15mm Cthulhu-esque action

You need to check out the fantastic Octopus Cultist and their eldritch Octopus-God overlord coming soon from Khurasan:
http://tinysolitarysoldiers.blogspot.com/2011/02/khurasan-eldritch-horror-minis.html
I'm seriously considering getting rid of my 15mm and making a move completely to 6mm for cost and space reasons, but these have really made me pause.

Reporters on the scene

Finally picked up a paintbrush for the first time in a LONG time on Saturday night.
I finished off painting the VC squad I had on the go.  I'll put them up after they've been based.
The other item I decided to spend some time on was this Reporter and Cameraman from Irregular's Riot range.

I haven't painted eyes for quite a while, so I'll need to go back and fix them up so that they look a little less "Coraline".

Pretty happy with how these turned out, nonetheless.  Just needs a little static grass, I think.  I say "I think", because I've never actually done anything more than add sand to bases.  Time to break out of my shell!

15mm Sci-Fi Force

Do yourself a favour and get over to the Ambush Alley Forum to check out more fantastic work by member mwda:
http://www.ambushalleygames.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=37738#37738

That should get you in the Tomorrow's War mood....

15mm Chinook from Old Glory?

Folks
Just came across this announcement from Old Glory UK :
http://www.oldgloryuk.com/disp_news_item.php?id=1003&sh=2
It appears that they are planning to release a 15mm Chinook kit - complete with components to enable it to be converted from Vietnam through to modern day.
This will be excellent news if they can pull it off (and at a reasonable price of course....)!
Check out their new Hesco-based buildings that are in the same announcement as well.

Main Force VC

Back from the wedding, and a good time was had by all!
Managed to snap a quick pic of the 15mm Flashpoint VC that I had photographed with my phone camera previously.
Here they are:

I need to paint up more, there's only these three so far.  I've done them in boots for these, but I'm going to try to paint some "Ho Chi Minh Sandals" on the next batch.

No Update

Sick.
Working.
No Camera.
Check out this inspirational stuff on the AA forum : http://www.ambushalleygames.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4095

Plus check out the new 15mm scifi from Blue Moon Manufacturing:
http://www.bluemoonmanufacturing.com/index.php?cat_id=32

Off to die quietly under my desk....

Main Force VC colours

Well, I finally got a couple of hours this weekend to sit down and do some painting.
Below is a VERY blurry picture of the end result of some work on some of my Flashpoint Main Force VC.  All of the cameras have gone north with my wife, so I'm stuck using the very poor camera in my phone until mid Aug.

If you think these look bad, you should see the three that I need to strip back after my initial colour experiment went HORRIBLY wrong.

Really as a reminder for myself when I get to snatch a few more hours to attack more of these, here are the colours I used in the order that I paint them:

Uniform and bush hat: Dark Angel Green with a light drybrus of Camo Green to lighten the tone.

Webbing : Desert Yellow

Packs, boots and Rice Roll : Graveyard Earth (technically I think the roll should be uniform green, but then it won't stand out from the uniform.)

Skin : Bronzed Flesh with heavy Flesh Wash

Weapons : Chaos Black with light Bolygun Metal drybrush.  Snakebite Leather on the butt, stock and grip.

I'm also going to alternate in some figures with a mix of black items (pants or shirt) along with the uniform green.  The look I'm going for is from the illustrations in Gordon Rottman's Viet Cong Fighter (part of the Osprey Warrior series).  This shows the Main Force troops in a mix of the Green uniform and the traditional black peasant garb.

Eureka 15mm Sci-Fi German Stormtroopers

Eureka have just released new figures for their Sci-Fi German Stormtrooper range.
These look GREAT. I have some of the original infantry in the lead pile.... might need to pick up some more....

Inspirational 15mm

If you want to see some amazing 15mm, go check out this blog:
http://15mmfun.blogspot.com/
Compare his QRF humvees here.
To mine here.

I mean, they're pretty close... right?...Right?

Man........

Some great ideas there I need to borrow / steal!

Quick Peter Pig vs. QRF M113 size comparison

I've just quickly thrown together a quick comparison of the relative sizes of a QRF ACAV and a Peter Pig M113 that I had in the cupboard.
The comparison is intended to be on size rather than the quality of the model, as the Peter Pig has been cleaned up and undercoated, whereas the QRF has been tipped out of the bag where it's languished for the past year of two and then clumped together with Blutack.
The QRF is also missing its headlights and the driver's hatch that I didn't blutack on (it DOES say QUICK comparison!)
So without further ado, here are the pics (hi-res if you click). I'll leave you to make your own judgements on compatibility.

Bamboo huts

I thought I'd have crack at making some bamboo huts for south east asian games.
Here is where it is at, at the moment.

I know the CannonFodder figure is quite out of place, but I couldn't find any on my VC in a hurry.

I made a rough cardboard frame and then covered it with a cut-up bamboo placemat.

After fiddling with hobby knives and other cutting devices, I went out to the shed and grabbed the secateurs. Definitely the way to go for cutting up the placemat.

I haven't put in any doors or windows yet, so I think the secateurs will be called out again. I guess I probably should have put them in before I put the placemat onto the frame....

I'm uncertain on what to use for roofing materials. Should I thatch it, or use a corrugated iron roof? Do a number of both?

Anyone have any suggestions on the roofing material decision?

Birthday Loot - Flashpoint USMC

As part of my birthday haul back in Feb, I managed to pick up some of the old Flashpoint stock that Drew had.  It came in a big baggie and I'd started to sort through it into poses, etc. I took this quick photo (phone camera) of the container that they are sitting in as I headed out the door to work this morning.

Because it's a bulk bag of old stock, it's not really representative of the product that Flashpoint are putting out now. Some of the figures will need some clean-up due to flash, but becasue there are so many I should be able to get an initial couple of platoons together without having to resort to clean-ups!
They should go nicely with my Marine Corps Helos.

Turkey Shoot II - Revenge of the Turkeys

As mentioned previously, we replayed the Ambush Alley Turkey Shoot scenario a week later, but this time with a few modifications:

• Marines were dropped from Recon (d10) to standard (d8).
• No APC was taken (again).
• An extra Hotspot was added to the table bringing the total to 5.

The table layout was also a bit tighter than previous.

In addition, this time we had two players (myself and Adam) playing the Regular fireteams, while Brad took the Insurgents again.

With two players as Regular, we opted to allow the situation where we could end up with 2 Fog Of War (one per Regular Player) per turn. 

Part way through the game, we realised that this was a bit of overkill, so we drew two assets (suggested by Insurgent commander Brad to redress the situation we'd found ourselves in) and went back to maximum of one Fog of War per turn.

The Regulars moved forward just fine to begin with.

But with the Fog of War flying thick and fast, the Marines got pinned down in the alley just beyond the target building. 


They were attacked by friendly fire (mortars and air strikes - luckily this A-10 could hit a barn door!),


3 technicals,


and a carload of insurgents.


Just when these threats appeared to have been neutralised, the Insurgents torched the target building (Fog of War "Fire! Fire!" card) , rendering the mission a failure! 


Luckily, while they had been pinned down in the alley,  a secondary mission to investigate hostages being held in the area had been radioed through.


So the Regular teams quickly set out to attempt to free them, despite now being low on ammo ("Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition" Fog of War). 


After assaulting the building, the hostages were rescued, but by this time each Marine fireteam was nursing casualties, with one man dead.


We finished the game there because we were over time, but hopefully it was a very enjoyable game for all!  Especially Brad and his team of pyromaniac Insurgents!


I'll be starting to shoot a Tin Pot Little Country comic for this engagement over the next few days.
I'll put a quick post up on this blog to let you know as the pages go up on TPLC.

Turkey Shoot - initial run

This is a report on my initial run of Turkey Shoot.
We've run the game subsequently with some changes after this run through, and it was a completely different game.  More details on that coming soon...
Okay, so back at the game on the 16th Jan:
Turkey Shoot is a scenario where a squad of Marines must escort a sniper team to a position where they can engage targets "off table".  The Marine Squad must keep the team alive for 3 turns on the roof, and then exfil off the edge they started at.

The Scenario as written has a full squad of US Marines (3 fire teams and a squad leader) protecting two snipers and accompanied by an LVTP7.
I didn't have a suitable APC available, and it seemed overkill (more on that soon) so we dropped it from the game.  It should also be noted that the Marines themselves were Recon Marines.  This meant that they were rolling a d10 rather than the standard d8 for trained troops.
Even without the APC we were soon to find that this scenario would be a whitewash for the Regular player.
The Regular team stepped off and engaged an Insurgent RPG team on a nearby building.  The threat was neutralised, but during the shooting roll, a Fog Of War card was triggered!  "The Colonel says what?!?" meant that the Regulars were pinned in place for a turn, unable to move forward.

In the mean time, the Insurgent player took the opportunity to occupy the target building....

And prepared to spring a trap on the Regulars....


However, this where the Recon Marines stepped up!
They demolished the ambush on the left hand side of the road, leaving one man standing.

In a later turn, this one mad insurgent managed to skirt around the fireteam that had engaged his group to charge another team from behind....

He was quickly dispatched.

Meanwhile, on the right hand side of the road, the Marines in position there had achieved a similar result.

As you can see, machete-wielding Insurgents are hardy indeed!

At this point the Insurgent group in the Target Building began engaging the Regulars.

Their shooting was inaccurate, and over the next couple of turns, their numbers were whittled away from 6 down to 2.


The Insurgents had received some reinforcements by this stage, but due to a lucky break on the Fog Of War, the "What's this made of....Swiss Cheese?!?" card rendered them vulnerable to the Marine Fireteam  holding that arc.



It was around this point that Brad failed the rolls to bring 21 fresh insurgents onto the table!


However, luck was not completely against him, as another Fog OF War ("Contact!") provided him with another squad of Insurgents. These, however, were still unable to cause casualties on their Marine foes.


At this point, the Marines reached the building and began clearing it:


After the building was cleared, the sniper team swung into action and began to engage their "off-table" targets.


Some further reinforcements for the Insurgents was "too little, too late"....


...and the Marines exit the area with no casualties!


In the post game wash up, we believed that the Marines were too strong (and we didn't even use the APC!) and that at least one more insurgent hotspot (there were only four) was required.
In the second game played recently, we dropped the Marines to "Trained" (d8) and added an additional hotspot to bring the total to five.
But more on THAT game for another post!

More Cork

A couple of quick pics of the two buildings and some quick wall sections for the game tomorrow night.

I'm not going to have time to apply the plaster and have it dry, and clean up the  surfaces ahead of the game, so I'll leave them in raw cork for the moment.  Both the buildings and the walls will be plastered eventually - probably next week.
I'l got to do some work around the house tomorrow, but hopefully I can put out another couple of walls ahead of the game.

What ever happened to those cork buildings ?!?

Long term listeners may remember that back here I was working on some buildings using cork.
What ever happened to those?
Well I did get some work done on them.......

There's only two at the moment and here they are:


A closer shot of the one on the left:


I still need to add some staining to the exteriors and probably some posters and/or grafitti

As you can see below, last night I started work on two more:


I'm hoping to get these, and some walls I started, complete in time for a game on Saturday night.
Since it's now Thursday, I'm not sure I'm going to make it!