Slightly Larger Dudes of the Far Past

Hi,

 So in the late 80's RAFM put out a series of boxed sets of miniatures under their "Shadows and Steel" line. The idea is that you'd get an adventuring party with a backstory and adventure good to go. Collect all four boxed sets and you'd have a mini-campaign. I picked up a couple of these two years ago and through some ebay action have managed to snag the other two. Last week, I finished the antagonists of the series.

 Behold! The Vampyres of Tandaloor!


The terrible overlords of their hidden valley, these Vampyres and their associates are a menace to all living things. Note that we say "vampyres" -- the background text makes it clear that these aren't vampires although they are very similar. In particular, sunlight weakens, but does not destroy them and they have a range of small bonus powers the "canonical" vampire wouldn't have.

 And what fuels their unholy power?


  The coffin -- pardon me -- the "communing bed" of Tandaloor. The large vampyre bloodstone above the gem acts as a focus allowing the vampyre to connect to the Negative Plane and draw strength. Naturally, stealing or smashing the stone will render the vampyre powerless. This is the only piece of "scenery" in the Shadows and Steel set and it's a nice piece. It painted up well, the "gemstone" was a very nice touch, and any fight involving the vampyres is almost certain to revolve around one of these communing beds so it's nice to have one on hand.

 This piece also highlights a new technique I was trying out for this round of figures. The stone paving the coffin sits upon wasn't part of the kit. Instead, I used paper clay to cover a metal base and then scored lines into it in a brickwork fashion. Then I painted and drybrushed it up and got the result you see here. I did this for all the figures but you can most clearly see the results here and I rather like it. I think it has some possibilities outside of simple stonework, but it did take a while to dry out completely so I'm not sure how soon I'll repeat the process.

 Now that they've got a place to lay their head, let's meet the vampyres. Starting with their fearsome leader:


  This is Tandaloor, High King of the Vampyres. A creature beyond the petty concerns of mere mortals...and fashion. Interestingly, I discovered that what I thought was mauve, wasn't. I envisioned mauve as a kind of dark, reddish-purple-y color. So I was surprised at how pink the paints all were. Still, when I looked at the box art, it was that same bright pink and I think it's actually not too bad after some shading and highlights. The wings were a little tougher. I'm still not super happy with the way the yellow came out although I did undercoat with a dark-yellow to help get the bright yellow to pop out some more and that worked ok.

 In any event, Tandaloor has a +1 magic sword, but honestly, his unarmed attack is 3d8 so he's better off just ripping you to pieces in most cases. He's presented as a cautious, careful opponent which gives an opening to impulsive attackers, but they'd better get the job done fast.

 Then there's Tandaloor's family:


  That's Tandaloor's main squeeze Lady Elvira (because it's the 80's of course she is -- I'm a little surprised they didn't try for more of a resemblance). She has a reputation as a deadly practical joker since she's immortal and bored. The fellow next to her is Count Nosferatu a long-time ally of Tandaloor whose gem got a little cracked during a move and now he's playing his vampire role to the hilt. If there's one thing worse than a vampyre, it's a crazy vampyre. He vants to suck your bluud!

 Naturally, someone needs to keep these jokers in line:


The guy on the left is Veratu Mikto and despite appearances, he's actually a Vampyre too. He just can't be arsed to maintain a passable human form. As Tandaloor's majordomo, the look help keeps the peasants in line. Again, he's got a +2 magic axe, but his hands do 2d12 so taking away his toys might make you worse off.

 The guy next to him isn't actually part of this box set. It's a figure from Reaper listed as Iks, Overlord Sergeant. He was a random giveaway from Reaper one Gencon long ago and I figured as long as I'm painting up armored skeletons, I might as well do him too. That's why he's on a different base.

 For inclusion in this set, I've renamed him to Gorte and declared that he's a Revenant created by Veratu Mikto to help offset his workload. Mostly Gorte's duties consist of hanging around Count Nosferatu and making sure he doesn't go on a blood-sucking rampage through the valley.

 I really like the way both of these guys came out. I tried out some new shadings on Gorte's magical sword that came out well and I like the splashes of red against the dark metallics.

 But it's not all vampyres and the undead here at Castle Tandaloor:


  You'll also find a pair of Gargoyles. Here we have Nagy (on the left) and Glatu (on the right). Yeah, their boss is Vertu Mikto -- look it's no dumber than naming them after New York boroughs. Anyway, these two guys just lurk around the communing beds until some unwary adventurer passes them by and then Whammo! They were dirt easy to paint up (since I basically painted them the same way I painted the flooring) and I think they came out pretty well.

 So that's the whole necrotic bunch. There's just one more set of guys to paint up and then the whole set will be finished. I might actually try putting them on the table in the actual adventure written up for them. Although players will have to control an entire team...or maybe it'll be more of an ensamble game where people play different members of each group. We'll see.

Little Dudes of the Far Future

Hey,

 I've been pretty busy with a number of things the past couple of months but I haven't stopped painting up little dudes. I realized that I didn't show off the end of the New Vistula Legion (NVL) sci-fi forces I was painting up.

 So let's fix that. First up, some much needed heavy support:


  You've got a pair of Heavy Machine Gun teams, a pair of Railgun Teams and two Mortar teams in the back. Considering the lack of vehicles for this group, they'll be depending on these guys for some time until I get a few toys for their motor pool.

  Finally, the big boss might drop by along with his retinue:


  So you've got the overall commander, the staff sergeant, a communications officer, a couple of grunts and a driver/pilot. Although you can't see it really in this photo, the guy on the far right has a green mohawk. That was fun to do up.

  There was one more pack in the lot I picked up and that was a set of TV reporters. These guys seemed useful in both a futuristic and a modern day setting so I painted them up and gave them more of a desert base since I figure they'll probably see more modern-day Middle East/Africa action than far future stuff.


  Two reporters, two cameramen and two photo-journalists. It'll be nice to have these guys around mucking up the works and reporting on atrocities far and wide.

 Anyway, I'm happy to have these guys finished up. I can now play small battles with the sci-fi stuff I have so hopefully those guys will be hitting the table later this year.

One LIttle Dude, One Kill

More little dudes that I've been painting up. Once again, these are all from Odzial Osmy's New Vistula Legion, a 15mm sci-fi range. These are all mostly groups of one type of specialist so there's not a whole bunch to say about them, though the last group is pretty interesting.

 First up, a batch of snipers to lend some long-range support for our brave boys in red:

Well...they blend into the ground pretty well. My photography was really crap this time around.

Speaking of blending in, how about some scouts/forward observers:

I might pair these up with the snipers from time to time but they can also go out on their own.

 Finally, the most interesting group in this batch, the Long-Range Reconnaissance Patrol:

A small six-man team to operate deep behind enemy lines. They got a little bit of everything. All kinds of heavy weapons and technical/commo gear. They even have a drone, but I'm looking to get some wire to mount them on a separate base.

 So that lot is finished. Next up are the heavy weapon teams. I'm hoping these should go up rather quickly and then this project will almost be finished.

Garish Little Dudes

  So I did more than paint buildings this summer.  I also painted (and am still painting) some little dudes.

  There's a company out of Poland called Assault Publishing that puts out wargame rules and miniatures.  They do a line of 15mm sci fi and the human faction is called the New Vistula Legion.  A fellow gamer was selling off a huge lot of them at discount prices so I snapped it up.  I figure they'll be good opponents for my professionally painted group and just good sci-fi figures in general.

  I've gone though about half the figures and have enough of them organized that I can show them off.  So let's see what I've done so far...

So here's a group shot:




 I've gone with a red color scheme for these guys.  In part because it will contrast well with the blue forces I have and mostly because I got tired of painting drab camouflage schemes on modern armies.  You're looking at about 60 figures here.  Two platoons made up of three six-man fireteams headed up by a six-man HQ squad.  On the left are the Anti-Air support teams and the Anti-Armor teams are on the right.

Let's break it down a little:





This is the basic fireteam.  A six-man squad consisting of a leader, a SAW gunner, a LAW trooper and 3 riflemen.  It's a bit larger than most force-on-force squads but they'll probably have less armor/support gear to compensate.

Three of these squads form a platoon lead by:





...the platoon HQ squad.  There's the leader, a medic, a technical officer and three grenadiers bearing rifle/grenade luachers.  The technical officer is great.  It's hard to make out in this picture but he's kneeling and is working on a laptop.  It's nice to see dedicated IT support trooper in a sci-fi model range.

Then come the support squads:





An anti-air squad.  There's a spotter/leader, the MANPAC AA-missile trooper and a two man security detail.  The extra trooper can be siphoned off to help the anti-armor teams or fill in as needed, but I put them here for now.  Actually, now that I think about it, I might make them all three man teams rather than four so that the anti-armor teams can also be three-man units.  The third guy is security/ammo bearer.

Speaking of anti-armor:





The anti-tank hunter killer team is a spotter/leader and a guided missile trooper.  As I mentioned above, I'll probably add a rileman from the Anti-Air squads to act as security/ammo bearer.

Anyway, that's all the figures so far.  Next up are the snipers/scouts/LRRP teams, then the support weapon teams and finally the company HQ and a set of TV crews.  Should be a lot of fun.

Tiny Construction Work

  So I've been remiss in not updating my various miniature gaming projects.  So let's take stock of what I've been doing this summer.  There's two parts so there's going to be two posts.  First up, more terrain.

So I wanted more Middle Eastern urban terrain both for Force on Force and just any general modern day/near future fight.  I ordered up a batch of stuff from Game Craft Miniatures.  They have a wide selection of stuff in 15mm and I had fun putting together a previous building of theirs.  So I put in an order and soon the smell of laser-cut wood filled the house.

First up are these modular buildings:





There are two types of buildings here, the smaller square ones are 4.5"x4" and the larger, rectangular ones are 6.5"x4".  The best part is that each of the floors is a separate, detachable piece.  So I can adjust the heights of the buildings up and down as needed.  In fact, I made a bit of a mistake.  I forgot that both the ground floor section and the top floor section also count as buildings.  So all of my buildings are 2 stories higher than I planned on.  I plan to go back and order a couple more ground/top floor pieces for both sets so that I can have up to 4 shorter buildings of both types -- I can put up a real city block in a hurry.

After that come these two:





These are smaller, one-piece buildings made of MDF, but I really like the Middle Eastern look and feel to them.  The modular buildings are pretty generic, but the detailing on these guys lends a sense of place.

But nothing says authority like slab-sided construction:





This is an educational or administrative building based off an actual design in Baghdad.  This was a model I'd been hoping to have for a previous game, but didn't have the time to get it put together.  Now it's ready to go and I really like it.

Finally:





It's not the Middle East without a mosque.  This model, unlike the others, was made of foam-board and I'm not as happy with it's construction as I am the rest of them.  The others were all made of MDF and it was pretty easy to work with, but the foam-board was a lot more finicky to handle.  I will admit, the spackle I used to cover up the joins produces a nice stucco look, but the dome on top is styrofoam and not given to taking paint well.  Plus, I should've applied it after I built the rest of the structure, but didn't.  Still, I now have a mosque with courtyard and a place for cowardly insurgents to flee to when things get hot.

So I've greatly expanded the range of buildings and urban terrain I have available for my games.  I can probably do some of the denser urban scenarios which should be a lot of fun.  Hopefully this will all get to the table soon.

Housing Little Dudes and Plans for the Future

 So with the WWII Soviets out of the way, I decided to finish up a long-delayed project. Behold:


These are a pair of 15mm Middle Eastern buildings from JR Miniatures. They're made out of resin. I picked these up at a sale at Hobby Bunker last July and I primed them up thinking this would be a quick job. For some reason, the white spray primer I was using didn't really want to adhere to the resin very well and it started sloughing off almost immediately. I asked around for advice and then forgot about them for a while.

 I recently finished up the Soviets and I was tired of looking at those shabby buildings so I decided to knock them out. My buddies recommended automobile primer so I picked up a can of that and it worked like a charm. It put down a nice even coat I was able to paint right over. While you can't see it easily, the roofs are all removable and there are "wooden floors" on the second story of each building. However, I didn't do enough prior test fitting and one they're in, they're really tricky to get out. I think they're pretty much going to stay assembled like that.

 With those buildings finished, I don't have anything new to hand. I do have some left-over Soviet figures but not enough to put together any real sort of unit unless I pull from that bin of plastic soldiers I have and I'm loathe to do that. The warlord plastics are just too fiddly. Maybe one of the guys at the shop will take pity on me, but I haven't really hit the table with what I have so I don't know that I want more guys until I can see where the gaps are ("mostly in your generalship", yes, yes).

 In a vague order of importance here's what I'm thinking about next:

• Terrain: So yeah, I just finished up the two buildings, but I really need some more stuff if I want to do urban games (Fallujah, Sadr City, etc.). I'm thinking about getting some more stuff from Game Craft Miniautres. They've got some great modern Middle Eastern buildings in 15mm and they use laser cut MDF which is generally cheaper than the resin stuff. I'd also need some walls, roads and ground cover and I'd be pretty much set to go. It'd be a quick project, but it's a little unglamorous.
• Transport: I need some additional boxes to carry around my figures, especially my 15mm vehicles. For those, I'll need something like those battle bags that Warhammer guys carry around. Those bags of cut foam are surprisingly pricey and while I want them for transport/storage, it's pretty much the most unglamorous thing ever.
• 15mm Sci-Fi: I have one professionally painted force but I need someone for them to fight against. Ideally I'd like at least one other human force and one other alien force. I'm kind of interested in the stuff being put out by Critical Mass Games. I'm probably going to kick myself for not getting behind their Kickstarter, but I'm more interested in their aliens than their new mercenary force.
• 15mm Africa: I also need to flesh out my paltry modern-day Africa troops. Again, I need both Government troops and rebels (although they're often one and the same). The go-to company here is Peter Pig.
• 28mm WWII Marines: Yup, I've already got a force for Bolt Action WWII games. Nope, I haven't even used them yet. Yup, I'm trying to stick to 15mm as my preferred scale. I still want some Marines. What I really want is to get them professionally done up and kit-bashed a bit so that all the marines are wearing Hawaiian shirts, the .50 cal MG team has surfboards sticking up behind them, the Captain is holding a tiki mug -- sort of "McHale's Navy" batch of Marines. A screwball bunch who you can't feel proud about beating but feel humiliated when they beat you. The problem here is that there aren't many people making figures (a big surprise to me). Warlord Games is, and they're even making them in metal, but they're treating them like plastic so heads/arms/gear is all separated out and you have to glue it all together and give me a break. Plus, to really do it up like I want I'd have to send them out and that's more money on top of it all.
• Flying Monkeys! So I have enjoyed painting up some 25mm fantasy figures and there's a charming bunch out for Fantacide by Alien Dungeon. In this case, it's flying Monkeys. Who could resist an army of flying monkeys all wearing little fezes? Not I. However, going through the Alien Dungeon website, I got alerted to a new project they'll be Kickstarting soon...
• All Quiet on the Martian Front: This is basically War of the Worlds II where the Martians re-invade Earth in the early 1900's. The tripods range fast and furious until the humans can fight back with clunky tanks and big guns. The rules (from what I've seen so far) are a little iffy but the models are in 15mm and they're just delightful. The real problem here is that the campaign hasn't started so I don't know what to budget (and it'll be in UK pounds not good cheap US dollars) and then it'll be a year before they show up...so it's not something to really keep me going...but I am really attracted to project.

All of this assumes I shouldn't save my money for more utilitarian needs. Or maybe I should play more with the stuff I've already got...although that argues for the Terrain and the Transport items listed above. Ah well, we'll see.

Quantity and some quality

So I've finished up the WWII Soviet project for the Bolt Action games down at the store. And the best is saved for last:

A T34-85 tank to provide some armored support and put those Panzers on the run. Actually, it's going to have to sub in as a T34-76 since that it keeps me just under 1000 points. This was another one of the few good pieces from the Warlords boxed Soviet Set. The model is mostly resin except for the commander and the front hatch and co-axial MG. The turret didn't fit into the body very well, but a friend down at the shop took a dremel to it and got it into shape. It was a fast paint-up and now I'm ready to roll.

The Tiny Human Wave

So I painted up some more little dudes:


This is another batch of WWII Soviet infantry (plus a mortar team). I'm just about done with this project. Once I finish up the T-34-85 tank, I'll have a solid 1000 point army to play Bolt Action with the guys down at the store (who will be completely burnt out on Bolt Action as soon as I bring it to play).

With the exception of the Mortar Crew (which comes from Warlord Games), all these figures are by Black Tree Design. I really liked the figures. A bit of flash to clean off but nothing terrible and they painted up like a charm. They mix well with the Warlord figures I have and there's a good set of poses. I have a batch of figures left over, mostly SMG-equipped troopers and I might paint them up as assault troops to swap in for some games.

Lord save us from the fury of little dudes!

Hey,

So my recent return to miniature painting was sparked by the Dark Ages/Viking campaign that the club I regularly game with wanted to run. I got a bunch of minis, painted them all up and had a horde of Saxons ready to go.

I believe we played one game.

 I knew we had a bunch of guys with figures and I had an interesting set of Viking rules called Strandhogg that I'd been meaning to try out. So I put out the call and a couple Saturdays ago we had a fight. I set up a pretty simple smash and grab raid between two forces of Vikings and Saxons. Here's an overview of the battlefield form the Saxon side (say the Viking table edge is North):


Each side had two warbands made up of around 50 figures. There were 10 buildings in the village stretched out along the center of the table and each building had a slip of paper under it. Some of the paper was blank, but some of it was loot -- sacks of gold, religious artifacts, a pig -- six treasures of varying victory point value hidden among them. You could also score points for taking out warband commanders and the overall noble in charge of each army group. Both sides set up and then made a rush for the gold.

 Well, a bit of a slow rush:


Warband groups generally move at the speed of their commander which is 6 inches. There was quite a bit of distance to cover, but the Saxons on the east side of the board reached their buildings first and quickly scored some impressive loot. The Vikings you see approaching them ransacked their buildings only to find...nothing. So they were going to have to beat up the Saxons opposite them and take their gold instead. 

Meanwhile, the slow pace really hampered the western side of the board:


The Vikings maintain good order through the hedges, but the Saxons race ahead to check out buildings across a wide front. It would be a bit before those groups came into contact.

 But back on the other side of the board, things got busy in a hurry:


The veteran warriors from the viking line plowed into the Saxon archers on the right of the photo. One of the interesting things about this game is how chancy combat is. Although the archers are terrible melee fighters, they did manage to get the odd kill in from time to time and they managed to stand tough a surprising amount. However, they aren't really built for this kind of fight and were slowly cut down by the Viking's swords. 

Missile fire in this game is really fun. You get this clear acetone template that you lay down over the target. Then roll a d10. Roll low enough and you hit the target. Roll high and you miss, but there are other target zones on the template. If another figure is under a target zone and you roll its hit number -- you hit that guy instead. The Saxon player never darkened the skies with arrows, but the Viking levy troops (the group in the upper-middle) started hurling javelins into the Saxons, specifically trying to target the leader. Although the Saxon leader survived several rounds (and wound up with a shield that was mostly javelin), the relentless pelting eventually got through and he was taken out.

On the other side of the board, the Vikings found a pig:


Meanwhile, the eastern side of the board turned into a real meat-grinder:


What you don't see in middle are the two mighty warbands that crashed into each other. Now only a handful is left from either side. The warriors were more evenly matched and bad rolls had everyone dropping like flies. But on the right side of the picture you can see the Viking veterans. Having dispatched the archers, they're now rushing towards the loot-bearing Saxons.

And really, that was pretty much it. Back on the western side of the board, there were a couple of sharp exchanges, but the Vikings had so clearly routed the Saxons on the eastern side (plus the pig) it wasn't even close. The Vikings were victorious.

Everyone seemed to have a good time and was keen to try out the game again. I need to come up with some sort of fast movement rule to help folks cover ground or deal with chasing down heavily-laden opponents and such. But once combat was joined things moved at a fair clip and combat was a real roller-coaster. So hopefully we can get in a few more sessions and my little dudes were not painted in vain.

So I've been puttering away a painting little dudes again. Actually, these are slightly bigger dudes. Normally, I paint in 15mm because it's fast and you can paint up a lot in a hurry and my poor skill is less obvious. However, the guys at the store have finally (finally!) settled on a WWII skirmish rule set. They've opted to go with Bolt Action by Warlord Games. It's a pretty nice little set of rules with some nifty mechanics and it covers a lot of periods without getting too wound up technical advances. The rules are also designed for Warlord Game's 28mm line of figures.

 The Warlord stuff looked pretty good and so I picked up a basic infantry set and a medium machine-gun team. Here are the results:

    These guys came together and painted up real well. This box set was also put out before Warlord Games developed Bolt Action so they don't form a convenient force to send out into the field. Plus, it's WWII Soviets and that means large groups of Infantry. In fact, one of the Soviet's special rules is that they get an extra squad of troops for free. So I needed more little dudes.

I liked the look of the figures so I went back to Warlord Games. They've got army deals where they'll give you a whole bunch of figures, a few heavy weapons and a vehicle or two. Most of the infantry figures are made of plastic -- because you can get more troops for the dollar and you can kit them out in different ways. So I figured, "I need the guys" and picked it up.

Ugh.

The plastic Warlord figures are made up of torso, head, arms and sometimes separate legs. Weapon sprues hold weapons and gear of every sort. In theory this means you can combine parts and pieces to make anything you want. In practice you get a bunch of troopers suffering from some terrible bone disease that makes their bodies twist unnaturally who also have some localized telekinesis causing their gear to float near, but not at where they would normally keep it.

So...no good. I little searching around led me to Black Tree Designs who have a very nice line of WWII Soviets in a range of styles and groupings. So now I've got the first batch of those up on the blocks for painting. I'll let you know how it goes in a week or two.

That said, I do like the metal Warlord figures above and they're a good first set for my Red Hordes.