Where Games Go To Die

Hi!

I've been perusing my old rulebook collection and have been pondering why so many great games that have come out over the years have little or no interest on the interwebs.

Yes, they are out of production and often the miniatures are difficult to get hold of but many are available to download for free or at least available on the likes of ebay for less than the cost of a magazine.

A Few of the Many

Over the years I've collected literally dozens of rulesets, usually they promptly go out of production but I have built up quite a decent reference library and they still make for fascinating reading, if for no other reason than the creators of the game poured considerable amounts of creativity into them. Many of them have great settings, unusual forces and ingenious rules but have been discarded purely as they are out of production.

Void 1.1 Viridians versus Junkers

With my re-engagement with 15mm sci-fi I thought I could redress the balance a bit and use the opportunity to both channel some of the creativity I have been experiencing with painting with trying out some of the games themselves.

These days my interests lie mostly in smaller skirmishes with a few squads supported by a character or two and the odd vehicle. To put together a force of this size and paint it in 28mm is quite a project but in 15mm, it's far more doable.

Warzone Capitol light infantry conversions

With this in mind, I am thinking of trying out some of the rulesets that I loved back in the day and putting together some small forces for each I try. In some cases this will mean using existing ranges and proxying stuff and in others, sculpting my own stuff but I must admit I am relishing the opportunity.

Once I have enough for two small forces put together, I plan on posting a review of the rulest I plan on using and playing a few small battle reports featuring the forces. If nothing else, this will give me the excuse to paint some unusual warbands to add to Farpoint's diverse setting and will also give me the chance to actually play a game or two.

If it inspires folks to try out one or more of these old but great games, all the better!

Looking through my collection, I actually have enough stuff to get started on converting a small force and will post some updates as I get them so watch this space!

Hopefully I will be able to post an article or two a week on progress, be it thoughts on the setting and rules or conversion and painting work as the project goes forward and it will give me a little bit of direction when it comes to my hobby too. I also figure that the need to only paint 10-20 figures for the most part will make things a bit more interesting and not result in me getting bogged down.

I also plan on writing up more background to Farpoint as it develops and new forces, factions, movers and shakers appear.

All the best!

Blazing Saddles

Hi!

I've finally managed to paint a couple of cowboys from Peter Pig. I've had these chaps for about 15 years and it was high time I get the little guys painted.

 Posse

Although historical figures, I plan on using them for armed colonists and Grox ranchers on Farpoint. I have about 15 or 20 of these guys lying around so I should have enough to represent a decent force of frontier types to whip into a frenzy of anti Xenos outrage while hopped up on moonshine.

I do like the fact that 15mm miniatures are rather flexible and all manner of historical goodies can be ported into sci-fi gaming. The chap on the right is a Laserburn figure and they scale well together.

Next up, there's a giant Sumatran Rat!

 Squeek!

This chap is an old GW plastic rat that is about the only remaining part of my Warhammer Quest collection and although it's a mid 90's mono pose, it paints up really nicely. I think I have a few more of these chaps kicking around somewhere and am rather looking forward to painting them up into some verminous menaces for my inhabitants of Farpoint.

Rat Hunting

I seem to be going through a rather productive spell at present with lots of stuff being painted and bits and bobs of scenics shenanigans in the works too.

Hopefully I'll have some more gubbins to show soon, including some new GZG stuff that I picked up during their recent sale so watch this space!

All the best!

Law Enforcement

Hi!

Just a quick update this morning with some assorted gubbins that's been sat primed in my bits box for quite some time!

Police Skimmer K17 encounters some perps 

The skimmer is originally a 15mm.co.uk figure with a lipped 30mm base to bulk it up a bit. I must admit that the sculpt itself is pretty crude but with a lick of paint, it does the job and will make a fine and quirky addition to law enforcement on Farpoint.

Skimmer K17

As you can see from the pic, the figure is a bit on the course side but it reminds me of the villains skimmers from The Incredibles!

Next up, there's Gort, the first member of my Demihuman force:

Gort

Gort is from the Star Vikings range which I sculpted when I was at uni. I have converted him a bit, reworking his power fist, shoulder spike and face and this former gladiator will make for a decent shock trooper with his flame throwing fist and flail!

I've got a half dozen more assorted Demihumans in the paint table and hope to have a decent squad or two to add some hired muscle to either my Imperial or rebel forces soonish!

Hopefully I will have some more stuff to add to the blog in the next few days but in the meantime, All the best!

Painters Progress

Hi!

Well I've had a busy couple of weeks at work, what with getting to be the Gruffalo, Elmer the Elephant and running a slime making workshop but I have managed to keep up the painting progress and finish off some bits and bobs I've had sat half painted or primed for some time!

First up, there's a large carnivorous dinosaur to menace the inhabitants of Farpoints Slime Forests:

 Be vewwy, vewwy qwiet. I'm hunting Cawnosawr!

The model is one of the smaller prepainted hard plastic figures from Schleich and is surprisingly well detailed. I gave him a fresh coat of paint and stuck him on a base and now have something big and nasty to chomp on unsuspecting humans!

Carnosaur Rex

Next up, I've got some new additions to my Badmoon Ork warband in the form of some Gobbo's and a completed second squad of heavy Boyz:

The force thus far

I'm really pleased with the way my Ork force is forming up and 15mm scale suits a decent sized warband for very little money!

 Ork Squad 1

Ork Squad 2

The Orks are a mixture of Alternative Armies (sculpted by me many years ago) and CP models (also sculpted by me!) as well as one or two original sculpts. All the figures are converted to some extent.

Lowly Grots

The Gobbo's are from Ral Partha Europe's Demonworld range and while fantasy miniatures, make fine proxies for sci-fi shenanigans. I have another half dozen to paint of the little chaps and do find them to be very characterful sculpts.

The prodder guys on the left are begging to have some squigs to poke at and I am also thinking of converting a couple to be carrying a demo charge on a stick. Just the thing to add an unexpected bit of mayhem in a game!

Next up, I've got my Battleaxe Brigade mercenaries built up to almost a full squad!

Battleaxe Brigade 

The figures are DP9 from their Heavy Gear range that I picked up six or seven years ago from Wayland Games when they had a sale on. The figures while nice and posable are an utter nightmare to prep. Each figure comes in 8 pieces and the sculpts required a stupid amount of filing and scraping to clear mould lines. Saying that, when painted, they look ace as heavy power armour.

I bulked them up a bit to make it believable that a human could pilot them and converted one to be bareheaded using a Peter Pig cowboy head and painted the first three before we moved last year. The fourth member, got half finished and then stored till I rummaged him out and finished him off this week.

The drones are scratch built from a button, some plasticard, beads and a little bit of Greenstuff and give my heavy power armour a spotter on the left and a gun drone on the right.

Battleaxe Brigade in combat with Imperial retinue forces

I also managed to play another game of my hybrid Song of Blades, renamed Song of Blasters the other day which saw my Imperials battered by the Badmoons. Alas I didn't get any pictures as it was more of a playtest of the rules to see how they worked but the Retinue appeared piecemeal and were shot to pieces by the Orks until the Governor General was left trapped in a small settlement with nothing but his defence droid and handgun.

Amazingly, he proceeded to gun down an entire squad of Ork boyz who tried to capture him, much to my amazement and made his way to safety before the second squad got close enough. He even survived a missile bombardment from the Badmoon's blasta trakk!

Hopefully I'll get some more gubbins painted up in the coming week and possibly even get a game or two in, hopefully with pics!

In the meantime, All the best!

Rumble in the Jungle

Hi!

Well it looks like my decision to return to 15mm sci-fi has borne fruit!

I've spent a few mornings before work repairing some damaged paintwork on my assorted miniatures and giving them a good varnish to stop it happening again and have even managed to play a quick skirmish!

The Governor General has been performing an inspection tour of an Imperial construction project on the edge of the slime forest when a Badmoon warband decided to raid the camp for supplies.

 Imperials and Orks deploy

The game was played over a 2'x2' board with about a dozen or so figures a side in under half an hour using a bit of a bodged version of Song of Blades and Heroes and the Imperials firepower saw off the Orks before they managed to breach the fence line.

I must admit that I really enjoyed the experience and have an idea to re-run it with some more Orks as they needed more numbers, not to mention some bullet shield Gobbo's to soak up incoming fire.

Ork squad on the move

The rules worked surprisingly well, especially when I changed some of the dice mechanics and gave the rules a bit of a reworking to suit my needs and I quite liked the fact that a small skirmish could be played so quickly and satisfyingly in such a short time.

I am feeling the need to expand my forces a bit too as already mentioned to build my Badmoons up to 20-30 models so they act more like the horde they should be and want to add another clan to the mix as I seem to be going through a bit of a yellow and black phase painting wise!

Imperial drone footage  

As I have limited space and hobby time, this small scale battle is just the thing I need and I am very aware of the fact that I can put together a warband in a weekend for the cost of about a fiver which is great!

I'm planning on further tweaking of the rules to make them better suited to what I want to play but have made a decent start to things and look forward to more gaming sessions over the coming weeks.

Imperial defenders stand their ground 

I am also in need of more scenery which I always enjoy building so expect to see some more gubbins soon!

In the meantime, All the best!

Hobby Musings

Hi!

Well I seem to be having a bit of a mixed time of it here at Spacecow Towers. On the one hand, I have been blasting through putting together terrain and working on my SD Somewhere on the Border stuff but seem to be repeatedly hitting a bit of a brick wall when it comes to all things Farpoint.

I spent a bit of time yesterday painting up an Ork for the upcoming Kill Team game that GW are showcasing but found it largely an unrewarding experience. Having started with huge amounts of enthusiasm, the drudgery of simply getting the lumpen piece of plastic painted was almost more than I could bear and the prospect of painting more of them doesn't fill me with enthusiasm.

Again I seem to be stuck with the problem of enjoying painting my own stuff that I make but not commercially available stuff.

Looking back through my blog over the last nine years (hard to believe!), it quickly becomes clear that my most productive and enjoyable experiences have been based around 15mm or SD scales when I can churn out small warbands over a weekend, put together a bit of scenery without hassle and have a blast playing a small skirmish.

For all my handwringing about it, I just don't seem meant for 28mm anymore and need to face facts! With this in mind, I am going to spend a bit of time going through my 15mm scale collection and do some much needed repair work, doubly so as I never varnish my figures so some of them are a bit chipped.

Secondly, I need to get back to sculpting in 15mm scale as it is quite an enjoyable experience and the scale suits my rather stylised approach and it will allow me to put together to sort of forces that I want to see, especially when combined with judicious use of the extensive sci-fi, fantasy and historical ranges out there (take a peek at the Rdunrundt Dragoons below for example. They are actually Peter Pig WW1 French Dragoons but with a bit of a repaint, they are perfectly suited to some pulpy sci-fi shenanigans)

As I mentioned in my previous post, I also really want to get back to playing some games which I managed regularly back when I stuck to 15mm scale but have struggled with since the temptations of 28mm has struck me. 

Looking at the sheer output I managed back then, despite being at either uni, full time work or long commutes I am surprised that I have achieved so little in the last 18 months or so.

Another issue I am becoming increasingly aware of is the lack of space. While I can play a decent game in 15mm on a 2'x2' or 3'x3' board with a few squads and vehicles, attempting anything similar in larger scales is increasingly becoming an exercise in futility as the gubbins I do paint aren't enough for even a decent skirmish and then there's the whole issue of terrain.

Needless to say, one can keep a decent amount of large terrain features for 15mm scale in a shoebox but it's a bit more difficult to do the same in 28mm!

My hobby time is becoming less and less as the years go by and I really want to re-connect with it and if that means taking a step back and re-evaluating what works and what doesn't with the stuff I have, then so be it!

On a related note, I am going to be re-evaluating the assorted SD sculpts I have and continuing to put together small warbands for my own enjoyment as they seem to scratch the itch of a more characterful sculpt that doesn't take long to paint and doesn't need lots of space to play a game!

With that in mind, I am seriously contemplating sculpting some SD characters for a Kill Team campaign like these little Bloodaxe's I sculpted a couple of years back:

It took two weeks to sculpt them and a couple of days to paint them and they were great fun to do as well! I may chunk the newer sculpts up a bit, like the way my Somewhere on the Border stuff is developing but I rather like the characterfulness of them and hope to find an excuse to build and paint some more!

Anyhoo, enough of my rantings and ravings and I think I need to take stock and see what I can put together in the coming week (when I am not at work running the host of events we've got coming up!)

In the meantime, apologies for the ramblings and break in meaningful content. Hopefully with my new enthusiasm coupled with a dose of reality, I will be able to get back to a more interesting read soon!

Kill Team

Hi!

I've been perusing with interest the preview of the new edition of Kill Team by GW and it's looking rather interesting!

Reading through the assorted previews and so on online, it looks like it might be just the cup of tea for me.  It requires small forces (5-10 figures) on a small table (about 2'x3') and features scenario driven games and campaigns that should see a warband develop and is perfect for heavily converting figures.

While I have no way of ever putting together a full army for 40k, I do like the idea of playing something a bit smaller and more rpg-lite so will be keeping an eye out for developments of the game in the coming months. It would be interesting to play out the secret wars of the Inquisition or Imperial agents facing rebel groups or sinister alien cults!

It will be interesting to see what the rules play like and what is possible. I was rather enamoured with Shadow War Armageddon but found it to be a bit limited as I really wanted some Space Marines rather than just scouts and the campaign system was a little limited.

We shall see how things develop in the coming weeks before I make any decision on whether I want to pick it up or not...