Sci-Fi Terrain Review

For the past couple of years my group of gamers have been almost exclusively playing Star Wars Destiny, and card/dice game. It is an interesting game with plenty of replayability and endless possibilities for rebuilding your decks, but for some time we have been feeling that we really wanted to get back to some wargaming. So we played our final game of Star Wars Destiny the week before Christmas. January and February have been set aside for playing a few board games while we prepare for some proper wargaming.

The general plan is to start with Frostgrave and then depending on how long we play that for we will move on to Gaslands, Kill Team or possibly even 40k. On the back burner, we also have Lion/Dragon Rampant, more Blood Eagle, more In Her Majesty's Name and possibly The Men Who Would Be Kings, but they are more long term plans.

I have plenty of scenery ready for Frostgrave, so my thoughts moved on to what I have ready for sci-fi games and in particular Kill Team/40k. I have been picking up the odd copies of Warhammer 40k Conquest when I have seen it in the newsagents so I have amassed a fair bit of recent GW 40k scenery. I have also been laser cutting some gantries and buildings (designed by Bilbostomper of Thingyverse) to fill out my table. So the other night I decided it was about time I set it up to see what I had and if I needed any more.

Looking down on it from this perspective it looks spaced out, but as you get down amongst the pieces you soon realise that there is only a limited line of sight.

Even at this angle it still looks fairly open.

I took the following photos so that I could assess the line of sight possibilities

I think once you get down into the terrain, you start to see the limited field of view.

Some angles offer a more open table, but still with plenty of cover to move between.

I must also add that I have also built the GW40k crane since I took these so space is going to be even more restricted.

These photos only include my recent additions, I still need to go through all of my older pieces of terrain, such as the original 40k ruins and various other resin bits and pieces. I also have several pieces that I have scratch built as well as four Urban Mammoth terrain kits (I believe these were made by Tehnolog and repackaged by Urban Mammoth) that I still need to put together.

So, I think I can safely say that I have enough terrain to run Kill Team (if not Necromunda). Now, I just need to get some paint on to it, which should be a relatively quick process...

Hopefully, this is the start of some more regular post on this blog as I immerse myself back into the wargaming world.

A Little Project: Necron Guns

After picking up a large group of Necron miniatures at a car boot sale a couple of weeks ago. I discovered that the Necron Warriors were missing the green light gathering rods from their guns.

My first thought was that this reduced the usefulness of the purchase, but it then immediately struck me that this was a good opportunity to add some variety to the figures. There are enough figures to make up three squads, so I decided to define them by giving them different coloured rods.

I ordered up some light gathering rods from 4D Modelshop and then started to sort out how to cut them. I had one of the existing rods from the miniatures, so I measured it's length, 15.25mm. Now I didn't really want to hand cut 36 pieces, mainly due to the issues with getting them all accurate and also it would be nice not to have to clean up the end to the rods, so that the light gathering properties of the rods can really show through.

I resorted to using the laser cutter. I made up a quick jig and it worked out really well.

This, rather poor, photo shows the jig in position.

You can see what happens in this short video.

 

So, I was soon turning out rods cut to the perfect length. When laser cut, acrylic gives a nice polished finish so there was no clean up afterwards either.

I also decided to drill a small hole in the end of the Necrons guns to allow the light gathered in the rods to shine through, which you can just about see in the rather badly focused photo.

I have only placed the rods in position here, as I still plan to do quite a bit of work to the paint job. Unfortunately the Green rods from 4D Modelshop were quite pale, and in some light they are difficult to tell apart from the Yellow rods. They are certainly paler that the original GW ones. I may need to try to source some more green ones from a different supplier.

So, that's another little project successfully completed.

A Car Boot Haul!

I took my sons for a quick wander around the regular local boot sale this morning. I wasn't really looking for anything, except possibly a couple of DVDs, however, as we were just about done wandering around I noticed a copy of the original "How To Paint Citadel Miniatures". So I couldn't resist having a closer look.
Under the painting guide was a copy of Battlefleet Gothic and Chapter Approved 2003. I have already got the painting guide and Chapter Approved, and I have never really had much interest in Battlefleet Gothic. So at this point I started to turn away, I then noticed another box on the floor with several GW books in. I enquired how much they were, and was told £3 per book, and £5 for each bag of figures. Intrigued I dove in!
Now I don't play much 40K nowadays, I still have all my Tau and Kroot, and Dark Eldar, but I don't have any plans to play 40K for a good while. Still, at £3 each for hard-backed books I had to have a look. First up, was a copy Apocalypse, I was very tempted by this as all the books were in excellent condition. I decided against it, as the chances of my ever play Apocalypse are virtually none. Next up was Imperial Armour Apocalypse Update. Even though I had passed on the first book this interested me, as it had a few Tau units in it... but no. Finally was a copy of Imperial Armour Model Masterclass Volume One. I like reading modelling guides, and this is a gorgeous book so that was that, I had to have it.

As well as the books there were three plastic bags. Now I am trying to avoid impulse purchases of miniatures at the moment, but I could see that a couple had Necrons in and I have always fancied getting a few, I also knew that my two gaming pals, Del and Jeff, both have Necron forces, so one way or the other they would find a good home. The first bag had a lot of basic Necron Warriors in it and the second bag had several Necron Destroyers. They all looked neatly painted, even though the colour scheme was a little loud. The third bag had a few Chaos Space Marines in it. I dumped the CSMarines, but decided to take the two bags of Necrons.

I've had a closer look at them now and there are 33 Necron Warriors and a couple of extra pairs of legs, several need some TLC, but otherwise they are in good condition. They are painted in a metallic purple and white scheme, which is a bit loud, but is neatly done. A little bit of work and they will be ready to field. Also in the bag, was a Necron Lord, again in good condition. The only problem with all these miniatures is that the Light Gathering Rods are missing from their guns. I can soon replace those, and will pick up some Light Gathering Rods this week...

The Destroyers are in a similar condition, slightly damaged, but nothing I can't fix in about 20 minutes. There are six in all, one includes the Destroyer Lord Upgrade kit. Again, neatly painted, and with a little finishing I can get them to a usable condition.

My gaming group has been planning to do some Post Apocalyptic gaming and I think these Necrons, would make a great little skirmish force of Terminator style robots. Alternatively, with the purple colour scheme, they would possibly even be useful for my Retro Sci-Fi plans.

 I have just totted it up and I reckon I got around £150 worth of GW stuff for £12 (I even talked the seller down by £1). Not a bad trip to the car boot sale, if I do say so myself.

My only regret is that I didn't pick up the two Apocalypse books. Even just for the read, they would have been worth the extra £6...

Laser Cut Fort

One of my early laser cutting projects from last year was a fort loosely based on the one seen towards the end of the Starship Troopers movie.

I have posted photos of my kit on the blog before, but I have just received these photos of the finished fort from Dave Adams, and i thought they were worth show again!

 I am not sure who makes the landing pad and watch tower but I didn't make those...

 Dave has gone for a winter finish with his fort, perfect to go along with Four A Miniatures figures (also in my lead pile...

 The snow effect looks really good here, and I like the blue camo paint job, it works really well!

Thanks to Dave for sending me the photos.

I think i will finally finish painting my own fort, but use it as an (Aegis) defence line for my W40k Tau...

Update

I haven’t had much time to post anything on here recently.

I am still busy trying to get my head around the new CAD/CAM machinery, I think I have the 3D printers running fairly reliably now. So it is just a matter of learning to use the 3D design software to actually design something now…

I have been working on some more articles in my Quick and Easy Wargames Terrain series. So hopefully I will have them up in the near future. I am also near completion of my second and third Pulp/Retro Rocket, so you will see those in the near future too.

Finally, as I have mentioned in recent posts I have been getting back into doing some actual wargaming (rather than just painting and modelling). This has achieved though a rekindling of our regular Warhammer 40K games. I have been a huge fan of the Tau and Kroot figures ever since Games Workshop introduced them. I have been following a blog called Warhammer Tau for a while now and recently Adam, the creator of the blog announced that he was leaving his Tau behind so that he could concentrate on a new Eldar project. Anyway, to cut a long story short, I have taken over the Warhammer Tau blog and I will be posting my trials and tribulations as I rediscover my Tau force, and also posting any related Tau and Kroot news and articles as I produce them. So you wont be seeing any more 40K battle reports listed here as I will be directing them over to the dedicated 40K blog.

SO, please drop by the Warhammer Tau blog, and let me know what you think!

It's official, I'm actually a wargamer again!

I played my first wargame, in several years, last week!

I never really stooped wargaming, and I have had a strong need to wargame for quite some time. However, my gaming group has gone through quite a few changes over the last few years and we ended up being more of a board game group (who talked about wargaming a lot), than anything else.

I considered going along to my local wargames club (Aberdeen Wargames Club), but as my spare time is pretty much limited to one evening a week that would have meant loosing touch with the friends I game with at the moment. Anyway, we finally got our act together and settled on a system that was familiar to all of us, that we already had armies for and wouldn't tax us too hard to get back into, Warhammer 40K. Del had been playing regularly with another friend and Jeff and I both played it a lot a few years back.

So, we had decided on 40K, Del has been playing 5th edition recently, but on checking my much used rulebook it turned out to be 3rd edition. I also found a mint copy of 4th ed. ( I must have bought it about the time we stopped playing, probably read it once and then put it aside until the next game). Jeff was in a similar position, he also had a 4th edition copy. Fortunately, Ebay is your friend when it comes to older versions of 40K. Both Jeff and I managed to pick up the the smaller version (from the starter box) of the 5th edition rule book. I got mine, including the scenario book, a new set of dice, those horrid plastic rulers and the new (day-glow) templates, all for around £5!

As Jeff and I hadn't played for a long time Del offered to referee the first game and introduce us to the "new" 5th edition rules. We decided to start small and work up to some larger games. So initially we will be playing 400 point games. I fielded my Tau and Jeff brought along his Necrons.

I like my games to have a bit of narrative to them and know the terrain I planned to use I came up with the following:-

Early in the game things look quite positive for the tau!

Planet QV973alpha (Imperial Designation): Located in the quarantine zone that exists between Imperial Space and the Tau Empire. The planet was surveyed and found to be barren and uninhabited, although it was also discovered that certain geological features (crystal spires) displayed fairly severe effects on the warp around the planet! A team of scientists led by the Inquisition was despatched to investigate the nature of these "Crystal Spires". It was found that too much work around the geological formations caused heretical mutations and the research base was soon abandoned. The planet received the"Restricted" designation and was scheduled for a planet wide bombardment to erase all taint from it. However, the Imperial fleet has been busy elsewhere, and as such QV973alpha has been forgotten.

The incursion by the Imperial force did not go unnoticed!

1. The planet may be barren, but it is far from uninhabited! Hidden by thousands of years of harsh weather, a Necron tomb (Jeff's Necrons) is located on the far side of the planet and the arrival of the Imperial teams roused a small force to investigate the unwelcome intrusion...
2. An Eldar Craftworld (Del's Eldar) was not far from the planet while the Inquisition was conducting it's experiments. The Eldar felt the disturbances in the warp and sent a scouting force to investigate...
3. The Tau (my Tau) had been watching the Imperial ships as the came and went from the planet. Fairly sure that all the humans had left, the Tau sent a small ship with an advanced scouting party to see what the humans had been up to and to see if there was anything of the humans primitive technology left that could be of use for the Greater Good...

With some decent shooting the Kroot could easily take out those metal aberrations...

You'd think the Kroot had the upper hand here wouldn't you...

The idea was to have two games over the evening. The first would have two opposing forces rushing to take and hold the base. The second game would have the winner of the first game trying to hold the base while Del's Eldar tried to take it from them...

Who is that coming through between the buildings?

We can take them! Not with shooting like that you can't...

Jeff contemplates a rules question...

As it turned out we didn't get enough time to play the second game, but the first helped us all get back into the rules without too much mishap. The game went fairly well (at least from Jeff's point of view). I made a couple of serious tactical errors early in the game and then suffered some appallingly bad dice rolling, which led to my small Tau recon force being completely wiped out.  As it turned out, sending the Tau up against another shooty army that was in many ways more resilient than them, and also putting quite a lot of cover on the table definitely went against me...

We haven't got another game for a couple of weeks, but we will be returning to 40K. I imagine the Necrons will be squaring up against the Eldar next time. We will possibly increase the army size to 600point as well, so that we may get some vehicles on the table.

Warhammer 40K: Time to Revisit an Old Friend!

I used to play 40K on a regular basis for a good few years, both with my gaming group and also at the local GW shop (Aberdeen UK). I even entered a couple of the Games Day tournaments that were held in Edinburgh although I am not really that competitive, I just did it for the fun of meeting other gamers.  However, when my sons came along my gaming time was reduced and our gaming group moved on to other games and genres etc. so I haven’t really looked at the game since then. We are talking 4th edition here, by the way.

I originally had a large Eldar army, an Imperial Army (yes pre-IG, still love those figures) army, I also had a Khorne Chaos army for a while, and I have enough Dark Eldar (from the original release) to build a sizable army. My Eldar army faded in my interests and with the launch of the Tau I was really attracted to the Kroot, they looked suitably alien, and savage, without the brute stupidity of the Orks! I built up quite a large Tau army, and was on my way to building a Kroot Mercenary army too. A friend gave me his Tau army as well, so I probably have enough for an Apocalypse game, although it is unlikely I will go down that route. When I stopped playing I stored my Tau and Kroot away and I have occasionally had a look at them just to stir some memories.

One of my gaming group friends has been playing 40K recently (with a guy who is not in our group). His tales of the developing campaign have rekindled my interest to some extent, and now with the arrival of 6th edition that has also attracted me back to the game. Initially I am concentrating on filling out a few missing units from my Tau army, some of the newer models weren't out when I last played with the Tau. I have picked up three Piranha flyers, a couple of units of the XV25 Stealth teams and the Firewarriors with Railguns. I will be tracking down a Sniper Drone team in the near future too.

Digging through my existing collection of Tau I found a scratchbuilt/kit-bashed chariot that I built as a scenic base for my Ethereal. I believe that the new 6th Edition has brought back chariots (as well as some other vehicles) so I might actually be able to find some rules for it now too.

I will be getting back on track with my Kroot Mercenary army. It is unsupported, but it is so much fun converting it and putting it together! At least there is an army list available from the Kompletely Kroot forum, so I should be able to use them at least in my own gaming group! For my Kroot army I have several units of standard Kroot, a couple of Kroot Ox, and all the Shapers that have been released. I have also cast up some wings to convert a unit to flying. I also have a couple of the Forgeworld Knarlox models. The units I will probably work on first though are a couple of units of Kroot Cavalry. I bought the GW conversion kit, to turn Cold Ones into Kroot riding beasts, and have already put those together. However I don’t feel that they look like fast moving cavalry, so I came up with a plan to use the older Chaos Daemonettes steeds with some modification.

I cut the daemonettes off of their steeds, then cut the heads off of the steeds. I replaced their heads with Kroot Hound heads (which turned out to be a perfect size for the steeds) and also added the Kroot Hounds “Dreadlocks” onto the steeds necks. To hide the area where I removed the daemonettes I built up a quilted saddle and then mounted the Kroot rider on top. These conversions work out fairly expensive, when you include the Daemonette on Steed, the Kroot Hound and a basic Kroot figure, but the effect certainly looks sleek and fast, which is what I wanted to achieve. I have only put three together so far, but I have the parts ready for several more so these are going to take priority over the next few weeks…

I am not sure if I will actually pick up W40K 6th Ed. just yet. My friends are still happy using either 4th or 5th Ed. I will have to see how much I get back into it before deciding that one. Also a new Tau Codex would probably help me decide to upgrade to 6th Ed…

That time that all wargamers dread–rationalising your collection!

Recently I have been very busy, between a commercial sculpting project, putting together a new website for my pal Sholto at Scheltrum Miniatures (I did their old website as well, but it hadn’t been updated for a good few years) and my full time day job is at it’s busiest at this time of year too. Consequently I have had very little time to do any painting or terrain work since Christmas. While working on these other projects I have had plenty of time to consider my collection, decide what I want to paint next and make a few decisions about reducing my lead mountain to a slightly more achievable size.

I have started by listing all of the armies and projects I have started over the years and still have stored away ready to finish, as well as simply listing them  I have included a ranking based on my current interest levels.

Project	Priority
28mm Pulp Sci Fi	10/10
Weird War	8/10
40K Tau	5/10
Steampunk Skirmish	5/10
Shieldwall/Saga Vikings	2/10
20mm WW2 British	5/10
Sci Fi Terrain Project	10/10
28mm Samurai Skirmish (Perry Miniatures)	4/10
Necromunda	4/10
Mordheim	4/10
40k Kroot Army	7/10
28mm “Fantasy Mongols” (Ebob Miniatures)	5/10
Warhammer Dark Elves	3/10
40k Dark Eldar	5/10
Crimson Skies (metal models not the later plastic collectibles)	3/10
Confrontation Barbarians	2/10
Sudan British Colonial (Camel Corps. etc.)	6/10
Ancient British	5/10
6mm Sci Fi	4/10
28mm Post Apocalyptic Skirmish	5/10
28mm Fantasy Skirmish	6/10
15mm Sci-Fi GZG Kra’Vak	8/10
15mm Sci-Fi CMG Praesentia	9/10
15mm Sci_FI CMG ARC Fleet	10/10
15mm Mongols	3/10
15mm Barbarian Wars	7/10

There are several factors that I have tried to include in my priority score, firstly my current level interest, then completeness of my forces, and finally the possibility of my actually using them. This last one springs mainly from the fact that I don’t wargame regularly and I am not in a wargames club at the moment, my armies are based more or less exclusively on whatever I fancy doing rather than on what fellow gamers are playing at the time. I periodically consider joining Aberdeen Wargames Club (lack of time usually holds me back, but eventually I will get around to it), and so I intend to hold on to the obviously popular forces (28mm Ancient British, Sudan British) so that I will have something to use when I do get around to joining them.

Working my way down the list I will try to explain my thoughts on each genre.

28mm Pulp Sci-Fi Skirmish This is always going to be a favourite of mine. I just love the Hydra Miniatures range, they are so evocative of the 1930’s to 1950’s Sci-Fi art. I have big plans for terrain, buildings and even more figures with this one. It will always be skirmish rather than large battles, as I think it suits the genre much more closely!

28mm Weird War  I can probably put together enough forces for a skirmish game. I enjoy the genre and have some plans for scenics and terrain that I know I will enjoy building and will also be usable for the Pulp Sci-Fi games.

40K Tau I bought into the Tau when GW first released them, even played in a couple of tournaments that GW put on in Edinburgh (didn’t win much but I enjoyed the days – I have never been particularly competitive anyway). I have enough Tau to build two or three 40K armies, partly due to Jeff giving me his Tau army when he was clearing out a few years ago. I put a lot of time into putting together my basic Tau army, converted every figure in a couple of the Fire Warrior squads etc. I still love the look of the figures and the vehicles, and to be honest I have always preferred a “shooty” army when I am playing 40K. So I wont be getting rid of these, although I may thin out a few of the spares…

Steampunk Skirmish This has been a period I have wanted to develop for a long time. I have read a lot of steampunk books over the past two or three years, which have fuelled this, but it goes back a decade or more to when I was sculpting VSF figures for Scheltrum Miniatures, and helping them develop and playtest their as yet unpublished VSF rules. As it is I don’t have many steampunk figures, three 54mm figures and a couple of 28mm one. So, as much as I want to try it I am probably going to side line this project. I’ll hang on to the figures I have, and possibly buy a few more, but purely for painting and modelling purposes.

28mm Vikings I could say the same for the Vikings I have. 60 or 70 Foundry Vikings that I have sitting the box they came in... Now, unless one of my gaming buddies, Jeff, talks me into playing Saga, I  can’t see myself ever using them. My army is far from complete and I don’t see a time when I will want to paint them. So it seems like a good time to part with the Vikings while Saga is drawing so much attention to that period!

20mm WW2 British I have quite a large collection here, both figures and vehicles. Definitely in need of thinning out, but the core is worth hanging on to.

Sci-Fi Terrain Project I am part way through creating a series of terrain boards, buildings, scenics and other items that will represent an alien planet. I am aim for this to be usable for both 28mm and 15mm (at least most of it). So this is a top priority project and will remain so for a long time to come.

28mm  Samurai Skirmish I have always wanted to have a go at a samurai game. I can’t see myself doing a fun size battle, but I already have enough Perry Miniatures Samurai, so this one will stay on the back burner, but I don’t plan on getting rid of them at the moment.

Necromunda and Mordheim I have both sets of rules (and of course they are free to download from the GW website now). I have played Mordheim a few time and really enjoy it. Never played Necromunda, but I imagine I would enjoy it as well. These two projects are both related to the later listing of Post Apocalyptic Skirmish and Fantasy Skirmish. Any figures will be interchangeable with those projects and I don’t have any of the official figures from these games anyway, just the rules and scenery etc.

40K Kroot Army I bought into the Tau because I liked the look of the Kroot so much. When GW brought out the original semi-official army list that was it I immediately started to convert up an entire Kroot army. Far from finished, but still much loved. I wont be parting with this one…

28mm “Fantasy Mongols” Ebob Miniatures produced this range of miniatures a few years ago, before GW had released their own range of LOTR Easterlings. I picked up the infantry and Cavalry army deals. I have not done anything with them, but as I have always been interested in the Mongols I wont be getting rid of these either…

GW Dark Elves I have been collecting GW’s Dark Elves since the very first pre-slotta based ones were released. I didn’t like many of the early slotta based ones but when Chris Fitzpatrick did the re-sculpts for the re-launch I started picking them up again. So I have a large collection across at least three distinct styles. I doubt I will ever field a whole army (although it is the only complete fantasy army I have now), so chances are, I will get rid of most of these and just retain a few choice figures for use with a fantasy skirmish game or Mordheim.

GW Dark Eldar When GW launched the Dark Eldar, back when they were included in the box with the rules. All my pals got rid of their Dark Eldar, so I acquired a large force for virtually nothing. I added quite a bit too it and had everything I needed to field a full size 40K army. I have also more recently had a small army given to me so, making my DE force even bigger. I don’t have any of the newer designs, they are all 1st ed. DE, but I will probably hang on to them as opposition for my Kroot and Tau armies.

Crimson Skies I have the original FASA rules sets and about two dozen of the original metal planes. Being pulp based I like the background fluff. I also like the FASA rules which share much with their Renegade Legion Centurion Sci-Fi Ground combat rules. These are in a limbo state in my mind, I like it and will probably keep it, but if someone made me a good enough offer I would probably part with it!

Confrontation Barbarians Not a lot to say about these. Beautiful figures, I have a reasonable size force of them including their minotaurs, amazons, giants etc. but a dead system! I have an awful lot of 28mm barbarians, from various manufacturers, these are just lumped in with the rest now. Will I ever do anything with them, well maybe but I doubt it.

6mm Sci-Fi Another system I have had plans bubbling at the back of my mind! I have Future War Commander and also Renegade Legion Centurion. The actual models don’t take up much space and wont take much painting, so chances are I will keep them, but on the other hand, I don’t hold any particular urge to run out and game with them…

15mm Sci-Fi Anyone who has read this blog for a while will know I am very much into 15mm sci-fi at the moment. No chance of these disappearing anytime soon.

15mm Mongols As I mentioned earlier, I have a keen interested in this period of history, I’ve read several books on the subject etc. However, I am starting to think I will never do anything with these. I have a large collection from several manufacturers, Irregular Miniatures and Museum Miniatures for a start. Probably about time I moved them on…

15mm Barbarian Wars I took quite an extensive look at 15mm barbarians in my last blog post, but I have since found the carrier bag with all my Demonworld Orcs in it. So the plan for buying some Copplestones 15mm Barbarians and doing an REHoward style game has evolved a little into barbarians versus orcs. I am planning on building a terrain board around 3 or 4 foot square, possibly in square tiles that can be rotated to create different configurations. Something with a very Cimmerian feel, possibly with a hint of mythical Celtic Britain...

Now I need to sort through my store room (for that read garage) and organise all of those figures etc. into separate boxes so that I can find them a little easier. No doubt I will find other treasures that I have forgotten about!

Next I will have to start Ebaying off the stuff that rates a 1 or a 2 out of 10 on my priority scheme. I will also have to do some hard thinking about the 3s and 4s…

Toy Soldiers: First Sculpt!

I was tidying up a box of figures the other day and I found my very first figure sculpt. I made him around 1986/7 while at college doing my model making course. We had a very active roleplaying group, I used to play every Wednesday evening ( MERP and then Rolemaster) and also on a Sunday morning (everything from Call of Cthulhu through Judge Dredd, Traveller, Paranoia, and anything else you could mention) and we also played a few sessions of Stormbringer on a Saturday afternoon.
As well as the roleplaying we regularly bought Citadel and Ral Partha miniatures (there weren’t many other manufacturers around then – or at least not as easily accessible). I still clearly remember buying my first box of plastic space wombles, what a revelation they were…

OK, so you have a group of science fiction fans and role players who also happen to be training as professional model makers, it is only natural that we also painted minis and eventually had a go at sculpting. Now before I go off on the whole sculpting thing let me just add that my group of roleplayers included Ivan Bartleet, who won the very first Slayer Sword in 1987, and also Tim Adcock, who went on to build many of the vehicles and tanks that GW have released over the years!

Back to the sculpting. Anyway, we all used to have ago at converting the occasional figure (our miniatures that we used for the roleplaying games developed as our characters did). Then I sculpted a dead orc, which I don’t really consider to be my first sculpt, as it was more or less a half figure, sculpted lying flat on the ground. After that I thought it was about time I had a go at a full figure. So in the naivety of youth I decided I wanted to sculpt Geiger’s Alien.

Now bear in mind that, at the time, Greenstuff was pretty much unheard of in the UK (outside of Citadel and a few select others I assume), we were all still using Milliput epoxy putty to sculpt and convert our figures.

Considering all of these factors, I don’t think it turned out half bad! In close up it may not have a great amount of detail, but figures in the 1980s didn’t have the level of detail that they do now. Also, as you might have realised, this figure was never intended to be cast!
Excuse the poor photography, I only took these at 10.30pm last night, with only the cameras flash and the normal room lighting.

Model Making: Laser Cut Nodding Donkey

It has been a while since I showcased any of my laser cut models. So just to prove that I haven’t given up on it completely, here is one I have just been putting the finishing touches to.

Built from 2mm and 6mm MDF, with some short lengths of bamboo barbeque skewers at the pivot points and a little polystyrene tubing for the valve. Scale-wise, it is built to suit 28mm figures, although it is probably a little over sized and rather simplified, in a very pulpy kind of way…

The basic design is a mixture of several photos of nodding donkeys that I found online, simplified and refined for gaming purposes.

The valve is a couple of pieces of polystyrene tube with some excess epoxy adhesive that will be painted as some leaking oil.

Very much simplified, the motor to drive the donkey was cut down to a basic box with a couple of hatches etched into it.

You can get a rough idea of the overall size by looking at the last photo. The green cutting matt is actually A4 sized. Also the bottom hoop on the ladder, is designed to come about 10mm over a 28mm sized figure (on it’s base).

The rectangular base worked out quite well, both anchoring the whole model, and also representing the concrete slab that these nodding donkeys re normally built on.

Now all I need to do is add a scenic base and get it painted up…

I am planning on using it as scenery, or possibly an objective, for everything from pulp games through steampunk, weird war II and onto maybe even the occasional Warhammer 40K game. Also off the back of this model I have decided I want to build a drilling derrick to go with it.