Progress on the 15mm SF Front

Hello friends:

Not much blogging activity here but slightly more hobbying in the last month or so.   Last time I posted here it was about some Darkest Star models that were nearing completion.  Here they are all done and in flight (no, this isn't a scene from Masters of the Air).

The three "flying" models will be Terran military APCs, which will go nicely with some well painted infantry that a friend kindly gave me recently (see below).   All together, they make a decent infantry platoon to go up against my space kitties.  I couldn't tell you the manufacture of the human infantry.  They look properly armed and accoutered.   If you recognize them, pray leave a comment.

Here one section dismounts will the other two APCs remain in air to provide overwatch.  A wheeled recce AFV has gone forward to secure the landing zone.  I have no idea if that is sound Grav Infantry doctrine in future, but it seems legit.

There are a few decals from recently completed plastic airplane model kits that were put to good use.  That flight stand, by the way, is by Litko, and very useful.  I had to drill the bottoms of the models for the stand to fit, and since I was guessing where the centre of balance was, each model sits a little differently.

Not a great photo, but speaking of decals, you might recognize the unit and formation IDs on these vehicles, from a Flames of War set bought years ago.   I thought they made sense for a formation operating on an arid planet.

The entire platoon deployed.  That should give the Kzinti something to think about.  There's still a Terran grav tank to complete and some Canid allies to fight alongside the Terrans against the evil space kitties.

Of course, the universe is dark and full of fearsome things, including these four armed alien gribblies that my friend also kindly passed on to me.  On the left there's a fearsome pack of armoured beasts/bots/?? that look fast and deadly.   I have no idea who manufactures these figures, but I quite like them,

Speaking of deadly, some of these fellows have proper SF weapons and some have old fashioned choppers.  Like the Kzinti, it looks like the prefer hand to hand as much as shooting.   Are they Kzin allies?  Do they hate everyone?  Do they eat everyone?

I'm happy that I've gotten to the point where I could try a decent battle using Xenos Rampant, but I also have some rules sets for larger actions that I've bought from Nordic Weasal and never tried, so I have some options.

Blessings to your blasters!

MP+

WIP: 15mm AFVs from Darkest Star

Playing a game of Xenos Rampant with my friend James over the holidays has whetted my appetite to work on some recently purchased 15mm figures.  

These are resin models (with some metal bits for the wheeled AFV) from Darkest Star Games, a US (I think) company that makes some very nice models in 15mm and 6mm.   Below are two two 15mm grav (floating) APCs for a Terran force that I am slowly building to fight solitaire battles against my Space Kitties (see previous post).    The paint scheme is for deployments to desert/arid environments, inspired by the Canadian vehicles from the Afghanistan era.  I am used the Sand paint from Foundry tri-tone system, with brown ink lining out over the base coat.

Middle tone:

 And the two vehicles closed to the camera finished with the third and lightest coat for highlights.   When I get back to them, I’ll add some decals saved from various model sets for accents.  

As I envision it, the grav APCs could be dropped from a transport once within a planet’s atmosphere to secure a Landing Zone, whereas the wheeled AFV (can I call it a tank if it has wheels?) would need to b brought down to the planetary surface via heavy shuttle.

More on the project next time.   Cheers and blessings to your brushes!

MP+

In Space No One Can Hear You Purr: A Xenos Rampant Game

As my old pal James has described on his blog, we got together shortly after Christmas for a long overdue bit of dice rolling and a catch up on busy lives.   Too granddads playing with toys, it was lovely.  We’ve been pushing lead around this table in this basement for a long time, since the 1990s, when we were slimmer our hair was darker, and in that time the toys have changed but we always have a good time.

We decided to play an SF game using our 15mm kit and the relatively new Xenos Rampant rules.   James and I have been playing Dan Mersey’s “Rampant” rules for ages, and since many of the core mechanics are repeated in Dan’s fantasy, medieval, and now SF rules, we could get to the dice rolling fairly quickly.  We both built our forces using 24 points, which provides a manageable sized force and a fast result.

My SF army is inspired by Larry Niven’s Kzinti, intelligent and aggressive feline aliens, represented by the Tigrid miniatures from Khurasan.    James’ force is human, inspired by the Martian Marines from The Expanse TV series and novels.  Curiously, the base colour for both our forces is red.

Xenos Rampant is a clever tool kit that allows you to build your force out of some base types (Recon, Berserker, Light and Heavy Infantry, Support Weapons) that are essentially the same troops types as in the previous Mersey rules, and a set of alien traits that can add character and special abilities to a particular army.  For example, to make my Kzinti more “pouncy” I bought the Mobile trait which gave my infantry an astonishingly fast 12” movement per turn, and since Niven portrays them as being aggressive to a fault, I chose two ten man units of Berserkers to get into melee as quickly as possible.   They were backed up by a ten man unit of Heavy Infantry, an AFV with an area effect weapon (negates cover) and a support weapon team.

Here my force advances on the coveted kitty litter processing plant.   Fans of Space 1999 will appreciate the model adding some eye candy, perfectly scaled for 15mm.  My heavies are in the centre, the berserkers on either flank.    My Commander got lucky and rolled a trait that allowed him to make a unit within his 12” command range Assault (melee) automatically without an activation role, which proved useful to have with my two units of berserkers.

 

This shot shows James’ scratch built SF industrial scenery,  Well done James.  

 The Supreme Tigger (far right) and his troops arrive on the objective, which they would hold for the rest of the game.   The tank is a Ground Zero Games model, painted garishly to frighten the hairless monkeys.  It’s firepower proved quite devastating and helped me hold the centre for the game.

 

 

Two spectacular events in a row:  some of my berserker kitties got up to the quite battered human tank and destroyed it with catnip grenades, but were the exultant cats were immediately obliterated when James managed to call in the rail gun of his supporting space cruiser, which was a nice asset but far too spotty to be decisive.

 

There were a few rules that we hadn’t quite mastered, such as the Firefight rule which gives targeted infantry a chance to shoot back at their attackers.   However we both agreed that XR provides a quick and satisfying game with a good SF feel, so we will doubtless try it when we are next together.   James will no doubt reconsider his doctrine of five man units, as my ten man (cat) units proved more robust and dangerous when shooting.  

Later in the day we got to play with James’ endearing Quar figures, an “alt Great War” universe with, well, anteaters.   The figures are charming and I’m just glad that James wasn’t infected with that Turnip 28 disease.   You can read James’ account of our day here.

I’ve been fortunate in that a friend recently gifted me some of his 15mm SF figures, including a human force, and James kindly gave me a box of old 15mm SF figures from an estate sale that I look forward to going through, and hope to post some photos here in the future, so SF will be a focus of my hobby time in 2024 I think.  

Cheers and blessings to your lasers.

MP+

Checking into the blog after a busy spell (church work plus a LOT of gardening) to report on a brief game played using  Osprey’s Xenos Rampant, the new SF miniatures rules by Dan Mersey.  I heard good things about it from my friend James, and since both of us have crossed swords many times playing the fantasy rules Dragon Rampant, I thought it would be fairly easy to learn these rules since I knew the Rampant system.   I was right.

Xenos Rampant (XR) is best thought of as a tool kit that allows almost any conceivable SF trope to be modelled using the core Rampant rules architecture of values for Attack, Defence, Armour, Shooting, Morale.     The value of the tool kit comes in skills and doctrines that can be purchased for each troop type, and then a further set of “Xenos” skills that can be assigned as the SF trope demands.

In my case, I decided to pit my “Space Kitties” (Khurasan 15mm Tigrid figures), which I think of as Kzinti from the Larry Niven stories, vs humans.   I built a decent force of Kzinti-proxies using the Khurasan figures and vehicles from Ground Zero Games, giving me a mechanized platoon with some heavy support.    I’ve only recently started working on the human figures, so all I could do was pit one mounted section of cats vs a small section of human Recon Infantry.

One of the first decisions I had to make was whether to take the XR recommendation of converting inches to centimetres for 15mm figures.  I decided to keep the units as inches to give greater ranges as befitting future weapons.

Here a five man section of humans classed as Recon Infantry in XR terms.   The figures are from Darkest Sun miniatures  and since they are all I have currently painted, I decided to massively upgrade them, giving them the Sniper (no shooting penalties for long range fire), Combat Medic (chances to recover lost figures, basically a Heal spell in Dragon Rampant magic rules), and Fire Support (calling in off board artillery).   In rocky ground which is classed as hard cover, they sight a Cat APC and call in fires on it.

The fires have no effect, thanks to bad rolls, and the Skimmer goes to ground and disgorges a ten-strong section of angry Cats.   To reflect Larry Niven Kzinti canon, I made the Cats Berserker Infantry with Wild Charge, and gave them the Close Assault Doctrine which favours them in base to base assaults.    I also gave them the Mobile skill from the Xenos skills, making these Cats extra pouncy.   Not great fans of a firefight, but very fast and deadly in the charge: Banzai Space Kitties!

Here the Cats come under a second salvo of Human Fire Support and take casualties, but still charge into hand to hand combat.  Being in bad terrain meant the Humans has a decent chance to stand, which they did, throwing the Cats back with 3-1 losses.   In the following turn the human fire proved deadly and broke the Cats morale.

So a good opportunity for a quick look at XR and an incentive to paint more Terran figures and build some more SF terrain, which will mostly have a desert theme for the time being.  Good fun to dig out my SF toys and play with them, and hopefully James and I can get together for a chance to dig into XR some more.

Blessings to you die rolls!

MP+

Some 15mm SciFi Recon Troopers

After interviewing Curt Campbell for the podcast a while back, I decided that I’d like another go at his Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge, partly for the community, and partly because it’s a great incentive to be productive.  I’ve set myself a modest goal for this year, but have gotten three entries on the board so far.

Here are five 15mm SciFi troopers from Darkest Star Games.  DSG is a small but ambitious mini maker, that was recommended to be by Ivan of Nordic Weasel Games (@weasalnordic) when I asked on Twitter for some advice on sourcing 15mm SciFi figures.    I placed a small order, some humans and their humanoid canine (!!) allies to fight what I call my Space Kitties.  Readers with long memories may recall that in 2019 I started a SciFi project that was loosely modelled on Larry Niven’s Man-Kzin wars.   I knocked off a satisfying number of space cats, and then decided to back burner it while I looked for human figures for solo games.

Here’s the first contingent.

I had the idea of painting them in desert colours, using Citadel Zambezi Desert and Tallarn Sand as the main colours, while retaining sections of the dark undercoat to suggest segmented armour.  Vallejo German grey was also used for their clothing visible under the armour.

I wouldn’t want to use these in a stand-up fight but I could see them being used as Special Recon, in some SOF or LRDG role, the first to be inserted on an enemy occupied planet to scout landing zones, work with friendly indigenous inhabitants, attack high value infrastructure, that sort of thing.  All very sneaky beaky.  I gave them blue/white identifier markings on their shoulder armour, which I think is a pauldron if I remember rightly?  Which makes these guys almost Space Marines?  :)

Everybody I ever served with liked their unit patches, even on camo uniforms, and I don’t imagine the future will be any different.  Hopefully I’ll have more SciFi figures to show soon.

Thanks for looking. Blessings to your brushes!

Cheers,  MP+

Space Kitties Above and Beyond!

Staying with the 15mm SF theme a little longer, here are some more forces that I finished over the winter for my Kzinti-themed feline army.  

Two drones for initial recce and probe missions.    I can’t recall who I got these from, I suspect they are Ground Zero Games but I can’t recall the product code.   The models have some shooty things, so depending on how my opponent James and I agree to rate them, they might pack a little punch.   Useful for forcing the enemy to reveal himself.

 

Two skimmers for Close Air Support.   The models are from Ground Zero Games.  They carry a big and wicked looking gun of some sort, and two missile pods, so they should prove useful.  I painted them in the same scheme as my ground armour units.

 

Being metal, and quite chunky, the stands didn’t work at first.  I had to drill out the hole in the bottom of the model quite a bit until it was deep and wide enough to keep the model on the socket of the base.

I coated them with what I thought was Testor’s Dullcote, but in fact it was semi-gloss, so they are a tad shinier than I would like, but none the worse for it, I suppose.

 

And here they are with their big brother, a previously completed 15mm Khurasan model, to complete the air wing.   That should keep the hoomanz’ heads down!  

 

I have a few squads of Khurasan infantry to complete for my Kzinti force, and by then hopefully James and I will be able to schedule a scrap by then.   At some point I would consider getting some human figures of my own, high tech enough to match these cats and do something from the Larry Niven inspired Man-Kzin Wars, but that is a project for down the road, and would entail looking at some rules sets, possibly the classic Star Grunt or maybe the Quadrant 13 SF rules from Too Fat Lardies by Robert Avery.   

Blessings to your thrusters!

MP+

 

Meowzers! Space Kitties On Jet Bikes!

A quick post to show off with some rather dark photos to show off some more figures in my 15mm SF project.   They are Khurasan Tigrids on jet bikes, because while cats (well, at least my cats) are notoriously slothful, until that moment at 3 in the morning they get up to zoom around the house on jet bikes.  It’s like harassing fire, it leaves the hoomans tired and irritable and ill-equipped to defend against them.  Or the hoomans just capitulate and feed them at 5am, like I do.

I painted these fellows over the winter months, using the same Citadel Khorne Red that is the signature for my Kzinti-inspired army, with colour coding on the shoulder plates to tell the various sections apart.  I have three sections of three of these fellows, enough for a recon in force or quick raiding and general hell-raising, following the general idea that a Kzinti-type force would specialize in fast, aggressive (if not always well thought out) tactics.

Fairly simple paint job over a black base coat to convey the armour segments on the troops and the various parts of the bikes, with a splash of colour for the engines.  I like the blue of the jet engines.

With a mix of missiles for the leaders and Tesla-type guns for their wingcats, these troops are ready to take on my friend James’ hoomans when we finally get our SF armies together.

 

Marshall Luigi, my resident Kzin, doesn’t seem that interested in having a jetbike.

 

Blessings to your kitties!

MP+

More Space Cats

I have been focusing on my 15mm Space Kitties project and have made some more progress.  

I envisioned building what was essentially a mechanized platoon of infantry with some armour and air supports.   Here are three AFCs (Armoured Feline Carriers) from Ground Zero Games, using repurposed Games Workshop mounts from some ancient Ork Deffkoptas.

I use the same base paint, Citadel Khorne Red, from their spaceship but added a cammo pattern that was loosely inspired by the Narn spacecraft on the old Babylon 5 TV series.  Each AFC can hold a squad of feline warriors, their equipment, and litter boxes.

I chopped a Khurasan figure in half because he has some sort of long range viewer thingy in his hand, err, paw, and made him a crew commander for one of the vehicles.

Here are the two 10 man, errr, cat sections that I've painted thus far.  Their rides have kicked in their anti grav units to provide overwatch after the troops de-bus.  The troops are all Khurasan minis from their  Tigrid range.

I use a separate colour on each section's shoulder armour plates to keep track of them.   Pink Section is here to rub your legs and ask for some milk, then loot your planet.

Boss cat on the right, herding cats.  I decided that my officer cats would have white fur, while the rank and file would be orange tiger types.  That's maybe racist, but they're cats, and not terrible enlightened.  They want your planet and they want to play with you as if you were a mouse.

Boss cat with big pink schnozz - adorable!  Trooper from Blue Section to the right.

Blue Section have just regrouped after a long morning's nap and are ready for a scrap and then another nap.  

Heavy guns.  A GZG tank and big shooty SPG to terrorize the Earthers with - it can launch hairballs for 100 kms.  Not really sure about the realism of modelling an SPG in a tactical game, except maybe as an objective marker?

Good to see the project nearing completion though I have a few other toys to show here to make my friend James nervous.  I wonder if he's allergic to cats?

Blessings to your moggies,
MP+

Space Cats' Big Ride

Pretty much all my brushwork this fall and winter, and there hasn't been that much of it, has been devoted to a fun but distracting side project of getting an alien 15mm SF army ready to fight Rabbitman's lovely collection.   I have advanced a little since I posted on that project here back in September.

So o get at the Hoomans, my Space Kitties will need ships, so I based the collection around this lovely Khurasan Models spaceship.   It can be built in a number of ways (landing, flying, w cargo pod, etc) but I chose the flying with wing cannon variant.   This will be useful for low orbital space supremacy, troop insertions, ground attack, and so on.

My attempt to paint the engines as being active and the ship under thrust.

Painted in the characteristic colour (Citadel Khorne Red) of my Kzinti-like feline force.   At first I had wanted to do a more varied colour palette, but decided on a few alien-looking markings on the wings and front.

Shown with a single 15mm miniature for comparison.   This is a satisfyingly big model.  The curves and swept wings could be a human design but there is something alien about it as well so it works for me.

The belly comes with variant parts that plug-in to a central cavity, one a fairly streamlined insert to suggest flight, which I choose ...

And the other an underslung cargo-pod which I can't attach to the model now because the first belly insert, once in, won't budge.   That's fine, the cargo-pod can be used as battlefield decoration, perhaps a drop pod that contains supplies, or could function as a command post, that sort of thing.

I'm not sure how useful this model will be on the table.   I have some lighter Close Air Support elements for my Space Cats, so a ship this big would be overkill in most ground battles, probably making one quick and hopefully destructive pass if the scenario allows.  It might come in low and drop a few squads of troops at the beginning of an attack, but I suspect something that big would show up on scanners or monitoring devices pretty quickly.

Any it looks pretty and it's a lovely centrepiece to this army.  More pics of the kitties soon to come.

Blessings to your brushes!

MP

Work In Progress: Space Cats Are Coming!

Sometimes the best cure for the hobby doldrums is a new project.   My friend James deserves the credit and the blame here.    We are both fans of the TV SF series The Expanse, based on the novels of James S.A. Corey, and that got James into an impressive 15mm SF gaming project.    I have long admired James’ determination to bring a project to fruition - his contemporary Afghanistan project went from scratch to some very impressive, convention level games in a few years, and his SF efforts are similarly impressive.  There is an example here, including some nicely written fluff.

Some of James’ UN (Earth) Marines in power armour, figures by Ground Zero Games.  James’ project encompasses the Expanse universe, and I decided that I wanted a piece of that acton, but he seemed to have the various factions well represented.   That led me to start thinking about an alien race, of which there are plenty in the various 15mm SF anger out there.   But which one?

Kitties, of course!

Errr, no, not those kitties.    My partner Joy introduced me to the Larry Niven Ringworld series this winter, and I loved the Kzinti character Speaker to Animals, so a race of martial cats seemed like a good choice, especially as James has (unkindly but aptly) accused me of being a Crazy Cat Chaplain.  It seems a natural choice for trash-talking and chirping - I am sure there will be lots of jokes about distracting my force with laser pointers, catnip, and guided tuna missiles.    I’m there for that.

Khurasan Miniatures does a nice line of 15mm SF felines, which they call Tigrids, so that was my Kzinti infantry sorted.   I got several packs of these light infantry, who unlike James’ troops apparently don’t need or have vac suits, and then several packs of heavier infantry who I will call equivalent to James’ guys in power armour.

 The paint scheme is pretty simple.   Citadel flat back primer (my usual choice for 15mm figures) and the armour in GW Khorne Red, which seemed an appropriately bloodthirsty colour for Kzin.  The red echoes the base colour that James chose for his Martians, so I guess imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and besides, the Kzinti don’t care about your copyright protocols.    The blue shoulder plates allow me to identify the various sections.    I was quite pleased to see the figures come alive when I started to add the white whiskers and ruffs to the figures.    They just need green eyes and adorable little pink noses and they’ll be ready to go.  I think orange tigers for the rank and file, and white tigers for the leaders would make a nice contrast.

At first I thought about some sort of disruptive pattern, or even something drab like black or olive grey, but then I recalled a recent conversation with a former boss of mine, an infantry battalion CO, who said that he wondered why armies even bother now with camo and disruptive clothing.   There are so many kinds of sensor packages out there, he said, why don’t we just put soldiers in “pink tutus or Napoleonic hussar uniforms and just have fun with colours?”  Perhaps he has a point, though I am secretly glad that he’s not working in procurement!    Also,  I suppose one could argue that a proud martial race of fighting felines would consider camo and concealment to be dishonourable.

 

 Khurasan offers a trio of jet-bike riders, so that was irresistible.   The idea of fast attack cats seemed very Kzinti, so I ordered three sets, which will give me a respectable recon and fast attack element to my force.   I would imagine that the youngest and most aggressive warriors would be selected for this hazardous and dangerous job.  These chaps aren’t quite finished but are getting there.  

 

Space Kitty Bike Leader looks like the sort of type who would happily buzz the tower.  He has some very aggressive looking missile pods that should prove helpful.

 

Finally, there is a an armoured component to my force, because who is going to drive across the galaxy to invade a bunch of high-tech monkeys without some decent AFV support?   I also ordered a few vehicles from Ground Zero Games from their line of Kra’vak alien vehicles.  This is one of three anti-gravy APCs which will carry a section each of my light infantry.   Again, a red base coat, but I have a pattern for it which should make it look more menacing.    The little blue swatch on the side is to remind me which section it belongs to.  There is also a tank, a SPG, a pair of drones, a pair of skimmer light attack craft, and a smallish spaceship to debut down the road.  The base is from a GW W40K set of Ork Deffkoptas that I have since gotten rid of.  This project is much more serious!

 

I will show more of my progress soon, I hope.   For those of you who are wondering, the rules we are using are mostly a bodge of James’ devising, very simple.   We hope to get our forces in action sometime by late winter or spring.

Blessings to your brushes!

MP