Showing posts with label miniatures. Show all posts
Showing posts with label miniatures. Show all posts

Monday, May 16, 2016

Martian Muster


This past weekend, I set up my games table in the garage and got all my Space 1889 bits out to photograph and inventory. A fair bit of this has appeared before in different configurations but everything is now mustered into more or less fixed units, and colour coordinated too! Taking the inventory also allowed me to figure out what pieces needed to be repaired and based up and where I needed to add some rank indicators to bring the units in line with the morale rules.

Oh'ktava'n's Experimental Company - The Stalwarts
All armoured with shield gunners in the first half company, cutters in the rear. Regular V0 or E0

Kas'trum Fencibles
An armoured front half company with a mix of cutters and shield guns backed by an unarmoured half company of cutters. Regular T0 or V0.

First Kas'trum Marines
A regular pure shooter company, under strength but equipped with rifled muskets. Regular V1S 

Loyal Kas'trum Company
A very conventional city state unit with shooters and cutters. Irregular T2

Kas'trum Civic Guard
An irregular unit with mixed shooters and cutters in the front and pure cutters in the rear. Irregular T2 or G2 seem most likely. Though they might get a boost for their fancy black uniforms. 

Pier Worm Roaster's Guild Social Club and Civil Defence Force "The Red Caps". (Left)
The Gentleman's League of Redweed Harvesters and Patriotic Rifle Corp "The Blue Bonnets" (Right)
His August Eminence and Grand Master of Secret Societies (Centre)
The Red Caps have been described elsewhere.   The Blue Bonnets are new comers who claim their constant battles against the armoured mud-crab make them far better shots than mere slug poachers. The Grand Master has his fingers in most occult goings on including the Ground Cleansers and possibly even the Cult of the Worm.   X3S or V3S. Rifled muskets.
Second Oenotrian Lancers - The Canal Terrors
After the dragoons were rotated out, a stronger contingent of lancers was sent in as replacements. Armoured and (obviously) equipped with lances, the Terrors are regular V0H so lots of close combat bonuses.
Num'da's Raiders
Boosted by brothers sisters and cousins in search of booty, the slightly under strength Raiders are Irregular T2.


Kas'trum Scouts
Again seeing an influx of mercenaries from the hills, the scouts have a half company of shooters and another of bow. Irregular T2.

The Horde of Antevaxx
The Ochre Horde of Antevaxx Rules for their use have been laid out in an earlier post. Irregular V1 or E1 for King's Guards


Mixed artillery
As mentioned in a previous post, the canal Martian gunners are used to mark when field pieces are on the Martian side manned by Askari crews. New additions are two howitzers, four RAFM Greek fire projectors re-purposed as light guns and two ancient ballistae - stats for which I have not yet settled on.

Moeris Lacus Dragoons
A new unit of light cavalry with musket and sword, the Dragoons are Regular X2. Alternatively they can act as Light Horse or mounted infantry.


Moeris Lacus Trucial Company "The Prince's Own"
Recruitment efforts have boosted the Prince's Own to a full company. As before they can also play on the Martian side as Askari deserters. Or they can act as Dragoon dismounts. Regular X2


Gerneral Sir Not Appearing in this Film
Ok he was still in the box when I had the rest of the Earth forces out to photograph.


Royal Marine Light Infantry
Still in need of an officer. These can, in a pinch, sub in as some sort of foreign European force. Regular V1.



3rd Civil Service Rifles - "The Paper Clip Boys"
A slightly over strength company of riflemen from the Dominion of Canada. Regular X2S.

The Queen's Own Something or Others
Good old regular line infantry. The blue facings suggest Guards but these can be used for any British unit as required. Regular V1

Gatling gun and Pack Options
Just a Gatling gun and a couple of types of pack animals to lug it around. Charging at the elephants gets a +1 down hill bonus - these are big castings.


Tri-wheel Draisine
An armoured rail vehicle to patrol my monorail.


Ewing System rolling stock
A quickly put together locomotive and rolling stock for my monorail. On the flatcar is  another tri-wheel that remarkably survived a fall to the garage floor. It is going into the shop for a re-glue and re-paint.

The To Do pile
From left to right, repair, rank and re-base.


All The Toys
All the toys on the table. It is 4' by 7'. I think I have enough for now....


Thursday, June 12, 2014

A little painting

One of the groups I loiter around at ran a low pressure "contest" to paint up an infantry unit. The prize - motivation and a finished unit.

Last year a friend dropped by for some gaming and very kindly gave me a box of these:

 Spartan Games Dystopian LegionsFederated States of America Wilderness Section
And this is my take:



Unfortunately the point and shoot camera I have was acting up and of the dozen or so pictures I took these were the only two that worked and even then I had to tweak the brightness and contrast. The actual colours are not quite so toy like and the finish is not quite so shiny.

With the exception of the resin bear traps and the leaping figure, all were re-based onto the steel washers I use. I just don't like the big display bases.  On the whole the figures were very nicely detailed sculpts.  And as usual, my painting doesn't do them justice.

Unfortunately, Spartan's caster might be pushing their molds a little too hard.  There were  a couple of fiddly arm joints - more of a design problem - and some fairly serious gaps in the dogs' hind legs that needed to be filled. The axe head for the leaping figure was completely missing. The rounded end where is should have been suggests the mould  didn't fill properly. A couple of rifle barrels also came up a bit short. The leaping figure had a significantly arched back, so much so that his rifle is decidedly curved in ways it shouldn't be.

Overall I enjoyed painting these figures and will happily put them on the table - especially the dogs, Pepe - the skunk hatted hunter and of course those bear traps.

Saturday, September 28, 2013

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. :)

Friday, September 27, 2013

$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

Thursday, August 22, 2013

Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Summer Doldrums

Well not exactly. Summers get busy around here for all sorts of reasons. Not too much going on on the modelling front. Some birthday  gifts have been cleaned up and epoxied to  the requisite washers, some have even been undercoated.

Gaming paradoxically has been good. We were off camping in August which oddly saw me play a number of games of Resistance, Skull and Roses and several incomplete games of Saga. Hardcore gamer all the way.

The printing front has been quiet with a large print of a 28mm Martian Skiff failing just before we went away. That has been sorted out and will be reprinted after I add more detail.  On the camping trip, I came into possession of the Aeronef rules. I had given up on these as a set I had ordered and paid for a couple of years back never arrived. They look to be good fast play rules and I love the ships. So what does this have to do with the printer?

Here is my first pass at some 1200 Aeronefs. There were some issues with the fins being too thin and the support for the carrier flight deck.



These faults have been rectified in the upgraded designs. I am not sure if the fins are too big here.


The original DD beefed up a bit in the fins and the funnel left solid. Otherwise I am very happy with this model.


A slightly larger DD variant, I added the sponsons as this will be a common feature of this fleet. I am also a bit of a torpedo junky so this one gets a quad tube mount. It could also be a leader for a flotilla of the smaller ships.



So quite a bit accomplished for a lazy/busy summer.

Friday, May 17, 2013

Cangames 2013 Day 1 - preparing for my first convention game.

Last night was volunteer training. I am on service desk this year so more talking and less hot glue. The shifts are long but one gets you a day pass refund and two gets you a full weekend refund and of course you are helping out the local gaming community. This year I will take the refund since that will be my toy money.  After watching the kids standing around while the old guys moved table last year, I decided I wasn't able bodied this year and besides - I had final preparations to carry out.  

Because tonight's the night. I will be running my first ever convention game.  With life revving up at home and work over the last few months, I have not been able to put in as much time or to be honest money as I would have liked into the project. However, as an old mentor said about teaching, the participants will leave with more than they came with.

So some samples:

Martian artillery
Yes Bob, they are regulars so get the shaken state. ;)  I am calling them European trained Askaris who have gone over to the rebel side. Loyalties can be changed by swapping the rammer figures. A roogie is a small pack hunter. I have decided that the martians will use banners since they have bannermen in their to&e

Hill Martian Light Cavalry

The only true cavalry unit on the table for this game.  I have some Sikhs to paint up for the Earthers.  

Colonial Rifles

Not quite my old regiment but close. I left the field craft at 2 because we didn't do so well at Cutknife Hill.
Part of the reason for going with big earth units was to allow for a square formation because: You yellow  yellin', yomper - for you broke a British square!

Pictures and full report to follow. 

Thursday, April 25, 2013

New Steampunk Miniatures from Meridian

Yes I am an unrepentant RAFM fan-boy but sometimes you want to order off a different menu. Andrew May over at Meridian Miniatures has been working on a new line of steampunk miniatures.  He has a few pictures up on his Blog and has posted quite a few more on the most august of all war gaming boards: WD3. Be sure to check out his Facebook page as well.

Although there are other steampunk lines on the market, Andrew has come up with a range of heads that cover the usual subjects but also add in some diver's helmet and post apocalyptic variations that capture the genre very nicely. But, what I am really excited about is his range of weapons. Most steampunk weapons I have seen have been influenced by  WH 40K. Andrew's are unique and beautifully capture the creativity and variety of weapons created by steampunk cos-players and authors. 

Post Apocalyptic Heads



Diver Helmet Heads


Great Steampunk Weapons



Be sure to check out some the contract work he has done. He is a very talented sculptor.

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Handsome Devils

Work has kept me busy the last while and with the cold weather coming in, it has been harder to work on the big projects. However I have some fine examples of steampunk sartorial elegance ideal for the games table. The first is Steampunk Montreal's Baron Celsius von Fahrenheit:

Elegantly dressed in coat and top hat, the Baron is equipped with his patent steam powered aethric communication apparatus, ideal for long range conversation in English et en Francais.  The Baron is available form RAFM miniatures a fine Canadian purveyor of miniatures and gaming accessories.

Next up we have a preview of the Winter line:


His trusty bowler hat firmly seated, and sporting an A. Smith designed armgun,  The Mechanic is ready for action at a moments notice. He too will be available from RAFM. Stay tuned for updates.

Further details on the RAFM Facebook page


Saturday, August 25, 2012

Tourna - Miniatures rules you can play with your kids

Getting new blood into the hobby has been a topic of discussion in  he war gaming hobby for a long time now. On his blog, Bill Sempf posted  Tourna a simple set of rules he uses to play with his son.

Tourna lets you use any figures to hand from that old Warhammer army to Lego minifigs to plastic dinos.  A game is balanced by allotting  each player the same number of dice with more dice making for a larger game. The players then assign these dice to figures with generals getting two and regular figures 1. The rules easily allow for machines and monsters - just assign the figure more dice from your army pool.

Players can move a unit or battle (melee or shoot) in each turn.  Movement is in inches or whatever units are appropriate to the playing area.  As expected from its Warhammer inspired roots, Tourna takes a bucket of dice approach. Roll to hit, roll for damage with each damage point taking a die off the target figure. Melee takes place between units in base contact and shooters can hit anything in line of sight but at reduced hit and damage factors. Simple to understand tweaks allow for mounted units vehicles or other type of units. For example, mounted units move further than foot and can charge (move into contact and melee) an enemy unit in range. Victory goes to the last person standing.

Tourna looks to be a fast and easy way to introduce miniatures gaming to the youngest players.

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

RAFM announces an Indiegogo campaign for new Space 1889 miniatures!

RAFM producers of the classic Space 1889 miniatures in 25mm have just started to raise funds through Indiegogo to keep the current 25mm line going and to expand it into a new realm - 28mm.

 In addition to the existing 25mm line, at the base level of there will be ten (yes 10!) new character figures including three air ship sailors, three Canal Martian civilians and four assorted heroes and ruffians.

 But it gets better! The stretch goals at increasing levels are the Martian Steppe Tiger, the Knoe Shoshu, the Skrill and finally the Ruumet Brehr! Think about that for a minute - a Ruumet Brehr on the table in 25/28mm.... puny elephants beware!

 But we are still not done yet. At the $56 plus level, you will get a 40% discount on any on line miniatures purchase for a full year. "But I am not a Space 1889 or VSF player" you say? RAFM has many lines including American Civil War, French Indian wars, Riel Rebellion, Colonial British, WWII, Vietnam, Ancients, USX Modern Day Heroes and of course the massive line of fantasy figures.

 Check out the full details here.

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

RAFM Steampunk miniature contest winner

Alexandre Adam of Steampunk Montreal is the winner of the RAFM miniature contest!  The green is complete:

Saturday, July 21, 2012

Look away for a second and....

Over July, I have been trying to make up for a very busy June and clear out some of the lead pile. I have been plugging away at my last RAFM order. No real work plan just an hour or so when I could grab it. I did basic clean up on the figures, undercoat, block paint, dip and varnish. It seemed like a bit of a slog then last night I was laying down a coat of matte spray varnish and thought "Now I have to get on with the flocking."  Wait a second - all that is left is the flocking?  Without realizing it in under three weeks I had produced this:



Not a large output by some standards but a record for me especially on top of the monorail work I did in the same period.

Next step - a storable games table.

Friday, June 15, 2012

Guns for Patiala?

I have not had much time recently to work on anything, especially the monorail. This weekend is Father's Day weekend so I will be spending some time working on projects. Last night, I laid down a little more dirt on to the road portions of the rail sections and started thinking about further detailing. I will be using the track and trains mostly for VSF but rather just going with a reddish Martian sandscape, I decided to look at the terrain of the prototype in Patiala. Google brought up a huge number of clothing images - very strange but not much in  the way of landscape shots.  I was a little put out until I found this Wikipedia image. 


Yes it is a British WWI gun on a standard gauge railway and the only thing it has to do with the monorail is that Bhupinder Singh the Maharaja of Patiala, is looking at it. But - I am going to have to build one for the monorail - just maybe not quite so big.

Sunday, June 3, 2012

Unashamed self-promotion

As mentioned in an earlier post, RAFM miniatures is running a competition on Facebook to design an new Space 1889/VSF/Steampunk miniature based on a user submitted photo.  Mine is here: My Photo. If you are on Facebook would you be so kind as to give it a like and push me into the lead - or pewter if you will.  Should you be so inclined, submit your own photo and see if you can achieve metallic immortality. 

Thanks


Thursday, May 31, 2012

Space 1889 Soldier's Companion High Martian draft house rules

Basing up some of the RAFM High Martians has presented a few problems.  The landed figures will fit on the standard basing washer but the flying figures aren't really stable. I was thinking about basing the flyers on mounted washers and turned to the Soldier's Companion for guidance. As many others have found, our favourite flying monkeys are barely mentioned in the Soldier's Companion rules. I decided to work up a set of draft house rules. Below are my thoughts and the end results.

The Thought Process

In the Space 1889 rules, High Martians are described as primitive brutes who primarily use hand weapons and Bows. Physically they are shorter than other Martians. Martians overall are limited in strength as player characters. As flyers, we can reasonably expect Hill Martians to be weaker still. And yet these primitive, technologically backward, physically inferior beings maintain an iron grip on the liftwood supply and keep large numbers of slaves under control. How is this possible?

I decided to use the dual basing sizes to drive the process. Each airborne High Martian needs space to manoeuvre just to stay aloft making them cavalry sized yet they can land and fight as foot troops. This sounded a lot to me like a flying variant of mounted infantry. Reading those rules, especially the restrictions on mounted fire further suggested that High Martians are more like Light Horse, capable of firing on the move and charging into combat but not getting the full melee benefit of Light Cavalry. This decision also sets the movement rate to that of irregular cavalry while flying and irregular foot while landed. The average cavalry movement also roughly fits the High Martian move rates in Sky Galleons of Mars

Irregular troops are limited to mass and open order formations. I thought about limiting flyers to open order to represent the extra space needed but we have used a large flying base to compensate for that already - besides who doesn't want to see a mass formation of flying monkeys charging across the board?  That leaves formation changes. By the book, irregulars have to take a full move to make a formation change. That makes sense for troops shaking out into skirmish order from mass formation or vice versa but what about landing? High Martians are supposedly good flyers so let's say they can make a half move and land, or take off and make a half move.

So far so good. What about terrain? For units on foot, it is simple - they move and are blocked as irregular foot. Flyers present another set of problems.  Let's fix combat height at Very Low as used in Cloudships and Gunboats and call this out of the reach of any hand weapon used from the ground but not quite as high as your average multi-storey building, woods or forest - NOE if you will. At Very Low, flyers can move over any terrain without delay but must move around large buildings. They can fly through forests and woods at the normal cavalry rate. Line of site is normal. Let's call Low higher than anything on the board. Barring the standard blocking terrain shadow, flyers at Low can see and be seen by any unit on the board. Guns get dangerous. To change levels, let's call that another half move. For firing or being fired at, units at very low count as being at ground level. Units at low count as 12" further away.

So now to combat. There are a couple of things to take into consideration here. The Soldier's Companion rules don't really address shooting at or by flyers. The 1889 rules give a bonus to the to hit target number making it harder to fire against flyers. I had thought about giving the Hill Martians extra fieldcraft and allow them to use that only when flying.  That works fairly well but instead I decided to stick with a low field craft for use both when landed and flying. The aerial field craft  bonus, the targeting flyers bonus and the open order bonus add up pretty quickly making it tough to hit skirmishing flyers. High Martians in mass lose two of the three bonuses which makes sense - it being easier to hit a fur ball of flying monkeys.

Next is melee. Given their smaller size, High Martians count as a weak adversary. High Martians can charge into melee on foot as any other ground troops. If flying, they can charge into melee as light horse and if their move permits, can land on top of an opposing unit. In this case, High Martians get the bonuses for flying, light horse and defending from higher ground for the first round of combat. For morale purposes this initial attack counts as a rear attack. In subsequent rounds, the High Martians are considered to be brought to ground and fight as normal foot. And that about does it. I haven't tested these yet but will post results when I do.

The short version

High Martians, standard V1,   Kings Guards E1
Weak Adversary
High Martians follow the same rules as Light Horse when airborne and irregular foot when landed. Foot and mounted bases can be used by agreement. At Very Low level, flying High Martians can move over any terrain except high buildings which they must move around  and forests or woods which they can move around or through with the normal mounted movement penalties. Normal range and line of sight rules apply. At Low level, A High Martian unit can see or be seen by any unit on the board subject to the normal blocking terrain shadow rules. They can fly over any terrain on the board without penalty. They count as an additional 12" further away when firing or being fired at. It costs a half cavalry move to change level, land or take off.

Hill Martians on foot fight as any other similarly armed foot unit. Flying High Martians receive their fieldcraft bonus when flying as well as the aerial target bonus when shot at.   They can charge into melee as light horse and if their moves allows, land on top of the defending unit counting as flying and up hill for the first round of melee. For morale purposes, this first round counts as a rear attack against their opponents. For subsequent rounds the High Martians are considered to have been brought to ground and fight as normal foot.

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Preserve yourself in pewter! New 25mm VSF figure competition

RAFM of Canada is running a competition to create a new steampunk character for their Space 1889 line.  Full details here. Submit a picture and see yourself immortalized in shiny, shiny metal!

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

CanGames Day 3 Part Two - Queenston Heights

On Saturday I decided to sign up for another game to replace the naval game I missed. Since this year is the anniversary of the War of 1812, I decided to go with a re-enactment of the Battle of Queenston heights using the Rockets Red Glare rules. We played in teams generally by committee until enough reinforcements arrived that we could each take a command. I stood on the wrong side of the table and was assigned to the American side.

Board setup



If you see some similarity between this setup and the Dr. Who game posted earlier, it is because they were run by the same person and I believe on the same terrain using the same troops. The objective is to control the town and the gun emplacement on the high ground.

The invasion goes in




The Americans have superior numbers but have to land them in waves under the muzzle of a rather nasty gun in the redoubt on the first elevation. Our beach area was roughly from the base of the high ground elevation to the movement stick in the village. There was a gun on the hill and a rifle and a musket unit in the village.  We decided that the gun was the biggest problem so went for that first.



The Assault goes in!
The first wave consisted of a unit of regulars and a unit of  Militia. We landed our regulars first and while we were able to shoot up the gun a fair bit, we were pushed back. The militia then went in and retreated in short order. While the regulars stood and took it and were chewed up for their efforts, the militia ran away preserving most of their strength.


Let's try the town instead.


We had been under harassing fire from Sharpe's younger brother and the Militia were proving decidedly ineffectual against the gun. We switched targets to the town. Above you can see the remnants of our regulars resting on the landing beach as the reasonably intact militia tries to clear the buildings.


Reinforcements for all!
This shot is from much later in the game. Both sides have received reinforcements including an American unit right next to the gun emplacement as part of a special deployment roll. Of course they took one look into that big black muzzle and hightailed into the wheat field upper left. Here they were able to occupy British reinforcements for the rest of the game. We have more troops in the town and are close to clearing it out.


At the whistle, we were a couple of turns short of the scenario limit but had got all our troops landed including a cannon. the town was cleared but not occupied but the British still held the high ground with fresh troops. So not exactly a success for the American side but better than the historical outcome.

The rules were not the ones the GM wanted to use initially and none of us was familiar with them. After reading them again there were many things we were doing wrong but since that was happening on both sides, it cancelled out.  An enjoyable recreation of a famous Canadian battle.

Next section

CanGames Day 3 Part One the other games


Again there were a great number of participation games running on Sunday. I did a quick tour of the tables before I got stuck into my games. First up is a trio of Warhammer Fantasy shots. This game has a soft spot in my heart because I played a fair bit of second edition. I have yet to get sucked into the current cult.There was a tournament on bringing out a number of interesting armies.

Warhammer Fantasy

Warhammer fantasy

Warhammer Fantasy

 I was also able to grab a shot of the Phaser Lock game. Many nice looking ship models but none of my favourite, the classic Trek destroyer.

Phaser Lock
Next up Queenston Heights - 1812

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