I finished up another batch of commission painting today. These are some 1/300 aircraft Wayne picked up for Check Your 6. I really enjoy painting 6mm stuff so of course I was happy about this opportunity. Planes are a mix of types for the Indo-Pakistani wars in 1965 and 1971.
Mystere IVAs, Hunters and Gnats
MiG-21s, F-86es and F-104s
I look forward to seeing these on the gaming table. Should be a fun group to play with.
Our whole group of Stargrave players got together yesterday for our February game. Since there were six of us and Stargrave can get really slow with a lot of players, I set up two 3 x 3 tables; players were randomly assigned to one table or the other. The two scenarios that were set up were Skymine and Salvage Crew. Ziggy, Wayne and Mike ended up on the Skymine table Being engrossed in the game I was playing, I only got one picture of that setup.
From what I understand, Zig had a really good game and Mike did well. Wayne stunk it up, quite a reverse from last time when he completely dominated.
David, Mark and I were on the Salvage Crew table, gathering loot that had been scattered in a swamp from a downed spaceship. The spaceship provided a focal point for the encounter.
That's David's heavily-revamped crew off to the left. He suffered a lot of casualties in the previous game and essentially blew it up and started over. Mark's Monkey crew is in the upper right corner; this was his first game. My group is at the bottom. I replaced a freebie Recruit with a 100 Credit Pathfinder during the break. I gave the +1 Shoot Carbine I had picked up to the Pathfinder.
Things got really weird for David early. Wandering monsters showed up on turns 1 and 2, both in the same place, posing a real threat to David's crew right out of the gates.
David's sniper worked on grabbing a Data Loot from the island in the stream while my Runner, Scoop, snagged a Physical Loot from under the Monkey's noses. My newly-hired Pathfinder Rufus McCoy was shot to ribbons by the Monkeys on the hill. 100 credits. Three turns. Kind of what I expected to be honest.
Scoop starts the slow Physical Loot slog back to the corner, through difficult terrain. LEMME HEAR IT FOR 1/4 SPEED! Of course a Ryakan chooses that moment to arrive in my safe corner, blocking my exit. X AE A-12 intercedes to protect the Runner. The Ryakan chomps down on the HERObot to the tune of 10 damage. Judas Priest! What utter bullshit.
By turn 5 things were just running out the drain quickly. David had been cut off from much of the battlefield by a combination of trees, smoke and a Wall of Force Mark's Captain had thrown up to slow the monsters down. The Green snakey monster had spit acid at David's First Mate earlier and caused a tremendous amount of damage which seemed to leave an impression on David. Of course the Hydra simply burrowed under the Force Wall. The defense laser on the space ship pounded both mine and Mark's crews foolish enough to approach. My Codebreaker Katie Kaboom (the pink one in the middle) was knocked out for the third game in a row! Medic Beverly Kills picked up a Physical Loot and was hoofing it towards the corner.Mark took the opportunity to use Lift to movie some of his monkey troops to intercept the getaway. I was not pleased. At the far side of the map you can see that two more monsters have arrived - another Ryakan moving towards David's crew and a big gray boar ready to block Mark's monkeys from escaping with Data Loot.
By turn 7 I was in full retreat, trying to get away with loot and few casualties.
The boar and hyrda stalk data-carrying-monkey prey. One monkey has already been poisoned by the hydra.
Fun game, that. Lots of action and craziness. The mix of special powers that Mark and David had going on made for a lot of unpredictability. I only ended up with one injury on Katie Kaboom who will start the next game at 1/2 Health. My First Mate gained a level and I located 275 credits worth of loot. Not a bad haul. I need to make a decision about keeping Scoop, the Runner. On one hand, he's free and fast, ideal for putting into risky spots. On the other hand, another Pathfinder gives be someone equally fast who's much better equipped. At 100 credits though, I'd be hesitant to put him into risky situations which currently don't faze a zero-credit Runner. Decisions...
Looking forward to the next encounter in March!
I finished up another set of commission work for Wayne, these accompany the alien monstrosities from the previous post. This group is a bit less weird, that's for sure!
We're getting our third game of Stargrave today. Should be weird.
Ziggy and I got in that Dragon Rampant scenario playtest yesterday evening. No thorough AAR, but a couple of pics.
The scenario is inspired directly by the great movie Army of Darkness. Undead "Deadites" led by Naughty Ash fighting it out with the living, led by Goody Two-Shoes. The scenario played well and I know exactly what terrain to pack with me in a few weeks. Goody Two-Shoes' car is obviously a scratch conversion of a toy car with a handmade windmill blade for carving up Deadites. I spent a few hours thinking about how to do it and make it look interesting and plenty more time getting the blade support to stay put! I'm happy with the result which is certainly evocative of Ash's car in the final battle.
I finished up the first batch of commission work for Wayne this morning. Some pics.
Hi all. It's been a slow couple of weeks on the gaming front. Last weekend I got a lot of tabletop terrain put together. We had a contractor in the house working on flooring and I was essentially trapped at home with him for tow days. It was productive for making gaming things for sure!
Wayne gave me a handful of 28mm sci fi minis to paint up as commissions - I'll post pics as they make their way through the queue. He's also got a bunch of 1/300 jets on the way too. I won't have to buy my own models to paint for a while!
Zig and I are going to playtest the Dragon Rampant scenario tomorrow. I'll post some pics of it. Be well!
There have been two campaign games of Stargrave in the last week or so. The first was a two-player game with me and David. David missed the first game so it was an opportunity for him to learn the game without many distractions. I set up a 24" x 24" table for the scenario called "The Botched Deal."
I ordered a box of Army Painter Speed Paints last week. The big box.
Of course I needed to take them for a test drive so I quickly prepped and based a collection of 15mm Blue Moon space aliens I've had for a few months. I primed the models white and then hit them with the brushes on Saturday morning and Sunday afternoon. First, some pics of the results.
Painting was done with a combination of Speed Paints and traditional painting. The green heads, white/gray unis and yellow packs are Speed Paints. Weapons, straps, leader backpacks and bases are traditional.
My thoughts? I like the colors and results. I was expecting more difference between highlights and shadows, but I suspect the small size of the models and relatively shallow recesses is partly responsible. a bigger chunkier model will undoubtedly produce a different result. Maybe something like Reaper Bones.
It takes very little of this paint to cover a painting surface, so when you get started, be cautious with how much paint you squeeze from the dropper! You can always squeeze more out but it's really tough to put that Djinni back in the bottle...
Those Sash and Saber Brits I started painting a couple of months ago finally found their way back to the painting table this weekend and are now permanent members of "the collection!" These are 28mm castings for my Blood and Plunder games set in New England and Canada. Uniforms are probably inaccurate and, well, they look like English troops and that's all that really matters.
I sense a good-sized battle in the future.
Happy New Year everyone. My New Year's was nice a relaxed. Good football, no drama.
I did pick up a few fun minis for the Stargrave collection. They're Alternative Armies and Bombshell miniatures.
A Cyborg who'll make a nice weird group leader, a couple awesome guard dogs and some others who can take on almost any role. Really, they were just cool models to add to the collection.
I hope everyone had a fine Christmas and that Santa was good to you. I my sisters and their families were in town and we had a great time. Before everyone arrived though, I was able to finish up the terrain pieces I had been working on and I also put my final touches on some minis I was working on.
First up, those minis.
I really should make four more of these to ensure I get good table coverage. I'll get cracking on it this week I'm sure.
Of course those hills are going to have a little competition in the garage. My next guitar project is now to the point where it's going to start taking time and energy. I picked up an Epiphone Les Paul Jr body on eBay a couple months ago. I had a good bit of hardware already and got the rest in my Christmas stocking. I decided that the guitar, instead of being painted, should be stickered. I got at least a hundred stickers yesterday to add to the collection I'd already begun. Yesterday afternoon I spent about three hours doing this:
The stickering was a lot of fun. Next step with that will be applying a heavy dose of clear coat over those stickers. 8-10 layers should be OK. After that's done, it's on to the electronics!
Be well, and if I don't post again this week, Happy New Year!
The season of the witch, that is. I'm on another tangent right now and have dipped my toe back in the 1/72 pool. The models are from Re...
