Sorry for the lack of updates but I've been slowly working my way through a bunch of different projects over the past couple of months after some initial delays.
Starting with the last topic I covered, I managed to get a full squad of VOTOMs to use as Gears in a 28mm Heavy Gear game. It took me a few weeks but I finally got them from overseas. Because the plastic felt different, I decided to test my planned green base coat on one of the rifles I wouldn't be using (due to the bazooka conversions) and the plastic in the figure reacted strangely to the spray paint. I suspect that the figs are vinyl due to their feel which should (according to the label) work with the paint I chose but unfortunately it remains "sticky" for weeks. The only slapdash solution I found was to coat the spray with normal acrylic paint but I'm not sure if whatever the chemical reaction is will eventually leech through the second layer of paint. I've tried instead hand painting with acrylic over the VOTOMs and, while not visually as good, serves the purpose of dulling the sheen on the figs. I'll post pics of the results (I tested washes on the figs as well as repainting) in the future when I finish all five.
In the meantime, I finally got my wave 1 box from the very delayed Robotech kickstarter. Due to the unfortunate backtracking and intentional misleading of pledgers by Palladium in the intervening 18 or so months, I frankly don't have too much interest in putting together the dozens of minis at this point. Another local gamer at my FLGS got in on the KS as well and we'll be trying out a game in a few weeks hopefully. I'll try putting together my resin Miriya QRaus and he's planning on putting together his battlecry pledge so we should have enough figs. The KS, even with just wave 1, gives you an impressive amount of figs for the price. Unfortunately, the sprues for the figs seem badly designed with tons of very tiny and easy to break parts seemingly unnecessarily broken down into multiple parts. When the other gamer was assembling his command pack models, he lost a part and broke off two more when cutting them from the sprue. I suspect most Robotech models will be modelled with "battle damage" after only a few games regardless of how much care you take in storing them.
Also in Kickstarter news, Heavy Gear is currently running a KS for plastic minis to accompany their new edition.
The KS went through some serious rejigging during its multiple previews on the official DP9 forums and is probably now at a good point. The initial ideas were frequently downright bad but it has improved significantly since then. It funded (admittedly to my surprise) in less than a day and is fast approaching what I consider to be a good value in the realm of plastic starter sets. Once it reaches around $105k, you'll have a color starter rulebook along with four armies to play with (Caprice, CEF, North, and South). While you'll need to combine them into two armies to play the optimal sized game of HG with the new beta rules, the KS gives you four average sized forces using the Blitz rules. At $130 CAD (including shipping), that's a pretty good deal compared with current metals and even other plastic starters.
Finally, this isn't mech related but I did start working on some 40k models. I picked up my first GW kits in a few years and decided to make a small ally force of Space Wolves. I had gotten some primarchs a while back in a trade and figured I'd try to make them into "true scale" Space Wolves characters. Horus has become my Logan Grimnar whereas Ferrus Manus is now an Iron Priest. I picked up the Logan Grimnar boxed set despite my dislike for the stupid Santa sleigh idea for the wolves to accompany Horus. I plan on turning the sled into an Iron Priest land speeder and to turn the Logan model within into another Iron Priest. I've got some work to do on that but within a week or so I should be able to post some pics of that.
Once again, sorry for the delay and the above wall of text but I should have some visual indications of progress on a few different fronts to post in the near future.
TABLETOP MINIATURES HOBBY BLOG ABOUT SCIFI WARFARE WAGED FROM THE SAFETY AND COMFORT OF YOUR CHAIR!
I've been angsting over the HG KS, but the fact is that money is tight, so it will pass me by. Good to see you post, and sorry to hear about the paint problems, which is always a bit of a bugger when it happens to models that are not easily replaced if something goes wrong.
ReplyDeleteI'd suggest just pledging $1 CAD in that case so you can delay the decision for months. DP9's Dave said on Dakka Dakka that they're planning on keeping the pledge manager open until they start production so you could always add one of the base pledges if things improve financially in the meantime. If they don't, you're out less only $1 CAD.
ReplyDeleteI eventually bit the bullet and pledged $65 for a Caprice army, if I can up it to $115 for a full army come the day then I will.
ReplyDeleteCongrats on taking the plunge! I've only dipped my toes into the HG KS pool but hopefully they'll show some real progress over the next 6-8 months and I'll up my pledge significantly.
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