Even More Tah-Sig

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I've set myself the target of finishing all the Tah-Sig I have to paint before allowing myself to buy or paint anything else.

It's proving reasonably difficult, as all the thrill of painting a new army has worn off now, so it's just a question of grinding through the final few figures.

So, first up is the final squad from Platoon #2: eight Tah-Sig foot from Khurasan:

All that now leaves me is Platoon #2's command (eight figures, half way through); and the company command squad of Big Men, mortars and a sniper (another eight figures, all undercoated). Maybe by this time next week...

One thing I have also managed to finish is the promised Garshaw main battle tanks. If you remember, these come from Dark Star Games:

These are painted in the same way as the already-featured Paghgaw IFV, but with a grey base colour rather than green, and with a Platoon #2 infantryman for size comparison.

To re-cap: an undercoat of red, masking tape in rough stripes, an overcoat in grey, peel off masking tape and finish with a very light dry-brush.

Although the technique has 'worked', again I am not too sure if I like it. Will have to actually play a game on proper sci-fi terrain to see. I do like the shape and look of the models, I hasten to add, it's just my paint job I'm not too sure about. Feel free to comment with what you think.

Note also that although I say the technique 'worked', the tank at the back suffered from very bad undercoat peeling when I took the tape off. Rather than be bothered to start the whole process again, I decided to treat it as battle damage, so re-painted in the metallic blue I use for all Tah-Sig equipment, then scuffed it up a bit.

The peel was probably due to me not washing the resin before painting. Either that or not letting the undercoat dry properly. In other words...my fault!

Paghgaw IFV from Dark Star

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With the infantry element of my Tah-Sig force almost complete (only 24 to go!), it's time to start thinking about what armour they will have in support.

Khurasan haven't yet got around to releasing any vehicles for the Tah-Sig (assume my usual complaint about infantry-only sci-fi ranges is repeated here) so it was time to have a look around the web to see what else was available.

Paghgaw IFV: image from the Dark Star Website

I've had my eye on the Dark Star 'Other Factions' range for some time. The tanks are an unusual shape (pizza slices, as my daughter called them) but as they are long and low, I think they suit the Tah-Sig perfectly:  matching the idea of them wearing armoured environmental suits as well.

Only problem is that the tanks are only available by mail order from the States, and with each vehicle being $18, the poor old pound still hovering around the $1.30 mark, and with postage and tax on top, they end up being pretty expensive. About £25 each in fact!

Well, my children don't really need to eat at every meal, so I bit the bullet and ordered four: three Garshaw AFVs and one Paghgaw IFV to use as a command vehicle.

Here's my attempt at the Paghhaw:

I decided not to use the suggested chain guns on the front but, as it's a support tank, to use the wider, howitzer-looking gun that comes as an option with each AFV. 

The tank also comes with a separate drone which, as you can see, I have modelled floating above the vehicle. That was fairly each to do: a pin drill and a bit of wire was all that was needed.

The unusual paint scheme is a bit of an experiment. It was done old-school style:  the tank was sprayed in the dark red colour, then I put masking tape strips where I wanted the stripes to be. Another spray, this time in the green, leave to dry, then peel off the masking tape to get the camo pattern. Then a quick touch up and drybrush to bring out the detail.

To be absolutely honest, I'm not sure I like it! I'm going to paint the other three in grey with red stripes as opposed to green, and see if I like them more. It is certainly eye-catching, so we'll have to see if it grows on me once deployed onto the tabletop proper.

Here's the Garshaw from the Dark Star website. My version to follow in a later post...

Second Tah-Sig Platoon

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Slowly working my way through the rest of the TahSig: 15mm sci-fi from Khurasan.

One of the problems of playing sci-fi games is a lack of familiarity with the units involved...even if it's only because I don't play often enough.

I mean, I can spot a Denison smock at a distance and work out I'm probably looking at WW2 British Paras (I'm talking figures here, not real life!), and then know a bit about their OBs and capabilities, but have to think a bit before being able to do the same for any of the sixteen or so 15mm sci-fi armies I have.

I've therefore decided to make life easy for me with the Tah-Sig. Each platoon will have different coloured armour: first platoon in red, second in green, and company HQ to be decided. Then each section has a different coloured tail-fin and top-knob on their armour. Simples!

So here are the first two squads from platoon two:  green armour rather than red, and with red and yellow squad markers.

One squad and the platoon HQ to go, add a few more for the company HQ, and that's all the infantry finished for the moment.

More Armour for the Hura

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Regular visitors will know that the Hura range from Clear Horizons suffers from the all-too-common "infantry only" syndrome: a nice range of infantry, a single type of infantry support weapon...and that's it. No heavier support weapons, no armour:  no vehicles at all.

Now whether that's because the range hasn't proved popular and it's not worth expanding or some other reason, it has still left me with a couple of platoons of unsupported infantry...something which I got around by assigning to the Hura Brigade Games' Xarledi grav tanks from their Yenpalo range.

Very nice looking grav tanks, but still only one vehicle type...that is until now, when Brigade have added a support variant.

As you can see, the Xarledi Support Tank shares the same 'body' as its AFV brothers, but has a short, fatter gun.

I must confess I'm little underwhelmed. Lovely models, don't get me wrong, and always keen to have a variant or two...but they could have made its 'support' weaponry a bit more different. Perhaps more mortar-like, or Stalin-organ-esq. Basically something other than just a shorter, stubbier gun!

Funny, isn't it, how I'm quite happy to be happy with an early Panzer IV and an F2 as contemporaries whose main difference is barrel-length (hush, rivet counters: just pipe down, you know what I mean), but unhappy when you've got effectively the same thing in a sci-fi setting.

As Rich would say: too much space-pixie dust!

Anyway, as always from Brigade, lovely models, and good back up for the Hura.

More Tah-Sig Finished

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I'm gradually working through my two Tah-Sig platoons...particularly as I need to get the infantry finished before my Darkest Star AFVs arrive to provide their support. Fresh off the workbench is a another section of grunts, and two particle cannon teams i.e. floating squad light support weapons.

I particularly like the LSW teams: the two front bases in the pic, above, as I like the way the weapons are portrayed as outlined below. 

Each two-man team consists of a gunner and a loader. Although it's not very clear in the photo, the standing loader in the nearest team has a couple of football-sized objects on a rack on his back, but the lying-down loader has one football-sized object on the ground close to his gunner's weapon, and one 'deflated' football-sized object strapped to the rack on his back. It's now obvious to me that the football-sized objects are some kind of magazine or powerpack for the gunner's gun. Neat!

Anyway, the Tah-Sig come from Khurasan, and I'm looking forward to getting them onto the tabletop when all finished.

New/Updated Army Lists for Q13

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Just realised that some of the army lists in the Quadrant 13 section needed updating...so I've updated them.

First up is a new list covering Khurasan's Tah-Sig: some very non-human aliens for which there are figures to represent a nicely scoped out platoon. No vehicles yet, but the infantry are cracking.

Here's the particle cannon team from Khurasan's website:

Click on the pics to go to the relevant manufacturer's website

Secondly, I've updated the Xar list to take into account the relatively new Xar infantry on flying saucers, and the fact that I've equipped mine with vehicles from Critical Mass/Ral Partha's Kaamados Dominion range.

The pic on the right is a shot of the saucer chaps in the raw, as it were, straight from GZG's website.

I haven't linked here to the pdfs of the relevant army list: how boring would that be! You'll need to vsisit the Q13/Army Lists page to get them.

New Sci-Fi Manufacturer: Boon Town Metals

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It's hard to keep track of all the manufacturers of 15mm sci-fi figures: old ones keep disappearing or being acquired by other people, new ones spring up all the time.

Here's one new one whose website went live only about a week ago:  Boon Town Metals.

Describing themselves as a niche figure manufacturer, they currently have two ranges: cyberpunk orcs (with a few other bits and pieces included) and sci-fi dwarves.

I have, of course, immediately purchased some of their dwarves. As you all know, my opinion is that, whenever you see miniatures that you like, you should buy them immediately as, if you don't, they can disappear from the scene without warning (e.g. Cactus dwarves where are you now?) so we'll see what these are like in the flesh.

Anyway, good luck to Boon Town, and hopefully they will be around for a long time.

First of the Tah-Sig

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Whilst I was waiting for my Battlefront bases to arrive (to finish my second Polish infantry platoon - do keep up!) I decided to start on one of the four sci-fi armies that I have in my lead mountain.

Yes, ridiculous to have four entire armies in the mountain, but I've learnt that you have to buy them when you see them in case the manufacturer goes under whilst you're still vacillating over whether to buy them or not!

Anyway, the chosen race was Khurasan's Tah-Sig: part of their Zantin Reconquest range. They are described as:

The Tah-sig are radically different from humans from a biological perspective, using liquid nitrogen as a solvent rather than water, and therefore living in a much colder environment. They are also burrowers rather than surface dwellers and rely on hearing more than sight as their primary sense. The Tah-sig have eyes but their main sense is hearing, and this is as acute, precise, and long-ranged as the human sense of sight. Their armoured environmental suits have built-in aural enhancers mounted on either side of their helmets to amplify and fine-tune this, and to prevent enemy disruption. The suit also has vision enhancement (the faint blue vision slots being visible in the recesses on either side of their helmets), but even when enhanced the vision of a Tah-sig is not equal to the unenhanced sight of a human. 

The current range of figures covers only infantry, but is nicely thought out in terms of the company and platoon OB.

Here's the first couple of infantry sections:

Now to start thinking about what vehicles to go with them...

Laser Wall from Warbases

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I'm a huge fan of Warbases: their bases are excellent quality, delivered quickly, and their customer service is second to none. 

So when Matt Slade submitted some of their new Starbase 962 sci-fi buildings to the TFL Painting Challenge, I quickly beetled off to the Warbases site to take a look.

Now did he build them then paint them, or paint them then build them?

Now I already have quite a few sci-fi buildings (mostly Critical Mass Games, RIP) so, nice as they were, I didn't fancy investing in any of their standard constructions...but what I didn't have and, funnily enough, what Matt hadn't shown, was what Warbases call a Laser Wall.

As you'll see in the picture, this is individual sections of either straight or corner pieces consisting of a wooden base and pylons, and then a glowing plastic "laser field" that slots in and out.

Each section, straight or corner, is (at time of writing) £2.50 plus p&p. This seemed like a good deal, so I bought twelve sections: four corners and eight straights.

Opening the box, I was immediately impressed: the plastic bits are indeed very glowing (mine were orange not yellow, but still looked great) and very solid as well: each is a serious chunk of plastic. The wooden base and supports are the usual Warbases laser-cut mdf, and each upright back-bit has two little holes in it to take teeny-tiny magnets to keep the fence together on the tabletop.

Getting the magnets was no problem:  one day delivery from first4magnets from Amazon meant that I had them in my hands literally, er, the next day! The twenty-four magnets I needed cost me £5.50 plus another £1.10 p&p.

Building the basic fence was easy: went together in the usual excellent Warbases fashion. Getting the magnets sorted, however, proved a royal pain in the posterior!

As you can imagine, I carefully worked out the positive/negative order in which the magnets needed to go. I then used PVA glue to bed them in and waited for the whole thing to dry. I then went to build my lovely laser-walled compound and found that I had half the bloody magnets in the wrong way round!

That meant working everything out again, then popping the upside-down magnets out of the back support and then re-siting them. Whilst I was doing this, I discovered that PVA glue isn't strong enough to hold the magnets in place: you need superglue for that.

So I then re-sited all the magnets using superglue, only to discover, to my horror, that in the process I had, yes, you've guessed it, reversed some of the magnets...so I now had a number of joins in my compound wall that actively pushed each other apart! And the magnets were superglued in.

I now discovered a use for an old pin drill: popping magnets out of the frame backs: a quick tap with a hammer did the trick, although you have to be careful where the magnets end up, as they are quite small!

One other thing you have to be careful of is that there is not much tolerance for anything sticking out into the groove the plastic laser field sits in on the frames. If a magnet is not flush to the (inside) frame, or there is a lump of dried superglue impeding the groove, those lovely chunks of plastic will not sit right. It took me about an hour to carefully clear each groove (for that read angrily chop at them with an old scalpel and the aforementioned old pin drill) until the plastic at least went approximately in smoothly.

Now that I had the raw compound built and successfully sitting together, it was time to paint it. That was easy: a quick spray of grey undercoat and then a dry-brush in a lighter grey.

See how the bases bow upwards where the plastic doesn't sit flush

As you'll see in the pictures, I still haven't managed to get the walls to sit perfectly together: the bases tend to bow upwards where the plastic doesn't sit flush. However, that is a pretty clinically taken photo against a smooth, white background: on the wargames table, the bowing is hardly noticeable at all.

Here's a pic with a couple of Felids in place, to give you an idea of scale:

Well I'm happy with my new laser-walled compound, and at a total cost of about £40 once p&p is taken into account, I think that's pretty good value too.

Now to write rules and a scenario to get the thing onto the tabletop...

Final Chuhuac!

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Having re-done the Chuhuac gallery (15mm sci-fi velociraptors with guns from Loud Ninja Games) I realised that I hadn't painted the Company HQ's reconnaissance tool, the heavy combat cyberform: a pterodactyl-like bird with a link to a ground-based specialist.

After sitting wondering where on earth it was, as I had definitely bought one, just not painted it at the same time as all the others, I strapped on a heavy backpack and headed for the lead mountain to seek the little bugger out. An hour later and a complete re-organisation of the sci-fi section of the mountain, and I had it in my hands.

The wings went on surprisingly well, despite not having any slots or tabs or anything. As I've said before, it's a feature of the Loud Ninja Games casts that they have a natural build-quality to them. The Chuhuac, for example, come on separated feet but, incredibly and with a little light bending, balance.

The wire is florists' wire (get it at the garden centre) and the base a plastic coin from a kids shopping set: makes it easy to drill a hole for the wire.

So that's the Chuhuac now complete...at least until the next release!

More Chuhuac Gravbikes

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I've been ill all day:  man flu which, as we all know, is 99.999999% fatal in all cases.

Still, being ill has given me a chance to finish off another unit for my Chuhuac force: the second, desert camouflage, gravbike squad:

I can't emphasise how nice these little models are. The bike-n-body comes in one piece, but the separate head means that you can pose them a little: just adds an extra something.

Painting was easy: undercoat in desert yellow, was with Agrax Earthshade, then two colours of red on the heads and necks, and a light yellow for the armour.

For those who are interested, they are mounted on 2p pieces with a hama bead connecting the bike to the coin. Works a treat!

I've also taken the opportunity to update the Chuhuac gallery: click here to visit.

Q13: More Chuhuac Battlesuits

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My Chuhuac (15mm sci-fi velociraptors with guns from Loud Ninja Games) force consists of three platoons: one camouflaged for the jungle, one for the desert, and one (special ops) for the city.

Each platoon consists of a couple of large squads of infantry in APCs, a squad of grav bikes, and a squad of battlesuits. Or that was the plan, until half way through the usual massive initial paint, I got distracted by other things.

Anyway, had a bit of time to spare this weekend, so filled in one of the gaps: the battlesuit squad for the second (desert) platoon.

Xarledi Hover Tanks for the Hura Technocracy

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According to the Clear Horizons website, "the Hura Technocracy represents an alien species known as the Hura. While possessing traits of both crabs and mantis insects, the Hura are an advanced species that use their technology to give them every advantage. Not only do they have a strong chitin outer skeleton that can deflect blows almost as well as most basic Human body armor, they utilize a powerful series of miniature, close-contact forcefield generators that provide an extra layer of defense without limiting their strength and speed. Their weaponry, nicknamed “Lightning Rods’, strike out with powerful beams that can fry not only organic material but any unshielded electronics as well".

Not my Hura!

I acquired my Hura through the original Kickstarter, investing enough to get a full company of infantry plus quite a few of the cyber-support weapons too. They then sat in the lead mountain for a couple of years until the built up guilt of ignoring them became too much and they moved to the painting table.

Unable to match the skills of the painter who produced the sample figures, I decided to go aquatic, and have the Hura's basic skin colour as light blue with nicely contrasting dark grey armour. Weapons would be the same green as for the infantry of the Pelagic Dominate on the grounds that they are aquatic too, so whatever they use to build the guns will work for the Hura as well.

Clear Horizons don't produce any specific vehicles for the Hura, so when I saw Brigade Models' new Xarledi tanks for their Yenpalo range, I jumped at the chance to have the Hura using these. Lovely models. The crewman's head, btw, is from CP Models.

The tanks arrived from Brigade in a box full of polystyrene chips. I pulled out the three Xarledis that I thought I'd ordered and put the box to one side. I had just finished the third tank when it was time to put out the rubbish, so I went back to the box...and what did I find? Yes, another tank: I had ordered four but forgotten! There's nothing more annoying than looking at three finished tanks whilst you are frantically finishing the fourth.

Anyhoo, all four are done now, and I've also added a gallery of all my Hura models to the Q13 section of the website. Or you can click on the pic below to go straight there.

Q13: Another 15mm Manufacturer Added to the List

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Just when you thought you had them all, up pops another. My thanks to those of you who e-mailed me.

Vanguard Miniatures are mostly a 6mm manufacturer, but have got three 15mm ranges available as well. These are the entomorphs, who are rather nice and need to be purchased asap, some space ork types known as skinnerz (any relation, Nick?) and some human types. They also stock Onslaught Miniatures ranges as well.

Here are some of the entomorphs and, yes, sigh, some space orkz too!

Loving these Entomorphs, will have to get some

Q13: Xar Flying Saucers!

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I've often complained that figure manufacturers have a habit of releasing incomplete sci-fi armies: a few infantry codes but without any support weapons, vehicles etc.

One manufacturer, however, who can never be accused of that is Ground Zero Games (GZG). If ever there was a good reason to use the word plethora, then  looking at the GZG catalogue is it!

Ralph Plowman's Xar

One of their latest releases are the Xar:  six legged aliens also known as Critters. True to form, the initial release included basic infantry types with two types of support weapons and separate officer/specialist types. That first release was soon followed by unarmed Xar in a variety of martial arts poses (just brilliant!) that could be used as such or also engineers, gun crews or other such support types, with the plethora of equipment and vehicles available elsewhere in the GZG range.

Now GZG have topped themselves again by launching the first of the vehicle codes for the Xar:  flying saucers! Each one comes as a thickish disc about 2.5cms in diameter topped by a Xar and sided by an impressive array of guns. As you'll see from the pictures below, despite my rudimentary painting technique, these are great. Highly recommended.

Must clean off the spider webs before photography!

List of 15mm Sci-Fi Manufacturers Updated

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With some of my favourite 15mm sci-fi figure manufacturers suddenly disappearing from the scene, I thought it about time to properly update the list that's available in the Quadrant 13 section of the website, or by clicking here. 

Very interesting: about a quarter of the 50 or so listings needed updating. Is it me, or does that seem like quite a lot?

To help you decide, here's a listing of what's changed:

  • Astro Miniatures: deleted as the man behind it is taking a break
  • Cactus:  fairly new on the list, but the website has disappeared: deleted
  • Clockwork Miniatures:  still on the list, but only an information page on their website  now, as their 25mm range has shifted to Warlord Games as part of their Bolt Action weird WW2 variant. No sign at all of the 15mm range :(
  • Combat Wombat: has been only a FB page for ages. Now that says the range has been sold to Skullduggery Press...but nothing on the Skullduggery site. Left on in the hope that they return.
  • Critical Mass:  sold to Ral Partha Europe. The infantry has started appearing on the RPE shop, no sign of the vehicles yet. Left on, but links to the RPE page now.
  • Mad Robot:  deleted, as the Harook have disappeared from their website :(
  • Spriggan:  just before I deleted their entry, I happened to notice that the 15mm Spuggs were also now in the RPE store. Link changed.
  • New entry:  Sayiner Microtoys with a few 15mm vehicles
  • New entry:  Slap Miniatures with their Space Dorks and more

All the above just goes to reinforce my opinion that, whenever you see miniatures that you like, you should buy them immediately as, if you don't, they can disappear from the scene without warning.

That might be why my lead mountain is so high, and why my children look hungry all the time!

Hura: Second Platoon Complete

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Despite my current lack of painting mojo, I have managed to finish the second platoon of Hura: the 15mm four-armed sci-fi infantry originally kickstarter-ed and now available from Clear Horizon Miniatures.

Technically I have one more platoon and the company commanders to go, but I'm unsure about actually painting the third platoon.

That would give me a good, solid, nine-squad company, but I've found that in Q13 I rarely use more than two platoons, so re-tasking these for duty as gun crews and other miscellaneous bods might be more useful than a third infantry platoon.

On top of that, the Hura support weapons now really look to me as if they should form the third squad of an infantry platoon i.e. a platoon would be infantry squad, infantry squad, support squad.

If I do that, I have my three squads per platoon, and all the company command I need, and can concentrate on getting some vehicles and artillery/AA pieces...which I can then crew with my now-spare figures.

Decisions, decisions!

One thing I do need to do is to find the Hura some vehicles, as Clear Horizon don't produce any. My usual solutions would be to pop to GroundZeroGames, who have a cornucopia of such things, but this time I think I'm going to go with Brigade Models' new Yenpalo Heavy Grav Tanks:

What I might also do is get some of the Yenpalo lizard riders and see if I can do a bit of a conversion job: adding half a Hura to each one.

A couple of squads of mounted scouts would add a certain something to the army: it will just be a question of whether I can get the conversion to work without too much superglue, pinning and green stuff!

 

More Goodness from MBA

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Regular visitors to this site will know that a month or so ago I took advantage of the 50%-off Miniature Building Authority sale to order some 15mm terrain from the US. See the post by clicking here (will open in new window).

I was so pleased with the buildings, and the fact that the 50%-off made them affordable to buy from the US, that I decided I'd better get some more in order to make my middle eastern town a bit bigger. A few clicks later, and I had another of the compounds and four more little houses on the way.

Whilst I was on the site, a couple more of the buildings caught my eye, and I duly ordered some of them too: manufacturers take note: all you have to do is get me there!

First up is the sawmill. Great little building this, and ideal for one of the scenarios in Bashnya or Bust! Unfortunately, the site said it was out of stock, but an e-mail to Kirk (good man that he is) led to him uncovering one deep in the recesses of the warehouse.

A nice little building, quite distinctive, that comes with a couple of piles of wood (okay, so they are a bit pants!) and some fencing to make an outside area. Loving this: will make any wooden Russian town or village a bit more interesting.

The next thing to catch my eye was the MBA Russian church. I'd coveted one of these for some time, but the problem is I already have at least three (it might be four, I deliberately forget!) Russian churches. If I bought this one, I was well on the way to having enough to portray a different church in each of the various towns and villages  in all 32 of the Bashnya and, indeed, all the Vyazma, scenarios as well. I definitely did not need another Russian church.

So here is my new MBA Russian church proudly sitting on the tabletop:

Another lovely model that comes with two gold crosses for the steeple: a really nice touch as I am bound to break or lose one over the next few years.

Here are the two buildings together rather than in isolation, and you can see the new middle eastern kit behind them as well:

So how did the financing work out this time?

Using an exchange rate of $1.30:£1.00, here's the calculation, rounded to single units for ease of consumption:

  • List price: $290 (£223)
  • 50% off: $145 (£112)
  • P&P:  $85 (£65)
  • Tax: $36 (£28)
  • Total Paid: $266 (£205)

So a saving of around £20...and I have some very nice buildings that are usually only available (due to cost) in the States.

The MBA sale is still on, click on the banner below to visit their site. Please mention VL if you do end up buying: I've already received one angry e-mail from a spouse about the money spent by her other half the last time I posted about MBA!

New Battlemats Arrive

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One of my impulse purchases at Salute this year was a couple of battlemats from Tiny Wargames. As my tables are 6'x5', I custom  ordered one of the South Pacific coastal mats and one of the planet Mars mats, both cloth only, paying £150 for the two, including p&p.

Arriving home yesterday, well within the 21-day custom order time given by Tiny Wargames, I was greeted by a good sized package containing the two mats...and they are cracking!

First up, the coastal mat. Okay, so I could have got a slightly bigger one made (that's my fault!) but the mat looks fantastic and I cannot wait to try it out.

Here's a few pictures without any other terrain on board, just a couple of Japanese landing craft:

And here's the Mars mat: again looks great...and it makes me almost sorry that I've homogenised all my sci-fi troopers onto grass bases.

So a couple of recommended purchases there, and I shall be treating myself to a winter mat once the finances have recovered.

www.tinywargames.co.uk

First of the Hura Infantry

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Just a quick post today before we're off to the cinema to watch Guardians of the Galaxy 2. Can't wait!

Anyway, the first platoon of Hura infantry leaves the painting table: three squads of eight plus a Big Man:

Two more platoons to go and then it's time to find them some vehicles.

Oh, and the Scorecard for the Painting Challenge is finally updated! Apologies for the delay.