No New Posts For Awhile

I've been feeling the effects of burnout the last few weeks; won't be much to see for a bit.

Now for Something Completely Different

I needed a little break from 15mm this week.  I converted and painted this Infinity Line Kazak.  I did nothing else game related.

The original mini had a coat slung over her shoulder in a very "model on the catwalk" style pose.  Maybe the NRA has fashion shows?  The original pose was so bizarre that I cut away the coat, left arm and a portion of the face.  I sculpted in a whole new arm in the middle of lobbing a grenade.  I like it much better, even if the pose doesn't quite seem to have the tension you would expect from a grenade throw.  All in all, I'm pretty happy with the result, but I need to polish up my 28mm painting skill set again.  Thanks to my buddy Anthony for the conversion suggestion.

Gallery Post

Just a photo update of some recent projects.

The mechanized portion of my North American States force. Tanks by Combat Wombat with conversions.

RAFM/Traveller figures. I painted these up for a space corridor game, and, for some unfathomable reason, based them for a ground game. Oh well, an excuse to buy something else, I guess.

Minis from 15mm.co.uk.  They're going to make up a retinue for Blasters and Bulkheads.

Unaligned synthetic infantry, RAL models from CMG.

Blue Moon Confederates.  I never have very good luck trying to photograph dark color schemes.

Night Storm AAR

Chris over at Dropship Horizon posted a new scenario entitled "Night Storm" today.  Since my family is off at a birthday party for a few hours, I thought I'd give it a try on solo mode, playing both sides using FUBAR.

The Selta Federation is close to closing a far reaching diplomatic agreement with the enigmatic Ventoo empire.  Realizing such an alliance would threaten the Union Republic's standing in the sector, Central Command dispatched a People's Cadre unit to kidnap the Selta ambassador, prior to signing the accord.  The Republic hopes the bizarre Ventoo will see the ambassador's absence as an affront and cancel the arrangement.

Selta intelligence has caught wind of the operation and the location at which the ambassador is being held, an abandoned supply depot in the Ventoo DMZ.  A Selta Commando team is quickly dispatched to recover the diplomat.


Once at the abandoned depot, the People's Cadre quickly established positions around the dilapidated buildings while the diplomat was moved inside as a massive storm moved into the night-shrouded valley.

Turn One:  The Selta Commandos arrive on their heels, the silenced engines of their armored cars unheard over the peal of the thunder and unseen in the dark.

Turn 2:  The armored cars drop the commandos at a grove of trees, just south of the depot.

Turn 3:  The armored cars swing west around the depot, ready to extract the teams once they search the buildings.  Alpha team moves up to the edge of the tree line, eliminating four nearby sentries with silenced SMG fire as Bravo team sprints through the driving rain towards their first objective, a disused warehouse.

With FUBAR, two of the kills I recorded should have simply been suppressions. Since they were surprise attacks, I will count these as kills until the People's Cadre units are aware of the Commandos.  Likewise, up to this point Selta has had default initiative and I have not rolled any activations for the Republic units.

Turn 4:  Still undiscovered, Selta presses their advantage.  Trying to pick out targets through the rain and hail, Alpha team, still in the cover of the trees, manage to down another sentry, one with a shoulder anti-tank rocket.  Attempting to down another sentry near the collapsed building fails however, as his helmet takes the hit, stunning but not killing him.  At his shout, the People's Cadre move to defend the depot.  

Still with initiative, Bravo team activates, pelting the sentries with fire as they close near the warehouse door.  The armored cars continue to swing around the west side of the depot to support Bravo team.

With all Selta units activated, the People's Cadre attempt to recover.  I'm not activating the sentries squads as suppressed as they don't yet know the extent of their casualties.  Some sentries return fire at Alpha team, but are unable to make contact through the dark and wet. A lone, sentry near the warehouse just manages to pick out Bravo team as they make for the warehouse; a well placed shot knocks down one of the heavily armored men, but fails to take him out of the fight. Two sentries at the rear corner of the warehouse, now in cover, lob armor-piercing thermic grenades at the lead armored car.  Scoring five hits, they stun the crew and destroy the remote HMG turret.  The red die indicates the activation penalty for the armored car in the next turn.

Bad news for the Armored Car

 Turn 5:  Selta wins the initiative and Alpha team leaves the cover of the trees, raking the damaged building with their weapons, suppressing both the team leader at the door and the sentry just outside.  The last man from Bravo team snap fires back at the sentry who shot at his squad mate, piercing his visor and killing him instantly.  Bravo team charges into the warehouse... only to find it long empty.

The armored car guns its engine past its damaged cohort, its turret heavy machine gun chewing up the wall near the sentries, but unable to make contact.  The damaged armored car fails to activate due to the penalty applied the previous turn.

Two additional sentries move up to support their comrades near the warehouse, throwing their own thermic grenades at the firing armored car.  One grenade finds a vulnerable spot in the armor, killing the crew in a flash of light and heat, knocking the vehicle out.  The suppressed sentries in the collapsed building are unable to react as Alpha team closes in.

Turn 6:  Having won the initiative, the People's Cadre is unable to take advantage of the situation.  The battered sentry squad near the ruin is pinned down, unable to react, and the sentries near the warehouse are unable to punch through the Seltan heavy armor with their assault rifles.  Things are looking ill for the People's Cadre of the Republic.

Under fire, Bravo team sprints to the nearby damaged armored car, which guns its engines to the next building.  Alpha team decides to press home and eliminate the holdouts in the ruins, launching an assault.  Unfortunately, the Republic commander is waiting and he and his men open fire the moment Alpha team breach the building.  (This event plays to the scenario- normally in FUBAR you would move in attackers, defenders and simultaneously resolve the assault).  In a hail of extremely lucky fire for the Republic, the net result is two suppressed and two dead commandos.  In the ensuing melee, another is struck down.

The Selta Commandos are brutalized by fire from the enemy command as they storm the ruin.

 Turn 7:  The People's Cadre gains initiative again and surround the two remaining commandos, killing another.  Surrounded, with another dead comrade at his feet, the lone remaining member of Alpha team screams to the rest of the unit to disengage over the com-net.

I had a lot of fun playing and writing this one up.  I might try it with a couple different systems as I check out solo play options.  USE ME has been suggested and I think I'll give it a try.  The reaction test system of 5150 might work well, also.  While the People's Cadre hadn't quite made the victory conditions when I pulled the plug, it seemed likely, so the Selta opted to fall back.

Thanks for reading,

Jeff

Battlesuits, Airbrushes and Vallejo Paints

One of the great things about 15mm is co-opting miniatures from other scales to supplement your forces.  I've been able to make use of minis from AT-43 and now Warhammer 40k with the Tau stealth suits below. The center mass is just large enough to hold a 15mm scale figure as a pilot, so they will work great as heavy battlesuits or light mechs.  The guns on these stealth suits are larger than I like, but can overlook it for this project.

I made some simple changes to the suit- I swapped the kit legs for those of a plastic space marine to give a more human appearance to the warmachine.  This actually worked very well as some design elements like vents and seams are very nearly identical between the two kits and the contoured lines on the legs match up well with the ovoid central chamber of the suit. I added some press-molded, hard edged armor panels from plasticard to the ankle joint to help tie the geometric forms of the shoulder armor to the legs. I'm pretty happy with the end result; I've completed three that will supplement my North American faction infantry.

If you squint, maybe, you can make out the camo pattern in the second photo.  I did it using the airbrush blu-tac technique.  It actually worked very well, I'm encouraged to keep working with the airbrush, but next time, I'll pick two colors with greater contrast.  It's more noticeable on the table than in the photos, all the symbols and numbers are hand-painted, I couldn't find any decal designs I like for this army.

When I got back into the hobby, I found that most of my GW paints, now several years old, had expired.  I replaced most of my paint with Vallejo.  For the most part I've been happy with that choice with the exception of Vallejo's metallics.  It seems like it takes more motion from the brush when drybrushing and they don't level well when block painting.  I may go back to GW metallics.

SHM Casting Preview

Sometime ago, I picked up my tools and set about sculpting a figure for 15mm sci fi.  I'm don't take life or my hobbies all that seriously and my personality tends to bleed into my creative outlets; more so when fabricating something of my own and not just painting existing miniature lines.  The image in my head was of a corporate mercenary commander, who, after having grown fat and balding  years after being relegated to a desk job, is recalled to active command in the face of a crisis.

I sent the figure to Gavin Syme with 15mm.co.uk for consideration to include in their SHM range.  I was pleased when the figure was accepted and delighted when I received the first castings last week.  The process wasn't entirely without hiccup, but the mini made it all the way through the process to production.  You can see some of the end results below, and the mini should be available from 15mm.co.uk sometime in the next few months.  I will try and get one of the samples painted up in the next few weeks to help pick out the detail.

Ravenstar Studios Fox Walker Paint Up

I recently picked up a variety of 15mm vehicles from Ravenstar Studios Land Core range.  The Fox Walker in particular was one I had my eye on and jumped at the chance to pick it up when it came on sale.

Most of my 15mm projects have been straight build-outs and I had been getting burned out, so I decided to spend a little more time on this model, adding a couple extra details and some interest to the base.  The model, like most resin, had a few air bubbles to fill- one can be noticed on the barrel in the photo below where I filled it with putty.  Once these few pockets were filled, I shaved down and hollowed out the turret hatch to create a depression for a cut down Rebel Miniatures earth force mini to seat into and mounted the turret to the lower hull with neodymium magnets.  I scratch built a simple hatch with plasticard and a rod hinge, and mounted it swung open behind the tanker.  I pinned in a long length of brass wire as an aerial, pinning it bent down and modelling a a hasp to hold it in place.  I modelled some rocks to the base for the tank to step over and primed the whole assembly black. 

I didn't change up much with the paint scheme, wanting the tank to fit well with the colors of the Earth Force marines I've already painted.  I hand painted most of the markings except the two skull decals.  The tanker was painted in a gray uniform, a different scheme than the infantry, but I wanted to pick him out a bit from the turret.  I then finished the base and pinned three of the legs to the base before sealing.