My Alligator

Just another painting update this time, one of Khurasan's lovely Alligator Assault Transports (though for some reason I want to call them Battlebarges). Not quite done, but I think the color scheme is pretty effective overall. This particular brood of Garn represents an alien mercenary rival to the Dragoons, and they often work together with their Dracci cousins on various jobs. Since I'm also working on a TFL force to oppose the Dragoons ala Traveller's Broadsword adventure, the Garn (brood as yet unnamed) will be acting as military advisers to the Tanoose Freedom League (or perhaps McRibistan Freedom Rangers?) opposite Blackmoore's Dragoons.

A Transformer MLRS - Hunt for the Decepticons Hailstorm

When you really, really need to blow shit up.

Fully Painted Micropanzer SAS Platoon - Blackmoore's Dragoons

I am now just about ready for Tomorrow's War, having completed painting an entire platoon of Micropanzer's SAS (with a few GZG headswaps here and there). My follow-up post will contain their TO & E for Tomorrow's War sans vehicles, but I figured it'd be nice to get the pretty pictures out there. So without further ado, here's the Dragoons:

Here's the HQ section composed of a Gunsniper on either side, a medic, Major Douglas Blackmoore himself, and Max the Grid Tech (and token white guy).

A standard Dragoon Bloc composed of two sections, a Bloc leader, and a medic.

Every platoon features a Bloc of Brathairn. Brathairn are shareholders in the company and have fought alongside Major Blackmoore for many years. Brathairn Blocs do not include medics because all of them have advanced life-saving training.

Tranquility: Captain's Log Late September 2101

Late September 2101

We touched down in the afternoon on Side 6, a colony controlled by the dimunuitive Sons of Thunder. We've come to meet our client at the Slippery Pig, a local tavern. Unfortunately it seems he made some provocative remarks to some mercenaries on shore leave, and they were pleased to introduce his face to the floor. As a business man who prefers to get paid for the cargo that he has transported across space, I invited the mercs, a handful of big, well-armored fellows in urban camo to discuss the situation outside.

The mercs proved to be slow to leave the bar, fortunately for us there was fairly decent cover. Mel, Chloe, and I took up positions behind some crates, preparing for the approaching shootout. I saw the burly mercs run to cover behind one of the local workers' shacks. Considering the distance, I really wished the authorities allowed assault rifles, but on the plus side the mercs are limited to their standard sidearms in this fight. Still, Mel's not a bad shot, and Chloe's shotgun had many notches along its barrel. With the mercs out of sight, Mel and I decided to take up a closer position behind another pre-fab shack, with Chloe covering our butts. Meanwhile Jolee ran behind Tranquility, after all, she's no fighter. I found myself staring at my Bowie. What was it they said about not bringing a knife to a gun fight?

Mel seized the initiative and snuck up behind one of the pipe supports. Apparently one of the mercs didn't do such a good job of hiding, as one shot from Mel's revolver dropped him stone dead. The mercs were apparently hard-asses of some sort and didn't balk at their companion's dirt nap. If anything that just seemed to elicit a series of loud, Gaelic oaths from them. With the Mercs distracted, Chloe and I advanced, hoping to get into kill-range should any of them leave their refuge behind the shack. I saw a couple try to circle round us, but Chloe and Mel were alert and I heard the resounding clink of metal on ceramic composites as two of the armored goons fell on their asses. Their commanding officer managed to make it to cover before we could get a shot at him.


Only one of the prostrate mercs managed to get up, the other looked pretty bad off. Ultimately their NCO must've decided that discretion was the better part of valor, 'cuz the whole lot of 'em headed off in the opposite direction, with the wounded soldier being drug between them. Still they had time to yell back at us, "Yeh'll be hearing from us later, yeh rotten rimmer trash. No one fucks with the Dragoons!"


Having determined that the coast was clear, I searched the remaining corpse for identification and armament. Not only was he carrying a fancy laser pistol (Pretty frickin' sweet) but it seems he was in the employ of a mercenary outfit led by Major Douglas Blackmoore. Guess the tough old bastard survived the war. Needless to say, we haven't made many new friends in this encounter.

Having settled the disagreement as to the disposition of our client, I dragged his sorry carcass over to the local sawbones, a Son by the name of Murphysson. Fortunately the client, Barnabus of Gefilte Shipping, was insured and there was little paperwork to fill out. He was quite grateful for our interference and we got a bonus on our delivery of foodstuffs, netting us a respectable forty creds. The passengers we'd been transporting also paid up for an additional ten creds.

Having stepped out looking for additional work, the local lawmen felt the need to talk to be about the shootout, but I assured them that our participation had only been with the intention of helping out a fellow citizen in trouble. The sergeant mumbled something about cleaning fees and requested that I make my stay a short one. I lucked out and quickly found a Felid by the name of One-Who-Eats-Snakes that was filling an order for illegal erotic for someone on that theocratic aquaculture world, Water. Now I've got seven tons of yellow literature in my hold; fuck, that's a lot of porn. Jolee found us another passenger fare, fortunately he looks to be the normal sort; we shouldn't expect any trouble from him. Barring any difficulties we should make a fair bit of cash on this next run. Here's hoping, anyways.

Major Blackmoore's Dragoons - Painted Micropanzer SAS

Major Douglas Blackmoore and Snipers

Micropanzer SAS Leader and Long Range Laser figures with GZG heads

Edit: I've uploaded a new photo that is larger and has better lighting conditions. That'll teach me to take photos at 11 PM with lamp light.

Micropanzer 15mm SAS demo shots

I just got my pre-order of Micropanzer's wonderful sci-fi SAS troops in today. The whole pack consisted of two heavy weapons squads, a small command squad with snipers, a veteran squad in berets, and three squads of regulars with rifles and SAWs.

Left to right: A Tesla Cannon trooper, an NCO, and a Rapid Light Laser veteran

Left to right: Laser trooper, Long Range Laser trooper

The figures themselves are well detailed, somewhere in between Rebel and Khurasan, and I have few complaints. There was some minimal flash on the figures, and the mold lines between the legs are a bit annoying. It should be noted that the vast majority of the troopers don't really have a face; instead they have an odd gas mask. It'll probably look very nice painted up. $25 for a full platoon of infantry with heavy weapon support is pretty sweet, so I'm happy. My current plan involves stocking up on Combat Wombat tracked vehicles and mechanizing "Major Blackmoore's Dragoons", as I've come to call them.

Scale-wise they line up pretty well with other manufacturers, as you can see below:

Left to right: Tesla Cannon trooper, Rapid Light Laser Veteran, Alternative Armies Octopod, Laserburn Adventurer with missile launcher, GZG Japanese Corporate Trooper

And just for fun:

Sergeant Bare Metal picks a fight with several Frost Brood Dracci

Behold, my new gaming table...

I had originally earmarked this foamcore construction for an Urban War demo table, but since that never came to fruition. I was feeling inspired, so I slapped some Durham's, Mod Podge, and sand on it, spray painted it black, and then added my usual four layers of drybrushing. Now I'm set for Ambush Alley and other small scale solo games on my new 2x2 table overlay.

Rally Round The King

For those not on the Two Hour Wargames mailing list (you should be), Ed has stated that he should be releasing "Rally Round The King", an updated version of the old Warrior Heroes element-based fantasy ruleset, which were in turn based on an older set of ancients rules. The ruleset's big draws for me is that once the armies are on the table, they pretty much run themselves via the Reaction System, and that there is an extensive solo campaign system that takes into account diplomacy and economic issues during the game. Having read much of the old Warrior Kings rulebook, I can tell that this new book is likely to be a godsend for solo gamers like myself that are looking to run fantasy mass battles.

For more information, please check out the Two Hour Wargames Yahoo Group and watch this space for a potential Rally Round The King fantasy campaign (if my purchases at Fall-in go well).

P.S. I also recommend that any interested parties take a gander at Talomir Tales, an extensive campaign in progress using the old Warrior Heroes and Warrior Heroes:Armies and Adventurers (skirmish/mass skirmish THW system).

New sci-fi goodies from 15mm.co.uk...

HOF 62 Draccian Heavy Weapons

It looks like the first entry in Alternative Armies' Hordes of Future range is a heavy weapons squad for the Dracci. It would seem that they seek to sci-fi up their excellent dragonman fantasy range. The heavy weapons come in the standard AA 3 sculpt format that they've used for the rest of their range and seem to feature a lascannon, SAW and flamethrower (an obvious choice for draconic aliens).

Even better news is that the this product code and all of the Octopod product codes are now available as single castings. Since I've yet to pick up my current issue of Barking Irons, I'll be picking up some singles to review, including the Octopod medic (or should I say, Dr. Zoidberg?).

All of the above is featured at http://www.15mm.co.uk/.

And what's a ship without it's intrepid crew...

The crew of the Stoned PotatoLeft to Right: Captain Vinz Glortho, Mrrgll, Revi, and Naskal T'bor

I haven't really come up with much of a backstory for this motley crew, but suffice it to say that Captain Glortho abandoned his pride and the Garn to find his fortune and managed to pick up a pistol of a woman (Revi), a primitive with strange powers and his voracious pet (Mrrgll), and a bodyguard in the form of some sort of galactic huntsman. Other than Revi (Adventurer 104) the rest of the intrepid crew comes courtesy of Khurasan Miniatures' expansive range.

Wow, another post... Behold the Stoned Potato!

After an unfortunately labeled Miniatures Page post discussing the Transformers Crossovers Twilight I finally went out and bought it. Of course, it then sat on my shelf for about a month before I got around to doing anything with it, but here is the final result: The Stoned Potato, a modified Kobold Engineering JU-1610 light freighter. Armament includes a turret mounted light laser that is controlled remotely by the copilot, and a fixed mount light railgun (which essentially means that the left side is completely undefended, but I blame the idiots who created the 2nd Clone Wars series for that). The rear cargo compartment is actually big enough to allow most smaller 15mm vehicles to enter(Flames of War Shermans for one), but even after Anakin's legs were removed lowering the ramp adequately was impossible.







To eliminate the pigment of the ugly blue plastic it was cast in I gave the Potato a heavy coat of Krylon Ultra-Flat Camouflage. The trim was painted up with Apple Barrel Burnt Umber, with some of the details picked out in Apple Barrel Pewter Gray and Citadel Boltgun Metal. The windshield was painted black. The whole assembly was given a liberal wash of Citadel Devlan Mud (love that stuff) after which I spun the gun turret to keep it from sticking.

Time for my monthly post... this time Space Mercenaries!

Left to Right: Mercenary Captain, Medic, Padre, Radio Operator

I picked up a pack of Retained Knight Command a number of months ago during one of 15mm.co.uk's semi-regular "pay for shipping and get a free pack of figs" and just finished painting them up yesterday. Initially they reminded me of Heresy-era Space Marines, with their Mortifactors color-scheme (black, bone, and a bit of light grey on the backpacks) they look more like Clone Troopers. They're really neat little figures, and I hope to get more to round out my force, such as a Guild Engineer with some robots and some heavy weapons troopers. I will probably be using the Star Marine or ISS lists from 5150 for these guys.

A mobile home for some green-tinted alien mercenaries

A mobile fortress for my Moon Bats

The base model was a 1/72 Scale Pegasus Hobbies ISU-122 tank, which was then partially assembled with various Battletech and GW Wartrukk gubbinz stuck on, and then primed black. Next I followed up with a heavy drybrush of gunmetal, followed by lots of cheap yellow paint. Brown Ink was used to dirty up some of the rivets, and the gun barrels were given a coat of Chainmail. It's amazing what a lot of yellow paint can do to a WWII-era tank...

My Alien Mercenaries can ride the sideboards, and the little crow's nest will also seat a figure on a 1/4" washer.

You win again gravity!

Twenty-Five Star General Zap Brannigan and Lt. Kroker survey the wreckage.

The natives seem hostile. Waaagh!

Factions, new purchases, etc...

I've been silent for almost a month now, mostly due to a lack of pictures. So what have I been up to?

- I have ordered and received my 15mm Space Corridor system from Litko, though sans a few 1x1 tile sets due to a packing error. Fortunately, Litko's customer service is WONDERFUL and I will have the missing tiles shortly. Expect painted pics of the tiles in this space in the near future.

-I painted up one of my GZG Japanese PAs as a character figure for the Coalition: Lt. Ortega Maximo of the Coalition's Special Forces.

-I stripped my GZG Alien Mercenaries and have begun painting them up as Bad Moon Orks. They certainly fit the bill despite their lack of tusks/noses.

-I just received my Old Crow Miniatures order and am in the process of contemplating how to construct a Land Battleship out of a 15mm Blower tank.

Future Plans

As some who've been reading all along are aware, most of my 15mm forces are based on the Palladium Rifts universe. The main examples thus far are my Rebel Miniatures Dead Lads and my Jetbikes/Jet Troopers from The Scene. I had always planned to add factions beyond the Coalition to the game, and my next major faction will be the New German Republic, with most of the figures coming from Ground Zero Games (UNSC Light Troopers, Cyclops Battlesuits, Hi-Mobility Wheeled vehicles) and PAs provided by Khurasan Miniatures.

Mark's Traveller post from a few weeks back put it into my head that I want to expand beyond Rifts Earth. Why couldn't Rifts Earth have found itself in a new solar system and developed space travel? From there I decided that the Coalition and the NGR have expanded into space, the Chinese have joined up with some galactic traders and now dominate commerce, and various humans, aliens, and the like have gotten caught up in the mess.

Now what rules am I using? Everything I feel like... individual basing with magnetic multi-bases may well still work, I'll just have to experiment.

Enter the the Squids!

This evening's efforts has yielded a squad of Decapodian infantry(15mm Alternative Armies Octopoids), with a converted leader figure (not shown).


Not sure I like the effect, but they look okay for a somewhat comical sci-fi race.

What's that looming behind them?

Musings on Multi-basing

Holiday spending has put a moratorium on new figure purchases, at least for the time being, so now it's time to paint up those vast piles of lead I've accumulated. Today I'll probably knock together that squad of Alternative Armies Octopoids I purchased back when they were giving away packs of Sci-fi/Fantasy figures.

Anyways, having been forced to actually paint what I have, I'm contemplating what basing system to use in the future. The Spartans are all based to ASQL standards on 50x50 and 50x100mm stands and my Coalition forces are each mounted on 15mm Litko bases with magnetic bottoms. Frankly, I'm finding the single-based figures to be too fiddly to manipulate in games involving more than 10-15 figures to a side. As for the ASQL basing, it's nice and it looks good, but 50x50 bases are huge and not easily accommodated by commercially available terrain. This has lead me to consider FoW/Critical Mass-style bases of 3-man fire teams and 2-man specialist groups, with the occasional single-based character figure. I still plan on basing my Alien Imperial force to ASQL standards, but other than characters (Free Trader Crew) and Coalition forces, multi-basing is the way to go.

Spartan Imperial Strike Force

Finally as promised, my Spartan Imperial Strike force for ASQL 2.0! All figures are 100% GZG New Israelis apart from the remote cannon on the Warthog (the barrel broke off, so it was replaced with a Battletech tribarrel cannon). The Spartans themselves were painted using Master Chef's "300 second Spartan" technique as posted on Dropship Horizon. The figures and Warthog were based on www.15mm.co.uk's Alien Squad Leader plastic bases, using spackle, kitty litter, and sand. The bases were then hand-painted black, and featured a progressive drybrush of Apple Barrel Burnt Umber, Ceramcoat Territorial Beige, and a 50/50 mix of Territorial Beige and Jo-Ann's Au Naturale.

Enjoy!

Spartan Imperial Strike Force

Spartan Command Group

Spartan Squad

Spartans with Assault Weapons

Spartan Heavy Weapons Squad

Warthog with Navy crew

Another view of the bulk of the force.

No Spartans... just yet...

I just finished putting the first two coats on my Spartans' bases, so unfortunately they are unfinished at present, but I'll try to get some pics up this evening.

For the record, using quick-dry spackle is unwise (too many nooks and crannies, spent a half-hour basecoating my vehicle base).

So good luck for this evening...

Litko Corridor system... in 15mm!

The Litko corridor system is a treat, and while I've yet to paint up any sections or do much of anything with them, I anticipate that I will have fun with my new Sea Hulk project. Khurasan just needs to make sure that their Orca troops are out in a month or so...

A view of the contents of the master set.

A Rebel Miniatures 'borg with flamer walks down the corridor.

Finally, something new...

Later today I'll be putting up a few interesting posts. For now, suffice it to to say that I had a very merry Xmas...

New acquisitions for the new year:
GZG New Israelis
Custom 15mm version of Litko's fabulous Space Corridor system.
Litko Acrylic counter set for Crossfire
Four Felt terrain mats painted by my lovely wife (arctic, desert, urban, and forest)
Two Toobs of Trees, netting 19 fairly decent looking PVC trees of varying sorts

So for later today, some musings on Sea Hulk, my new Spartan Imperial Strike Force.

Happy New Year!