Gaslands Refueller Gyrocopter - part 2

So, how's that Gyrocopter working out for Gaslands, I hear you ask? Pretty good as far as I'm concerned. Part one of this build is back here.

I turned the buggy into a trike and put missiles on the forward wheel spokes. There's a mine dropper on the side and a machine gun mounted forward. Given the gyro is a converted buggy, this would need to drive a long straight template first to give it enough forward momentum and lift to get airborne. That makes it vulnerable in scenarios where the vehicle is on the ground initially.

I only had a clear flat base that I could use for the rotors being in motion. From a distance, the writing on the base doesn't hinder the aesthetic of the vehicle and it looks like it's in flight. If I find a better clear base somewhere, I may replace this one.

The flight stand itself is made from a few Star Trek Attack Wing base segments and can be added to or reduced depending upon what takes my fancy at the time. But the flight stand has a magnetic top to hold the gyro in place.

Looks nasty enough. Now to get a game of Gaslands Refuelled going so I can give it a try out.

Ghostbusters roleplaying game - a Halloween three-shot (PART 3)

 

Where are we?

Happy Australia Day for yesterday everyone. I celebrated the national day capping it off with the lads coming around for our monthly role-playing session. We finally managed to finish off my Ghostbusters adventure.

My "one-shot" Halloween Ghostbusters scenario that became a three shot mini campaign finally came to a conclusion last night. You can find part one and part two here.

This part of the adventure saw the players arrive in a strange place, having jumped through the portal back in the cavern as Vigo the Carpathian brought the roof on the cave down upon them. With no other choice, they all dived through the open portal and ended up here.

Where was here? Good question. They found themselves in some other worldly realm where the sky looked purple and studded with stars that didn't quite look like stars. Moreover, they found themselves on islands of floating rock that were suspended in the void.

I decided to let the players stew for a few minutes as they tried to figure out how they could move over the islands to the portal they could see in the distance. Some testing revealed that if they tried to jump, and didn't make it to another floating rock, they would plummet for all eternity. Not surprisingly, none of the players wanted to test that out in reality.

Fiddling around, they caught the attention of three spooks who proceeded to slime two of the PC's, knocking one out. The pesky spooks were finally captured and one of the PC's go it into their head to shoot the portal gate they came through just to see what happens. They destroyed it!

Fortunately, at this time, Lewis Tully and Slimer (aka "Spud") turned up making their way from rocky island to rocky island to ascend to where the players were. Apparently, Egon had been getting Lewis to test out some modifications to the proton pack and there was a bright flash. Next thing Lewis knew, he and Spud where here. The players recognised that this must have been over a month ago, but to Lewis, it seemed like only yesterday. Lewis showed the players the slime injector modification that they had on their proton packs but never knew about. Together, they proceeded to slime tether one island after another to make their way across to the gate they could see in the distance, the method Tully had used get to the PC's. Problem solved.

Given one of the PC's was out cold, they had to drag his sorry backside across the rocks and weren't too gracious about it. Whether or not it was the gravel rash, or providential timing, the PC awoke as they arrived at the far gate.

Stepping through they were transported to another located and presented with a puzzle. Ahead of them were three portals, only one of which they could pass through safely. Deciphering the clews got them the correct portal and they went through. Only to find themselves plummeting to a distant rock island far below.

Just prior to impact, they slowed in mid-air and floated to the ground safely. Once again however, they were confronted by the same type of puzzle, but this time it contained different statements to decipher.

Once again, after much hair pulling, they correctly deciphered the clews and passed on safely. Now they found themselves in an area with multiple portals. The one they passed through, and the exit portal at the far end, did not change, but the four others would rotate clockwise to face the next portal in the chain.

Again, after much trial and error, one of the players correctly deduced that the portal had to face the one it was linked to for them to pass on to the next island. I had numbered the portals one to six so that they could quickly identify each portal.

Portal one, the portal they arrived at, always pointed to portal six, and the PC's could pass back and forth between these portals each round except when portal six was facing portal three. When it faced portal three, the players would arrive on the rock island where portal three was located. If they passed through any portal when it wasn't facing its linked portal, they would always appear back at the first portal.

The link sequence was portal one always lined to portal six, six to three, three to five, five to two, and two to four where the exit arch portal was located. This kept the players amused for a while (and very frustrated).

That finally solved, they moved onwards.

The final challenge was not immediately evident. They arrived at a group of linked rock islands where they could see the exit portal in the distance.

Two of the PC's moved on cautiously whilst Lewis, Spud and two of the other players remained behind. As the first two PC's approached the exit portal, the Guardian jumped from a floating rock island above them and crashed onto the island with the exit portal. This rocked the island, knocking the two PC's to the ground.

The Guardian them attempted to squish them (hey, it was a one-off adventure so if any of the PC's died now, back luck). The lumbering Guardian was crap at its job however and rolled a 5. Miss! They players got to their feet and bolted through the exit portal.

This just left Tully, Spud and the other two players. The Guardian rounded on them but rolled terribly with each attach roll (5 was its highest score!). One of the PC's on the other hand scored a critical with their proton stream attack and, rolling on the Critical Tables we use, literally melted its face off! Stunned for eight rounds, the rest of the team bolted for the exit portal.

Diving through the exit portal, the team were reunited with Ecto1b in the material realm. Job done; they took off to hospital to get one of the PC's check in to Casualty. With one hit point left, the PC had survived multiple attacks and escaped with his life.

So much for the one-shot Halloween special. But we had fun and tried out a setting that we normally wouldn't have played. So, a win all round.

Gaslands vehicle ramp

I wanted a vehicle ramp made in the style of the Mad Max Fury Road xbox game. There are lots of shipping containers rusting around on that sea floor in that game. Anyway, nothing I liked came up on Etsy or eBay and so I decided to make one of my own using model railway shipping containers, gap filler, PVA white glue, small pebbles and sand. And here's the finished result.

The containers are a wee bit small for match box cars, but these will do fine, nonetheless.

Not too shabby!

Gaslands Refueller Gyrocopter

 

As a copper once said; "Allo, allo, allo. What's all this then?"

I wanted to get a gyrocopter for Gaslands Refuelled and it hit me. What if I just use the buggy in the Implements of Carnage available from North Star Miniatures?

So, this blog post is more of a show and tell of a work in progress, not the final product. I just want to see if I can use the Implements of Carnage items to make a DIY gyrocopter. All the parts are from the buggy components of the Implements of Carnage No. 2 product so far with the exception of the rotor shaft. The rotor shaft is a tree support from a 3d printed miniature that I had in my bitz box.

I know there are some great options to 3d print out there, but as I don't currently have a 3d printer, I'm left to scrounge about what I have.

The buggy is made almost as it should be. But the side armour and wheels are not attached. As weight is everything on an aircraft, I intend to leave this as open as possible.

For the boom and tail rotor I have repurposed the articulated arm from the sprue pack that holds the wrecking ball.

For the main blades I am planning on using a clear base to represent the rotors in motion. For the tail rotor, I haven't work that out yet. As to what whacky armaments it will have, I haven't decided on that yet either. Not sure if I will try to add skids to the aircraft or put the wheels on it. Forward motion to gain lift seems to be how this baby would get airborne and so I may attach the wheels after all or make it more of a tricycle buggy.

I'll post an update when this is done. But I guess the bottom line is that it would seem that you actually can use the buggy to make a DYI gyrocopter.

Flak Tower for Gruntz 15mm

 

I wanted a strong point for my Gruntz 15mm games and Dark Castle Terrain has an excellent MDF Flack Tower just right for 15mm. They also produce a larger version suitable for 28mm as well. But you can find the 15mm version here. Just look at their 28mm list of MDF for their larger version.

The 15mm version also works as a smaller outpost for 28mm to 32mm scale. Here you can see a Fallout Wasteland Warfare miniature along with a Khurasan miniatures 15mm scale model. The 15mm model can just look over the crenelation and the 32mm model is covered to its waist.

I added some sandbags to the flack gun positions in order to provide more of a defensive feel to the model and to permit a 15mm model to stand there (this 15mm model is mounted on a 20mm round base)

I also wanted a weatherworn look to the tower and so used Citadel Agrax Earthshade on the MDF.

This model also ended up having one of the inner support strut pieces missing. But the model came together well despite the missing inner strut. I used this to my advantage by adding some thick cardboard to make a door to the model, which otherwise doesn't have an entrance portal. You can just see the door on the left of the model in the photo above.

The stencilled numbers were badly painted on by hand brushing over the stencil. I should have broken out my air brush instead but didn't have the patience for it. However, I didn't think it would matter to much once the model was washed. It turned out well enough for my liking.

I still need to think about how I want to base the model. As such, I haven't washed the full base yet. I may just leave it as is without basing and then finish off the base with the wash. But I want to see what type of walls I can find to complement to tower first.

Anyway, there is plenty of room for 15mm models to hide at the top of the tower and this could probably hold around 12x 28mm models mounted on 25mm round bases as well.

It was a nice MDF kit and easy to put together. There aren't any instructions that come with it. But if you pull all the pieces out and dry fit them first, you can quickly work out how it is constructed.

So given that a certain company's version of strongholds costs a small mortgage and only comes in one size. This option I cannot highly recommend enough. Many of my MDF models you see in this blog have come from Dark Castle Terrain. So highly recommend them.

Cult of Speed Gobbo Zoom Chariot - Gruntz 15mm

 

2024 seemed to fly past and now it's 2025!

All I want to know is where's my jetpack they were promising back in the era of Dan Dare and other sci-fi stuff from the 1920's through to the 1950's? It was before my time, but those comics were still lying around even when I was a kid. Anyway, enough of broken promises. Instead, here's an update on my now finished Gobbo Zoom Chariot for my Gruntz 15mm Cult of Speed force.

Swivel mounted twin machine guns, and a heavy rotary cannon positioned forwards for the driver. Also, the passenger carries an automatic rifle. Speed and lethality. And it's driven by Goblins. What could go wrong?