Junkers in Star Mogul

 Hi!

So with my freshly finished salvage crews for Star Mogul, I got to thinking about some crossover forces from other settings which would fit in nicely with the wild frontier of Farpoint and have decided to have a bash at making some Junkers.

Junkers from Void 1.1 are a militaristic faction that are a cross between the Harkonnen from Dune and the Roman Empire and their use of convict troops combined with their tendency to salvage gear as well as ruthlessness fits in quite nicely in Star Mogul where I plan on making them one of the regional powers.

Junker battle gear is usually simple to operate such as shotguns and combat shields and swords but they also make use of other short range weaponry such as flame throwers, chainguns and explosive lancers which further lends itself to the industrial aesthetic that I'm going for in the setting.

Coupled with their exo-suits, retrofitted industrial booster rigs with guns and a bit of armour strapped on and their use of buggys and so on, I think I could port them into the setting and games with ease!

Back in 2022, I made a Junker force using my tiny troop method for games of Void 1.1 and rather liked how they turned out for the most part, but they were multi based for larger skirmishes so I'll be going back to the drawing board for the next batch I make.

Junkers vs Colonial Defence troopers and vehicles.

I'll need to have a think about what I'm going to make but I reckon a few convict salvage rats backed up by legionnaires, an enforcer and maybe a couple of exo armored rigs, I'll be ready to go!

Junker Infantry Squads

As folks have said they'd like to see how I make the tiny fellows, I think I'll also post a how to of the project with a step by step guide and will see about making a vehicle for them to ride around in too!

Sadly I'm back at work tomorrow so doubt I'll get much chance to work on them until the weekend but fingers crossed, I'll keep the momentum going and get the core done in a couple of hours cutting and gluing.

In the meantime, All the best!

Star Mogul: Bossman Salvage

 Hi!

I've got the week off work and have spent the last few days building and painting another salvage crew for Star Mogul in the form of Bossman Salvage:

Bossman Salvage

Bossman Salvage is an ex military outfit who appeared on the border some time ago and have made a name for themselves in the salvage industry for brutal efficiency. 

Power Armour

The crew chief and his unit all sport heavy URSA Major class power armour and the Bossman himself also wields a wrecking ball with brutal efficiency.

While the core crew are well armed and equipped, they make use of Salvage Rats, poorly trained and equipped men and women who are desperate to make a living in the rather lawless frontier of the Farpoint sector. These Salvage rats are usually sent forward to recover salvage under fire and guard it until the Bossman's Demo Bot turns up to recover it.

Salvage Rats

Unlike Farpoint Salvage who make use of a vehicle to transport scrap back to their dropzone, Bossman uses a Demo Bot:

Eddie the Demo Bot

Eddie is a U113 Class warbot built by Kalaxis Tech over a century ago but has been retrofitted by the talented techs of Robo Emporium and seems happy with his role as heavy lifter for the Bossman team. His programming does sometime glitch resulting in him rampaging into opposing salvage teams and pulverising them with his mighty fists but the air of slightly unhinged danger about him doesn't seem to perturb Bossman himself.

 

Base Details

Eddie is made from a selection of wooden beads for his main body and arms, some greenstuff rods for his legs and upper arms, EVA foam, thin card and a couple of sticky gemstones for his feet and hip light.

On a side note, I experimented with basing this time as I wanted him to fit in with the plain brown bases of the rest of the crew but wanted to add a bit of interest to him and with some static grass, card and a bit of sand I hope I gave a look of a long abandoned frontier settlement to the figure.

URSA Major class Power Armour

I'd been scratching my head for a while on how I'd make power armour and eventually settled on these rather bulbous looking figures made from two wooden beads, a couple of stick on gem stones and EVA foam for the armour, arms and legs. I'm really pleased with how they turned out and the grubby, bashed and used finish turned out very satisfactorily. 

The Two Salvage Crews

Now I have two salvage crews built, I'll need to play a game or two to see how I get on with Star Mogul but I'm also needing more suitable scenery and salvage tokens which I aim to make over the next day or two and then I'll be able to actually get a game in!

Speaking of scenery, I made this little water tank thing from a Cava bottle top that I was gifted at work:

Water Tank

I glued it onto a 30mm wooden base to make it bottom heavy and just painted it up to look suitably grubby and worn and rather like how it turned out!

I'm also humming and hahing about making some more salvage crews as its been really enjoyable to construct and paint the little guys and am contemplating bringing in elements from other games such as Junkers from Void 1.1 and even some Orky types as I feel the setting works well with them too.

I've also been slowly painting my way through some tiny Crusader miniatures for a Dragon Rampant themed force which I'll show once I've got more of them done but they're a bit more labour intensive than the salvage crews so it may be a while before I get them completed.

Tiny Troops have been a bit of a revelation for me as I can make them quickly and easily, they don't take long to paint and I've found myself really enjoying working on them so I suspect there will be lots more of them in the coming months, along with scratch built vehicles and bead bots.

I'm also contemplating making some 40k forces using the techniques I've learned on this project but I think I'm going to try and finish my Salvage team obsession first!

In the meantime, All the best!

Star Mogul: Farpoint Salvage

 Hi!

A day later than promised but here's my completed salvage crew for Star Mogul!

Farpoint Salvage

The infantry are made from Sculpey and a bit of EVA foam and mounted on 12mm buttons so are pretty tiny but have enough individual character to be identifiable for skirmish gaming.

The Truck

The truck has a sculpey cab, EVA foam and cardboard body and details, while the wheels are wooden beads. I must admit that I had rather a lot of fun making this tiny truck and weathering the daylights out of it. While in real life the big bubble tires would probably be a bit useless they looked cool!

Infantry

I've made ten tiny troopers for my starting salvage team but re-reading the Star Mogul rules, I suspect that I'll be adding another 4-5 to their numbers after my first game or two. I like how their little baseball caps turned out and was surprised by just how much character I managed to get with just a bit of paint.

The Crew in Action

My next task will be to build a rival salvage company and try out the game and possibly play a mini campaign out! I'll post my progress up here as always and if folks are interested, I can put together a tutorial for how to make the tiny guys as it's very easy and rather fun!

VW inspired Hab Buildings

Finally I've also been making some tiny scenery as I need enough stuff to cover my small table. These Hab buildings are made from some capsule toy boxes that my wife got for her Christmas so I got for nothing! I'm hoping to eventually have enough scenery to represent several different types of world to make things more interesting but we'll see how I get on!

In the meantime, All the best!

Star Mogul: Ruins of an Empire

Hi!

I've found myself with a little bit of enforced free time due to coming down with the lurgy and having to take a couple of days off work. 

While I'm feeling entirely too grotty with the man flu to do much hobby related stuff, I did sit and begin to read my way through my copy of Star Mogul: Ruins of an Empire by Alphaforge Games.

Released back in 2006 it was a really interesting game featuring rival salvage teams of blue collar types duking it out on the frontier of space and I was quite a fan of it back in the day and it's been a long time member of my Forgotten Games collection and I've posted about it before, even posting a battle report way back in the day.

What has got me thinking is my decision to try and play more games in 2026 than in the last few years and while I'd love to collect and paint up all the original stuff, for many games in my collection, its either difficult, impossible or ruinously expensive so I've had to do a bit of head scratching and have settled on a rather cheap and affordable alternative:

Tiny Troops!

I know from experience that I can churn out a few small warbands of scratch built miniatures in a relatively short time and with a microscopic budget too and I figure that this will allow me to try out a lot of games in my collection over the course of a year without breaking the bank and if I do find myself enjoying said games, I can then focus on them with proper miniatures in the future.

With that in mind, I have a weeks holiday coming up at the end of the month and I hope to be able to get two rival Salvage Crews built up along with stompy robots, vehicles and even some small terrain features between now and then so my holiday week will hopefully see a few battle reports as I reacquaint myself with the rules and how the game plays.

I'll also be posting progress up here as I go and hopefully it will inspire folks to have a try at something similar and if it goes well, I've got a host of other games I'm itching to try out!

My next update will be on the 14th where I hope to have a bit of a tutorial on how to make the figures and a bit of background to the setting as well as introducing the crews I've made...

In the meantime, I'll be consuming vast amounts of Lemsip and trying to not cough up a lung. 

All the best!

An Ode to Obscure Games: Star Mogul

 Hi!

As my Leviathan plans have hit a bit of a snag with the expense of fixing my car and while I'm waiting for some sculpting supplies arriving I thought I'd spend a bit of time looking at some obscure games, either from my own collection or some of the little niche games that appear from time to time. Some stick around and I fully intend to pick up a copy someday while others vanish into obscurity (and I still plan on picking them up someday!)

One such game is Star Mogul.

Released in the States back in 2006, Star Mogul was very much ahead of its time as it involves rival salvage teams exploring abandoned settlements for loot while trying to stop their opponents from doing the same.

Sound familiar? The Osprey game Stargrave is much the same idea but with more powerful characters. Star Mogul is a decidedly blue collar affair with small forces, averaging about a dozen figures a side and the odd small vehicle or stompy robot to aid them looting out on the frontier in the years following an alien plague that decimated the outer worlds. 

Coupled with a somewhat ineffectual central Earth government these small companies operate beyond the law and fights regularly break out between rival teams.

What made the game so great was you had basic stats for your team but depending on how you used your experience points, resulted in a vast variety of options for how you formed your crew. They could be small in number but well equipped, larger numbers but poorly trained, add robots, quirky crew chief options and different skills and you could really play about with bringing pretty much anything to play.

As for the game, it was rather fun and leaned heavily into an ongoing campaign where your salvage crew would fight to grub whatever loot they could, and that was part of the fun; you didn't have to aim to wipe out your foes as you just needed to recover scrap whilst holding them off!

Coupled with some really interesting fog of war effects and the ability to really develop your characters, the game was a minor success and by 2007 there were two supplements.

Distant Worlds which brought in the Hydrissians, a reptile like race of aliens who had all sorts of interesting tech and the Asteroid Miners, heavily cyborgised humans who had an absolutely brilliant little line of figures.

The second supplement, Alien Evolution saw the arrival of the X-12 Android Cult, rebel robots who sought freedom from the slavery of the humans and the Mephalians, a barbarous degenerate race which has the remains of a long dead species tech and a crude knowledge of how to work it.

Sadly after the release of the Alien Evolution rules, Alpha Forge was sold to someone else who promptly did nothing with it and the game, support and miniatures were eventually sold on to Mega Minis who in turn broke up the range and sold them off piecemeal. 

Now I believe Armorcast has the rights to the rules and some of the figures but the rest have vanished back into obscurity but I highly recommend folks download the rules and have a bash. They are on SCRIBD as are the supplements and with the plethora of sci-fi figures out there these days, its pretty easy to put together a Salvage Team. 

I'd absolutely love to see this game being revamped with new miniatures, artwork and rules as it is a really great wee game with some properly characterful figures but with the status of the figure line, I doubt this will happen. 

The Desert Rose Salvage Crew painted by Supervike

Star Mogul was ahead of its time as it came out when the obsession with massive scale 28mm wargames like 40k were still strong and the niche skirmish market hadn't really developed into what we see today but if you're looking for a small skirmish game that feels a bit Necromunda meets Outland, you can't go wrong.

Looking back at it, I wish I'd picked up more of the range when they were available as I had several teams including the Asteroid Miners but they all went in the big clearout of 2008 when I went off to uni so maybe at some point I'll expend some more time on putting together two salvage crews and playing through the scenarios in the core book.

A Demo-Bot trundles through an abandoned settlement somewhere on the border 

I used to own all the books in physical format but now only have the PDF's so do plan on getting them printed out at some point and will get them bound so I can relive the pleasure of reading them.

A Salvage crew captain with trusty robot minion

Looking through my blog, I can see that I've posted about the game before and even played a game using 15mm figures which can be found HERE and HERE. I'm fairly sure I got some of the rules wrong but it gives a bit of an idea of the game.

I look forward to posting more gubbins over the coming week while I await sculpting supplies to get on with my Leviathan project but in the meantime, thanks for getting this far and All the best!

Richard

New Year Gaming!

 Hi!

I've already covered my interest in working my way through the Rangers of Shadowdeep core rulebook and campaign over the course of the next while but I'm also pondering some other games both old and new for a bit of a spin.

As per usual, Ash over on Guerrilla Miniature Games has got me picking up new rules in the form of The Silver Bayonet and Scrappers. Both are Osprey Games and I'd initially ignored them as they just didn't seem to be my cup of tea but having watched a couple of battle reports, I'm actually intrigued enough to pick up a copy of each to try out!

With Silver Bayonet, I plan on using my Flintloque/Deadloque collection to play games with as I must admit that I'm quite looking forward to giving it a try out! As for Scrappers, I think I'm going to rummage my leadpile and see what I've got and also use the opportunity to try to get some games of Star Mogul in too.

I also got a super cheap copy of Supersystem 2nd edition which I'm contemplating sculpting some supers and villains for in my own style.

I also think I'll try out the rules for a quick skirmish game featuring Inquisitor Fisher and some foes as I've heard really good things about the system and it's based on the old White Wolf Trinity Battleground game which was great fun.

I'm also contemplating putting together a couple of articles about Rogue Trader and the basics of putting together a small force and the basics of character building and how to get the best of the rules from my own somewhat limited experience.

Finally, I'm finding myself somewhat tempted to try something completely different.

I left the hobby when 40k moved from 2nd edition to 3rd as it was so simplified and I never played it but I recently got to thinking that I love Epic 40k because it took a granular, somewhat clunky system and streamlined it right down to allow for a quick playing but still enjoyable system. What if 3rd/4th edition 40k is similar?

I doubt I'll do much with it in the near future but I may pick up the core rulebook and the odd codex if I can find them cheaply enough and instead of the £100+ for Rogue Trader and 2nd edition, the later rulesets seem to be pretty cheap at about a tenner for the core rules. I'll need to delve into it a bit but I do wonder if I can put together a 250-300 point combat patrol sort of force and see how things go.

This is very much something I'll be putting on the back-burner for the foreseeable but it may be a nice long term aim for the year to end up with a little force thats a step up from my usual skirmish warband.

We shall see what I actually manage in the next month or two so watch this space!

All the best!

Star Mogul Project Part 3: The Rules

Hi!

Here's a quick link to the Star Mogul Rules!

Star Mogul Core Rules

The original rules! They contain everything you need to get started with the core rules and a guide to putting together your salvage company along with some hired guns and pirates to liven up games. It's also got the campaign system too along with an assortment of scenarios to play out!

Star Mogul: Distant Worlds

Distant Worlds was the first expansion to the rules and came with a guide to playing forces of Asteroid Miners and Hydrissians, an alien race with an interesting appearance and very different motivations to human warbands.

Star Mogul: Alien Evolution

The last supplement was Alien Evolution which introduced the X-12 Robot cult, a renegade group of mekks who seek freedom from their human overlords and the Mephalians, a degenerate remnant of the Mimjip Empire who operate ancient alien tech.

I'll post up a bit of a guide to the rules next time but in the meantime, All the best and I hope folks enjoy perusing a rather fun set of old rules!

Star Mogul Project Part 2: Background

 Hi!

As part of my Star Mogul project, I've decided to get the ball rolling with a quick look at the background to the setting so without further ado, let's take a peek at what we've got!

In 2227 the Tread Lightly Corp launched the Tachyon drive which allowed FTL travel and humanity began spreading across the stars. 

At this point, there were already working colonies on several of Jupiter's moons, Mercury, the Asteroid belt and Earth's Moon. Terraforming and settlement of Mars was already underway but the Tachyon drive's creation allowed for exploration of new worlds far from Earth. Initially it was the Earth's great powers who launched expeditions using the Tachyon drive to establish colonies on newly discovered worlds and exploit their natural resources but the blueprints for the drive were stolen and soon smaller groups were launching their own colonising efforts. These smaller expeditions sought to establish new and free societies, far from the overcrowded and tightly controlled Earth.

This time period became known as the Young Exodus as many of the colonists who enlisted were chosen for their youth and vigour. The call of the colonies lured many out into space to an uncertain future but many saw the benefits over a crowded and stifling life on Earth. 

The colonies were initiated, some over 100 light years from Earth but soon several began reporting discovering the ruins of an alien civilisation and further research and excavations revealed the ruins to be over 400,000 years old. These discoveries resulted in a fresh wave of exploration further into unexplored space as many sought to delve further into the mysteries of this lost alien society and the Great Expedition phase began with a new gold rush as prospectors rushed to the new frontiers in search of lost alien tech and the mysteries of the Mimjip civilisation.

By 2340 humanity appeared to be forging an empire amongst the stars. Earth had begun to regulate its population and biosphere thanks to the resources that poured in from its offworld colonies and recovered alien tech.

Things weren't all rosey though as many colonists began to resent the amount of resources and money they were being required to send back to Earth, despite a lack of political freedom or representation they had been promised. 

Soon several established colonies declared their independence from Earth but this wasn't too much of a concern to the Earth government as trade continued to flow and the sheer distances involved meant a military response wasn't feasible.

Then the discovery of the ‘Forge’ at Alpha Centauri occurred and relations broke down rapidly. The ‘Alpha Forge’, as it became known, was an orbiting starship construction platform the Mimjipani race had left behind. Its technology relied upon the gathering of rare elements from the local asteroid belt which were then shaped and tempered slowly into a near indestructible starship hull deep in the fires of Alpha Centauri itself. 

It was the outer colonists that discovered the forge and worked out its operating procedure, but the obvious military implications of the new starship hulls became apparent quickly to Earth and the governing bodies of the home system. Using heavyweight diplomatic and economic muscle, the council of Earth attempted to obtain possession of the forge for itself. 

The whole situation deteriorated badly not long thereafter when earth’s council declared all members of the newly formed ‘Federal Union’ on the Outer Rim in violation of their legal obligations and sent in a cohort of storm troopers to obtain the Forge by force. The assault was repelled, just barely, by the efforts of a lieutenant engineer Thomas Redcloud (awarded the ‘Gold Aurora’), who fixed the entire docking area to self destruct, catching the storm trooper reinforcement party off guard and allowing the defenders to consolidate their defences in time.

After this, the Frontier Union organised the Alpha Forge with heavy artillery in case Earth tried to take this valuable artefact by storm again. There was no declaration of war – the Frontier Union had no army. So they had no choice but to organise one in response to the actions of Earth, and also, the growing number of slave raids by the Hydrissian ‘devourer’ cult on the fringes of known space that began in 2442.  The Federal Defence Force (FDF) was organised and ties with the home system became much more restricted as the colonies strove for self sufficiency.

Around this time, shortly after the century turned to the 2400’s, a new threat loomed on the horizon.
The discovery of the ‘Mimjip Pathogen’ reared its ugly head, though too late for many on the frontier. Somewhere among the exploration and exploitation of the ancient Mimjip ruins a deadly virus had been released. 

The virus had lain dormant for many thousands of years, and was probably thought of as an innocuous infection by the ancient Mimjipani race. The accidental release of this virus had devastating consequences on humanity as it lay semi-dormant for several decades before it was discovered and made itself felt. By this time it had spread throughout the colonies and throughout the home systems. The resulting pandemic killed many millions, and has brought mankind’s fledgling empire among the stars to its knees.

Entire space colonies have now lain deserted for decades and much that was built has now been laid to waste. Finally, in more recent years, the Mimjip pathogen seems to have played itself out, and cases are becoming much rarer. Perhaps only those who are naturally able to fight the virus have survived. Nevertheless, the road is now open for those who are brave enough, or perhaps foolish enough, to begin the process of rebuilding what was lost.

This is where the game takes place with small groups of salvage experts exploring lost colonies for tech and fighting over the ruins of a once great empire. It is a lawless place but fortune favours the bold and money is to be made amongst the stars.

I'm hoping to take a look at what is required to play in the next instalment but I'm still humming and hahing about what miniatures to use. Do I go 28mm, 15mm or sculpt my own? Each option has it's pluses and negatives so I'll need to get my thinking hat on and figure out just what I want to do before I get the that point but I have plenty of other stuff that I can be getting on with, including putting together a bit of a campaign map showcasing the region that the action will be happing so watch this space!

In the meantime, All the best!

Star Mogul Project: Part 1 Musings

 Hi!

I have managed to get myself a new laptop (many thanks to my brother for being awesome!) which should allow me to get my blogging up and running again which is rather exciting and I'm looking forward to getting things running normally again.

I'm interested to see what Stargrave develops into as what little I've read makes me think of the old Star Mogul rules and I've been thinking of using that for the next while to give me a nice small project that can then get used as a building block for some warbands for Stargrave in 2021.

Back in about 2008, I had a blast putting together forces for the game and a few years ago I played a couple of games using 15mm scale figures and I'm rather fond of the game, despite not playing it much and it may be a fun little project to round out the year and indeed clear through some of the odds and ends from my lead pile!

My next post will cover the background of the Star Mogul setting and I'll see how I get on with choosing some suitable figures for my two salvage crews.

In other news, I've also preordered Gamma Wolves as I rather like the setting and think it might be a good project to put together in a scale smaller than 28mm and with there only being the need for a half dozen figures per side in total, it should be a fun side project too!

In the meantime, All the best!

Re-Exploring Old Rulesets

Hi!

I can't believe it's almost the end of June and I've not posted anything here for almost a month!

Saying that, I've been rather busy both with my lovely wife's birthday, two weeks holidays and organising our spare room/man cave/library. This has given me the chance to finally have a bit of a sort through my old ruleset collection which has given me the urge to have a good rummage through the books and have a peruse!

I'm often struck by what a shame it is when great games vanish or are left in a zombie state where they are still available but never get any support, be that new releases or indeed anybody playing them. It's doubly so when some of these games have a fascinating setting with some great ideas that really lend themselves to brilliant fun gaming possibilities.

Take a look at Kryomek for example. It's never been out of production, the rules are freely available to download and the miniatures are still being made but it gets very little attention these days. I must admit that I'm just as guilty as any as I originally picked up the books back in the 90's from the long lamented Mac's Models in Edinburgh as well as a handful of miniatures but never seriously tried to play a game.

Similarly, Void 1.1 is still readily available, the rules are also free downloads and the figures are still available. I even had a VASA force fully painted back in the day but sold it off when I went off to uni and never really got back into it which is a real shame as the rules are really good and the setting is rather enjoyable!

For fantasy gaming, how about Crucible by FASA? While the company is long gone, the core rule book is still available from Ral Partha Europe and the forces are generic enough to allow proxy games without too much issue. The rules themselves are actually really good and the setting is brilliant but nobody plays it.

I think part of the issue with these games is that they are aimed at the GW sort of large scale gamers with multiple units, large gaming surfaces and infinite time to paint stuff for them whereas my interests have moved onto smaller scale skirmishing with at most a couple of dozen figures a side. But should this stop me from incorporating the settings, forces and ideas into the sort of games I play now?

No! Having re-read quite a few of my old books, I'm sorely tempted to put together some small skirmish bands and explore the settings. Imagine a UNION marine squad from Vor: The Maelstrom being dispatched to scout a new world and encountering some unfriendly Growlers or Nexus Marines being tasked with searching a hulk and discovering a Kryomek infestation. How about Principality adventurers exploring ancient ruins for artifacts of power in Crucible or grim survivors fighting over precious supplies in the endless wastes of Leviathan's Aeroth.

The list is infinite and the possibilities for some really fascinating games are out there and it's well worth having a peek at some of the old, forgotten and unappreciated rulesets that are sat in many folks collections.

These possibilities are even greater when using 15mm scale figures as it's possible to create a decent sized skirmish force for under a tenner. For example, Star Mogul only requires about a dozen figures and a vehicle a side while Nuclear Renaissance only needs a handful plus suitably converted vehicles.

With this in mind, I hope to use the opportunity to put together some small forces by rummaging my leadpile of 15mm gubbins to see what I can put together. I will be using the month of July to see what themed forces I can clobber together and see how feasible such a scheme would be.

A good example of this is my Bauhaus Jaeger squad that I put together a while back:

Bauhaus Jaegers

They are Ground Zero Games miniatures with added shoulder pads which gives them the suitably 90's Warzone vibe and with a few additions, I have a Warzone 1st edition force ready to rock!

It's going to be an interesting process and we shall have to see what I come up with but hopefully I will resume regular posting here and I even have a couple of batches of 15mm stuff that I've finished off over the last couple of weeks that needs posting up so watch this space!