Friday night is terrain night.

Upturned yoghurt pots, Toffifee packaging, plug protectors and the other terrain I made months ago that has been languishing in a state of half finishedness. Last night my wife visited her friend and my daughter went to bed without incident. So I busted out my terrain, my Armypainter Quickshade, and a brush I don't care about. 

I feel like the quickshade is on its way out. It seems thicker than normal and has a constant layer of hardness over it. But we shall see.

Here we have some bunkers/power generators/even landing pads I suppose. They are just yogurt pots, primed and painted grey and then I stuck some numbers on. They will do.

Below is a Toffifee thing. You pop them out and eat them. I got this for Christmas and immediately saw its potential. It is some sort of hydroponics facility. One must still eat, even on hostile planets.

These are my oil pipelines. I can have a line go the length of a table now.

Various buildings and sci-fi looking things for building a colony.

Not sure what this will be.

First Horizon Wars forces 6mm.

These aren't finished yet, but I wanted to post my first units based up and ready for Horizon Wars. I still need to flock the infantry and cavalry, and the mech needs more details and other work done to it.

The force below is made up of New Israeli infantry from GZG along with some cavalry elements also from GZG (but I have since forgotten what they are). The EM4 mecha still need some work, highlights, shading, and a few other colours.

Horizon Wars has arrived!

I have been a bit quiet as school has started again, although I do have photos of my completed modular interior terrain.

Over on TWW I have been loosely following the coming forth of this set of combined arms Sci Fi rules that includes the use of mecha. I am not really a huge, huge fan of mecha, but do enjoy the concept of them. However, the price seemed steep for my current standards of wargame rules, and I didn't really know all that much about them.

Then came the playthrough video. I watched a 30 minute video where a game is played to completion and the rules are explained simply. It had me hooked. I pre-ordered there and then, eagerly awaiting release day, the 21st April. Gutted that I couldn't go to Salute due to a wedding, I have watched people opening their rules over Facebook, always jealous that it wasn't me. But today is the day. They arrived! Excitement levels reaching close to 9000, if not exceeding that!  

Image from tabletopgamersuk blog.

Over the past few days I have been quickly marking my books and then priming, basing and putting one coat of paint on some miniatures. I should have enough by the end of the week to field two smallish forces, and genuinely feel that this will actually get my miniatures onto the tabletop. I also need to get my terrain together too. More hills. More trees. 

Of course tonight I have 40 books to mark, 15 of which require me to listen to a sound file, so I won't get to read them much. But such is life.

Cheap, easy terrain

Having primed the packaging, I just thought I would see what happens if I just apply my Army Painter Quickshade straight to it. I am pleased with the results. It was an experiment, that in my opinion has totally paid off. I can still highlight them with some dry brushing, and could still add some little bits and pieces. I have numbers to add, but want to include doors, ideas for which have been posted on TWW. I am also tempted to print out pictures of doors and see what happens?

 
Inspired by the Planet Ares 6 blog, I also created a modular interior. This is a 12 inch by 12 inch floor tile. I chopped it into 9 4x4 squares, reversed them and stuck card walls onto them. The walls are card folded in half to give it a bit more substance. I also used some of my 1000 tile spacers to make it a bit more interesting. Since taking these pictures they have been primed and are drying down by the front door. I hope to do some work on them tonight.

Various Planetary complexes.

Christmas and my wife's birthday have given be two opportunities for fast terrain. I have primed them, which feels amazing, as it looks like it will actually take paint now. My only regret is not having stuck bits on beforehand. I also feel like I need to hide the "Fox's" that is all over the floor of the top complex. 

Below is something that almost reminds me of Aliens, where Bishop had to crawl through the conduit all the way to the control panel.

I am tempted to just cover this in my Army Painter Quickshade and see what happens. It will bring out the details, but that is about it. I reckon it will still look quite bland. I might also stick some numbers on - I have some numeric decals in the post.

Reinforcements!

I ordered some GZG New Israeli and ESU Naval infantry. I wanted to bulk out my collection and now I can put together five different factions for my wargaming. The ESU naval infantry are fantastic, although they have exposed faces, which will not be very useful when fighting against infantry in full combat armour. These guys might be playing the role of planetary militias for a while. The poses are great and in the packet of "30+" there were 58 infantry. More than enough.

The New Israeli infantry look smart in their armour, although the rocket launcher pose annoys me. I have 55 infantry in the "30+" packet. I love getting so many figures!! Pictures to come.

6mm Sci Fi Quansec Security Force

Well here we have it. An understrength platoon of the Quansec Security Force. This is part of the armed wing of Quansec, one of the large galactic corporations. They are tasked with protecting Quansec interests. 

Each squad here consists of a four man rifle squad and then a heavy weapons team. I should probably rearrange it so that each heavy weapons team consists of two men and one heavy weapon, instead of three men and two different heavy weapons. 

6mm Sci Fi APCs.

So my boys need something to ride around in. I decided to put in an order to Brigade Models and plumped for the Cateroux Wheeled APCs, because I liked the turrets. These aren't exactly finished yet, but I wanted to post some progress pictures. I need to bring the bases to life, and maybe do something else to the APCs. They are serviceable as is stands though.

For the life of me, I can't get the lighting of my photos right at the moment. I might need some stronger bulbs?

When seen next to some 6mm GZG infantry the APCs look quite small.

6mm Sci Fi Infantry part 2

A couple of weeks ago I painted up a force of 6mm infantry to face off against the Quansec operatives. Having seen these guys, I think I want them to represent Quansec, as I like them more. 

The manufacturer is GZG and they are the NSL infantry. I have painted yellow shoulder pads to represent rank, although I am not super happy with that. I may also add some unit markings.

I can see lots of flash on these guys, but it doesn't bother me all that much. 

A look back at 2015 and a look forward to 2016.

A lot has changed this year. Having a baby really does eat into hobby time and put things into perspective. Sometimes I get sad that I can't sit at my desk every evening with How I Met Your Mother on in the background while I paint and build. But that only happens occasionally. Most of the time I am too busy to pine over my now busy life, with actually important things to worry about.

I notice that my modelling tends to pick up around November time, and I then during the Christmas break. I may then do some during the Spring half term and Easter break. Whether I model during the Summer holidays is hit or miss. We will see what happens this year.

2015:

 - I bought Clash on the Fringe and FiveCore 2nd edition + Five Parsecs from Home. I also re-familiarized myself with Flying Lead.

- I have painted about 40 odd 6mm NAC infantry from Ground Zero Games. They will provide the security wing for Quansec, a major corporation in my Sci Fi world.

- There are about 30 based 6mm infantry from GzG, possibly Israeli, who are waiting to be painted.

- I have enough buildings to be fought over, although they are pretty basic, and will be improved over time.

- For Christmas I received a Darth Vader storage box, that is now filled with other experimental 6mm terrain pieces such as fields, large buildings, some resin buildings on MDF bases while I experiment with different configurations for towns (these are unpainted and untextured).

- I did some half hearted work on some StuG IIIs, but I was unhappy with the wash effect, and then school caught up with me again. It was pretty lame. 

- I recall also mostly completing a handful of Reaper Miniatures for possible games of Songs of Blades and Heroes. 

I did not really think I would have time to accomplish a whole lot this year. The switch to Sci Fi 6mm wargaming has put a spark back in my desire to find time to make models. They take up less room and are faster to paint. I am very much enjoying making terrain, and have some future projects planned out in terms of using cork board to make rocks and hills, and using straws to make some piles of pipes. 

Looking forward to 2016, I want to achieve the following:

- Begin a wargaming club at school. I can easily fit six fairly large games in my classroom, and more if everyone is playing 3x3 games, or even smaller (thank you 6mm). 

- I would like to have at least five different factions available to me in 6mm, along with various civilians and possible scruffy looking nerf-herder types.

- Ideally I would like to get at least one game in per month, even if it is a solo game. The wargames club should solve this.