For those who need to buy some more Lardy products (cough, my scenario books, cough*), Rich is running a 15% off sale over at the main TooFatLardies webstore. You can get there by clicking here.
Not sure how long the sale will last: Rich says until he's finished the Xmas Special...so Easter then!
*all my scenario books are updated for IABSMv3...and if you don't fancy them, there's always Q13!
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.
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.
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:
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)
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 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:
You can see the whole space dwarf gallery by clicking here.
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!
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.
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!
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.
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!
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
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.
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:
What I like about the ranges is that they add something new to a somewhat crowded marketplace.
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
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:
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.
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:
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
One of the great things about Quadrant 13, the TFL rules for company-sized sci-fi wargaming, is the fact that you can construct and use any army from any figure manufacturer or fictional source. This flexibility, however, does come with a price.
Quite a few people have mentioned to me that they have a problem not so much with actually building the armies themselves, but with then working out what troops to deploy on each side to give a good game…especially for heterogeneous armies such as humans versus bugs.
Put simply, they can use the guidelines in the rules to give their medium tanks the right sized gun but then have difficulty in working out how many tanks to field in order to make it a ‘fair fight’ with the opposition. Unlike the TFL historical rulesets, there is no frame of reference.
The TooFatLardies Summer Special 2015 therefore contained an article, written by me, detailing a rudimentary points system for Q13. The article references a spreadsheet that can be used to easily calculate the points values for any Q13 unit. You can download the spreadsheet by clicking on the Q13 logo that can be found here.
I am now on a quest to finish all my Chuhuac figures. Most of the army is done: only the special ops unit and a few Big Men to finish.
Next off the production line are three Sirrus APCs. I now realise, of course, that I should have bought four of the little beauties: that way I could totally mechanise one of the Chuhuac platoons. Ah well: one more thing to buy...and I may as well pick up four more for the second platoon as well!
The eagle-eyed among you will also have spotted that I have added a GZG self-propelled rotary cannon as well. Always good to give your little dinos a bit of extra firepower!
Vis Lardica is a website devoted to wargaming and military history, with a special emphasis on the company-sized rulesets produced by the TooFatLardies: I Ain't Been Shot Mum (WW2); Charlie Don't Surf (Vietnam); and Quadrant 13 (science fiction)
Welcome to Vis Lardica, a not-for-profit website mostly dedicated to the company-sized wargaming rules produced by the TooFatLardies, but encompassing my other gaming interests as well.
If you need to contact me, you can do so at:
vislardica@gmail.com
If you have enjoyed visiting this site, please add a link to it on your own wargaming blog: www.vislardica.com.
