Titanium Dropship - As Saiqa Drop Troops

"These guys are my As Saiqa Drop Troops.  These guys are blue moon miniatures orion republic heavy infantry, though I arabized the leader a bit with some a mop of black curly hair.  They're the spearhead for my Neo-Caliphate troops (Khurasan space arabs!), which I'd show here too if I could enter more than one." By Zabarr!

Titanium Dropship - 15mm Blood Angels and Leman Russ

And a third contestant with both Squad Leaders and Vehicle Commander: 15mm Blood Angels Terminators and a 15mm (of course) Leman Russ by Gunner from Gunners Wargaming. 

"(...) 15mm Blood Angels Terminator assault squad, heavily converted from Eureka 25mm NSL power armour, bare head is from a 15mm Khurasan Iroquois warrior, the vehicle is a 15mm Death Korps of Krieg Vanquisher, converted from 1/76 Airfix WWI Mk IV tank, the figures are converted 15mm Blue Moon WWI Germans (...)"

New Blue Moon 15mm Sci-Fi

By Eli

It's been a bit since we have seen any release from Blue Moon Manufacturing for their 15mm science fiction range, but I am happy to say that their latest is a little bit of quality. While many of their previous releases fell into a vary space opera or even pulpy vein, the newest release 15ALN-122 Galactica Mercenaries seems a bit grittier.

Depicting hard armored trooper and command these figures ride a nice line between classic space opera and a more realistic future soldier. Unlike the last two releases from Blue Moon, the Nevis and Averum, the Galactica Mercenaries come complete with very obvious command, heavy and spacial weapons along with their regular troopers. This makes this 10-figure pack much more useful to forming regular military forces.

Nevis and Averum - Blue Moon's Recent Aliens

So, it seems a few new aliens in 15mm snuck past us here at the ol' Dropship Horizon. Back around June-ish, Blue Moon Manufacturing released two new ten-packs of aliens - the Nevis and Averum.

Both packs present to the gamer with five poses of light infantry, equipped with rifles and little armor. Neither pack seems to offer an obvious leader or special weapon type, though the latter shouldn't be hard to convert from any one of the poses.

Nevis painted by Rich McGee

Averum painted by Rich McGee

Thanks to Rich for the use of his pics of his expertly painted examples of the figures.

-Eli

Galactic War One unveiled

Blue Moon Manufacturing have announced the release of their 15mm sci-fi wargames rules Galactic War One  to accompany the company's exquisitely pulpy 15mm sci-fi miniature range. The Dropship crew tracked down one of the authors, Scott Pyle, to get the skinny on this new release.

Scott, Joseph Dragovich and Schuyler Hernstrom collaborated on this set of rules for Blue Moon Manufacturing's growing line of 15mm Sci-fi figures and vehicles.
A perfect-bound soft-cover book, Galactic War I weighs in at 96 pages and features colour covers and black & white interior illustrations by Chris Moeller. Layout work is by Karl Perrotton. Example unit records and a quick reference sheet, both designed to be copied & printed, round out the package.

Over the last two years of development and play-testing, Scott and Joseph's goals were to make this set of rules easy to learn, efficient and fun to play and yet allow two players to move lots of minis around the table, completing a game in a reasonable period of time. The background, concepts and flavour for the setting were very much the province of Schuyler Hernstrom.


Scott has produced three other game titles complementing Blue Moon's different minis lines, so it makes sense that Blue Moon's owner, Russ Dunaway, should call on Scott for a 15mm Sci-fi rule-set. But Galactic War I is definitely a departure from Scott's respected 'Goal System' game design; this is not a space-flavoured extension of the "Chaos In" series of games.

Galactic War I features a 3d6 opposed-roll mechanic, multiple figure basing and plays at the platoon to company level. Vehicles and walkers are a big part of the fun. A skirmish-mod allows games to be played out using the same mechanics but with smaller numbers of individually based minis. There is no campaign system, but an interesting 'Battle Zones and Scenarios' generator encourages you to fight out battles on exotic alien worlds featuring game-changing environments.

While GWI is intended to stand beside the Blue Moon line, a complete build-system allows you to stat-up and bring in 15mm minis from any manufacturer.
Co-author Joseph Dragovich has published some interesting details on his blog,check it out.
These rules are available now from Blue Moon or from Old Glory.

Blue Moon rises over the Orange Planet

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Keeping Pulp Sci Fi firmly in mind, Master Chef has whipped off an order to RAFM which includes a couple of packs of Dracos Warriors for each of us.

RAFM 15mm Sci Fi

Pack RAF07017

The Dracos are ex-Citadel Traveller Droyne. I never really got the Droyne. I don't think it was helped by Traveller Miniatures Box Set 5 Aliens only having 5 Droyne of which 3 had Lasers/blasters when we needed a swarm.  As Dracos they'll make a nice party of Alien scumbags on the Orange Planet.

In return, I'm including 3 packs of  Orion Heavy Infantry for Master Chef in my order to Blue Moon Manufacturing via Old Glory UK.

Blue Moon Manufacturing 15mm Sci Fi

Pack 15ALN-101

He like's Spacejacker's green camo scheme (pictured above). In truth, so do I, but I want to paint the initial bunch aas blue but not-quite Space Marines.though I'll wait till I get the minis before I make a final decision.

From a Pulp perspective there's a lot to recommend the Blue Moon range. The Thawnax Horde become a must for the unwary explorer and the Betelguesans are now likely to be the dastardly Bond villain style bad guys, always up to no good on the Orange Planet....Da, Da, Dahhh!

Cheers

Mark

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How to Get Blue Moon 15/18mm Sci Fi in UK

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I had decided to go for a couple of packs of Blue Moon Manufacturing's Sci Fi figures until that is I saw the postage rates to the UK and thought "Rebel Minis are just $5. You are having a giraffe fellas!"

 Blue Moon Manufacturing 15/18mm Sci Fi

Orion Republic Heavy Infantry

So yesterday I emailed Andy at Old Glory UK. Andy got back to me straight away and said that he's happy to take orders for the range and will include them in his monthly order to Blue Moon. He reckons they'll be around £5 a pack plus normal Old Glory UK postage. Turn round once order placed 4-6 weeks, maybe less. Cheers Andy. Good bloke!

If you are starting out in 15mm Sci Fi, a pack of this, that the other from Blue Moon will populate your wretched hive of scum and villainy. So, if you want to get hold of these Sci Fi retro delights, email Andy at info@oldglory.com

I have to say that to me, there's very much a silver painted washing up squeezy bottle spaceship feel about these minis. I used to work in Education and visiting primary schools I'd regularly come across the obligatory silver painted 'Sci Fi City' made out of cereal boxes, butter tubs, Dairy Lea cartons and toilet tubes. I loved them for their naivety and quietly wished to myself, that I could take them home to play a Sci Fi game with. And you know, Blue Moon are just THE figures that would have been right at home here with their campy retro Cold War era Sci Fi character.

The Orion Republic Heavy infantry are a must have. There's something W40K meets Forbidden Planet that I find appealing. The Terran Confederation Legion Troopers (that's a mouthful) also as they have a certain Emperor Mong humanoid bad guy vibe.

In fact, I think this entire range is perfect for Alien Squad Leader v0.2 which is a fun no-nonsense game that plays to the pulp'iness of these miniatures and will encourage me to order more of the alien codes in due course.

Cheers

Mark

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Blue Moon Rising

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Are they, aren't they, are they.......Yes, finally, Blue Moon Manufacturing have bombarded the 15mm Sci Fi market with a ToT release of  more than a dozen human, alien and mech 'squad' packs, together with no less than 24 vehicles and walkers.

I have to say first off there's some really nice looking alien bad asses that will find their way onto my tabletop such as the 15ALN-113 Zennox.

The majority of the figure packs have a very 'retro' or 'pulp' Sci Fi feel to them. If you are a fan of AE Van Vogt, EE Doc Smith's Galactic Patrol, or any humanoid aliens on Star Trek with weird greeblies sticking out their heads - you are in for a treat! Some will even double as W40K proxies, such as Orions, who could make decent alternative 15mm Space Marine chapters and the Terran Federation as retro Space Elves.

I do welcome the new alien races, giving gamers plenty of choice, especially  those which aren't greeblied up humanoids. Overall there's little that personally speaking makes me go 'wow' about the range. This Sci Fi grognard see's just one more collection of 'squad' packs with guys waving weapons in the air. I'm sure sales, bouyed up by a renewed interest in 15mm Sci Fi from newbies to the genre attracted by the ranges that have come online in the past year will say otherwise.

Cheers

Mark

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