Columbian Guinea Pig Fever........

I've spent the last few days consigned to my bed. The reaction to the cats has subsided with the help of a HEPA air purifier, not cheap but cheaper than posting the cats back to the breeder. My chest has cleared but I think it opened me up to a vicious bout of something nasty with flu-like symptoms, which is I am glad to say are starting to dissipate.

The good news is that it's given me time to finish reading The Ghost Brigades by John Scalzi. Bloody excellent read and thoroughly recommended to anyone who wants to write Sci Fi orientated rules, especially if you want to incorporate clones and neural intelligence/communication nets. There are potentially 4 gameable scenarios within the book though the attack on the Heirarch's Palace is gold dust and a must to play. I'm reminded in a small way of a Classic Traveller double adventure; Divine Intervention/Night of Conquest, Double Adventure 6.

At least I was well enough for us to enjoy a beautiful evening last night and whilst Heather took charge of the BBQ, I was able to pour over the first draft of Ambush Alley: Force on Force's futuristic/sci fi variant which Shawn kindly sent me to look at.

Sunset in The Shire

(click on picture for closer view)

The postie arrived with 100 Space Troopers (blame the W40K novels!) and 2 packs of Jet Bikes from Mike at The Scene along with some very nice low 'green' hills. On opening the package Heather says....."You buying a 15mm golf course" but agreed that they were well made, nicely finished and looked good on the tabletop (for 15mm Eastern Front etc).

The Space Troopers are well cast, robust miniatures, though the detail on some of the helmet faces aren't as crisp as they used to be. No worries, a portion of these guys are becoming WWW2 types with Peter Pig WW2 separate heads. The Jet bikes are great and I really like the 'Gimp' helmets worn by the riders. It's a shame only one of the three riders is firing a 'pistol' though, as he does makes for a very nice figure. Recommended! (pics to follow).

The Space Troopers are to fight Battlefront's new Soviet Assault Engineer-Sappers in an never-ending struggle for a decaying and destroyed city. I may, try to sculpt some hoods and masks on the Sappers to resemble the Forge World Chaos Renegade Militia, which I think are brilliant (especially the vehicle crew), sort of Texas Chanisaw Massacre meets W40K!

Cheers
Mark

Weird World War II - Retro Neo Soviets

If you remember, I made a post about Weird World War Two just a week or so back. I subsequently placed my first order with Maelstrom Games which arrived in double-quick time the same week.


I have to say that if Battlefront's Soviet Roto Razvedki Universal Carriers (with crew) lived up to expectations then Soviet Leytenant A V Pyl’cyn and Submachine-Gun Company surpassed them. Excellent miniatures sculpted by Evan Allen, they are closer to the original Battlefront figures than those blocky ones which have appeared in recent years. With this Submachine-Gun company you feel that you are getting a whole army, there are so many figures. There's something very satisfying about opening a blister with 40 or so miniatures which make up a complete unit rather than a ziplock bag of 8-10 figures.

Anyhoo....for ages I have hankered for decent Soviet WW2 assault engineer-sappers in camo suits and body armour. I think mostly because there's just something vaguely retro Neo-Soviet Sci Fi or even alternative history about them. They are the sort of soldiers I'd expect to see in a latter day interpretation of Shakespeare. More Ian Mckellan in Richard III (1995) than Kenneth Branagh lovey-lovey.

Not only can I use these as Late WW2 Soviets, but this retro Ne0-Soviet look encourages me to use them both as Zombie-Nazi hunters and also some kind of cheap but plentiful Low-Medium Tech Sci Fi urban combat force, inspiration coming from the photo above.

Well, the good news this week is that Battlefront announced Soviet Engineer-Sappers as upcoming releases on 16th May! Huzzah!

Engineer-Sapper Battalion (SBX13)

and Flame-thrower Company (SU804)

Looking at the photos on the website it appears that Battlefront have pulled off another classic flanker on the other 15mm WW2 manufacturers! Now don't get me wrong, when Battlefront releases something bad it is usually very, very bad. But when good, it's generally GREAT! And SBX13 looks like one of Evan's greats!

Like the Master Chef, I used to turn to Peter Pig to come out with figures that had this sort of uniqueness and character and I'm sure the WW2 wargame fraternity would have hailed the Battlefront Soviet Roto Razvedki Universal Carriers as a stroke of genius if issued by Peter Pig. However, like them or loathe them, in my opinion Battlefront have been at the forefront of turning out some fresh and interesting WW2 miniatures in recent years.

The Soviet Engineer-Sappers Battalion boxed set has 134 figures with loads of decent poses/weapon types including Panzerfausts and plenty of characters, especially amongst the NCOs and officers. The boxed set also includes two generic 1930-40's trucks - useful for Pulp games. You can see from the photo above that the Soviet Engineer-Sappers in body armour and camo suits just look out of the WW2 norm and are well worth being considered for use in a different context, be it Weird WW2, alternate history or Sci Fi.

Cheers
Mark

I Have Mostly Been Reading.......The Last Colony

I have to thank the Master Chef for sending me what have turned out to be two great reads, both from the same author...The Last Colony and The Ghost Brigades by John Scalzi.

A major and unexpected downside of introducing the kittens has been that I have quite unexpectedly been increasingly debilitated in the evenings by an astmatic allergic reaction to them.

The only respite has been to retire to bed and lie on my side till the rasping in my chest subsides. The upside has been that it's been a perfect opportunity to read these books.

It's been a long time since I've read a book that I couldn't put down and the The Last Colony is such a book. It's a well written, intelligent and entertaining space opera.

Our main protagonisti being a war veteran turned colonial administrator presented with an opportunity to start a new colony on a newly charted planet. Only, it's a strange mix of colonists, the equipment in the manifest is antiquated and supplies in the stores don't add up. When they make the jump into hyperspace they come out in uncharted space and are faced with landing on an uncharted world. And that's only the first of many interesting and thoughtful twists in the story.

Bloody excellent, it turned out that Last Colony is the third and last of a series of novels by John Scalzi which explore interstellar politics and warfare through the eyes and experience of the principal characters who tie the stories together.

I'm about half way through The Ghost Brigades and enjoying it just as much. It starts with a bang and a subtle but exciting twist in the storyline. Basically, two alien species have been fighting each other for 30 years but now joined forces to wipe out mankind with the help of a renegade human scientist whose field of expertise is DNA.

The 'ghost brigades' are the Colonial Defence Forces elite. DNA engineered militarised clones given the consciousnesses of the old and dead. Born again as fully grown adults without memories or moral self, they can be given the jobs ordinary human soldiers with life experiences, hopes and aspirations would baulk at.

An interesting premise for Sci Fi wargames' human troop types and opens an intresting debate on what 'human' soldiers would be like in the future!

Cheers
Mark

Life Work The Universe......and Kittens

As you may have guessed, our lives have become taken over by these fellas, Michaelovitch & Gabrilovitch, or Moskau and Zoly to you. So wargames, blog et al have had to take second place......

Heather was expecting lots of quiet kitty cuddles, but instead we appear to have brought a pair of Tasmanian Devils into our home. At 13 weeks old, their energy is boundless, expended in an almost endless round of chasing, ambushing and (harmlessly) fighting each other.

Moskau and Zoly's energy is only surpassed by their curiosity....What does Citadel Paint taste like? What does that paintbrush taste like? What if I chew that just painted figure? No surface or shelf is safe. They are fascinated by the laptop screen and it's a battle to keep them from jumping onto the keyboard - grrrrrrr.

Of course, they do have their quiet moments........


......but not many! Nevertheless, they are great little characters in their own right, both lovely and fun. I feel I have done my bit in bonding with them and from this weekend am going to retire to the study in the evenings behind closed door to get on with my hobby (and grab some peace!).

Cheers
Mark

Scatter Terrain: Wasteland Crater

This dramatic Wasteland Crater is one of my favourite terrain pieces.

I bought several sets of craters from Amera Plastic Mouldings 'Future Zone' for my lunar landscape and couldn't resist adding a couple to my wasteland terrain. Nominally 28mm, these craters are excellent for 15mm and great value for money. I thoroughly recommend them.

The crater you see is made from the Z201 Crater Set on a 3mm MDF base (approx 9"x6"). MDF is both a joy and a curse to work with. I found that you can cut through 3mm MDF using a sharp Stanley knife with a bit of force behind it. For straight lines it's even simpler, run your Stanley along a steel ruler and then move the 'cut' to your workbench edge and simply 'snap' along the join for a clean cut (mostly). Edges can quickly and easily be tidied up with a sanding block.


The 'rocks' are chips of 'Scottish Red' gravel from the garden. The trees are twigs taken from a dead Lavendar plant which Heather over pruned last year. This Lavendar plant lives on as a series of wasteland trees in 15mm and a 28mm Sci Fi/Fantasy Forest of Doom! Recommend you plant a couple in your garden as a renewable source of wargames terrain!

The trees were stuck in place using the granite/marble epoxy cement I've mentioned in the past. The rest of the groundwork is once again, sharp sand available from any builders merchants.

I used matt terracotta household emulsion to coat everything bar the rocks and the trees. The terracotta picks out the accent colour in my desert playing surface but also has that reddish Martain landscape feel to it.


A very weak wash of Citadel Devlan Mud was applied to the base and rocks with darker coats built up on the crater itself, especially the interior. I lightly dry-sponged terracotta back over the lip and exterior of the crater, followed by the lightest of touches with a drybrush of 'stone'. Don't worry about mistakes, additional applications of Devlan Mud can hide or mute down the most cack-handed attempts at drybrushing. I speak from experience!

Finally, the sand and rocks had an equally light drybrush of a lighter sandy 'pebble' colour.

Originally, I had intended to create a yellow or brown pool inside the crater but liked the way it looked as it was, so decided to stop there. I can always go back at a later stage and do this with tinted varnish if the fancy takes me.

This terrain piece was done as a batch along with two similar craters, the whole project being completed in about an hour. Helped along by placing the craters in direct sunlight on a demi-pallet in the garden to speed up drying the PVA and again once I applied the terracotta paint.

Hope this encourages you to have a go!

Cheers
Mark

15mm sci fi, 15mm sci fi, 15mm science fiction, 15mm science fiction, sci fi terrain, sci fi terrain, scatter terrain, terrain building, terrain building

Scatter Terrain: Mini Escarpments

Thought you might like to see some quick and simple scatter pieces I created for my desert/wasteland terrain.

These two mini escarpments came about as 'test' pieces just to try out the idea and I don't think the result is too shabby.

I mostly use bog standard expanded polystyrene for terrain features- the sort that comes as common and garden packaging - the small holes in the polystyrene working for me as nooks and crannies within the rock face. I sculptured the flat 'top' of the rock formations then used a household wall filler to provide texture and fill in any big gaps where the two pieces of polystyrene meet.

I used a sharp sand from a builders merchants to cover the base, old free Broadband or magazine CDs. I find that finer sand, such as that used for childrens playpits is far too fine and lacks the definition I want once painted. Slightly larger stones were used at the back of the escarpment to represent eroded scree. To ensure the sand sticks good and fast to provide a robust terrain piece for wargaming, I liberally coated the CD with a cheap but immensely strong PVA glue (Bartoline PVA Adhesive & Sealer; 1Ltr for £3.50), then shook the sand on. Once this is dry, well mostly dry that is, I mix water and PVA until it has the consistency of skimmed milk, then brush liberally over the top of the entire piece. You think it will be too thin to have any effect but have faith young paduan, this is amazingly effective at sealing the model and providing a sound base for the paint to adhere to.

Painting was simple. We had some left over household paints from the last round of decorating and a mixed bag of brown, terracotta, taupe and sand 'matchpots'. Using cheap decorating brushes from Poundland (a 5 brush set for £1), I applied a basecoat of a terracotta matt emulsion, which when dried, recieved a thin watered down wash of Citadel's Devlan Mud. I used a lighter 'stone' or 'pebble' colour to drybrush over the top with a smaller brush as weathering & highlights. Job done. Excluding drying time, less than an hours work.

I'm going to get round to adding a small amount of GF9 autumn foilage to add further character but forgot to include it to my last order! The perils of Inetrnet shopping & Baileys Irish Cream.....

Cheers
Mark