Autosentia Mech WIP 2

Here's a quick few snaps of the progress on my 15mm mech conversion. So far I've done the primering,  basecoat, wash, basecoat again, and started the first highlight. I plan to try out the tips and hints I've gotten from the Dwartist on weathering and wear once I've gotten the basic paint job finished. 

 Once the paint is on the tau helmet eyepiece seems to blend right in, which was what I was hoping for.

You can see here that I've so far only highlighted his right leg. Eventually the whole model will be this sort of tone (apart from recesses) and then I'll do an extreme highlight with a little more yellow in it. I haven't got any experience painting vehicles so finger crossed this should work, the details and size of this mech make it more like painting a 28mm figure than a tank tbh.

15mm sci-fi multi-bases are go!

My movement trays/sabot bases arrived from warbases yesterday. They were a custom modification of his basic FOW bases and he did them for what I consider a reasonable price, in good time. 

These should pretty much cover my immediate needs although I'm going to need more of the undrilled bases for my vehicles, walkers and larger units. 

Unfortunately he didn't quite cut the medium base with the 2 holes quite right, I wanted them more offset in the manner of the 4 hole medium base but this is no biggie, I'm already over it. 

Here's the finished product after its had the bottom put in (0.5mm steel paper) and has been filled, textured, painted and tufted. So far, due to impending exams, I've only got one of these done. I'll need a proper session to get through them, they take about half-an-hour each or so all told. 

Here's a few pictures with the new bases in action and some of the 15mm miniatures I have lying around. I really think that group based units look better than individuals and I think these pictures bear that out, at least in my opinion. 

The individual figures are mounted on very thin neodymium magnets and they aren't going anywhere. You can throw these around, knock 'em over and shake them upside down and the figures stay put. Worth the extra small expense I think.

My plans for 15mm forces which can be used both for skirmishes and company scale games seem to be finally coming together. Now to find some decent rules and do a LOT more painting!

Storage and Transport: Playing with Magnets

A little while ago I started looking into storage and transportation solutions for my growing miniature collections. As I get more and more stuff painted up my usual 'shove it in a baggie in a box approach' needs some refinement to stop all that effort going to waste. I've played around with a few ideas and I think I've finally come up with something I'm happy with. 

First attempt was to get some self-adhesive magnetic and iron sheets from TinyTinTroops. These were reasonably priced at around£4 for two larger than A5 sheets (including postage). 

Two sheets does an A4 sized filebox comfortably, with a few leftover strips. The adhesive on these is every strong and you don't have to worry about it coming loose, worry about getting it in the right place first time!

Mark II was a 'tuff box' (whatever that is) from Rymans. The plastic is a bit more sturdy than the filebox card and the clasps more robust than the filebox locking mechanism. As you can see it accommodates all of my currently painted 15s and FOW, although I'm gonna have to get another one soonish. 

The magnetic sheet has a fair amount of pull but nowhere near as much as neodymiums, basically it all boils down to surface area vs weight. For my BSG fighter stands this system works quite well. The bases are large and the figures are very small and light. A inch square of the iron sheet on the bottom of each base seems to do the trick. 

It also works very well for my FOW units which again are relatively light and mounted on very large bases. However, the 15s are a bit mixed, it seems to hold the larger based ones quite well but the smaller based ones I just don't trust. 

As you can see, I can hold the box at the horizontal, and even turn it upside down, without any problems. However, if you start giving it a knock of two the individually bases figures start to slide around and can fall off. I wouldn't want to trust this on the bus or tube. Its great for storage at home, but I need something slightly more robust for travelling. 

To this end I've ordered some 8mm x0.5mm neodymium magnets off ebay (recommended by a friend) to stick on the individual figures, this should get rid of the worries as these little magnets are incredibly powerful for their size.  Originally I couldn't find disc magnets this size (i.e. really thin) but it turns out they exist, so in someways, its back to plan A after a detour through plan B.

My bases order should be arriving soon from warbases and my magnets from ebay soon so I can finally see if my whole sabot bases concept will actually work or fail in the detail.

AAR: Command and Colours, Vimeiro 1808.

Had a game of Command and Colours with Phil from 'Diary of an infrequent wargamer' a couple of days ago and thought I'd just chuck up some quick thoughts on the game. Hopefully we'll get a chance to play some more of the scenarios another time. 

The scenario we played was the battle of Vimeiro (1808). The scenario consists of two relatively equal French and British/Portuguese forces facing of, the British start off holding a ridge in the centre with the the town behind. Victory banners (effectively VPs) are won for each unit destroyed and the French could earn 2 banners for holding the town of Vimeiro. 

The battle kicked off with some shuffling of reinforcements from place to place. I didn't really know what I was doing so fairly arbitrarily started moving things around at the back. A lot of bombardment cards came out in my hand early on so I used them up and managed to kill off some of Phil's line to no particular effect with my foot artillery. As it turned out the french artillery would do very little in the game. Phil's main push came on my left flank and some infantry to and fro saw medium casualties on both sides. However, Phil managed to pull his crippled units back, keeping me from claiming many banners, and managed to pick up some himself.

The really decisive phase of the battle came through Phil's use of a few 'Cavalry Charge' cards. This command card allows you to activate up to four cavalry units anywhere on the board, each gaining +1 combat dice. In the centre and on the battered left flank I was forced into forming square, reducing my hand and overall options. I managed to salvage the left with supporting infantry and some decent 'bounce' rolls with the square. However, the centre went to pieces. My artillery was savaged by cavalry before it could shoot. I decided to not form square with one unit of line, resulting in its annihilation (oops). The other units which formed square were pinned in place and then destroyed by infantry volleys taking advantage of the square's inability to retreat (thus inflicting extra casualties when a 'flag' was thrown). Unfortunately I'd left my cavalry too far away at the back to really do any good in return. 

Ultimately I think I've read too many accounts (accurate or not) of battlefields where cavalry where ineffective, charging off into the teeth of the guns or squares and being blown to shreds for their trouble. Command and Colours is too well balanced and thought out to let this happen. Suffice to say I shall be keeping more of a watch on enemy cavalry in the future! Phil won the game a convincing 6 banners to 2 after a couple of hours (including set-up and learning time).  Hopefully I'll be able to give him more of a run for his money next time around!

Auosentia Mech WIP

I've been spreading myself a little thin lately getting things prepped and underway but with little of note finished.

Here's a few pics of a recon mech from CMG's Protelene Khanate line which I've converted slightly to fit more with my Autosentia's aesthetic. I really like these light/medium mechs from CMG and they're very reasonably priced as well at around £4 each (11 something for 3). The detail is fairly crisp, they had no air bubbles and the design, with its nice balance of weapons, does it for me. So far I have three but I reckon I'll probably have 5-6 in the end.

Yep, you guessed it. The sensor block is from a Tau helment. Sometimes having a 10 year old GW legacy to draw upon can be useful, especially all the bits and bobs their plastics have.

This is the original version just for comparison. I like it a lot, but I prefer mine, of course :P

Modeling wise I just cut the face off and trimmed it up. Then super glued it in place and filled the edges with green stuff. After the green stuff had cured fully I went at it with the knife and straightened the edges, making sure it all sat as flush as possible. I've since primed these and you wouldn't know the component wasn't meant to be there.

One of the reasons I went for these is that the legs shape echoes that of the CMG phaseshifters I'm using in my Autosentia army elsewhere. Shame these mechs don't have jumpacks like them though. I could remedy this but the effort seems rather involved...

For me they're about the right size for a light/medium mech, the blockhead is about 16-17mm tall whilst the GZG merc stands at nearly 20mm.

Week's painting: GZG Mercs, GZG Wheeled Drones and more Blockheads

I haven't posted much lately but this is because I've been getting a lot of hobby time in rather than blogging about it. I've been prepping, assembling, converting and priming away and now have a good chunk of my 15mm sci-fi forces ready for paint! They'll be surfacing over the next few days and weeks on the blog as I get them finished up. Here's a few minis I painted over the last week...

First up, some GZG Mercs. I plan to use these as Scatari mercenaries in the sci-fi universe me and Phyllion have started to flesh out. 

After the Hellboy episode I decided to try a more earthy skintone and went for an orangey brown using GW dark flesh with a Vallejo flesh wash (with a hint of chocolate brown added) as a base. I then worked it up through dark flesh, dark flesh/tan, tan and tan/vermillion. These pictures don't really convey the depth of the colour (bottom photo best gets across the tonality best) as I managed to wash it out (as usual...)

The gear was done to look seriously beat up and rusting. I used the same dark flesh base with wash but drybrushed it with boltgun metal and then hit it with some selective washes of very thinned down hot orange for rust. Seems to work.

 I'm very happy with the tattoos on these figs, the light blue really stands out on the earthy orange. Another use for the mighty fine brush!

This Scatari is exactly the same pose as the figure above but I made some alterations (the GZG mersc unfortunately only come is about 5-6 poses). The left shoulder pad is green stuff with a pin spike and the mohawk was also added with green stuff.

 More back tattoos, these are just too much fun to paint!

 I chewed these shoulder pad up with the knife. These mercs have been through the wringer.

 Love the little leather cap and goggles on this dude. Not quite as much fun to paint as the others thought due to there being less skin.

 More tribal tats.

When I bought some stuff from GZG at Salute I ended up with some of the wrong minis so Jon, being a great guy, exchanged them for the right ones and compensated me for postage with some of his free wheeled drones. 

I though the blocky and design would fit in with my Scatari mercs, who could do with some anti-armour capability, so I painted them to look abused, crude and beat up. 

These were painted in the same way as the Scatari's guns with a a healthy drybrush of dirt on the wheels and lower surfaces.

The lenses were dones using my usual technique. I picked up some greens from Dark Sphere the other day so made sure to get some use out of them!

 I added some kill markings on the rocket launchers and some tribal markings on the large panels, as well as numbering the drones from 1-3 on the sides. 

The Scatari

The Scatari are a comparatively primitive yet space-faring race who have had contact with the Confederation for the past 75 years. Their society is based upon a tribal system of clans where ties of kinship and honour run deep. Scatari mercenary warbands are usually composed of the tribes' youngbloods, led by an experienced warrior. Warbands travel offworld in pursuit of profit and technology, seeking any advantage which will give their clan an edge in the constant power struggle which is the Scatari Khanate. 

As youngbloods gain experience and claim kills they augment their clan tattoos with kill-markings and trophies. The body of each Scatari warrior tells the story of their professional life, their kills, their wounds, their victories and their defeats. Senior warriors and chieftains will typically be covered in intricate tattoos which reflect their rank and achievements. 

The Scatari are not a technologically advanced race and it is unclear how they attained FTL travel capability. Confederation xenocanthropoligsts speculate that they may have acquired FTL technology from a more advanced race, either through trade, guile or violence. However, no Scatari has yet been willing to divulge more detailed information on the history of their people. The Scatari make use of basic and reliable chemical projectile weaponry which fires solid slugs, explosive shells or rockets. They have also been known to make limited use of wheeled heavy weapons drones, as well as light vehicles and mechs, where the situation warrants. 

Typically a Skatari mercenary warband will consist of anything between 30 and 100 warriors, split into smaller ad hoc groupings led by the most seasoned warriors present. Skatari battle doctrine focuses on aggression, strength and speed. Often Skatari chieftens seek to close with the enemy as quickly as possible, enveloping their positions and overwhelming them at close range with grenades, gunfire, knives and even teeth. 

More CMG Blockhead Battlesuits. I love these sculpts and managed to get a few more done. They take a long-time to paint as I like to get the layering on the large panels as nice as I can.

I wasn't sure what sort of weapon this should be so I just went for a high-tech look with lots of coloured lights and flashing do-dars.

I drilled a few holes in the leg-plate here to simulate battle damage. I'm still playing around with this at this scale,iIts very easy for small scratches and grime which look great at 28mm to not look so great in 15mm.

Scatari and Blockheads face-off. 

Airbrushing German Armour: Part the Third

I realised I never posted the update on my Airbrushing project continued in this post from a few weeks ago.

As always I ran out of time whilst at home and didn't manage get everything finished. The base-coating took a long-time and I had to wait for a replacement needle to arrive as the old one was bent. I could have done with a finer spray nozzle but had to make do with what I had as there was not one available for my cheapo airbrush. Anyway, here's the result I managed to get when I actually had a go at doing the camo on one of the Panzer IVs:

The colour is wrong, its far too dark, but I was quite happy with the feathered edges I managed to achieve, especially considering it was only my second go at doing this on an actual model. Next time I'll hopefully be able to pick up the right colour and then get these finished off. Finally. 

Before then thought I really need to work out if I want to do a drybrush or highlight on these models before doing the camo. My current thoughts are that I'll do it afterwards for simplicity's sake. 

Anyhoo, back to 15mm sci-fi updates!