We are warriors, not merchants.

So in my last order to Rebel Minis, I got some Kurgen. Lets face it these guys are Mangalores and they are amazing. Great sculpts. The infantry however are not done yet. I got distracted by some vehicle builds I was working on for them. 

I'll post shots of the infantry when they are done but for now I'm going to concentrate on the vehicles.

 Lets start with the Command/Comm Truck. 

This one was an interesting and fun build. I have only done a few conversions and most of those have been small changes. This was a complete kit bash. The body is the top section of a medium sized AT43 walker. The treads are from an Axis and Allies Churchill mini. The door on the back is a 28mm wrist shield off a Warzone fig I had. Most of the bits are epoxy casts using instamold. I borrowed a lot from other various AT43 stuff. 

The antenna is made with EZ-line. This stuff is cool. Bobe's Hobby House sells it on their site. They use it for Telephone lines in model railroading. The airplane guys make antennas out of them. They also make great bow strings. It stretches a lot and doesn't snap.

The truck has a magnet on the top. This allows me to make some cool accessories for it.

The Radar Setup:

The Comm Setup:

It was a fun build. I wanted something alien looking but also military.  That is part of the reason I left the body as tall as it is. 

I also put together a small APC for the unit.

This is another AT43 body with a zvezda 1/100 scale German half track for the motor system. I had to do a lot of buildup in the back to give a good place to attach the tracks. I was going to make more of these but destroying a $5 kit to make each one wasn't in the budget. I also need to find more AT-43 bodies like this one as well.

On to the tanks. Both of them are Schwerer Kleiner Panzer kits from Pegasus. They are small tanks so the work well down sized from 1/72nd. The Jaguaundi is another good kit and will probably make it into this force at some point.

The Commanders Tank

The other tank

The stowage and other bits are mostly from kit bashed 72nd scale kits and a cast of the top to a match box armored truck. The same model comes painted as a fire truck as well I think. Big square vehicle with a lot of bits in the top. Jerry cans, Shovels, and some wrapped baggage. I made a few copies for future use.

The next unit was simple to make and looks cool but I have no idea what to use it for in a game. I call it the Artillery Walker.

After stealing the bodies off the top I had several of these legs left over. I turned one of the hip pieces over and thought it looked cool. One of the large guns from another mech fit perfect on the back. So the Artillery Walker was born.

I figure they will be more objectives then anything else. They cannot shoot at anything on the table that's for sure. 

I also have a few AT-43 power armor suits that look cool but I am not sure if I like them or not. I think they need something. I'm just not sure yet.

I think the Quar and the Mangalors will have to be eternal enemies as the steady and resolute Quar will inevitably clash with the militaristic and conquest driven Mangalors.

Invasion of the Quar!

I have finally gotten some time to work on a few projects. I have had some 15mm Quar from Zombiesmith.

They figs are still a work in progress. The vehicles are Mechwarrior figs that I thought worked for them. The vehicles are a little small for normal 15mm. The Quar are a smaller stout race and look nice with the vehicle size.

 

The other fig in this out of focus picture is a Rebel Mini Kurgen. Lets face it they are Mangalors

I'll have a post about them soon. They are in progress as well.

I also found these at the flea market at HurriCon last week.

I have no clue what they are. I figured I could use them as a Quar village or military outpost. I think I'm going to make it an outpost. The doors are a bit small but I think I can live with it.

I'm going to experiment with them a bit. I want to try and give the portholes a soft blue glow and make the other bits look like solar panels. The theme will be a self sufficient military base that is semi permanent. So the buildings are small but well built. Here are some more shots of the various buildings.

 

One of the buildings is going to be a communications hut. I have some experience as a radio engineer and that will make this kinda fun. I'm trying to mockup a few microwave and satellite dishes as well as a few antennas. I broke my cutters a while back and keep forgetting to replace them. I'll have to do that before I can continue this build.

I think the Quar army is coming along. I had a few more vehicles that I was going to use for them but the Mangalors stole them. They where normal 15mm size and seem to fit them a lot better. I'll try to post their progress soon. I just finished a lot of kit bashing for them. I came across some AT-43 stuff really cheap. I'm well on my way to having a few nice force selections. In addition to the Quar and the Mangalors, I have some Earth Force Marines and Sahadeen from Rebel Minis.

DIY Custom Dice

Right before the expected release of the Omni-Stand we ran into a major production issue and still have some minor problems we are working on. I also had a lot of my time consumed by   PeliCon I. We have over 105 attendees for a single day event and are already talking about expanding it to 2 or 3 days next year!

That said I'm trying to get back into the swing of things and hopefully get some gaming in. In my travels I came across and interesting post and wanted to spread the wealth.

The Dicecreator has some interesting custom dice on his site and built his own dice engraver. He also came up with an interesting technique for printing your own dice faces. It borrows from a well known technique for etching custom PCBs for electronics. You print the design on high gloss photo paper and iron it onto the die. He goes into much better detail. check it out!

A Teaching Demo for Firestorm

So I introduced a new player to Firestorm and we got together to help him get use to the rules. We are playing on the new Pillars and Jets mat. His fleet is the first to be completely outfitted with Omni-Stands!. Mine still needs some work. I have a mix of version 1-5 of the stands.

He brought a directorate i alliance fleet with some dindirendzi gunship backup. 750 points each.

This is a nice shot of the mat before we cover it up with our ships. No my fleet isn't pink... Not sure why that color looks that way in the camera.

My opponent.

This was my initial setup. Off to the side is another frigate unit. The ended up joining the turtle anyway but I needed something on the other side of the planets for the first few turns. They cam in handy later.

My opponent moved his heavy cruisers at an angle and quickly followed with the gunships. That nut was hard to crack but eventually he had to swing around the planet and leave the battleship alone for a turn and that spelled doom for it.

I moved up and got a lucky shot from the shield ships at range band 2. The battleship moved up as well and split its fire between the battleship and those evil gunships.

The Directorate battleship closing fast as my frigates move up to take on the approaching directoate frigates.

My frigate score some hits,

 

The Directorate Battleship takes some hits and the heavy cruises take some shots just before disappearing behind the planet. Looming in the distance is the directorate carrier and its frigate killing bombers. Good thing our formation is still close together.

The neglected terran cruiser squadron sneaks around the side for a full broadside criting a gunship for its second hard pounding.

The Directorate battleship takes another crit and losses motion control.

Thing sare getting tight now. The carrier is fully committed but the heavies are spending a turn out of position while the terran fleet still holds strong with one functional shield cruiser.

The frigate swarm is to close for torpedoes but is trying to stick together as the bombers close in. The battleship is positioned for a devastating attack.

The gunships get a crit on the battleship and the heavy cruisers get to take a shot. This is the last chance the directorate players has to win. the frigates have moved in to take the gunship that took two hard poundings and is down to 1 cp and 1 ap. A 2 to 4 roll off and I loss one and the gunship crew losses one. That never plays out because the battleship does what it does best and lines up a full on shot at the battleship and a full broadside at the carrier. The Directorate battleship takes a hit and dies and a double crit on the carrier ends the game. At that point we gave up our table for a Battletech Quickstrike game and cleaned up.

It was a good learning experience and the newbie directorate player only made a few tactical mistakes.  The omni-stands performed great and the mat looked amazing. It was the first time I had it out on a table. It makes a great backdrop to any game.

An observant gamer might see a little sneak peak at a furture product that will be in production soon after some slight changes and fine tuning.

Europa type moon

Trying some new techniques for making planets. This is using out 1.5" planet kit. Themed this one around Europa. It's hard in this scale to illustrate different types of planets. I started by covering it with sandy paste from Vallejo. Then painted it white and a little dry brush in burnt umber. I wanted to go back and make cracks to distinguish it from a normal rock type planet. I could not get that to work at all with a paint brush. I grabbed a extra fine tip brown sharpie and got the lines to work out. I'm ok with it but I want to try again without the dry brushing and just draw a ton of cracks with a mircon pen probably.

The insparation:

Final product:

Working on a moon type next with craters. Also have plans to make a toxic green planet and fiddling with a binary star from a broken 6" kit prototype I had laying around.