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.