Mk2 tanks- very North Korea In Spaaaaaaace.

The rules that I read are similar to the the aforementioned Force on Force and use a couple of systems that I'm unsure about. The first one is that in each turn, events are effectively dictated by who gets initiative. The player with the initiative (IP) activates all of their units one by one, and the non-initiative player (NIP) then tries to react to them. Once the IP has finished activating units, the NIP gets to try and activate any that are left. There are a couple of wrinkles to this basic system, but essentially it means the IP gets to act, the NIP gets to react.

I quite like the thought behind this, and can see how it reflects modern/near future combat where if you act decisively and aggressively towards achieving your goals and you can keep up the initiative of your actions you will be more likely to succeed.

I, however, have been accused of being a very Queen Theory, reactive war gamer (Queen theory - you concentrate on taking out the most units or the biggest, baddest unit on the table; King Theory - you concentrate on meeting the objectives) who is good in defensive scenarios, but too timid in attacking, so I'm not sure how I'll take to it.

The other area of uncertainty for me is that the figures on the table don't actually represent where the figures are, but an "area of control" for that unit. You don't fire at individual figures, but at the unit, and the majority of the unit has to be X for X to take effect - cover, AOE attacks and so on. To me, this is open to abuse. I like simple, unambiguous situations where it's clear what is and isn't the case. I've had too many arguments about rule interpretations over the years and can see that this would cause many more (another thing I've been accused of more than once is being argumentative - I, of course, disagree with this most strongly...).

Throughout the book there are many examples to show how the rules work in effect, which is most welcome. The rules are also divided up sensibly, with scenarios using the rules at the end of each section, so you can apply what you have read about in a practical way. This is a very nice touch as it means you can get playing without having to digest the whole, weighty tome.

There are rules for differing tech levels and how to build interesting alien races, so you could have plucky human resistance fighters facing off against weird high-tech aliens, or tech savvy marines fighting against toothy, acid blooded aliens, or stealthy, invisible hunters. All of these could be created very easily using those rules.

My next step is to have a game with my two nephews, who I'll call Goblin (11) and Orc (14). They enjoy gaming and enthusiastically critique each rule set we try them out on. They are both fans of the TV series Falling Skies, so I might try a scenario with some plucky human resistance fighters facing off against weird high-tech aliens.

In summary, I'm very impressed by my first look. I don't think I've seen a set of war games rules with such high production values for a long time. The rules are clear and well explained and appear to comprehensively cover everything that i was looking for. Ambush Alley and Osprey have clearly got a good partnership going if this is anything to judge by and if they can keep the quality of content and product up, they will be on to a winner.

Tiny trees

A quick guide to some forest terrain I made for 6mm gaming. I have micro scale models for WW2 USA and Finns, Cold war Russians and 3 or 4 different few Sci-fi armies too. Most of the forest terrain I had was designed for 15mm or larger, so tended to dwarf all the units.

I was browsing in Hobbycraft one day and came across some wavy pipecleaner packs they had in various colours. Thinking I could do something with them, I picked up a pack.

I had already commissioned some large hex shaped pieces of MDF from Warbases.co.uk. These were originally just going to be painted green to use as a way of distinguishing area cover, by placing normal, based trees on top of – allowing me to retire the threadbare and fraying pieces of cloth I’d previously used. The hexes can be joined together to create larger areas and other types of scatter placed on them to show scrub, fields, swamp or whatever.

I started by clipping the pipe cleaners into smaller pieces, cutting through the centre of the fattest part, and then through the thinnest part. I varied the distance I made the cuts, and found after a while that it was better to leave a short section between the thinnest parts to avoid the tree looking too spindly.

Once cut the tiny trees were pushed into some handy corrugated cardboard and given a spray of GW Black undercoat to hide the very artificial green. I then used whatever green sprays I had to hand and did some very haphazard sprays over them, trying to go from dark to light in fairly even, light coats. I didn’t want the paint to clump the Chenille fibres too much. Once they were all dry I gave them a couple of coats of GW Hardcoat and a blast of Humbrol Matt varnish.

Meanwhile I started to prepare the hex bases to take the trees. I took a stack of 5 or 6 bases and used a Dremel with a 2mm bit to drill about 20 random holes in the bases. I did this by stacking them up and just drilling down through them. I did this on a cutting mat to preserve the table.

Unfortunately it hadn’t occurred to me that a Dremel will drill straight through 6 2mm MDF pieces, a 4mm cutting mat, 4 coats of hand polished varnish, 6 layers of hand buffed beeswax polish and 4 or 5mm of pine without breaking a sweat. I managed to drill 20 or so random holes in my dining room table.... Oh well. I’ll do a post on how to fill 10 or so tiny holes in a dining room table some other time.

I then sprayed some of the Hexes with a can of plasticoat brown I had to hand. I then coated them in a mix of 50/50 PVA and water and liberally coated them with Woodland Scenic’s Medium brown ballast. Once this was dry I sprayed them with Woodland Scenic’s scenery cement from a spray gun thingy. I let this almost dry before I randomly sprinkled some fine green flock and mixed scatter I had - source lost to the mists of time. Once this was done I re-sprayed them with the scenic cement and left them to dry in a nice, sunny spot. They then got 2 coats of Hardcoat and some more of the Humbrol matt Varnish.

At this point I realised I’d managed to block up all of the holes I’d drilled earlier with ballast and flock. I spent ½ hour or so with a scalpel picking out the holes again and then used a Sharpie to mark where the holes were.

Once the holes were cleared, I took the trees from the cardboard and slotted them into the holes....

I’m very pleased with the results. I plan to make another set in a winter theme to go with my Finns. I have a tub of the woodland scenic’s snow for the ground, but will probably just spray the trees with some white paint from above. I’m also going to make a few smaller trees on individual bases to act filler between the hexes.

Here are some shots of them in action with my 6mm Cold War Russians:

Big Dog

So here we have the second go at the CMG Protolene Ayame mecha. My original paint scheme was a lot of subtle airbrushing that aimed to make the suit look like a wolf's pelt or some kind of wild animal. Frankly, it sucked. It just looked like random splodges of greys and browns all over the place.

However, after using the nifty metallic paint that you have to polish up in the Secret Wedding Project I thought that it might make a nice metallic texture for the mecha.

The base coat is the Humbrol Brushed Aluminium that was polished (carefully - the resin is quite delicate) with a toothbrush. I then washed it with GW badab black to age it a bit. Over the top are a couple of Tamiya greys - Field Grey and Sea Grey I think. I then touched up the claws and "toes"with some GW Bolt Gun. Based using brown ballast, flock, Silfor tufts and a cork boulder, as usual.

I'm pretty pleased with the result.

I actually bought one of the Hunter and one of the Predator variants and swapped the arms, so each has a gun arm and a claw arm. I also have a newer Ayame Khan Scout variant with a pair of Gatling cannons which looks very mean.

I am slightly on the horns of a dilemma, though, as the rest of my Protolene forces are painted in very bold colours, partly because I figure the canine Protolene might be colour blind and also because I intend them to be a band of space pirates, so they are showing their "fierce face" by choosing to ignore camo. The Ayame, on the other hand, is quite subdued. It's not varnished yet, so I could go back and add some bolder colours, or maybe some kind of snarly shark mouth to it....

Nevertheless, I really like the Ayame's, they remind me of the Games Workshop Tau battle suits, especially the more recent versions. Combined with the GZG mini drones and the maybe the CMG Praesentia vehicles or perhaps the Khurasan Pelagic Dominate they could make good proxies for a 15mm Tau army.

GZG Japanese Powered Armour

Another relatively fast paint job for the GZG Japanese powered armour. Black base coat, grey drybrusing and a black wash. A few details picked out in GW chainmail and boltgun. I remember spending ages trying to find a away to make the squad support weapon on the second chap in from the right look more intimidating, without much success.

The leader also got an attempt at some sort of lightning or electricity running up and down his blades - not sure it's entierly sucessful, but it was worth a go.

I quite like these miniatures, the little sensor pods on either side of the helmet remind me of teddy bear ears, and after i realised that i found it a bit difficult to think of them as fearsome death dealers and not just go "ahhhhhh - how cute". Quite kwaii, as the otaku say.

Space cat biker gang.

Khurasan Miniatures have just released some images on TMP of their forthcomming Felid Jetbikes.

These are made of 100% pure awesome in my opinion. I've never really felt the Felid range, but these have really piqued my interest. I may have to get half a dozen of them and some dismounted infantry just to create a Angry Space-Cat Biker Gang.

I think they'd make ideal opponents for my CMG Protolene Khanate troops AKA the Crazy Space Dog Pirates.

 

Alcatraz

As I previously mentioned, I recently got married. Our honeymoon took us to Kauai in Hawaii and San Francisco. Of course, when in San Fran we had to take the Alcatraz tour.

On the way in there was a large model of the island as it appeared during it's time as a high security prison. I had plenty of time to look at it whilst in the queue and couldn't help thinking that it was about 15mm scale....

The island is now a national park, and was famously featured in The Rock with Nic Cage and Sean Connery. I played "spot the film scene" whilst wandering around, but most of the action in the movie seems to have taken place in areas that tourists aren't allowed into.

The who area has a slightly run-down and derelict look that reminds me of Half Life 2. Was looking for Barnacles here and there...

X29 Blockhead Powered Armour

Another fairly rapid paint job here on some CMG X29 Blockhead PA suits from their Mercenaries range.

I really like thse miniatures, but wish there was a bit more variety in the weapons. The two sets have only 6 poses, of which only 1 has a different gun to the others. To me, the regular weapons look like some sort of flamer, and the heavy weapon, held by the chap on the far right, looks like some sort of cutting laser.

I may well get another pack and raid the bits box to produce a couple holding some sort of chain gun or missile pod.

Paint job is fairly basic, black undercoat with various greys drybrushed over it, as I want to use these chaps as "generic" PA squads. The red "eye" is not terribly realistic, but gives a bit of colour and contrast to them.

The chap on the far right has slightly different basing materials to the others. I've used Windsor and Newton artists texture on his base instead of my usueal PVA/brown ballast mix. The artists texture is interesting to work with, but slow to dry. If I have a lot of models to base, I think I'll just stick to the PVA/ballast/flock.

All of them have got a few small Silfor tufts added and some small cork boulders to add interest.

Techs and Workbots.

A couple of little specialist teams for Gruntz now. Figures are GZG SG15-V04 Techs and SG15-V13 Workbots on a 30mm round base. Figures are painted with an assortment of GW paints and washes.

They are based together so I can use them as specialist teams in Gruntz that can fix critical hits and repair vehicles and mecha. They have a generic paint scheme so I can use them with any (human) faction. I have another 4 workbots and 6 techs, so I'll probably do another 6 specialist units, four more with workbots and two with two technicians. These can be used to represent more techies, or medics or any kind of non-combat teams.

15mm Guns from Scrap

Just a few pictures here of a couple of pieces of field artillery or heavy weapons. They're made from spare guns off the Rebel Miniatures Sabre Gunship and the feet from some now OOP Ronin Duels mechs. I've left space to place figures on the base, so they are not tied down to any faction.