Red Band Additions

I previously posted about my 20mm wasteland raiders, the Red Band, and here's an update. My warband had five painted vehicles and 15 minis. Here's an addition:

Profile view of Crusher, the latest addition to the Red Band's motor pool.

Front view of Crusher with five new additions to the Red Band.

Lots of red mohawks in the new additions.

Reverse view.

Front view of Crusher. An intimidating prospect.

We've already played another game of Desert Raiders with these folks in play. Will post soon, it was perhaps the most fun wargame I've ever played. More to follow.

Multi-Use 20mm Sci-Fi Infantry: My United Nations Legionnaires

As I'm continuing to build out the planet Sanctuary, the setting for my space opera, I'm painting up minis and vehicles for different factions. Part of this is my Tomorrow's War campaign following a platoon of United Nations Legionnaires. (Game 1 and Game 2 links)

The minis used for this are K-Kraft 20mm Androis Army. I really like them because they look different from my other minis, which are mostly Elhiem, and because they are generic enough to look like Starship Troopers (movie version) or the ODST troopers in Halo.

The UN Legion platoon is divided into four Lances of five men each. Each Lance is supposed to be supported by a an Unmanned Ground Vehicle (UGV) that brings extra firepower to the fight. 

Alpha Lance supported by a UGV.

Bravo Lance in urban operations.

Charlie Lance on the move.

Delta Lance disembarking from a small shuttle.

Hope to have some more games posted featuring these guys soon.

The Red Band: Desert Raiders 20mm Sci-Fi

In building out the world on the planet Sanctuary, my sci-fi setting, I've added a faction called the Red Band, a group of raiders, mercenaries, and local muscle that would look at home in any Mad Max, Gaslands, or other post-apocalyptic desert environment.

All of the Minis are from Elhiem's Dark Future range, except for the Gun Buggy crew, which are from Stan Johansen's 20mm Road Warrior range. The vehicles are done up with a mixture of the two lines' gun and armor add-ons for Matchbox cars.

I put something red on each Mini - a scarf, dye in their hair, tattoos, or article of clothing - to make sure that they look like they're on the same team.

Here's the leader of the gang, Nelly, in all her glory and at the head of her assembled crew.

Here's the whole gang (as currently constituted, there's more on the way) racing through a hole they just blasted in a settlement's wall.

Here's the War Wagon, which has a "hanger-on" who is removable. I painted one standing figure with the same red tattoos on his scalp and torso to represent the same guy once he has jumped off and charged into battle.

This is the Gun Buggy. No armor, but it carries a heavy machine gun and is plenty maneuverable on all kinds of terrain.

This is Kneecapper, which has a special attack against personnel that can be cut down by its tire blades. The double machine gun turret on top can lay down a wall of lead.

This is Bloody Mary, a 2-person gun car. Like Kneecapper she has a front-mounted gun that can only be fired when she is stationary, but is useful for breaching the walls of desert settlements. Both Bloody Mary and Kneecapper have turreted machine guns as well.

This is the Mothership, a battle transport that serves as the Red Band's primary means at spiriting away hostages seized from outland settlements. She's got a turreted machine gun and can carry a number of troops.

Here's the Red Band assembled and ready for battle.

Elhiem Elite Taliban and RPG Gunners Painted

I’ve got a couple of games played and awaiting write-ups, but haven’t found the time to get them done. In the meantime, here’s some pics of some Elhiem minis I’ve painted, I think they came out rather well:

Hope to get the battles they fought in posted soon. Stay tuned!

Covert Intervention Reluctant Heroes 1 Painted

As I said in this previous post, I'm very excited about the forthcoming DEFCON Zero from Covert Intervention Games.  I had previously ordered some of their new miniatures from the Reluctant Heroes line, which features armed civilians.  I think this is a niche within the miniatures world generally, and in 20mm/1-72nd scale particularly, that remains under-resourced.


I've got the Reluctant Heroes 1 set painted, and here they are in hi-res photos to let you zoom in:

Front

Back



I'm impressed with the sculpts, and appreciated the opportunity to have a mini running a pump shotgun wearing a shotshell bandolier - zoom on the 'Back' photo, far left.


Pretty cool minis, which will work into modern pulp, adventure, or zombie settings very well.

Cheap 28mm Miniatures

Been spending a bit of time on ebay lately, assembling some minis for future gaming endeavors.  I'm surprised to see the low prices on some Games Workshop figurines - you could pay less than original retail for assembled and competently painted minis if you are patient.

One thing that I ran across was sets of miniatures for a Russian game, Castlecraft.  They come in sets with buildings or in blister packs of eight, with four minis from each of two sides (the factions vary from knights to barbarians to others such as orcs, etc.).  Including the cost of shipping from Russia, the price comes out to about $1.00 a mini!  I took a chance on a couple of packs, and was able to amass the loot pictured below.

The original packaging.  A knights versus barbarians pack.

Four knights, good for Song of Blades and Heroes or other fantasy skirmish games.

Four Roman legionnaires.  I hadn't planned on going historical, but it would be a chance to teach the boys about history and have fun while doing so.

Two sets of slightly different barbarians (similar enough to be part of the same warband, though) from two different blister packs.  I've wanted to build a barbarian warband, and now I've done it for eight bucks!

The minis have some flash on them that I'll have to trim off, but a size comparison shows them to be on par in height (though a bit stouter) than LoTR minis, and a bit smaller than the 'heroic' scale Reaper Bones minis.  They'll fit in just fine and come with beveled bases to boot - no additional basing necessary.  I may give some of these guys to the boys to paint.  For a dollar a piece, you just can't go wrong.

Wargaming Goals for 2016

As you may have noticed, I've been busy and the blog went dark for the last half or so of 2015.  And I'm off to a late start this year, as evidenced by my New Year's resolution post going up on the 18th of January.  Regardless, here's what I'm hoping to accomplish in my wargaming hobby in 2016:

1.  Play and write up two games a month.
2.  Finish creating factions for Song of Blades and Heroes:
- Orcs
- Dwarves
- Human soldiers/knights
- Undead
- Barbarians
- A mixed race adventuring party
3.  Finish a d10-based skirmish system that works well (in my eyes, at least) for modern combat.  If it accommodates fantasy/medieval combat as well, that would be icing on the cake.
4.  Finish painting my 20mm modern minis.
5.  Run a Power Legion campaign using the Avengers.
5.  Build, patiently and on the cheap, some Warhammer 40k factions.  Whether I will eventually use the 40k rules or go with Tomorrow's War is up for debate.

We will see how work, kids, and real life intrude on my hobby this year.

A Gift for Earle

My gaming over the last year has been much more enjoyable because of Earle, another semi-regular at Colorado Springs Gamers Association.  He has also given me quite a few resin-cast vehicles.  As a parting gift, I painted these for him:

Enjoy!

New Avatar

I've got a new avatar photo, which displays a miniature I commissioned from Enfilade Figures.  Here it is:

KSK Recon Team

I've recently painted up a KSK (German special operations) team from Enfilade Figures:

Here's a photo of KSK operators on a reconnaissance mission in Afghanistan, which seems to be the source photo:

Fair resemblance, if I do say so myself.