This weeks show is sponsored by the color red.

Really productive this week! the cold weather still meant I can't get to the garage but...I created a super small paint tray out of an old place mat and brought my lamp up to sit on the edge of the sofa and hey presto, way more time to get painting. My pics are a little dark this week at I took my mini's down to the garage where my photo setup was only to discover it had vanished! My father in law had mistaken my empty box light box as an empty box and had promptly folded it up and thrown it away, apparently he did find it odd that a lamp was poking inside it....

On the left is one of the Chronotopia mechs I picked up earlier that I want to use as a droid attachment for skirmish games, the other two are EM4 miniature plastic Mechs, the green one I am a little unsure about, I like the scheme but I think it needs a spot color somewhere? .I got a box of 5 for £2.50 and to be honest they are great, once based and painted they look good on the table. I based them on two penny pieces to give them more weight and I have no complaints with any soft details etc, they look good after a coat and wash.

A couple of the Mechs I finished a few weeks ago but this week I managed to paint up 20 15mm.co.uk cultists, painting them all in one go in a kind of production line I was able to get them all finished for the tabletop pretty quick but still need to do some extra details to single out leaders. Really like these, the sculpts have just enough detail (some of the hands and feet are a little flat) but are still easy to paint.

These pics made me realize that i'm probably using way too much red in my minis, so hands off it for a while. I'm painting up some GZG Mercenary aliens at the mo so plenty of blue :).

I also bought and printed a copy of the Gruntz rules this week, really liking what i've read so far and I'm planning to get a few plays in before reviewing it fully but in the meantime it has got me in the mood for some armour so i'm scouting to pick up some sci fi tank minis. :)

You are the aggressor, move, now your on your own....

...these are all the rules you need, now go, make war.

Years ago when I was a kid my next door neighbor and I would meet t his house and wargame, his older brother had painted up a number of lead mini's including a large cyclops, the awesome mini crossbow gnome (who everyone wanted to be?), the warrior and a stack of evil enemies, I think they were the old Ral partha draconians and a few buildings. These were all we needed, battles were fought, roles were met and scenarios were conceived all before any one of us had seen a role play book or a rulebook.

Step to now, I have bookshelves full of books of rules, maps, counters, devices to allow adults to meet one other across a table and play out a game using the same figures as above....so what happened to the above old days of just playing it out, making it up?

As we developed from those early days a natural competitiveness built in and we needed to define, among these "games" who was the victor, who the loser, someone had to be the bad guy and as we grew older there had to be a defined state of rules as to who was who, how they can interact, how victory would be defined...and so the rules came about, battles became edged and most sense of imagination was pushed back, those were my first real taste of role playing and wargaming and almost my last.

Years later here I sit, surrounded by books and pamplets from the simple (USE ME) to the complex (ASL) of wargaming and I understand many of my friends and fellow wargamers to do the same, we all orbit our own small worlds pulling in and engulfing the latest rules, defining our standpoints, our goals.

But what if we met and things were different. "You are the aggressor, move, now your on your own" and this was it, the rules. As a group of friends we could begin, knowing what we know, many rulesets, action phases, charts to memory, could we not just start gaming? ok my guys are moving across rough ground so there move is going to be this? what do you think? and then they are going to try and shoot those troops there, I think with their weaponry the range is ok but what do you think I need to roll to hit?

I think it would need a lot of trust between the players, but it could potentially turn up new mechanics. i.e this is not working fairly so lets try.... it could also bring back the role play that many recent rulesets have tried to pull in, if the players are fully in control of the rules and want to play then any scenarios possible. Many of us with experience have knowledge of a number of rulesets etc, so why not apply that democratically within a group? i.e in this situation my troops can see you men on the hill, it a high shot and they are in cover so I think the could hit on a........and so on.

I feel that sometimes by trying to define a "method" of play, of accepting the written rule we deny ourselves the true involvement of goup gaming.

15mm to me is a step towards this abstract, yes there are rules, yes there are miniature manufacturers but the rules are very different here, models can be interchanged between manufactures at a whim and rulesets can be defined without models available, so with a shelf of mini's and a mind to play why not pluck a few onto the table and just "play"?

Taking it all for a spin

Aaargghh! Hobby time has slowed down yet again the last few weeks with working abroad and the fact that it's -3c in my garage! I've spend the time in the warmth basing up the rest of my mini's and spraying a few bits up.

I did manage to get a couple more mini mechs painted up, pics coming soon and I got in a quick skirmish game using the completed terrain and the USE Me rules, the lighting in the room was not that great so the pics were a little off.

The basic premise was an asteroid had landed in the middle of a nearby industrial base so troops were called out to investigate whereupon they meet a group of the local natives attracted by the impact.....

The alien side had a squad of 5 drones with a heavy weapon and another squad of 8 warriors with side weapons and grenades.

The troops consist of 8 with superior rifles, 1 light spider bot and 1 heavy strider walker.

Points wise the alien troops came out over 20 points more, which starts to show a small flaw in the points system as we will see.

During the first turn the strider took a pot shot at the distant drones that went wide of the mark while the rest of the alien warriors moved up.

By the end of turn 2 both sides had moved into combat positions but the squad of drones got caught out in the open and pounded by the striders cannons leaving only the drone leader with his heavy weapon to hold the flank.....

Over the next couple of turns the lone drone stared down the strider but had little chance to damage it even after scoring a number of hits, the strider eventually wiping the drone off the map with a double cannon hit.

On the other flank the alien warriors ran out from behind cover to attack the spider bot at close range and promptly missed every single shot.....in return the spider bot opened up it's automatic weapons and ripped the warrior squad in half.

In the next turn the warriors plowed into the troop squad (who had yet to land a hit as well) and struck down two, hitting back the troop squad struck down the rest of the warriors, only the warrior leader was left standing....

After a couple of turns of combat in which the alien leader managed to wing/strike down/kill most of the troop squad (I took a little license here with the rules to allow the leader to take each of the troops on, it made a more cinematic end to the game!) but was eventually cut down.

Overall it was an ok game, the points system did not really add up with the vehicles coming in really low value compared to the troops (with EV4). Combat wise there's only a very low probability of any troop weapons damaging a vehicle so I might change the rules slightly for heavy weapons to even it out a little. I did like it though, it was quick and the rules were easy to remember after a couple of turns but the best thing is the feeling of playing on a finished borad/terrain and mini's :). I think next time i'm going to take the FUBAR rules for a spin. Now with the weather so cold i'm going to have to bring my mini's inside to paint, got a pile of 15mm.co.uk's Cultists here I can't wait to get stuck in to!

Finally some Terrain!

Augh, very slow month with getting back to work and travelling I have not managed to get much painted, although I have pushed forward by increments on all the projects mentioned last month. My time has also been taken up going over "THAT" supposed leaked ruleset.

Several small packages arrived in the quest for looking for some Mecha alternatives, one of my favorite being these Chronoscope robots :

They were a little too small for 15mm Mecha but look good as Androids or AI bots:

I really hate the fact I didn't try and do the eyes on this GZG space crew female, think I am going to have to go back over hr and add the details, but the bot looks just right. I can't wait to get stuck in to the rest.

Terrain: I finally managed to finish my first terrain board, I went pretty much every wrong way about this but the end board is OK, it's not going to last forever but at least I learnt a few things on the way.

I started out by PVA gluing the MDF board and pouring a sand mix on, first lesson learnt, have enough sand! I ran woefully short so decided to spray on tile adhesive to harden the sand board, this simply made a part sanded board VERY sticky. Sooo, I made up a large sand mix, made a spray bottle up of watered down PVA and sprayed and sanded the whole board again, once this was dry I sprayed the board black, then painted with a cheap poster paint brown and then drybrushed a few lighter shades and added some grass flock.

Bits still drop off the board when rubbed but it should last a few games:

I also painted up the CD scatter terrain I made a couple of months ago, nothing too detailed, same base with grey drybrushed buildings and some spot colours added.

I also found some plastic throwaway fire alarm covers at work which look good as bunker buildings. Some old 28mm bits, bottle tops and zip ties produced this:

Only thing I need to do now is get on and play some games!!

Dirty little secrets...

Well, I didn't get nearly enough hobby time over the holiday period due to not actually been sober enough to to focus on anything smaller than my hand! Hobby gifts were slim on the ground this year too (a pack of D6 and a pair of slippers to keep me warm while painting in the garage).

I did manage to get a few mini's painted and due to having a nice eclectic mix primed up ready I was able to pick and choose any and experiment with the painting, ending up with this crew. All ready for a small skirmish or a shooty game of Blasters and Bulkheads.

Just before we get to the new year I thought i'd clear up my work space in the garage, while cleaning away I kept finding more and more mini's just forgotten about or half finished in boxes. Which leads me to one of wargamings little secrets (or not so secret), pretty much no one can keep up with the demand of releases coming out, just trying to get one army painted and based can take years not allowing for all the shiny items that come out in between. I'm guilty of it as much as anyone, having multiple projects on the go and still keeping one eye on ebay/news sites for any good deals.

So, having a good tidy up allowed me to take stock of what I've got and to start planning out the projects for the year, only problem is they don't look that many, I keep convincing myself I can run more! I have included my 28mm projects here too, just to give myself a written reminder of what I proposed:

• Vostroyan Army (28mm): Almost, almost there with this, been working on it for about two years and i'm down to the last ten man squad and two vehicles to finish, then it's basing and I will have completed a 1000 point all metal vostroyan troop force. :)

• Ork Army (28mm): This one has been collecting dust for awhile, still needs a few characters and vehicles painting (the warbikes finally killed it for me in the end, I hated trying to build and paint these so they ended back in the box).

• Battlefleet Gothic/Full Thrust: Still need a couple of ships to complete my BFG chaos fleet and start getting it on the table, some of the Full thrust ships look mighty tasty too....I have also started drafting out a one page ruleset for space combat.

• Wood Elves (28mm): Another one bought on a whim for a game i'm very unlikely to play, about halfway ish through painting these but still a way to go, a nice distraction now and then.

• Mantic - Kings of war/Warpath (28mm): Big fan of Mantic and what they do, I picked up the Kings of War starter last summer and tried to do an intense 3 week speed paint of the whole box (over 100 minis!), it quite literally broke me and it has been sat back on the shelf in shame. Good learning experience though, and with the Warpath starter showing up for as little as £30 now with two full armies and rules I might be tempted again.......

• Adeptus Titanicus: I used to love this and the Titan models, unfortunately sold them all a few years ago. Now on the lookout to try and pick up some new minis and build a titan order.

• Rogue Trader: Another ruleset I really miss, would love to pick up another copy of this and a few RT era mini's for small RPG skirmishes. Along with a possible Iron Hands/Adeptus army.

anyway on to the 15mm:

• USNC army: Picked up a fair few more mini's and vehicles for the USNC, still going to paint them in a sci fi red colour scheme but I want to experiment with some more realistic looks.

• Mech Detachments: I've a few mech minis to paint up and I was inspired by the recent release of the Imperator (which looks great) and the number of complaints about it's cost to see how many different mechs suitable to 15mm I could source for £20, managed to find some interesting specimens which I hope to paint up and blog soon.

• Cultist/Mechanicus: Got a few packs of the cultist mini's from 15mm.co.uk (they look a little off scale to me? wonder if it's the large bases they are on) and they look ripe for converting into a Mechanicus cult troop with robotic arms etc. the cyborg enslavers that came free with this order should go well with these too.

• Characters: A big mass of individual character models to paint here, I loved painting what I got so far so expect these to be high up on the priority list.

• Alien troops: From Mercenaries to Crusties, lots and lots to paint up.

• Redemptionist force: Fair few of these to get stuck in to, having a few problems seeing the details on some of the models but I might just try some painting experiments and see how it goes. Also the 15mm.co.uk site has just updated with new pics for the Laserburn range, looking a lot better.

• Terrain/Terrain/Terrain: bane of my life, must admit I do not like making terrain but I still have all the scatter terrain from before and the main boards to finish. Ho hum.

Phew! that felt pretty epic working through it all, but all going well I should be able to knock each one off the list in good time......

Rules Rules Rules

Busy,Busy, busy this month with work and the run up to Chrimbo but i've still managed to get some hobby time here and there.

First up the hobby board, oh dear what a bloody mess! I ran out of sand and then the tile adhesive was a complete disaster (made the whole board very sticky to touch) so I've picked up a new sand mix and a spray bottle for diluted PVA, fingers crossed for this one...

I have managed to finish off the Fubar Mech rules and posted them up here on the Forge of War:

http://www.forgeofwar.uk.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=119

I now have a full appreciation of just how hard it is to get a set of rules written, I started off months ago sketching out ideas on a notepad then wrote and re wrote the one page rules numerous times, even now a few inconsistencies are showing but it has been an interesting project to work on and I already have plans/ideas to expand it in the future.

On to the 15mm rules, when I first get into anything I find myself getting really sucked in, I have to know everything from every angle so I ended up reading a fair few rules and here's my take on them:

Fubar: Great one page set of rules that works really well with 15mm, very adaptable and was the catalyst for my take on 15mm Mech combat rules above.

Forge of War: From the same team as Fubar, must admit this set has not really grown on me, some of the mechanics feel a little hard going (constant addition/subtraction) but is is still a work in progress so i'll keep my eye on it.

USE ME: Cheap set of rules (£3.50) from 15mm.co.uk, easy going and quick to read but what got me was how much was packed in, off board bombardments, swarm AI, solitaire rules, points calculator etc. It is simple but if you just want to grab some minis and get playing it does the job, highly recommended.

Chain Reaction 3.0: I read everywhere about people playing 5150: Star Army and this is the free set of base rules it is based on. I certainly needed to read this through a few times as the mechanics are VERY different to the typical wargame but they do make sense and are pretty refreshing. Looks like it would suit solo play well although I can't imagine using these rules to play large army battles etc.

Tomorrows War: Apparently setting a new standard in 15mm rules, this hardback and well designed book can be picked up from Amazon for just under £15 now so I grabbed a copy. I think I went in expecting something completely different as this feels a little too dry for me, the emphasis on hardware advancement levels and troop training left me a bit numb to the game, so I've put this on the backburner to pick up at a later date when hopefully it will inspire me a bit more (perhaps when the Alien book appears next year?). On another note the background design on each page felt a little too full on for me, I had a bit of trouble reading the text going through.

Blaster and Bulkheads: Another fairly cheap rulebook based on powers using the "Force", this just looks fun, with leads powerful characters and groups of henchmen. Already building up some models to game with this, what also struck me was what was missing i.e morale rules, this did not detract form the rules in the slightest and I want to game with these because of it. On the document design front, if a version with a smaller font could be made it would be great. I print out my docs in A5 format and even that small the font appeared large, a few less pages would make the rules nice and compact.

Anyway, I've been working on the mass pile of figs at my side so should hopefully have some pics next time!

Painting up the Reavau

Phew! Work and the run up to Christmas have really taken a bite out of my hobby time! BUT i've managed to paint up two squads of the Micropanzer Reavau, first up is the standard infantry unit:

and secondly i have literally just finished painting the kommando unit:

quite liked how these came out, I was tempted to paint their hand weapons as power swords etc but I like the concept of the high tech mixed with the primitive.

To paint these up I used:

Basecoat: Black.

Skin:

1: Snakebite leather.

2: Ogryn flesh wash.

3: 2x highlight coats of Snakebite leather mixed with increasing amounts of Dwarf Flesh.

Armour:

1. Dark flesh.

2: Ogryn Flesh Wash.

3: 2 x highlight coats of Dark flesh mixed with increasing amounts of Red Gore.

Guns:

1: Goblin Green.

2: Thraka green Wash.

3. Highlight of Goblin Green and white, highlight of white.

Hand Weapons:

1: Graveyard earth.

2: Bleached bone.

3: Devlan Mud wash.

4. Bleached Bone/White highlight.

For the Base:

1: Graveyard Earth.

2: Desert Yellow.

3: Bleached Bone.

I still have the Beasts to paint up but the two squads here and the USNC squads below should give me a good starting point to get playing.

With luck I should be able to get a few posts out this week concerning the other items i've been working on! :)