Firefly figures for Pulp Alley - Alliance Lt and new free trader crew.

More painted up firefly figures for the Pulp alley project. These were actually completed last month but have taken a while to make their way through to the camera.

I'm thinking of running a four player game for my girlfriend and housemates using these and a few of my Pulp figures (I reckon I can get away with using some of my 30s/40s gangster figures as 'space gangsters'). Just need to stat them up and choose a scenario. We've been playing a lot of D&D recently so I think a miniatures game would actually go down pretty well as there's not a huge different (except for PA having much smoother and more interesting mechanics than D&D combat).

The last four figures in this post form another rival free trader crew (like the Firefly crew). Who do you think should be the captain of the crew? I haven't decided yet so leave some thoughts.

The Lt to lead the Alliance Feds faction. Converted from Hasslfree's colonel Michaels with the head from an Artisan Nazi. The uniform is an approximate match to the series. 

I arsed up the piping by painting it straight...

I think this may be the best I've managed to paint a figure so far (bear in mind this image is about 2-3 times the size of the actual figure). I tried some new ideas with the white i.e really subtle highlights and transitions, using very thin layers. The face came out nice (good sculpting more than anything) and I managed to pull off some nice freehand on the armour and gun. There's some shine to kill with a varnish though. 

Another Hasslfree figure. Kev White (the sculptor for HF) is a genius. Easily my favourite sculptor. I tried to go for a high sheen faux leather jacket by painting it with extreme white highlights. Works slightly better IRL.  I found a good jeans colour on this figure so will no doubt use again. 

Heresy figure - shame its not a HF! Still not bad. 

I think the shiny black leather boots came out nicely. Getting the hang of this technique (painted this after the figure above). Sponge chipping effect on the kneepads. 

Skin's not bad either. Flesh and black are still my two big hurdles to overcome. I think, with trepidation, I can say I can paint white now though. 

I don't think the firefly universe has intelligent robots but when I saw this figure on the Lead Adventure forums I had to get a few! I figure its semi-intelligent (so not sentient like the Star Wars droids) and gives the mechanic (still to paint) some technical computing backup. 

More Firefly (pulp alley project)

I finished painting up Zoe over the weekend. I now have the core of the crew in terms of the 'away team' painted up (Mal, Jayne, Zoe) and some opposition - 8 Alliance troopers (I did 3 more at the same time as Zoe) with an Alliance officer well on the way.  This puts me in a good place to play a game once I've finished putting together a bit more of my battlesystems terrain (some of which you can see in the background to the shots).

I've used a Reaper fig. Its not a dead ringer for Zoe but its close enough in my book...

You'll notice that I've 'penned' the edges on my card terrain to help it blend - you can see this nicely on the air duct here. 

The place you don't want to be -  staring down the barrel of Zoe's gun!

The gang together. They scale well - no complaints from me. 

Traditional sepia shot...

Surrounded! but not cowed. 

You can't take the sky from me...

I've been a bit distracted from my pulp project by a certain space western that had an unfortunate case of Kurt Cobain syndrome...

Pulp Alley is a very flexible ruleset and I can see it fitting the firefly universe perfectly, so buckle in for some thrillin' heroics as I run through the first few characters I've painted up from the show. 

Mal and Jayne bite off more than they can chew as they go head to head with a heavily armed squad of Alliance Feds.

Malcolm Reynolds. Browncoat, captain and all round goddam hero. 

From Heresy,  not a bad sculpt but a bit of  shock after all the Copplestone and Hasslefree I've been panting recently. Its Malish but not a dead ringer and the boots for example are a bit crude. 

I went for colours reminiscent to those in the show but adapted for the scale.

Jayne Cobb. Foul mouthed mercenary looking for his cut. (Reaper)

Again, not the greatest sculpt in the world -  the face is pretty basic. But, then again, it exists, so yay!

The shirt is meant to say 'blue sun' as in the blue sun corporation but I think the e turned out looking more like an r. So, ironically, now its 'blur sun'! Not quite sure what happened to Jane's eyes either...

Alliance Feds aka 'Purple bellies'. The first 5. These are from Rebel minis (who I think has bought certain rights from Mongoose). As Firefly fans will know, the Alliance feds from the series used left over gear from the Starship Troopers movie. 

The sculpts are a little basic and a bit vague in places, especially the faces. I painted these using a different approach to usual (as they are goons I was less bothered that about them being neat) so used lots of drybrushing and a very limited palette to speed things up. 

Close-up of some of the little bits of detail I bothered to do on the feds. The upside to this approach is that these 5 took me about 3 hours, which is very fast for me. 

Mal posing in front of my new Battlesystems card terrain.  Should get some good use out of this to represent salvage missions, boarding actions etc. Looking forward to popping it all out at some point. 

The smell of cordite hangs heavy in the air. 'Get on the horn and call for reinforcements!'

I've become pretty fascinated by the new ruleset from Ivan Sorenson (five parsecs from home) which merges miniatures wargame and RPG. I'm not a huge fan of the 5 core system the supplement builds on, it looks a bit basic and the lack of stat lines is a big turn-off, but I really want to do some kind of mash-up of pulp alley, 5 parsecs, the firefly boardgame and then mix in RPG elements... just need to find the time to write it...

On the plus side my boardgame group just progressed to RPGs (first game of D&D last week -  which we thoroughly enjoyed) so I may be able to tempt them with the Firefly RPG in time.

Well, until next time - I'll be in my bunk.

Scratchbuilt and Painted 15mm Sci-Fi Terrain

I've been in the mood for building terrain lately. I haven't a board or space for one, so its a little pointless, but I do enjoy it. Here's an air defence emplacement I've been working on for a while now. 

The main structure is made from a deodorant bottle lid and the top from a jar of pills (I wish I'd disguised the latter component a little better now on reflection). 

The reinforced door is made from 0.5mm plasticard, as are the support struts along the bottom of the structure.

The gatling gun is from an old tau model and the targeting sensors on the top of the mounting are some 40K part or another. The mounting is made entirely from plasticard and wire and the gun rotates and can change elevation.

I painted the heavy gattling cannon (and the rest of the building and gun mounting) to look pretty worn and beat-up using washes and the 'blister pack' method for chipped paint. 

The bunker slits were a bit of an afterthought - the sides of the building looked quite plain and were in need of some detail, so I obliged with a little plasticard. 

I'm quite pleased with the wear on the gun sensor cowling you can see here. This was done using blister pack foam dipped in paint and smeared in the direction of conceivable wear. 

 The building is mounted on a 2mm MDF base from warbases, the FOW large size.

The various numbers and letterings on the model are from a free set of sticker I got from Hasslefree at Salute. Initially I though they were decals but as stickers they turned out to be just as good with a little dirt added.

I figures that seeing as I'd started making buildings some freestanding modular wall section would come in handy for providing some cover during a firefight. I knocked up a simple prototype using plasticard and had some fun weathering it and adding alien graffiti.

The base was done as concerete rather than my usual desert basing as I thought I might eventually get round to doing an urban board, in which case these pieces could serve double duty.

 I tried to paint the 'No Prawns' sign from District 9 on this bit, sort of worked.

 The two pieces fit nicely together side-by-side.


Here's a few pictures to give you an idea of scale and just for a bit of fun! Looks like those mercs have their work cut out defending that air defence installation...

Micropanzer Krystrial Warriors: Review and Painted Pics!

Another test figure. I'm useless at painting useable forces, but I do love a good test figure!I decided to do this as a bit of a review as well as I've so far never seen a review of these models (or many of Micropanzer's) on the interwebs before. 

First things first, this is a Krystrial Warrior from Micropanzer Wargame Studio's Slipstream project.  Jason has had a hard time getting the company going but seems to be getting there with it. I'm really excited about this company once they get going as their minis have a unique flavour that offers a nice departure from the 'safe' and sometimes unadventurous offerings of some other companies currently out there. 

The Warriors come in a pack of 8 and retail for $20 (although it appears he has since re-organized the range). I got mine in a sale for $15, bargain! These prices might seem a little steep at first for only 8 15mm figures (usually around $6) but they're real brutes and stand at around 24-25mm. Bulk wise they are easily the equal of 3-4 15mm minis, so the price is actually quite fair. 

The detail on these figures is excellent. The armour is crisp and smooth and the muscles are reasonably well defined. The clothing is also also nicely sculpted. 

The figures came with virtually no flash or mouldlines. Of all the 15mm figure manufactures I've bought from (GZG, CMG, OG, BF ), including many 'heavyweight' companies, these have required the least cleanup i.e. around 30 secs each. Superb casting/quality control work here.

The figures are very easy to paint. I'm always dubious when I hear this assertion but I think I actually understand what is meant now. The figures have such character and well defined features that they almost paint themselves.

I kept with the bluish skin tone and metallic armour from the website pics but decided to add a few more splashes of colour as contrast. I also decided and to move the blue skin tone more towards a deep turquoise. I'm very happy with the skin tone overall as its something a little bit different. I went quite bright with the palette overal, including the use of metallics, to try and reinforce the idea of the Krystrial as an 'alien' race, contrasting heavily with the 'hi-tech' looking figures I've already painted. There's something slightly steampunkish about the archaic guns and armour on these which I find really appealing. 

Ok, back to the review. Here's a comparison shot to give you an idea of size. These minis are 'supersize' 15s and whilst they certainly tower over their opponents they seem to be at the edge of what size is possible before they simply become '28mm figures being used in a 15s game'. I plan to stat them up as extremely heavy infantry, the organic equivalent of heavy power armour. 

From Left; CMG Recon Trooper, GZG 6mm something or other, MWS Krystrial Warrior and CMG Ayame Scout Walker (modified).

Overall I would highly recommend these figures. If you're thinking about getting them, go for it!

(Note: I'm in no way affiliated with Micropanzer, I just really like these and think they deserve some acclaim!)