Full Thrust SSD for the original series Battlestar Galactica

 

I've been playing around in the Mechworld's excellent SSD designer for Full Thrust (see link here) recently and this is what I have come up with for the original Battlestar Galactica version of the Colonial Battlestars.

My take on it is that the ship didn't have an FTL (Faster Than Light) drive but instead just lumbered through space chased by Cylons, so I've reflected that here. The viper complement came from an online estimate that stated that there were around 80 vipers to the ship. I've included missiles and a shield as seen when the Pegasus attacked the three Cylon Basestar's that were pursuing the fleet (I think the episode was Living Legend?). I've added the shuttles as small craft bays and included the point defence in locations often seen when activated in the show. The Type 2 beams reflect the heavier guns around the head of the ship, even though these were mostly anti-fighter guns. I just felt it needed more firepower than just the heavy missiles to take on Cylon Basestars.

Anyway, I hope to give this a run in a game sometime and see how it fares on the table. Should be interesting.

The Second Battlestar arrives!

 

The second Battlestar is now complete. You can see the first one in the post here.

I've chosen to go with non traditional (i.e. red) colours on my two battlestars to differentiate them on the table. The green and purple fading will into the grey colour of the ship.

This image was a little tricky to take, so I've taken several shots so that you can see both the engines and the viper landing bays.

I've added the main light to either side of the lizard head of the both ships now, as you can see above. These ships always remind me of a blue tongue lizard that is native here. I still haven't decided on whether or not to add additional lights across the ship. Have to wait and see how it looks.

Now on to the colonial tanker, viper squadrons and frigates.

The first Battlestar is ready to go

 

A few projects have kept me busy this year so far and thus the blog hasn't had much love of late. But I have been able to complete my first battlestar. This model is resin and comes from Starfighter Shipyards. Sadly, the webstore has been down for some time and I believe he may no longer be selling. The model was originally from Ravenstar Studios.

I chose to go with purple decals on this one so as to identify it on the table top. I have one more to paint and will choose a colour for that one as well.

I still haven't decided as yet as to whether or not I will attempt to paint windows on to the model. I may give it a try once I can get a decently detailed image of the original models used in the first Battlestar Galactica series.

I have two original series Cylon base-stars to paint as well. So expect to see these sometime. Seeing these images with the flash also shows where the purple line on the pods isn't even. So I may do some remedial work of this too when I can get some good lighting.

One more to paint!

Mirelurks for D&D and Fallout Wasteland Warefare

 

Not the best photographs I have ever taken. The ambient light isn't great today. But at least you can get the picture. These are Fallout Wasteland Warfare Mirelurks from Modiphius Entertainment. They will be showing up in the next D&D adventure I'm working on for my rpg group. So here they are ready for the table.

I wanted these guys to have a little more colour underneath in their soft parts compared to their hard shells. And so I used a selection of reds to orange dry brushing under the shell and around the claws.

The shells themselves are a mixture of dark and light browns, greens and a highlight of a light blue/grey drybrush.

The bases are decorated with coral by using broken white deer moss. I feel its light colour contrasts well to the colours of the rest of the model.

More minis to paint for the adventure. So on to the next project.

Caverns on the cheap for D&D

 

Not much painting going on right now, but I did get to pull out my cheap and easy cavern tiles for our D&D game over the weekend. So I'll show these off instead.

These are made from carboard, paper towel, toilet paper and white glue (PVA). I showcased the DM'sCraft YouTube channel a few posts back and he has a stack of cheap and easy ways to make terrain, including caverns.

The stalagmites are DwarvenForge, but everything else (excluding the miniatures of course) are made from cardboard and Paper Mache as the DM's Craft shows. Painted it up with cheap acrylic paints. Its sold and can take a beating and it worked great on the table as you can see. Not the best cavern terrain available but is the cheapest and you can make as much of it as you want in any shape you want it. You can see the different shapes I've used in the photos.

The tile above was made from a rubber gym mat. Very light weight but it does turn up at the edges a bit.

The sabretooth tigers are from Iron Wind Metals.

I'm pretty happy with these. Cheap and do the job nicely.

Krampus, the Christmas demon, from Reaper Miniatures

 

Happy New Year and a very Merry Eastern Orthodox Christmas to you all. Got to love the mix-ups caused by different calendars across the centuries. Anyway, this just means that I'm not out of the Yule season yet with finally finishing this mini!

Krampus is a Christmas demon who punishes naughty children, kidnapping them on the 23rd of December. He carries a Christmas Bag of Holding made from wicker and brass (you can see the naughty kinder trying to escape) and carries a Ruten to swatch the backsides of misbehaving children and adventurers alike, making him a perfect baddie for any Christmas adventure.

There is a good write-up for his stats for 5e of D&D over at DMDave's blog (find it here), and there is an excellent video for an encounter with Krampus from Professor Dungeon Master (PDM) below. Both also give good backgrounds into who Krampus is.

Can our plucky adventurers save the naughty kinder before Krampus carts them off to turn them into goblins (or worse!).

Krampus is definitely going to make a cameo for my RPG groups next Christmas themed adventure at the end of the year. Only 11 months to go!