Dirigible Nose

I have made a nose cone for one of the dirigibles. This was a mini project by itself!

I knew getting the second ring on was going to be difficult as there were loads of tabs to align.

The last ring had some nice looking curved girder effect bits to reduce the final diameter.

Like the previous level, it was quite tricky to align the tabs with the final front ring.

I am quite pleased with the result and need to make another one.

Prototype Propeller

I want to mount a couple of pusher-propellers on the rather large airship I have started and this is the first go.

Needs work.

Double Dirigible Design

Why have one when one can have two? At least that is what I thought when building the rough structure of the Steampunk Airship dirigibles.

I need to get some more MDF bits cut as I have changed my mind on a few of the original design decisions, mainly the way the two dirigibles attach to each other. I also have some ideas on how the front and back should look. If it does not look any good, then I will abort the project and think of something else to do…

Dirigible Design

Sometimes I wonder why I do this to myself. As I seem to have less time to build hobby stuff than I would like, I still decide to undertake new large build projects. A lot of the time this involves buying some sort of large kids toy or collectable to use as a starting point, and then promptly putting the whole thing on hold.

One such idea was a Steampunk style ship using yet another Playmobile hull but adding a couple of dirigibles in place of the sails and having it fly…

There is plenty of interesting art out there and I sort of knew what I wanted to build, especially as I can get laser cut mdf to make some of the structure.

As the diribles were to be the hard bit, I decided to start with those and work down to the hull.

I have some mdf cut to make the girder structure.

The bottle has been covered in tape before I try to apply some fabric. It could get messy.

Steam Wars Scenario

Every now and then, and a lot less often than I would like, I get to put on a large Steam Wars with loads of terrain and some sort of narrative scenario.

This game was an abduction mission for the Martian Overlords with no doubt some interrogation and probing as their dastardly objective. The target for their mission was to be Lord Flashheart, a rather brash British Empire officer suffering from too much over confidence, which would prove to be his undoing. With little in the way of security, Flashheart was holding a briefing with some local commanders in a small picturesque English town.

British reinforcements were were on the edge of town and would take a turn or two get into action…

The Martians had plenty of tripods in several variants and these headed up the assualt at speed. Due to a lack of infantry transport, much of the Martian infantry had to advance on foot towards the town square and the building that Flashheart was using for his meeting.
In a stolen US Navy APC walker, more Martian infantry scuttled forwards to the town square.

A rather unexpected surprise was when a massive Martian critter burst up from the cobbled streets and started to munch its way through the British Militia. It took plenty of British firepower to take down the ravenous beast.

British Treadbikes used their speed to advance up the streets to bring plenty of Light Machine Gun firepower whilst he rest of the infantry raced to catch up.

Each of the Martian infantry units were equipped with a Neural Neutraliser. This nefarious device would allow Flashheart to be captured and escorted out of the town without too much resistence, at least not from Flashheart himself. The Martians had to assault the town house and eliminate any of the opposition before they could capture Flashheart.

The Martian Technomage was able to Translocate a Martian infantry unit into the target building. Using the stolen transports, additional Martian infantry were able to gain access to the town house balcony and support the capture of Flashheart. This took a little longer than anticipated as a mechanical Martian Automotan unit failed to activate when in the same room as Flashheart!

Following this brief delay, the Martians were able to bundle Flashheart out through a window into a waiting transport and make a dash for the extraction point.

There was a last desperate attempt by the British to rescue Fashheart, but they were not able to bring enough ranged attacks to bear and stop the transport from making its way out of the town.

The British are already planning a rescue mission, quite possibly lead by Captain Blackadder and Captain Darling…

Lord Flashheart

In my push to paint up loads of random figures, I have completed a Lord Flashheart type model for my British Steampunk army. Woof.

“It’s me, Flash! Flash by name, Flash by nature. Hurrah!”

Brass Coffin

For ages I had wanted one or Ramshackle Games Bross Coffins and I did finally get one and paint it up.

I did a pretty basic metallic paint job and it came out okay really.

The bit of brass was kind of essential as it is in the name and brightens up the model nicely!

Ramshackle Resin

In my recent efforts to clear odds and ends from the backlog, I have painted some Steampunk resin figures from Ramshackle Games.

I do like the stuff Curtis makes, quirky and fun character models.

No idea what I am going to use them for yet, but they needed to get done.

Steam Wars Game

It has been difficult to arrange many games recently for obvious reasons, but last weekend, we did finally get to play a large game in the recently completed Tudor town.

The whole table looks just as I had planned it. The Deep Cut Cobblestone mat is perfect for the style of buildings, there is enough space between the buildings without the gaps being too big.

I got this all set up the night before so when Mr Steinberg arrived with his US Navy, we were able to get right into it.

We deployed a couple of objectives, one each, to be collected and removed from the table.

I used my British forces with some town Militia added in to defend their town.

As usual, I used my Treadbikes, one of my favourite units.

The infantry on both sides advanced rather cautiously using as much cover as possible in the early turns.


The Navy Rollerbots and Rocketeers moved up one flank and removed the opposition quite easily.

The Treadbikes moved up and got one decent round of fire in before getting a good pasting.

The Navy also had their own motorbike squadron, armed with a variety of weapons.


The Ocks deployed from their Mole but were not close enough to charge.

I had a small unit of square Gunbots that wandered around a bit.


The British never managed to break through the Navy defensive line to reach their objective, but they did manage to inflict plenty of casualties.

The Navy on the other hand, did retrieve their objective and escape with it for maximum Victory Points.

A cracking game!

Steam Wars

After well over a year, Mr Steinberg and I played a good gized Steam Wars game between the British Empire and the US Navy.

We did a nice simple “hold the objectives” game as it has been a long time since we rolled this one out.

The two forces started in opposite corners, so the first few turns involved plenty of strategic movement. Sort of.

A couple of units of the British rode forward in their armoured carriers

Whilst others just advanced…

The Gunbots secured the first objective while the jump trrops looked for a good position to lurk…

As the British were spreading out, the US Navy were doing the same with the mini landship taking the lead.

The US Navy had some nice new attacks bikes that really do look the part.

The US Navy Rocketeers took full advantage of the roof tops to move towards objectives.

It was not long before trouble broke out on several fronts. A quad of British Infantry took an objective and the Rocketeers roared down to contest it. Infantry are key in Steam Wars as they are the only units that can hold objectives

It is a times like this that you wonder if you really should have included a tank…

The US Navy heavy suits had taken ages to get into position and were about to assault a coupel of British infantry units.

With all of the objectives within reach, it was now a question of trying to wrest the objective from the other side!

In the middle of the town, most of the units had been reduced to a single soldier so there was not a lot happening here…

The final objective came down to a stalemate in the last turn with neither side able to take control of it.

It was a really good fun game and the Victorian town looked great, there must be more soon!