Manitou and Mech Scenarios

Not too much progress in the past couple of weeks as I was away again, but looking forward I should be at home a fair bit now so hopefully get some projects finished :)
I did manage to paint up some Kremlin miniatures Red Banner Manitou before I left, they came out ok but I was hoping for a more sinister finish, perhaps black helmets and a darker colour scheme overall may have done the job.


While away I was able to finish off a set of 5 Mech Scenarios that I have been working on to go alongside the Fubar Mech rules I have been playing with, they are lightweight scenarios loosely based on 90's arcade games....sounds a little goofy but I wanted some fast paced action and was trying out some different ideas. The scenarios could easily be adapted to another ruleset. The full set in pdf can be found here while the first scenario is below. Still on the scenario subject does anyone know any good map making software? I have been using inkscape to produce them but with little knowledge of it they are coming out pretty basic.

Scenario 1: Greased Pig Scientist

Background:

An unhinged genius from one of the big corporations has made a breakthrough in the development of a high performance chemical fuel that could be worth untold riches. The scientist and corporation are understandably cagey regarding the discover and information being leaked to the other big corporations…..which works well for you as they have paid a number of Mercenary teams to discretely enter the site and kidnap the scientist.
Which might be easier said than done!

Turns: 5

Recommended Forces:
As the Terrain layout is expected to be fairly dense the two teams should be made up of a small number of Mechs. I.e. three to each side to cover the centre and sides while the scientist runs wild and the Mechs try to take each other out.

Victory Conditions:
At the end of the 5th turn the player with a Mech within 2” of the scientist wins. If both players have a Mech within 2” then they draw. If neither player has a Mech within 2” of the scientist then they both lose and the scientist scarpers!

Special Rules:
The Scientist cannot be killed under any circumstances. On each players turn roll two different coloured D6, one for direction and one for his movement. Then move him in the direction indicated below. If the scientist reaches the table edge or another obstacle (buildings, trees, Mech) he immediately turns and moves in the opposite direction using any remaining moves.

Mechs, Buildings and oh my!

Another really productive week, managed to get the foam core buildings from last week painted up:

I sprayed them using a brown stone textured spray that went on ok, it did create some bubbling on the buildings but that died down once they were dry. To finish them I drybrushed on Graveyard earth, desert yellow followed by bleached bone, they look alright, a little brown maybe. Lesson learnt as well, spray the insides of the buildings black before starting the outsides otherwise the white really shows through the windows!

Painting wise I got a fair bit done this week, an Em4 miniatures plastic Mech ready to game with:

A squad of crusty heavy infantry:

and a couple of oddities:

The last two are the controller from the 15mm SHM range and a little familiar from GW's Huron Blackheart kit (I have a few of these from repeatedly being sent failed casts from the finecast range, in the end they were never able to deliver a complete kit, but that's another story...), he looked like he would fit right in somewhere in 15mm :).

Elsewhere I managed to spend a night play testing Fubar Mech:

.... and it never really hung together very well so i've made some more changes to try and streamline the rules and hopefully make it more fun to play.

I managed to order those mini's I mentioned last week, still waiting for a few packs to arrive to get stuck in and sods law I go and order from Khurasan only for them to release a huge number of new releases a few days after!! ah well, just going to have to juggle a few buys and hide the packets coming through the post from my wife...

What did arrive today though was my order from Kremlin miniatures, had a mail a couple of days ago from Russ that they had been cast and were ready to ship and here they are:

I'm really impressed with the detail on these, I initially dismissed them a while back after seeing the pics on the site but i'm so glad I ordered as I can't wait to get these based and on the table.

Rule-wise this week I am still very slowly sketching out the ideas I had for a new rule set that will fill a bit of a niche, it's getting there and I should have something to show in a month, hopefully.

Still working on the Gruntz cards too, particularly the Specialists.

With all that I did this week I will be easing off a little over the next couple of weeks, I can feel the strain when trying to commit to painting/doing so much and it feels like i'm spreading myself a little thin so with a weeks holiday coming up I am going to sit back and relax and probably read through a rule book or two. That does sound a little odd, relaxing by reading through some stringent rulebooks? but I think that's the steady niche of nerd i've been easing myself in to for a while now, you see I am just fascinated with the whole concept of GAME. How people can present concepts in boardgames and role play and wargames whether they are abstract or really marry to the theme that's being played out, it's these play mechanics and different ways of thinking that repeatedly surprise me and drive me onwards to turn my own thoughts into some written form that someone can read as a schematic and then just GAME with......