More Reinforcements for Mars

A bit of overtime came through from work so it was off to the RAFM site to order up some much needed reinforcements for the forces of mars.  This time around, it was two more legions of Mars and enough Colonial Martian Infantry to bring the existing platoon up to full company strength.

This will give me just under 6 warbands of martian infantry, a troop of heavy canal martian lancers, a troop of hill martian light cavalry, a full warband of high martians in both flying and on foot configuration (or 2 if I don't worry too much about mixing), two Whitworth rifles with Colonial or Martian crew . The colonial company mentioned above can fight either for the Great Red Queen across the ether or switch sides in true Sepoy style and help to throw their oppressive masters off the beloved red planet.  In addition I have a troop or so of Boer War era mounted rifles I plan on doing up as German mercenaries in the service of a Martian prince or as British colonial irregulars.

With all that in place, I might just be able to take on a British rifle company and survive.... maybe if the dice gods are kind just maybe....

Oh'ktava'an will likely be back over the Christmas holidays. While attending to his - uh - ablutions the other day he realized that while shield gunners can press forward against bows and spears, against rifles, they are far better as defensive troops receiving a charge with their scatter guns at close range. He has also received information from Earther sources suggesting that the British ability to use cover is not as good as many Maritian units. Many red units are unable to spot concealed troops until they are well within charge range. 

More to follow and a lot more to paint

More painting and some conversions

It was hot and humid Canada Day but I managed to get quite a bit of time in the man cave while the missus helped the offspring with their post school year room clean up.

A while back, I unearthed a pack of British colonial infantry. As I have quite a few in redcoats already and some more in the pile destined to be clad in khaki, I decided to do this bunch as ersatz Royal Marine Light Infantry.  They aren't quite right in some details but only those a purist would notice and they are destined for VSF so all historical objections are moot.

RMLI (or close enough to pass on the table)

The other project for the day was a couple of conversions. My fallschirmjäger were a little light in the support department so for my birthday I placed an order with Wargames Foundry for some reinforcements. This created a bit of a quandary. One figure in the  heavy weapons pack gives you a choice between slung MG 34 or Panzerbüchse 39 but not both. I needed the MG 34 for certain platoon organizations but I really, really wanted the ATR for use in early war operations.  I wonder why? My Foundry order was large enough to qualify for an extra pack so with some trepidation I broke out the razor saw and cyanoacrylate.

FJ Supports (and a couple of Martians)

The centre un-primed figure running with the grenade was my sacrifice starting point.  The flanking figures are the result. Pretty good I think and useful for punching holes in any light armour sniffing around the green fields of Eakring.  I didn't quite have the nerve to remove the slung Kar 98 but FJ are supposed to be beefy lads so they can carry both.  The double based figures on the right are a sniper team. The figures are stock. The sniper scope being a section of  1/72 Macross VF-1 Valkyrie landing gear strut from the bits box.

My second band of High Martians got a long awaited dip and I even managed to dye some tea leaves for home made flock. I didn't quite have the nerve to appropriate the food processor to turn a bag of foam chips into ground foam - maybe next time.

A very productive and satisfying day off.

edit: I really do need a camera with decent macro capability.

RAFM $1 Figure Sale II - How I Think It Works

How the deal works seems a little unclear.  Below is what I posted over on TMP - I think I have it right. ;)

My understanding and the way I did my order: A "pack" is a SKU – basically the RAFxxx number. For non-1889 lines that usually means 3 Cav with riders or 6 foot figures.

Space 1889 figure SKUs are per figure. A "pack" then is 6 foot figures of the same SKU or 3 Gashant (remember riders are separate).

I do NOT think it reasonable to expect RAFM to honour the 20 figure SKUs – canal martians, high martians and soldiers of the queen as a "pack".

Ok now we know what a pack is we can move forward. You go to the special sale page and select the package of 4,8,12, or 16 packs that you want. Pay for it through the usual methods. Then you open up your email and create an email stating the name and shipping address you just used in your order. Then you list how many packs of each SKU you want. e.g. RAF1817 x 1 will get you 6 Canal Martian Infantry figures and RAF1817 x 2 will get you 12 Imitation Legionary figures. Send that email to onlineorders at RAFM.com and you are done

I hope that helps. :)

$1 Figure Sale at RAFM!

RAFM is having a $1 per figure sale on all their historical lines. This includes the Space 1889 figures - always high on my list but also their Ancients, ACW, French Indian, Colonial and other lines.  Well worth looking at.

Follow this link for details

Kraag for a King - part three

This is part three of a multi-part series on the building of a mountain fortress or Kraag for the (soon to be) Great Martian King Antevaxx. The previous part, two point five, is here and the first article in the series is here.

 Where we left off:

I decided to live with the blobbiness as it gives an organic look much like a mud dauber wasp nest. I needed some household repair items so while at the hardware store, I picked up another can of foam and some primer. I built on what was already done and ended up with the picture above. 

Note that this is low expansion foam designed to fill gaps of about an inch / 2.5 cm. There are higher expansion foams available but I can't see using them for this kind of project - they would expand far too much. I had some foam left in the can so used it to make some random shapes and other terrain bits. I'll cover those another time.

So with the base complete, I gave the whole thing a shot of primer. Expanding foams can be very sensitive to UV light and will decompose into a crumbly mess. Given the pallor of the average gamer (myself included) UV exposure should not be a problem but one never knows. The primer I used was the same enamel based one I use for metal figures but the store was out of grey and I had to buy white.  After application, the primer stayed tacky for a good 24 hours. I was a bit concerned that being oil based it was eating the foam but in the end it dried properly. I have since used the primer on metal figures with the same result. It seems this particular batch just takes a while to dry. For future foam projects, I will look for an acrylic primer just to be sure.

I was happy with the general form of the Kraag, but the texture was too smooth for my liking. In the space 1889 canon, Mars is depicted as having once had a high level of technology but now is slowly degrading into barbarism. One of the technologies lost was the ability to fuse sand and soil into a strong glass like building material. So, building off the blobbiness of the foam, I wondered what such a material would look like after being blasted by wind driven sand and dust and studied various images of weathered glass and ceramic. Or - I needed some cheap texturing materials for my minis and figured I would use the same on the Kraag. I decided to go with a sand based texture and again while picking up home repair supplies, grabbed 66 lbs / 30 kg of sand for about $6.  

For the first pass, I used a brush to apply a 50% mix of PVA and water to an area of the foam. Then I spread sand over the wetted area and shook off the excess. This process was repeated until the whole Kraag was covered.

As you can see the results were patchy but promising. The PVA mix tends to run off the high spots giving nothing for the sand to stick to.  I let this first phase dry while I had a think. Digging around the gardening supplies, I found an old plant sprayer. I loaded this up with the PVA mix and went back over the Kraag. Then I laid down more sand, the end results shown in the pictures below.

The Big Picture

Up Close

The spray method worked much better. There are still a few bare spots but I think I will leave these as less worn areas. The surface is a little fragile yet and may need another application of PVA. Be sure to clean the sprayer well after use or the internal gubbins will be glued solid by the PVA. I am very happy with the work so far and Antevaxx will be by to inspect once everything has dried up. The next step will be to apply some colour washes over the sand.

Kraag for a King - part 2.5

This is part two point five of a multi-part series on the building of a mountain fortress or Kraag for the (soon to be) Great Martian King Antevaxx. Part two is here and the first article in the series is here.

Just a quick update. I wasn't going to do this part right away because I didn't think I had any spray foam. However, tucked away on the back of the shelf was a partially used and now expired can from some renovation work two years ago.  A little work to clean out the nozzle and I started to play:

The effect is more Castle Greyskull than I hoped and more foam is required.  I am thinking about using a knife to cut away the blobbiness and give it a more angular look. Whatever the rock profile, I will be covering it with sand to give a rougher finish.

More to follow.

Part three is here

Kraag for a King - part two

This is part two of a multi-part series on the building of a mountain fortress or Kraag for the (soon to be) Great Martian King Antevaxx. Part one is here.

With the main structure laid out, Antevaxx decided to add a few access points for his soon to be burgeoning army.

For the openings near the edges of the columns, a scroll saw was used to cut in through the edges.  However, Antevaxx was not happy. He wanted more doors!

So what is a poor contractor to do? Enter the Forstner bit:

These bits cut a smooth sided hole with a generally flat bottom. In addition they can be used to drill overlapping holes. Using a drill press makes for neater holes but that doesn't count for much on this job.

The centre section was punched out and some clean up was done using a knife. For heavier material a jigsaw would be handy.

With all the access doors cut, it was time to test fit the floors again.  It looked good

As you can see, I added some screws to better attach the support blocks. It would have been too hard to add them once the outside is covered. I pre-drilled the holes to prevent the blocks from splitting. This reinforcement complete and starting from the bottom up, I spread a liberal amount of glue on the blocks then slid the floors into place. Just visible through the upper opening is on of the screws I put through the floor into the blocks to act as a clamp. I haven't decided if these will stay in place or be removed. I also added three blocks at ground level. They were glued as usual and screws run up through the baseplate to hold that on. I decided to set the tower off centre back on the baseplate to give more room at the front for scenery and gaming room.   

But something was missing - a place to land. Using some scrap MDF and the outside of the tube as a template, I made a series of landing platforms. 

These were cut to shape using the scroll saw but some work with a knife was needed to make them fit tightly to the columns. The circle is the outline of a flying  base washer. It ensures there will be enough space to put the model during a game. Lots of glue was applied to the curved inner edges and finishing nails were run through pre-drilled holes to add strength and pin everything together.

Antevaxx's growing army takes a test flight to ensure everything is working well.

Antevaxx buzzes the tower!

Next up we start on the external scenic work.

Part 2.5 is here. 

Kraag for a King - part one

This is the the soon-to-be-Great High Martian King Antevaxx. He lives on Mars in the world of Space 1889. Antevaxx is an unhappy king. He stands alone on the dust swept Martian plain when to be a truly great king, he needs a mountain fortress - a Kraag - of his very own.

Only then will he amass an army worthy of his rank and ambition!
Only then will he lead his glorious hordes of flying warriors down upon the poorly defended cities of the soft and weak Canal Martians to loot and burn and capture slaves for his great war galleys!
Only then will he be able to launch Holy Crusade against the befouled Red Men and drive their filth from the sacred Mother Planet and rend their.....

Well, you get the picture....

 This project has been kicking around my head for a while. I had done some preliminary work months ago, but I could never get a round tuit. I was cleaning up my garage /  games space this week and decided I better get on with it or throw the stuff out.

In the image above are the base components.  The tubes are the paper core from a roll of industrial plastic film given to me by a friend over a year ago. I ran the core through a bandsaw to produce the half pillar sections shown. In front of these are some half-circle pine blocks. These will glue into the pillar sections to support the internal MDF floors. The floors are the lumpy looking things at the bottom of the picture and underneath those is the MDF base plate. The base plate was leftover from cutting out the monorail track sections.

Next up is test fitting the pillars on the base plate. A similar process was used to create the floors by marking the curves on a template then using the template to mark and cut the floor material.

Antevaxx signs off on the basic architectural design while incidentally acting as a height gauge. I put the higher pillars on the outside to create some relief and I hope to give the top of the Kraag a nest like appearance.

The floors were then test fitted into the pillars and the support block positions decided on. There were two considerations at play. In Space 1889 canon, the High Martians generally enter and exit their kraags from above or through openings high up on the structure. Lots of little entrances scattered up the side seemed out of character for an impregnable fortress (the ground level slave entrance will be dealt with later). Secondly was the practical need to get ones hand in to move figures around. As designed there will be one ground floor, a lower storage floor, a throne room / high level entrance and a castle like top floor.

The floor levels decided,  I glued the support blocks in place. I am contemplating running nails or screws through the face of the tube into the support blocks for added strength. The tubes were distorted a bit in the cutting process so there are gaps between block and tube in some places. Antevaxx reviews the progress so far before heading off to look at wallpaper sample books.

More to follow.

Part two is here