Something for the 6mm crowd - A Landship!

Recently I was trying to get some old projects off my desk so that I could return to painting my wife's WHFB Fortified Manor (which I had promised to paint several years ago), and amongst them was the 15mm Blower Tank-based landship. While I had initially purchased the tank just for its hull, it spent a year or so painted as an actual tank, and it was just this week that I finally decided to sand the top of the hull flat, lay down a piece of styrene and get down to business. This is the result:

Not terrible for something I more or less banged together out of a blower hull, some Old Crow 6mm turrets, BFG Imperial Cruiser bridge and cannons, some Sintra, and some EM-4 mech parts.

Size Comparison Left to Right: GZG Infantry walkers, Exodus Wars infantry, Mk.1 Land Raider

I had intended to have constructed one of these at some point during my old club's combined Dirtside/Starmada campaign, but the campaign resources never allowed for this design to be fielded, and I just never bothered. It may see some use eventually, if I can ever get another 6mm sci-fi army put together.

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.

Of Judge Dredd, Landships, and FWC

Charles will be absent from the Sand Table for the next three weeks, so we're going to dive into Dirtside once again. Eager to mix things up a bit further I suggested we try a Judge Dredd-style scenario in 28mm, knowing full well that at least Will would latch onto it. One problem came up when a scenario was suggested: I don't have a Judge Dredd model. This little problem was solved by buying the Indyclix Judge Dredd figure; not very attractive, but since I'm not in love with the Judge myself, it doesn't really matter.

So here's the set-up: a squad of hive/mega city enforcers, led by the Judge himself have gotten the wave that a bank heist is being organized by a gang of Triads, and are moving into the square to block their escape. Little does either side know, but a gang of Scavvies also got the tip and will attempt to take the goods while the scuffle's going on.

In Combat Zone terms, the Judge will be a Hero with Autopistol and Combat Suit, probably with improved melee dice.

He will be followed by a fairly normal corporate squad, with CO, NCO, and some sort of SAW.

The Triads will be represented by a Gang with a few specialists, including a Sumotori (Toughness +9) and a Kabuki Doll.

The Scavs will foll0w standard Scav gang rules, just need to see what sort of figures I have painted up.

Landships and FWC
Though we will be playing Dirtside these next couple of weeks, I intend to gear-up for FWC when we do our next Sci-fi campaign. With this in mind I'm trying to come up with viable figures for both Bolo-style super heavy tanks and landships.

In terms of landships, I consider the ideal to be Mobile Suit Gundam's Big Tray, shown here:



The problem is, no existing manufacturers make anything like it, so I've decided to adopt an alternative approach: Add a bunch of 6mm gun turrets to a 15mm hovertank, namely one from the GZG 15mm Stargrunt range.

The Kra'vak Heavy Grav Tank, High-Tech Grav Tank, and the Assault Sled all look like good candidates. As for the turrets, I may pick up a pack or two from the Dirtside range, or buy a couple Battletech tanks and scav the turrets from them. Not the cheapest route to go, I'd expect, but I don't intend on building more than one of these big boys.