The Slishians

/

Originally posted 21st August 2011

One of the great things about gaming in 15mm is that you can fit more toys onto the tabletop. This is especially relevant when talking about any game involving modern day guns: a quick comparison between ground scale and effective weapon ranges should give all guns (from sidearms to anti-tank to artillery)  the ability to shoot the length of the table and more.

More toys on the tabletop means that you can fight company-sized games with ease, so it's quite annoying that many ranges of 15mm sci-fi figures still seem to be designed for squad-level skirmish games: yes, they have infantry squads; but no, they don't have support weapons, higher level command figures etc. Try playing a WW2 game using only the figures available in many sci-fi ranges as proxies...it doesn't work!

So you have to work round this, which is why Khurasan's Vornids, already supported by their Fungoids as artillerymen, are now commanded and up-gunned by Hydra Miniatures Slishians. Seven foot of malevolent vegetation: what's not to love?

Froggy Tanks for the Aphids

/

Originally posted 14th August 2011

Well, I seem to be going sci-fi mad at the moment!

The new IABSM-variant rules are now in final playtesting, and I'm painting up units right, left and centre to get as many different combinations of troops on to the table as soon as possible.

Here are some tanks for the Aphids. They are from Blue Moon Manufacturing, ordered via special order from Old Glory UK. Very efficient service, so highly recommended.

The tanks are great: they have a certain "frogginess" about them that fits in well with the Aphids. 

The tanks come as one fuselage, the rear turret, and separate "eye turbines" and gun. The turbines and gun need some work to fit and glue them into place, but the models paint up very well with plenty of raised detail to take a good dry-brush. The tanks also come with very good flight stands.

One minor gripe: the raw fuselage has a (human) skull design on the bit between the "eye turbines" that I had to green-stuff over to make a dome. I'm sure that skulls are lovely as tank decorations, but they do then rather limit you to using them for human-based forces!

"Flycatcher" tanks

More Protolenes!

/

Originally posted 4th August 2011

A couple more units added: a second platoon of Hunter infantry; the Predator Communications/Electronic Warfare Ayame battlesuit variant; and a squad of Predator Ayame Assault battlesuits: the one's with the big jet engines on their backs!

Protolene Hunter Infantry from Critical Mass Games

Gallery: The Vornid

/

Originally posted 20th July 2011

The first of the Vornid: ambulatory plants from Khurasan Miniatures. 

I haven't had a chance to photograph the infantry yet, but the Figure Review section shows how they paint up.

In the meantime, here are a couple of Vornid support weapons. Being pirates (and as the range, in common with too many 15mm sci-fi ranges, currently only includes infantry) they have acquired their support weapons from non-Vornid sources. The guns come from Ground Zero Games, and the toadstool crew are from Khurasan's Mystri Island range.

Gallery: The Protolene Khanate from CMG

/

Originally posted 10th July 2011

With Critical Mass Games producing a whole load of new Protolene Khanate Ayame walkers, I've re-vamped the Khan's gallery page and started adding more units.

First up are the Ayame Mortar Assault walkers: a departure from the rest of the Ayame range as they aren't assigned to any of the three "branches" of the Khan army: the Hunters, Scouts or Predators. 

These are, however, great figures, and provide a much needed indirect fire support capacity for the Khan. As they are "branch-less", I decided to paint them up in grey, but couldn't resist making their claw hand the same colour as my predator models...perhaps as if they had been fitted from spare parts left over after a particularly bloody battle!

TFL Gamesday: Tobruk

/

Originally posted 16th June 2011

The TFL Games Day 2011 took place on Sunday 12th June, with the action being a re-fight of the Commonwealth break-in to Tobruk in January 1941.  Seven games were fought during the day. In the morning, the Commonwealth troops broke through the Italian perimeter. A lunchtime interlude saw the Matildas of 7TRT attempting to suppress the main Italian gun line. Finally, the Commonwealth troops fanned out, with three games charting their progress inside the perimeter.

Full reports of the day's play, plus tons of photos!

Playtesting Q13

/

Originally posted 6th June 2011

I'm expanding the quick IABSM sci-fi expansion I did in one of the Specials, Get Your Frickin' Tentacle Out Of My Face, into a full blown, stand-alone set of rules. It's going to be significantly different to IABSM, CDS and GYFTOOMF, although the basic mechanics (and concepts for the latter) will remain the same (-ish!).

Here's a quick AAR from our first playtest of the full rules.

Drones from GZG

The expanded system worked very well, with a few inconsistencies dealt with minor amendments. What is obvious is that facing a force with aircraft with none of your own or any AA cover is a recipe for disaster, which makes perfect sense when you think about it. Imagine the drones as Apache helicopters...

The much-expanded definitions (of troops, weapons, movement) and core rules worked really well, although much more playtesting is required to check game balance. What was good was the way that Tech Level played an important part in things (increasing chances to spot, targeting, damage etc) without slowing the game down at all. Also fun was the use of a Drone Operator: with the real damage being done to the Felids when the overall commander of the human force used his entire turn to activate said DO, who was hiding behind a hill on the other side of the battlefield, who then used his activation to "send in the drones". Playing the Felids I definitely found the threat of air attack ended up defining my tactics!

French 47mm Anti-Tank Guns

/

Originally posted 1st May 2011

As those of you who have seen my collection know, most of my WW2 figures are Battlefront. I like their slightly cartoon-y style, and find they take the paint very easily. As I also very much enjoy playing the early war period of WW2, I was therefore chuffed to bits when Battlefront re-visited the period: I looked forward to filling all the gaps in my German, French and BEF armies, and to adding Poles.

My first purchase were some French 47mm anti-tank guns...and this is where the horror starts. Quelle disappointment! Although the guns are lovely (and build easily) the crews are horrible, simply horrible! I was so moved I even posted on TMP about how bad they were, and was relieved to find that many other people feel the same way. Most advised me to keep the guns and crew them with Old Glory or Peter Pig.

Well, I was going to do that, then couldn't be bothered to go through all the hassle of ordering etc when I wanted to paint them now! So I kept the BF block-monster crews and did the best I could. Here they are:

Italian Fusilieri

/

Originally posted 29th April 2011

So I put the bank holiday weekend to good use by finishing another platoon of Italian Fusilieri for the forthcoming TFL Western Desert Games Day. I have now painted literally scores of Battlefront Italians now, and am always pleased how they turn out. 

For those interested, although I have used a variety of dark and light yellows on my Italians, this platoon is painted using GW Tausept Ochre washed with GW Devlan Mud and then highlighted with GW Desert Yellow. All equipment is also base coated, washed and highlighted; as is flesh. Means you paint each soldier twice, but I like the effect.

Lancia Armoured Trucks

/

Originally posted 22nd April 2011

I've been looking for some Lancia armoured trucks for some time and have finally decided to plump for the QRF WW1 models that are available. 

This model fairly accurately reflects an early Lancia armoured truck, but I really wanted the later 1ZM version which featured a wire cutter stretched from bonnet to top of cab and dispensed (for weight's sake) with the armoured rear wheel covering. Twelve of these were sent to Libya in the early 1930's, so could conceivably still have been going in 1940/41.

As for the paint scheme...well, it's not very accurate. Most Italian equipment was still painted dark green in 1940/41 rather than the desert yellow shown below. Amusingly, the white wall front tyre and nifty turret decoration are probably correct: the black and white photo I have seen from Benghazi shows a dark (presumably) green truck with white wall tyres and a turret that is definitely made up of two colours in the pattern shown below separated by a white line. It's not too much of a stretch to think that they might have been green and red to make the Italian flag!