Vostroyan Trade Delegation

The Vostroyans sent a trade delegation to the Brabant system in order to open negotiations for access to the agri-world bounty. Little did they know that the placid town of Bruegelburg would see events that would reshape the sector.....

These lovelies are a combination of Lead Adventure's lovely characterful sculpts and GW's plastics, and went from inspiration to completion in no time. 

Lady Ksenia is a powerful psyker whose abilities are both enhanced and tempered by the psychic crown she wears. While Uncle Sergei (left) is nominally her Firstsworn Bodyman, his first duty is to kill her with that relic blade if something terrible tries to manifest through her. Uncle Mistislav, to the right, has the real business acumen in the family, but is nominally only an advisor. His servo skull has a plasma pistol built in to keep things honest.   

Servo skulls, while cool, are hard, as they generally have to be attached even though they float. Luckly Uncle Mistislav's hangs readily off of his hat and shoulder. I contemplated giving Ksenia her own skull, but opted to leave her unadorned.

Lady, Smoker, The Fat One, and Lincoln are from the Rogue Trader boxset, more specifically, the sprue purchased from eBay. I had some metal Vostroyans, but turned them into AdMech troops, so it was either turn them back or come up with new ones. 

I dig how GW went the extra mile and varied the body types with these. The way they cut the models to sprue them was weird, but they went together with little fuss. 

The Pack Ape is from Lead Adventure's Bruegelburg line, and, if you look closely, is a dude in a suit rather than a true servitor. It's a pretty awesome little model, and I cannot sing their praises enough as a minis company.

I added the baggage after the fact, of course, as the Vostroyans would want to bring silks and whatnot to show off at the trading table. 

Little Vanya, the standard bearer, was a fat-faced Bruegelburg kid with a miscast nub of a left hand, so I replaced it with a metal standard that used to belong to a Rackham Undertaker from their Cadwallon line. 

I like the way she turned out, and as I have lots of leftover kids from the Bruegelburg Fair Kickstarter, will definitely be making more of these. 

Also, if you know how to switch Blogger to Disqus commenting or something less stupid, I would love tips or a step-by-step.

Just an orphan....

Because I have a massive amount of free time due to being out of work, I'm plowing through the minis from Kickstarters that have been languishing on the To-Do pile. So, this gun-toting orphan from Lead Adventure's Denizens of the Smog is just the first. Expect some Astropolis stuff, more steampunk stuff, probably some warbands, and some Raging Heroes heroine babes. 

Oh, and more weaponized children. 

First Mini of the Year!

A freelance biologis researcher equally at home in games of INQ-28 or Shadows of Brimstone, this fellow was a relatively simple conversion involving drilling out the metal elf head of a Reaper elf alchemist and attaching a Lead Adventure kickstarter reward head. I pondered giving him a servo-skull buddy or a handgun of some kind, but it would've limited his playability a bit. 

I really dig the step up in quality we've seen from Reaper lately, including in their Dreadmere line. I just wish they'd drop their Bones plastic. It's awful shit that bends like rubber and can't hold paint worth a damn. Don't be lured in by the low price, folks: avoid avoid AVOID. 

Last Model of 2018....

Last model of 2018 was this nifty little generator made from scrap parts on a whim. 

Happy 2019, people. 

Gundam Vidar....

Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron Blooded Orphans is worth watching not only for the amazing mechanical designs, but also for the fact that do a lot of things with the story an characters that turn Gundam tropes upside down. The Vidar is actually the (better looking, in my opinion) version of the Gundam Kimaris, a villain mobile suit gets a lot of neat battlefield moments in the series. This one is made from RAFM Heavy Gear parts, a Mekton, a Battletech Commando, a Marauder, and various other bits and bobs.

The actual Vidar has wing shields on extendable arms on its thruster backpack, but I just plain didn't have the bits, and so opted for sensor aerials. They look like vestigial wings, which is rather the point. 

Those big things on the hips are binder that hold replacement foils for the Vidar's close combat weapons; oversize armor-pierceing fencing foils. It's also meant to have a set of hidden handguns in the front armor panels, but there's only so much you can do at this scale. 

Those shoulders are from the Insane Kangaroo Hunchback model, which comes with parts for every variant and thus a wealth of conversion fodder. It has the wheelie heels for ground mobility, because it's meant to be a space unit adapted for ground combat. It still has the huge thrusters in its calves, knees and backpack, so it's more than capable of getting airborne in the lower gravity of Mars. 

Happy Cyber Monday, people. 

The O

Paptimus Scirocco's the O is one of the more recognizable mobile suits from the Zeta Gundam anime series, and is a really solid, iconic design. Boasting a large, overpowered beam cannon, heavy armor, and high mobility, the O was far from ponderous or slow, and boasted a set of sub-arms under its skirts, making it a formidable hand to hand opponent as well. 

So, having a bunch of spare parts in hand, I built it as a Heavy Gear. 

The legs are from a RAFM Grizzly that came in a sealed blister with no torso. The torso, backpack, and arms I had on-hand from a RAFM Spitting Cobra since the late 1990's. The skirts are missile pod doors from Alternative Armies. (as is the head bit)  You can actually order bits from them via email, and the AA staff is friendly and very easy to work with. I, of course, got more than just a few doors. More on that later. The sub-arm sticking out is from an old RAFM Stone Mason gear mini. RAFM's quality control was atrocious, so this blister, which was missing parts in the old days, became just spare parts. Those bits on the shoulders.... I forget where they came from, but they looked like folded-up sub-arms to me, and bulked up the shoulders satisfactorily.  

That backpack is from the Spitting Cobra as well. Those thrusters on the butt? A Silent Death fighter. As with all Heavy Gear minis of the period, it's really served well by bits broadening the shoulders so you can more solidly attach the arms to the torso. 

The O traditionally carries an enormous beam rifle, but this one turned into something slightly more mundane. That gun is two plastic heavy bolters mated together; I debated for a long time whether to include the clip and make it a machinegun, but as it has a port for ejecting spent casings, I found a suitable bit for one.

Happy Monday, people. 

WIP: Threat Approaching, Boss Battle Imminent....

I know, I'm still on the mecha kick, but this thing has no brakes. I started trying to make the original Jovian Chronicles Dragonstriker, a boss mecha from one of the two Mekton-era modules, but, as with other models, it has since morphed into an updated neo-version of itself. 

I've also dabbled a bit in FFG X-Wing style rules for the old JC stuff, as there is no good mecha combat system currently in existence. Behold:

For those not in the know, the Pathfinder is sort of the baseline Jovian hero mecha.

And the Wyvern is its burly tyrannical Earth nemesis. Resemblences are intentional, as JC was cooked up as a not-Gundam Gundam game, and the art was largely based on Gaia Gear. If you don't know what that is, Google it. It's Gundam with the Sci-Fi knob turned up to eleven. Beautiful stuff. Seriously.  

I can hear you 40kers breathing out there. There's lots for you too when this is over. 

It'll be done when it's done.

Happy Saturday, people. 

A Tower Mechanical...

Somewhere along the way I contracted extensive 40k fatigue, but with October coming along I felt the groove of grim darkness returning, and so made a bits box delve to make this tower. The top centre portion is large enough for snipers to sit comfortably in (well, maybe two snipers, max) and was made to come off, but somewhere during the painting process became welded in place. Prying it apart might ruin things, so I've decided to let it be. Hide your ambush cards elsewhere for the time being. 

With the emphasis being on buildings you can move into and around in 40k and its various sub-games, you see so few that are intact, and that's sort of a shame. There's a sort of grandeur there that, while beautiful in ruin, is sort of missed by not seeing the intact, prewar thing on the tabletop. Ah well. 

Once Again to Space.....

Yes, the one on the left used to be a horrible pink. It was worth stripping and changing.

 I've posted the other two before, and you might remember the mecha in the middle from a post a while back when it looked like this: 

It's gone through a few changes, to be sure; different head, different backpack, new weapons, and now it looks like the machine the heroes get near the end of the series/third disc of the video game/etc: 

I was browsing around some different hobby sites for color ideas, and found a Gundam build I just had to emulate. The thing reminded me so much of the titular mecha from the  much-celebrated PS1 game Xenogears that I instantly wanted one (but didn't want to buy a bunch of Gundam kits). So, I changed the head a bit to resemble the old Jovian Chronicles sculpts, and added bits to resemble the Exia's GN-Sword and OO's GN-Rifle. The backpack comes from Mekton bits, Warmachine bits (thanks for continuing to sell bits, Privateer Press) and a Crimson Skies autogyro. 

While the metallic blues are a bit underwhelming, the golds really make this thing light up. The forms also lend a lot of forward thrust to the overall shape. 

I'm least satisfied with the build of the rifle, for some reason. The bayonet at the end doesn't feel exactly right to me, but the thing is at last done, so I'd rather not tear it down and rebuild it. 

As to what he's made to fight? Who knows. Maybe there's a giant mobile armor in the future. For now, he'll occupy a place of honor on the shelf.... when I can find one his outside frame will fit on. At the moment he hovers above my desk, being too big for the little cubbies in the printer's drawer hanging on my wall. 

Army for Sale: Skaven Horde....

Update!: Both this and my Undead Skaven army have been sold. 

 Alas, it's time for the last of my WHF armies to go; farewell, my skittering hordes of vile ratmen. We had a blast, and I do mean a lot of blasts. The skaven were an army made to go sideways, and you got a laugh out of it every damn time. 

A bunch of Black Tree Designs models (supplemented by 5 slaves from another range) these metal Clanrats were cheaper as a mob of 20 than a box of GW plastics. Ditto the Plague Monks, Stromvermin, and Gutter Runners below. They didn't come with banners, just poles, so I made some suitably ratty ones from actual cloth scraps from the lining of an old backpack. 

The frenzied plague monks were actually the best unit in the whole codex. Their speed combined with multiple attacks made them an absolute buzzsaw. Didn't wear a scrap of armor, either. 

Stormvermin looked tougher than they played, which was fine because I didn't want the enemy throwing his tougher units against, say, my weak clanrats

This sneaky distraction created as many problems as they'd solved for me, and more than once caused a chain-reaction panic run back to my edge of the board. 

The burly Master Moulder at the end was converted from a Reaper Orc. Some buck teeth and green stuff went a long way to making a buff taskmaster, and believe me, the skaven need keeping in line. I always liked clan Skryre, too. Their weird ramshackle inventions gave the army as a whole a lot of character. 

As warmachines went, the Screaming Bell was a pretty good one, although you had to have your clanrats push the damn thing everywhere, and when they went running.... well...

Perhaps my all-time favorite warmachine was the Doomwheel. This one was built out of the parts I could order from the very much missed GW bits site. They didn't have all the bits on order, so I had to convert up the rest; the back cogs came from some dwarf warmachine or other from another range. Yes, those are are crossbows on the hubs instead of huge blades, which proved to be a boon in the long run because it's easier to transport on its side. 

It was great when it worked, but when the warp lightning cannon misfired, ooooooh boy. Kiss anything nearby good-bye.

The two big Rat Ogres are, in fact, Reaper models converted up to be suitable ratty. At the time, like many others in this army, they were substantially cheaper than the equivalent GW models. Only the one in the middle of the upper 3 is a GW one, in fact. The other two are also from Black Tree. 

While the unreliable Warpfire Thrower always worked reliably for me, the Ratling Gun once scythed down two blocks of my infantry like so much wheat. I never laughed so hard during a wargame in all my life. 

Those three Jezzail teams on the bottom used cannons from another range, but I think together they all look suitable ramshackle enough to be a skaven unit. At the time, you couldn't do much better for missile troops than skaven jezzails. (sigh.)

Buy them together with my undead horde and you get a truly monstrous army LOL.

Ebay listing here.