Gift From My Students

I was both surprised and touched by the gift I got from my comparative anatomy students. They were a really wonderful group of kids, and I would proudly say that, gift or no gift.

It is a detailed model of a wolf eel (Anarrhichthys ocellatus). Usually at this time of year, I get, if anything, a box of candy or nuts. This to me is far more special.

Not Connor MacLeod

I was placing an order for more metal bases from War Games Accessories and needed to measure some to get the sizes I wanted.  I popped this guy out of a box to measure his base. I was taking pictures of the hexes that I made (shown in a previous post), so decided to take a few pictures of him:

He is a Demonworld Warlord of Thain. They are a mixed lot of barbarians. Some are the stereotypical, mostly-naked, Conan-the-Barbarian, he-man types; whereas others look either Germanic and/or Scottish Isles or Highlander types. I've seen some gamers use them to supplement their WRG DBA/DBM Scots Isles and Highlander armies lists. He comes out of their heroes and commanders pack. OK, so he isn't an exact fit for Connor MacLeod from the movie Highlander 

(the first movie; i.e., the best one), but he reminds me of him in the flashback scene early in the movie where he is riding off to battle and meets the Kurgan. You have to admit, the Demonworld Thain definitely has better hair than Conner MacLeod! I'm not one to talk, but Connor needs a hair stylist.


Two things regarding the figure. First, I didn't see his grisly trophy head on his horse until after I painted it and didn't bother to go back and paint it. Second, I couldn't think of what to put on his shield, so I left it blank.

I hope that War Games Accessories never goes out of business. I use their bases for pretty much everything except my 28mm figures. I've tried other companies that make steel bases, but War Games are uniformly cut to the proper dimensions. I've even used some of the larger ones as a straight edge to cut thin card stock or styrene sheets.

Rangers of the North Part 1

"An increase in blog posts is directly proportional to the increase in hobby activity."

--Me, 12/05/2014

I've been getting some time in at night to work on hobby stuff over the past two months. One of my goals is to whittle down the huge pile of 15 mm fantasy figures. I pretty much grab things and try to paint them up.  Recently, Splintered Light has been putting out a line of RPG characters. One of which is their Warriors of Nature. It consists of combination of rangers and barbarians, with two druidy-looking dudes for good measure. It inspired me to paint up a big collection of rangers that I have accumulated over time from various companies. Here are some of the first ones finished so far:

Demonworld Miniatures

The dude above is a Demonworld ranger from their Empire group. Now that Ral Partha Europe has taken over the line, you can buy smaller sets of them rather than the complete sets, which were pretty darn expensive. There are several poses, and this is one. He is wearing what I perceive to be scale armor, which is a nice alternative. They seem a little larger than the others, particularly Chariot Miniatures, but it doesn't bother me that much.

Chariot Miniatures

Chariot Miniatures

Next up are two rangers from Chariot Miniatures. These are now made by Magister Militum. They come in two poses as seen above. They are a little on the small side compared to other manufacturers like Demonworld, but again, its not dramatic enough to be that big a deal. All of the manufacturers that make rangers both in shooting and not shooting poses. I will show more of the non-shooting poses in another post.  

Grenadier

I am almost certain this last is a single figure from Grenadier, which I painted a couple of months ago. It was from their barbarian mammoth model. There were two passengers, the archer shown above and a spearman. I showed off the mammoth in a previous post. Mirliton has yet to make the barbarian line of Grenadier 15s, if ever. I remember when Mirliton took over that line, there were a lot of groans in the 15 mm fantasy community especially about the pace of production...basically non-existent. I guess I should be happy that they have put out the ones that they did. The war mammoth they do sell on their site is not the same as this model. I have nothing against Mirliton. Their medieval line of 15s is fantastic. I just feel that if you are going to take over an existing line, you should manufacture the whole line.

Anyway, back to the above figure. He and his comrade did not look barbarian enough for me. I still have not figured out who to man the mammoth. I did like this guy and thought he'd make a good ranger/hero type. All my fantasy characters are mounted singly. I will probably include his spear-wielding buddy as a ranger, but a part of the rank-and-file. 

Husband & Wife Dungeon Crawl Team

Hingus and Hinga, dungeon crawl adventurer team:

Hinga on left, Hingus on right

Hinga is a Ral Partha figure.  I painted her several years after Hingus, so there is more highlighting and shading on her. You can't see it, but she's wearing a small backpack. She's no beauty queen, but she makes up for it in personality and joie de vivre.

I got Hingus out of a bin of miscellaneous fantasy figures at a Little Wars convention back in the early 80s, and paid 25¢ for him, if that.  I haven't a clue who made Hingus because I filed down the bottom of his base for stability, but I think I saw him once on a web site that identified him as a Empire of the Petal Throne miniature. He looks pretty cool as a generic semi-barbarian fantasy warrior.

I'm coming to the conclusion that if I could, I'd take all my pictures of my miniatures here in my office. Even though its florescent lighting, its a lot better than at home. There are never any harsh shadows on the figures, and I rarely need to do any color correction on the photos.

Forest Dilemma

The other day, I came to the realization that I am really far behind in my preparations for my first battle in my fictional, modern ImagiNations campaign. I made this realization when I compared the map that I made for the first battle with what I already have in terrain, I lacked roads and rivers, some agricultural pieces (orchards and cultivated fields), and a lot of forests. I needed to get going so that I can get in at least one game before I retire!

For a long time, I have gone back and forth on terrain tiles. There are a lot of pros and cons to them, but I have ruled out using them for the entire battlefield. First, I would worry about them staying in place. Second, even if I used smaller hexagonal ones, I feel that my battlefield would conform to the tiles and not the other way around. What I have now settled on is a sort of limited terrain tile system. They would be limited to rivers and possibly roads, and act as boundaries for larger forests.

Most of my potential forests consist of individual trees that I have lovingly made. Because of the love, they took forever to make. In the time it takes to make one tree, I can crank out an entire village of my little acorn cap roofed huts.

Forest Tiles
Probably about 6+ years ago, I began experimenting with making hex tiles out of CD disks as I have a bazillion of them.  My idea was to make the hexes and then cover them with green felt. I would then set my little, lovingly-made trees on them; the number of trees per hex would indicate the density of the forest. I figured that I could also run some sort of road along the tiles. I could have just used them as is and make forests that had circular boundaries, but no, that would be too easy. I had to make hexes out of them. What a major b*t*h it was to make them! It was difficult to accurately draw the sides to be cut off. Have you ever tried cutting a CD? Not fun! It does not score very nicely. Plus all that silvery stuff comes off of it!  Van der Waals forces were certainly in action as it was impossible to clean up those silver flakes. Then, gluing the felt on was another chore. I managed to make six of them. All that being said, they have three advantages: they are very strong, they don't warp,  and they very thin.

What are my material alternatives? Well, everyone out there seems to use the mysterious 1 mm MDF board. Its mysterious to me, because I can't find it that thin where I live. Also, I lack a power saw to cut them into hexes. Next is highly compressed, PVC foam mounting boards that come in very thin sheets, down to 1 mm thckness. This stuff is not the same as foamcore. They are often used to make signs with. Sintra is a brand name of this stuff. I got some free scraps from a local sign making shop, though all they had were 3 mm thick stuff. It is very strong and I expect that it does not warp easily. Again, I don't have a saw to cut them with, though I might be able to score it. It is somewhat expensive relative to foamcore board. That leaves me with foamcore. The thinnest that I can find is 1/8" which corresponds to slightly greater than 3 mm. The issue I have with it its still a little thicker than what I want it to be, and IMHO, its a pain to cut out. Even with a metal straight edge, I don't always get a straight cut. Maybe I just stink at cutting stuff out. Here is shot of a foamcore hex vs. an evil CD hex:

Foamcore on left, CD w/felt covering on right.

The foamcore hex is larger because I used as a template, one of those disposable styrene containers that holds powder chemicals in order to measure the chemical's weight (sorry, mass). It was hex shaped.

Now that I have put you to sleep about the hexes, I will go on to the whole forest thing. There are several blogs that have tutorials on how to make massive forests. They involve making a canopy out of material such as foamcore that has been heavily flocked. To the bottom of the canopy is mounted sticks, rods, tubes, or whatever to represent the trunks of trees. The bottoms of the trunks can either stand on their own, or be mounted on some sort of base. Some tutorials make them so that there are no trunks in the middle of the canopy so to hide units in them.  I have decided to use foamcore for the canopy. Finally, a decision has been made on something! Next question what to use for the trunks. At first I thought toothpicks:

Toothpicks: in case you don't know what they look like.

However,  I would have to cut them in half, which increases increases the chance that some would be uneven. My solution was sitting on a shelf in my garage:

Big box-o-nails

Nails. Specifically, this huge box of 1" roofing nails that I had to buy in order to use all of eight of them. They are cheap (but so are toothpicks), but have the advantage of being consistent in size, much stronger than toothpicks, and have nice flat bases that can be glued. The plan is to cut out irregular shapes of foamcore for the canopy, press the nails into them, then flock them, then glue the nails to the hexes. I bought some black foamcore to hide and gaps in the flock. I am going to use this for very dense forests. For light forests I will continue to use my lovingly-made individual trees.

Postscript: This morning, I ordered some sheets of Sintra in 1, 2 and 3 mm thickness. The sheets themselves are not overly expensive, but the company ships express mail, which is what really jacks up the price on this stuff. I will see how well it does when I get the order.

Royal Chalupastan Airforce Part 3: Fixed Wing Light Attack Aircraft

Most aircraft in the South's arsenal have multiple roles. As a developing country, their military is always looking for the most back for the cheapest buck. During the 1st Chalupastan War, the South still used aircraft of WWII vintage. During the early stages of the war, F4U Corsairs bravely attacked enemy ground units. Today, still relies on outdated and inexpensive weaponry to perform combat missions against ground targets. For the past 10 years, the South has been engaged in various rebel groups in the Central Highlands Provence, There has been for COIN operations aircraft to support troops as they engage the enemy and to disrupt supply lines coming from Northern Chalupistan (which they deny) and from the Federal Republic of Gambusia. The military is too afraid of using their expensive jet fighters, particularly the AMX ground attack jet. Instead they turn to older or relatively cheaper aircraft.

Cavalier Mustang II
  

Scoia Collectair CAUM 10

After the war the South needed to replace the WWII aircraft. A number of Cavalier Mustang IIs were purchased. They have been highly successful, but by 2000, there was need for a replacement.

FMA IA 58 Pucará

Heroics & Ros ARMA 21

  The Pucara was a replacment for the Mustang. Argentina has been long time ally of Southern Chalupastan and the South got a favorable deal on them. Although they afforded the crew better protection than the Mustang and were ideal for short runways, the "Pukkies" as they are known proved to be a disappointment. Their 20mm cannon did not make up for the fewer hardpoints relative to the Mustangs. Once again, another search began to replace the Pucara.

 EMB 314 Super Tucano

Heroics & Ros UKMA 102

 In 2010, 20 Super Tucanos were delivered to the Southern Airforce. They proved to a big success having superior avionics and weapons capabilities. They are the now the main frontline light attack aircraft. 

A-37 Dragonfly

Shapeways: Prairie Hawk Gamer

At the height of the 1st Chalupastan War, the US rushed a number of weapons to the South to stem the Northern tide. Much of the equipment was left over from the Vietnam War. This included the Cessna A-37 Dragonfly.  Despite its age, the Dragonfly is still in active service. It can carry heavy weapon loads and pilots really enjoy flying them. Along with the Super Tucanoes, they have been used extensively in current COIN operations in the Central Highlands. 






Textron AirLand Scorpion

Shapeways: Prairie Hawk Gamer

On the eve of the current situation with the North, Southern Chalupastan took possession of 14 of these multi-role, light tactical fighters for evaluation and hopefully act as a replacement for the Dragonfly and to supplement the AMX.

Modelling Notes
For some strange reason, COIN aircraft fascinate me. Also, it makes sense that the nations on the mini-continent of Gambusia should have these type of aircraft; more so than some of the jet fighters that I've allowed them to have!

The payloads are from a variety of sources, GHQ, C-in-C, and seemingly out-of-business Skyraider Miniatures (this also includes the props for the Pucara). The air-to-surface rocket pods and payload racks are scratch built using tooth picks and sheet styrene. Many Prairie Hawk Gamer models come with the payloads already on them. Many years ago, Skyraider was the only company I knew of that made the Dragonfly. I do have them somewhere in a box but never bothered to paint them. Skyraider's aircraft lack any kind of of detail.

I am pretty happy with Prairie Hawk Gamer's models. I like his models and he is willing to produce more obscure aircraft. To me, why make another MIG-21 when just about every company that makes airplanes makes a MIG-21, and the detail is generally better? Also, his prices are a lot more reasonable than other 3D designers.   I don't want to complain too much about the prices of these 3D printed models because I have no idea how Shapeways charges to get products to be made, but to me, the prices that some companies charge are outrageous.

The Super Tucano is really a model of the British Short Tucano, but until someone makes a dedicated Super Tucano, this will do. Modern gun pods don't look like the ones I put on the upper Tucano, but it looks at more bad ass with the longer barrels.

Finally, you might notice that all the planes now have roundels on their wings. These are simply made of thin paper that was punched out. I glued them on and then painted them. I used a super fine Sharpy pen to make the eagle in the middle (no, its not a swastika!). I could have used Adobe Illustrator to design them and then printed them on decal paper. I've tried that with making heraldry designs for my 15mm knights. It was just not worth the decal paper, or the time, or the aggravation. Doing them on a inkjet printer gave so-so results. Plus, it turns out that 10 years later, even though I sprayed them with a clear coating, the designs have faded.  So, these don't look all that great, but I am happy with them. Eventually, I plan to make some smaller ones to put on the sides of the aircraft.

M 113 Upgrades

 On the eve of the Second Chalupistan War, Southern Chalupastan wanted to upgrade the firepower of their M 113 APCs so that they were more like an infantry fighting vehicle. They added 20 mm Rheinmetall MK 20 Rh 202 automatic cannon turret; the same as is found on the Marder 1 IVF. Time ran out long before many could be converted, but enough were to be distributed to at least one platoon per company of the 2nd Royal Guard Dragoons and the 2nd Armored Infantry battalion.

 

Additionally, some M 113s had a remote weapon station installed with a 7.62mm MG.

The M 113s and the Marder 20mm turrets were from C in C. C-in-C's M 113 model is nice as it has a gunner manning the 50 cal MG. I can always use them for something else. I am not sure what to do with the Marder bodies. They also come with a rear mounted, remote controlled MG. Unlike GHQ, which pretty much gives you five of everything, C in C varies the number of vehicles per pack. There was one more M 113 than there were Marders. I had a spare remote weapons station from a pack of Heroics & Ros Australian Bushmasters, so I stuck that on the remaining M 113.