Sunday 7 March 2010

It's what we call a shake and bake colony...

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My WIP GZG shanty town, the fruits of yesterday's labour! It's the early morning shift leaving for work on LV-426b.

GZG 15mm Sci Fi
Shanty/Shacks and Colony Bar


Click on pictures for bigger images

What you see in the pictures are two GZG V15-Col4 Shack Sets, V15-Col1a Colony Bar (basic structure), 1 pack of SG15-ACC20 Large Cargo Containers and 1 pack of SG15-ACC21 Medium Cargo Containers. The figures are mostly GZG SG15-V4 Techs and Crew, plus a two man company security patrol at the end of the street from SG15-V6 Colonial Security (cops). These were freebies as part of Jon's colony shanty/bar launch offer in Feb. In all, excluding figures what you see comes to £63. Money well spent!

Not included as it's mostly painted, mostly, is the V15-Col1b Colony Bar (with extension). I still have to add the awnings and smaller details before I start painting the colony, which won't be till next weekend now as I'm itchy to convert some figures this evening and over the coming week nights.

First shack assembled,
Only 2 hours to go....


I am really happy with this little 'colony'. Those of you old enough to have enjoyed Donald Featherstone's Wargamers' Newsletter back in the seventies will remember the annual Old West Gunfight competition - was it in Southampton? Wargamers Newsletter carried excellent write-ups of these, which I fondly remember to this day and you can see the Old West inspiration in how I've set out the colony/post apoc survivor town.

I've got several great ideas for extending the 'colony', but all in good time. I'm looking forward to seeing Mike's shanty creations at The Scene, which should be available in a week or two. Plus, Andrew at Amera Plastic Mouldings will be testing whether he can successfully Vac-form 15mm shanties and more.

I think you'll agree that there's lot's of gaming opportunity ahead!

Cheers
Mark
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10 comments:

  1. Freaking awesome!

    I want to make my colony now!

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  2. A very nice layout indeed. How do you plan to base them, if you do?

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  3. I don't plan to base them at this time Eli to keep them as versatile as possible. What I will do is print off the squared terrain tiles that are included with Mars Station from Worldworks Games: http://www.worldworksgames.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=5&products_id=30

    This way I can play quick and dirty scenarios using HOF Fireteam.

    Cheers
    Mark

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  4. Looks great! :)

    Did you also buy their colonial prefabs set? It also looks great and also reminds me of Aliens...

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  5. that colonist down by the packing crates is a villain - see how he's right out of the LoS of the security detail? Just "happened to go by the storage facility"? Yeah right. After that Blue Sun Biotech blag? And that Separatist explosion at docking bay 43? he's too shiny, he's trying to blend in with the others. Fire up the HoverQuattro and nick 'im. By the way - it's 2173, almost lunchtime - I'm 'avin 'oops.

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  6. The future is corrugated!

    This looks to have much potential. Keep us posted!

    Maybe you can make a large, permanently-grounded Dropship that has the government centers bolted to its outer hull. Kinda like a Niven story. A large Easter Egg is my suggestion.

    Best,
    JBR

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  7. Looks excellent, Mark - I'm looking forward to seeing the results when you start to get it all painted....

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  8. My colony layouts tend to involve picking two or three building styles and dividing the board between them. With stupid names! District 9 is the shanty town (due to be scrapped and replaced by GZG's buildings and others, as mine are terrible), Pallet Town for the containers and warehousing areas (where delinquent youth force alien pets to fight each other?), with chain-link fences around clusters of crates and containers, Hadley's Hope for GZG's colony buildings...
    I don't have an advanced sector with bigger, fancier buildings and working street lights yet, but I'm thinking of making one.

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  9. Anon, you are replicating my thinking - a scalable colony with the GZG shacks as a starting point. I have a full set of the pre-fabs plus a 'colony' star base - to be mixed and matched as appropriate.

    I would suggest you don't discard your shanties - IMO the GZG models are too Kirsty Allsop 'des res' to be mere shanties.

    Cheers
    Mark

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  10. I'm thinking about buying the GZG prefab package, though the only thing keeping me from doing so is my very limited storage space; I only have a 60cm by 30cm shelf to put all my minis and related stuff on, and it is already about 75% full. And I still want to buy some 15mm fantasy minis to spice up my D&D games, too!

    Ahhh... Choices, choices...

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