Mars Attacks!

 

So, the bigger project I have been working on of late is... the old Mantic Games' Mars Attacks. I have been trolling eBay and Amazon to collect the various components of this game. I never knew it existed until recently and I went to town to get my hands it.

This is the first patch of painted miniatures that will feature in an upcoming home-grown game scenario.

The Squad Leader, of course.

One of the Scientist Team. This lad will be doubling as a pilot / engineer in an upcoming scenario.

And the grunts.

I haven't put their helmets on yet. That's the next task. But they are otherwise good to go.

15mm Tyranids

 

Inspired by the newly released (and excellent) Space Marine 2, I thought I might try an idea for a Tyranid 15mm army for Gruntz. Whilst still beavering away at my main painting project, I thought a quick trip back into 15mm sci-fi would be a nice mental break.

The wee little beasties here are Pendraken and the larger one is from Khurasan.

I intend to use these for Gruntz and so this was a test for both colour scheme and mounting.

My thought here is that the smaller Pendraken miniatures, which are at 10mm scale, could be grouped into swarms of critters on single bases. Ploughing through hordes of hormagaunt tyranids in Space Marine 2 made me wonder how this would best be represented on the table in 15mm, my go-to for large scale sci-fi battles.

The bases here a 40mm Renedra bases and there is a mixture of about five smallest Pendraken alien critters with two larger ones thrown in. Seeing these running at you, even in 15mm, would make you think twice before either grabbing the fly spray or your boltgun.

This is the Khurasan Space Demon Queen, which looks like a good proxy for a Tyranid Hive Tyrant so she got the typical tyranid paint job to see how it would turn out. She is also mounted on a 40mm base.

I like how these have turned out. So, I'm going to do more. Always good to have a quick side project whilst you are waiting for the paint to dry on the main project.

Mantic Games Marauder Gruntbot

 

For a future game of Orc Borg (using our homegrown d20 ruleset) I am going to need a Gruntbot for one of the NPC Gobbo's who will be the Mr Fixit (or Gobo Fixit) supporting the Boyz. Mantic has the perfect model for this 'Goblin in Power Armour' miniature I'm after and I have just finished painting him up. So, feast your eyes on this grunt! Behold the Mantic Marauder Gruntbot.

The arms and helmet are all magnetized so they can be articulated. If you look closely, you can see the small magnets on the shoulder joints of the arms and the back of both the helmet and behind the cockpit on the Gruntbot.

Now on to my next project. I am collecting another Mantic Game that I never knew existed and is now out of production. "Thank God for eBay," is all I can say. So, I'm now busily painting for that project. You can expect to see it appear here soon.

Ancient Galley sinking markers -part 2

 UPDATE

Here are those homemade ancient war galley sinking markers painted.

These cost, all up, about a few dollars. Best bit is that these were all made from junk leftovers I had lying around from previous projects. So cheap and recyclable.

Ancient Galley sinking markers

 

When it comes to what painting project, or what game for that matter, I'm working on miniatures for its probably accurate to say that I can have the attention span of a goldfish. Currently I'm working on at least three separate projects. As such, work progresses slowly on each.

But one project that has always sat on the backburner, but I'm keen to play, is Persidons Warriors by Osprey Games. I have always had a love for ancient history and in particular the wars of ancient Greece and Rome. So, as I slowly build my collection of ancient naval galleys, I lacked one important thing. Sinking galley markers. These can be expensive to buy, and I'd rather spend that money on another trireme. As such, I decided to make my own.  Here are my D.Y.I. ancient war galley sinking markers.

These are made from craft sticks, toothpicks and sand glued onto 40mm x 20mm war bases. The sand I use to represent sea water foaming over the sinking wreck and the sticks and toothpicks get broken at odd angles to represent the breaking apart of the galley.

I'll paint these up and show them off again. But I wanted to show what they are made of just in case anyone is curious.