This week we start with a surprise new project from Tony. He’s been collecting various makes of Star Wars toys and miniatures. The speeders are looking particularly good.
But it doesn’t stop there for Tony as he has also painted up some 15mm crates.
Sci-fi crates to act as loot containers in Stargrave
And the crates don’t stop there, Stephen has used some more of the Robogear terrain and added some free cargo container paper model textures for the outside.
28mm Sci-Fi crates are a must for any respectable skirmish game
And last but not least this week, Marcus has made some more progress on his scratch built spaceship. Can’t wait to see what he chooses for a colour scheme.
The Soaring Sow is definitely taking shape
I really should make more progress on my own spaceship.
This week a couple of us have made progress on the spaceship building competition currently being run. Above is my latest progress. I was given the original model by another club member. It’s a toy of some sort and I ended up taking it apart and repositioning parts of it. I also added a hatch/entrance to the front of the ship. Next up I need to design some sort of cockpit and then choose a colour scheme.
“Soaring Sow” There will be a small cockpit on top. Now, if I can only get the wings to look anything but wonky from the front…
Marcus also showed the progress he has made. Named the Soaring Sow Marcus has gone for a complete scratch build. Be interesting to see where he goes with this.
Just the basing to do.
Also this week Mark has been working on an army of 6mm Pontics bought from another member of the club. These are all based up with just the actual basing material to do.
It’s Wednesday again and this week it looks like Andy and I have monopolised any progress being made.
I’ve managed to get my polystyrene ruins painted up. I’m sort of happy with the colour but will probably add a bit of moss to the ruined walls.
Ruined walls, just need a bit of moss
I purposely didn’t stick the wall pieces to a base so that I could position them in different ways on the tabletop.
I also had enough of the polystyrene to make some wall sections.
Wall sections, because every soldier loves having to climb over walls!
Andy has been busy finishing off his Space 1999 eagle.
Spiffing colour scheme and some nice transfer decal work
And as if we haven’t seen enough Dark Ages stuff from Andy he has started on some Gripping Beast Saxon Thegns.
Bodies stuck to bases and awaiting heads and arms. Shields will be painted separately and added when the figures are finished.
That’s it for this week, we’ll have more from the club next Wednesday.
This week we have some great work in progress stuff from Dave. He and club member Chris have been building scenery for the Infinity 28mm Sci-Fi game for a number of years, but it now looks like this has stepped up a gear.
A multitude of bits and bobs for a proper scratchbuild project
And of course sustenance is required when embarking on such building projects, especially when you can then turn your treats into yet more scenery.
We’re not suggesting for a moment Dave ate all of these Fondant Cremes
Next up I’ve started work on a set of ruins, I found some polystyrene that had a different structure to the standard packing stuff you get. This had much more defined pieces that to me looked like the sort of stone work you see in ruins of big walled buildings.
Just need to work out a good colour scheme for the stones, definitely not doing these grey
And finally out the other side of a work in progress project, Stephen has finished painting his Templars.
Not sure why they are in the clouds, but a good looking unit or two.
See you next week for some more spaceship action among other things.
Colin gives us an update on his 3D Printing efforts.
I decided needed a coastal fort to accompany the Lepanto 3D printed galleys. Inspiration was this Turkish fort in Paphos, Cyprus which we visited a few years back.
Paphos Castle in Cyprus
So I put a design together in Tinkercad. This took about half an hour.
3D rendition of the castle
Here’s the painted first model I produced.
First version of the fort
I then updated the design with the extension of a rooftop building and added inserts for doorways and windows which will make the painting easier.
Updated design for the fort
Took just over 4 hours to print and used 30g of PLA which means it costs about 60p to produce.
I plan to make it my first upload to thingiverse.com and see if it attracts any interest.
Just a couple of offerings for this Wednesday. Above we have Andy’s 15mm crew figures to go with his Eagle ship model. The club is currently having a joint project of creating a 15mm space ship in preparation of the release of the Stargrave rules.
We will no doubt do a blog post showing of the entries in our small club competition.
Next up Stephen has finally decided to make a start on some Crusade era miniatures with some Templars.
Templar cavalry forming up
Any finally, I did say fellow club member efforts had convinced me to dig out my old 6mm Sci-Fi miniatures for a new paint job. I had a PacFed force from Brigade Models that have made it to the painting table once again.
Settled on a blue paint scheme so they can be used as Terran Authority Starmarines in Hammers Slammers games
That’s it for another week, see you next Wednesday.
Jeremey takes us through some home made blast markers.
Having recently started repainting my old 6mm Sci-Fi forces my thoughts turned to the different types of blast markers used in various wargames, you know the ones, they are often made of hard translucent plastic in the shape of a flame. Wargamers use them for marking the spot they are calling artillery down on or even to show destroyed and burnt out vehicles.
The first thing I thought of was could I make my own? Having made many things out of EVA foam for my gaming I turned to that first as a very simple material to work with. I knew you could get the foam in thin sheets and in bright colours. As luck would have it I popped into a local Poundland store to pick up some things for a bit of DIY I had to do, and discovered in the crafts section a packet of foam rocket shapes.
The packet had 5 foam rockets shapes for each colour
So I bought a packet at the predictable price, thinking I could make blast markers out of the red and yellow rockets.
Blast marker templates cut from a piece of cardboard
I made myself two flame shaped templates out of cardboard. One smaller than the other and made sure the smaller one fitted inside the silhouette of the larger one.
It was then just a matter of drawing round the templates, trying to fit in as many of the markers as I could. To make 3 blaster markers I would need 3 of the bigger flames in red and 6 of the smaller yellow flames to go on either side.
The first cut out flames, bit short on the yellow bits though
of course at first I completely forgot I’d need twice as many of the smaller yellow flames as the red, which is why there are only 3 of each in the picture!
A smaller blast created during assembly
Rather than waste the foam I experimented with a smaller blast marker cutting out from the red foam using the smaller of the two templates I’d made. I used standard PVA glue to stick the yellow smaller flame to the red foam and then repeated the process for the other side of the marker.
Incoming!
The final (sort of) stage involved me supergluing the marker to a thin wooden base that I had, which I then just painted to blend in a bit better. There we have it, very cheap, simple and quick blast markers for games.
However as you can see from the picture I took it a stage further. I added or rather smudged on some black miniature paint in that way explosions are often depicted. Nice simple effect that stops the blast marker looking too cartoonish. I also turned to the blue foam from the packet and wondered if I could make a splash marker. I don’t often play naval wargames but fellow club members do. I cut out a more splash like shape and as with the black on the blast marker I dabbed white paint on the edges of both the main shape and the smaller splash shapes, and of course I painted the base blue.
Now all I need to do is think up a way of using the green foam from the packet. Hmmm alien weapon blast effect …
To start us off this week we have a wonderful piece of scenery from Stephen in the form of a landing pad for his toy converted spaceship. The landing pad was made from the floor and walkway pieces from the game sets called Robogear. It’s great stuff if you can get hold of it.
Next up Marcus has painted even more aircraft. This time a mixture of Beaufighters and Mosquitoes.
John admitted to the club that a recent online discussion (and a vigorous one at that), prompted him to start work on some Spanish civil war buildings.
He just can’t stop building!
If lockdown doesn’t end soon John is going to run out of room!
After all those Dark Age figures Andy has shifted somewhat to painting up a bunch of 15mm Sci-Fi characters. No doubt to go with his recent Space 1999 Eagle.
Motley Crew …
And finally for this week, yet more progress (though not as much as hoped for) from Mark on his 6mm Hammers Slammers forces.
Building up quite the force
And couldn’t resist a close up of the paint scheme.
I’ve been enjoying Mark painting up his forces so much I’ve dug my old 6mm tanks out and will be adding them to the painting queue.
John presents us with another Zona Alpha battle report.
A Zona Alfa Solo play battle report, a continuation from The Hostage in bunker c7. It had all been too good to be true. With half a kilometre travelled the BPM 97 coughed and spluttered it’s last and came to a grinding halt.
‘Where are we?’ Kovacs asked. ‘Strelets’ replied Leila, ‘The fence is just beyond the village’. He picked up a cluster of hotspots in the village and with the zombies in pursuit He needed to think fast.
‘Ice Queen, booby trap the doors, they’ll smell our sweat first’. Cover us whilst we check out the village.’ ‘Leila, grab the wire cutters and stock up on grenades everyone’.
Kovacs headed out first followed by Leila. They’d reached the outskirts of the village as the zombies arrived. Sure enough they triggered the Booby trap and the doors were well and truly blown off.
Four of the zombies are caught in the blast zone. With an ‘armour’ of 6 minus 2 for the grenade blast, they need 4 or less to survive. Two down!
Ice Queen takes aim at the zombies.
Ice Queen aims 3 shots at the zombies but only hits one (needing 7 or less).The Zombie is downed. She has no further actions fortunately, the zombies have activated twice this turn.
Whilst she could, Ice Queen ran around the building to Kovacs and Leila. ‘This will slow us down’ muttered Kovacs as Leila attempted to take out the zombies unsuccessfully. Kovacs lobbed a well aimed grenade in their direction and all three fell dead.
All three zombies are caught in the blast zone and all fail their armour save rolls, needing 4 or less
Picking their way through the village, it was clear that other hotspots would be triggered. ‘Better choose ourselves’ said Kovacs as he tossed a bolt at the building in front triggering the hot spot
‘Holy Cow! Four mechs’ groaned Kovacs.
Between Kovacs and Ice Queen, two mechs are destroyed.
‘Drat!’ shouted Kovacs as one of the mechs aimed at him. Luckily it missed, the second mech fired and wounded Ice Queen before it too was downed. Having disposed of the Mechs and administering a med pack to Ice Queen, Kovacs weaved between the village buildings and clambered onto some farm machinery to get a clear throw for a bolt toss to trigger the hot spot near the fence. It was then that Kovacs noticed the sensors.
A good throw triggered the hot spot, revealing a huge Man eating plant
‘What the …’ ‘Ice Queen, here now!’ shouted Kovacs.
A skilful shot from the sniper rifle takes out the mutant who rolled a 10 needing a 3 or less to survive
‘Leila, run to the fence and cut a hole in the wire – don’t worry about the alarm’ ordered Kovacs. Without a fumble, the bolt cutters easily made a hole in the fence as the alarm started, waking up some Ghouls – tortured irradiated souls who had escaped from the Sanatorium.
Kovacs opens up first and between him and Ice Queen, the ghouls are eliminated
As Kovacs makes a run for the fence, the mayhem roused a group of zombies near the bath house.
Ice Queen was stranded, deserted by her comrades. With the alarms going, there was only one course of action to survive. Her Sniper rifle weighed too much, she had to ditch it to stand a chance and run for the wire before the zombies got to her. At the wire, Kovacs handed her a bottle of Electric Juice . ‘Here take this’. ‘Now run for that Sewage drain to the left’. They made it into the cold damp darkness of the sewage pipe before the first drone came over. ‘You owe me’ howled Ice Queen. Some people say you can never get rid of the smell.
It had all been too good to be true. With half a kilometre travelled the BPM 97 coughed and spluttered it’s last and came to a grinding halt.
Having disposed of the Mechs and administering a med pack to Ice Queen, Kovacs weaved between the village buildings and clambered onto some farm machinery to get a clear throw for a bolt toss to trigger the hot spot near the fence. It was then that Kovacs noticed the sensors.
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