Books&Models

Since finishing Embeded by Dan Abnett I've gone on to The Lost Fleet by Jack Cambell and have quite enjoyed the series (six of them in all). It's easy, morish and has quite a lot of ideas that are very interesting relative to starship battles an tactics. I'd recomend it to any body that like military sci-fi.

On the modeling front, I've been slightly busy basing and priming. I've allso added a small Mech to my colection. Here are the photos:

Mech made using,  At-43 red block walker + GZG tank barrel (right arm) + Plaster board screw (left arm) + FOW ladder and top hatch (left side and top)

Other view of Mech

Undercoated minis

I'm still not shure wich army to put the mech with. I don't think he suits the UNSC guys from GZG, so I'm thinking of puting him with the controll batalion from Khurasan Miniatures. Till then it will be a mercanary Mech. I'll try to get them painted soon ! 

Ollie

Gruntz 1.0

Not much done on the modeling front this week I'm afraid. I haven't had much time to work on my rule set latly and have come to realise that gruntz is not only a well made and well published game but also pretty close to what I was aiming for and had developed so I'm going with gruntz.

I've baught and printed it out and realy like what I see. I have wet to play test it but from what I can see and have read it seems complex enough to make it interesting but not to complicated ( a couple of sheets of tokens would have been good).And its great to have followed something from the bigining like much of the 15mm Sci-fi comunity. So well done to Robin and the gruntz comunity! I hope to convert my french friends to gruntz as soon as possible !

Ollie

Dropship ahoy !

Well I just tried to post an article about this earlier and my computer bugged and deleted the post. I was a little cross to say the least...

So here I go again!

When I was last in England I purchased a Clone Wars dropship that was on sale. I wanted to buy three but my girlfriend pointed out that I didn't actualy know what to do with them, or where to put them so I'm sorry to say I capitulated...

It's not a bad kit at all. It's pre-painted, pretty much 15mm scale,  easy to assemble and comes with a flight stand! Is that all you say?
Well, yeah but thats not bad... Is it?

Here are the pics:

Front view

Rear view

Dynamic view

Sorry again for the pic quality, I hope to change that soon.

Ollie

Cons of camera phones

Well, my phone takes really good life size pictures in the day time but is a strugle to use on miniatures.

I can't seem to get a good picture of my prefabs... So, I think the answer is to get a better camera in the near future. Until then I'll try to only post descent photos as I have been doing, but not as many as I would like.

Here's my workspace...

 You can see the base coat is on the prefabs (back left). Those funny looking black and white cloud cards are area effect markers for Axles & Alloys which incidentally I still haven't got around to playing... Sometimes enthusiasm doesn't quite catch up with reality :(

In meantime here are some terrain pieces that came out OK in the photos.

A dumpster truck and a MNU/generic truck (both toys bought at the flea market)

Couple of sci-fi/modern rusted dumpsters (there resin models from Hornby I believe but they looked really clean and shiny so I had to make them look a little grimy)

Some imperial cargo containers (again, from toy trucks, painted, weathered and stenciled)

Sorry again for the lack of prefab updating, I'll try some photos again soon. Promise !



Ollie

Pre-Fab colony

I've been collecting some St Moret (cheese spred) boxes to make a pre-fab colony. They're plastic with a card cover that I've soaked and scratched off. As soon as my GZG order came true with the doors I ordered I got stuck in. Well not too stuck in as I'm going as always simple and not too complicated.

I've gone for a Bar, two generic buildings and a generator style building. I may add on a little more detail before I paint them but the general idea is there. I've used some bit's I've had lying around and plastic card for the windows. There's an upturned lip around the bases that I was going to remove but have decided to leave because I think it probably adds stability and doesn't really detract from the over all look. 

Here is a scale photo:

C&C is welcome if any one is out there...

Ollie

Latest read ''Embedded'' by Dan Abnett

Since reading the Gaunts ghosts series I've really got into Dan Abnett. Since, I've read the Eisenhorn trilogy and Horus rising. Even if you are not into 40k, the Gaunts Ghosts series has a sertain realism and the Eisenhorn trilogy is gritty and full of details which make it more believable than most other 40k books IMHO.

''Embedded'' is a great read, full of action and detail that seems not so different from modern day conflicts. I recomend it to any one planing or playing an RPG or a Wargame in a gitty frontier sci-fi  game.
And the cover is realy cool !


 Ollie

Size is an issue.

Well since my previous post I've been looking at what I've got for my 15mm forces and decided to follow up on what I said previously about GZG vehicle sizes and I'm going to store them away somewhere for 10mm or something like that (check out the previous post for size comparison).
I really prefer Old Crow vehicles as they are better sized for 15mm and have a robust feel to them.
Having said all that I really like GZG infantry and have absolutely no complaints about them and will be using them as my main infantry retailer.

I'm not getting much done at the moment to post about but will be soon hopefully.


Ollie

More Old Crow

Ladies and mainly gentlemen,

I have to say that I am really impressed with Old Crow products. I've just received (a little late but, meh whats the rush?) my latest Old Crow order !
The quality is great as I have already mentioned in previous posts. The size of the vehicles is way better than the GZG vehicles that are just too small for my liking. I don't know why GZG's are so small, they almost seem made for 10mm...
And apart from the complementary hand signed ''With complements'' form that I think is a great touch and always gives me a smile when I open a parcel from Old Crow I got a sample set of three infantry miniatures. I'm actually quite impressed with them, they seem well scaled, thow a little bit skinny but however nicely detailed. They've got a a very near future look to there weapons, a sort of bullpup design with grenade launcher and side picatinny rails. They've got motorbike like helmets and only small parcels and bags on them making me think more of an armed police force than proper soldiers. As always I feel most infantry miniatures, even GZG and others is that they never seem to have any backpacks, now this is very minor as one can come up with all sorts of mundane explanations  and can see soldiers patrolling in Afghanistan with little gear but I rather like the Falklands look with big bags on them saying 'this is all I've got and I'm all the backup I'm getting'.

The lot:

A comparison pic of GZG vs Old Crow:

I'll be hopefully posting progress on some of these vehicles and my 15mm progress...


Ollie

Have I missed something?

Just wathced Avatar again and like many others out there I loved and still love Avatar. OK so you can get Sci-fi marines in 15mm and versions of exosceletal walkers (not all to my liking but Micropanzer and Kharusan are getting there), still nothing as cool as the Avatar ones or as massive as in ALIENS. Where are the Na'vi like models? Tall humanoids flying and riding on alien beasties?
GZG offer Crustys, and I think we can all tell were they come from. Infact I shall be ordering some in the near future to run a futuristic version of the film.

Well, anyway, thats my rant over...


Ollie

AT43 bits and a Tau army in the making

Well, I couldn't help my self from ordering some AT43 stuff of the net at discount prices. For those not in the know AT43 was a Rackham game. They have now gone bust and the models can be found pretty cheap on the net. Probably like a lot of people I have looked at the Karman army and thort they would make a great auxiliary unit to a Tau army so I've given it some thort and bought the following.

The 4 large vehicles behind will be the Devilfish/Hammerheads, the 3 smaller ones Pirahnas, the two front infantry units made up of three models will be Stealth suits, the 4 units of three gorillas will be crisis suits and finally the 2 groups of two gorillas with double canons on there shoulders will be broadsides. The rest in the top right are left overs to the mused with.
I'm going with a snow/tundra look and will only be doing slight repaints on infantry and complete repaints on the vehicles as they are going to take a lot of converting.
I'll be using GW kits for the main Tau infantry and going with the idea that on ice worlds they use a Gorilla like auxiliary force.
I'm still struggling to come up with a credible alternative for kroots as they just look wrong for a cold climate (wookies?).
I've looked high and low and only found one other person on the net that has done something like this but only converted the gorillas to crisis suits so if anyone has got any extra info, pics or ideas they are more than welcome.

You can see the Broadsides in the background as well as a close up of the Pirahnas. Ill be continuing the shoulder piston things on the crisis gorillas with the Tau infantry and painting them in the same tones. And my Stealth suits don't need a lot of work maybe an antenna and decal?

And for my more generic sci-fi games here are two small forces.

 And

Guess who are the goodies !

On a side note I'll be testing my rule system again some time soon and posting it hopefully...

Ollie

Just got back !

Sorry about there being no posts recently but I was on holiday in England and Wales. I shall be posting some more stuff soon. Stay tuned (if any one is reading this ...).


Ollie

Cheap toys make very cheap models !

Bought a couple of boxes full of toy military vehicles and scenery for 7€ each. Couldn't help getting them at that price and I am very happy with them.

As I bought two boxes I have two of everything. Here's a quick rundown:

2x Humvee's with canvas tops (all the vehicles have great detail and need little work)
2x Army buses
2x Canvas truck
2x Small canvas truck (like a medic truck)
2x Fuel truck
2x Harriers (the planes will be likely used as objectives to destroy)
2x F15 style plane
2x Small stealth bomber (probably use that as a drone or convert into one man star fighter)
2x Large rocket, watch tower, corrugated style military building and various other odds and ends

I'll be using the vehicles for some MNU style futuristic District 9 game and the rest will be for modern Afghani/Iraq games.
I'm still working on my rule system but progress is slow and I have to admit to being tempted to try a Gruntz and Ambush alley game soon. My only problem is to find someone to play with...



Ollie

Axles and Alloys 2

Well, well,
Here I go again, as soon as I had I fallen across this blog http://axlesalloys2.blogspot.com/ and printed out the rules I rummaged thrue my bits box and came up with six little cute death mobiles. Very easy to do, it took me just under 4 hours to assemble and paint them, so it it very easy for any body to start this game.

Here are the pics,

Group photo with those two little terrain pieces painted up.

Light buggy's

Medium cars

Heavy trucks.

Thow they are a little OTT I'm hoping to be able to use them for more 'serious' post apoc games. I'll be testing the game tomorrow and will post an update.

Ollie

1st FOW game

 I managed to get a Flames of War game in on monday with a friend. Well a lot of rule mistakes were made during the game and most seem to go against me but that is in part my own fault (always read the manual). My Crocodiles got destroyed within turn three because we misread the rules and gave them a frontal armor of 7 instead of 13 ! We both played the command distances wrong which made the scenario difficult to play. I also had no idea what any of my units were like so I placed them badly. But all that said I had a great time and will learn most diligently from the mistakes made.
Any way here are a couple of photos.

Over all game layout.

The hand of god.

A Stuka picking of one of my units.

Not playing the game right was a little frustrating but I quite enjoy the rule set (lucky as I've just painted an army...). I foretell more games and scenery in the future.

Ollie

Normandy at last !

Well it feels that way.

Without further adue, the beginnings of my Normandy/pan northern European village. I still have two houses that I'll probably mount on an L shape plot.

 

Seems OK scale wise to me, maybe a little small but you live with what you've got. I'm missing a church, WW1 memorial (in the works), café and maybe a couple of other things but as I said in my previous post,  I'm trying to do it cheap so finding all that cheap is going to take a while.


Ollie

sci-fi truck

Got a great little truck from a toy store. It's not only pretty much to scale, futuristic looking but allso has some cool cargo.

The cargo is made up of a removable 3 different colour bin set and two recycle containers! Wow I never knew I could get so exited about bins...

 I'll be mounting the three bins and two containers on generic urban bases. Oh, and a GZG trooper for scale.


Ollie

More terrain

I've got a bit of spare time at the moment so I've been trying to get some ideas and previusly started stuff out the way. A while back I picked up some driftwood on the beach thinking it would make great rocky outcrops. The advantages of making rocks like this are pretty good as it's free, extremly light and needs no work apart from painting. The only disandvantage is that it's a litle flaky, to try and remedy this I've put a ton of puraty seal on it to try an bind it a little. Anyway here's the progress...

Bark with just primer

Finished overall pic with my alien egg/rocks

As you can see I've started a couple of other terrain pieces, a chem lake and a generator/pumping station. I'll post some more pictures of those when there finished. I'm waiting for GZG to start taking orders again as the last time I ordered I forgot to get some doors. So all my industrial stuff is waiting in a box as I don't want to start assembly and end up with a load of half built stuff with nowere to store it.

Ollie

Miniture Catalan architecture

So I was in the center of town (Montpellier) today and came across an interesting exibition. The idea was to show people Catalan (Franco/Spanish border) architecture in a 3D format. Well I should have taken more fotos but didn't... Oh well, live and learn !

I don't know what the scale was, something like 40mm but I'm not realy sure. Anyway I just wanted to share what I thort was some very good modeling.


Ollie

Tomica roads

Ok, so whilst mooching around other blogs I came across a great and cheap idea for roads at http://www.theraskal.com/2010/09/hammers-slammers-routes.html . Well as that was for a 28mm game I wanted to see the product in the flesh as such and found what I was looking for at my local toy store and grabed two packs because, well just because.

Here is a moke up on the kitchen table with no ground mat so imagin the red with a pavement like colour.

I think it works realy well myself. All in all the buildings and roads fit together well IMHO. I shall add some dirt and varius staines to the card and maybe some manholes so as to tame down the new toy look.


 All I need now are vehicles, a park, car park and varius other details.

Ollie

Alien scenery

Ok, so I never stay on one project for long and end up finishing a project after having started several others in the mean time... At least it got done!

Well because all my pics are taken by mobile phone, lighting, colour and focus seem to be a bit random. What I meen to say is that the coulours a lot more vibrant when seen in person.

Old Crow Goana for scale

GZG trooper for scale.

Same as previus.

Silly as it seems I had only considered these as alien plantlife or weird geological phenomena but as a friend pointed out they do rather look like the eggs in the ALIEN films, well theres an idea for for you (and by you I meen me).

Ollie

Normandy feels a little closer.

I've been working on my Sci-fi home rules mostly of late but have found some time for my little Normandy village. Any way here is the progress:

The Manor

The village, Manor and three varius country style houses.

The houses were purchased at my local flee market and are from some sort of ''Village houses of France ' thing. Well France beeing rather eclectic climate and history wise meens that the houses range from roman style tiled roofs to tall Norman slate roofs and various other thatched roofs. I tried to greenstuff some slate onto the roman tile but it looked just rong and was extreemly fidly. The hole point of bying the houses was to make my life easer so I'm just going to repaint them and hopfully the colour scheem will hide the architectural differences.

I'll be posting progress soon.

Ollie