So far I have used bits of paper to mark where a tunneling model may be in games of Steam Wars. I wanted to make something a bit more interesting so made some sign posts using bits of sprue and plastic card.
Monthly Archives: January 2017
King Buggy Weapons
The nose guns for my two King Buggy conversions have been glued in place and reinforced with some extra plastic.
I am going to fit some magnets in the wings to allow various weapons to be slung underneath.
I will have to do some trimming on the missile racks as they are a bit long and stick out too far.
King Buggy Cockpit
Over the weekend, I concentrated on making some headway with the cockpit for the Mechanica King Buggy aircraft, which will need a better name…
With no real plan, I just added bits of plastic until I looked finished. Using Lego as the cockpit base was definitely the way to go, nice right angles and ready made blocks. I’m sure the kids won’t mind that I have now pinched all their Lego.
The whole thing slots into the fuselage nicely and the control panel will be visible enough to be noticed, but hopefully not so much that the uneven detail will stand out.
For the moment, I am just using a pin as the yoke until I can think of something else or just go with the pin.
Karman King Buggy Converison
I wanted to make some aircraft models for my steampunk Mechanica force and I had thought ages ago that the old Rackham King Buggy would be a great place to start. I still wanted to keep my AT-43 Karman army intact, so I bought some ridiculously cheap King Buggy’s from Miniature Market. When I say cheap, I think they were US$10 each and that was before Sterling bombed against the dollar.
I removed the rear gunner and chin mounted machine guns. I wanted to have the pilot cockpit where the rear gunner was located. My first thought was to build an enclosed cockpit and not necessarily have a visible pilot model. As these aircraft were to be used for my Mechanica force, I realised that some of the Dystopian Legions Automotan models are in a kneeling pose and these easily could be modelled in a sitting position. So I would have a go at making an open cockpit with a visible pilot.
I removed the front grill and was going to nose mount one of the King Buggy machine guns but found a Ramshackle rottary machine gun was much more intimidating looking.
I managed to carefully crack open the fuselage, lucky really that they do not use much glue when sticking them together. If I had made this myself from a kit, it would never get opened up again without doing some serious damage.
One of the kneeling Automotans was put together in a sitting pose. Once again, these infantry models are really hard to stick together.
I started by making up a simple pilot seat which I was then going to embellish with various bits of detail.
I was using some Lego bricks to build up the height of the cockpit floor and then decided just to use Lego to make the whole pilot seat. Much easier.
When positioned inside the fuselage it is about the height I was looking for.
I added a front panel to the cockpit so some controls can be fitted, this also covered up some unsightly internal bits .
Using some Game$ Work$hop control panels from a Rhino I think, I made some Silly Gum moulds and green stuffed some extras.
I will have to look for some other bits that can be stuck in the cockpit, I need some levers and some more controls of some sort.
Dust SSU Mech
I am a big fan of Dust Battlefield/Tactics/Warfare and have quite a few Allied and Axis models. I do not intend to start an SSU force, but I do like some of the models. I acquired one of the Mechs some time ago and was wondering what to do with it. Maybe use it in Steam Wars or maybe in a sci-fi game…
The model was in a running pose that really was leaning too far forward, so the first thing I did was carefully twist the legs off keeping the lugs!
When I had straightened the model up, I thought the cannon and flamer arms seemed a bit long so I shortened them by removing most of the articulated arm.
But it makes sense for the chainsword arm to be a longer limb so it can be swung around in combat. As the arms do not need to be glued in place I can switch the chainsword and flamer arms.
I just need to decide what I will use if for.
First Go At Rogue Stars
Mr Steinbergs shed saw our first go at Rogue Stars last night. After a long build up with plenty of online hype and expectation, the rule book was released just before Christmas and I was delighted to get my hands on it. This was soon tempered by the first blog reviews that I saw as they were not particularly favourable. Several gamers were complaining about the number of counters in play and the large number of modifier tables. Undeterred, we selected a small group of models and played out a simple kill everything scenario to try out the rules. We were both quite cautious with our initial stab at creating model profiles, we steered away from any Psykers and kept the weapon and skill selection quite basic.
Although there are a lot of tables and there a lot of counters, I like the fact that each model in the small faction is a unique character model and can be equipped in any way. As we created a character sheet for each of our models, we kept all of the counters off the battlefield and on the character sheets. Each model can build up a lot of Pin, Stress and Wound counters so keeping them away from the models on the table is definitely the best way to go.
Once we had been through the ranged combat and melee combat mechanics a couple of times, it got quicker and quicker and as with any new game system, the rules begin to become easier to recall and implement. There are still some rules we were probably not enforcing every time, but another read of the rules now we have the first game under our belts should clear up a few things.
Luckily, I like playing with spreadsheets, so I am going to work on a concise character sheet that should fit two to an A4 page and show most of the specific model attributes and have space for all the status counters. We are planning round two next week. I wonder what fun models I can find in the Loft Full Of Lead?
Mechanica Roller Blades
I picked up these Nuem Auxilium Equites from Tor Gaming to use as close combat robot infantry of sorts in my Steampunk Mechanica army.
There were six in the pack, Steam Wars has six infantry models in a unit, it is as if they were made for it.
Mechanica Army Project
I have started work on my next Steampunk army, the mainly robot army, which I think will be called Mechanica (or Mekanica).
I do not usually take on a large number of models in an army any more, but these are actually quite quick to paint. The overall army colour scheme is going to be silver and bolt gun with some brass and metallic blue here and there!
The core infantry will be the Spartan Games Automota models from Dystopian Legions. Although they are a real pain to put together, I seem to have conveniently forgotten the hell I went through and bought some more.
Over the years I have collected loads of models that have either never been used in any games, or just don’t get used enough. Some of the following Armorcast models had been used in my British Steampunk army a couple of times, but as the Mechanica army collection started to take shape, they got put to one side to be saved for another day and another battle.
I have noticed that as I picked up models from here and there, I started to notice that quite a few had a spherical theme going on. This was very much by accident.
Although I am not limiting what I buy based on shape, it may well be that lots of the vehicles and some of the infantry models may be a bit on the round side.
These old Armorcast walking tanks are great examples of golf ball sized models that fit really well into the robot theme.
The largest of the tank models planned is the Rising Sun Ke-Ho Ironclad, which will need a much better robo-sounding name.
I also have some ideas for some robo-aircraft, but they will not be very round at all…
The Year Ahead
In 2017 I can already tell that I will have less time to paint and work on the piles of projects that have accumulated in the Loft Full Of Lead.
I do still have some goals, Mr Steinberg and I have decided we will have a Pirate period and play a few of the rules we have had knocking around for a while. Not sure that we will have a go at Freebooters Fate as it requires specific models and reference cards, the other games are more generic and allow any suitable models to be used.
Also up in the New Year will be a few games of Osprey’s new Rogue Stars. I have already started to create some Rogue Stars model profiles but they do take a while to sort out. I have dug out a selection of models from classic Warzone, Rogue Trader (rather appropriately) and Sedition Wars, it is now just a case of coming up with a profile that fits four or five figures.
The painting and modeling projects will be kept to a minimum due to my time constraints and my current pesky job in London. Nonetheless, I have a few main projects to work on in 2017.
1. Completing the Dust Axis force
2. Starting the Steam Wars robot force
3. Complete the Rackham Dwarf models and a clockwork dragon for Dragon Rampant
4. Make progress on the huge Aircraft Carrier
5. Complete some terrain projects
Well that is the plan anyway…
The Month Gone: Dec 2016
December did not present the spare time I was hoping it was going to. I only got to paint four Predator models and those were quite quick paint jobs to get them ready for a game of AvP.
Purchased: 0
Painted: 4
Monthly Result: +4
Yearly Tally: +140
Over the whole of 2016, I purchased 99 new figures and painted a total of 239.
A loft full of lead 