Buildings and ANMA

Well, I've finally taken pictures of most (but not all!) of the buildings I've made (relatively) recently. As I said previously I'll do a post on each - hopefully quite quickly!  Before I start that series of posts, though here's a teaser/montage of the ones I've taken pictures of...

Also, I've actually managed to play a game!  Shock!! It was a board game from Wargame Vault - Astro Navis Merchant Advanced (ANM). It's a space trading game and when you get it you get a basic version as well as the advanced version. When you've printed the components off and set up to play a game, it does seem quite complicated - as the picture indicates - but it's actually really quite easy to play.

I managed to get a 'minor win' result for my first basic game which was pleasing! I got this game ages ago, and my recent interest in it has been to use as a framework and scenario generator for the Five Parsecs from Home sci-fi skirmish rules. I believe that it will be great for this, especially given the 'events' included in the advanced version of ANM, which is my planned next test.

The basic version of ANM is, IMO, too reliant on dice rolls - one bad roll can really hurt your chances of winning, but the extra rules in the advanced version will reduce this by a great deal. I am going to make one change to the rules, but I'll report on that after I've played the advanced game.

1st Light -WIP 1

I mentioned in my last post that I've been working on WWG's First Light spaceship and thought I'd share with you the progress I've made so far.

The basic construction method of the model is to make the rooms and corridors as a series of boxes which can then be assembled how you wish.  There are bits to add or remove doors to the rooms and there are quite a few different rooms supplied - including cargo bay, airlock, bridge, turret and so on ...

In the pic below, the two big rooms at the top are cargo bays, with an airlock in between; a long corridor leads from the airlock which has 2 smaller corridors branching off and there are 4 other rooms at the bottom of the pic (which is going to be the front of the ship, btw)

Below is a close up of the exterior of the airlock (with Zombie-ME for scale as usual), which the only room that I've done a roof and any of the exterior for so far. There is a roof for each room - the intention being that you can reveal parts of the ship as they are reached - as well as exteriors

The doors in the kit are designed to be removed as needed, and the pic below shows the exterior airlock door partially removed showing Zombie-Me's base

I'm making the model with mounting board for the floors, 2 bits for the walls (so the doors can be sandwiched in between) and foamboard for the roofs.

I don't have a particular game in mind for this model (other than some kind of Space Hulk thing) but I've had it for ages and wanted to build it all that time, so I've finally started it!

D'oh! 28mm Sci-Fi Instead

I was going to do a post on my first use of Magic Dip, but found that I hadn't downloaded my 'after' pics from my camera - got the 'before' and even one 'during' but no 'afters'!  D'oh!!

So instead, I'm re-posting some pics from my old blog, in this case samples of my 28mm Sci-Fi minis, that I think have come out pretty damned well.  I've got Two-Hour Wargames' rules 5150: Star Army and 5150: New Beginnings and am looking forward to playing them - after I've finally got around to reading them!

So ... first of all; 2 samples of the approx platoon strength force of Alternative Armies' Muster Troops I've got (although they were called 'Levies' when I bought them IIRC)

I like these figures - the poses seem full of action and vitality. I had thought them OOP but they are not, so I might get some more at some point.

Next up, some GW Genestealers. I've got around 30 of these happy-smiley chaps to use as 'Xenoforms'/murderous-aliens. I've gradually picked them at bring-and-buys at conventions I've attended, refusing to pay inflated GW prices, even though I like the mins:

Third, a sample of Copplestone Castings FW36 Grey Aliens. I'm not sure how, but I must have lost one of the pack at some point as I'm sure I don't have the sitting alien that is shown in the pack on the linked page ... oh well ...

As you can see, I've painted then as 'greens' instead of greys. I've also got Hasslefree's Female Grey to add to the group, but she isn't painted yet :(

Now the other platoon sized group - Irregular Miniatures' Spice-Lice. These come with some varied, pretty odd-looking, IMO, antennae on them, but I removed them all. I've put squad desginating coloured flashes on their heads as well

I've also got some of Irregular's Scorpio-Bugs to use as assault troops. I'll get some pics of them up (eventually!)

Here are some samples of Copplestone Castings FW25 Hunter Aliens and FW32 Hunter Aliens with Guns. I've got both packs and it took me a while to decide how to paint them, but I eventually decided to go with a orange/purple colour scheme as it looked pretty alien IMO

I'm very pleased with how they've come out, so here are 2 close-ups:

Wonderful figures ...

Hopefully I'll get the Magic Dip post up either later today or maybe over the weekend, but as I have my daughter this weekend, it's more likely to be Monday if I don't get it done today.