TRAVELLERcon Miniatures Round Up

It's amazing what you'll find when you go through the pictures folder on your laptop.  Here are some piccies I snapped at TravellerCon-USA this past October.

 This is Bill P.'s Snapshot Game, where Vargr salvage team battles human salvage team aboard the Kinunir.

I had something of an advantage, as having played in a Traveller Campaign set aboard an active duty Kinunir-class colonial cruiser, I knew the ship plans pretty well.

 A word to the wise - despite the glowing patina the years may have added to your memories of Snap Shot - the rules kinda suck...a lot.

My StarGrunt/Striker Game "Vland in the Can".  I had forgot to bring my Terran Troops, so Mark Clambo of Daddy's Little Men loaned me some of his figs.  What a champ.

Kinda neat pic as the Vilani Recon sleds roll on.

Viliani Imperium denies the enemy cover by blasting everything in site. 

Bill P. sez "Could be worse...could be raining."

Imperials test climbing the Jersey Barriers.

Mark Klambo looking well pleased with himself - he's just managed to break my scenario - what a muppet. (That's not my camera blurring - that's Mark's normal slightly-out-of-phase nature, captured by the miracle of digital imaging...)

Imperial recon sled - drawing fire.

A Vilani tank that has been Earth-pwned

That's me taking a picture of Mark taking a picture.  I think we were trying to create a tesseract, or something.

Any miniature game that ends looking like a scene from "Kelly's Heroes" is a good miniature game.
"No smoking! Ve haff petrol..."

More to come...Ω

15mm Desert Dwellings from The Scene

 Here are a couple of 15mm Desert Dwellings from "The Scene".  These are made of a sturdy polymer resin - lighter than urethane resin, but more resiliant.

 They are pimped-out with some bits from GZG's 15mm building accessories line, though you could also use the building accessories provided by The Scene. Roofs lift of and the interior is hollow.

Painted on light cocoa brown with pale yellow drybrush.

These are really very nice and I'm looking forward to new releases from The Scene...Ω

Comm Terrs

It's been quite a delay, but here are my insurgents for the Rhodesian Brush War.  Figures are from Peter Pig.

These have been finished for several months. I don't have a very good excuse, either, aside that find it a task to paint civilians - the mix of denims and t-shirts is depressing. I think one fellow is wearing chinos, just for a change ; )

Ω

The Burning Sands of Syrtis Major

After about a 12 year break, I’ve found myself drawn back into 19^th century colonial wargaming.  This was my first love, having watched as a youngster the exploits of the 24^th Foot in the film Zulu Dawn.  Rather than shoe-horn a new era and scale (I liked 25mm back in those days) into this blog, I’m decided to launch this companion blog.

There's not much there now, but new blog will cover British Colonial as well as Victorian Science Fiction – there also won’t be much "Steampunk", as I’m not a big fan of dystopia. The notion that our own worst enemy is ourselves may well be true, but that’s not what I’m looking for in Victorian Sci-Fi.

I will continue to update this blog, as I'm not giving up Sci-Fi miniature wargames.   

Masodja!

Finally! I finished my British South African Police and Insurgents for Rhodesia. My initial inspiration came from Mark K. of  the "Daddly's Little Men" Blog.

Going a slightly different route, I decided to start with the British South African Police - famed throughout the Crown Colony as the "Black Boots", since they eschewed the standard brown footgear that was normally issued to Her Majesty's African forces.

 The Rhodesian Bush Pattern camo isn't easy to paint, but the result is well worth the effort. I painted two sections of BASP for the starter scenario "Black Boots on the Trail" from Two Fat Lardies' African expansion "B'Maso".  They're mounted individually for StarGrunt II, though I'm experimenting with magnetic bases for larger-scaled games.

Also needed was some transport:

Two Unimogs and a Landrover. Just the thing for getting mired down country. No fancy Alouette III's for my blokes (since I'm having one devil of a time finding them in the right scale...)

Next, I'll post pics of the SeeTees, that's "C.T." for "Communist Terrorists"...Ω

Sarah Jane - Gone But Not Forgotten

She was my favourite companion and Who Fandom's sweetheart.

http://www.contactmusic.com/news.nsf/story/elisabeth-sladen-remembered-by-doctor-who-stars_1214143

Amera 15mm Plastic Buildings

The continued quest for good “sci-fi” buildings is a never-ending one. Like many 15mm sci-fi gamers, I have boxes of clear plastic electronic packaging in interesting shapes, packed away in boxes, awaiting conversion. This is often time consuming, so when a manufacturer offers a pre-made kit, I'm quick to investigate.

M205 Small Houses

These Amera 15mm North African buildings  (#M206 Medium House and M205 Small House) were purchased on a lark to see if they could be converted to serve as a futuristic Vilani mining settlement. Mine were ordered through my Friendly Local Gaming Store. Dressing them up with the Ground Zero Games doors and windows from Jon’s “Building Fittings” line produced a result with which I am well pleased. These buildings are lighter than resin and stronger than paper. Once finished, they are heavy enough not to be blown about by random puffs of air.

M206 Medium House

Attaching the building fittings was simply done using epoxy, with some white glue to fill any gaps.  I had some gaps form around the doors, as I was simply gluing the GZG doors over the ones cast onto the model.  There was less of this problem with the windows.

I recommend filling the polystyrene shells with fine/light household insulation foam to prevent bending/bowing/warping.  Priming the interior is necessary to insure the foam doesn’t melt the polystyrene.  I used Testors gray primer as a base prime, inside and out, followed by Citadel white, inside and out.  The Citadel was necessary to provide something for my water-thinned acrylic paint to grip to.

Before filling with foam, I recommend testing the foam on some of the off-cut bits that come with the buildings.  The home insulating kit in the hand-held can from my local Do-It-Yourself franchise worked well for me.  Foam tends to expand outward as it dries, so I left the models base-up for the foam to set.  In the process, some of the curing foam did rise above the lip of the base; this was removed with a hobby knife and a spoon.

Once the fittings were in place, after priming, I spray painted the outsides of the houses with Testors Sand Yellow.  Oops!…so much for using the Citadel primer. The acrylic paints had some trouble covering the Testors, though nothing an extra coat or two couldn’t cure.

Size Comparison

After painting various door and window colours, the models were dry brushed with Hobbycraft Light Chocolate. This gave a yummy cocoa colour result - rather a pale Martian dust - to the model; which I quite like.

The end result was a Middle-Eastern Pre-Fabricated Futuristic look, rather like one would expect from a Vilani Mining franchise. Ethnic AND Utilitarian.  These are the sort of dichotomies which give depth to the scenario and which make sci-fi gaming so enjoyable. Ω