K9 Gun Dogs

Another quickie: K9 Gun Dogs for the Wild West Exodus game. I have zero interest in this game (I simply don't get these type of settings and 'game worlds' ... ), but the miniatures were provided as a free giveaway with Miniature Wargames. We can probably use them as robodogs in our Antares Scifi campaign.

A conversion project (3)

I finished my little conversion - an 80s space marine mountd on an alien-like creature (see here and here).

I'm quite pleased with how the figure turned out. I am not the greatest painter, but I like painting in a somewhat simple style (base, wash, drybrush). This figure will be the commander of our Starmarine forces in our Antares scifi campaign. When he will see the table remains to be seen ...

In case you wonder, the rune on his right shoulder pad is the symbol we use for our Starmarine force. I know it is the Wolfsangel rune that was used by a.o. the Das Reich SS Waffen division in WW2, but I often choose runes to use on vehicles or units because there are easy to paint. I think of them als older heraldic signs, or Dwarven runes (I'm also a big Tolkien fan), and certainly do not support any other meaning people might give them.

A conversion project (2)

I did some more work on my conversion of mounting a space marine onto an alien mount, to be used in our ongoing scifi campaign. This figure will depict "Bacchus Mahoney", commander of SpecOps.

I mounted the figure on the lizardlike alien, and added some bits and bobs. I opted for an arm with a powerfist, rather than the one holding a pistol, since I felt that gave the figure a more believable pose. It also allowed me to attach a pistol on his left leg.

I might still attach some reins, to be decided later.

The photos were taken with flash setting on, but anyway, they give a good impression of the composition of the figure.

A conversion project

The academic year at my university has finally ended, so I have some time to relax, work in the garden, but also do some wargaming stuff. Or at least, that's what I hope for!

One of the little projects I want to complete is a conversion for our Antares 2401 campaign. The campaign has been dormant for a while, but I think we should start it up again. The campaign puts each player in control of a squad of StarMarines, with the GM controlling the opposition. The general commander of the StarMarines is Bacchus Mahoney, who has only been mentioned in the campaign reports so far, but does not have a figure representing him.

The overall tone of the campaign is more Rogue Trooper/Strontium Dog/original Rogue Trader 40K, rather than the gothic version 40K has become today. So I don't feel constrained at all to use figures as I see fit, and to make up some fun but perhaps weird combinations.

Anyway, this is the project:

Bacchus Mahoney will be represented on the battlefield riding an alien-like mount, which fits in with some of the characters that already saw some action (K'z'r'x, a drafted mercenary, represented by an original Tyranid/ Hunter Slayer miniature).

• The mount is a Raptor from Harlequin miniatures, and was originally intended as a steed for Shadow Elves.
• The rider will be an old 40K chaplain on a jetbike. I already removed his right arm, and will replace it with a plastic original Mk 6 Space Marine arm, most likely the pistol, since that will give him a more dynamic pose.
• I already filed away some of the skulls on the figure, but still want to work on the banner a bit, probably replacing the skull on the banner with the imperial eagle from another plastic banner. The skulls on the kneecap also will be removed.
• Some smaller items (also from the original Mk 6 Space Marine box) will be used to embellish the model here and there. 

I think it will turn out to be a very cool figure, and it might turn our attention back to our dormant SciFi campaign.

We made the cover!

We made the cover of Wargamer's Notes!

There's an article (written by yours truly) in the latest issue of how we approach our scifi skirmish campaign - nicknamed Antares 2401.

Wargamer's Notes is a free online magazine. Here's the index for the latest issue (along with contact details if you're interested):

This issue has also been added to the Magazine Index.

Large Green Aliens

I finished a batch of "Large Green Aliens" from Peter Pig this weekend. I've had these miniatures for over 15 years, but only now did I finish them. I painted up the infantry figures 15 years ago, but only came around doing the cavalry now. They have a certain old-school charm to them. I even had to provide my own spears (simply steel wire), so that's definitely old-school!

They are intended as 15mm, but since they are "large" aliens, they can as well serve for 25mm. They'll probably appear in our Antares campaign.

These aliens have 4 arms each, ride 6-legged steeds, and are modeled after the Tharks from the John Carter novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs. I am usually not concerned about canon colour schemes for aliens, but I kept them green anyway. I have no idea what the "official" colour for their steeds would be.

The base is kept simple (some texture applied), and painted a reddish-orange as is appropriate for Mars.

WH40K Dreadnoughts and Eldar War Robot

I finished some WH40K, Rogue-Trader-era, Dreadnoughts for our ongoing scifi skirmish campaign.

These are 2 Space Marine dreadnoughts, and an Eldar War Robot (not an Eldar Dreadnought as I also originally thought).

And here are the original ads as they appeared in WHite Dwars during the late 80s (from www.solegends.com):

Facing and Orientation ...

After out latest Antares 2401 game, we had a brief discussion on facing and orientation of individual figures on the Kallistra-hexes. The hexgrid is an integral part of our game, since we use it to link action points per figure to movement (1 action point per hex), and use the hexes as a distance metric to resolve fire (roll D8 >= distance in hexes).

When writing the initial draft of the rules, orientation and placement of individual figures did matter as well:

• A hex can contain at most 3 figures (this rule prevents cluttering up figures in a single hex);
• At most two figures can be oriented towards each hexside.
• Firing arc is 60 degrees, and central direction is determined by the hexside an individual figure is facing.

Orientation and placement of figures is detrmined by hexsides.

For most scenarios we played so far in the campaign, these rules seemed to function quite well. However, during the last game, it suddenly dawned on me I was probably overcomplicating things.

1. The rule that figures needs to be oriented towards hexsides leads to the placement of figures next to the hexside in question (look at some of the photographs of our previous Antares games). Since only the hex in which a figure is present is important, and not the placement within the hex itself, figures are placed w.r.t. clarity for their orientation. This does not help visual appeal, and since visual appeal is important in miniature wargaming, it needs to be addressed.
2. Terrain features do no always match the hexgrid. I try to force them when laying out the table. The underlying assumption is that a single hex (e.g. woods) or a single hexside (e.g. walls) is a single terrain type, and die modifiers due to terrain are unambiguously clear. However, sometimes players want to position a figure at a finer resolution than a single hex, especially when the terrain suggests this (e.g. a wall or the corner of a building inside a hex). Thus, if we relax the restriction, placement of figures becomes more organic.
3. Line of sights is suggested by connecting hex-centre to hex-centre, rather than figure-to-figure. But this also feels unnatural at times. Figure-to-figure LOS feels more natural, but this in turn then suggests free placement of a figure inside the hex.
4. The main reason orientation of figures is important is because of firing arc, and for flank melee attacks. The first is easy to solve, since a figure usually only shoots at one or two targets. We can stipulate that if shooting at multiple targets, they have to fit within a firing arc, but the actual direction of the firing arc is free to choose.

 So, I arrived at the following conclusions, which probably still need some more tinkering:

• Figures can be positioned within a hex anywhere to match the terrain inside a hex.
• Any repositioning within the hex costs 1 action point.
• LOS is traced from figure to figure.
• Orientation of a single figure is not important. When engaging multiple targets using fire, the targets cannot deviate more direction-wise than a single fire arc.
• Since orientation of single figures is not important, any effects due to flank attacks etc. are eliminated.

In essence, we use the hexgrid for counting movement and counting firing ranges, but use the actual terrain and inner-hex details for cover, LOS, etc. By over-using the hexgrid in the rules, the hexgrid spilt over in the placement of individual figures, which was not a good thing and felt not good in a skirmish ruleset.

This all might seem trivial, and in some sense it is because I am already using similar principles in other games (check out other posts relating to hexes), but sometimes it takes some time to purify a set of rules before you reach a more elegant coherent whole.

Antares Mission 9: Pictures

Yesterday we played the 9th mission in our ongoing narrative scifi campaign, Antares 2401.

Here are some preliminary pictures ...

Most of the figures are old Citadel (Space Marines and some space pirates), others are more recent from Mantic games (Warpath).
The bigger buildings are scratch-built (see blogpost here and here).

Simple scifi buildings

By sheer coincidence I bought some items last week (computer equipment ...) that came in boxes containing those pre-shaped cardboard forms to hold everything into place.

For some reason I saw this as a good opportunity to make some additional science fiction buildings for the next installment of our Antares campaign.

I trimmed the rough edges a bit, and added two spires from an egg carton, as well as some polystyrene half-domes I still had lying around (and that once served as chaos vortices in my Warhammer 3rd edition games over 20 years ago). I think they look convincing so far :-)

Next I should add some details (raid the box full of plastic bits), then spray paint the things and add more painting details such as numbers, decals, some weathering ...

I tend not to spend too much time on such projects, since the likelihood is they will be used once or maybe twice, and then end up as giveaways at the next con for whatever player thinks he can use them for his own games.

Rhino conversions

Following up on my current 6mm scifi project for our ongoing Antares campaign, I converted some epic scale Rhino vehicles. I have quite a lot of them - they came in the original Games Workshop Space Marine game, but apparantly I acquired a few additional sprues as well.

The conversions shown below are rather simple. I added some weaponry ripped from Mechwarrior Clix infantry bases.

Now I still have to paint them, but that's also rather easy ...

6mm Science Fiction Buildings

The coming months I plan to stage a few 6mm scifi battles as part of the developing Antares campaign setting. Hence, I brought out my 6mm stuff, mostly dating to the GW Space Marine days.

However, I also unearthed the buildings below, of which I do not remember the origin. I think I bought them around 2003-2004, but they might be much older than that.

If anyone can help me with identifying the manufacturer, I would be very thankful!

Update May 25, 2015: It appears these buildings are still available from Second City Games, or  SHQ Miniatures (although it is hard to confirm the latter, since there are no pictures on their website for 6mm scenery).

Funny detail: I named the city blocks in the picture above in true Judge Dredd style: James T. Kirk block, Harrison Ford block, and John Carter block.

SciFi Dreadnoughts

It has been silent on the blogging front. As usual, blame real life ...

Anyway, to break the silence, here's a quick picture of a recent acquisition. I bought (online) some 2nd hand Warhammer 40K Imperial Dreadnoughts, released during the late eighties. See also the pages from the 1988 Citadel catalogue, and 1991 Citadel catalogue.

They will feature in the ongoing Antares 2401 campaign, but I am not sure yet whether they will act as reinforcements for StarMarines SpecOps, or rather as the enemy ...

Antares 2401: Zeta squad, Combat Engineers

In our ongoing Antares 2401 campaign, our latest game witnessed a new squad in action. Zeta squad has been trained as combat engineers, with the specific task of assaulting enemy-held bunkers, clearing paths trough barbed wire and minefields, and assist the combat squads in action.

I thought it was a good idea to use a black/yellow stripe pattern as a distinctive sign for Zeta squad.

The figures below are:

• 1 original Terminator figure from the original, 1st edition Spacehulk.
• 2 converted Terminators from the same Spacehulk game, replacing their bolter with a claw. The claw is a weapon from a Battlemech figure from the Wizkids Mechwarrior game.
• 2 Mechs from the Wizkids Mechwarrior game. Although the Mechs are at a total different scale originally, I think they blend well as (large) human-sized bots with the normal 28mm figures we normally use for our sci f skirmish games.