Mr. Harold's Hobby Stuff - FloryModels Clay Wash

Hey everyone!

While I have my favorite wash for painting infantry models (Army Painter Strong Tone) I've never been able to find a wash I was particularity happy with for vehicles.

Using the Strong tone (or Dark tone) on vehicles can be problematic because it tends to stain even the raised parts which can darken the whole model.  The solution to this has been to use an AK Interactive Enamel wash which can applied and then wiped off with a Q-tip and mineral spirits.

I disliked using the enamel paints since they can be more odorous than the water-based paints, and it necessitates having a different system to clean the brushes.

I recently managed to stumble upon a new wash, a FloryModels.co.uk Clay-based acrylic wash called Dark Dirt.

The great thing is that I can use it as the AK Interactive wash and simply apply it all over the model.  Once it dried I also use a Q-Tip but armed with only water instead of mineral spirits or thinner.

I tried it on my Recon Assault Transport (RAT from http://www.clearhorizonminiatures.com) after a base coat of light grey:

I've also used it on some light tanks from Darkest Star Games.  

The model before the wash

The wash still wet, straight from the bottle.

Once the wash has dried I use damp q-tips and makeup sponges to remove excess wash

Just needs decals!

Another angle showing the effects of the wash.

As you can see, the process is very easy with great results.  And you can always remove it if you don't like the effect and want to start over.

Once you've gotten it to where you like it I would seal it with a varnish.  If you put decals on first make sure to varnish the decals before putting the wash on, as the process for removing the wash might remove the decals too.

The only problem with the wash is that it's hard to find!  I picked mine up at SprueBrothers.com but it appears they are out of this specific wash.   It also appears that Flory Models might be on vacation or something?  

I'll update this if I find another source or brand of clay-based wash, but otherwise I highly recommend it!

Alpha Terminus Part 2: Setting Design Guidelines

In a previous article I spoke about how back story can be used to create internal consistency and can be reflected in the the rules that you use to war game. While those principles can be used to create more-interesting fiction, they can also affect other parts of the war gaming hobby including your choice of models and rule sets. Here are a couple of ways that I am using those principles in the design of Alpha Terminus:

No Mono-Cultures

It's always bothered me that unlike Humans entire alien races are often depicted as having the exact same values, practices, and government. Humans aren't all Americans, after all, and aliens generally shouldn't be depicted as mono-cultures. That isn't to say that there can't be any monolithic cultures but they should be the exception and there should always be a reason for the species to have developed in that manner.

From a war gaming perspective avoiding mono-cultures in your back story makes it easier to relate various 15mm alien miniatures to one another. For example models from the Sons of Thunder (Rebel Minis), Gitungi (Micropanzer) and Thrainite (Khurasan Miniatures) miniature lines all have a similar form factor. In your fluff they could easily reflect three different cultures stemming from a single alien race.

•  The Mon'grhal are a former slave race who were bio-engineered to be hyper-adaptable to nearly any environment. Given a few weeks in a new environment Mon'ghral biology will change to tolerate a wide variety of environmental conditions. They've only recently broken away from their former masters and have no home system of their own. Luckily their ability to adapt isn't restricted to environmental conditions. Mon'grhal enclaves have formed all over the known worlds; when these settlements are near those of other races the Mon'grhal quickly assimilate to the culture of their neighbors. Now the Mon'grhal are one of the most culturally diverse peoples in the galactic community.
• The Khazalid were once as diverse a people as the Humans of Earth, but that all changed when a world war broke out on their home world of Khaz. The Khazalid Imperium, and their Iron Legions, rose from the ashes of Khaz and begun to suppress those that opposed Imperial rule. Generations later the Khazalid appear to be mono-cultural but that isn't really the case. While the majority of the Khazalid now follow the "traditional" clan structure of the Imperium, cultural practices outlawed as divisive by the government have moved under ground, or are practiced by Khazalid who have re-settled outside of Imperium space.
• The Lyscorcid are a true-monoculture, if they can be said to even have a culture. The insectoid aliens form hives made up mono-taskers. Every drone fulfills a specific purpose and never deviates from it's task. They have no families, social organizations, or cultural practices as other races would define them. Still, the hives often seem to move with purpose towards specific goals which indicates that an intelligence is organizing them.

Technological Limitations

Certain technologies make war gaming boring: why fight a pitched battle when an orbiting ship can just drop a nuke down on the opposing army? It's ok to impose some artificial limitations on technology in your setting in order to facilitate better, more interesting game play. The key to limiting technology in this way is to build the reasons for it into your fluff.

• No warp drives. While space faring vessels in Alpha Terminus can travel very, very fast there is no engine that can propel them at faster than light speeds. Instead most travel between solar systems is done via 'Terminus Gates' that create stable wormholes between two gates. Ships can travel to other solar systems using conventional sub-light drives, but those journeys take many years. A side effect of having to rely on Terminus Gates for travel is that all races have limitations on how big their ships can be (which if awfully convenient for any space ship war gaming I might do using the setting).
• Trans-human immortality is a lie...sort of. Time eventually brings death to everyone, and nearly everyone is afraid of it. One way of avoiding old age in some science fiction is to transfer a sentient consciousness to a computer or installing it in a new body. Most species in Alpha Terminus have developed the technology necessary to transfer consciousness but the process is flawed. Every time the mind of a sentient creature is transferred from its original body to any other storage medium the ability to feel emotion is dampened and all empathy for other sentients is lost. Immortality is a reality but all immortals are, in effect, sociopaths.
• Nukes are too dangerous to use. Space faring cultures have developed weapons capable of destruction on a scale that is unimaginable but they rarely employe them. The Alpha Terminus system and the systems with direct gate connections are the most sought after pieces of real estate in the galaxy. The gate technology in those systems reacts violently to weapons fire over a certain magnitude; the reaction is so violent that entire fleets, and the ground forces that they support, can be wiped away in single stroke (more on this in the next article). Consequently most ships aren't equipped with WMD systems. When such weapons are required they are usually fitted to ships via external weapon racks.

Alpha Terminus Part 1 (or Confessions of a Fluff Bunny)

I hate Warhammer 40K as a game. My reasons are pretty typical for WH40K decriers: rapid edition turnover, seemingly planned model obsolescence, exorbitant model cost, etcetera. For those reasons I don't play the game...but I love the WH40K universe.

The fluff behind the WH40K universe is incredibly well developed. Each faction has a rich history that evolves as it is continuously expanded. The Imperium is constantly on the precipice of destruction and is kept from tipping over only by the strength of the Imperial Guard and Space Marines. The enigmatic Eldar travel through the galaxy fighting to prevent, or bring to fruition, the visions of their Farseers. Orks go faster when their trukks are painted red. WH40K fiction may be excessively grimdark, but it also informs how armies are designed by the game developers and provides context that can make the game more than just chess with fancy plastic soldiers.

These days I play 15mm sci fi war games. In my experience the community is better, models are more reasonably priced than in other scales and there are dozens of rule sets available. Unfortunately the scale is somewhat lacking in fluff. That isn't to say that there aren't rule sets or miniatures that are accompanied by interesting back story; games like Hammer's Slammers, Tomorrow's War, Critical Mass, and Gruntz do include a fictional world to fight over. Furthermore a great many 15mm miniatures manufactures write little blurbs of fiction for their offerings. The problem I find is that much of the 'official' available fluff is written in such a way as to support a very specific style of game or, alternatively, is very disjointed. Let me be clear: the 'official' fluff that is available in the 15mm 'verse is good, but it isn't exactly what I am looking for.

So whats a fluff bunny like me supposed to do? Write my own fluff of course! I've already got a name for the setting: Alpha Terminus. In order to get the ball rolling we need to take look at what my game setting should bring to the table:

Context
I like chess, but the experience of playing chess is not something that I want to recreate on my 4x6 battlefield. Fluff provides context that makes the little bits of metal, plastic and resin more than just a handful of models. They are tiny soldiers fighting for their governments and for their very lives. Every battle should be a story that unfolds with each roll of the dice. I want to play battles that feel like they matter:

• A garrison of Khazalid militia digs in to repel the single minded might of a Lyscorcid Battlehive. If they hold the swarm back long enough the colonist-miners might just survive until the Iron Legion arrives.
• A rag-tag cell of Omega Protocol operatives leads a mercenary strike force into a stronghold of the Universal Soldality. The must prevent the cultists from bringing their extra-dimensional god forth into our reality.
• A drop-mobile force of power armor and grav tanks from the Martian Consortium is forced into a emergency deployment when their troopship is ambushed. Scattered on a fog-shrouded world, they must link up with each other in order to form an effective defense against the Lost Colony body-snatchers that destroyed their transport. 

Internal Consistency
The 15mm Sci Fi war gaming hobby is full of generic rules that make designing a new army a breeze. The problem is that easy army building all to often results in armies made up of random models thrown together without much thought given to how they work together. It's not uncommon to see folks using armies that have tracked vehicles alongside grav vehicles, heavy mechs alongside heavy tanks, robotic soldiers alongside flesh and blood troops and other combinations. This makes sense as there are loads of awesome, scale-appropriate, models available; besides, who want's to buy a new model and not use it right?

I don't necessarily have a problem with armies made up of seemingly random model selections, but my preference is to have some kind reason for it beyond "those are the models I had". Establishing those reasons is what I mean by internal consistency. It guides how a particular force is designed and what kind of models I purchase for it in the future.

• The Lyscorid breed their soldiers and war machines with singular purpose. A grunt will be equipped with a rifle or a hand to hand weapon, but not both. An anti-armor bio-tank is designed to stalk and kill heavily armored targets, but lacks any kind of defense against infantry. The swarm is an army of mono-taskers.
•  The Omega Protocol is a secret conspiracy that combats extra-dimensional threats. It organizes it's highly skilled agents into autonomous cells. The organization utilizes mercenaries when it needs troops for larger engagements. Their army list will always have a core of 'hero' units to represent the cell in charge but the rest could be just about anything.
• The Martian Consortium has a technological edge on most of the other Human factions, but they have a much smaller population. Consequently they rely heavily on robotic drones and equip their precious Human soldiers with advanced power armor. Their army list will primarily consist of drone grav vehicles, robotic troopers, and powered infantry.

Rules
As I've mentioned previously there are loads of generic rules available for 15mm Sci Fi war games. Most of them present a method for designing your troops. The problem is that it is all to easy to exploit the rules to avoid sub-optimal options, or worse find exploits in the rules to build super-armies that have no weaknesses. The end result is a game in which one player completely steamrolls the other, or where both players show up with armies that are built exactly the same but sing different models A decent backstory is one tool that can be used to avoid meta-gaming, build realistic deficiencies into an army, and ensure that every army presents a unique play experience.

• Lyscorcid units are mono-taskers. Their grunts will be good at either shooting or hand-to-hand combat, but not both. Additionally, their skill as doing anything else for objectives (enter a self-destruct code, plant explosives, hack a computer terminal) will be minimal. Anti-tank vehicles will only have anti-armor weapons and will be ill-equipped to combat infantry. This design theme will be represented throughout every element in the army.
•  The Omega Protocol will always have a core of 'hero' specialist units that are good at whatever they need to do, but these will always be single-model units. Other units are mercenaries that follow their own unit commanders. Consequently Omega Protocol armies will have no central commander model. Instead each group of mercenary units with have their own sub-commander.
• The Martian Consortium will primarily consist of robotic troopers and grav vehicles. The robotic troopers will be of average skill, but won't have to worry about morale. They will, however, be vulnerable to electronic warfare. The grav vehicles are very advanced compared to the vehicles of other human factions, but will be expensive to field so there won't be many of them on the battlefield. Since the Consortium has few human troops, there will never be more than one squad of human power armor troopers to every 2 or 3 squads of robots.

Those are the rules that I will live by in designing my universe. Next time I'll present some actual Alpha Terminus fluff...