Thursday 27 August 2009

Off On Holiday!

MEMORANDUM FROM INSKIPP

I am off on holiday for the next month so doubt I will have time to update the blog for a bit but worry not I will get back to work on painting and posting battle reports upon my return!

MESSAGE ENDS...

Wednesday 26 August 2009

No Limits Battle Report

Hi!

Heres the latest in a series of battle reports using different rulesets that I have played over the course of the week. This time I have been using No Limits, a freely downloadable ruleset available from Wargames Unlimited.

So without further ado heres the latest of Slippery Jim diGriz's heroic exploits!

The Scenario

After his unsuccessful raid on the warehouse to steal an artefact for Count Cassitor Jim decides to get some pay back on his employer for saddling him with a bunch of thugs who had promptly botched the heist and in the resulting fire fight several security guards had died and Jim had barely escaped.

Hearing that the count has a small science station operating on developing some highly secret project Jim has decided to break in and steal whatever it is that the scientists are working on.

The Objective

The science station is guarded by a squad of police troopers and Jims objective is to break into the bio dome where the top secret scientific data is being stored while either avoiding detection or silencing the guards.

The guards, once alerted will sound the alarm summoning all sorts of police re-enforcements so its important for Jim to be quick and quiet!

The Game!


The Bio Dome Objective

Jim begins by moving quietly behind one of the science station buildings, watching as the doughty forces of law and order plod around in a vaguely confused manner (in their eyes its a highly effective patrol rotation)

Jim prepares to make his move, one of the plods is standing isolated from his brethren so Jim clambers over a boundary hedge, picking up a few thorns in tender places as he does so, and aims his needle pistol at the beefy trooper. The silent weapons tranquilliser darts find their target and the guard crumples to the ground snoring faintly.


Jim Sneaks Forward

As the trooper snores his fellow officers continue their routine patrol but unfortunately for Jim the police sergeant chooses this moment to make a surprise inspection of the security detail and stumbles over the happily slumbering form of the darted trooper. Slowly the brutish instincts of the sergeant tell him somethings wrong. The alarm is raised!


The Tranquilised Trooper Is Found!

Cursing the sergeant Jim opens up with his pistol again hoping to silence the bellowing with a few well placed darts. Unfortunate dice rolling means that although the sergeant is hit and effected by the darts he still thrashes around woozily.

Hearing the cries of distress from their sergeant the remaining police start moving towards Jims location. As Jim prepares to move the sergeant spots him and lets rip with his riot gun. Despite Jims lightning reactions he is still wounded by the cloud of pellets.

Uttering a savage oath Jim returns fire and grimly smiles as his tormentor finally succumbs to the tranquilliser drug, possibly helped by the fact that he now resembles a pin cushion. Knowing that the rest of the police are closing in Jim makes a dash for the cover of a pile of cargo only to find a burly policeman waiting for him.


Seeing Stars!

The troopers club connects with Jims head causing another wound and it takes another full turn for jim to subdue his attacker. Another trooper rushes into view and spots Jim but runs out of actions allowing Jim to open fire and knocking him out.

There is only a single police trooper left and he wisely moves back to protect the bio dome and its precious contents. Finally re-enforcemets arrive in the distance as a police skimmer appears on the roadway.

Knowing that his time is limited Jim moves toward the bio dome but is charged by the remaining trooper (obviously emboldened by the sight of the flashing blue lights in the distance. During the melee the trooper manages to hit Jim twice but fails to wound him and jim finally manages to beat the stubborn trooper senseless and moves up to the bio dome.


Trouble Ahead!

Seeing Jim enter the bio dome the skimmer pilot powers down the road towards the buildings in hopes of catching Jim red handed. A police squad also arrives on board and begin to hurry down the road towards the action.

Emerging from the dome with a pile of secret documents Jim sees the skimmer bearing down on him and risks a burst with his needle pistol but the metal frame of the skimmer deflects the darts. Seeing that his weapon isn't going to stop the skimmer Jim takes to his heels and heads for the main buildings where he spotted some vehicles.


Jim With Swag

The skimmer fired repeatedly at the retreating form but failed to hit. Jim turned and fired, hoping to keep the skimmer off his back as he tried to hot-wire a yellow hover truck, unfortunately he again failed to damage the skimmer whose pilot, enraged by the flagrant law breaking opened fire again this time chipping paint off the truck Jim lurked in.


Hotwire Under Pressure!

The police squad continued its slog towards the action and a rumbling engine heralded the arrival of a police armoured car.

Jim managed to start the truck and rumbled forward as the skimmer took up a position blocking him from his getaway route. Seeing this Jim turned the vehicle and headed back towards the buildings. The skimmer moved again trying to block his route of escape but Jim out foxed it by performing an impressive hand break turn and speeding towards the open fields and freedom.

The police armoured car entered the building complex and seeing the yellow truck speeding past them the gunner opened fire with his machine gun but the burst went wide. Jim floored the accelerator and thundered off board.


Getaway!

Again it was the first time Ive played the game in ages so had to keep referring to the rules but it was quite an enjoyable game and really got into the spirit of the Stainless Steel Rat books with Jim dodging police and bullets to commit a heist and then making a heroic dash for freedom!

Although No Limits is aimed towards battles rather than small scale rpg lite type games it played surprisingly well as the activation system allow you to move, shoot and perform actions in any order allowing for quite a bit of sniping. Other items of note are the abilities you can give your troops and characters. For example Jim had the Evade ability allowing him to dodge bullets and blows that would kill a lesser man. It was just as well he did as he put the ability to good use during the game!

I am off on holiday tomorrow so there wont be any more battle reports for a bit but rest assured I will get back to it on my return as well as painting up a load more stuff!

All the best!

Tuesday 25 August 2009

Star Mogul Battle Report Part 2!

The Game!


The game started with Angelinas thugs moving towards the salvage crew by leaving the village Meanwhile Slikk revved his vehicles engine and surged towards the opposing dropship zone.


Angelias Thugs Deploy

Seeing the opposition boiling out of the village Alexandr hurried his group towards the nearest salvage on the hillside next to the settlements ruined generator. The yellow pig swept forward slowly with its crew nervously fingering their sidearms and cursing Alexandrs decision not to mount a weapon on the ramshackle vehicle. His miserlyness would come back to haunt them...


Farpoint Salvage Are Go!


The Raiders Are Spotted!

Angelinas thugs continued to close with their opponents and were met with a smattering of gunfire. Although several shots hit none managed to cause any damage. The return of fire was somewhat more effective causing Ripp to fall from a vicious burst of fire from RED K1LLR.

The salvage crew, obviously enraged by the loss of their veteran crewmate (possibly partly due to his owing them money, and now with his biting the bullet how would they get their money back!) sent a wall of lead towards the opposition and cheered as the large red robot was blasted to smithereens, despite its primitive self repair systems the damage caused was too serious and RED K1LLR collapsed into a pile of scrap.

Alas this was the high point of the Farpoint team as Angelina, obviously annoyed that her hulking bodyguard had been dispatched took a pot shot at Alexandr and grinned as he was blasted off his feet. Tonk soon followed his boss as fire from Hogg took him out of action.

Things were not looking good for the salvage team at this point but a valiant fight back from EDDY and BUNGLE managed to blast Hoff (they hassled the Hoff!) and Angelina, possibly still gloating about putting Alexandr out of action, took a bullet and fell limply to the gound.

While the fire fight was blazing away, the Yellow Pig had quietly crept forward and Frank and Gubbs hopped out and loaded the cargo into the rear of the vehicle!

Even as this was happening BUNGLE, the Farpoints blue robot collapsed with a shot to his electronic cortex. Slikk finally managed to manouver out of the village and opened fire on EDDY but the bulky green robot shrugged off the fire from the LMG. Instead he turned and blased several shots into the raiders vehicle cuasing a loss of most of its frontal armour.


Things Are Looking Grim For The Farpoint Crew


Slikk Rumbles Into Battle (and the Farpoint drop zone!)

Despite his heroic last stand EDDY finally went down from an unrelenting stream of fire from the vehicle mounted LMG. Despite a heroic effort from EDDY’s nanite swarm he didnt regain his feet but started smouldering as fires started by the bullets which had pierced his armour burned out his electronics.

Hearing the sudden slackening of fire the crew of the Yellow Pig lept back into their vehicle and began making their way back to the drop zone. Unfortunately they were spotted by the remaining thugs and bullets were soon flying thick and fast at the battered yellow truck. The fire was worryingly accurate as its superstructure took a point of damage and it suffered a severe power core leak. As the truck ground to a halt the remaining Farpoint crew bailed out and surrendered to the raiders.

I Rolled for the casualties afterwards and the Raiders lost one droid and Hogg (surprisingly Angelina survived!), the Farpoint Salvage team were not as lucky as both their droids were damaged beyond repair while Tonk and Tate also died. Alexandr survived despite his wounds and now holds a grudge against Angelina for the death of his crew and more importantly, she had stolen his precious dropship. League military found the remaining crew living off frozen Macswiney burgers a month after the battle. Angelina and the dropship the Daisy Mae are yet to be found.

As it was my first game using Star Mogul I am sure I made quite a few mistakes with the rules but it was quite a lot of fun! The fog of war rule which can mean your opponent can activate during your own turn made for a very entertaining game!

I have become quite attatched to the Farpoint Salvage team and can see them making a comeback despite their mauling at the hands of a bunch of thieves!

Star Mogul Battle Report Part 1

Hi!

Heres the first part of a battle report using the Star Mogul ruleset!

The Scenario:

Open salvage has been broadcast across the Outer Rim by the Frontier Union on either a crashed star freighter, an abandoned space colony, an old battle field or maybe an alien archaeological site. Two or more players have raced to the remote site where the discovery has been made, and deployed upon the surface to recover the salvage present and, hopefully, claim the salvage rights. The site may not have a breathable atmosphere, in which case the players may choose to only use crew members equipped with battle armour or other similar hermetically sealed suits. This is entirely up to the agreement between the two players. Vehicles should be used.

If a player can gain the salvage rights, then the Interstellar Frontier Union Government will pay big money for what they recover. In order to gain the salvage rights, however, a salvage company will have to recover OVER 50% of the salvage present to prove their claim – which means getting it back to their drop zone and having it airlifted out
via their drop ship while under heavy fire, no doubt, from the competition, who will not be too happy at the prospect of losing the salvage rights, and hence making very little or no money at all from the mission.

The Forces

Both players start with 30000 Credits to set up and equip their salvage company but as you need to pay your crew (not to mention keep a reasonable amount of cash back as a contingency fund incase things go wrong!)


Farpoint Salvage

Alexandr (company boss) armed with small arms (small arms skill 8, hand to hand skill 6, bargaining skill 5, salvaging appraisal skill 2)
Ripp (experienced crew) armed with arclight blaster (small arms skill 8, hand to hand combat 8, salvage hound skill 5)
Frank (regular crew) armed with small arms (small arms skill 3, driving vehicle skill 5)
Gubbs (regular crew) armed with small arms, salvage tools (small arms skill 6, hand to hand skill 5)
Tonk (regular crew) armed with small arms (small arms skill 5, hand to hand skill 6)
Elwood (regular crew) armed with small arms (small arms skill 4, engineer skill 4)
Tate (regular crew) armed with small arms (small arms skill 5, hand to hand skill 6)
EDDY (experienced mekk) armed with small arms (small arms skill 5, damage control nanobots 5, technician skill 3)
BUNGLE (regular mekk) armed with small arms (small arms skill 5, hand to hand skill 6)
Salvage Dog (the Yellow Pig!) Driven by Frank


Angelinas Raiders

Angelina (company boss) armed with small arms and grenades (small arms skill 9, hand to hand skill 9, grenade throwing skill 7)
Kurt (veteran crew) armed with small arms (small arms skill 8, hand to hand skill 8, hard as nails skill 3)
Slikk (average crew) armed with small arms (small arms skill 2, driving vehicle skill 6)
Cutter (average crew) armed with small arms (small arms skill 8)
Kipp (average crew) armed with small arms (small arms skill 4, engineer skill 4)
Hogg (average crew) armed with small arms (small arms skill 5, hand to hand skill 4, technician skill 2)
Dent (average crew) armed with small arms (small arms skill 4, hand to hand skill 7)
Hoff (average crew) armed with small arms (small arms skill 5, hand to hand skill 6)
RED K1LLR (veteran mekk) armed with small arms (small arms skill 8, hand to hand skill 10, damage control nanobots skill 1)
Salvage dog with LMG (Slikks Wheels) Surprisingly driven by Slikk!

The Setup

The abandoned colony of Murchisons Gulch is rumoured to have got some decent items of salvage and Farpoint Salvage had hit dirtside in search of some useful bits and pieces. Unbeknownst to them Angelina and her gang of thugs are holed up in the ruins of the colony after pulling off a particularly brutal raid on a nearby systems merchant shipping.

No sooner do the hapless scrap hounds set out to explore the area than Angelinas mob rumbles up and starts shooting.

Farpoint Salvages owner is a grizzled marine veteran named Alexandr whos not the type to back down from a fight. Assuming the hostiles are another salvage team out to steal his cargo he orders his crew forward in the hopes of driving the opposition off world.

Obective

There are three items of salvage (cryogenically frozen Macswineys burgers, bootleg booze or useful machinary) scattered around the board and the salvage teams objectie is to secure these valuables while holding off the hostiles and move it back to their deployment zone to await pick up from their dropship (The Daisy Mae)

Angelinas only objective is to kill or capture the salvage team which will allow them to grab the dropship when it arrives.

Its taken me a while to compile the force list as theres a little more book keeping required for Star Mogul. Its more of a skirmish campaign system like necromunda where the aim of the game isnt always to simply blast the opposition into their component atoms! It should make for an interesting game as Star Mogul has some really interesting mechanisms which could lead to some really random happenings!

I will try and post the actual report in the morning!

All the best!

Rogue Robots!

WARNING!

Rogue robots have been spotted on Freibur! Anyone who sees a suspicious looking robot should contact the authorities immediately!


Are These The Droids We're Looking For?

The miniatures themselves are scratch built from bits of plastic tubing, cocktail sticks, cardboard, wire and even an old ork bolter! Just the thing to represent some scrap bots for Star Mogul or to add some extra randomness to any Slippery Jim game!

All the best!

Heavy Metal!

Greetings!

Heres a pic of my latest purchase:


Heavy Combat Droid

Its a rather large plastic combat droid from the EM4 miniatures range and comes in a pack of five assorted robots for £2.50 which is quite a bargain! I decided to re-pose him slightly by swapping the legs round so they were at the original front part of the miniature and I think it looks quite a bit more agile than the original pose.

I bought two packs of the robots so have a second built with a running pose which is sitting waiting to be painted. The other droids are going to be used as heavy power armour as they look like a 15mm scale figure could fit inside them quite nicely. They come in two poses with one being larger than the other and are quite nice models without too much detail to fuss over while painting!

Heres a pic of the rest on my workbench along with a larger Mechwarrior plastic model which will be a bit of a monsterous command vehicle!


Big Stompy Robot Suits!

My plan for today is to get my junker bots painted up and hopefully get another battle report posted this evening!

Till then all the best!

Sunday 23 August 2009

Star Mogul

Hi!

While rummaging around my rulebook collection I found my PDF of Star Mogul and having a bit of a read through it I quite like the setting and think it may fit in quite well with the Stainless Steel Rat universe. Therefore I have decided to collect up a couple of salvage teams so I can have a go at the game. Whats even better is they can be used as frontier types and actual salvage and mechanic types for gaming actual Slippery Jim scenarios!

I especially like the X12 Android cult which features an assortment of rogue robots, advanced AIs and even a chuncky foundry droid which can trundle round devouring terrain and constructing more robots. I figure they would make a good new force to add to my Stainless Steel Rat project!


X12 Machine Cult!

Heres a link to their website:

http://www.alphaforgegames.com/starmogul.html

Rogue Trader Battle Report!

Hi!

Heres a quick battle report I just played using Rogue Trader as my ruleset. Apologies for the slightly blurry pics but my camera seems to be rubbish at taking battle shots!

I decided to play a game using Rogue trader first as it is the ruleset I am most familiar with. After statting up a couple of small forces I rolled on the random plot generator which resulted in the gae being a raid and capture (or rescue) of an important person or item.

Selecting the relevent table I rolled again to see what the specific scenario would be and the result was:

A planets govenor sends a force of troops to raid a museum on another world and steam an important work of art. Is the govenor an enthusiastic collector of object d’art or does he know something? Could the item contain secret plans, a treasure map or some unfathomable secret. If so, is the govenor the only interested party or will the thieves find themselves persued by other collectors?

This is a perfect scenario for Slippery Jim diGriz and could easily form a mini campaign with scenarios based around the players sneaking onto the planet, the robbery, getaway and possible final stand off.

Forces could consist of police and security types, the goveners thieves, another criminal organisation or a plethora of other groups ranging from pirates to the Special Corps itself!

I settled for the single game thus far deciding that Slippery Jim had managed to get on to the planet with some assorted muscle without attracting attention.

Setup

The game needed several items: a building to house the priceless object along with suitable scenics, figures to represent the assorted forces and a more detailed set of objectives for the players.

The building, scenics and figures were easy to arrange but the objectives needed set out as follows:

Slippery Jims team. Your objective is to break into the building, disable any guards and bypass any security features and steal the artifact. Once this has been done you must get away by moving off the table edge of your deployment zone.

Security team: Your objective is to stop anyone from pilfering from the museum. The building is alarmed and locked and if the alarm is sounded you can rely on the local law to turn up pretty quickly to help chace down the crims!

Notes:

The buildings alarm and locking mechanism need to be disabled, this can be done by either stealing a guards pass key (which they keep about their person at all times) or by breaking in. In order to do this you must spend an entire turn in base to base contact with the building and pass an intelligence check in order to figure out how to disable the alarm. Once that is done its just a case of breaking in! If you have the pass key you can simply open the door, otherwise you need to pass another inelligence check to pick the lock. The other opion is to blow the door off its hinges (it has a toughness of 6 and 3 hits) If you fail an intelligence test at any point the alarm will sound as it will if the doors are blown.

The police will turn up on a roll of 5+ the turn after the alarm is raised, 4+ the turn after that and 2+ the turn after that.

Slippery Jim has been hired to perform the heist but has been lumbered with some of Cassitors thuggish minions. He will happily knock out and leave these villainous types as he believes the dastadly Count has instructed them to kill hime once he gets the artifact.

The Forces:


The Thieves

Slippery Jim diGriz, armed with needle pistol, bolt pistol, crack, smoke, blind and knock out grenades and flak armour, respirator and eye protecting contacts
79.5 points

Kurt, an officer, armed with needle pistol, stub pistol, crack grenades, hand weapon and flak armour
27.5 points

6 Thuggish minions of Count Cassitor, armed with needle pistols, hand weapons and flak armour
39 points

Total: 146 points


Security Forces

1 Guard Sergeant armed with mesh armour, shotgun, hand weapon and shield
4 Security guards armed with mesh armour, stub pistol, hand weapon and shield

46.5 points

Police re-enforcements

1 Police Sergeant armed with mesh armour, bolt pistol, hand weapon and shield
2 Police Troopers arned with mesh armour, bolt pistols, hand weapons and shields
2 Police Troopers armed with mesh armour, shotguns, hand weapons and shields

54 points

1 Law Enforcement Droid armed with bolt pistol with targeter, webber and 6 doses of web solvent

35 points

1 Police skimmer armed with webgun

66.5 points

Total: 202 points

The Game!


The Table!

I had quite a few bits of scenery lying about and the game itself was played on a 4x3 foot board.


The Objective!

The game started with Slippery Jim leading one group of thuggish types while Kurt lead the others. The guards were on a pre-determined patrol pattern and would only spot the thieves on a roll of 6+ at over 24 inches, 5+ at 12-24 inches and 4+ under that.


Slippery Jim Sneaking Towards The Target Building!

Jim lead his group along the back of the shanty buildings in an attempt to keep them out of sight of the security guards while Kurts group moved towards the target building behind the patches of trees to the right of the area.

Things seemed to be going smoothly until one of Jims group ended his movement out of cover and the security guard manning the gate spotted him. Calling to one of his friends the security guard raiised the alarm. It was now only a matter of time until police re-enforcements arrived!


Kurts Thugs Lurking In The Undergrowth

Seeing that Jims group had been spotted Kurt and his men broke cover and moved towards the main gate and sprayed the security guard with needle pistols but his heavy armour stopped their tranquiliser darts. Jims group hurried towards the guard as well and fired their pistols while jim attempted to hurl a knock out grenade at them. Unfortunately Jims aim was off and the gas exploded harmlessly in the roadway while the needle pistols of the thugs also failed to penetrate the armoured hide of the guard.

At this point all the guards rushed to the main gate and opened fire at the two groups of thieves but due to some truely bad dice rolling they didnt hit anyone. The roll was made for police re-enforcements but none turned up.

Kurt lost patience with his puny needle pistol and drew his stub pistol and fired sending one guard sprawling to lie motionless on the ground at the gateway. All the remaining thugs fired needle pistols but only one managed to knock out a guard with a lucky shot. Jim seeing the guard fall began to have his doubts about the possibiliy of completing the heist and swore that Kurt wouldnt get away with the slaying.

Worse was to follow as the guards opened fire with everything they had but failing to hit anything (possibly due to their portly nature and perviously cushy job or in the panic of seeing thier freinds fall) Again the call went out for re-enforcements but nothing turned up. Seizing the inititative Kurt and his thugs hurled themselves at the remaining guard at the gate while Jims thugs joined the action by scrambling over the hedge into melee with the guards lurking behind it.


A Nasty Brawl

Jim launched himself over the hedge but not before Kurt shot the guard sergeant and the thugs knocked out one of the two remaining guards. The last securiy guard decided that discretion was the better part of valor and legged it with Jims group of thugs in hot pursuit. They promptly chased the unfortunate guard off the table and were lost from play too.


The Law Arrives!

At this point Jim headed to the building entrance and started setting up an explosive charge to blow the door off its hinges. Unfortunately the police chose that very moment to arrive. A squad of them along with a law enforcement droid turned up on the road next to the compound and were soon exchanging fire with Kurts group. In the exchange Kurt dropped the police sergeant with his stub pistol only to be ensnared by the droids web gun. His remaining thugs were either gunned down or tried to run away.

Seeing the police making mincemeat of his compatriots and hearing the sound of a police hover disk approaching from behind Jim set off a smoke grenade to cover his escape cursing Count Cassitor for lumbering him with a group of bloodthirsty thugs. On the plus side Kurt had been captured and during the melee he had thoughtfully pocketed one of the guards security ID maybe he would make another attempt on the artifact but now it was more important to find somewhere to hole up until the police search had passed.

Conclusion!

The game itself proved to be quite a lot of fun although Jim could have done with some more luck. It played well and was simple too which is a definite plus. I think the characters in the game could have done with some re-rolls as the whole point is that Slippery Jim is a hero and can perform all sorts of heroic actions. As it turned out he got sidelined as Kurt and the thugs just blasted away at the security types (he couldnt even hit anyone with his grenades or needle gun!)

The early raising of the alarm was unfortunate but I had been a bit careless with the thugs having thought the security types wouldnt manage to spot him. It just goes to show what happens when Jim isnt left to get on with things himself!

Still it was a fun game and could easily lead to a mini campaign. Does Jim make another attempt at the artifact while dodging police patrols. Does Count Cassitor send some assassins to silence our hero (or to stop Kurt from blabbing!)

All very exciting and hopefully I will be able to play out a few more scenarios!

More Rulebook Ramblings!

Hi!

Ive had a good look round my laptop and bookshelves and have found I had more rulebooks than originally thought!

I have Star Mogul, Gorkamorka, Necromunda, Rogue Trader, Nuclear Renaissance, Mutants and Deathray Guns, No Limits, Beamstrike and Babylons Burning. I also had a copy of Defiance Vital Ground but seem to have lost it (I think I will download the free demo pdf to give it a go too!)

I also plan on downloading a copy of Chain Reaction to see what thats like!

To settle on which ruleset to use I plan on playing a few games of each to give me a good idea as to which is the best and most suitable to use for Stainless Steel Rat gaming.

I hope to post some battle reports here on the blog of each system which will include my impressions of the game and a quick review.

My criteria for wargaming rules are that the game should be easy to learn and fun to play, doesnt rely on too much record keeping and isnt too simple or too complex.

Ive statted up a small police force for Rogue Trader and No Limits and will get some opposition sorted out ASAP which will hopefully allow me a couple of quick games this afternoon!

All the best!

Saturday 22 August 2009

Police Recreational Vehicle!

Hi!

Heres a quick pic of my police RV:


Police Department RV

The miniature is a Quick Reaction Force Soviet WW2 armoured scout car and is armed with a HMG to deal with serious criminal types such as Slippery Jim. I plan on buying another one and converting it slightly to be equipped with a Rogue Trader heavy webber (essentially the perfect crowd control weapon which fires lots of sticky netting that traps lawless types and makes it fairly simple to capture them)

I also have a street police squad underway which will nearly complete my police department and allow me to get on with some more Rdenrunt villainy and Freibur frontier dwellers.

All the best!

Friday 21 August 2009

Frontier Types!

Hi!

Heres a quick pic of some of the frontier settlers of Freibur:


Gun Toting Settlers

The miniatures are all Peter Pig cowboys armed with a variety of weapons. I converted on pistol guy into a flame thrower (the orange jump suited guy) with a few bits of wire and a cocktail stick!

The miniatures all painted up nicely with a nice amount of detail. I have another twenty or thirty to paint up including a few more weapon conversions ranging from long rifles to rocket launchers which will give me a decent selection of troops to choose from!

I hope to get a few more done over the course of the next day or so!

Till then all the best!

Wednesday 19 August 2009

Rules Pondering!

Hi!

Ive been trying to find a good set of sci fi rules which will allow me to play some Stainless Steel Rat games!

At present I have the following:

Rogue Trader
We Can Be Heroes 2
Future War Commander
No Limits
Mutants and Deathray Guns

Ive also had a quick look at Ambush Alley although I would be waiting for their sci-fi games release before purchasing any more rulesets!

Pros and Cons!

Rogue Trader is a good system which really works well with small numbers of troops in an almost role playing style but is a bit creaky and needs some serious modifying to allow vehicles and some more dynamic activation. A possible quick fix for this may be to download a copy of Necromunda.

We Can Be Heroes has some fantastic ideas in it allowing heroes to really shine but is possibly a little generic as heroes and monsters have the same stats but rely on abilities to make them individual. I do plan on using the hero points and card activation as it brings a really random factor to games.

Future Wars Commander is a good system but plays better as a mass battle game. It may get used to represent some of the invasions mentioned in the books!

No Limits is good as its free and has some excellent rules allowing a very flexible style of play and has a force generator allowing you to create your own forces and vehicles. Its a bit generic as its not tied to any set background but as I have all the background material I need from the Stainless Steel Rat books its not really a problem!

Mutants and Deathray Guns is a new system from Genesha Games which got some very good reviews for their Songs Of Blades and Heroes fantasy set but I just find it too simplistic to be enjoyable.

I plan on playing a few games using each system to see which is most suitable!

In the meantime does anyone have any suggestions for other rule sets worth having a go of?

All the best!

Monday 17 August 2009

Rdenrunt Armour!

Hi!

Im afraid Ive not had much time to get any painting done of late but heres a couple of pics of some of the bits Ive been working on!

First off theres the Rdunrunt armoured cavalry in the form of a somewhat retro armoured car (the vehicle is actually a WW2 Soviet vehicle):


Rdenrunt Armoured Cavalry!

The vehicle is from QRF and although its supposed to be 15mm scale it seems a tad on the small side as a 15mm scale figure would have difficulty jamming themselves into it. Still its quite a nice little vehicle and once its on its base it wont be too out of scale!

The casting quality is a bit ropy which lets it down a bit as there are several rough surfaces on the model which make it look a little battered. I decided to give it a civilian paint scheme as Cassitor and evil Angelinas plan involved revolution requiring some military might (especially armoured vehicles) to be kept secret. Hence its a bit of a civilian custom job!

Next up theres Cassitors armoured minions:


Armoured Jump Troops!

I decided that count Cassitor needed some slightly more high tech troops so painted up what will eventually be a squad of five power armoured and jump pack equipped minions to use as shock troopers. The paint scheme was originally inspired from the bad guys in GI Joe (the Cobra soldiers) with their menacing black armour and silver helmets. I think they fit in quite well with the rest of the force, adding a touch of high tech badness to an otherwise backward army.

The miniatures are from 15mm.co.uk and are from the Laserburn range (this time redemptionist initiates) and are nice chunky miniatures with some rather nice jetpacks. Alas theres only a single pose so I may convert one to be armed with some sort of heavy weapon, or even hack off its head and swap it for something a bit different.

It was a bit of a let down when I got the miniatures as they had lots of flash and annoying mould lines which needed scraping off (one covered the entire right side of the head and weapon on several of them) Saying that, once they had been cleaned they did paint up very nicely!

I hope to be able to crack on with some more bits and pieces over the course of the week to complete my Rdunrunt shock troops and maybe start on some frontier types in the form of Peter Pig cowboys.

All the best!

Tuesday 4 August 2009

The Mighty Inskipp!

Hi!

Heres a picture of Inskipp, director of the Special Corps!


Inskipp and Police Type!

The miniatures are both from the Laserburn range and painted up nicely as ever!

Heres a picture of the finished mining robot with a 15mm scale miniature along side it to show the sheer scale of the beast!


Mining Robot!

Im hoping to be able to get some more painting done at some point soon but have an illustration commission at the moment which is taking up most of my time!