"Miniature Wargames" Magazine Free Download

Miniature Wargames magazine never really appealed to me particularly.  It always seemed that the production, design and standard of miniatures were that little bit less slick and professional than its main competitor, Wargames Illustrated.  I've been a fan of WI off and on over the years (had some pieces published in it years ago too, for which I was never paid) but only pick up the odd issue.  The recent price drop from @$13 to $8.50 was welcome, though, and I think that the new ownership has revitalized the magazine significantly.

But this post isn't about WI, it's about MW, and a free download offer they are running.  Click here to go to a free download page where you can access two trial copies of the mag.  I'm going to check it out as well and see if my old prejudices are still founded.  If you do have a comment to make on the magazines please leave it below.

Cheers to Sarah of MW for the offer!

Biddy-biddy-beep... new 15mm Sci-Fi...

On Monday the mailman brought a box from FRP Games containing some RAFM Enforcer Drones... the first models to arrive for my upcoming "Zero-One/Skynet" robot army in 15mm.  The infantry is coming from www.15mm.co.uk.  I looked at a bunch of stuff for heavy support options but the HK-tank style "tracked torsos" didn't appeal.  The RAFM models looked cool and were the right size to fit.

I based the model on a large Flames of War base.  Decal is from the decal folder in my drawer (origin unknown!)

Stay tuned for the 15mm automaton army which (hopefully) will arrive soon!

15mm Sci-Fi Command (Khurasan content!)

On Monday I got a couple parcels in the mail... one was a small padded envelope from Khurasan containing (among other things) a Federal Army Command Team with Holomap.  I reckoned these would mix reasonably well with the Earth Force Marines.  I based the lot on a large Flames of War base and added some random GW bits from the bits box for interest, to represent some equipment or stowage that the command team would need, maybe a generator to power the holomap and espresso maker? 
 
Anyway, I think they turned out OK and make a nice addition to the Earth Force Marines group.  Here's the force in its entirety (for now) - I added another Merka 5 and three APCs courtesy of Conscript Greg (thanks man!)

Games Workshop Retail Fail (again)

 

Like many of you, I received the regular email blast from Games Workshop last Thursday announcing the "Storm of Magic" expansion for Warhammer Fantasy to be in stores on Saturday.  Although the little I've heard about it makes Storm of Magic sound pretty silly (a spinner?  really?), as a long-time WHFB enthusiast I thought I would check it out if I was in the neighbourhood of the local GW.  I wasn't planning to splash out the mega-bucks that the book is sure to cost, but thought that perhaps if there were new wizard models released, I might pick up a Finecast Grey Seer for my Skaven, and blog a review of the new resin.

So, on a sunny Sunday afternoon, I found myself in the vicinity of our local and decided to drop in for a look-see.

And the shop was closed.

A note on the door told me that it closed on 4 July and would reopen on 13 July.

As I noted last year, our local Games Workshop store has one (1) employee, "Pete".  Nice guy, enthusiastic, and a great ambassador for the brand.  I don't begrudge Pete a vacation for one minute.  He works hard and has to deal with crap that I can't even imagine.  The man needs to take a holiday.  In fact, the man needs some relief on a day to day basis.  How stressful would it be to have to close your store to go have lunch or even drop a deuce, for the love of God??

Anyway, GW didn't get any of my money on Sunday and they might have.  Or maybe they wouldn't have, depending on what they had there.  In any case, we'll never know.  It's just rather annoying that they have a retail presence that's not actually "present" much of the time.  Quaere whether this is better or worse than not having a shop here at all...

15mm Sci Fi - Finally Underway!

Well, Mike F and Dallas have been kicking my but long enough - it was time to dive into the 15mm Sci-Fi new insane project. I finally got moving this weekend, finishing off a small group of test models. The infantry are 15mm Federal troops from Khurasan. The vehicle is a 15mm "Claymore" APC from Old Crow.



When you're in a hurry, keep it simple. That was my motto on this project, so I went with the same blue-themed colour pattern I use with my Imperial Guardsmen in 40k. I used red for the face plates, to give them a touch of that plesant look/feel you get from those happy troops with the Helghast Empire.



The Khurasan 15mm Federal Army troops are really nice. The castings were a bit flash-happy, but nothing the hobby knife couldn't handle. One of the things that happens with test models is that you screw up. Like thinking the guy with the SAW is a sniper. Whoops. So that will be the only stand-alone SAW gunner. I'll straighten that out eventually.



The 15mm vehicles from Old Crow are an absolute joy to assemble. Old Crow has a great selection of vehicles, and different alternate turrets and weapons. I have four of these "Claymore" wheeled APCs - they make me think of a sci-fi version of an LAV. I have three of the vehicles with auto-cannon-type weapons like this one, and one with a small snub-nose howitzer for the weapon. I also have a "com-cent" turret that I can drop on to one of the vehicles to mark it as a command APC, or a FO/FAC vehicle.

My decal supply is a bit scattered - we are preparing to move, and a lot of stuff has been packed away, not to be seen for a couple months, but fortunately I had some spare Battlefront German decal sets which provided for tactical numerals and strange panzer division symbol that will stand in as a unit badge. I used the black tactical numbers to avoid confusion with the red ones employed by Gilles.



I still have some 15mm "Control Batallion" models from Khurasan (some of the nicest 15mm castings I have seen!) to get started with, and some other APCs and tanks. I'm way behind Dallas and Mike F, but working to get caught up! Watch for more progress in the blog...

UNE Superfortress Colossus for 15mm Sci-Fi!

Last year, on a business trip to Toronto, I went to the Hairy Tarantula's "warehouse" store in the north end for a look-see.   It's basically a huge basement filled with old gaming junk.  Lots of RPGs (I picked up a copy of Chaosium's "Superworld") and some miniatures too - mainly old OOP ranges like Warzone, Legions of Steel, etc... then I spotted this bad boy sitting amongst a bunch of other junk...

It is, of course, the UNE Superfortress Colossus from Global Games' Legions of Steel range.  All metal, it weighs in at a hefty 2.2 lbs (!).  Meant for a nominal 28mm scale, but I think that the aircraft nose glazing makes it quite plausible to imagine a crew of three or four 15mm figures in the nose.  Of course, at the time I bought it I had no inkling of doing 15mm sci-fi; I'd meant to use it with some Rogue Trader stuff, maybe as a Dreadnought or similar.  I had always thought that this was a really cool model, but it's well OOP... there's not even much info on the 'net about it.  I picked up this example for 10 bucks as it was missing a part - the left hand weapon - which I replaced with a 40K lascannon I had spare.

Here's a comparison shot of the basecoated model alongside the Rebel Minis "Merka 5" tank and a couple of their Earth Force Marines.

The painted model.  Like the other 15mm sci-fi vehicles painted by Gilles, the walker was basecoated grey and camouflaged in a Graveyard Earth and Iyanden Sun mix, washed with Badab Black.

Cockpit detail - sorry about the %$#^ stray static grass.  Decal courtesy of a spare 40K IG decal sheet.  The tactical numbers came from the decal sheet supplied with the GeeBee Racer model that supplied the base model for my Red Barun conversion.  The national symbol of the faction (just visible on the top of the starboard wing) was freehanded - it's based on the tactical symbol for the German 15. Panzerdivision.

I'm pretty pleased with how the model turned out.  I think that it fits quite nicely with the my Earth Force 15mm army - probably better than it would fit with 28mm!

We're Terminators, We Don't Do "Objectives".

Last night Greg brought over his amazingly painted Elysian Drop Troop army for a game of 40K against my Black Templars. (Further amortization of the Stalingrad terrain was an added bonus). The random scenario we dialled up involved placing four objectives on the table (the ammo canisters visible deployed in a rough square around the middle of the table: in woods at centre left; directly north of this location in a ruined building; straight east of that on a sidewalk; and due south of that on the southern lip of the crater). The player who controlled the most objectives at the end of the game wins.

Deployment was funky as well: table halves with up to two Troops and one HQ on table, the rest coming either from Reserve or directly on-board on Turn 2.

Since the Guard are organized as "platoons" that meant a lot of stuff on table for Greg; for me, not so much. Just the two Rhinos, each with a full complement of Templars and one also containing the Emperor's Champion. These I tried to deploy behind a bit of cover.

My plan was to leave the "sidewalk" objective and try to take the others. My whole army moves fast (Rhinos, Land Raider with Terminator Squad, Landspeeder with multi-melta, Assault squad and Chaplain with jump pack) so I didn't fuss with Reserves, just brought everything on in Turn 2. I counted on Greg's almost pathological hatred of the "Reserves" rule to cause him to do the same.

Just out of shot to the south-west, the first Rhino has been immobilized and the Templars have scurried into the woods containing the objective. They were quickly vaporized by the Punisher cannons on the Vulture gunship.

The Assault squad jumped into action and tried not to be too disturbed by the chunks of oolitic kidney, Larriman's Glands and tri-bladders scattered around the woods :-( Over to their right, the other Templar squad hops into the crater after destroying the Valk with a melta-shot.

The valiant Landspeeder crew zoom their vehicle up to a Valk for a multi-melta shot. Missed as usual, the next turn the Speeder crashes in flames.

Not going so great for the BTs at this point... if we could only get into close combat...

Here comes the Land Raider full of Terminator goodness...

Greg's platoon command watches as the sniper squad and Company command in the ruined building get trampled by my Assault squad. The Land Raider had immobilized the Vendetta but its Punisher cannons were still in operation... so the Assault Squad ganged up on it with a power fist, meltabombs and krak grenades... and the best result was "Immobilized". At least we rolled 5 "3"s and got rid of the weapons.

Off to the left the Terminators have disembarked onto the objective in the woods. The guys in this picture have just been shot up and fled from the crater (failed their "I'm an insane Black Templar who runs forward instead of Falling Back" test).

These guys got shot up some more and then ran forward into one of the Elysian squads near the objective, killed that squad, then got shot to pieces as usual :-(

Meanwhile, on the other flank, the Assault Squad was holding one objective and the Terminator Squad another. Despite some appalling dice rolling and getting shot to bits by Guard, it looked like a win was on the cards for my boys... that's when a horrible realization began to dawn on me.

I imagine the Comm-Net transmission went something like this:

Chaplain Cadfael: Black One Actual to Terminator Squad, come in.
Terminator Sergeant: You have Sergeant Augustus here, over.
CC: Augustus, are you on Objective Alpha? Hold that objective, over.
TS: That's a negative, Black One. No can do.
CC: Say again, Augustus, I think we've got some interference on the net. Over.
TS: Repeat, no can do. Negative. Can't hold the objective. We're going to go shoot at some Guardsmen in a building now, over.
CC: Augustus. I have a fething shart-show situation going on here. I'm with the Assault Squad, we're on an objective, the battle is almost over and I've been told that we can't hold it because we're not "Troops", whatever that means. So we have to jump away and try to kill the rest of the Guard army. So I need you to sit on that fething objective and hold it. Am I making myself clear? Acknowledge!
TS: Umm, yeah. It kinda turns out we're not Troops either. Sorry.

So with that disappointing realization (on Turn 6 no less) I had to move the Assault Squad over to near the sidewalk objective and try to contest that for the draw. The Assault Squad did great, cleaning out a squad of Elysians while losing one of their own. Then they parked on the objective and waited for Brian to roll the die to see if there would be another turn (only on a roll of 4+)... and he rolled a 6. Crap. So, pictured above is the last stand of Chaplain Cadfael. He finally fell to the lascannons of a Valkyrie... had three wounds left, took three from the Valk, saved one with the Rosarius, but "Instant Death", like Instant Karma, is a killer. The Terminators threw a last gasp rattle of gunfire at the remaining Elysian squad, hoping to frighten them off the objective for a draw, but it was not to be as only one wound was caused, not enough to force even a Morale check.

So that ended the game! Pretty exciting, had ups and downs, good fun with nice terrain and good-looking armies. And beer! Thanks Greg for bringing the boys out. And yes, you do need another Vulture with Punisher cannons. [rolleyes]