An introductory Gruntz review and a Gruntz AAR: Operation Blind Emu

Played a friendly game of Gruntz down at my amazing FLGS, Great Escape Games, last night. It was a small game of 150 points as it was my opponent's first time playing. I decided to write up a little background for the engagement after the fact and I think I'm going to use a lot of it for my game setting.

As it was my friend's first time playing we decided to keep it simple. We played the first scenario out of the Gruntz rulebook, deploy on the long edges and kill as much of the opponent's assets while preserving your own.

After the jump, the AAR and my first impressions review of Rottenlead's Gruntz.

Combat Wombat 6x6's and 8x8's

It's been a bit since I got around to painting anything as I ran out of all of my painting accessories (blue-tac, magnets, primer, etc...) simultaneously and have just lately gotten around to gathering them all up again. Now I'm back into the swing of things and I figured the best way to get back to putting some paint on models was with these delightful 6x6's and 8x8's from Combat Wombat Miniatures. Here's a finished picture of the models, follow after the jump for some step by step and infantry size comparison...

A new force, new sweet rides, and a new inspiration

I've been away for a bit but don't let you think that I've been slacking off on my painting. Since my last update I've finished off my Khurasan federal army infantry (to be posted later, once they get some vehicles!), as well as an entire opposing force for them. One of my departures from the norm this last painting session was to try my hand at painting some vehicles for Reddit's monthly motivational painting challenge. My particular challenge was to get 4 Khurasan Iguanas and 4 Khurasan Polecats up and painted before the month was out. Here's how they turned out, as well as some other stuff I've been working on:

Khurasan Iguanas

Khurasan Polecats

More pics, and more stuff, after the jump...

Khurasan releases Iguana all terrain combat vehicle.

I've been waiting for this particular model for awhile and Jon at Khurasan just posted on the miniatures page that it's now released! Get it while it's hot, I know I'm picking up a few of these beasts, the quality looks great and it appears to be absolutely huge.

Backup, vehicle shopping, and an Opfor

Besides working on some terrain and a few other side projects, my current main project is almost complete. First up, some back up for my ash waste infantry.

This guy is sold by Khurasan Miniatures as "Red Faction" power armor, but as promised, is easily serviceable as a decent sized mech in 15mm. I've decided to call it a "heavy combat drone" and the fluff I'm writing for it is going to point out that it's a re-purposed mining drone.

Chain link fences tutorial

I've been incredibly busy painting up models for use as an op-for for my urban infantry (pics to come later this week) and working on terrain and board for these models.

After looking at my E-box buildings I had a realization, no security conscience force would build all of these industrial buildings without putting up some sort of perimeter to protect them. With that in mind, and a great example and tip on materials from Redditor geekd, (who is also a member of the G+ 15mm sci-fi community, if you haven't joined it yet, it's a great resource!), I set off to make some chain links of my own!

Here's the finished product:

If you want to see how I made these and what materials I used, read on!

Back from the trip and into the swing of things

I survived my cross country journey and was able to put some work in on making some terrain for the models I've been painting lately. For the first bit of terrain I made, I started with a staple of the 15mm sci-fi wargamer, the electrical box building. Most of the ones I've seen on the internet have looked great, but a bit too new for ash waste/urban infantry, I opted to go with more of a rusted out industrial sector look.

If you want to see the results, the in-process, and some action shots of my ash waste guys on patrol, read on:

Before we get started, as always, safety equipment is important. Pictured: Safety glasses and a t-shirt that I plan to soak and use as a dust mask.

Me vs. 13 Electrical Boxes, yes my pretties, you'll be buildings by the end of the day...

Back in a bit...

I'm taking a wee bit of a break this upcoming week to take a small little road trip. Here's the route, which I'll be driving from East (New York, NY) to West (Woodland, CA):

2800 odd miles, still better than driving through Texas...

Khurasan Fed Army and Power Armor

Since I'm in a holding pattern waiting for my new projects to arrive by mail I figured that I might as well get started on what little unpainted figures I have left.

First up is the power armor I'll be using with my Ash Waste Infantry, the models are Khurasan's Federal Power Armor, which at $7.99 for 5 are a bit more than I'm used to paying for 15mm, but well worth the price. The sheer bulk of these models makes them far more imposing than most of the other Power Armor I've seen for 15mm. I've gone ahead and ordered about 15 more of these for use with the various forces I've been building, as I'm absolutely in love with the look of them

Read on for the close ups and more!

Ash waste/urban infantry

Finally got the basic infantry and crew served weapons done for my ash waste infantry. I'm pretty happy with the scheme and how they turned out, though I'm massively disappointed that my USB cable for my camera has not shown up yet.

How to make a planet...

Mr. Harold over at Clear Horizon recently put up this post demonstrating some photoshop work he did to make some fictional planet images. They're really incredibly impressive, you should check them out if you're looking to add some fantastic imagery for the narrative setting of your campaign. Additionally, Mr. Harold put up a link to the tutorial, made by Greg Martin. Totally worth your time!

Finished combat drones

Finished painting my GZG mini hover drones for four of my different combat groups last night. Sorry about the terrible quality of the photos, I need to pick up a new USB cable for my DSLR and I couldn't take a decent picture with my phone for the life of me.

The above being said, I'm partial to the black and grey ones :).

Some great terrain stuff from Micropanzer

Micropanzer recently posted on TMP that they've just restocked some of their awesome building accessory packs. Each of them are a great deal and adding them to any of your electrical box buildings can really give your terrain those extra "details" that make it come alive. Additionally, they have some of the best 15mm heavy infantry I've ever seen, I'm particularly partial to their Amakudari line. Really, if you haven't had a chance to check out all of their stuff I'd suggest taking a look, I'm blown away by the quality and the incredibly reasonable prices. As an added bonus for all of us here in the States, Micropanzer is located on our side of the Atlantic and ships any order over $50 for free.

On the block: Drones

Next up on the painting block are some of my GZG drones. These little guys look great and the hover drones were snap to install on their bases. I like the wheeled drones as well, though I wish their was a more definitive sense of it being a drone instead of just a gun on wheels... Either way, these should be a blast to paint, though I'm still trying to decide what scheme I'm going to use.

First Impressions

For my gaming group's meeting tonight we tried a practice run of the ruleset I'm working on. Neither of my buddies had played anything resembling a tabletop wargame before so it was an interesting experience! I started off with the basics, how to move, determine whose turn it was, how to shoot, using 4 models a side. By the end of the night both guys felt comfortable using several differently configured fire teams, independent characters and with the idea of objective based missions. I'm really quite pleased with how this initial trial went. While there is still a ton of work left to do before I have the expansive skirmish campaign ruleset I want, I have to say I couldn't have been happier with how smoothly tonight went.

Getting an action shot of your models.

I saw this on BOLS a couple of weeks ago and couldn't resist sharing it. I've always wondered about the process that GW uses to make their box cover images and finally found out how. I think it looks great and when I get closer to finishing some more of my guys I think I'm going to give it a whirl.

My Khurasan Fed Army Models

These are the most recent batch of models I've finished (excluding basing, of course) and also the models that really got me interested in 15mm sci-fi wargaming. I decided to not do anything too crazy with them and stuck to a paint scheme that I felt was relatively close to Khurasan's paint job. Not my best work, though perhaps not totally unexpected due to my newbie status in the world of 15mm.

Looking at these pictures I'm really amazed at how well the detail popped out on these! I'm just as happy with these models as the day they showed up on my doorstep. My hat is off to Khurasan for these!

Because if you mean it, say it with an AFV...

Happy Valentine's Day!

Made this for my girlfriend for her annual Valentine's day tank gift (yes, that's a thing, and the fact that she loves it is one of many reasons why she is the Best. Girlfriend. Ever.)

An Introduction

Let me welcome you to my own humble little corner of the internet. I suppose that an introduction is in order, I've been a wargamer for nearly two decades at this point, I've played and flirted with most of the big games out there (both of GW's big games, Warmachine, Hordes, Flames of War), several of the smaller games (Several of Spartan's fleet games, Mordheim, etc...) and have finally reached the conclusion that 15mm Sci-Fi is the sweet spot for me. From the huge variety of models available thanks largely due to the renaissance that 15mm Sci-Fi is currently enjoying, to the fact that there's no single dominant rule system, it truly does feel like a vastly unexplored space in the hobby!

So what will you see on the blog? Primarily it'll be a place to document what I'm painting, cool new models/terrain/ideas I've seen regarding the hobby, and the occasional after action report from the scratch built set of rules that I've been writing. I hope you enjoy your time here, and I hope to see you in the comments!