2015 and Beyond... Part II

And now we get to what I unfortunately did not finish during 2015 as planned.  First up would be my long planned but stalled 28mm VOTOM/Heavy Gear squad.

While I did try a few paint schemes and techniques like traditional painting as well as washes/drybrushing, I never got the models to quite look how I wanted them toand stripped them down.  I dont think I ever covered it here on the blog but I also converted a snub cannon for the fifth model as well as some extra comm gear for the Jaeger Command squad leader.  I still plan on working on them eventually but the wait and see approach to the Heavy Gear kickstarter I took somewhat drained my enthusiasm for the project.  Perhaps the potential fulfillment of the rewards this year (delayed four months or more so far) will have the opposite effect.

The second project that I had planned but didn't complete was my small Space Wolf 40K Primarch ally force.

While I didn't touch Logan Grimnar on the right, I did a few coats of grey and some metallics on the Iron Priest on the left.  I again wasn't quite happy with the preheresy scheme effect I achieved but I also wasn't unhappy enough to strip it off either.   We'll have to see if I end up able to salvage it in the end.  Like the VOTOMS above, I don't really have a practical use for these in any future foreseeable game so they'll likely stay on the backburner for a while.

Finally, I'm back to what was posted on my last real hobby update and my first really hobby work of the new year...my 40K Tau Broadside conversion.

He's currently primed green with recesses washed black and ready to paint.  With even my glacial pace of painting, I should be able to finish him completely this month and be done for a second time with my Tau side project.  

After that, I'm not sure what I'll do in what order in 2016 but I do have a few ideas knocking around my head.  The easiest would probably be a set of house rules for improving (hopefully!) the effectiveness of fighter/bomber wing combat in Halo Fleet Battles as well as incorporating the boarding actions into the normal mechanics of the rest of the game instead of being entirely separate.  My tentative name for the house rules would be "Their Finest Hour" and I hope to start posting them next month.

Besides my two main stalled projects above, the only hobby work I've got planned is to repaint one of the new T-70 xwings in Poe Dameron colors after seeing the movie.  While I thought the movie was better than the prequels, it didn't entirely captivate me as I found most of the characters uninspiring (except Ray) and the plot too derivative of the original movie.  I did however like the battle scenes and especially the new xwing both in design and Poe's color scheme.

The other thing I'd like to do more of in 2016 is actually play games.  For a variety of different reasons, I only played a grand total of 4 games in all of 2015 from all game systems combined.  I'd probably focus on Halo if given a choice with the upcoming house rules needing some real world testing but I'm not particularly picky!  I'm not sure if my cellphone camera is up for it but I'll likely post battle report videos of any games I play this year both on youtube and linkef here on the blog.

Thanks as always for reading and I hope I didn't cause anyone to nod off while reading!  I've been pecking away at my tablet typing this so I apologize for any typos as I'll hopefully correct them in short order.

Robotech and VOTOM Reinforcements Inbound?

Just a quick update.  Over the past week, when not tweaking the Vermilion Squadron skirmish rules, I restarted work on my 28mm VOTOM project due to a resurgence in interest on my part in the N3 Infinity rules that would allow me to use them in a game.  Previously, I had tested out some various paint schemes to no good effect.  I couldn't base coat the PVC plastic as it got sticky, painting with acyrlic directly onto the model looked odd and chipped off with storage, and just applying a wash then flat coat wasn't pretty either.  I stripped the two full votoms that I was working on and tried a new method.  The Testors flat varnish dries well on the plastic and seems to prevent the stickyness of the primer/base coat applied second.  I'll hopefully be posting some pics later this week of my guinea pig VOTOM as I need to buy some more supplies first (ran out of the flat varnish).

I also went to a not-so-local but very friendly game store flea market this weekend and picked up a nice Robotech minis force at a very good price (and best of all paid for almost completely with the store credit for what I myself sold!).  There are enough decent tabletop quality painted minis for both factions to run a 300pt game plus a few extra to spare.  Since I'm more interested in the "skirmish" side of the game, that is definitely more than enough minis for my needs!  In testing out my rules, I was basically solo'ing games using labelled bases but I'll now have some painted minis to use instead.  I'll still keep likely a squad of each type for both sides and likely sell or trade the rest.  And I didn't even have to assemble a 24 piece 1" tall destroid!  Woohoo!  :)

Upcoming Unofficial Robotech RPG Tactics Skirmish House Rules and Tau Update

Just a quick update on my Riptide as well as a few ideas on what is to come for the blog.  I've had no luck getting the shoulder bits that I need for my Tau Riptide/Y'Vahra conversion but I have at least tested the plastic and primed the model.  I was initially afraid that the plastic wouldn't react well to the spray primer/base coat like with my Heavy Gear Votom Gashapon models but luckily that wasn't the case either with the test pieces nor the actual model.  I'm still planning on getting back to it as soon as I get the parts that I (hopefully if they fit!) need.  I'm a bit hesitant to fully start painting it though so I've moved onto other things on my waiting list.

I've had a bit of a resurgence of interest in my Robotech RPG Tactics models (or RRPGT or Tactics for short!) and have been planning out how to assemble them.  I downloaded the much improved construction guides that Palladium put out on drivethrurpg and they're a big help.  With only a single Battlecry pledge to my name, I don't have the luxury of experimenting too much with the models via conversions but I do plan on assembling a veritech squadron and some battlepods to fight it out on my cityscape terrain.  The rules as written are very streamlined and fast being meant for larger scale battles than my planned collection will be able to do justice.  After I get wave 2, I'll likely only have aobut 450pts per side with the minimum the rules recommend being 300pts for a standard game.  Without wave 2 (my current situation), I have to depend on special characters to get to the minimum game size of 300pts.

There was supposed to be a set of full skirmish rules in the game but they apparently ended up on the cutting room floor and were replaced with a page of introductory scenarios instead for new players.  My idea is to create my own skirmish rules like I did with the Heavy Gear Flash! set that I started this blog with.  Unlike with HG, the Robotech rules (with some caveats) do generally work with the scale of battle that they were developed for so my goal is to expand on them within the existing framework to work better at a model count smaller than intended.  I hope to have the update post for these houserules that details the both the goals and changes more concretely ready by the end of the week.  As stated earlier, I'm not rewriting large portions of the rules so I hopefully will be able to detail the house rules in just a couple of posts.  I encourage folks to leave comments on the future posts as I do plan on editing the house rules depending on how the reception is.

It's been a while...

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.

Heavy Gear KS Link

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.

28mm VOTOMS / Heavy Gear conversions

Hello, my name is Scifi Sitzkrieg and I have a problem.  I've been told that the first step is admitting it.  I have no legitimate use for more VOTOMS yet I picked up three more for a great price!  :)   At least now I'll have a full squad of five when they arrive in a few weeks as it seems all the VOTOMS in North America were bought out long ago and I have to buy them from various far flung locales.

Since I have a full squad theoretically, I decided to try and kit them out like a squad in Heavy Gear.  Along those lines, I decided to make two of them "strike" variants with bazookas.  At first, I had hoped my left over RAFM larger scale heavy bazookas would do the trick but they were much too small.  I decided to instead convert two weapons from things I had laying around so below you'll find pics of my new bazookas constructed from left over 40k bits and sprues as well as two dried out ball point pens.  I'm not a sculptor but I tried to make them at least reminiscent of HG style bazookas as I prefer that look to the more rounded versions you find in VOTOMS.

Included in the second pic is the old RAFM scale bazooka for size comparison.  I plan on using two of them as the "gunner" versions with the MAC GAT-22 rifle and the last one converted to a command variant.  I'll have to add some extra comm gear somewhere to visually identify the "command:" Jager.  Ideally, I'd prefer to field them as a squad of 5x Basilisks but I can't find a way in the Heavy Gear Southern Field Guide to field 5 Basilisks including two Strike variants and three Gunners.  

If I'm missing some swap in FIF that allows this, feel free to tell me in a comment below!  I'll likely wait till I get the remaining three models before I start painting them as I prefer to do assembly style painting (i.e. all the weapons on all the models in a row before moving onto some other part).  

Quick update on the VOTOM paint scheme...

Hey guys and gals, nothing too earth shattering for this update as I've just been working on how I want to paint my VOTOM gashapon.  Since I'll be using them along with my 40k Cadian minis, I had initially thought about painting them up like the infantry with a black chest, shoulders, and head with the rest green.  When I tested out that paint scheme in MSPAINT, I frankly didn't like the result.  The base gashapon color is pretty similar to my northern army scheme ironically...

so I think that I'll continue that scheme as an homage to the HG models that were inspired by the VOTOMs.  To add in a bit more 40k specific flavor, I'll likely color the weapons and head attachements black and add some 40k style decals to the model like cadian symbols on the shoulder pads and an aquilla on the chest.

I'll likely use the flesh tones over the upper limbs as with the gears and the Dark Angel/Hunter green for the green parts which shouldn't be an issue as I'm covering up relatively similar colors.  Ideas?  One option would be to keep the red shoulder color in deference to the VOTOMs roots and also because that would add a splash of color not otherwise seen on the model.

NuCoal GP and VOTOMS update

It took me a few months of very intermittent painting but I've got my NuCoal GP squad done.  My Fort Neil Tank Regiment force is now complete and has some supporting units to flank around the main hovertank assault with every model capable of moving at least 16 inches in hover mode.  The GP consists of 5x Chassuer Mk2 hover gears with two Lbzk upgrades and two MAC upgrades along with the command model.

I think the paint scheme turned out a bit better on the gears than it did on the tanks and bikes.  I had initially planned on putting the skull decal on the front chest panel but it looked odd there and detracted from the solid red so I instead put it on the right shoulder top instead (after trying about the calves as well).  They still remind me a bit of men in tuxedos but I do actually like the overall look in the end unlike with the tanks.  Here is the whole army in a pic just as a reference.

Special thanks goes out to Paradox 01 on the dp9 forum for a tip about putting a brown undercoat on top of black when you want to put red as the final color.  I suspect this will be last Heavy Gear hobby work that I do for a long while.  My only opponent in the state has pretty much gone belly up in terms of interest in playing for a variety of reasons and there is alot of uncertainty in Heavy Gear at the moment with the upcoming release of the next edition Beta rules.  I'll still try and play my FLASH! house rules locally here if I can get an opponent but I'll likely bow out of the new edition until the final version shakes out next summer.  I've still at least a dozen more unpainted Northern gears that I'd like to eventually work on as well as probably another squad's worth of odds and ends gears that I don't plan on working on currently so I'll have plenty on the plate next summer if I like what I see.

In the meantime, I've also put my 40k Deathwatch Truescale marine squad on hold for the moment as a dastardly thread on Dakka about an excellent VOTOMS 28mm campaign  (Iron Hands VOTOMS) got my interest in VOTOMS piqued again.  Infinity is coming out with a new edition this summer which I plan on checking out so I figured I'd get some models to use along with my existing 40k collection to test the waters with that new ruleset.

The thread on Dakka which gave me the idea of using them as TAG (Tactical Armored Gears) models and Paint it Pink Blog's very nice VOTOMS articles on various model sizes (Paint it Pink) helped alot in getting the scale right.  I basically plan on trying out the rules using my Cadian IG as Nomad Infantry and the VOTOMS as Gecko TAGs.  Additionally, I wouldn't mind trying out 28mm Heavy Gear using my FLASH! rules and 40k figs.  Basically, the cadians would be northern infantry with the VOTOMS as 28mm Gears (Hunter XMG?).  Opposing them would be my xenos "earth" forces with either Tau or Eldar tanks as Earth Light Hovertanks and eldar "GREL" jetbikes or Tau stealth suit FLAILs.

In any case, thanks for reading and I hope to post an update with the VOTOMS soon (or at least not the two months it took for the NuCoal GP squad).