Battlefront's Desert Fort

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Those of you who read my post about Battlefront's Dust Cloud terrain markers will know that I have had some stuff on backorder from them for some time. One of the other things that was on backorder was their Desert Fort and expansion pack.

Now I can't remember exactly how this worked, but I think that they said they would only produce another batch of these if enough people agreed to buy them: a bit like a mini-kickstarter. Well I agreed to do so, and then promptly forgot all about it until the e-mails saying they were on the way started to arrive in my inbox, followed shortly afterwards by two quite big boxes.

Here's the fort itself:

It's a lovely piece of battlefield terrain. The walls and turrets are really chunky...and I've just realised I've set it up in the picture above with all but one of the walls the wrong way round...but you can see from the left hand wall what it should look like! Plenty of room for figures on those parapets, and for at least light guns on the tower-tops.

Here are a couple of views with a figure in them for comparison:

fort02.jpg

The expansion pack contains two ruined walls and two mid-wall towers that would allow you to double the length of two of the wall sides, provided you were happy to have the ruined walls included to make up two of the sides. Or you could just have the ruined walls as part of the original square fort.

Here's a pic of the fort set up as a square with on side bashed in:

In all, this is a lovely set of kit, ideal for portraying the desert forts of the western desert in the early 1940's. It would also do, of course, for sci-fi wargaming, and for Beau Geste-style games as well. Recommended.

PS  Sorry about the pictures: I seem to have got most of the walls round the wrong way. That's what comes of drinking a bottle of wine whilst gaming, and then deciding to do a bit of photography afterwards!

Q13: New Manufacturer Added: Evil Bear Wargames

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Another new 15mm sci-fi figure manufacturer added to the list: Evil Bear Wargames.

So far, EBW have but two listings in God's own scale, but they are very nice indeed. First up are hard suits: 21mm tall armoured suits with weapon and shield. I particularly love these and will get some as soon as the lead mountain is small enough to justify a rebuild:

Next up is a very nice patrol/command and control vehicle: the British Army Panther. Again, a lovely piece of kit:

You can get to the Evil Bear Wargames website by clicking here. Note that both the above are also available in 28mm.

Q13: More Dwarves in Space

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I've finally got around to basing and finishing my first platoon of not-powered-armour space dwarves: the Lethlings platoon from Khursasan.

These are lovely figures: as detailed (and just about as big!) as any other 15mm figures out there. These I painted as if they were full-size 15's i.e. basecoat, wash, then two highlights. Although the photography doesn't really do them justice, they look great.

Highly recommended.

You can see the whole Space Dwarves gallery by clicking here; and visit the Khurasan website (if he's open) by clicking here.

Sci-fi Buildings: The Next Generation

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One of the other things I saw at Warfare was some incredible sci-fi terrain from the Laser Terrain Company.

This is best described as slot together, modular corridors and rooms made out of plastic, and with the option to include working lights - achieved through very thin, almost paper-that-lights-up that can sit behind or underneath pieces of plastic with holes in them to look like panels, signs, floor lighting...whatever!

Now this terrain was 28mm, too big for the God's own scale (15mm) that I use, but the lads on the stand did mention that they were considering 15mm as well. Consider harder please!

You can get to their website here, or they have a Kickstarter going here.

Here are some pics to wet your whistle:

Looks amazing in daylight

And lights up at night

Some details

At Warfare, Laser Terrain were giving away samples. As I was with Neil and Tahir, and they didn't ant theirs, I have thus ended up with three barricades. Yes, they are 28mm, but they will do for gates, roadblocks, all sorts of things in 15mm. Here they are with one of my space dwarves:

Ruined Buildings from Commission Figurines

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One of my purchases at Warfare were some of Commission Figurines 15mm ruined buildings in laser-cut wood.

I was quite excited by these, so let one of them jump to the head of the painting queue, and knocked it up in a few hours late on Sunday.

This particular building, Konig Strasse, is easy to put together: four walls slot together and then mount onto the four pavement pieces if pavement is required.

Painting was pretty simple too: I painted the whole thing orange, then put a very heavy black ink wash over the top. Once that was dry, I dry-brushed very lightly in orange again, and then in a bone colour to bring up the relief. The doors I did in brown, the pavement in three shades of grey. The interior I just painted all grey, with no washing or dry-brushing.

I'm very pleased with the result, and can't wait to build the others. I think they'll do for any big city: Berlin, Stalingrad and even sci-fi...and at £13 for the one below, quite good value too.

Q13: Updated "Dwarves in Space" Army List

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As I work my way through painting my space dwarves, I find myself needing to tweak and amend their army list. This is all part of the natural evolution of a Q13 army list.

For simplicity, for example, I've now consolidated the space dwarf infantry into two basic types: squads of 8-10 in armour; and squads of six in powered armour. This should make managing them on the tabletop slightly easier.

I've also added a few bits and bobs. The Goanna tanks can now carry shield generators in their turrets (see previous post), with a platoon now consisting of two 'fighting' vehicles and one 'shielding' vehicle...something that really adds a bit of flavour to things.

Likewise on the flavour front, I've finally succumbed and added a couple of GZG's excellent civilian CLEM (Construction, Logistics and Engineering) Mecha to give the little fellas some engineering back-up, and I'm looking forward to seeing what one can do with a shearing laser and a chainsaw!

hercules "b" mecha from ground zero games (click on the image to go straight to gzg's website)

hercules "b" mecha from ground zero games (click on the image to go straight to gzg's website)

This is the great beauty of Q13: you can field anything you like provided it can be properly represented on the tabletop and fits in with the coherence and consistency of your army's story.

You can download the revised space dwarf army list from the Army Lists page of the Q13 section of this website, or by clicking here.


More Space-Dwarves: Gruntlings in Exo-Suits

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More infantry for my Dwarves in Space army, and the first contingent from Cactus Games: a platoon of Gruntlings in Exo-suits.

These are very cute figures indeed: squat, rounded, and with lots of relief to make painting easy. I undercoated in black, then a coat of metallic blue, then a dry-brush with a dull-metal colour to bring up the detail. 

The only negative is that there are only two poses: one with a built-in gun in one hand and a warhammer in the other; one with just the gun.

Here they are:

Q13: Drones for the Dwarves

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The great thing about Ground Zero Games is the huge range of 15mm sci-fi kit they make that can be added to any sci-fi army. 

Here, for example, I have decided to equip my "Dwarves in Space" with some spider drones with rotary cannon.

Thrainite Spider Drones

Now back to painting the legions of space dwarf infantry scattered all over my painting table!

Q13: More kit for the Space Dwarves

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A bit more firepower for my Thrainites from Khurasan: a couple of MDMS Goanna tanks supported by a Goanna tank hull mounting a shield generator. 

When you buy the MDMS tanks, they come with the option to be manned or un-manned. The manned version, the Goanna, has the full turret you can see in the pic below. The un-manned version (i.e. controlled remotely or by AI) comes without a turret but with a cut down gun mount. Looking at this, I suddenly thought that if I turned it backwards and didn't put a gun on it, it would make a rather good shield generator: something that I think suits the "engineer" aspect of the dwarves. Why risk too much injury when you can build something to protect yourselves with?

Anyway, here they are:

MDMS Goanna Tanks

Goanna hull with mounted shield generator

You can see the whole "Dwarves in Space" gallery by clicking here.

Q13 Gallery: The First Dwarves in Space

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I've always liked dwarves...right from my days playing basic edition Dungeons & Dragons through to GW's Squats through to Gimli in The Lord of the Rings and now through to the sudden explosion in 15mm space dwarf models.

My intention is to collect and paint up all the figures available, making each manufacturer's collection into its own contingent: the sum of which will combine into the space dwarf army as a whole. I'm seeing each contingent as coming from a different "mine", or whatever the Q13 equivalent ends up being.

The first contingent being painted are the Thrainites from Khurasan Miniatures. First up of these are the easy-to-paint armoured infantry: a platoon of so-called Young Nobles in four squads of six each:

With them are three MDMS Cane Toad APCs:

The rest of the Thrainites are currently on the painting table, so more to follow soon!

Q13: Chuhuac Herdmaster

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What I should be doing is continuing to paint my Six Day War lead mountain: no point in having ten Egyptian T-55s if they have no supports and no-one to fight.

What I actually did this weekend, of course, was to dive into my sci-fi lead mountain, painting up a few bits and pieces from projects that needed completion.

Here's the commander of my Chuhuac mercenaries, the Herdmaster, and his APC:

I'm still loving the Chuhuac: just got to get them onto the battlefield again.

You can see the rest of the Chuhuac gallery by clicking here.

"Dwarves in Space" and Related

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I've added a new figure manufacturer to the list of companies that make 15mm sci-fi miniatures: Cactus Games.

They have a line of what they call Gruntlings that includes troopers in armour, and troopers in ornate powered armour.

At the same time, I note that ClearHorizon have just launched a range of what they call High Gravity Mercenaries. These come just as a single mercenary squad of eight, but are wonderfully full of character.

Both of the above are obviously space dwarves, dwarves in space, squats, whatever you want to call them...so I have updated the Dwarves in Space army list as well by adding stats for Gruntlngs and the Mercs, and standardising the overall squad sizes slightly.

All I have to do now is paint them all: five platoon's worth of infantry, and a couple of squads of vehicles!

Q13: Gitungi Get Re-Inforced

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Micropanzer's Gitungi are one of my favourite alien races for Q13. 

They have a very distinctive look to them; they include a good range of models; and some of those models are very definitely alien and/or demonstrative of an alien technology.

One thing they lack, however, are decent vehicles, so I have been forced to improvise from other ranges. My Gitungi already have Khurasan's superheavy tanks and a grav AA vehicle from GZG at their disposal; these are now joined by some suitably Gitungi-looking SP artillery and AA guns from Daemonscape.

Daemonscape, if you remember, are the company that produced that big spaceship I painted up last month. I was checking the url for that blog post when I noticed they had released some 15mm armoured vehicles. A quick visit to the relevant page on their site, and I knew I had to have the ones with the dustbins as guns, and the ones with the unfeasible array of AA guns, immediately.

Once ordered, the question became which of my sci-fi armies would they suit. The answer: the Gitungi.  

The models are nicely cast, and I like the way the same base chassis is used for different gun configurations: very panzer! One slight problem is that the AA guns are so ridiculously  big that they do make the turret tip forward slightly unless the vehicle is driving uphill. Ah well: a small price to pay!

Here they are:

"Get ready to fire the dustbins of death!"

The turret-tipping madness of the AA array

Q13: Chuhuac Army List Updated

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Here's a recent post about the Ikwen figures from Loud Ninja Games:

Some of you may already have seen my Chuhuac: 15mm velociraptor-like aliens from Loud Ninja Games. They are a great set of figures, full of life and animation, that are a real pleasure to paint up and play. I usually use them as mercenaries: a rapidly-moving, light infantry force designed to hit hard and fast and then disappear again.

So when Loud Ninja Games announced their second release, the Ikwen, I was at the front of the queue to buy a set. These are salamander-like aliens, also in 15mm, whom Eli has conceived as a sort of low-tech planetary militia. 

I loved the figures, but didn't really like the idea of fielding them as envisioned...so I've come up with an alternative use for them: they are paid by the Chuhuac as their logistics tail. The little dinos are the teeth, the Ikwen the tail...and just as the various cooks and bottle-washers in other armies have sometimes had to pick up their rifles and fight (Hurtgen Forest, Battle of the Bulge etc) so the Ikwen occasionally go into battle as well.

I've now had time to update the Chuhuac Army List to include the Ikwen engineers and taken the opportunity to make a couple of other tweaks as well. You can access it from this page here.

IABSM Basing: Problem Solved!

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Those of you who have gamed with me or seen my AAR will know that most of my infantry figures are based individually: a typical eight-man squad being made up of six figures on 5p pieces and the LSW team of two figures on a 2p piece.

This means that I can remove casualties without the dread "rings of death" ruining the look of the tabletop, and also position them along uneven terrain features as well.

Those are the positives.

The main negative, however, is that it takes an awful lot of time to move individual figures around the tabletop.

I have got around that in the past by using rectangular movement trays as shown in the picture below:

Functional...but not pretty!

These are fine: very functional...but they are not at all pretty.

Now, however, I have the solution, thanks to Warbases.

I contacted them a couple of weeks ago asking if they would do some custom bases for me: movement trays that would take my unique squad basing regimen both for 8-man squads and for 10-man squads. Needless to say, they came up trumps.

Here, for the first time, are my patent Avery-bases for IABSM:

Well, this is one of them after I've painted it a simple green and then flocked its upper surface. 

You can immediately see that in addition to the holes for the figures, there's even a hole for a mini-dice which, in IABSM, I'll use to note Shock. Other systems could use mini-dice of different colours to differentiate units.

Here's how they look full of figures:

The new bases allow me to move figures around the tabletop quickly and easily, to remove casualties, and to make sure I don't get Shock dice lost or mixed up as well.

Well done, Warbases. I am one very happy customer!

Q13: New Manufacturer Added

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I've added DLD Productions to the list of 15mm sci-fi figure manufacturers.

They currently produce a range of vehicles under four different headings:

  • the CMF (Coalition of Military Forces)
  • Opfor (Opposition Forces)
  • Shazakeem Defence Force
  • Kir (aliens)

What I like about the ranges is that they add something new to a somewhat crowded marketplace.

CMF Badger FO Vehicle

CMF Badger FO Vehicle

The two main ranges, the CMF and Opfor, have more than just the MBT and SP artillery vehicles that dominate other ranges. Each base chassis has a number of different configurations that include such things as ARVs, scout of FO vehicles (loving the periscope scanners) etc. There's even at least one cargo hauler, so my need for tail as well as teeth is well satisfied.

The alien vehicles are very alien. Not, I must admit, to my taste, but very bold in terms of design: very, er, alien, in fact...and I'll def get some of their drones.

All in all, an excellent addition to the 15mm sci fi shopping mall!

CMF Truck

CMF Truck

Q13: The Chuhuac Get Some Logistical Support

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Some of you may already have seen my Chuhuac: 15mm velociraptor-like aliens from Loud Ninja Games. They are a great set of figures, full of life and animation, that are a real pleasure to paint up and play. I usually use them as mercenaries: a rapidly-moving, light infantry force designed to hit hard and fast and then disappear again.

So when Loud Ninja Games announced their second release, the Ikwen, I was at the front of the queue to buy a set. These are salamander-like aliens, also in 15mm, whom Eli has conceived as a sort of low-tech planetary militia. 

I loved the figures, but didn't really like the idea of fielding them as envisioned...so I've come up with an alternative use for them: they are paid by the Chuhuac as their logistics tail. The little dinos are the teeth, the Ikwen the tail...and just as the various cooks and bottle-washers in other armies have sometimes had to pick up their rifles and fight (Hurtgen Forest, Battle of the Bulge etc) so the Ikwen occasionally go into battle as well.

Here they are:

More Chuhuac

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I'm still determined to clear all the Chuhuac off my painting table: these 'velociraptors with guns' are just too nice to leave languishing in the lead mountain. They have such animation, such character, that they deserve their place at the front of the queue.

Here is a platoon of spec ops Chuhuac in city camouflage, and four Sirrus APCs in desert colours (to go with the desert colours platoon of infantry painted earlier). Very nice.

Q13: Chuhuac Scout Squad on Grav Bikes

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More sci-fi!

As part of my drive to clear some of my lead mountain, I am really concentrating on trying to finish my Chuhuac: superbly animated velociraptors-with-guns from Loud Ninja Games.

Next off the mountain and onto the painting table was a 'wing' of nine Chuhuacs riding grav bikes.

The figures come with body molded with the bike and separate heads. This was quite cool, as it allowed me to vary the amount of neck I used to show some of the wing craning upwards and some crouched low over the nose of the bike. I have even modeled one looking to the left as if to check his mates were still with him!

My only real problem was how to show the bikes 'floating' above the ground. I tried wire, but couldn't get a decent stick. I eventually settled on using those little Hama-bead things that gave me a big enough surface area to ensure a good bond between bike and base.

Here they are:

Q13: A Very Big Space Ship!

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Following my recent post about adding Daemonscape to the list of figure manufacturers, I am sure you can guess that it didn't take very long for me to send them my first order.

My Ursids (large anthropomorphic bears from Khurasan and Stan Johansen) needed a bit of transport to take them to their next mining job, so I ordered one of Daemonscape's big 15mm drop ships called, appropriately, "The Big Rig".

The kit arrived within days. I say kit, but we're talking six big bits of resin that fitted together surprisingly well using SuperGlue and just a very small amount of greenstuff in a couple of the cracks. Very easy to put together. The only complicated thing was adding the gun barrel to the turret, but I used drill-and-pin, and found that both gun barrel and turret were easily robust enough to make this relatively simple as well.

Painting was also a dream. A quick undercoat in black, then a coat of a very yellow ochre, followed by a brown wash and then several layers of dry-brush. Once all that was dry, half an hour's worth of touching up windows and viewing domes, grills and the additional of a flag from the bits box, and she was finished.

Not the most beautiful of vessels, but very practical for planet hopping. Really nice model:  highly recommended.

That's a 15mm figure (not an Ursid!) for size comparison