2mm Irregular Arrivals

My gaming buddy Iken and I have been gearing up to make a serious go at Land Ironclads and in doing so we place a big order for 2mm troops from Irregular Miniatures. In all, we ordered three army packs, a supply pack, and a few odds and ends planes, elephants and such.

I will note that while I like doing business with Nic at Eureka, I really couldn't justify ordering the Irregular stuff from him. The cost for the figs, even after exchange rate, come to about 15% more and Irregular only charged us 10% shipping instead of the regular 15% that both they and Eureka charge (because the order was only 2mm stuff). They shipped the order on the 1st and it got here today on the 9th. Fast shipping across the pond.

Only the elephants and one of the army packs is mine but I'm only building one force and Iken is building two. We will be sharing the supply pack but I'm not surei f we are just doing generic supply bases or if we are going to divy them out to specific armies. I haven't been able ot handle the minis yet as they were shipped to his house, but I must admit that I may have ordered the wrong army but I am sure it'll get used nonetheless.

I ordered the Afghan Army pack as I thought it would have a different feel to it than the various European army packs, but it looks, at least from the glimpse in the picture, like the mix of figures may be a bit TOO different. I'll reserve final judgement but I may end up having to make a Martian tribal coalition instead of a citystate army. Iken is planning to front me some of his cav as his alien army he is making doesn't use them. The elphants are going to be converted into Martian beasts but more on that later. I am going to be doing some of the most microscale conversions I've ever done to try to get my 2mm to look like a VSF Martian army ala Space 1889/John Carter.

Stay tuned for more updates!

-Eli

More Martian Settlements

this could be arranged along canals as narrow, canal-side settlements. The picture to the left gives you a look at the simple but effectivestreet orien

The Martian settlements project has been highly experimental but incredibly fun. I have been trying to find more and interesting ways to do them. This is one of those.

What you see is a table edge section of city with a fortifiefied city gate, towers and wall. This would be perfect to set up at the of the table so there is a bit of local color without having it be center stage. This is also the first piece that I tried using accent colors on, giving several of the buildings a crimson stripe as well as the towers and gate.

Future plans for this and other pieces like it include additional table edge sections or possibly modulare city interior pieces that will allow me to create cities of various sizes. Another thought is that pieces like this could be used along canals. The picture to the left show the orientation including a curious back alley.

Hope you like!

-Eli

Mutant Menaces - Pardon Me Mr. Squid

Ambassador Squid

No. Enc. Solitary

Alignment : Lawful

Movement : Fly 200’ (60’)

Armor Class : 8

Hit Dice : 3
Attacks : None
Damage : None
Save : L8
Morale : 5
Hoard Class : None or XI for "Major Domo"

The strange creature known as the ambassador squid may or may not be a mutant at all but its striking resemblance to a terrestrial cephalopod does suggest that it most likely is. Whatever it is, the ambassador squid is an oddly noble creature that seems to have little purpose in life other than to assist others.

Flitting about with an innate flight power, these squids go from place to place offering their intellect and interpersonal skills to those in need. Whether it be peace negotiations, trade agreements, or determining the lot due to a band of mercenaries, the ambassador squid is your “thing”. Using a soft-spoken, soothing telepathic voice, these creatures can calculate the variables of the given circumstances of any agreement or situation, finding the best solution for all parties. Though not a bag of combat tricks or attack powers, in the harsh, brutal land these sorts of skills are rare and useful for the survival of struggling communities.

In some cases ambassador squids have found their way into positions of permanent employment, gaining a roof over their head, a place in the world and remuneration in exchange for their abilities. More often than not, these individuals take on a role such as that of a Major Domo or Prime Minister.

Mutations: Flight, Telephathic Communication, Universal Translator, Empathy.

Wasteland Robots

One of the projects I've been working on involves converting Wizkids Mechwarrior mechs into robots for 15mm post-apocalyptic gaming. Most of these have required very little work except for a few touch-ups to the paint and some weathering to expose bare metal from under the paint. I didn't do a lot of rusting or anything on these because I want them to have that weathered future look and to me the future means shiny metal that doesn't rust (well sometimes anyway). Two of the robots I did represent renegade Russian combat robots and are known as "Red Bots" both for their color and their origin. The pics below are crappy WIP pics taken with my camera phone.

There ya go. The Red Bots now have a nasty green optice in the middle of that dark void in the front of their heads. For the two yellow industrial robots on the right of the bottom pic, I turned the torsos around on the body, flipped the arms and painted the glass cockpit as a metal power source or something on the back. The original back parts of the robot, make a pretty cool head in my opnion. As for the robot on the left, I removed the original cockpit for the mech that was located at the crotch area. It looked dumb and the robot looks better without na obvious head or cockpit. The white and read one is a power loader sort of deal that I wanted to give a space age look.

Enjoy!

-Eli

Elf Bait #3 - Other Blogs By Me

While patrolling through my blogger settings I came across a few earlier attempts at blogging that I had done. These were attempts at using blogs for world building for D&D, an experiment that proved useful to a degree but that utlimately ended up giving way to the use of Wikis instead.

The first of these is my Homeland blog. This was the creation space for my first original D&D campaign world since high school. Up until then I had played in the same campaign setting that had been growing, rather organically, until about five years ago when I decided I wanted to run a new setting. Homeland was an attempt to create a campaign with its roots in a rustic setting from which adventure could grow.

The second is just a beginning but it does details some of the races I intended to use for a campaign setting that took place in Ravania, a land that had previously existed on the edge of my original campaign setting from the high school days. This expansion of a part of the world was modernized, updated and fleshed out with my newer creative stylings.

Give them a look and feel free to comment on the various posts. I've kept them mostly private up until now, but would love to hear what folks think.

Take care,

-Eli

Board Game of Intense Epic Goodness - Stronghold

I have had a chance to play this game twice now, one in a two-player game and the second in a four-player game. I am happy (and surprised) to say that it plays well in both modes.

For those who are not familiar with the game, it is a game that is not so much the simulation of a siege but the story of a siege in a fantasy realm. The players are playing not to prevent or complete the siege so much as they are to make a good story of it. Victory points shift from Attacker to Defender as the game plays on and each side has the option for additional victory points for completing certain key events in the tale such as breaking down two wall sections, sacrificing so many goblins, or for keeping the standard flying over the keep.

One thing I really love about this game is the main dynamic with it's very Newtonian concept that every action the Attacker takes results in time for the Defender to use toward actions. There are some interesting balancing elements to all of this letting the Attacker budget time by allocating his better troops to accomplishing tasks in less time and thus granting less time for the Defender to act. Also, while the Attacker's actions tend to take effect immediately, the Defender has to work up to results in various "workshops". Everything in this game comes down to time and timing.

Ultimately the winner of this game is not determined by whether the attacker is able to take the castle or not but by which side fought the better fight of it. Time is against the Attacker, but he does not want to rush in and crush the walls and miss out on making his story better. The Defender really scores his points by holding the Attacker off and ultimately wins by keeping the Attacker at bay long enough that really the gap in points cannot be closed by the final bonus points scored when the Attacker makes his way through the wall and into the interior of the castle.

I really love this game. In fact it was two weeks between my first and second game and I was very much feeling anxious to try it out again.

Replay on this game is huge as the Attacker get different siege assets available to him every time based on the draw of cards. This then changes the strategies of the game. Even more, this game plays just as well two player as it does with 3+. Even the side of the board you control as the Attacker or Defender in a four player game will change the way the game plays for you. Once again, replay is big on this game.

My only caution with this game is it is not quick. This game will make you think, plot, plan and strategize and you had best be prepared to invest several hours to it. Our first four player game, with all players having played the game before ran for about 4 hours. There were breaks in there for restroom and chat, but it made for a good epic game. Another thing to be careful of is that this game has a set turn limit but is often decided well before that limit is reached. Not a game to play with people who are afraid to concede.

Anyhow, give it a play and enjoy!

-Eli

[For more information, reviews, and images of games boards, games in play, and game components check out the listing at Board Game Geek here - http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/45986.]

Martian Settlements For Land Ironclads/Aeronef

Sooooo,

It seems that I have been away from miniatures for a bit. Not true.

Since losing my digital camera, as lame as it was, I have been a bit gunshy about trying to post on miniatures projects because I coul;dn't seem to get any good pics. I have since had some luck taking decent WIP pics with my camera phone, so I thought I'd start to post some stuff that I've been working on.

The first thing I'd like to share is a WIP of some town/city terrain I have been doing for use with Wessex Games' Land Ironclads and Aeronef games. The general scale of these games is 1/1200 or thereabouts though the infantry figures used are generally 2mm which is more like 1/900 but any smaller an they may as well be cardboard counters. So, I took some scrap balsa, some cork tile and got to work.

These are actually quite simple to make. Tear off an area of tile to form the roacky outcropping upon which the Martians have built thei settlements. The cut various sized bits of balsa and get to work laying out your settlement plan. I decided to keep them relatively simple and work mainly with simple rectangles for the most part. The three that are pictured above were the first three I did and show a modest township as well as a two smaller locales that might work well for some sorts of monasteries, villas, etc.

After they are aseembled, they are sprayed black and then painted with a combination of rusty red earth tones for the ground, an off-white color for the buildings and simple black for the doors and windows. I thought about painting the doorways another color but really it just blurred the details and at this scale, I just needed the hint of door and windows. In some places, where hte balsa didn't cut right and left some rough edges, I painted the pieces like ruined buildings showing a mix of the white-wash and natural red Martian mud.

In a future post, I'll show off some additional work I've been doing with this project, but I hope you like the results so far.

Thanks,

-Eli