1/72 Sci-fi Infantry

Finally, here's the infantry component for the Mayday game.  They are Caesar's modern special forces miniatures that I've painted in an urban camouflage pattern, and they are meant to represent soldiers working for a security company guarding cargo in my science fiction game.

Since these are regulars in an Ambush Alley/Tomorrow's War game, there are only a few of them, and they'll be facing much lower quality opposition.  Basically there are two teams of four, plus some specialists.  I mostly painted Caesar miniatures just as they are, with only a few conversions.

The miniature in the middle is the original Caesar pose, and I like that it has a very sci-fi appearance, with the night-vision goggle in one eye.  I converted the same pose by adding different legs to produce the other two poses.

For this leader figure, I did a bit more work.  I gave him a beret head from the Caesar WWII partisans set, and a cybernetic eye piece over his left eye made from a styrene rod.

This one is painted as is for use as an electronic warfare specialist.  He is from a Caesar modern American set and has some sort of tablet in his hand.

I also made some markers for bombs and IEDs.  These represent medium-sized bombs that can destroy armoured vehicles.

These are small IEDs made from mortar shells.  They will be a pain for the regulars.

More 1/72 Sci-fi

Finally, I'm back on 1/72 scale miniatures!  For this year's Mayday, I'll be hosting another Ambush Alley/Tomorrow's War game, and I've completed a few vehicle models for it.

These are the left and right sides of a Revell Fennek reconnaissance vehicle.  Like a lot of ultramodern vehicles, it looks very sci-fi, and I'm using it as an advanced scout vehicle in the game.  I've painted an urban camouflage pattern similar to others I've seen online.

Here is a 1/72 scale Caesar modern special forces soldier for size comparison.

To accompany it, I've built this old ESCI Morris Quad tractor.  For a WWII vehicle, it sure looks futuristic when it's painted in an appropriate camouflage and has bits added to it.

The same Caesar soldier showing the size of the truck.  It's a good size for a Humvee-style utility transport.

Finally, I've painted the mechanical mules shown previously.  They can act as fairly large transport robots for 1/72 scale miniatures.

I've got more stuff coming too, some infantry and various terrain and markers, so stay tuned!

Assembled Storm Troopers

I've assembled some of the storm trooper models from the other day, and they look great so far.  There are a lot of pieces to put together, especially with the mechanical mule, but the results are excellent.

This is the front and back of a standard storm trooper.  You can see that there's a lot of detail all over the model, and I especially like the helmet and mask.  It looks like the standard storm trooper rifle is some sort of MG-42 derivative.

This is Ada, the female storm trooper that came as a bonus for the Kickstarter order.  Again, there's excellent detail matching the regular storm trooper from above.  Plus, there's a ridiculously large gun involved. :)  At least that's the only thing big on her, and she doesn't have her own floatation devices that are all too common on sci-fi/fantasy female figures. :P

One of the cool pieces of equipment that came with the accessory pack is the mechanical mule, which is a Big Dog style walking robot cargo carrier.  There are three of them in the pack, and although there are some fiddly pieces, they add to the sci-fi atmosphere quite a bit.

I immediately thought of using the mule for 1/72 scale sci-fi, so I took this picture with two figures from that scale.  It looks like the machine can definitely fit that purpose.  It's just more of a robotic ox instead of a mule, being quite a bit larger.

Here's a comparison shot of the two storm troopers with a converted Games Workshop Cadian trooper.  Dream Forge's sculpting style is much closer to actual human proportions than GW's "heroic 28", so these models are taller and thinner compared to the Warhammer figure.  They're probably better off used separately from the GW stuff in 28mm sci-fi games.

All in all, these are great models that can really add to any gaming experience.

Storm Troopers!

No, not Star Wars.  I just received my Kickstarter package for DreamForge Games' plastic sci-fi German storm troopers.  These are very nicely made hard plastic 28mm figures that are based on DreamForge's current metal range of sci-fi Germans.  I ordered one 20-man pack of storm troopers, which came with an accessory package as well as a couple of bonus figures - the gun-totting "Ada" female storm trooper and the "feral Shadokesh" alien with an alien handler.

To my surprise during the Kickstarter campaign, the plastic miniatures were all going to be manufactured by Wargames Factory.  Now this company has gotten a bad reputation for poorly made products with soft detail.  However, none of that is evident in this batch of miniatures!  So it seems the problem was more with their original design side rather than the manufacturing side.  With DreamForge's excellent sculptors and designers, WGF can obviously make an excellent product.

 

These are the sprues that come in the 20-man storm trooper box.  There are pieces for all the storm troopers, alternate weapon selections, as well as enough bases for all the soldiers.

 

A close-up of the storm trooper helmets.  The detail is pretty amazing, a far cry from the poorly rendered "Greatcoat Troopers" from WGF's previous sci-fi set.

 

A close-up of some storm trooper legs.  There are some nice animated poses.

These are the sprues from the accessories pack.  As you can see, there's a ridiculously large selection of alternate heads, arms, hands, and weapons, far more than actually needed for the 20-man pack.  These sprues will fill up the bits bin for years to come.

In addition to the extra human parts, there are three "mechanical mules" in the accessories pack, which are Big Dog type walking machines that can carry cargo.  The picture above shows the detail in the body section of the mules.  When I put them together, I'll have to see if they can be used for 1/72 scale sci-fi somehow.

This is a great new product for 28mm sci-fi, and all in hard plastic to boot!  It looks like 28mm sci-fi is getting a surge in plastics just like 28mm historicals.

1/72 Fantasy

It looks like the area of 1/72 scale fantasy is really heating up.  In addition to the existing Caesar and Dark Alliance packs, Dark Alliance has recently released their Orc Warg riders!  There are two packs available, a light and a heavy set of Orc cavalry.  Needless to say, I ordered some as soon as I could, and I just received them today.

These are the riders from the light Orcs box.  They are very nice for Dark Alliance figures, with very little flash and good detail.  The size is comparable to their two boxes of Orc foot soldiers.

These are the heavy riders.  They are much more heavily armoured than the light Orcs, with mostly scale armour and some mail, so they can probably provide the heavy punch in an Orc army.

Both boxes have the same set of two 6-Warg sprues for the rides.  These are quite amazing for soft plastics, especially from this manufacturer.  The details on the barding and fur are very crisp and will probably take dry-brushing well.

Previously, when there were no 1/72 fantasy cavalry, I bought some Eureka Miniatures 15 mm (more like 18 mm) Orc riders for cavalry.  One of the Orc lancers is on the left compared to a Dark Alliance heavy Orc rider on the right.  As you can see, the plastic Orc is the right size, but the metal Orc can fit well as a 1/72 scale goblin rider on a smaller wolf.

It'll be a while before I paint these up, as I have some other projects ahead of them, but it's getting exciting to be in 1/72 scale miniatures!  Now if they'll only start making 1/72 sci-fi...

The New Year

It looks like everyone is summing up last year and making new year's resolutions, so I guess I'll do it too.  I didn't get much done last year in terms of painting, except specifically for gaming group campaigns.  I'm thinking that this is probably the best way forward, planning my projects around campaigns at EDBAG and games that I'll be hosting.  This way there will be actual pressure to get things done.

I'm planning on going back to 1/72 sci-fi for Mayday (yay!), so this blog's name will actually mean something again.  Also, for an upcoming EDBAG DBA or HoTT campaign (hasn't been decided yet) I'll being painting up a Late Medieval Burgundian army.  I'm thinking of basing it for DBx, but with fewer figures to have 20mm frontage, so the miniatures can be used for games with individual figure removal, such as Condotierre.  I'm also thinking of making more bio space ships, as well as finishing my Attack Vector: Tactical ships, although not for playing with that game.

All the best for the New Year, everyone!

FallCon 2012

This last weekend I went to FallCon in Calgary for the first time.  This is a major yearly gaming convention in Western Canada, with a lot of people in attendance.  Several other gamers from Edmonton went at around the same time, for example Mark and Terry.  Don Ray and others from the Calgary Camp Followers organized several DBA-related events that I attended, and I took quite a few photos.

 

A great venue for the convention.

When I arrived on Friday night, the first event at FallCon that I attended was the "Friday Knights" DBA tournament, a Medieval-themed series of games.  I used my Komnenan Byzantine army.

Before the tournament started, I happened to finish a fortune cookie that hopefully foretold how well I would do.

 

The first game, I played against Don's Anglo-Normans.  This was an interesting game where the bad terrain in the middle of the board was bad for both of our armies, and my archers on the left flank faced off against his archers on his right flank.  Things ground back and forth for quite a while before some lucky rolls allowed me to narrowly win.

Here, you can see my archers on the left, having eliminated his archers, trying to contend with some dismounted knights.

 

The second game, I played against an army with quite a few spear elements.  However, I don't quite remember which one it was.  The spears on my left fared badly against my knights, and I think I won a comfortable victory there.

 

The third game, I played against a colourful Medieval French army.  I refused my right flank and engaged his right, hoping to take out his artillery.

However, his artillery was tougher than expected, and killed one of my light horse attacking it, even with a closed door!  Eventually though, I got rid of it, and destroyed enough of his knights to eke out a win.  The funny thing though, is that the overall winner of the tournament turned out to be Mark, who used an army that didn't even have any knights! :)

After a fun Friday night, on Saturday morning I hosted a 3 vs. 3 HoTT game.  Since this was HoTT, any thing could go unit-wise, and we sure had quite a variety of them.

 

Mark, Terry, and I all had our fantasy armies from the current EDBAG campaign, but the Calgarians in the game had a combination of Arabic, colonial British, and Indian units, which they based on 60mm wide temporary bases.  We coached them through the game as I think all of them are new to the rules.

 

My side in the game lost when the center (with fire-breathing camel behemoths!) broke and Terry's army was able to break through.  A fun time was had by all.

On Saturday afternoon, we had the "Pirates of the Aegean" DBA tournament, and on Saturday night, I participated in a game of "Werewolf", a great social game.  However, I didn't take any pictures for those events, which is too bad, since I won "Pirates of the Aegean".

Sunday morning was the time for the Alberta Open DBA tournament, and I entered it with my West Frankish/Norman army.

 

The first game was against Mark's Norse-Irish.  He used the terrain to his advantage and managed to block my knight-heavy army, who are afraid to charge into bad going.  He managed to win by killing a couple of my units and hold out until the time limit ended the game.

  

The second game went better for me.  I played Dennis' Seleukid army, which despite being a fairly good anti-knight army, lost enough units to give me a narrow victory.

 

The third game, I fought against Marco's Christian Nubian army, which also had home-court advantage in a terrain setup with dunes and rough going.  However, my archers managed to defeat enough of his psiloi and warband in rough going to win.

This was a great convention, and everyone had a great time.  I look forward to going again next year!