Basement Gaming Bunker

Rebel Minis HAMR - converted and painted

2012-01-28T18:02:00.001-06:00

My 15mm Mecha Battles project is starting to come together.

After it sat on my shelf for months, I finally completed this Rebel Minis Earthforce HAMR Support Suit:

This one had just the slightest bit of conversion work before I painted. I ended up cutting the barrels off the included gatling guns... they worked well on the Earthforce aircraft, but I wanted something a little heavier on this mech. I looked at a few Combat Wombat brass barrels, but ended up using the barrels from some spare Rebel Titan HAMR support guns.

I think this mech works really well alongside my Ravenstar Studios Thunderfoot (and Rebel Titan Marines and Kremlin MANITOU suits). The HAMR is going to be the support option in a three-mecha platoon. Work has begun on the other two - they are going to use the more conventional arms and rifles off the Earthforce Recon HAMR sprue. That will give me two core combat units for my first mecha army: the platoon of HAMR suits, and the Thunderfoot - which is a mecha platoon in itself.

Cheers,
Chris

Growing a Skirmish Force into a Full Army

2012-01-27T11:49:00.001-06:00

One of the greatest strengths in 15mm Sci Fi: it can be used for games of every size.

At its heart, 15mm is still a battle scale. But in the last few years, it has grown by leaps and bounds as an option for small (5-10 figures per side) narrative skirmishes. For awhile, I tried to separate my "skirmish" forces from my "armies." I've realized this just isn't necessary - a skirmish team might be a great elite unit in a larger force. So I started matching character figures and elite units to my larger armies. This month I did just the opposite - took a skirmish force and expanded it into a full-sized army.

These Laserburn Redemptionists were my first few Shadow World figures - featured in the Blasters & Bulkheads article series on Dropship Horizon. In the still-unfinished background, these represent the elite semi-religious warriors from the Shadow Worlds - a distant region of the galaxy feared for its study and use of mysterious alien artifacts. I envisioned these figures to be part of an elite inner circle - basically taking the role of the Sith of my unnamed space opera setting.

A few months went by. I picked up a ton of goodies from Ravenstar Studios' new Land Core 15mm range. I was mainly interested in the mecha, but the Stalker walker tank really grew on me. I was lost for a paint scheme until I saw the Shadow Worlders sitting on my shelf. Then it hit me... if these guys are the "not-Galactic Empire" in my own universe, why not give them a "not AT-AT" for their vehicles? In Star Wars, the AT-AT is as much a weapon of terror as it is an armored tank/transport. The Stalker looked very intimidating when sitting next to my Old Crow, Rebel, and Combat Wombat tanks. Not a proxy AT-AT, but something that fills the same role and creatively uses the same core idea. So I tried giving it a similar paint scheme to my earlier figures.

The results? Well, the colors are bit over-the-top, even by my standards. The two tone look is pretty cheesy - it might have worked better with just the purple or just the blue-gray. Or maybe I should have used a camo pattern that incorporated both colors. But you know what? It grew on me after a few days, so I decided to develop the army further and see what happened. The next step, now that I had chosen my vehicles, was to get more boots on the ground.

I still had plenty of unpainted Redemptionist figures... but I really like using them in the role of the elite inner guard. So what should I use for the Shadow Worlds' rank-and-file infantry? A look through the lead pile (which had grown after my GZG Christmas order arrived) presented a pretty good option: Islamic Federation infantry with helmets.

These are great old figures. Their helmet and weapons work anywhere from near-future to retro pulp to space opera. And they are ideal cannon fodder for the Redemptionists - very little armor and not a lot of special equipment. I thought they mixed together quite nicely.

I painted two packs of Islamic Federation infantry. I'll organize them into teams of eight (just as they came), which can break down into teams of four (the squad support weapon in one team, the heavy weapon in the other). Combined with the Redemptionists and the Stalker tank, I now have a core army to use in larger one-off games. Or blend both types of games in a campaign - use the Redemptionists alone in special missions, and then the full army for direct conflicts.

This is pretty much all the figures I'll need, though a third pack of Islamic Federation isn't out of the question. But a higher priority is adding a second Stalker tank, and then grabbing three Stalker-variant APCs once Ravenstar makes them available. I just need to decide if I'm going to pain that second Stalker in the same color scheme as the first, or try something a bit less... extravagant.

Cheers,
Chris

Gonna need more cocktail sauce...

2012-01-19T13:33:00.000-06:00

Thanks to my big Ground Zero Games Christmas order, I now have some much-needed reinforcements for my Crusties army. I grabbed one of the heavy walker, a two-pack of the light walkers, and a pack of the new armored infantry.

I went back and forth a few times about how to paint them. I used P3 Cryx Bane Highlight as the main weapon color for my previous Crusties, with the occasional Vallejo Heavy Red detail.

Since the armored Crusties didn't seem to have any skin (shell?) exposed, the gray and dark red seemed like the obvious color choices. But then I was afraid they'd be too close of a match for a recently-painted Ravenstar Silverback mecha, which are Vallejo Gory Red with a few P3 Cryx Bane Highlight details. I second guessed my colors even more after I saw (and fell in love with) the bright orange scheme featured on Gunner's Wargaming. But ultimately I decided to go with the Cryx Bane as a base color and limit the Heavy Red to the weapons and backpacks. It wasn't bad, but needed another color. I ended up using Vallejo Goblin Green on the weapon "fins," some small details on the backpacks, and on the helmet lenses. A quick touch of black Wonder Wash and some base texture completed the figures.

I'm not convinced the green details are bright enough. I might get something brighter (Vallejo Fluorescent Green maybe) and touch them up later. But they are ready for the game table, and match pretty well with my earlier Crusty infantry.

More importantly, this palette should work fine on the Crusty walkers. But I swear... Next time I make a new army - I really need to make sure I stop using the same few base colors. :)

Cheers,

Chris

2012 Painting Log - mid-January update

2012-01-15T18:15:00.000-06:00

As a way to keep focused on my "one finished combat unit per week" goal for 2012, I'm going to try to update my painting progress a couple times per month. Since the first of the year, I've finished:

Khurasan Space Demons - a pack of Warriors, a pack of Nymphs, and a Colossus.
Laserburn Scouts - two Bikes and eight Scout figures
Assorted Ravenstar Land-Core goodies - a Thunderfoot and a Silverback mecha (painted for the review article on Dropship Horizon), a Coyote jeep, and a Stalker walker tank. Here's a teaser pic of the mecha:

Not a bad start to the year - I'm ahead of my goal. But I did have some time off work around the holidays, so a head start isn't going to hurt anything. Looking ahead... my Christmas order from Ground Zero Games arrived on Friday. Here's what's on the table from that shipment:

A pack of Hammer's Slammers infantry. I'm going to ignore the buzzbomb-launcher figure for now and focus on the other sculpts. I intend to use these as bailed-out vehicle crews for my Aurora Group corporate security forces.
Two packs of Islamic Federation infantry. My plan is to use these as the core of a new army - one based upon my Shadow Worlder Blasters & Bulkheads skirmish force. The skirmish unit (made of Laserburn Redemptionists) will be the elite inner circle of Shadow World armies - these Islamic Federation troopers will be the rank and file. I'll use Ravenstar Studios' quad-walkers as the vehicles in this new army.
A pack of Armored Crusties. For my Crusties, obviously. :)
Four packs of New Israeli infantry. No fancy plans here - I'm just going to turn them into red Spartans to rival for my green Rebel Droptroopers.

I'll splash in a few terrain projects along the way, just to keep things interesting. And the odd civilian and mercenary figure to flesh out my small skirmish games.

Cheers,

Chris

Painting Tutorial - Khurasan Space Demons using Metallic Sprays

2012-01-12T21:10:00.000-06:00

One of this year's stocking stuffers from my wife was a small order from Khurasan Minis. There were a few new items inside (including some Control Battalion that I'm dying to paint), but mostly it was reinforcements for my Space Demon army. I already had two packs of Assault Warriors, one pack of Hammerheads, and a Queen. This order gave me a pack of the second-pose Assault Warriors, a pack of Nymphs, and for my larger games, my first Colossus.

Since we're having a very warm winter here in Iowa, I broke out the Testors Metallic sprays and got my new bugs onto the battlefield. Just like my previous Space Demons, I'm using the ultra-quick paint scheme pioneered by Cacique Caribe over on TMP. Here's a breakdown of the process.

Step One - File, Assemble, and Base

As usual, Khurasan's minis require very little cleanup. The Nymphs just needed a bit of filing on the bottom, and the Colossus went together quickly. I spent a bit more time on the Assault Warriors. One of the poses has a cast base which is larger than my 3/4" fender washers, so it needed a bit of trimming. I also took a little time to make sure the heads went on at a few different angles, and I reposed the soft tails to add some variety.

Step Two - Undercoat

Honestly, this step is optional. But I've found that it does help to get an even coat out of the metallic sprays, so I used my white Armory Primer on the figures. It also helps me to find any small bits of flash or mold lines that I missed the first time around (in this case, there was just a little bit of flash in the armpits of a few Assault Warriors). It also helped to seal the Colossus together - my superglue was old, and the legs kept falling off when I first assembled it.

Step Three - Metallics

The fun part - giving some life and distinction to the Space Demons without any real effort. When I painted my last batch, I used Testors Arctic Blue for the Hammerheads, Burgundy Red for the Queen, and Turquoise for the Assault Warriors. I wanted the Nymphs to be "extensions" of the Queen herself, so they received the burgundy paint. The Colossus has some little recesses in the shoulder that could be some type of acid spray, so I tied it together with the Hammerheads.

A note on the metallics: I learned that they have a much longer drying time than other Testors or Tamiya sprays.

Step Four - Wash

Once the sprays were dry, I set the figures out on some Universal Painting Trays (those mockup credit cards that keep showing up in my mailbox) and, working in groups of six, brushed an undiluted wash over the entire figure. I used GW Badab Black on my earlier models, but this time I used Secret Weapon Heavy Body Black. The Secret Weapon washes are very good for this sort of work, as long as you remember to keep shaking them. The Heavy Black is also a bit stronger than the GW wash - it only took a single coat to finish the Nymphs and Assault Warriors. The Colossus took a few coats to get all the recesses on the belly, so I worked on the Nymph and Warrior bases while the larger model was drying.

Step Five - Base and Seal

Nothing fancy on the bases - painted Model Master Euro Gray onto the bases, flocked them with dark gray gravel, sealed with thinned Elmer's glue, and drybrushed with Vallejo Heavy Bluegray. The figures themselves were sealed with Wonder Wash Black, which gave them a nice and glossy finish.

That's it - a quick, painless, and fairly inexpensive way to make a Space Demon army. There are plenty of colored metallics on the Model Master brush-on range, if you don't want to spent the extra cash on spray paints. And the army would work just fine with a single color - I just like seeing the difference between an Assault Warrior and a Hammerhead from tabletop distance.

Play a game already!

I've played a couple quick FUBAR games with the Nymphs and Assault Warriors since painting these. But I still haven't used the Colossus in a game. I plan to run a scenario where a Colossus is hiding underground and ambushes a passing convoy. When the convoy is stopped, other Space Demons will converge on the damaged vehicles, and the convoy personnel must hold out for extraction.

So what's next for my Space Demons? Well, I really like the Nymphs - perfect little swarming bugs. I thought about mounting three per 1.25" base, but singles on 3/4" washers will work better on my Space Base tiles. I might try to add one to my Queen's base, just for decoration.

The Colossus is a terrific mini. A second one would make my Space Demons into a pretty formidable opponent, even against tanks and mecha.

An "instant" Special Forces patrol

2012-01-04T00:39:00.000-06:00

I have a simple hobby goal for 2012: paint one unit per week.

Okay... Obviously I have more goals than that. But we all have to start somewhere. Especially when the lead pile is already taller than I'd like, and I still have three Christmas orders that haven't arrived. Hopefully this goal will help me get through the pile just a little bit quicker.

My lead pile featuers tons of small potential forces (1-2 squads at the most), mostly because I like buying a pack or two at a time to see how much I like the sculpts. In one corner of my storage container, I noticed some of the old Laserburn Imperial Scouts from 15mm.Co.Uk. They are pretty detailed, but I went with the ol' "wash over bare metal" approach.

Works for me! Now that they are painted, I see these are really great old minis. Too bad there aren't more poses available. But this still works for just a couple odd fire teams, or would be fine if they were based 2-3 per stand for Alien Squad Leader or Valkyrie. The recipe for painting them was pretty straightforward:

Two coats of Secret Weapon Blue Wash
Vallejo Heavy Bluegrey on the weapons and backpacks
Vallejo Bronze over the visors
Model Master Euro Gray base with two colors of railroad ballast

When I bought these minis, I ended up with four of the standard Scout (which, I believe, is armed with what Laserburn calls a Heavy Laser Rifle?), two with Launchers, and two with Conversion Beamers. The visual difference between the launcher and rifle is pretty limited, so I painted them the same color. I may not even give them different stats in a larger game. I ended up repainting the Conversion Beamers with Vallejo Heavy Brown to make them stand out a bit. I could easily do the same with the launchers, if I end up wanting them to have different stats in the majority of my games.

I also picked up two of the Scout Bikers with the order. I really like these - and they would also be ideal as Light Vehicles in Alien Squad Leader, or as an alternative to the Bulldog Jetbikes in Valkyrie. I also noticed that these are clearly what inspired the old plastic Epic Imperial bikes. 15mm.Co.Uk does offer a version of the bike without the rider. It would be pretty cool to have eight complete Bikes, and eight riderless ones to go with my eight dismounted Scouts. I'll definitely add more bikes to my next order.

The bikes are basecoated with the same Model Master Euro Gray as the bases. I may go back over the bikes with solid black, then lightly drybrush with the gray and repaint the lighter details. Or I may try a brownish wash (something like Secret Weapon Sewer Water) over the base to see if that adds some contrast.

Either way, a few hours' work provided some nice upper-tech troops. These could be used on their own in a small skirmish game, or be added to a lower tech force as special operators. I deliberately painted them in colors that will match my Rebel Minis Homeguard and HAMR suits, just to add a bit of flexibility.

Cheers,
Chris

Christmas at the Bunker

2011-12-26T21:19:00.003-06:00

Merry belated Christmas, everyone!

I was lucky enough to get a few hobby-related goodies for Christmas this year. My wife, a sci-horror writer and Giger fan, ordered a few reinforcements to my Khurasan Space Demon forces. She also bought me a pack each Sepulvedan Control Battalion Riflethings and Heavy Weaponsthings - which I've been wanting to paint ever since I saw them.

Santa also brought us an IKEA gift card. We picked up a bunch of small things for the house, including a couple of these JANSJO Clamp Spotlights.

I've been having major problems taking detailed pictures of my minis. For some reason my digital camera (by which I mean my HTC Incredible smartphone) has a hard time balancing a white background under CFL bulbs. But for some reason, it seems to do well with the LEDs in the new lamps:

That's the same piece of bright white cardstock in the background, so this is definitely an improvement. I was planning to spend most of my vacation time this week getting my Christmas War campaign started (especially since I hammered out my campaign background). But now that I have these new lamps, I may also take some time to update my close-up gallery.

Did anyone else get any hobby-related goodness this year?

Cheers,
Chris

"You are two UGLY mother..."

2011-12-22T07:30:00.000-06:00

I had all kinds of plans to start working on my Critical Mass Games Kaamados Dominion figures this week. But, of course, I was one paint color short. In the meantime, I decided it was a good time to paint my Khurasan Miniatures Vacation Aliens.

"If it bleeds, we can kill it.

It only took a few hours to do both. They definitely look better in the flesh... I tried a dozen camera settings and this was the best that came out. The paint scheme:

Vallejo Heavy Khaki on the exposed skin
Secret Weapon Green-Black Wash over the Heavy Khaki
P3 Cryx Bane Base over boots, straps, armor bits, weapons, and helmets.
Vallejo Gunmetal drybrushed over most of the Cryx Bane. I was only going to use this on the armor and helmet, but it ended up working okay on all of the straps and pouches. I remember the medical kit in the first movie had some pretty crude elements to it. I figured using metal strapping instead of fabric webs would be equally crude.
Vallejo Blood Red on the eyes, and the targeting lens on the left mini.
Secret Weapon Armor Wash over the shoulder weapons (just to give them a slightly different tone).
Wonder Wash Black over the entire mini.

Now I need to figure out exactly how to use these in my own settings. I've never been a fan of replaying scenarios from movies or shows. Instead, I think these will be some type of bounty hunting team, or possibly master-race enslavers for something like GZG Crusties.

Cheers,

Chris

Reinforcements for the Cult of the Crimson Robe

2011-12-20T19:24:00.000-06:00

Sorry about the hiatus here, folks... sometimes I neglect this blog when I'm writing for Dropship Horizon. :) Still, I've managed to work on a few of my own forces. I painted these 15mm.Co.Uk HOF Cultists back in October.

These were pretty much demo pieces when I painted them. I wanted to see how they would look alongside this Kremlin Miniatures Commander Vortan figure.

I had originally painted Vortan to use in a 15mm Inquisitorial Retinue for In the Emperor's Name... this was a way to get some additional mileage out of the same figure. Obviously the figures work great together, as the basis for some kind of fanatical cult force. Also, 15mm.Co.Uk added some heavy weapon figures to their Cultists range. There was no longer any doubt in my mind that this cult could become a full army.

I still had seven Cultists from my first pack. I painted four more of them this week. Bear with me on the pictures - I'm trying out a new photo box and haven't worked out all the kinks.

These figures are nice and quick to paint. I'll have to pick up another pack of the troopers, a pack of heavy weapons, and then I should be good to go for cult infantry. But what about vehicles? I don't have much left unused in my collection outside of a couple of Old Crow Gecko pickups and a Goanna transport. The Gecko would be a great technical truck... I even have some GZG freestanding autocannons to mount in the back of the truck.

And the gunner? Well, there's a reason I didn't paint those last three Cultist troopers. Inspired by Matt's conversion article on Dropship Horizon, I'm going to try to turn a couple of these Cultist troopers into standing gunners. It should be as simple as cutting and filing out the arms and gun, filing down the thick cast base on the figure, and making a couple of new arms out of grey stuff. I don't have much experience with sculpting putty, and this looks like a very forgiving project to get my feet wet.

On the other hand... is this the direction I want to take my cultists? The end result would be pretty similar to the Desert Radicals that I've already been playing with.

And, because wealth seems to flow to people of questionable sanity, many of the fanatical cults we see in the real world have pretty substantial funding. Maybe something along the lines of the Combat Wombat Pitbull, GZG Bulldog, or the Khurasan Atlas would better serve this cult. Either way, I now have enough figures to run them in a small game of ItEN or Blasters & Bulkheads. I'll figure out the vehicles after I finish some more infantry.

Cheers,
Chris

15mm Urban Ruins - Proxie Models Test Building

2011-11-29T13:10:00.001-06:00

After the last post, I decided to put together the one Proxie Models building I have right now, and worry about the rest of my Urban Table project later. This is pretty much the same technique I used long ago with my GW Cities Of Death buildings.

Raw materials: one Proxie Models ruined building set, a 6" x 6" square of 1/8" MDF hardboard, and a length of styrene corner stock I found in a drawer. The Proxie walls don't really have finished edges, so I thought the styrene would be a good option for building corners. It also gives me a way to quickly change building styles with the Proxie sprues... I'll just use square corners on some, rounded corners on others.

I used an X-Acto hobby-sized miter box and saw to cut the corners and went to work. Assembly was pretty simple - Tacky Glue held everything together and set quickly. Gorilla Glue would have been another option.

Then I decided the building needed a floor of some kind. I cut 1" x 1" squares from an old blister card. I try to save small bits of packaging that are on really nice glossy stock - they come in handy. I meant to go back and score these so there would be fore tiles per piece, but I got lazy. I did cut a few tiles up by the most damaged portion of the building, just to give a broken effect:

And for the rubble - plain old sand that I liberated from a local park. I piled it up along the foundation, with a few thicker piles over the damaged sections. It's not a super realistic effect, especially if you go back and look at pictures of WWII Stalingrad and the like. But realistic rubble would pretty much fill the building - not useful for maneuvering figures! I think this is a good compromise between realistic rubble and plain ruins sticking out of the ground.

I think this is good enough for my test piece. I might mix in some larger bits of rubble next time, but this will be a decent start for my war-torn cityscape. I'll get it painted as soon as there's another day warm enough to spray primer onto it.

Cheers,
Chris

A 15mm Urban Battlefield for Mecha Games?

2011-11-23T19:01:00.001-06:00

There are half-finished Mecha sitting on my shelf, taunting me.

I have three Rebel Minis Titan HAMR suits, an Earthforce suit, and a Critical Mass Games ARC Fleet Walker, all waiting to be assembled and painted. Other projects keep taking me away from them. But I can't help but wonder how much fun a mecha-centric game would be in 15mm.

I've gone back and forth on how many vehicles I want to use in my 15mm FUBAR games. While I have a few Old Crow and GZG tanks finished, I've simply found them to be impractical on 2' x 2' tables. There's enough room to maneuver just a one or two small vehicles, not enough to run fully mechanized platoons with MBT support on each side. That's left me playing infantry-oriented games. Such a waste - there are too many good 15mm vehicles to limit my options.

Mecha might be the answer for those smaller games. They tend to move around the same speeds and maneuver the same way as infantry, but make louder and more satisfying explosions in sci-fi settings. But what's the best terrain to give mecha some cover and concealment? My desert and snow tables currently lack terrain features taller than 2". Even my Red Planet table only has a few spires and buildings at that height. And besides... when you picture a mecha battle, do you envision an open desert valley? No. You picture two armored giants fighting it out in a cityscape.

It's time for a new table.

This will be another 2' x 2' battlefield - which I still think is the perfect size for solo 15mm games. I'm thinking this one will be covered with a mix of fine light gray, dark gray, and dark brown flock. The buildings will be mounted onto tiles - those tiles will use very fine flock to achieve a poured-concrete appearance. And the buildings themselves? I have my eyes on Proxie Models' Gothic Building:

If there's one aspect of Warhammer 40,000 I sometimes miss - it's the sight of a proper Cityfight table. Ken's Gothic Building is about as close as we can get in 15mm (other than a few HO-scale churches that could be chopped up). And the price is unbeatable - two sprues for $4. I already have one of his brick buildings, so I know the quality is good and they can easily be chopped up and modified. So if I include that brick building, here's what I can make with $32 worth of Gothic buildings:

So my shopping list for this project will be:

2' x 2' x 1/2" sanded plywood for the table itself
2' x 2' x 1/4" MDF hardboard for the building bases
Extra fine grey flock for the building bases
Fine brown flock to mix with my existing grays for the table itself.
Cheap gray primer for the tabletop
8x Proxie Models Gothic Buildings.

This entire set should only cost around $50-$60 to make, and could easily be finished in a week. I can always go back and add fancier buildings, street furniture, and other random items later. But this would be enough to start - and give me an excuse to add some bigger mecha to my collection:

From Ravenstar Studios - love that MK3!

Gruntz Imperator

I think this is just the setup I'll need to run small 15mm mecha games... maybe three HAMR suits on one side, with one or two bigger Imperators or Thunderfoots (er, Thunderfeet?) on the other.

Cheers,

Chris K.

In The Emperor's Name - 15mm Enemies of Man retinue

2011-11-16T12:31:00.001-06:00

This week has been all about finishing old projects. First I completed that old Hot Wheels Sentry Tank conversion, and now I've finally finished painting my Enemies Of Man retinue for In the Emperor's Name.

I've been using these minis for months, ever since playtesting of ItEN began at the Forge of War development group. But, unlike the rest of my collection, I had been using these unpainted. Now that Blasters & Bulkheads is out, I decided it was time to finish them and use them the right way.

These minis are, of course, old Laserburn Redemptionists from 15mm.Co.Uk. I think these sculpts have really stood the test of time - they have a great Space Opera feel to them. And to all you 28mm gamers who think 15mm doesn't work for small skirmish - get back to me when your entire force costs £2.60 and can be painted in one evening. :)

I'll admit the paint job isn't one of my best - all seven minis were finished in one setting. But this isn't one of my primary gaming forces, so I was willing to sacrifice a precision to get them onto the table. I used white Armory primer, Coat D'Arms Lupin Gray (long ago known as Citadel Space Wolves Gray) for the carapace armor, P3 Beaten Purple (looks lighter in person than in the photo) on the power armor and cloaks, Vallejo gold for detail work, and Vallejo heavy grey (actually a green-gray) for the weapons. Then I gave the each mini a coat of Wonder Wash Black for some quick shading, finished the bases with my urban/asphalt blend, and called it a night.

Here are the cards I've been using for ItEN (updated with the new photos). I've tried everything from large roster sheets to tablet-screen reference pages now, and I've found that individual "playing cards" are what works best for me.

Now I feel like I can properly use these minis. I'll run a few ItEN scenarios to give them a proper christening, then I'll start looking at how to use them in Blasters & Bulkheads.

Cheers,
Chris

15mm Sentry Tank - a Hot Wheels kitbash

2011-11-12T19:04:00.001-06:00

I painted these Rebel Minis Earth Force Marines a few months back:

I decided to play up the similarity of their armor and equipment to Cobra Vipers a bit. I wasn't intending to play G.I.Joe in 15mm... just thought it was fun color scheme. I also kitbashed a couple of Hot Wheels (a Space Van and an Assault Crawler) to make this not-Cobra HISS Tank:

Other than that, I painted a Laserburn character in their color scheme and moved on to other projects. For some reason, I never got around to using these guys in any games.

While working on another project this week, I noticed a spare Critical Mass ARC Walker chin turret. Bingo - just the weapon I needed to finish my Sentry Tank. I clipped off the little connector post, found a small steel washer to use for the turret ring, and broke out the paintbrush:

I'd still like to add some kind of identification badge or unit marking. But I think this is turning into a nice Space Opera army... a commander, this vehicle, and around 20 infantry would be great for a Forge of War or USE ME force. And that Laserburn character will make a fine Baron of an outlying Imperial system. He can't afford to equip his personal army with the fine grav armor like his wealthier peers, but he can still protect his own citizens and fulfill the Emperor's levy if called to war.

Cheers,

Chris

Could it be? An inexpensive source of 15mm buildings?

2011-11-03T22:52:00.001-05:00

GameCraft Miniatures recently launched a range of laser-cut MDF buildings. These are designed for 15mm modern warfare - other than a few large western ruins, this growing range consists of middle-eastern and central-Asian houses, schools, etc. It doesn't appear to be anything that the historical/modern crowd hasn't seen before - except they are far cheaper, and the MDF is very easy to modify. For the price of 2 or 3 JR Miniatures resin buildings, one could make an entire city from these GameCraft kits.

They reminded me of the CNC Scenery Australia stuff I bought back in my 40K days. I had nothing but good experiences with those items, other than the time it took to cut and sand the building pieces. GameCraft says they do all the cutting on these, so that would greatly cut down the build time. My initial reaction to these was "hey, that's great for the modern gamers. Now we'll just have to wait and see if they release any sci-fi buildings." I thought this because, other than making old-school adobe Space Ork structures, I didn't see much use for these products.

Today's release of their Afghan-style hovels convinced me to take another look. Here's a few shots of what they have (shamelessly stolen from their webstore):

Afghan Hovel - $3.50

Afghan Hovel - $4.50

Nice, simple block buildings. Wouldn't these be perfect candidates for some GZG or The Scene building fixtures? Or even some bits from the IMEX Hexagon or Platformer sets? A few interesting hatches, windows, vents, and rooftop machines/sensors/radar dishes, and I might have perfectly usable sci-fi structures. I think it would be pretty simple to create a full settlement - $50 worth of these and other bits should cover my usual 2x2 tables. The results would be fairly permanent structures - great for a research station, military installation, or even buildings around a starport. GZG Shanties or Battleworks Studios Startown Slums could be placed around the outskirts of these buildings, if I want a varied look.

But instead of trying a full settlement, maybe I should just start small. The middle-eastern portion of this range also offers some interesting items. What has really caught my eye is the Walled Compound models:

Walled Compound - $12.00

Adding a few bits to this would create a great little structure. While this could obviously be used for my ex-The Scene Space Orks, it might be a good outpost for my Desert Raider skirmish force:

Or maybe a compound for my growing force of Cultists.

I see myself trying out a few of these items in the near future. My question to you - what approaches have you seen in "futurizing" modern structures for gaming? I'm always happy to steal others' ideas!

Cheers,
Chris

Not a bad week...

2011-10-29T12:29:00.000-05:00

In terms of painting my minis, this has been one of the most productive weeks I can remember!

Over the weekend I painted a 5-man squad of Mad Robot's excellent TMC Jump Troopers. I started with a single mini, just to get the paint scheme figured out. I used that test mini to take some comparison shots, as well as post the review for the whole pack on Dropship Horizon. I was pleased with the paint scheme, but I also realized it was going to take longer than usual to finish entire units of the jump troopers. After I got the basecoat on the remaining four "ground" poses, I needed a break from infantry.

Looking at my shelf, I noticed some nice resin desert buildings from The Scene, still stacked up and unpainted. So I grabbed a small building and tried an experimental, complex, and resource-intensive paint scheme. Here's all of the many steps:

Step 1. Paint the mini with Rustoleum Textured Spray.

That's it. No primer, no details, no sealing. And guess what? It looks fine on my desert table.

That was enough for Saturday's painting. On Sunday I painted four more The Scene buildings and finished my Mad Robot Jump Troopers.

I then laid out my desert table for a skirmish game (see the earlier pic). But no brilliant scenarios came to mind. I flipped through my old Rogue Trader rulebook for ideas, and then decided to solicit some from the TMP 15mm crowd. Here's that thread... some great ideas from the group!

The scenario ideas led me to take a look at my collection of 15mm civilians and other small forces. Some of those scenarios would benefit from having tons of civilians on the game table. So I painted a Ground Zero Games hovertruck that had been sitting on my shelf... then I went on to complete an Oddzial Osmy journalism team.

But what about some raiders? The best candidates were the 15mm.Co.Uk HOF Post-Apocalyptic Warriors that I painted earlier this year. I added another four warriors to the collection, painted a HOF Trator as the gang leader, and converted a Khurasan Rockjumper by lopping the head off a GZG gunner, adding a HOF Trator head, and mounting a spare Laserburn heavy weapon onto a bit of styrene tube. I now have a leader, eight warriors with SMG-type weapons, and a "technical" truck to support them. Not a bad skirmish force at all...

By now I was bored with painting humans. So I decided to paint a bunch of my spare Oddzial Osmy Spaceworms... these will be used as some kind of living weapon/invasion drones.

That gives me some mindless creatures for invader scenarios. But what about smart aliens coming to my desert colony in order to reclaim lost artifacts? My Rebel Minis Scourge, the first 15mm army I ever finished, seemed like a good candidate for that type of game. Just for fun I decided to add a new mini to that army... one of my Heavy Battle Robots from The Scene.

When I was looking through my storage bin this week to find those HOF Post-Apoc Warriors and Trators, I also noticed a pack of HOF Robed Cultists. I thought about these last month when I painted my Kremlin Miniatures Comander Vortan, but moved on to other projects. So I finished the week by painting three Cultists to support my Vortan.

So there it is... a pretty good variety of skirmish minis, now ready for the battlefield. Not a bad week of painting!

Cheers,
Chris

Gut Check Battle - Garn vs Astagar

2011-10-21T12:34:00.000-05:00

Following my last post, I broke out SpaceJacker's Gut Check! ruleset and gave it a few playtests. I had forgotten what a fun little rule system it is. It only took a couple rounds to get the hang of the mechanics once again... I spent the rest of the time tweaking unit stats to come up with something that resembled a balanced scenario. This was played using Khurasan Garn and Critical Mass Astagar Mercenary Fighters.

Scenario Background. A Garn patrol ship entered orbit around Rishi 7. Some ancient buildings were on that planet... something the Garn had always wanted to investigate. When their scanners detected an Astagar landing ship near the ruins, they knew it was time to stake a permanent claim. Garn Huntmaster Thauro recognized the landing ship - they were the type usually crewed by five Astagar mercenary fighters (probably seeking some sort of treasure in the ruins). Thauro was a little disappointed at this finding. He had been hoping for a proper fight today, and this would amount to little more than an early morning workout. But it was better than nothing, and he certainly couldn't let the Astagar take anything of value from one of the planets in his patrol zone. Thauro ordered Hunters Bazgla and Acholk to accompany him down to the surface.

The Astagar were already inside the buildings by the time the Garn arrived. Astagar Captain Fyip had his henchmen Sizet and Ovidu searching the larger building, while Ixe and his heavy weapon trooper Livitt looked inside the smaller. When they left their buildings, they were a bit surprised to find a Garn Hunting Party stalking toward them.

Playing The Game. I didn't use any blips for this scenario - just a straight fight to "break in" these units. The Astagar were positioned in front of both buildings, while the Garn simply entered from the center of the opposite edge of my board. I played this on my 2' x 2' Red Planet table including my Critical Mass Kaamados buildings. The Garn were activated and controlled by me, while the Astagar used SpaceJacker's awesome all-in-one enemy activation counters.

Turn One. I learned during my earlier playtests that the Garn were pretty easily slaughtered if they split up. So this time I would keep them together, and simply knock out the Astagar one mini at a time. Huntmaster Thauro began the game by using an EVADE action to move into cover (rock formations along the right side of the table). The first enemy activation counter was for Livitt - the Astagar armed with the heavy gun. He used a FOCUS FIRE action to give Bazgla a Shock counter. Using the reaction rules, Bazgla scored an Epic Pass on his Gut Check and returned fire. He hit Livitt for two Shock counters - enough to take the heavy weapon Astagar out of action. Both Garn hunters joined their Huntmaster in the EVADE action, while Ovidu failed to activate and Sizet took an EVADE to slither up the hill on the left side of the table. Ixe fired at the Garn but his shots were absorbed by their shields. The turn concluded with Captain Fyip using a RUSH action to get into battle with the wounded Bazgla. Each took a shock counter from that fight.

Turn Two. The turn began with Ovidu, the Astagar with the power gauntlets, using a RUSH action to attack Garn Huntmaster Thauro. He took down the Huntmaster with a Messy Kill - forcing Bazgla and Acholk to take Gut Checks. They failed and retreated 2". The Astagar Captain used a FOCUS FIRE to stop the fleeing Garn, but his his was absorbed by Bazgla's shield. Bazgla passed a Gut Check for taking fire... I could either Ambush (charge the captain) or Fire. He fired, and all three shots missed completely. Acholk used a FOCUS FIRE action to take down the Astagar assault trooper. He scored a MESSY KILL. The Astagar captain was within 4" of the kill and was forced to take a Gut Check, but he passed and did not retreat. The wounded Bazgla removed his Shock Counter at the end of this turn, but the Astagar Captain did not.

Turn Three. Captain Fyip used a FOCUS FIRE against Bazgla, scoring another two Shock Counters. Bazgla failed the ensuing Gut Check, so there was no retaliation. Acholk used a RUSH action to assault Captain Fyip, forcing him to give ground. Nobody else managed to activate during this turn... Captain Fyip removed his Shock counter, while Bazgla kept both of his. Things were not looking well for the Garn!

Turn Four. Garn Acholk used an ADVANCE action to get into cover. He fired on Captain Fyip, scoring a MESSY KILL. The nearby Astagar fighter failed his Gut Check, and was Choked for the rest of the turn. Astagar Sizet, still in cover at the opposite hill, failed yet another activation. Bazgla managed to activate even with two Shock Counters... he took a FOCUS FIRE action against the choked Astagar fighter Ixe. The dice weren't kind to Ixe... he received four Shock counters, and was taken out of action. In one turn, the fight had completely turned against the Astagar.

More dead snakes than Springfield Whacking Day...

Turn Five. Across the table, Sizet finally passed an activation! He RUSHed into assault with Acholk. That assault ended with Sizet giving ground. Acholk then used a FOCUS FIRE to give Sizet a Shock and a Choke counter. Bazgla didn't pass his activation, but was able to remove both of his Shock counters at the end of that turn.

Turn Six. Sizet, the last surviving Astagar, fell to FOCUS FIRE from Bazgla. The alien buildings were now clear of the invading Astagar treasure seekers, but the Garn had paid a terrible price with the loss of Huntmaster Thauro.

Analysis. I had to tweak the Astagar stats for a few games, but I achieved a pretty good level of balance. This game really felt like it was decided purely by the dice rolls - after turn three I thought it was going to be another overwhelming Astagar victory. But the Garn refused to give up! Now I want to play a variant of Scenario One from the Gut Check rules... I'll run the Garn hunting party again, next time against several small blips of humans or Crusties. But this made for a very fun game, even with a total of eight minis on the table.

Cheers,

Chris

"Corporal... did you bring the Garn repellant?"

2011-10-08T16:58:00.002-05:00

I've been experimenting quite a bit with washes lately... using different ones over bare metal and solid basecoats to create interesting (and fast) paint schemes. Mostly I've been working with Citadel and b, but I finally added some Secret Weapon washes to my mix. One of my favorites, both in name and as a color, is their Baby Poop. It produces a great sickly greenish-brownish tint (as would be expected...), and goes on very heavy. I tried a few experiments with it, and then realized exactly where I could use it in my collection...

So I ran downstairs and grabbed the pack of Khurasan Minis Garn that had been sitting in my drawer for the last year or so. Until now, I never knew how I wanted to paint them. But my new wash techniques seemed like they should be perfect for this type of mini. Here's the results:

It was a pretty simple paint scheme. I started with white primer, then two coats of Secret Weapon Baby Poop over the entire mini. Then I picked out the eyes with drops of Vallejo Blood Red and the weapons/energy packs/backpack shields with Vallejo Gunmetal. I used two different colors on the belts, straps, and boots - P3 Underbelly Blue with Secret Weapon Blue Wash on the hunt master, and P3 Cryx Bane Highlight with Secret Weapon Light Black Wash on the two hunters. I finished the minis by putting Secret Weapon Drying Blood wash over the silver back shields, a final coat of Wonder Wash Black over the entire mini, and finished the bases.

I really like the way they turned out. The maroon or green schemes seen in the Khurasan website pics and on SpaceJacker's blog are very nice, but just a bit cartoonish for my taste. The Baby Poop (stop giggling!) Wash gives them a flesh tone right out of a dinosaur movie.

So... what to do with only three Garn? I've been playing quite a bit of In the Emperor's Name lately, and three Garn could be a tough little retinue. But I decided to play around with Gut Check instead. It's a game I really enjoyed playing last year, but haven't looked at it since we started development of ItEN. This seems like a nice time to try it again.

Here's the rules I came up with for the Garn... they should be able to handle quite a few inferior enemy minis. I'm going to try to sneak in a game or two this weekend.

Cheers,
Chris K.

Another 15mm army in one weekend

2011-09-12T14:45:00.001-05:00

Based on the success of my last effort (see http://basementgamingbunker.blogspot.com/2011/06/complete-15mm-army-in-one-weekend.html), I decided to have another go at a one-weekend force. And once gain, I am very pleased with the results.

Eureka Miniatures released the Ventaurans through their 300 club last month, and I was lucky enough to be in on the pre-orders. If you haven't seen much about these minis yet, my colleague David B. reviewed them on Dropship Horizon (link). But once I had the minis in hand, I realized that I didn't quite know what to do with them. They are very detailed, but I typically prefer simple color schemes.

Then I remembered the 300-second Halo Spartan method (link).

Just like the Sons of Thunder project, I decided to create a 100-point Alien Squad Leader force. This time, I loosely based it on the Alien Imperial list. These minis screamed "superior energy weapons" and "aiming devices" rather than plain infantry. The paint job was very simple - two coats of Citadel Leviathan Purple wash, Vallejo Gold helmet lenses, Vallejo Heavy Warmgrey weapons and backpacks, Model Master Euro Gray on the bases. I then based them two per stand (1-1/4" fender washers again), and flocked them with a new "gravel/ash" blend.

But what support options could I use with these minis? I looked at several spare vehicles I had lying around, but none seemed to match the Ventaurans in technology level. Then I noticed a couple packs of GZG New Israeli Jetbikes that I was going to use in another project. I think the tech level is perfect, and the body armor is pretty compatible with the Ventaurans. I may swap the New Israeli heads with Ventaurans someday, but even now they look fine in the same force.

So here's what I came up with for an army. It follows the Alien Imperial list, but doesn't hold to the required units.

4x Imperial Soldiers (1 as command stand)
2x Imperial Heavy Weapon Squads
4x Imperial Recon Light Vehicles (1 as command stand)

I look forward to using them against my Sons Of Thunder (Human Imperial) in the near future. Alien Squad Leader is one of my favorite rulesets, but I haven't been able to properly use it with my single-based armies. Now I have no excuses!

Cheers,

Chris

Basing, basing, basing...

2011-08-28T18:22:00.003-05:00

It's been pointed out to me that the color scheme for my Conquest Development Center Storm Troopers army (Titan Marines with Old Crow vehicles - gallery here) would look great on Mars-type environments. My first 15mm terrain was a desert table, so it never occurred to me to use anything but desert sand on their bases!

But now that I have a proper Red Planet terrain set (link), I thought it was time to take another look at how my CDC infantry are based. I've also switched from Citadel to Vallejo and P3 paints since the last time I painted these figures, so I wanted to figure out a revised palette. So I grabbed an unpainted Titan Marine, found a penny in the couch cushions, and went to work. It turns out... you guys were right:

Red Planet flock looks far better with this color scheme. The change from Citadel Mechrite Red to Vallejo Bloody Red with a Maroon Wonder Wash Ink also made a huge difference. I think this is going to lead to a bit of a change in my Conquest System setting's background... now CDC will be based on a planet with red soil instead of a desert world.

Their vehicles also look pretty good on the Red Planet terrain:

So... now I need to figure out the best way to remove the sand from the old figures' bases. :)

Cheers,

Chris

Paint Test and Army Design - Micropanzer Aliens

2011-08-23T21:59:00.008-05:00

Like most gamers, I have a pretty large pile of unpainted minis. A good chunk of that pile consists of Micropanzer Krystrial aliens. I had been waiting to figure out a paint scheme that would let me get them painted quickly, but still look good on the battlefield. Here's my first attempt:

Paint steps for the Raivaui Handler:

White Armory Spray undercoat
P3 Underbelly Blue basecoat
Vallejo Heavy Grey details (weapon, back plate)
Vallejo Gunmetal whips
Wonder Wash Deep Sea over the Underbelly Blue
Wonder Wash Dirty Dark Brown over the entire mini
P3 Bloodstone on the base, flock with my Red Planet blend, seal with white glue + water

Paint steps for the Vaethaka Hounds:

Model Master Guards Red undercoat
Vallejo Heavy Grey armor plates
P3 Menoth White Base horns and teeth
Wonder Wash Dirty Dark Brown over the entire mini
P3 Bloodstone on the base, flock with my Red Planet blend, seal with white glue + water

It only took me a couple of hours to do the test minis. A playable army should be doable in a couple of evenings. Then I just need to spend a little time on the Overlord and get them onto the table! Here's my thought for a force organization:

One Command Unit - 1 Krystrial Overlord, 1 Raivaui with Banner, 1 Raivaui Handler, 2 Vaethaka Hounds
Three Battle Units - 1 Raivaui Leader with Halberd, 4 Raivaui with swords and blasters
Three Hound Units - 1 Raivaui Handler, Four Vaethaka Hounds

This should give me another good "horde" army for my 2' x 2' battlefields.

Cheers,

Chris

Finding a place for Kremlin's Red Banner MANITOU

2011-08-20T08:15:00.002-05:00

A few months back, I picked up an assortment of Kremlin Miniatures' 15mm range. I was very impressed with this range. The photos on the website simply don't do them justice... their size, detail, and posing is as good as anything on the market today. I included them on my catalog of human power armor article, hoping they would get some more attention.

The minis that interested me the most were the MANITOU suits - their versions of Power Armor. The Red Banner MANITOU appared to be man-size suits of power armor with heavy guns and shoulder-mounted mini-missile launchers. I picked up two packs in my initial order. I liked the look of them on the website, but wasn't sure where they would fit in my 15mm forces.

The order arrived pretty quickly - I was very impressed with their service. And once I had these particular figures in my hands... well... their place was pretty obvious.

My favorite 15mm Sci Fi infantry range, even after building new armies on a monthly basis, is still the Titan Marines from Rebel Minis. These great figures immediately became my Conquest Development Center Storm Troopers - the fast-strike military and security force for my game setting's largest corporation. It's the first human army I created in 15mm. I originally added some GZG Cyclops Walkers to be the elite commandos for that army, but the aesthetics have never really worked.

I think I have now found the perfect match for my Storm Troopers.

These really are fantastic figures. Big and bulky compared to typical 15mm infantry, but not so big that you couldn't picture them stomping through a Space Hulk's corridors. But these minis have far more in common with Khurasan's Special Assault Brigade than with Space Marine Terminators... Their blasters seem very high-tech, the missile pods are very Anime-ish, and each has a very detailed jet pack molded onto the back (see picture).

I just need to finish the other five, decide on their base finish (desert sand like my existing CDC forces, or Red Planet blend?), and test them on the tabletop. I see these being useful both in games of FUBAR and in the upcoming second edition of In The Emperor's Name!

Cheers,

Chris

REBS - Robot-Enhanced Battle Squads

2011-08-01T11:32:00.004-05:00

A popular discussion topic at TMP and Dropship Horizon recently has been about "incomplete" 15mm figure lines. My argument basically consists of "this is sci-fi; I don't need armies organized like WWII infantry platoons." When Rebel Minis released their Earthforce Droptroopers, it seemed this would be another infantry force without readily-available heavy weapon troopers. So here is my shot at creating a viable army with them using models available today.

Rebel Minis released the CAT 'bots around the same time as the Droptroopers. These were instantly praised for their design. After looking at them and thinking about their possible roles on the battlefield, I had an epiphany - why not put them together with the Droptroopers?

So I present to you my latest army - the REBS: Robot-Enhanced Battle Squads.

I haven't completely written out the fluff yet, but here's the gist of it. At the time of the Osmium Wars, a human army grew tired of soldiers who were "capable with all weapons, but masters of none." While heavy guns, sniper rifles, and missile launchers always have their role on the battlefield, the time spent training on them was detracting from their expertise with their basic battle rifles. Once the CA-T5 AI processor was tested and proven, it was decided that a new type of army unit would be fielded.

Ten-man multi-weapon squads, the standard for over a century, would now be replaced by squads of six riflemen and two support 'bots. Each 'bot was armed with a multi-ammo, multi-role heavy gun that could be used for rapid suppressive fire or for long-range pinpoint shots. One 'bot would also carry a rack of armor-disintegrating missiles, while the other would carry close-support equipment like blast shields or flamethrowers. The 'bots are programmed to respond only to verbal or input commands from their squad members. If their squad is killed, they are programmed to proceed directly to the nearest friendly vehicle or squad for further instructions.

I have my first REBS completed. The 'bots were painted with the exact same technique as the Droptroopers - I'm willing to bed the next two squads won't take more than a few hours to complete. Then I need to make a decision - what will support this force? Normally I choose APCs and then some type of support tanks when I make an army like this. But just to do something different this time, I am entertaining two possibilities:

Option 1) Combine the APC and support tank into a single vehicle. A larger APC with a tank turret, like the Claymore or Lancer from Old Crow, would fit this category well:

Option 2) Play up the "drop troopers" theme by giving each squad a GZG Fan Van VTOL.

Each "Fan Van" would be supported by some type of flying drone, either a GZG UAV Hoverdrone or an RAFM ASD mk II:

So which option should I choose? Option 2 would give me a pretty unique sci-fi army. But I'm not sure how well three VTOLs with flying support drones would work on a 2' x 2' table, and it's a bit more than I'd really like to spend on this army. But there it is - a complete and playable army using only basic riflemen infantry models.

Cheers,

Chris

Rebel Minis Drop Troopers - Review and Paint Test

2011-07-31T15:40:00.003-05:00

The heat and humidity we've experienced lately has really stifled my hobby time. Since I haven't been able to use any spray primers or base coats, I decided to try something different. Two years ago, Maff and Mark posted an excellent Halo Spartan tutorial on Dropship Horizon. It is a very straightforward process - two coats of an undiluted Citadel wash over bare metal. I'm not a Halo player, but I do like the look of the troopers.

I picked up a pack of Rebel Minis' Earthforce Droptroopers after seeing Jeff Racel's excellent paint schemes (see here). The minis are excellent - very detailed clamshell armor that require almost no cleanup. The rifle is identical to that found on the Earthforce Infantry and Homeguard minis - these can easily be a specialized unit in an army using other Earthforce minis. But I'm using them as their own force. The Earthforce rifle is great - it can be a near-future variant of something like the FN P90 with a stick magazine, or it could be a blaster rifle from 5000AD forces. The pack contains nothing but rifle-armed troopers - no heavy weapons are available yet. But I have a plan to work around that (probably in my next post).

But once I had the minis in-hand, I realized they could also work as Halo Spartans using the Dropship Horizon tutorial. So here's the test mini:

My version of the paint scheme:

File the mini and superglue to a Universal 15mm Figure Base (a US penny)
Two coats of Citadel Thraka Green wash. I learned not to apply this too quickly - it tends to pool very at the neck
Paint the weapon with Vallejo Heavy Bluegrey
Paint the visor with Vallejo Glorious Gold
(my only change from the old Dropship Horizon formula) Coat the entire mini with Wonder Wash Black. This much thinner wash brings out details on the weapon, fingers and small joints, and surrounds the visor extremely well.
Paint the base with P3 Bloodstone and flock with my Red Planet blend.

I'm knocking out some more infantry to go with this test figure - the first wash is drying right now. I'll post my Heavy Weapon support idea very soon.

UPDATE: The first squad is complete.

Cheers,

Chris

A Ruthless Terrorist Organization...

2011-07-07T23:53:00.001-05:00

One thing that we always have plenty of in 15mm Sci-Fi is human infantry with faceshields and helmets. I'm not complaining... they are all excellent sculpts, and the "hard sci-fi" settings most of us prefer allow for a wide variety of human factions to be fielded.

But where does one find inspiration to paint these different forces? Noticing my old comic book collection reminded me of a pretty cool source of color and uniform ideas... and here's the first one I picked. The ubiquitous Cobra Viper has been remade many times by Hasbro over the years, but they keep coming back to the basic blue uniform.

So I figured... why not? I still have an assortment of Rebel Minis Earthforce Marines waiting to be painted. I whipped together a quick unit to see how it looked in 15mm. Here's the outcome:

Works for me! Another squad of these, some heavy weapons support, and a few vehicles should give me a fun little army. These would be great as a mercenary regiment, security force, or even something more like their action figure counterparts.

Speaking of vehicles... what to use? Once again I ransacked my box of old die-cast toys. I found an interesting old vehicle called the Space Van. Its angled cockpit and hull shape reminded me quite a bit of the old Cobra Hiss tanks... perfect for this project! Another Hot Wheels vehicle (an Assault Crawler - very useful even on its own) provided some good tracks to replace the Space Van's plain and undersized wheels. I think they work pretty well together... now I just need to find a turret and get this thing painted!

Cheers,
Chris

New skirmish game - In The Emperor's Name

2011-07-02T19:35:00.001-05:00

Craig Cartmell has just released In The Emperor's Name, his latest (and perhaps his greatest) set of wargaming rules. They are designed to play small narrative actions that one would find in games like Necromunda, Gorkamorka, Inquisitor, or even Mutants & Death Ray Guns or Savage Worlds.

While the rules and retinue lists are created with the 40k universe in mind, I've been playtesting them for months using 15mm figures. I've found them to be VERY enjoyable! I've even tried playing the same scenarios and forces using these rules and then playing Mutants & Death Ray Guns... and I must admit that In The Emperor's Name is a better game (at least for solo play). I will post some battle reports in the coming weeks... some will be using "counts-as" versions of the retinues in the book, and some will be some "free-form" retinues I made just for my 15mm collection.

Check them out today! This is one of the best free skirmish games you will ever play.

Chris K.

A Complete 15mm Army In One Weekend

2011-06-29T09:40:00.002-05:00

A couple weeks ago I posted an idea for my first Red Planet-themed army. The miniatures were ordered soon after, and arrived while I was out of town. So I came home to (among other things) a blister of Rebel Minis Sons Of Thunder and a pack of Blue Moon Walker #19.

While most of my 15mm infantry are single-based on 3/4" fender washers, I decided that multi-basing would be the way to go for my new Red Planet forces. I've been wanting to try Alien Squad Leader, and these guys seem perfectly designed for that sort of game. I decided three Sons Of Thunder looked good on 1-1/4" fender washers.

So it was time for prep work. Nothing fancy here... just filed down the excess mold lines (of which there was very little - great casting on both product lines), and some tiny droplets of superglue to stick them onto craft sticks for painting ease. I also found some round dot stickers (usually used for garage sales and what not) for the bottoms of my washers. This made it very easy to spackle the center holes. I applied the spackle fairly rough... no reason not to since it will add more texture to the bases. At this time I assembled the walkers completely.

It was pretty easy from there. I hit everything with black Armory spray primer, cracked open my chosen P3 paints (Khardic Flesh and Underbelly Blue for the minis, Bloodstone for the bases), and started drybrushing. The infantry are all heavily drybrushed with the Khardic Flesh, with the black exposed between armor/suit plates. Then I drybrushed the weapons, helmet domes, and backpack tanks with the Underbelly Blue. After hitting the entire model with black Wonder Wash, I popped them off of the sticks and glued them to the painted washers.

While the Wonder Wash and glue were drying I basecoated the walkers. These took a few more coats than the infantry to complete. Between coats I had time to flock and seal the infantry bases, using the same Red Planet mix as my terrain set.

While I worked on walkers and infantry, I noticed that the blister pack from Rebel was a pretty good size for a Sons Of Thunder building. I drew a few geometric shapes, printed them on cardstock, found a rubber washer and interesting bit from an old toy (bonus points for the first person to correctly identify it), and here's what I came up with:

I figured that would work just fine as a scenario objective. And what the heck... it would have ended up in the garbage otherwise! So after a total of maybe 6-7 hours worth of work (not counting drying times) my project was finished. Here are the final results:

The paint jobs certainly aren't going to win any competitions, but it works just fine on the tabletop. The walkers in particular need something else... I think I need to include some of the dark grey used on the terrain platform to break up the orange. But it is ready to play!

I'm very pleased with the infantry. One pack of Sons Of Thunder yields four NCOs, four heavy weapon troopers, and sixteen rifle troopers. I created two command stands (nco and two rifles), four infantry stands (three rifles), and two heavy weapon stands (two heavy weapons and one NCO as a spotter). You could easily create four squads of six infantry if you want to individually base these little guys.

It's the little projects like this which remind me that switching to 15mm was the correct decision. I have 24 infantry, 2 support vehicles, and a terrain piece... all for the same cost as a single Finecast character miniature. And even a below-average painter like me can produce tabletop-quality results in a very short time. So as part of Dropship Horizon's 15mm Conversion Challenge, let me say this. Stop fretting over your perfect army lists and give up the fifteen different levels of highlights and detail bits. Just build some minis, get them painted, and play a game!

Cheers,

Chris

Off The Beaten Path: Hydra Miniatures

2011-06-17T10:18:00.005-05:00

Awhile back I discovered another manufacturer of 28mm minis that work great in 15mm games. I'd forgotten about them for awhile, but now seems like a great time to feature them. Hydra Miniatures, best known for the popular War Rocket minis, has a few hidden gems in their other lines.

First off we have yet another line of automatons. It is in Hydra's Retro

Raygun range - their Warbots. These are a bit pricey for 15mm usage, but look like great minis. I first noticed their Minibots - very pulp-retro-B-movie science fiction. But lately it's the Hoverbots that have

caught my eye. I could see these Hoverbots in a maintenance or medical bot role, sent out from a command vehicle to support troops and equipment on the battlefield. Or their arms could be replaced with any ranged weapon you might have lying around, and you'd have a good UAV or drone attack bot. The larger Warbots in this range, particularly the Destroyer, would make good battle mech-size walkers in an automaton force.

Okay... my last three posts in this series have been very robo-centric. So let's find a greener option. For this we look at Hydra's Primal Dawn prehistoric fantasy range. The Kithix are a pretty cool group of giant bugs... these would make great Tyranid-style large creaturs in 15mm. Again, they are a bit pricey, but very good sculpts. But in this range it is the Vardu Sprouts that caught my eye. I've been a Mutants & Death Ray Guns fan for quite some time. Until Khurasan's recent Vornid release, there were very few good "walking plants" in 15mm. The Vardu are great plant warriors, and could easily be used alongside the Vornids.

If nothing else, I hope these Off The Beaten Path posts have helped to stimulate some imaginations. 15mm sci-fi is great because you aren't restricted to any single set of rules, background, or one manufacturer's products. Keep your eyes open for anything that will fit the games you want to play!

Cheers,

Chris

Designing a 15mm army: Red Planet edition

2011-06-14T13:46:00.009-05:00

My newly-completed Red Planet board (featured on Dropship H orizon) has seen quite a bit of use the last two weeks. I've enjoyed having a new table for my existing armies to fight over, but the board has inspired me to create a new setting and forces. My colleague Matt posted an excellent article about creating a 15mm army, and I would like to build on that article by sharing my own design process.

I assume a Red Planet would be wealthy in mineral and metal resources. The Hammer's Slammers universe was a source of inspiration here - Iridium is the primary element in their armor. I chose a related metal - Osmium - as the primary resource of my Red Planet. A few random clicks at the Planet Generator website gave me the name Corridal for a new world.

So I have Corridal - the center of the Osmium Wars. And just like that - a world that implies a resource-centric conflict. Now I need combatants. Corridal seems like a fairly harsh place - cold, weak atmosphere, harsh winds... I need a line of figures that is suited

for that type of environment.

Rebel Minis' Sons Of Thunder fit the bill. One pack of these troops gives me 24 minis... I assume it includes four each of the six sculpts. Looks like I can organize these into four units of six... one heavy weapon, four rifles, and a pistol-armed leader. 24 minis seems just fine for small skirmishes on a 2' x 2' board, so I placed an order.

But what is science fiction infantry without clever vehicle support? I wanted to find something that would fit well with this infantry and the environment of Corridal. After entertaining a few hover- and wheeled-vehicle ideas, I finally made my choice.

Blue Moon Walker #19 was that choice. Something about the legs and the bubble-dome seemed like a perfect fit with the Sons Of Thunder infantry. And they looked like quite a bit of space-opera fun compared to some of my other forces! These come two to a pack for $12... again I placed the order.

Both the infantry and the walkers should be on their way. Two armored vehicles and four squads of six infantry, all for around $25 (which, incidentally, was the same cost of my red planet board). I even have a new setting for them to fight over... but I can just as easily use this army against any of my existing Conquest System forces.

This is a great size for a core 15mm force, especially for smaller boards. It can easily be expanded later, depending how I decide to both paint it and use it on the tabletop. But the most important thing with 15mm is not to waste your weeks and months stressing over army lists, tactics, detailed paint schemes, etc. Just find some minis, get some paint on them, pick some rules, and get playing!

Cheers,

Chris

Off the beaten path: RAFM drones

2011-06-08T14:15:00.001-05:00

Yesterday's post has inspired me to write a complete series: offbeat miniatures that would work great in 15mm sci-fi gaming.

RAFM has been selling the old Citadel 15mm Traveller figures for quite some time now, so they are pretty familiar to the 15mm crowd. But just for fun I decided to poke around the rest of their site... and I found some pretty cool drones. None of them seem to have any specific indications of scale or size, so on the right bases they should work well in 15mm armies. These are all in the USX range, but you might have to browse around the three pages to find them. They also are available as box sets.

There are two types of walkers and three aerial drones in their collection. The first walker is the CSD Mk 1 (pictured above). This one has the most potential to me since it seems like a good match to Khurasan's Mekanoid Dictator, which I plan to own someday. The CDS Mk 2 is pictured to the right. I could see it serving as some time of urban police/patrol robot, but that might just be because of the paint scheme. A few of these would serve well as a 15mm army in their own right... possibly as Alien Squad Leader tripods.

Then they have their three Aerial Drones: the Surveillance model, and two armed variants with miniguns (pictured) and misise launchers (similar to the one on the CSD mk 2). These have the most potential in my mind. I could see these in any type of automated army (anything from Skynet to Blue Moon's Robot Legion), or as UAVs in any "flesh and blood" force. Their size and apparent technology could put them anywhere from 20 years to 2000 years in mankind's future, or they could be used by any number of alien military forces. The propulsion turbines also make them pretty similar to Ground Zero Games' "FanVan" transports, along with their infantry-sized hover drones. With the right paint scheme it is pretty easy to mix and match items from different manufacturers, and even different scales.

I've been bouncing around a few different ideas for a robotic army... there's a good chance some of these will end up in my collection someday. I will post comparison pics once I get them painted up.

I have a few more items in mind for this Off The Beaten Path series - but what has everyone else been using alongside their 15mm miniatures?

Chris

Off the beaten path: Blight Wheel Recon 'Bot

2011-06-06T14:06:00.001-05:00

I just saw a link to these on Tabletop Gaming News... While these were created for an upcoming 28mm line of miniatures, I think they would be great in 15mm!

See the original article here.

Chris

Reporting for duty at Dropship Horizon!

2011-06-05T14:27:00.001-05:00

The last few days have been a whirlwind. To make a long story short... six other bloggers and I decided that the loss of Dropship Horizon would leave too much of a vaccuum in the 15mm Sci-Fi world. While we discussed creating a new collaborative blog, Mark H. generously offered to let us take control of Dropship Horizon!

http://dropshiphorizon.blogspot.com/2011/06/new-crew-for-dropship-horizon_05.html

So while I will continue to update Basement Gaming Bunker with details of my own projects, you can expect to see my name appear on Dropship Horizon a few times a month. I am very honored to be a part of not only Mark's legacy, but to be associated with such a great group of 15mm sci-fi gamers.

Chris

A fond farewell to Dropship Horizon

2011-06-01T16:33:00.000-05:00

Mark Hannam announced that he will no longer be updating Dropship Horizon. This is a huge loss, and Mark had long-standing relationships with most of the 15mm sci-fi manufacturers and several of the major rulebook publishers. But people's interests change (my own blog started as alternate rules to Epic, then some 40k Badab War stuff!), all we can do is thank him for his years of news, inspiration, and support of our corner of the hobby world!

I know when I started to outgrow 40k, Dropship Horizon was one of the places that kept me from leaving wargaming completely. Mark showed me that there is a whole world of great miniatures out there, and that we should never allow our own imaginations to be confined by someone else's rules and background. And his legacy will certainly be with us for years... contributions to everything from Khurasan's Federal Army to the highly anticipated Tomorrow's War rules from Ambush Alley Games.

I'll keep a permanent link to Dropship Horizon over in the sidebar widgets. His archives will be of interest to 15mm sci-fi gamers for years to come.

Chris

Detailed FUBAR Battle Report - Crusties vs Sulians

2011-05-25T20:50:00.000-05:00

I’m going for something a bit different with this battle report. Rather than simply posting the overall results, I’m going to attempt play-by-play commentary of the game as it was played. This is so readers who are curious about the FUBAR system can see how it works in game, and how you can tweak it into just the kind of gaming experience you want to have.

BACKGROUND
The moon of Caris is a narcotics and weapons smuggling hub for the entire Conquest system. Crusties have set up shanty towns near every major starport, cooking their hallucinogens and hiding them in government shipping containers. Corrupt government officials pick up these drugs at set times, taking them into the starports.
The Sulian Alliance will no longer allow this.
A small force was sent out from the Sulian encampment near the starport of Lumeii. Their mission is to destroy the Crusties narcotics labs, and make an example of all Crusties they find.

SCENARIO
3’ x 3’ desert table, with scattered Startown Slums and GZG shanties. The Crusties were pre-deployed into the buildings and behind assorted crates and debris. For this FUBAR game, the attacking Sulians will automatically receive initiative to start the game, but all Crusties count as being on guard during the first round. This will enable them to take the first shots as the Sulians move into the shanties.
Each shanty is a target building. The battlesuits and infantry are carrying demo charges, and the Stalker Tank’s weapons can also destroy them. A charge is clamped on by a model in base to base contact. It detonates the next turn, destroying the building. For each building destroyed, roll a D6. On a roll of 4-6, that building was a drug lab with unstable chemicals... each unit within D6” takes a hit, counted as a successful shooting attack.
The Sulians achieve victory by destroying every target building. The Crusties will only survive by either wiping out their opponents, or at least getting them to retreat from the table.

CRUSTY FORCES

The Crusties have six fire teams of four Crusties each. Crusties have a basic training level of Seasoned, allowing them to Activate on a D6 roll 4+, and successfully hit their targets (Expertise stat) on 5+. They do not wear armor, but their resilient exoskeletons give them an armor save of 5+. Their basic energy rifles can fire 2FP at 8”, or 1FP at 16”. Most fire teams have a Plasma Gun, which has 3FP at 16”. There are also two Arc Gun teams on the table, which have 3FP at 32”.
A Guncrab walker is hidden behind the dunes. It is Seasoned, a vehicle armor save of 4+, and is armed with an Arc Gun.
Additionally there is a Command fireteam. These have a Veteran training level, giving them an Activation of 3+ and an Expertise of 4+.

SULIAN FORCES (Critical Mass Protolene Walkers with Khurasan Felid infantry)

The trooper squad is Seasoned (Activation 4+, Expertise 5+), have an armor save of 5+, and are armed with Blasters (2FP at 16”)
The Battlesuits are Seasoned, have a vehicle armor save of 4+, and ar armed with two Assault Blasters (each has 2FP at 32”)
The Stalker Tank is Veteran since it’s the command vehicle (Activation 3+, Expertise 4+). It has a vehicle armor save of 3+ and is armed with two Stalker Cannons (3FP at 48”). Sulian units may use the Stalker’s Activation stat as long as it is on the table, but are -1 to Activation the turn it is destroyed.

TURN ONE

The Stalker Tank activated and advanced into the slums. It targetted the two immediaate threats to the infantry... two Crusty fire teams hiding in the closest buildings. Its right cannon fired at the Crusties covered by the triangle-shaped slum building, and the left cannon fired at the closest shanty. One hit was scored on each. The Crusties took the hit as a suppression counter, and the building did not contain a drug lab. Nevertheless, the smouldering wreck was in base contact to the second Crusty fire team, so I gave them a suppression counter as well. Seems like a viable special rule for this scenario! The Stalker did move into line of sight of the two Crusty Arc Gun teams, so they burned their On Guard counters and took their shots. One scored a hit, and the Stalker Tank failed its armor save. Rolling on the Vehicle Damage Table gave it a weapon destroyed result... not a good way to start the game.

The Battlesuits activated next. They advanced quickly around the damaged Stalker tank and engaged the two Arc Gun Teams. Since the Gun Teams were in cover, the Battlesuits needed to roll 6 to hit. Three hits were scored on one, one on the second. All but one passed their armor saves (that’s a LOT of 6s in a row). I took that one as a casualty instead of as a Suppression marker, so they could be more effective in combat.
The Infantry failed their Activation roll and went on guard. The assault isn’t looking good att his point.
The Crusties went next. I rolled to activate the Guncrab first. It failed and remained on guard. Two fireteams did activate. One fired upon the Sulian infantry, missing entirely. The second fired and caused one casualty. The Sulians burned their on guard counter and returned fire, killing one of the Crusties in the closest slum building. The remaining Crusties went on guard.

TURN 2
The Crusties won the initiative roll. They began their second turn by activating a Gun Team. It activated and took an Aimed Fire action, gaining +1 to Expertise. The Arc Gun fired on the closing Battlesuits, but the Plasma gun and rifle in that fireteam were still out of range. The gun scored one hit, and the Suits failed their save. One Battlesuit became immobilized for the rest of the game. The second gun team activated and selected the same option. It scored five hits, four of which weren’t saved. The four Vehicle Damage results were three 1’s (stunning all three suits), and a 6 (destroying one entirely). The Guncrab took the next turn, rolling only a 2 for its activation die. It remained On Guard and play passed to the Sulians.

The Sulian Infantry activated and advanced into the shanties. A distant Crusties fireteam burned its on guard counter and fired a plasma gun, but missed. The Sulians managed to wipe out the Crusties in the closest building, and would be able to destroy those buildings in the next turn.
The Stalker Tank activated next. It fired on the middle of the three remaining shanties, destroying it. It did contain a drug lab, which exploded and killed another Crusty trooper. It also hit another nearby building, which did not reveal a second drug lab. Three of the nine targets had now been accounted for.
The Battlesuits needed a natural 6 to activate. They rolled a 1, and went On Guard.

TURN THREE
The Crusties won initiative, but the first unit failed to activate. Play passed to the Sulians, who activated their Infantry. Three troops went into base contact with buildings, clamping charges. The remaining infantry fired upon the nearby Arc Gun team. They scored six hits - more than enough to kill the Crusties. The Crusty command team now burned their on guard counter and fired sniper rifles at the Sulians. They hit two, but one made his saving throw. The Stalker Tank activated next. It took an Aimed Shot at the far distant building, scoring two hits on it. It held another Drug Lab and exploded, killing a Crusty in each of the two surrounding fireteams. The Battlesuits activated next. The immobilized suit fired some covering shots while the mobile suit Assaulted a nearby fireteam. The covering fire didn’t hit anything, but the Assault succesfully killed another Crusty.

Play passed back to the Crusties. The unit that was just assaulted failed to activate, and retreated since it was at 50% strength. The Guncrab finally activated and advanted toward the Battlesuits, but its Arc Gun missed. The surviving Crusty Arc Gun team activated and took an aimed shot, stunning the crew of the stalker Tank. Another fire team activated and chose a duck & weave action, rushing to engage the Sulian infantry.

TURN FOUR
The Crusties won initiative. The command team attempted to activate but rolled a 1, going on guard and passing play back to the Sulians. The Sulian Infantry activated and advanced to the final two target buildings. The three buildings they had just set charges to detonated, two rolling as Labs. One was close enough to hit a Sulian trooper, but he passed his armor save. The Sulian infantry fired at the Crusties hiding in the final two target buildings, but only scored two hits. One saved. The other was taken as a casualty - the battle is too far along to suppress any troops! The Crusty Command Team now burned its on guard counter and fired - hitting three Sulians and killing one. The Sulian Battlesuits activated next. They both took aimed shots at the Guncrab. They caused four hits - three were saved, one rolled for damage. The Guncrab’s weapon was destroyed. The stunned Stalker Tank needed a 5 to activate, but only rolled a 2. Play was passed back to the Crusties. The fireteam that had just been engaged now returned fire. They scored two hits - one saved, one was taken as a further casualty. The remaining Crusty rifle team failed to activate (going on guard), but the Arc Gun team activated and took an aimed shot. They hit the Sulian Battlesuits four times, destroying two weapons on the immobilized suit and one weapon on the second. Since one suit was now immobilized and disarmed, I decided to let the pilot bail out on a roll of 4-6. He rolled a 2 and remained stuck in his damaged battlesuit.

TURN FIVE
The Sulians won initiative. The infantry activated first - two Felids moved into base contact with the remaining two target buildings, while the remaining three fired upon the Command Team. Two Crusties were hit, but one passed his armor save. The final two buildings now had charges clamped to them, effectively achieving the Sulian objective. The Stalker Tank failed to activate and went on guard. Play passed to the Crusties, and the Command Team activated for an Aimed Shot. The shooting was effective - all of the remaining Sulian infantry were wiped out. The nearby Crusty fireteam fled the rigged buildings and fired their plasma gun at the Stalk Tank. They scored one hit, but it was saved. Only one Crusty unit activated succesfully for the rest of the round, but it didn’t have any heavy weapons that could affect the Sulian vehicles.
The final charges detonated. All of the target buildings were destroyed, but at a very heavy cost. One damaged Stalker Tank and an equally damaged Battlesuit are the only things that returned home from the fight, but the Crusties would need months to recover their narcotics operations.

AFTERMATH
This scenario was far more balanced than I realized! I thought the advantage would definitely be to the Crusties, as every single one of their troops were in cover for the entire game. I also thought that the lack of higher Expertise ratings among the Sulians would be a handicap, but it was a pretty thrilling game. I’ll have to play aa follow up scenario of some kind... the Crusty drug kingpins won’t take kindly to this level of Sulian military intervention!

Chris

Micropanzer SAS with GZG Weapons

2011-05-19T22:15:00.000-05:00

A few months ago I unveiled these... GZG light tracked vehicles converted with 40k Tau weapons. The idea is that the more rectangular weapons would match Micropanzer's SAS infantry. I recently finished the first platoon of the infantry, as well as a paint test for a tank. Here's the color scheme:

Originally I meant this force to be inspired by AT-43 Red Blok, but it took a life of its own as I chose vehicles and painted the first few troops. In my Conquest System gaming universe this will be the corporate forces of the Aurora Group... the sleaziest of the three mega-corporations. These guys haven't had an original product or idea in years, instead stealing designs from the other two major corporations and selling cheap knock-offs to local governments. Their own forces aren't much better... while their competitors' corporate militaries are using grav tech vehicles, Aurora is still using tracks.

But remembering the original AT-43 thoughts led me to a creative choice for this army's power armor - the Rising Sun Manitou from Kremlin Miniatures. These are fantastic models... I look forward to getting them (and the rest of the tracked vehicles) painted and on the tabletop. But here's what I have finished so far, including a shot of the Kremlin walkers:

I fought my first FUBAR battle with this force over the weekend. They swept through a Startown Slum overrun with my Crusty army (see the post just below this one). I'm going to tweak the stats I used and run the game again... I'll try to post a battle report sometime next week!

Chris

Crusty Infantry Platoon - completed!

2011-05-16T19:11:00.002-05:00

I've been painting like crazy over the last two weeks, and need to get the blog caught up! The figures I'm most pleased with right now are my Ground Zero Games Crusties.

I have completed two packs of the rifle infantry, one pack of the command/heavy weapons, and one pack of the Heavy Arc Gun teams. I've also basecoated a GZG Guncrab Walker, which I intend to use as their vehicle support as I grow the force.

I based the gun teams on 1.25" fender washers rather than on individual pennies, and I really like the look of them. I'm going to start basing all of my heavy weapon teams in this way.

Overall, I'm disappointed in myself for not having painted them sooner. I've had these ever since they were released... for some reason I thought it would be a far more difficult paintjob than it really was. I completed everything in this force in just three evenings.

In my Conquest System gaming world, the Crusties are going to be a bit different than their cinematic counterparts. They were the indigenous race on several system planets. But now that every race in the galaxy is attempting to colonize Conquest for its wealth of resources, the Crusties have been displaced from their homes. They now hide in startown slums, selling weapons, drugs, and mercenary labor to anyone willing to pay and feed their communities.

More painted troops to follow this week, including some Micropanzer SAS.

Chris

HOF Post Apocalyptic Warriors - Review and Paint Test

2011-05-08T13:37:00.000-05:00

I picked up some assorted HOF Humanity minis a few weeks back. Surprisingly, the Post Apocalyptic Warriors and Rim Mercenaries became my instant favorites once I saw them in person. They are somewhere between Death Korps of Krieg and Pig Iron Productions in 15mm... very good minis. The gas masks open them up to quite a few environments and scenarios. I think in the Conquest System they are going to be militant rebels formerly assigned to a mining facility.

I painted up one of each gas mask sculpt, just to see what they would look like:

I think they turned out rather well. :)

Chris

GZG Crusties - Paint Test

2011-05-04T14:01:00.002-05:00

I've owned these little gems from Ground Zero Games ever since they were released, but I've been intimidated by the idea of painting them. I finally became frustrated enough with not having them painted that I did some searching around the other blogs and message boards... I never hesitate to steal good ideas. Spacejacker's quick basecoat/wash method mentioned here looked great to me (even if he was unsatisfied with the results). So I decided to give it a try... but what to use for a base color?

I figured there was no point guessing. After a blast of white primer, I chose four different colors and set to work. Each produced a pretty effective result using that basic method:

From left to right:

Testors Model Master "Wood," Wonder Wash "Dirty Brown"
Citadel "Rotting Flesh," Wonder Wash "Skin" then a thinned "Dirty Brown"
Citadel Foundation "Khemri Brown," Wonder Wash "Standard Black" then a second wash of "Dirty Brown". "Khemri Brown" is also my usual color for desert troop bases
Citadel Foundation "Gretchin Green," wash of Dirty Brown

While the fourth one is probably the most District 9-inspired scheme, it's my least favorite. I personally like the first one best. The third is also good, I think it would look too dark for an entire army. Any other thoughts or suggestions before I knock out a quick platoon of these guys?

Chris

Growing the collection: Terrain Edition

2011-04-13T19:44:00.000-05:00

Since the pile of unpainted figures and vehicles seems to be growing much faster than I can paint, I decided to slow down on my miniature purchases for awhile. Instead, I decided to focus on expanding my terrain collection. For quite some time now I've been playing on vinyl tiles, using just a few painted-and-flocked styrofoam hills... maybe the occasional clump of Ground Zero Games shacks. But the same old terrain was getting pretty old... definitely time for a change!

The GZG shacks are great little buildings (see Dropship Horizon's writeup)... lots of possible gaming scenarios in that type of environment. I grabbed a second set of them before GZG went on hiatus. In the midst of his packing and shipping chaos, Jon accidentally gave me a double batch of the side walls. So now I have spare bits, possibly to make a walled compound (similar to the old Gorkamorka forts).

And a couple weeks ago, Battleworks Studios announced an second series of their own Startown Slums line. The first series had been on my list to buy when the budget allowed, and the extra buildings were too good to pass up. After selling some old Rogue Trader lots on TMP, I was able to buy both sets! I'll post a detailed review when they arrive.

But what about the terrain itself? My old styrofoam hills and floor tiles are okay, but I want some variety. For some time I've had my eye on Zuzzy's Despoiled Reaches line. Well, I took the plunge and ordered a 2'x2' mat, a large hill, some sulphur vents, and some limestone spires. If this stuff is half as easy as it looks to paint, I could easily see myself expanding it to a 4'x4' mat and some additional pieces.

There are still a few items I'd like to add eventually. These are some of the bits I'm hoping to add to my collection over the next year or so:

A War-Zone GTS Bloodstone tabletop and some acute hill packs (to do a Mars-style board). In theory I could make most of that stuff on my own, but War-Zone's stuff is cheap and good enough that I would rather spend my time painting miniatures.
A JR Terrain muddy river set. I've seen these in person at a few shops, and again, they are far better than anything I could produce myself.
Some S6 Engineering city streets and canals. I assume they will be a big hit with the Gruntz demo board at Salute this weekend... hopefully we'll see some good photos from those games.
Critical Mass Games also has a set of pyramid-styled alien buildings in the works. I've been kicking around a sci-fantasy setting to game, and I could easily see these as being the rulers' fortresses.

There's a lot of other good stuff out there (Old Crow has their urban buildings, and Combat Wombat just released this modular building) that I'll probably pick up in small doses when I get back to ordering minis.

Cheap homemade terrain was nice while it lasted... but for someone without much spare time, I say bring on the good stuff!

Chris

Color Scheme Test for Old Crow Vehicles

2011-03-18T15:08:00.002-05:00

Okay, folks, I'm back from my little hiatus. Sorry for the absence.. I was overseas for some military training and I don't like announcing what I'm doing or where I'm going until after I'm back. :)

I returned home to find a large order of Old Crow grav vehicles waiting for me, and some fantastic weather to get them assembled and spray them with some primer. And then I found that I had a major choice to make, so I will now share it with you!

This was the test tank I painted a few months ago. It matched my Conquest Development Center Stormtroopers (Rebel Minis Titan Marines) color scheme, and I was pretty pleased with it. So I continued the paint scheme onto my new vehicles. Here is an Outrider scout vehicle, which I'm going to use as a four-man transport for sniper and command teams.

The former Space Marine player in me has no problem fielding an army like this. But something still feels missing, especially after ogling Jeff Racel's galleries and the Hammer's Slammers Crucible website the past few weeks. While I was away I came up with a possible camo scheme for this army. I don't want to use camo on the infantry, but I thought it might work on the tanks and APCs...

So after finishing the solid-colored Outrider, I decided to give the second one a full camo treatment. Here's the result:

And a comparison of the two:

I think I'm going to keep going with the camo scheme. What do you guys think?

Chris

New link for the FUBAR One-Page Sci-Fi Rule System

2011-02-12T17:52:00.002-06:00

A quick weekend update: Craig Cartmel has updated the FUBAR section of his website, posting most of the force supplements we generated at the Yahoo group.

Link: http://thegamesshed.wordpress.com/2010/06/17/fubar-one-page-sfmodern-rules/

For those of you who aren't familiar with FUBAR - they are a one-page set of rules from the genius who gave us the Forge Of War game system. They are an extremely clever system that encourages you to get to the battlefield right away, rather than spending hours and hours perfecting your army list or bickering over interpretations of vague special rules. They are absolutely perfect for a pickup game... just toss down two roughly-similar forces, come up with some basic victory conditions, and play the game!

Here's a link to my original review: http://basementgamingbunker.blogspot.com/2010/09/more-fun-rules-part-1-fubar.html And a 15mm battle report: http://basementgamingbunker.blogspot.com/2010/09/fubar-battle-report-clear-desert.html

This game is endlessly modifiable using the core mechanics. On this page you will find a variant that I knocked together to play Space Hulk/Doom: The Boardgame style battles: http://basementgamingbunker.blogspot.com/p/fubar-resources.html

If you haven't given these a chance yet - just try them! You might be amazed how enjoyable it is to play a game like this.

Chris

Ground Zero Games - Light Track Conversions

2011-02-02T22:16:00.001-06:00

This week's Snowpocalypse left me unable to leave my home today. While most of my day was spent removing 30" of snow from my driveway, I did manage to assemble a few of my new Ground Zero Games light tracked vehicles (all found on this page). I assembled four tanks, a command APC, and two tank destroyers. They went together pretty quickly, though the tanks and destroyers need just a bit of filing on the sides to fit the tracks to the bodies.

Once I had them together, I decided it was time to finally decide what infantry I would match them to. I had narrowed it down to two options: Rebel Minis Earthforce (which represent the United Star Alliance military in my Conquest System universe), or Micropanzer SAS (the corporate security forces of the Aurora Group). I went with the Aurora Group (Micropanzer), but realized something. The barrels on the light tank (see here) and the destroyer (see here) are very conventional round tubes. The Micropanzer infantry have fantastically sculpted weapons, but they all have a rectangular cross-section. I wanted to do convert the vehicle weapons somehow to tie them together. After a few odd thoughts of sculpting my own from plastic rectangle stock I had an interesting idea... and soon I was digging through my Warhammer 40k cabinet looking for some sprues of Tau Fire Warriors that I acquired years ago in an eBay lot. I clipped off a Tau Pulse Carbine, filed it down a bit, and here is the result:

This was exactly the look I wanted! After quickly converting the other three light tanks, I decided I should make one stand out as a command vehicle. Looking through my other bits, I grabbed one of the GZG turret bodies and fashioned a cupola weapon from a spare Khurasan power armor gun. It's just a bit on the large side, but again, it's a pretty darn good match:

I added another one of the Khurasan guns to the Chariot (which is otherwise unarmed).

Then I moved on to the tank destroyers. This time I used two of the longer Pulse Rifles instead of the carbines, which I think worked extremely well.

However, I wasn't 100% sold on the gun shield. When I converted the second destroyer I removed the gunshield and added another bit off the Tau frame. Still haven't decided which I prefer, so readers, I'll leave this one up to you!

What did I learn from all of this? One of the only things I've missed about Warhammer 40k since my switch to 15mm Sci-Fi is the ease of customizing the minis. Now that I've done infantry headswaps and vehicle conversions there is no part of me that believes 15mm is limited to off-the-shelf designs.

Please give me your thoughts on the tank destroyer - gunshield or no gunshield? I have two more to build!

Chris

Gut Check! Complete Battle Report

2011-02-01T14:51:00.016-06:00

SCENARIO

This action took place at an old Conquest Development Corporation forward operating base on Copper Moon. In the decade since it had been abandoned, Gorker scum led by Boss Grimskab had squatted into it, and built up their own shanties around it. Intelligence reports indicated that Grimskab has been suppyling weapons to numerous smaller Gorker bands, other lowlife alien tribes, and even some radical human gangs.
CDC dispatched an enhanced Stormtrooper armored platoon to capture or destroy the weapons. Unwilling to risk sending the heavy tanks into the booby traps and IEDS surrounding the Gorker settlement, Lieutenant Blackwood sent Corporal King’s fireteam into the FOB ahead of the main assault. King’s mission was to kill Grimskab and his warband, neutralize any traps, and clear the way for the heavy vehicles. King’s fireteam was dropped a safe distance away and entered the FOB by foot.

THE GAME
The game is a slightly modified version of Mission 1 from the Gut Check rules pack. I also used this as a chance to try out Spacejacker's new Tablet Friendly quick reference sheet. As with my playtest game, I simply replaced “hex” references with 2” of actual measurement. I kept getting mixed up on when I was supposed to move enemy models instead of blips last game, so this time I decided to give the blips their own phase after all on-table models had been resolved. I placed six blips for this game.

The fireteam consisted of five models from my CDC Stormtroopers (Rebel Minis Titan Marines):

Stormtrooper Corporal King (2+ Guts, 3 Grit, 3+ Shoot, 4+ Fight, Armor 2, Advanced Assault Rifle)
Stormtroopers Lee, Wolf, Jones (3+ Guts, 2 Grit, 3+ Shoot, 4+ Fight, Armor 2, Advanced Assault Rifle)
Stormtrooper Curt (3+ Guts, 2 Grit, 3+ Shoot, 4+ Fight, Armor 2, Missile Launcher)

 
Turn One - Corporal King and Stormtrooper Wolf successfully activated and Evaded toward the closest blip.  Stormtroopers Lee, Jones, and Curt failed their activations.  The nearest Gorker blip was revealed - it was Boss Grimskab himself, along his four ugliest and smelliest Boyz.

Turn Two - CDC won initiative. King and Wolf were joined by Jones and Lee, and all engaged Grimskab and his Boyz. Curt failed another activation, deciding to adjust his bootlaces rather than provide fire support to his team. The Stormtroopers opened fire on the Gorkers. Grimskab was Shocked, one Boy taken out of action. Grimskab retaliated by charging Corporal King, scoring a Messy Kill against him.

Troopers Jones, Wolf, and Lee failed their Gut Checks and fled off into cover. However, the charging Boss counted as movement in front of the Trooper Curt, who finally did something. The barrage from his snap-fire chased Grimskab into cover, separating him from his Boyz.

A second blip was revealed to be nothing more than a false alarm.

Turn Three - CDC Initiative. Troopers Jones, Wolf, and Lee rushed around the bunker and opened fire on the Gorkers from behind, killing 1 and wounding a second. Trooper Curt fired another missile at Boss Grimskab, causing what appeared to be serious wounds. However, Grimskab is a remarkably tough old Gorker, and he recovered both of his shock counters in that recovery phase.

Turn Four - Gorker Initiative. One of the Boyz charged at the Stormtroopers, wounding Lee. That Gorker Boy died from the return snap-fire. A second Gorker charged in, wounding Wolf.. Grimskab shot at Wolf, missing him. Wolf’s return snap-fire wounded the Boss yet again. Stormtrooper Curt again fired on the Boss, finally killing him. A third blip was revealed, and three more Boyz approached from the shanties.

Turn Five - Gorker Initiative, but the first Boy failed his activation. The Stormtroopers continued firing on the Boyz behind the first bunker. One was killed, another fled into cover. The missile trooper Curt finally caught up with his fireteam (using an Evade move). Several Boyz opened fire, taking Lee completely out of action. A fourth blip revealed three more Gorkers.

Turn Six - CDC initiative. His other boot coming untied, Curt failed to activate. His teammates focused their fire behind the bunker, killing the final Gorker from the very first blip. Most of the other Gorkers failed their activation rolls. One managed to evade into a cover position near the CDC fireteam. The rest that did activate and fire failed to hit their targets. The fifth blip was revealed to be a false alarm.

Turn Seven - Gorker initiative, but again, the first boy failed to activate. Stormtrooper Wolf focused his fire on the Gorker Boy in cover, shocking him. Two Boyz charged into close combat. Stormtrooper Jones choked in the face of the assault, but Wolf and Curt both snap-fired, killing the charging Gorkers. Curt then passed his own activation (I know, I was surprised as well!), focused his fire on two Gorkers near the shanties, scoring messy kills on both. The final blip revealed three more Gorker Boyz.

Turn Eight - Gorker initiative. The wounded Boy in cover focused his fire on Stormtrooper Wolf, but missed him completely. Wolf snap-fired in response, taking the Gorker out of action. Stormtrooper Jones exchanged fire with two Boyz, shocking one. Stormtrooper Curt’s missile launcher finished the shocked Boy and causing one shocked result on another.

Turn Nine - CDC initiative. Stormtrooper Curt fired again, killing 1 Gorker and wounding the last one. That last Boy evaded into cover on his own activation. The snap-fire from Stormtrooper Jones (responding to that movement) rolled nothing but 6s to hit and wound, ending the game.

Aftermath
Thirteen Boyz and a Boss Grimskar killed, while the Corporal King was slaughtered and Stormtrooper Lee was left in critical condition. Stormtrooper Wolf signalled Lieutenant Blackwood back at the platoon HQ, informing him that the FOB was cleared. Wolf continued to provide emergency treatment to Lee while Jones and Curt began to systematically clear the FOB of anti-tank IEDs and search for the weapon stores.

Playtest Report - Gut Check! 15mm Solo Rules

2011-01-24T22:15:00.000-06:00

For some time now, I've been following the development of the Gut Check! 15mm Solo Rules. Spacejacker from Tiny Solitary Soldiers (one of the best 15mm painting blogs around, by the way) came up with these rules as a way to fight 15mm skirmishes using Heroscape hex tiles as terrain.

I adapted the rules to one of my standard 2' x 2' desert boards (1 hex simply became 2"), came up with stats for an Alliance Ground Forces fire team (Rebel Minis Earthforce) as the player force, and Gorker desert scum (out of production MJ Space Orks) as the enemy. I printed off my force rosters, grabbed a deck of cards and some counters, loaded the rules on my Android tablet, and sat down for a trial game.

The fire team used 24 build points. The sergeant received an additional point to Guts, Grit, Shoot, Armor, and was equipped with an assault rifle. Three members of the fireteam were equipped with light armor and assault rifles, the last with light armor and a SAW.

From Basement Gaming Bunker

This gave me six "blips" to use for my enemy force. The first turn went pretty quickly. On the Alliance side, only the Sergeant and SAW gunner passed their Guts test to activate... both took "evade" actions along the ridgeline. Four of the Gorker blips stayed still, and two moved into line of sight. The first blip was revealed as a three-Gorker fireteam including one heavy weapon.

From Basement Gaming Bunker

The second was a "6" on the blip chart - a leader and D6 (4 in this case) additional Gorkers (including another heavy weapon). A few more turns of the deck gave the Gorker boss a chance to open fire. He did, inflicting a Shock counter on the Alliance SAW gunner. The SAW gunner shot back and scored a Messy Kill on the Gorker boss. I then removed all counters and rolled for the second turn.

From Basement Gaming Bunker

The Gorkers claimed initiative. Now that I had both blips and enemy models on the table, I used the card deck to determine all enemy movement. For "out of LOS" cards, I activated blips. For "in LOS," I used the Gorkers already on the table. I can only assume I was playing this correctly... these are still a draft ruleset after all! This second turn saw a major exchange in fire, but the end results killed one Gorker (one of the heavy weapon gunners at that), and Shocked two more. Two more blips moved very close to LOS, but never did get revealed.

The first two turns took me about an hour to play, but it does look like it will speed up as I get more familiar with the rules. Spacejacker has promised a set of enemy activation counters to replace the playing cards - that should speed things up even more. In any case, this was a good demo game for me. I'm going to spend an evening digesting them, and hopefully I'll have time to post a detailed review tomorrow. But if you're looking for a good skirmish set for solo play - check these out!

Chris

Best of 2010 - 15mm Edition

2010-12-15T19:00:00.006-06:00

And now for the presentation that nobody was looking forward to (mainly because I just invented it today) - the Basement Gaming Bunker Best of 2010 Awards!

Okay, so the recipients don't actually receive any kind of fancy trophy or certificate (unless they REALLY want me to make one). Mostly I want to use this as a chance to review a dozen or so items in one simple post. Honorable Mentions are awarded to items that I don't actually own yet but intend to do so as soon as the budget allows.

So here we go...

-Best New Figures. Without a doubt, this was the toughest category. After much deliberation I declare the Sepulvedan Resistance Heroes from Khurasan to be this year's overall winners. The reason for this is the sheer number of reactions from 28mm fans who couldn't believe these were actually 15mm sculpts.

Honorable mention: the Orion Republic troops from Blue Moon Manufacturing. I love what little of their product I've acquired so far, and intend to add these to my collection early in 2011.

-Best Old Figures. I've invented this category for items that have been on the market for a few years and simply don't seem to get the love that they deserve. While there were several good candidates from the Laserburn and Asgard ranges at 15mm.co.uk, I am presenting the award to the “Buckethead” infantry in RAFM’s ex-Citadel line. Something about these guys' Rogue Trader-esque appearance just made them an absolute necessity for my collection (and yes, Mark H., you can mock me as much as you want for this!).

-Worst Figure Poses. Many of us have lamented the unrealistic or static poses that have plagued sci-fi wargaming for so long. I'm giving special recognition to one particular line of figures this year. The reason I'm calling these specific minis out is because everything else from this manufacturer, especially in terms of pose and design, has been simply fantastic. And the designs of these figures is also wonderful, or I would never have purchased them in the first place. I'm talking about the Blockhead Battlesuits from Critical Mass Games. Neat figures, great armor, cool weapons... but what the hell are they shooting at? With this many different poses, why in the world are so many of them trying to burn the worms? I haven't decided how I'm going to paint mine yet, it's fairly obvious that they will be some form of interstellar pest control.

-Best New Vehicle. Just as tough of a category as Best New Figures. I ended up with some pretty great items from GZG, Khurasan, and Critical Mass Games this year, but I have to give the award to Rebel Minis for the Earthforce and Titan Marine HAMR Suits.

Honorable mention: Combat Wombat's Bullfrog Lander. A must-add item for early 2011.

-Best Old Vehicle. Again, I'm awarding this to an older model that is never worth overlooking. Old Crow Products' Gladius tank/Glaive APC (grav propulsion variants) are the winners.

-Most Enjoyable Rules System. This was actually the easiest award for me to give: the FUBAR rules by Craig Cartmell (of which I was a contributor) have resulted in some of the most enjoyable wargames I've ever played. And I love how easy it is to create new supplements and variations without completely destroying the simple elegance of the system. Anybody who hasn't taken a look at these yet should be ashamed of themselves. They are one page long. You can find time to read through it!

-Most Complete Rules System. There are obviously times when you don't want to sit down and invent special rules for every mini in your collection, or you want to see a ready-made campaign or solo play system. USE ME from 15mm.co.uk accomplishes all that and more, and for a very reasonable price.

-Best Starter/Combo Deal. I created this category to recognize Micropanzer Studios' new 15mm Sci-Fi SAS line. While these are now available as single packs, Jason originally offered them as a 51-mini starter deal for $25. For 50 cents a mini we received some excellent sculpts and a great variety in poses and weapons. I look forward to seeing how his product range expands over the next few years - he has some VERY promising concept sketches.

-Best New Terrain. A fairly slim category at this point. Which I can't complain... I tried to get my own buildings out a few months ago but found I just couldn't mold and cast them to my personal standards. But enough about my miserable failures, and onward to others' resounding successes. The award for this year goes to Ground Zero Games for their colony shacks.

Honorable mention: also in the shantytown genre (must be a theme for me this year) I wish to recognize Battle Work Studio's Startown Slums line of buildings. I need to get my hands on a set!

-Cleanest Casting. I wanted some special recognition for the miniatures that required absolutely no preparation work whatsoever before I primed and painted them. First place goes to the Rebel Minis Earthforce HAMR Suits (main body), and second place goes to Critical Mass Games for the ARC Fleet line of buildings. Great work on both product lines!

-Worst Casting. This rotten tomato goes to 15mm.Co.Uk - specifically to the Law Officer Bikes from the Laserburn line. Most of the Laserburn and Asgard line still seems to be pretty viable based on the numerous other quality minis I purchased from them this year. But of the three bikes I ordered, only one was barely salvageable. The other two are going to end up in a rubble terrain pile. If there is no way to remake this mold then the model needs to be retired ASAP. But I will happily say that this mini was not at all a good representation of the Laserburn range - I've had nothing but clean castings outside of those bikes.

That wraps it up for 2010. Congratulations to all the winners... may you keep accepting my money for years to come! And just to keep things moving forward:

-Most Anticipated for 2011. I would like to list the things that have been announced (or at least mentioned) by the various manufacturers in 15mm Sci-Fi:

Minis: Blue Moon Manufacturing's range is supposed to grow (everything we saw this year was considered to be pre-release), Rebel Minis has announced command troops for the Titan Marines line, and Ground Zero Games has announced NAC Power Armor, UNSC expansion, and further resculpts of their older ranges. All of these will be welcomed with open arms!

Vehicles: Again we have tons of good stuff on the horizon, but I'm giving the ultimate nod to Khurasan for the Federal Army vehicle range that has been previewed.

Rules System: Tomorrow's War by Ambush Alley Games/Osprey Publishing and Gruntz by Inrepose.

So my question to you - what have been your favorite releases in 2010?

Chris

Review and showcase - Khurasan Space Demons

2010-12-12T19:41:00.008-06:00

One of the first lines that caught my eye in 15mm is Khurasan's line of Space Demons (Giger-inspired Aliens), but I wasn't ready to purchase them until I was confident in my ability to give them a proper paint job. Cacique Caribe over at TMP posted a tutorial about his own method, and it looked and sounded very feasible. So I ordered a "starter bundle" consisting of a Queen, two packs of Assault Warriors, and a pack of Hammerheads.

The minis are fantastic - the web store photos simply cannot do them justice. The poses are aggressive and varied, the detail is unbelievably good, and they required almost no cleanup. Getting them glued onto bases (3/4" washers) and primed was a quick process.

Then I hit the local hobby shop for some metallic sprays. The painting technique calls for the entire miniature to be painted with a metallic (spray is the easiest way) followed by a straight-out-of-the-bottle wash of Citadel Badab Black. In his original post Cacique Caribe used Testor's Arctic Blue. I decided to go for some variety with my own Demons... if nothing else, it will make distinguishing them on the tabletop far simpler. So I sprayed eight Assault Warriors as a test, let the spray dry for an hour, then hit them with the Badab Black wash. The results were everything promised... it actually took me longer to finish the bases using my ash waste/urban rubble formula than it did to paint the figures themselves. The test eight took about 45 minutes to complete, and the finishing touches to the bases were applied after the wash dried overnight. All in all, I'd say it was less than three hours' work (not counting drying times) start to finish to do all 25 minis.

I used Testor's Model Master Turquoise Metallic on the Assault warriors. It's a far brighter finish than fans of the Alien films are used to, but I think it's a fantastic effect on the models.

Testor's Arctic Blue was used on these Hammerheads. I don't consider these to be completely finished just yet... as soon as I choose my "bio acid" color, I'm going to put droplets of that color on the "spitters" on either side of the head. When I eventually add a Colossus to this army it will be this same color.

For the queen I went with Burgundy metallic. This is also the color that I will use on the Nymphs when I eventually get a few packs of them.

I would also like to add a King and a couple packs of Infiltrator Warriors to the mix.. I'll probably use a purple metallic on them as an homage to GW's original Genestealer color scheme. But what I have finished now is more than enough Space Demons to play small skirmish games, or to use with Paper Make It's Space Base for some Space Hulk style action. I can't wait to get more... these are by far the easiest and most enjoyable paint jobs I've ever done!

Chris

Back to blogging - and shopping!

2010-12-11T20:29:00.005-06:00

Sorry for my absence these past few weeks... I was out of town for some military training (which I don’t like to announce in advance - that’s not something that needs to be public knowledge!) and have had a busy time at home and work since I returned.

I do have a few updates to post over the coming days... a USE ME battle report, a gallery of Khurasan Space Demons, and a new project - a complete 15mm sci-fi army for under $45! In the meantime, everyone should take advantage of the 15mm Christmas sales happening now:

Rebel Minis - 20% off all product, including the infantry and dropship in my banner pic!

Ground Zero Games - a free bag of goodies and discount voucher for later use.

RAFM - 20% everything through Sunday, December 12th (code CHRS2010).

Brigade Models - 15% off everything.

Chris

Review - Paper Make It! Space Base

2010-10-18T19:16:00.007-05:00

Paper Make It! recently advertised their Space Base on TMP. I'm usually not one for paper terrain, but this was something different - a set of rooms and corridors, in the vein of Space Hulk, Doom: The Boardgame, and Space Crusade. It looked fantastic from the pics on the website, and had one thing that set it apart from most other downloadable corridors: it is available in both 28mm and 15mm versions.

I'd been curious for some time now about PMI's other products (notably Shuffler), so I decided to order the 15mm Space Base as a demo piece. If nothing else, this would give me a ready-to-use rooms and corridors set for my growing 15mm sci-fi collection. The PDF pages looked great on screen, but how would that translate to the printer? Let me show you!

And this isn't really maximizing the full potential of this product. I printed these on recycled cardstock using a color laser printer. If this was printed on a inkjet using a higher quality paper or photo stock, these would look absolutely fantastic (and probably be more durable). The PDF prints eight pages with a very wide assortment of halls, junctions, and rooms. By only printing the main set once (no repeats yet), you get more setup variety than in any of the similar board games.

To make these sections a bit more durable, I used spray adhesive to mount them onto black presentation board from Hobby Lobby. This made them just as durable as any of the "professional" board games. Here's a shot of the mounted components and a comparison of the Space Base against Space Hulk (3rd Edition) and Doom.

The only thing that might be "missing" from this set is a way to interlock the tiles. I thought this would be a problem, but I haven't encountered much slippage on the table yet. I've already played a half dozen games with these rooms using the FUBAR First-Person Shooter variant (currently available in the Forge Of War Yahoo group) and I think they work brilliantly.

So if you've been looking for a great set of rooms and corridors to simulate your favorite alien-infested ships or demon-infested complexes, grab a set of these! A little time with the printer, a few hours with some glue and a knife, and you'll be very impressed with the results.

Chris

Hammer's Slammers-esque 15mm Force

2010-10-17T14:08:00.007-05:00

This is what happens when I paint miniatures and watch college football at the same time...

I started a project like this with 40k Space Marines a few years back. It never took off (no surprise, since I already had armies coming out of my ears), but I always wanted to revisit it at some point. Getting into 15mm Sci-Fi and away from the 40k universe made it a bit less practical, but the desire was still there.

I also wanted to do a Hammer's Slammers centered around the excellent Old Crow minis. I picked up a Blower tank, a Combat Car, and a pack of Jeeps this summer, but never did decide on a paint scheme or what to use for accompanying infantry. I also picked up a few packs of NAC Infantry from Ground Zero Games earlier this year... same problem: I never knew how I was going to paint them or how they were going to fit into my various gaming worlds.

Inspiration finally hit me last week, and I painted a sample NAC rifle trooper in Nebraska Cornhusker colors. I liked it and decided to finish a squad, along with some vehicle support. Originally I was going to use the famous Matchbox SWAT vehicle for these, and only use this force in fun one-off games. After basecoating the SWAT vehicle, I noticed the Slammers stuff sitting on my desk, and figured hey, why not?

I used Vallejo game color and black Wonder Wash on this project. It's also the first sci-fi force I've ever finished with green flock. Even though all my tables are snow or desert, it just didn't seem right not putting the Huskers on green turf. :)

In my Conquest System game world, these will be a for-hire mercenary branch of the Aurora Corporation. Or if I would rather game in an established setting, there's no reason I couldn't use these as Hammer's Slammers right out of the book.

I have another eight NAC rifle infantry to add, along with a pack of the GZG one-man skimmers. Other than that I'll have to shop before I can expand this army. Looks like Old Crow and/or GZG are getting next month's gaming budget...

Chris

15mm Patrol - Felids and Protolene Vehicles

2010-10-10T10:06:00.005-05:00

After posting this entry, I decided to make a change to my Khurasan Felid paint scheme. The blue and gray appearance was too similar to the Fenris Gray used on my Critical Mass Protolene infantry - and we certainly can't have dogs and cats looking anything alike! I repainted the Felid armor with Citadel Foundation Hormagaunt Purple and liked the result.

I decided it was time to add some vehicles to this growing force. In my Conquest System gaming world, the Felids play the role of the Sulians, who come from a very mountainous world. The Khurasan Lion transport (intended for use with their Felids) is a great model, and I'm sure I will find use for them later. But my Sulians need walkers for rocky and uneven terrain. I looked at the available 15mm walkers and chose the Protolene Khanate vehicles from Critical Mass Games. The smaller Ayame battlesuits are perfect light vehicles, while the Marrok battlesuits will fill the tank role within this force. The Tamaska/Fenrir is just a little too canine for this army, so I'm still not sure what to use in the transport role. I'm actually considering making the Sulians an all drop-pod based force just to give myself some gaming variety, but nothing is settled yet.

Here's a glimpse of the finished patrol (larger picture here since Blogger and I aren't getting along today). The specific minis used are a nine-cat Khurasan Felid light battle circle (I either didn't receive the tenth cat, or it fell victim to a piece of predatory furniture), three Ayame scout battlesuits, and a Marrok hunter battlesuit. The next additions will be more infantry (another light circle, a heavy circle, and a baron), and eventually I'd like to add another set of Ayame scout battlesuits, a set of Ayame predator close combat battlesuits, and another Marrok. I'm thinking the next Marrok will be a scout variant, and I will pop one cannon off my Hunter and assemble two complete Marroks with different weapons on each arm.

I also need to cut a new base for my existing Marrok. I just needed something quick to assemble and paint the model, so I grabbed a handy scrap of acrylic. I'm going to cut a 50mm x 50mm square base for the final version, so it will be a legal model in Alien Squad Leader along with my usual games of FUBAR and USE ME.

Look for a report soon to test this patrol in battle!

Chris

Snow Terrain - Step By Step

2010-10-08T23:05:00.003-05:00

A quick read through my old pictures and battle reports, and anyone can see that I prefer desert and urban environments in my wargames. I decided it was time for a change! The fictional universe where I've been playing (most of) my 15mm games - the Conquest System - has around twenty planets and moons that were terraformed by the lowest bidder. As such, I've decided each world has a fairly harsh environment; most are too hot, some are too cold. Which means any struggle for resources in the Conquest System will involve some snow planets. I needed enough snow terrain to fight these battles upon.

I tried a few new techniques for my snow, building on skills I've learned doing grassy and desert hills over the years. Since these will be used predominately by 15mm miniatures, I went with 1/2" styrofoam as the basis. The pieces I used in this set were packing material from my toddler's play kitchen - low density, but exactly the thickness I wanted. And easily handled by my trusty old Wonder Cutter.

Then it was a matter of cutting them to the exact shape I need. My favorite commercially-made foam hills are the Acute Hill Pack from War-Zone terrain (3/4 of the way down this page) - well worth the money if you don't to take the time or deal with the mess of making your own. And War-Zone uses good blue insulation foam, so it's quite a bit more durable than the stuff I make. But since I only get four or five small games in a month, these should last a little while. For my initial snow terrain set (which will be a 2' x 2' skirmish board), I cut four acute hills (one with two levels), rough triangles with a bit of a waviness to the cuts.

Nothing pretty, but it works for a quick snow hill. Once the hill is cut it just needs to be painted and textured. I use very inexpensive Wal-Mart craft paints for most of my terrain. I covered the entire hill with (thinned) Folk Art Medium Gray, then painted the entire top with flat white. To add a little bit of depth to it, I drybrushed the "wavy' edges of the hills with the same white.

The next part was really where I had to learn a new technique. For green flocking and desert sand, all I had done at this step was paint 50/50 white glue/water over the top surface, use a dollar-store shaker to apply the texture material, shake away the excess, and seal it when dry. But the Woodland Scenics snow that I bought is far too light, and it floated right off of the mixture. So I ended up pre-mixing it into a paste - it was equal parts snow texture, white glue, and water. It had the consistency of a dry, sugary frosting, and was applied very roughly with an old brush.

I'm fairly pleased with the result. The brush gave the mix a bit of a deeper texture - the end result is very different from simply applying sand and painting it white. I think these will survive just long enough for me to see if I like playing games on snow terrain. If I like it when these start to crumble, I'll probably replace them with the War-Zone stuff (just as I did with my grasslands stuff a few years ago).

And now for the gaming surface itself. I've been playing my recent desert games on 12" x 12" vinyl floor tiles. I figured this should work pretty well for snow terrain. I bought four of these today. The next step will be to give them a very light spray of white paint, and then lightly apply some of the snow terrain. Some of the beige and gray texture should look good peeking through the snow, so I'm not going to go quite as heavy or thick as I did on the hills.

So it's almost ready. A little more work, and I'll have a 2' x 2' snow table with a small assortment of rocky hills. When I expand snow games to a larger table, this set will serve alongside the Critical Mass Games Otillium Refinery set (all of which will have snow bases). A table like that will do a great job repeating some of the fossil fuel battles fought in the Conquest System.

I hope to have a USE ME battle report on the finished mini-table very soon!

Chris

More Rules Fun Pt. 2 - USE ME 15mm Sci-Fi System

2010-10-02T11:07:00.005-05:00

15mm.co.uk released USE ME (Ultra Simple Engine for Miniature Engagements) this month, for the very tasty price of £3.50 (about $5.50 US). It promised to be an all-encompassing system - battle rules, army lists, off-table support, campaign setup, and solo play, all in 32 pages. I was quite skeptical, but for that price, I figured it was certainly worth a read. I've had it for two weeks now, and am not disappointed at all in this system.

In fact, I am extremely pleased.

Here is a breakdown of the game system:

GAME SCALE AND SIZE

This game is specifically designed for 15mm miniatures, in terms of movement and weapon ranges. I'm sure it could be scaled up or down with some simple halving or doubling of ranges and distances, but I already have plenty of 28mm rules. In terms of the size of games you can play... I've only played three smallish games so far (up to the "starter" scenario of 20 light troops and five vehicles vs 30 heavy troops), but it appears USE ME will handle much larger engagements with absolute ease.

MECHANICS

First and foremost, I am pleased to report that USE ME uses nothing but ordinary six-sided dice (and a few basic counters) for all of its mechanics. That means you have no need to purchase a bunch of funny shapes just to play a basic game... it's ready to go with something I'm sure you already have. The gameplay itself follows a pretty straightforward initiative-activations-resolution sequence but with a twist - the Elan rating. Despite it's funny name (it sounds like something Acura Motors would sell!), it's a pretty clever stat that governs most aspects of combat and initiative. Thinking of it as "troop qualiity" would help compare it to some other systems.

While many other initiative-activation games allow you to select any unit, USE ME activates units based on their Elan ratings - high Elan troops take their activations before low Elan troops. The only mechanic I can compare this to is the Initiative stat in the 40k Assault phase. It works extremely well! It makes sense to me that the most trained and skilled units will be more decisive and take quicker battlefield action than inexperienced troops.

Combat itself is pretty straightforward - roll to hit, then roll weapon penetration vs target defense. Units hit their targets by scoring 4+ on a D6 roll (after some pretty simple modifiers). Penetration vs defense is a D6 roll off between the firer and his target (again, with some simple modifiers). Close combat is handled by simply removing the To Hit roll and rolling penetration vs defense.

Targets are either winged, struck, or killed outright. These effects last the rest of the game, but are handled with simple counters. There isn't much bookkeeping required outside of the counters, which is what makes me think this game will scale up to company-size engagements without bogging down. There are only four tables you will ever have to look at to play a game of USE ME, which means there isn't much page-flipping in game. In fact, I've already seen a complete quick reference sheet that prints on half a page... exactly what "quick reference" should be!

FORCE LISTS

There is a two-page guide to creating forces - complete with points costs. Rather than saying this mini is a Muster Private armed with a Moth Rifle, you would select an Elan 3, Movement 4 Infantry with a Standard Rifle. This game is a bit like Alien Squad Leader in this way... it abstracts troops, weapons, and vehicles to put them in a few simple categories. While this may lack a little bit of distinct flavor among different armies, it's a great way to make sure forces are fairly well balanced in the game.

ADVANCED RULES, CAMPAIGNS, SOLO PLAY

A great deal of the book is dedicated to rules such as off-table long-range artillery or supporting spacecraft fire, arrival of reinforcements and drop troops, linking games together (which can even keep some troops in a "winged" status from game to game), and how to govern opposing forces in solo games. Again, it's amazing how much is packed into such a small book! I've now run the solo rules against a defensive and an invading force, and they worked perfectly with such a "one track minded" opponent. I'm going to come up with a neutral objective scenario to really put them to the test!

GRIPES AND COMPLAINTS

No system will ever be immune to gripes and complaints. USE ME is clearly designed to be a shooting game. The weapons table has categories to cover every type of firearm, energy blaster, missile, or mortar you could imagine... but no close combat weapons at all. That means you won't be able to use these rules effectively against "bug" armies, like the Starship Troopers movie or Aliens-inspired games. In fact, the lack of close combat detail makes for some interesting situations in the game. The same penetration table is used in close combat as in shooting... which means an autocannon or mortar crew actually scores higher against dedicated assault troops.

Something else that must be considered when preparing for battle is the resilience of heavy vehicles. Infantry with heavy weapons will need nothing short of a dice miracle to even scratch a heavy vehicle, and cannot destroy them outright. If you are going to run vehicles, make sure there are vehicles on both sides of the game if any are to be Heavy or Super Heavy. Otherwise, just make your tanks into Light Vehicles with Armor, or it will be a very lopsided game!

CONCLUSION

USE ME is designed to be a fast-play set of rules for which you will need minimal preparation, bookkeeping, or special rules. As such, it makes for a great basic wargame. It will never go into extreme science fiction details like net-centric warfare, battlefield intelligence grids, fighting in very extraterrestrial environments, etc... if you want a game with that much detail, you will probably be in the mood for something like Tomorrow's War or 5150. But if you want a quick pickup game to play in an hour, this is exactly what you want - it holds its own extremely well against Forge of War and Mutants and Death Ray Guns, and is far more approachable than Fast and Dirty or Chain Reaction. USE ME is, by far, the most complete one-book game system I've seen in my eighteen years of tabletop wargaming.

FINAL SCORE: 8 out of 10, would jump to a 9 out of 10 if a close combat fix could be added.

Chris

PS: There is an alternate review at The Orky 15mm Blog, if you want another opinion!

Some 15mm Paint Tests

2010-09-29T20:53:00.004-05:00

As a follow-up post to the 15mm showcase, I thought I'd share some of the color schemes I've come up with for my other in-progress forces.

First up we have some Felids from Khurasan Miniatures. In my Conquest System setting, these miniatures are playing the part of one of the first races mankind made contact with outside of Earth, and has enjoyed a long-lasting peaceful relationship. However, the Sulians have been in space longer than mankind, and are very aware of some of the greater threats to the galaxy. While the current Earth government has turned a deaf ear, many of the Conquest System's independent corporations are listening to their warnings.

Their paint scheme is pretty basic... Citadel Foundation Astronomican Grey uniforms with Mordian Blue armor segments. The heads and tails are painted with Macharius Solar Orange and Deneb Stone "spots."

I've been going back and forth on the idea of playing 40k in 15mm ever since I crossed over to the "one true scale." The decision I made is that I should make a few small 40k-like forces... nothing that absolutely MUST be 40k, but something that would do in a pinch. The Universalist infantry from Blue Moon Manufacturing are something that can be an Eldar proxy without actually needing to be Eldar. I went with a basic Biel-tan scheme to match my Epic Eldar force. While I haven't decided how to use these forces in the Conquest System yet, they are still useful for one-off games.

After a year in the scale, I finally added some of the 15mm models that caught my eye in the first place. Critical Mass Games' Arc Fleet Light Infantry are one of my favorite lines in any scale, let alone 15mm. I decided to use a 40k Dark Angels color scheme for my Arc Fleet troops. The light infantry, other than the helmets, appear to be wearing what 40k would call carapace armor. So I used my DA scout paint scheme - bleached bone and DA green. A question to everyone - is the left or the right a better tabletop mini? The Critical Mass models are absolutely covered in detail. The left example simply uses a wash over most of the Bleached Bone, leaving the details unpainted. I can put these on a table very quickly. On the right model I picked out more of the straps/pouches/armor plates with the DA green. While I think it looks a little better, I'm not convinced it's worth the extra time spent on each model.

I've really struggled to find a scheme I like for the Critical Mass Protolene Khanate miniatures. I knew immediately that these were going to be my Roghan forces for the Conquest System - a race from a snow-covered world that has been hunted nearly to the point of extinction by a vastly superior alien empire. So until the day they arrived, my intention was to paint their heads in a sort of Siberian Husky or Malamute color scheme. But the problem, as I realized when I started to paint, was that there was no convincing way to do snow armor and a snow carnivore body on the same mini. So I chose a brown fairly similar to a grizzly bear for their heads, and a color scheme centered around Fenris Gray for the uniforms. The rifle I repainted four times... black, steel, bronze, and finally white. I'm still not happy with the result for the weapon, but I think the rest of the mini turned out pretty well.

I'm also happy with my snow-world terrain piece, and hope to have an entire table of these in the next few weeks.

To reward myself for finishing so many miniatures over the past few months, I grabbed a pack of Astagar Fighters from Critical Mass Games. These were nothing but a just-for-fun set of minis, but I actually think they will find use in some of the filthy spaceport settings I've developed around the Conquest System. I also think they may be useful in some Space Hulk-style shipboard games, but that will be covered in a later post.

As always, feedback is welcome!

Chris

15mm Army Showcase

2010-09-26T12:41:00.007-05:00

A few months back I posted an entry reviewing Rebel Minis' 15mm Titan Marine infantry, with a few pics of the painted results. I thought it would be fun to show how that army is coming together.

One of the things I love most about 15mm sci-fi is the ability to mix and match figures and vehicles from different manufacturers. I went out of my way to accomplish just that with this force. In my own gaming universe (the Conquest System), this army is the corporate military force of the Conquest Development Corporation. CDC forces (usually called Storm Troopers) exist for two reasons... the first is to develop and test CDC weapons technology (which is in turn sold to both Earth and to some alien governments). Their second purpose is to serve as an available military force. Originally these military duties were limited to security for CDC's vast facilities, but eventually this grew into a force that could be purchased when necessary. Earth has found that CDC Storm Troopers accomplish some missions far more quickly than its own military forces, and contracts them when lightning attacks are required.

The force itself, obviously, is centered around Rebel Minis' Titan Marines infantry. One of the minis received a head swap from the Ground Zero Games head sprues. I still need to add some heavy weapons to the mix, but I have enough to play a basic games. I'm also thinking I would like to add some power armor, but I haven't selected the correct miniatures to represent them. Ground Zero Games has some good options, but none really match the Titan Marines' aesthetic.

Speaking of GZG... I used their Cyclops Battlesuits as a mobile recon/strike unit. With the jump packs and weapons load, these are ideal for sabotage missions, direct assaults on protected targets, or supporting infantry in terrain-heavy environments. I also envision these as having the absolute best in battlefield sensors and communications. Anyone who has read the grid warfare section in Tomorrow's War knows exactly what I'm talking about.

For the open battlefield, I wanted an armored force that looked fast, deadly, and advanced. I bought a grav-option Gladius from Old Crow as my first option. I love the appearance, the cleanness of the sculpt, and how well it painted... but I'm not sure it's an aesthetic match for the Cyclops battlesuits or last night's addition (see below). So before I buy an entire armored company from Old Crow, I need to browse through all of the grav tank options once again to make sure there aren't any closer matches.

Since the CDC Storm Troopers are a quick strike force, it makes perfect sense to me that they would utilize dropships as their primary infantry transport. Force XXI used to make my favorite dropship, but he went on hiatus before I could pick any up. I like the Old Crow and GZG units, but neither matched my vision of the CDC forces. So I went back to Rebel Minis and looked in their Earthforce Marines aircraft... they were exactly what i wanted. I think they match the overall aesthetic of the Titan Marines and Cyclops Suits pretty well. I have an army in progress using the Earthforce Marines, but since it is going to be Earth's government forces in my world, I figured it would have a slightly less advanced dropship/gunship option. I think I'll use the Old Crow models with those troops. Though I must admit... Combat Wombat's upcoming ship also looks pretty darn good.

So what's next for this army? I certainly need to buy some heavy weapon infantry and add it along with a Saber Gunship (which I already own but need to paint). And like I said... I want to take one more look around the world at the grav tank options to see if there is a better fit. Assuming there isn't, I'll order two more Gladius tanks in the same configuration I already used, a third with the missile turret, and a fourth with the new support turret option. I may add some Glaive APCs for those missions where a dropship isn't practical. I'm also thinking that I want to add some kind of robot or drone to each infantry squad, but haven't remotely settled on one yet.

I'm open to criticism and suggestions!

Chris

FUBAR Battle Report - Clear the desert!

2010-09-19T17:14:00.007-05:00

After an extremely productive weekend of painting and making hills, I decided that t

oday I should play a quick game of FUBAR as a reward. I still haven't finished assembling my 15mm forces to their completion, but that's hardly an excuse not to play, is it?

BACKGROUND - The Copper Moon,
five clicks south of the Bronze Harbor starport

A local ore hauler informed the Bronze Harbor Police Force that a hostile group of alien thugs had been raiding their shipments. A quick flyover by a spy drone revealed that the aliens were hiding out in a few desert shacks just outside of the starport. A few pictures were taken, and it was clear that there were around eighteen of them, all well-armed.

A patrol was quickly dispatched to handle the situation. The patrol sent included one heavy patrol car (armed with three tribarrel autoguns), an assault team (consisting of two shield/baton troops, two baton-armed canine handlers, and two canines) and a support team (consisting of two grenade launchers and two assault rifles). Normally the assault and support teams would be mounted in armored troop carriers, but their commander hadn't requisitioned them yet (I need to place an order with Ground Zero Games!).

THE BATTLE

The patrol car hit the alien encampment with complete surprise. They found that six of the aliens were patrolling the camp, and opened fire upon them right away. The alien leader then sent a second group of six over the ridge to attempt a crossfire against the invader. They fired, but were unable to damage the patrol car's armor. The alien leader snapped the power claw onto his arm and moved to deal with the situation himself, only to be faced by the assault and support teams.

The battle was quick and brutal. The alien leader engaged the police teams right away, but the canines and power batons, supported by the grenade launchers and assault rifles, were too much. But one dog, his handler, and a riot troop were killed in the assault. One of the alien teams broke away from the patrol car to seek revenge, while the other team killed the three gunners in the patrol car. The police teams tried to stand and fight, but their marksmanship and fighting ability wasn't sufficient against so many aliens. At the end of the melee, four of the aliens were still alive, and both police teams were slaughtered. The damaged and unarmed patrol car limped back to Bronze Harbor to report that the mission had failed.

AFTER ACTION

The more that I look at other rules systems, the more convinced I am that FUBAR is my primary game. This fight took about 30 minutes to play out, but it didn't feel like I was missing any level of detail, nuance of fighting conditions, or make me miss another game system. It was a bit of a fun scenario, one I will definitely run again as I expand these two forces.

Chris

More fun rules part 1 - FUBAR

2010-09-14T09:29:00.006-05:00

Greetings all,

After an extremely busy summer, my life has finally calmed enough that I can get back to my wargaming hobby. And it's a great time to do so. There are three rulesets that will be discussed over the next few posts. The first is a new free ruleset by Craig Cartmell (author of Forge of War) - called FUBAR. It's a great system - something of a hybrid between Forge of War and Ganesha Games' products, but with a few wrinkles of his own. FUBAR is a generic system, with many force lists and supplements being developed (including by me). But there are two things you really need to know about it:

1) It is a free download (found here and on the Forge of War Yahoo group)

2) The entire ruleset prints on a single page, as do each of the force supplements

Yes, you read that correctly. You can print off a single page, grab some six-sided dice, a handful of miniatures, and play a wargame. The game plays extremely well with about 4-10 fire teams or vehicles per side. I've played this two different ways so far. One way was a small skirmish using 40k miniatures (two Ork mobs vs about fifteen Space Marines) on a Cityfight table. The second and more common way I've been playing is Ambush Alley and Ganesha Games style... 15mm sci-fi on a 2' by 2', terrain-heavy playfield.

FUBAR uses just five statistics. Troops use three - armor save (if applicable), activation and expertise. Activation is exactly as it sounds... used to determine whether or not a unit can take actions in a game turn. Expertise is used to resolve all types of combat, and some scenario-specific rolls. Weapons also have just two stats - range and fire points. A sample unit might look like this:

Titan Marines (5) Medium Armor (5+ save), Activation 3+, Expertise 4+

4xAssault Rifles (Range 24", 2FP) and 1xMissile Launcher (Range 32", 3FP)

At the start of the turn, the Titan Marine player wins initiative. He rolls a D6 to activate his unit, and the result is 5. Since Titan Marines activate on a 3+, the roll is successful. The Titan Marines are 20" away from a unit of Scourge (3+ armor save). The Titan Marines can fire a total 11FP at this range, so they roll 11 dice against their Expertise. Every roll of 4+ (their expertise) is a success, and the Scourge will be hit unless they pass their armor saves. That's the basics of FUBAR combat. There are many more effects, such as suppression, cover effects, and some special rules for the Scourge's automated nature.

But those are the basics. Simple and fun. The entire point of FUBAR.

Chris

Dual Post: Painted New Terrain and Titan Marines Review

2010-06-10T10:32:00.006-05:00

Greetings all!

The molds for the 15mm buildings and barricades are coming along well, and I have the first batch of production-ready casts complete. I'm still hoping for a product release sometime before the end of June, but it may be pushed back to early July since I'm closing on a new home.

In any case, I did take the time to get one of the small modular buildings painted up for a demo, along with my first squad of Rebel Minis Titan Marines. Thanks again to Rebel Mike for letting me use his minis in my semi-promotional pics!

I've received a few questions about how difficult the resin terrain will be to paint. In the past, I've had some problems with other resin models, so I did want to investigate this myself. The answer? No problems at all! The models are just textured enough that they take primer without any issues, even with the mold release unwashed. What you're seeing above is:

Two light coats of Armory Black primer
A quick drybrush of Citadel Foundation Adeptus Battlegrey
Doors and roof tiles picked out in Citadel Foundation Mechrite Red
Windows and roof hatch in Citadel Boltgun Metal
A quick wash of Citadel Badab Black over the roof and doors.

The whole thing took 45 minutes to paint after the primer was dry, and I'm pleased with the results. I'll pick out a few more details on the control panels and get it onto a proper desert base this evening and post an update (the paper tiles in the pic came from Ebbles Miniatures).

Part II - Rebel Minis Titan Marines

I never did take the time to review these troops. Of all the 15mm sci-fi minis I've picked up over the last year, these are easily my favorites. The Titan Marines have the appearance of moderately armored, mid-tech elite troops (their nearest 40k analog would be inquisitorial stormtroopers with bolters). They have very little in the way of mold lines, very realistic "advancing" poses, highly detailed weapons, and are simple to paint to a tabletop standard. Their appearance can range anywhere from a sci-fi nazi force to a neo-samurai analog. In my own games, I will be using them as quick-strike troops for limited, precise missions. Their paint scheme is basically the same as the building:

Base on pennies
Undercoat with Armory Black
Drybrush with Adeptus Battlegrey
Weapon and facemask highlighted with Boltgun Metal
Armor and helmet picked out in Mechrite Red
Dip the base in some rough, gravelly sand

My first unit of eight was completed in about two hours. Since Rebel Mike hasn't released the support weapons or command models yet I decided to give one of the Marines a single silver shoulderpad.

The models are still a bit plain, and I would like to make them stand out a bit more in the future. I'm thinking some kind of sci-fi jagged camo pattern on the red armor (black and pale grey) would make for a good finish. If you want to see these figures completed by a real painter, I highly recommend Jeff Racel's galleries.

Chris

EVENING UPDATE: TWO MORE PICS

I grabbed two quick shots after basing the small building on a CD and dipping it in sand. One is another close up, and another depicts the building defended by Titan Marines. The attackers in this shot are Rebel Minis Scourge.