2300: More Trouble On Beowulf

The referee is having a laugh. Did somebody say "Kobayashi Maru"? If I wanted to put myself in situations where no matter what I was going to do, I was going to get screwed, I'd go back to working for the local council.

Seriously, it was a lot of fun.

Who is not going to love dealing with a corporate lawyer who has their own personal ED 209 security droid in tow.  Give them a cheesy corporate vice principle to add on to that. The mass eviction of a load of British locals in the middle of a massive storm. Did I mention that the corporation has a history of genetic slavery? Good solid people right? The kind you trust every day. Well if your American and you vote Republican. Or Democrat.

The locals a great. Really welcoming. The second one we meet is insistent on using a neural whip on one of the workers he employs in his brothel. Luckily for us, we find out after my security tem leaser knocks him out cold and leaves him with a few missing teeth that he is the local leader and everyone in town, well pretty much, is related to him. Said employee is a pleasure bot so  not really human. Except that somehow, she is the first bot to develop true artificial intelligence. This is largely due to her employer using a neural whip on her.

Said neural whip was removed from the local businessman by the head of security. Just for comic effect, he decides to toss it to the engineer. The engineer now knows that attempting to juggle a live neural whip does not always end well and that there is no ice cream or medals afterwards.

So, after finding that there is a fortune "In them there hills" just before the corporates move in, we get some orders (after defeating the corporates attempts to jam our single) from the ESA to ensure that the corporation stay out of the town. I'm not sure if this is the ESA doing the right thing by it's citizens or just wanting to make sure that it secures a vitally important strategic resource.

Anyway, we have a drop ship on it's way with six marines and thirty locals. we may get some guys i battledress too.

Anyway, there will be lots of poop to be in next week. We don't play nice with our friends, I suspect we are not going to play nice with the corporates wither.

2300: Trouble On Beowulf

Three posts in one day. I must be doing something wrong. Last night was Mark's 2300 at the club and an enjoyable bash it was.

One of the things I like about hard science fiction is that the planets, even the habitable ones, are pretty unpleasant places to be. Beowulf is probably not a place to go on holiday. I don't see many all inclusive package deals being set up. Assuming the resident life forms which are big and lethal, don't eat you, the weather, including twelve meter high tides don't drown you, it will be the five day, days that send you barking.

The ESA have sent us there and we are waiting for our ride. Just whilst we happen to be at a lose end we are sent into the middle of nowhere to go and look at something that crashed there. We are not the only ones. The French (bad guys in 2300, but not as bad as the Chinese, or was it the Americans? Things are a little ambiguous from the point of view of a Brit) in the form of some militia, who are not local and in British territory, have come looking for what we are looking for. Which is a French, Military surveillance satellite. These are illegal after a planetary treaty. When we found it, it had a bomb in it and some unknown alien technology, probably Kafer (the real enemy).

Anyway, we come to blows with the French and an APC. So whilst me and and the rest of the team start shooting at the enemy Dave's character (an Anglo Danish Marine Lieutenant with the same level of education as a tapioca root) jumps on top of the APC and shoots the gunner and causes the driver to crash.

All in all a good firefight, I've nominated the marine for a medal and of course we have managed to annoy a lot of people despite saving the day, again. Thanks to my huge medical skill, everyone made it through and get some damage back.

Next week, our ship will arrive to pick us up and we will see where that takes us.  

Vac Suits And Some Odds And Sods

Another quick post. I have another 15mm character figure to put on. It has been sat on the bench foe a few weeks so thought I should put a picture on here. This is supposed to be a US marine officer figure. I'm not sure it's as good as the Navy Officer I did a few weeks ago but it's not too bad. I think it's a GZG figure mainly because it's on a round base.
 
These are some very old 25mm Grenadier Traveller miniatures. They were painted when I got them and I didn't fancy going to the efoort of stripping as the pait job was ok. So I have really only tarted them up. This meant ink, some bits of colour and a few bits of highlighting.  They are a little short but with the base don't look out of scale. I'll have to make sure whatever I use as flocking covers up all the sins.

Fallout Falls In

About half the figures I had planned for the fallout game are now done. Mostly I am pretty okay with them (that's impressed by my standards). Not sure about the one with the cowboy hat as she doesn't seem to have much of a mouth. I've had a look at the the one in the pack and I am fairly sure that the face is not my fault. There's also a female security guard in a cap that's face doesn't look that great but it is better in reality.

The NAC figures were at the time the game started a bit of an accommodation. I had a few left over from a NAC force project a while ago and they were close enough to the look I wanted. Towards the end of the last game te players acquired a big rocket launcher. In savage worlds I play with an adventure deck. This deck grants some advantages in certain situations. One of the players burnt a load of cards to get a big rocket launcher to kill a big monster. Sadly, another player got a really lucky shot that killed it just as the rocket launcher got into position. Anyway, they now have a big rocket launcher (something like a Milan) so i thought I had better do some figures for it.

WIP Some Falloutish Figures

As part of the ongoing desktop mopping up campaign I found that I had a load of GZG figures that had painted hands and faces. These were started when the Fallout game was in full swing which was much earlier in the year. This is just the first stage. On top of these, there are some more to do. I've added a few more poses. The good guys ended up with some heavy weapons so I've started some of those two. I'll put some pics up when they are done.

GZG Trucks Painted

May has been a busy month for Lead Reckoning. This kind of shows that I have the time and momentum for doing some gaming painting and developing some new ideas. So I am hoping that June should be another good month. So to help make it happen I thought I would post early and I have some pictures of GZG vehicles to show off.


 These are some of the older GZG trucks I showed on the blog last month and in their kit form back in December, now painted. They look okay to me. I had a play about with some of the GW glazes. Then I changed my mind and painted over them. I like the variety that GZG offer within a limited range of parts. The orange tracked vehicle really has a sense of a Traveller ATV.
Looking at the pictures, as usual, makes me think I need to do a bit of touch up work. The grey actually stands out on my normal gaming surface which is very sandy in colour.


I've been gaming today so I have some pictures to post soon as well.

New GZG 15mm Ground Vehicles

As well as the civilian mechs I got at Triples I got some of the new trucks. These are now glued together. They have a nice rugged 2300ish look. I'll not do too much about them here but I'll post a bit more when they get closer to being done. The one on the right hasn't quite set right so I've had to re-glue it.

I have been playing about with some of the GZG vehicles. I started on the military ones the other day. These are still at a very early stage. The trucks are really what I was after. I know they are vehicles but in many respects I see them more as scenary. The aim for them is more as things to make the terrain more interesting than it is to use them as vehicles.

I like the buggies as they have a nice Space 1999  vibe. This show is one of the best bits of scifi cheese even now. These too are a long way from ready.

Triples

I've been to the Triples wargame show yesterday. This is the biggest show in the North of England and the highlight of the gaming year. It's been a good day with some good mates. And a burger van. Mustn't forget the burger van. One was missing but he'll be down in a few weeks instead. He's vistied for just about every Triples for the last twenty years so it felt a bit odd but nothing I won't get over.

I got the feeling that there weren't quite so many people there this year but there were still plenty of traders. There seem to be a few new traders and the established ones seem to be doing okay.

Mecha Bodies

Mecha Arms

Having just started painting some GZG vehicles I had the excuse to buy some more. I purchased three of the new civilian mechs and some of the new trucks. I haven't got round to doing anything with the trucks yet. I have had a look at the mecha. I haven't put them together yet but this a is a view of the basic mecha kit and the three weapon systems with the mechs. They are not as grufty as the military versions but they are a lot cheaper. I can see some use for them in a range of scifi games and maybe even Fallout when the game comes back for the new season later on in the year.

One of my mates was talking about doing Empire of the Dead last year. It's something about steampunk being the new black or staying in or something. I am guessing that this is another game that is going to die on it's arse but I thought I would give them a go (he said looking at a pile of 6mm French Napoleonics that are gathering dust). I figured that I cold use one of them as an RPG character in an upcoming space 1889 game. I had the idea for an aging Kiplingesque general with a boderline mental health problem. The figure, with smoking jacket, revolver and swagger stick, seemed to be the right one. The rest of them could be used in another game or maybe even Empire of the Dead if there is someone willing to give it a go.

15mm GZG SciFi Armour

I have purchased a large amount of  GZG 15mm vehicles that have have been sat around for a while now. In terms of weight in the lead mountain, this is the single biggest purchase I have made in ten years. I wanted some stuff that would fit in with my ideas for Tomorrow's War. Sort of 2300 meets Aliens. So lots of mid-tech stuff with wheels and tracks are the main order of business. I have a some srmoured grav vehicles which I think  will do for a more advanced focred just for good measure. Mostly I wanted some civilian looking vehicles to use more as scenery rather than vehicles. All of which now require some degree of attention.

They have been taking up limited storage space ever since I got them. I thought it was about time I did something about it. Sooooo...... If I put some paint on them, it means the project has been started and is not at the gathering dust stage. I can justify buying some more stuff to stick in storage when I go to Triples later in the month. Then I can sit back and admire an even bigger lead mountain. In general, the lead miuntain has been getting smaller (or did I just stop buying 28mm figures?)

Wondering why there is a picture of a mountain at the top of the post? Well that is lead Mountain Colorado. No, seriously it actually exists, it's not just a clever metaphor :-)

Vault Characters

I will start out by saying that these were some figures I knocked up over the course of an afternoon as I needed the figures quite quickly. These were always going to be a bit rough and ready and are not my best work.

The Fallout game I am running needed some appropriate looking characters. As this is a game aimed at mass combat I thought I would start with some guards. The figures are some left over NAC troopers from GZG that I had lying around. The trooper are the core of the army so a nicely sized force seemed about right.

I wanted some civilian types for the players to use and as some NPCs. Medics, security scientists and the odd alcoholic. These are some GZG civilians and colonists. If you use 15mm sci figures, you can't beat GZG. I've recently had another big order from them and will post some more about that later.

Finally, these are another techie and some kids from GZG and the new leader of the vault from Peter Pig which was posted a few days ago.

The Dead Walk, I Mean Lie Down

Well it's been a slow time on the blog but this is mainly because the real world has been fairly busy. Paperwork and training were things I had thought I had left behind but perhaps not. The painting table hasn't been especially busy but some stuff has been going on. I now have a phone with a decent camera again so I can take some pictures. There is plenty of stuff but I thought I'd start with these as they are on the tabletop at the moment.

The Not Walking Dead

I had felt I needed some dead bodies and Peter Pig seemed the obvious choice. As my previous background project is over I thought it was time for a new one and corpses seemed like a good idea for something to keep me occupied.

I got a chance to go to Vapnartak wargames show at York race course last weekend and spent some cash. Mainly with Peter Pig who I haven't seen at a show for a while. York is a bit of a trek from Home but it was a nice show if a little bit cramped. I've never been before but it's had a few good reports from friends.


I had a few ideas for Peter Pig minis after seeing a blog called the Special Corps. Sadly it's not active anymore but it is well worth a look. He had been using Peter Pig "Hey you in the Jail" minis for sci fi including some nice conversions. This blog had been a major influence on me when I started down the road of 15mm gaming and I have been planning on buying some minis.

So I went to York to get some corpses, some western figures and plenty of odds and sods. Sadly they don't take the western figures to shows so I had to settle for corpses, scenery and some vehicles.

I had a few corpses and casualties from GZG in their NAC range and some body bags from TheScene which I had painted already but wanted a lot more (which I will get round to posting but it will be a dull post). I have painted some live NAC troopers and a corpse as Vault Dwellers for my current RPG endeavor  a couple of weeks ago and wanted to paint some more bodies. This is not because I thought the players would be intimidated by them. Honest. No, I really am being honest but it would have been a good idea.

I wanted some corpses for several reasons. Firstly mass combat games leave corpses behind so a few bodies for markers is a good idea, particularly for force on force and stargrunt. Secondly I wanted corpses to be proto zombies for a zombie game. It's always nice to have some corpses for RPG games. Finally I wanted some bodies for scenery purposes. The scenery pieces aren't here, they are still in a bag. I perhaps went a it crazy as I now have well over fifty bodies to paint. This is one of the nice things about gaming in 15mm, you can have lots and lots and lots.

Armed porters

I wanted some unusual figures for my Fallout game and I happened to have some armed porter figures from a manufacturer that I am not currently mentioning because of their appalling customer service. I was planning on moving into doing some 1920s figures at some point so got these a few months ago. As they were an easy paint job I thought I would give them a go. They still need to be inked and based but that won't be too hard.
I have some more stuff to go up so I will hopefully be posting some more over the next couple of days. It feels kind of nice to be posting again.

Toys....Yey!!!

The first money I have spent for a while has been on some miniatures from Ground Zero Games on some more 15mm stuff. GZG have been one of my favorites over the years. One of the things that has been missing from my sci fi tabletop was vehicles. Be it Hummvees or family cars, everywhere and every when has a lot of vehicles in my mind. Streets look empty without them. Apart from shopping centres, most street have moe cars on them than people at any given moment. Sci fi is where it's at for me at the moment so I have got few vehicles to make the tabletop look a bit more interesting and maybe something for the troops to use. It's a big chunk of lead. Most of it looks like it will work well together. The wheels for most of the vehicles are fairly modular and only really vary in scale. Some of the larger APCs could well double as Traveller ATVs. The longest one does look a lot like an old school ATV which is not something I have ever seen before. Whilst they are not contemporary vehicles they don't look all that different from modern vehicles and I guess they have some uses in Force on Force as well as Tomorrow's War. 

 It took a little while to get the vehicles put together but it had to be done. They look like something now do I feel better.There was a little bit of flash but it was not excessive. The bits seem to fit together okay and there are no major gaps when the sections are fitted together. I am feeling the urge to do some painting but I think till I get my new compressor at Christmas. There was a fair bit of other stuff including two new mecha and some infantry and even a few Christmas freebies as well. They look pretty good I think.

I wanted to do something along the lines of Aliens could want to replicate some elements of it in my games. Instead of doing the blasted planet of LV-426 I have been working on the desert terrain. So now I need something to make it look right. Big wheel raised above the ground was the look I was going for. Painted in the right colours I think these Bulldog trucks from GZG (below) should do the trick.

It is gradually taking longer and longer to work my way around blogger. It is one of the reasons I have been posting less. Getting things into place without the format changing itself is becoming a major ordeal. I would have liked to posted this yesterday but I have spent so much time getting the pictures in the right place and not disappearing or duplicating themselves. There should hopefully be a few more posts over the next few days.

The Zombie Horde Marches On (Again)

I hate Rebel Minis. They keep making stuff I want to paint. Zombies, you have to love zombies. I think it's now law in several southern states in America. The ever present fear of zombies is one of the main reasons the NRA is doing so well. I am told by a completely unreliable source. Mostly they a Rebel Minis but there is a GZG child mini in there somewhere.

There should be 28 of them and I can't figure out where the other one went when I was taking the picture. I need to greb them up a bit with some layer paints to make them look shabby and painted the bases gray to match the others. Having told someone recently that I wanted the Romero look I painted a few in a very pale flesh colour (from a twenty year old original GW paint pot. The last time I was in workshop I joked with one of the staff that I owned paint older than them. He had no sense of humour).

I got some rebel mini rioters. I wanted some guys with base ball bats but you can have too much of a good thing. I ended up with a few too many for what I wanted so I thought that I could use them as zombies. In 28mm there are a lot of medical themed zombies but I can't think of any in 15mm. I suppose the Khurasan Federal Scientists would do at a pinch. So I converted (took a craft knife to) one of the rioters. I cut the peak of the cap off and the belt off the back. Et voilà.

 Continuing the medical theme, This is a late patient in scrubs. No conversion. Like the ribs. Anyone fancy a zombie barbecue?

 Another rioter. A minor chop job on what was in one of the hands and a bit or arm bending. I could see this one as a hunter in a left for dead style game.

A chubby female zombie. She would certainly scare me. I look at this one and can't help but think about the women who died without a name who turned into a zombie. Sadly the picture isn't up to the look of the mini. She hasn't quite got the look of a bloater from left for dead but could do at a pinch.

Zombie hooker anyone? They eyes on this one look really wild. I could see her as the poster child of the apocalypse,

Another rioter. I have played dead rising endlessly and I recall some C.U.R.E. protesters with placards. I tried to write on the placard but think I will leave it until I have sprayed them with varnish.

GZG Humanoid Robots

Robots. Who doesn't need more robots and Jon at GZG managed to produce some more. They fit in quite nicely with the not Traveller stuff from RAFM that I love so much. 

These big fellas would make nice opponents or intimidating allies. Nice time I have need of some robots for sale all I will need is a handful of Jawas.

These are female humanoid miniatures. Like a lot of manufacturers they had enhanced female qualities if you get my meaning. this almost put me off buying them. I guess the "sizing" says a lot about gamers? Anyone up for a flame war? The 25mm minis were much the same. I did some selective editing with a knife and now they look a little Kryten-esque.

The male robots looking like a smaller version of Gort. Nice minis with no enhanced characteristics.

Continuing the Diversion

As I said the other day I wasn't very happy with how the crew compartment turned out so I have ripped it out and started again. I wanted to be able to get a penny sized base in there as well as be able to get my big fingers in there to move figures around. I also realised that I had made a mistake with the computer room which has been put right. If you enlarge the pictures you will see that I have started adding small details such as pipes, around the ship.

The crew compartment

I wanted the drive room to look busy but still have some  space to move figures around. The bits and pieces were largely stuff I had hanging around, empty pots and some bits from GZGand Ainsty Casting. I haven't fixed most of them in yet as I want to paint the crew compartment grey first.

The drive room

The plan was to paint the hull gold which I have started since I took these pictures. I have some spray paint that has been hanging around for a few years so I might as well use it.

GZG vac suits

I dragged these out on a whim yesterday. I painted these a while back and was going to paint up the new figures I got at Triples the other month.

I put them back because I want to order some more. I figured that these would do for bad guys and that if I get another couple of packs and some heavy suits I could paint them in a range of colours, so I put the new figures back in storage.
 
These are fairly high tech suits compared to the ones I have from RAFM. I would guess that the are about traveller TL12 or TL13. I originally painted them up as two teams.

I plan to get some more of these and paint them up a bit more randomly for civilians. I will also get a couple of packs of the Survey Team in vac suits to pad out the figures I have already painted and give the additional figures a bit more variety. I may even get some of the heavier vac suits that might work as hostile environment suits if I ever run a Traveller campaign again.

Phalons

I don't really remember why I got these. It must have been a whim. They have painted up well enough so I might get some more. I kind of have them figured out as another race for my alien slave army that I am putting together in line with a novel I am trying to write.

GZG Phalons

The models are still  a little like men in rubber suits but the heads and legs give them a slightly more alien appearance. I painted the eyeball red blue and green from an idea that I think I stole from the 1950s war of the worlds movie.

The next aliens I get I will have to paint them something other than purple or blue.

Mecha Upright

As someone who seems dead set against battletech I seem to be making another post about combat mecha.

The trouble with it is that there are so many bits that it takes a long time to glue the little bugger together. Then because of the shape, you have to come at it from all sides with the spray paint to get a good coverage. I know that Lord Siwoc from Brains & Guts commented that it looked like a complicated build. Whilst not completely intuitive, it wasn't that difficult. I seem to have aquired some extra bits when I got it. I can't help but think it has a thorax part missing.

It kind of looks like me when I get out of bed and I am just trying to remember how my back hurts without provoking too much pain. Think I am going to have to crack it and reglue it. It might also make it possible to get to the parts other spray cans have missed.

Below are a couple of work in progress pictures. See It's easy.

Mecha arrived

I was at Triples in Sheffield over the weekend. It is generally my biggest show of the year and one that most of my mates go to. I think it's going to generate a few posts over the course of the next week so here is the first.

I know I said I wasn't one for battle mechs. I am beginning to think that I lied. My love of GZG has changed my mind and after blogging about it I thought I would go out and buy one. It just looks so very very very shiny. Not a hint of Optimus Prime either. So here is the kit I purchased over the weekend.

Manned Ambulatory Combat Unit (MACU), M98 "Charger" class

This is what I ended up with. By the look of it they gave me an extra weapons pack which I don't remember asking for. It's a lot of lead but then I they charge a fair bit for it. I think it's one of their most expensive models. I like the idea but for the price you can get about forty infantry.

Jon told me that this is the first of a range of mecha that they are planning. No idea about release dates though.

I have started putting it together now and I am waiting for the glue to cure. I'll keep posting pictures as the kit continues.

Mecha unleashed

Although these have kind of been available for a few weeks now, they are now actually available on the GZG shop. They are designed on an impressive scale and make the standard 15mm infantry look tiny in comparison. It would be easy to tread on a soldier if you wern't careful. When I got a good look at them my first thought was that I would need to make some bigger buildings and hills. Smaller Mecha have kind of been in vogue for a while. Mainly I think because of Avatar and District 9. This is however taking it to the next level.

 

There are three versions of the basic model and I'll start with my favourite. This looks like a true Mecha bristling with weapons. It is what I thouht Battletech was all about. There is enough here to take on a range of foes. It's almost like an Ogre on legs. I have a feeling that I will be buying one of these at Tripples in Sheffield in a couple of weeks.

As a good second choice this versionhas fewer weapons but appears to be geared towards packing a heavier punch. I am guessing this would be an anti-mecha, anti-structure or anti armour version.

 

The third version is not really my bag but a nice idea none the less. This has more inspiration drawn from the Japanese market or maybe even Avatar. I remember playing a computer games years ago where the mechs picked up hand weapons. I am not sure that I like the SMG but the rifle looks pretty good.
 

One of the things that I really liked is that there is a range of accessories available to make the process of conversion much easier. There are three different packs with just about all the weapons from the three mecha available.

GZG appear to be maintaining their position as the grand daddy of 15mm SF.