Cheap junk buildings.

 So as part of building sci fi buildings, I am always on the lookout for cheap things to use. Here is something I have come up with.

I don't know what these are. I bought a bag of them from B&Q. At the top you have the thing that looks like a complete building. The bottom are ones that look like they could be a gate in a wall or something. Also visible are the flat bits that can clip into the underside of the gate type thing.

Above are a couple that I have covered. One is green stuff, one is wall filler. I have scored them in an attempt to make very basic, jungle, Vietnam, Pacific island sort of dwellings. They have been sitting unfinished like this for ages. I feel like with a little paint, they might be successful.

Here I have clipped the flat bit into two of them, then stuck them together. I covered the gaps with paper and am happy with how this looks. To be painted soon.

Here I have simply painted and dry-brushed them. They are serviceable. 

Top centre you can see three of them. I filled the holes, and stuck a chimney in them. I like them. These just seem to be simple, effective methods of creating buildings. I wish I could tell you what they actually are, but there were 100% a "oh this looks like it could be a house" then toss into the trolley situation at B&Q. 

I hope you are inspired.

Five Parsecs from Home: Turn 7. A quest begins!

 Having successfully escorted their VIP offworld, our crew decided to try out a local eatery, hidden away in a local industrial complex. It was here that Lars' comm pinged with a message from the sector representative. Chatter from the local governor's office had been intercepted, and it seemed some hired thugs were on their way to make an example of the crew. It was time to go and make sure The Pelican was secure. 

It was time to go. It was time to keep their eyes open and cautiously return to The Pelican. 

The mass transit station was across the industrial complex. They were hoping to get across and catch the mag train back to Dock 354. 

A group of ragged, red-eyed figures began rushing towards their targets. 

Spotting rapid movement, the crew decided to seek cover, and proceed with more caution than they would have. Lars and Holmes set up behind some crates, while Mao and Baratski circled around the truck. Aralay was going to sneak around the large, red building, but first wanted to see what was going on in the centre.

The ragged group sheltered behind some pipes, while one of them hid behind the buildings. 

Estelle Phillips rushed out to the doorway of the large building, while the others remained where they were. Oslan Baratski set up on the flank and Aralay began her circuit of the building.

Aralay snuck around a little more, hoping to catch anyone unaware.

One of the figures opened fire with his shotgun at Phillips. He missed, but she crouched lower just in case. Two of the mysterious figures ran out ahead to close on their targets.

Lars and Holmes opened up with their weapons, peppering the shotgun-wielding figure with lead. He fell backwards, his helmet shattered and dripping.

  

Phillips jumped out with a grenade, threw it at the exposed figures and ducked back down. The resulting red smear was barely recognisable as having formerly been two people. 

The last two attackers turned tail and ran. Lars went to the only body, took the shotgun and looked. The body was, disfigured. Red eyes. This was an Abandoned. People who have spent too long out in space, can't function in society, and seek for someone to send them back. They are easy to manipulate. It was not surprising that the local governor had found some the these around, and probably promised them The Pelican as payment. 

On the train Holmes brought up the idea of going after the local governor, either to end this via death or scare them into realising that going after the crew would be more trouble than it was worth. Either that, or the governor would send someone else soon.

I was over the moon to actually get to use my modular industrial complex. I started it years ago, and it has been more of a decorative piece for that entire time. I wish there had been more killing. I worry that as my team get higher combat and toughness scores, they will be harder to kill, and the games will be less and less interesting. I might up the difficulty.

More Soviets and a warrior tortoise.

 I managed to finish painting my second squad of WW2 Soviets, along with a few vehicles. All I need now it one more squad, a command stand, and perhaps another Maxim crew and a mortar and I will feel they are ready to face off against some Germans. Weirdly my main takeaway from this is that I need to sort out my photographing. I need to create a new photo booth or something. 

I now have four trucks. The large gun will likely be spending more time as an objective I guess. It will probably be too massive for a Battlegroup table.

Not Soviet, but still important. This has been languishing for a while. I finally managed to get it finished. I think the crew might have been US gun crew, but oh well. This will also likely spend more time as an objective than actually being used. 

An SU-76. It doesn't seem to be the best or most useful SPG, but I love the look of this vehicle. 

A squad of infantry, a sniper team and an anti tank rifle team. It is a bit hard to distinguish them, but I like them.

Three people for Five Parsecs. They can be military, militia, government security, local starport workers.

Battle Tortoise. My kids painted this and then I repainted it. Will be useful for some Song of Blades and Heroes, or some  DnD or something.

Five Parsecs from Home turn 6 - Escort the VIP

 Invion. A planet with a dust problem. From 400k klicks out it doesn't look like much, but the nearer you fly, the more impressive it looks. Reflective dust swirling in the atmosphere gives the impression of a constantly moving, crystal-like surface, but beneath the dust, there lies a thriving mineral-rich ecosystem. As such, many groups have set up camp here, some more centralised, some independent, some less than legal, but all with one common goal - exploit the mineral-rich atmospheric dust. 

When approacing Invion the crew of The Pelican realised that jobs would likely come easily, and it would be an interesting place to try and lay low for a time. Sector government, local ground level government, individual settlement bosses would all have things they would need some hired guns for, and during their final approach to one of the spaceports a number of stock introductory messages popped up on the comm system. The crew could filter through them later.

As the dust settled and the hydraulics creaked a figure approached The Pelican. Dressed in what looked like a uniform she insisted on a meeting with the captain. The Dockworkers' Guild of Launia it would seem maintains a network of communications with other dockworkers' guilds, who in turn share with allies. Thanks to this network the local government of Pickmouth Heights (a mayor and a few long term business owners) had decided to hire the crew of The Pelican to help them out of a predicament. A person needed to be escorted to a... quiet location for extraction off planet. The less they knew the better, but people wanted to stop this happening, and enforcers were on the way. Enforcers with money and training behind them.

The journey to the landing pad was uneventful. Out of the way, private landing areas like this are quite widespread on the rim for people wishing to have options. If anything was going to happen, it would be here, now, in this fairly exposed area.

Two figures approached. They were well armed and well armoured. 

Splitting into three pairs the crew advanced. It was cautious. Their VIP remained to their rear, in order to avoid any unwanted attention. She was wearing a similar uniform to that of the person who approached the crew upon landing. 

Taking up well covered positions the two figures prepared to ambush anyone silly enough to cross the landing pad. This would be simple, they had both served together for a long time and had fought some of the deadliest opponents possible.

Estelle Phillips and Aralay Brenko began rushing up the centre. Estelle chanced it, in order to circle around the back of the landing pad and cover from the rear. Aralay was more cautious, remaining in more solid cover.

Holmes tucked himself next to one of the buildings and looked down his scope. Movement behind the crates! He fired off a burst, adrenaline pumping!

One of the figures staggered back, his helmet emitting a red spray, then fell to the ground. His partner looked down, checked his weapon was charged and hugged his cover tighter. He knew a fatal hit when he saw one and there was nothing he could do. "See you soon, brother," he thought.

 

Lars decided to flank around the outskirts, in order to cover a large area with his large calibre gun, while Mao and Oslan Baratski hugged cover on the left of the group. The shooting had started, so it was time to take extra care!

Oslan tried to remain hidden behind the shipping containers, but the mysterious figure moved, fired, and took her down with a glancing shot across the abdomen. She dropped, rolled and hid behind the container while opening her med-gel.

Mao and Holmes opened up on thier tormentor, but their shots did nothing more than tear chunks out of plasteel crates, and throw up dust plumes. 

The figure returned fire, less successfully this time, his beam slicing gouges out of the truck Mao was using for cover.

Thus distracted, Estelle saw an opportunity. She ran up, let loose a grenade and dove to the ground! The crumpling thud and smoke plume gave little away. Cautiously she looked up and saw the armoured figure lying on his back. 

After some careful movement and searching the crew realised no-one else was here. It was safe to bring their VIP up to the landing pad and await transport.

She explained that she had information about the planetary government's rampant corruption and was hoping to take it higher if she could just make it off planet to the sector overseer. However, there had been goons following her for a while now. Getting this information out there might give the local communities a chance to be heard and have to stop paying protection money to those corrupt officials.

A scream of engines rose slowly, then quickly until it filled the air around them. It was time to step off of the platform.

Payment organised. The sector representative and her armed guards took the VIP into their custody with little more than a nod. 

The crew checked around. One of the bodies was carrying some grenades, and there were some useable starship parts in one of the sheds. Oslan Baratski would have to spend some time in the med-bay but otherwise today had been a successful payday. 

Bag o' Bases

 I just wanted to show this. I bought it from eBay, but can't find it anymore. When I refer to my big bag of bases, this is it. I think it will last me a few years and to be honest I wish I had bought more. It was crammed full of mostly 3mm thickness MDF bases. They range from 20mm, 25mm, 30m mostly circles, some squares, some ovals, a few even bigger circles. Fanta bottle for scale, this is not a paid promotion. 

On Trees, and how to make them slightly less awful.

Trees. I hate trees. Luckily in 6mm there is a large array of cheap trees on eBay, but they aren't actually great on their own. They are shiny, the leaves fall off, and they are all perfectly shaped. I have been trying to figure this out for a while, and so here we go: Here is my tutorial for making stands of trees. 

1. Drill holes in MDF bases. I bought a huge box of bases on eBay that was like 1.9kg of assorted bases for £x. I can't remember. Maybe £10 or £20. The holes are the same width as the trunk of the cheap eBay trees from China. I did stands of 1, 2, and 5 trees for this experiment. 

2. Insert trees and attach with PVA glue. White glue? Elmers glue?

3. Texture the bases with my Vallejo texture paste. But insert your method of texturing here. My paste costs just under £10. This is my second tub since I started using it in 2016 or something. 

4. Messy part. I glued assorted bits of clump foliage to the tops of the trees. I watered down the PVA and just sort of went for it. My hands got messy and I found the most efficient way was to just drop clumps of foliage into the watered down glue, then scoop them out and press them onto the balding trees. You can see below that they are no longer perfectly uniform spheres. At this point I wanted to stop, but I figured the foliage would fall off at points and I should do my best to seal it on. I decided to carry on with two stand of trees to see if the rest of the method would work, and was happy with the result so went for it with all of them.

5. I sprayed the stands with a colour called Russett Brown. The can is from The Range and cost £6.99 probably. It is shiny, probably described as a satin sheen. At this point I got worried. I have had poor experience with this spray before and my memories came flooding back. 

6. I then sprayed them again with a green colour. Same place, same cost. You could see the darker brown colour underneath in places, which I liked. It would stop them being too monochromatic. Still too shiny though.

7. Paint the trunks with Vallejo Beige Brown. This is my go to wood colour. Rifle stocks, stacks of logs, fences, tree trunks. I gave them a heavy dry brush with a Citadel green that is so light it is almost yellow. The paint is in the other room though and I don't want to get up. At this point my fears started to dispell. I had a slight worry that they will all look a little too uniform in terms of colour, but shape is good. Also worth noting in some places you can still see the awful plastic green of the original leaves, but they tend to be on the underside, where I can't see it from wargaming height, so I ignored it.

8. Standard base colour. This was from The Works years ago and is still going strong. I use it exclusively for painting bases. I once used it to drybrush some T-34s and it was too shiny. 

9. Standard basing. I wash them with Cidadel Agrax Earthshade. This might be the most expensive part? Like I use this shade a lot, on all of my bases, and the little tub costs like a Fiver. At this point I breathed a sigh of relief. This is also the longest drying part. 

10. I painted the edges of the bases with some brown colour. I think it was Vallejo German Camo Brown. This is just to neaten it up. I could have gone a green, and maybe I should have.

11. Static grass in a few places (not too close to the trees, as grass struggles to grow around trees), and some blobs of clump foliage, this time that will stay as is. I then seal it all with a matt lacquer spray which got rid of any residual shine from the first layers of spray paint. Here they are in their woods. 

The next time I make tree stands I will likely try a few different shades of green, which will help my woods look a little less samey. All in all though, I am really pleased with them. If anything I am just annoyed that it has taken me nearly 10 years to be bothered to try something like this. 

February WIPs.

Here are a few things on the bench. I would like to have a game at some point, but to be honest I am liking just painting miniatures at the moment. 

Trees. I have some nice coniferous tree stands which are great...if I want to game only the Ardennes. I wanted more stands of trees, but also hated the uniform roundness of these cheap Chinese trees. Being advised online to add clump foliage to them has been helpful. I will then spray them grey and paint them up. Or I will do that to at least one of the stands as an experiment. I like the less uniform look already.

Another squad of soviets along with some trucks, an AT rifle team and a sniper team. The 88mm and the giant Russian gun are more likely to be used as objectives than anything.