Alien Shock Troop Squad

If you' re like me and you are quite tired of the endless array of 40K inspired Sci Fi Aliens or its flipside of catoonish Pulp inspired Aliens. These might be just be what you're looking for. Currently looking for funding via indiegogo This Alien Shock Troop Squad is classic mix of classic Sci Fi Alien types for any generic setting. If you're a Traveller fan or an old Star Frontiers fan, like me -you'll immediately get the appeal.
My Sci Fi project currently titled "Low Orbit" has been in the works for years. Once I wrap up my currently hobby obligations in the next month I plan on see it to completion through out the summer.
Since last fall, I've been working on lots of related material on the side when time allows so when I start showing it off, I should have quite alot done.  "Low Orbit" is squad sized skirmish game set in the late 22nd Century Inspired by my favorite "Legends" games and the original Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game. It features numerous unique mechanics with boardgame-esque scenarios, meshing into something that will hopefully be fast paced, fun  and challenging.

I surely hope these guys above fund, because I have tons of Human figures and have been looking for a good Alien team and was hard pressed for one until I stumbled on these over at the LAF.  LAF user "PF" is quite an accomplished sculptor , if your a fan of what I am talking about do us both a favor and pick up a Squad. You can follow his original announcement and these figs development here.

The Gatehouse - Painted up.

 Here's the painted version of the Gatehouse for the Pirate table at my Legends of the High Seas event at this years Adepticon. dressed up with some of my Spanish Privateers, its  representing the main standing fortification of Fort San Lorenzo and capturing and holding it, is one of the main objectives of the game. As you can imagine whoever gets in there first is going to be tough to dislodge with lots of hard cover to had and even some fireable cannons! the remainder of fort is going to be ruins from the original pirate castle we used in the past.

 Surrounded by water the Fort got the  "ruins by the seaside" paint job a mix of limestone, moss greens and earth. Painting was a 5 stage process of , Prime Black, Basecoat Brown, Heavy drybrush Sand, Weather with Pigment (in this case Green) then spot drybrush a linen /white mix.

 As usual these thing take alot longer than planned, I still need to paint the matching "Lighthouse"
which isnt really a Lighthouse, but a guard tower standing about 4-6 inches higher then the top of the
Gatehouse and is top with wide turret with 5 cannons...again a capturable objective of the game.
The lighthouse will more than likely be the next post.

 The is also a Church, which isnt out of Hirst pieces..but resin, some of you might recall old Armorcast Cathedral , I bought it in probably 2008 and never really used it much...so IF time allows its getting a fitting repaint and Tile roof for this event.

We've got plenty of terrain at this point so its really a matter of putting the best stuff together to make the best looking table possible, I am currently working on a Bolt Action table and with a little more month to go the pressure is on big time, I still have 3 60mm bases with 3-5 soldiers each ,a piece of equipment and some terrain feature to paint for my Bolt Action Army..and my Jeep!.

I really enjoyed building this piece, its going to get alot of use post Adepticon as the outer wall of my Fantasy town I am putting together, I'll probably add a few more pieces overtime, but like everything I build I try to do with multiple games in mind so abandoned castle in Empire of the Dead..why not?

 Stay tuned, as I do the "Dance of Death" or the "Time Sink Shuffle" as I try cram all this stuff
in the last 30 days before Adepticon, every year I ask myself -why I do this to myself?., I always say I am not going to do it, and always end up in this same spot is Eight years in row...sigh

Not to be outdone by Adepticon , Rich is hosting a huge Hail Caesar Crusades game at Little Wars this year, I am helping out and building King Richards banner and its entourage which is  an elborate piece on 100-120mm base with a half dozen elements and a giant free hand banner..Little Wars takes place 3 weeks after Adepticon and I'm not even starting the piece until the dust settles so I am on a 3 week schedule to get it done..shouldn't be too tough, I'm following that up with the Sci Fi project I started over winter break- That ought to keep me busy pretty much thru the Summer. Oh yeah then there is Lead Painters League Season 8 coming up end of March too, dont think I am making it this
year but then again, I said that last year too.

Bolt Action- bringing an Army to the table

 In any miniatures skirmish game, for me a measure of ones interest in said game can easily be gauged by the what they put into their models. Whether it be causal or competitive, I find it rare that people slave away on the models for game they dont really like. The reverse can be true as well ,where you may love the game but models just don't inspire you. I've bounced around a bit quite since I quit playing Warhammer, I had brief affairs with Warmachine, Kings of War, Flames of War, etc. all of my attempts to work around the various nuances that irked me, be it the IP, the models or scale all lead to my inevitable lack of interest in the games. Even my longest serving miniature passion, Lord of the Rings has suffered not due to not only my fading interest in the state of the game but failure of the new ranges to inspire in either the visualization or the physical material (failcast). After spending a year with Warlord Games, Bolt Action, its clear to me, I really like this game.

First of my 4 teams on 60mm bases my Sniper Team, finally finished up this morning.

 I've got two Bolt Action Armys, my British Paratroopers, and my favorite nemesis of theirs Germany's Waffen SS. I actually think this will only be the second minatures game where I can field more than one completely painted army ( other being LotR where I can field at least 600 points armys from numerous incarnations from 4 different factions but I have also been playing that game since 2007)

My Humber Mark IV is only 90% complete, I still have a bit of touch up to do and put some decals on it. The guys walking along aside are British Commandos from Black Tree Designs they work great with WG figures.

 Adepticon is about 47 days away, This about half my army I still have 6 commandos, my HMG team, ATG Team, Mortar Team, and Jeep to paint...they are all built modeled up and base coated
so I am going right into painting, My goal here is to be done the end of the month, that's looking unlikely but it will close. I'll surely crank about the rest of my Commandos and  my HMG team by next weekend, my 6 pounder ATG in the week after that..leaving me my Mortar and Jeep for the last month going in. Keep in mind I am simultaneous working on both the Pirate Table and Bolt Action table in between. While everything for the tables might not happen in the end, I am not worried about my Tournament armies, and for Pirates I already have more stuff then would fit on the allowable gaming space before I built the stuff recently built.

As for my painting I kept it pretty by the book, the uniforms are the uniforms however being military uniforms are bit drab I like to bring a bit of color into the miniatures, I am using a lot of bright highlights of the base colors hopefully getting them to pop out a bit more. The camo smocks on the Red Devils and extra work of all the resin bases definitely add on to the time to get them done.
Regardless, I am loving painting this army more so that any army in recent memory, looking for forward to posting shots of these guys on the new table, against another fully painted army.
(speaking of which any BA fan should check out my pal Jeremy's Japanese over at his Blog)
I am glad to report that reality is going to happen very soon!. Next weekend is my pal Tim's Gathering in Desert Reboot  "Operation Scorpion"  taking place in the Phoenix area. Bolt Action was the transition game for former LotR players as the game died out there, IL/WI is definitely following suit as   while LotR is still soldiering on here, almost every regular I played at events with for the last 5 years is playing BA, in fact 3 of my local LotR compradres are making the trip and I wish I was joining but alas, this time of year its night impossible for me to get out of town.

In other news coming up we are running a couple demos for public events I am involved here at out Bi-Weekly game nights which look to be back on track after getting sabotaged by this brutal winter
We are doing our Hail Ceasar demo of a huge Crusades game on a 12 x 4 table, this game is happening post Adepticon at Little Wars  which is great little local convention that always gets overshadowed by Adepticon.

Then we are demoing Pirates the week after, basically just to make sure the scenarion plays the way I want it to..again a 12 x 4 table...painting is underway on the Gatehouse piece I recently posted and Rich brought the ruined castle back over on Tuesday I'll be setting the whole thing up very soon to get sorted.. So hopefully I'll be back to posting a bit more frequently in the coming month, as all these
thing come to fruition I'll be psyched to talk about it.