More 15mm X-Com

Hi, folks. A little update on the 15mm X-Com project. I finished the barn. It now has the interior stairs, hay bales, a corrugated roof, and I painted and stained the exterior wood on the second floor. The floors of all of the buildings are print-outs from "X-Com: Tactical", a very nice free download from BoardGame Geek. X-Com: Tactical not only has the rules for playing X-Com on the tabletop, it also has some very nice 2-d graphics of the terrain, tokens, and ships. If the authors, Paul Pounds and Evan Leybourn, see this, thank you very much for making this excellent resource available.

The farmhouse is mostly finished. I need to finish the interior walls dividing the rooms, then it is done. The interior walls are mat board (I took a page from Vampifan's book). I will glue on some wood print-outs from the Fat Dragon Rio Draco set to simulate wooden interior walls and doors. The windows used for the farmhouse are 15mm resin from GameCraft Miniatures.

The stable is the last building for the farm board. I made it from craft sticks and gave it a corrugated metal roof. The roof is cereal card run through a crimper and glued to thin plasticard (that's how I did all of the rooves).

Also did a small UFO based on print-outs from "X-COM: Tactical" and pics from the interweb. The hull was made from a mixture of 1/2 inch quarter round wooden molding from a home improvement store and some Hirst Arts sci-fi bits. The interior bits are from Hirst Arts Sci-Fi bits, also.

I just received a couple of packs of Critical Mass Games excellent Astragar Fighters to use as Snakemen. That's an idea I stole from ThorLongus when he posted his a while back. If mine come out half as nice as his I'll be happy. So far I've got them primed and based. A few of them have been included in some of the pics for size comparison.

Hay bales. I made these from green pot scrubber pads. Painted them yellow, washed with Golden Brown craft paint, used a rubber coated black wire for the bale straps. They're a little larger than the ones in the X-Com: Tactical print-outs, but they'll work.

Stairs. The stairs were made using Dis's excellent tutorial here.

This tutorial was a big help and I made 3 pretty nice stairways for the barn and farmhouse very quickly. Differences between mine and his are I needed to make my stairs much smaller to fit the template of the buildings. I used a 1/2 inch Hirst Arts brick between the stringers and only 1 thickness of thin plastic card for the stringers. Also, the scissors I used were an old pair of pinking shears my wife gave me, and I think the zig zag pattern is a little smaller than his. Otherwise, pretty much the same except his are much nicer.

I like the way you can fit the miniature's base between the steps to hold it in place. When I saw that pic of this feature on his blog I knew I had to try it. So, Thanks, Dis, for the excellent tutorial.

Well, that's all for now. I was able to pick up some extra shifts at the part-time job so I won't be blogging much for the next few days. Upcoming projects list just keeps getting bigger and bigger.

Upcoming Projects:
X-COM
Post pics of Mutons
Cyberdisks
Chrysalids
Chrysalid-Zombies (These last three are gonna be from 15mm.co.uk)
Floaters
Ethereals

Thanks for looking.

15mm X-COM Farm Game Board & Sectoids

Hi, folks. I've been doing a little more work on my X-COM project.

The board is 2'x 2' and made from four 1' vinyl floor tiles which have had model RR grass mat glued to them. It's further subdivided into 16 six inch squares, each with some different features, all of which represent the terrain seen on-screen in the farm in the X-COM computer game. It amazes me how much variety you can get in such a small space. There is a small apple orchard, a grove of stumps (Zuzzy Minis) some crop sections made from sections of outdoor carpet or pipe cleaners, stone walls (JR miniatures) and some walls scratchbuilt from cork coasters; rail fences (JR minis), tall and low hedges (Pot scrubber variety), and a WIP scratchbuilt barn (built to scale from screen shots). I still need to stain the wood (coffee stirrers) on the barn and add a staircase and second floor. Still pending also is a farmhouse and stable complex. The buildings will all have playable interiors.

My Sectoids are Rebel Minis Greys. These are great little minis for a great price. I did a simple pj on them, based on the Sectoid colors from the X-COM PC game. Primed them with gray primer, painted the eyes black, ray guns are green and silver. A couple of leader types have a blue cape as well. (You don't see that in the PC game, no clothing on the Sectoids, but I don't mind.) Then just a black wash, sand and flock the bases and seal with a matte spray acrylic sealer. Here's pics.

Pic above shows the Sectoids, ready to begin their evil mission on Earth.

Pic above shows an X-COM Heavy Weapon Platform (GZG missile drone) finding a Sectoid hiding in the old orchard.

Pic above shows an X-COM trooper (Khurasan Minis Sepulvedan Resistance Fighter) investigating the strange light coming from the old barn. A Sectoid Leader is waiting for him to come into his line of fire. The blue light in the barn is from a little battery-op Christmas tea light that strobes through different colors of light.

The last pic shows one of those sneaky Sectoids getting into a sniping position.

Thanks for looking. Next up will be more work on the farm buildings, and maybe a Cyberdisk and small flying saucer.

15mm X-Com

Hi, folks. I recently started playing the X-Com UFO Defense PC game again. It was released on Steam with an improved DosBox version that actually works on my laptop. If you're not familiar with X-Com, this was a great series of PC games from the early 90's, wherein you control X-Com, an organization tasked with combating an alien invasion of Earth. You control research, there's an economic element, but the most fun part is the squad-level tactical combat, with troops and weapons that get better over time and missions and enemies that get harder. It's a great game, and last time I checked it was about $5 to download on steam. If you've never tried it, give it a shot. I bet you'll love it.

Anyway, I can't claim the idea of trying X-Com in 15mm is original to me. Fellow TMPer Thorlongus posted some pics of his Critical Mass Games Snakemen for 15mm X-COM while back. I've stolen... erm... adopted some of his ideas for my own effort. (Also have some Snakemen on order from CMG. Here's what I've got so far.

I chose to use Khurasan minis for my X-Com forces. The Sepulvedan Resistance Fighters (now listed as Low/Mid-Tech Humans in Ballistic Vests)
are a pretty good match for your initial, unarmored, low tech X-COM squaddies. As tech level goes up I'll use Khurasan 15mm High-Tech Humans in Body Armour, and eventually Khurasan 15mm High-Tech Humans in Assisted Power Armour.

In X-COM you can add small tanks to your squad called Heavy Weapon Platforms (HWPs). They come in increasing tech levels, armed with either cannons or missiles, and either tracked or hover. To represent these I got some Ground Zero Games Wheeled Drones with Autocannons and some Wheeled Drones with Missiles, as well as some UAV Hover Drones armed with guns or missiles.

Here's a few pics:

Pic above shows the basic sqaddies.

Pic above is a couple of the HWPs with a Khurasan mini for scale.

Pic above shows all of the HWPs with the same mini for scale.

Squad needed a transport plane. X-COM uses a plane called a Skyranger which resembles a space shuttle. I found a Revell Snap-Tite Space Shuttle model that was pretty close to a Skyranger. I did a little converting but it could be a lot better. It's too long and too narrow, the wing should be on top, and a lot of other little things. Here's some pics.


Pic above shows the team disembarking, led by a couple of HWPs.


Different angle.

Pic above shows the whole unit deployed.

Well, there's the first of the good guys. Now for the Bad Guys.

There are a bunch of Aliens who fight X-COM. Sectoids, Mutons, Snakemen, Floaters and assorted hangers-on. These will also have to be close proxies as nobody makes them. However, there are some pretty good choices out there on the market.

Sectoids: Rebel Minis Grays. The armed ones. I got a pack of those primed and ready for painting.
Snakemen: Critical Mass Games. Mercs-Astagar Fighters.
Mutons: Rebel Minis Super Heroes. Mutons look like heavily muscled men in tights.Several of these will make nice Mutons. They're primed, too.
Chrysalids: Chrysalids are close combat support troops that work with some of the main alien types. I'm using Khurasan Minis Plutonians to represent these.

I'm also working on a small Alien Scout ship, and a 2x2 foot terrain board. The terrain board is going to be one of the farms where many of the missions occur.

Thanks for looking,

Luckyjoe

15mm Firefly Progress Update

A while back I started on a little project to get some minis for Firefly gaming. Because I'm nuts I'm doing it in both 15 and 28mm. :) I had some 15mm Armed Space Crew from Splintered Light minis. I had Mal, Zoe, and Jayne. Today I finished off the rest of the crew using Ground Zero Games SG15-X04B Free Trader Crew and Passengers Pack B. Now I've got the complete crew ready. Next up are some GZG SG15-X06 & 07 Ravagers I'll use as Reavers, and some more GZG minis for purple bellies.

Here's some pics:

Pic above shows the GZG additions

Pic above shows teh GZG and Splintered Light minis together. I think they fit together pretty well.

Thanks for looking.

Luckyjoe

15mm Ork Killa Kan Def Dread

A while ago I painted up a Killa Kan. It's a little too large so I'll use it as a Def Dread. Here are the new Killa Kans, made from AT-43 Walkers. I repainted them and did a little conversion to add some close combat weapon made from Mechwarrior chainsaws. Those were kindly provided to me by OrdinaryBass from TMP.


Pics above and below show one of the new Killa Kans with a Ground Zero Games Alien Merc for size comparison.




Pics above and below show another one of the new Killa Kans with a Ground Zero Games Alien Merc for size comparison. This one has a cool buzz-saw type blade.




Pics above and below show a different Killa Kan with a double chainsaw with a Ground Zero Games Alien Merc for size comparison.




Pic below is a size comparison showing from Left to right: Killa Kan, Alien Merc and the Def Dread in front of an H/O scale building for scale.



There's another project done now. Thanks for looking.

Luckyjoe

15mm Sci Fi Fort

Hi, folks. This is a little 15mm sci-fi fort, sort of a forward base. When Combat Wombat Minis came out with his new Bullfrog Lander with pods, I remember thinking how those pods could be used to set-up a forward base. Landers swoop in, drop pods, engineers set up walls and there you go, forward base.

The walls were made from plaster castings in an Ikea ice cube tray, the corners, towers, walkways and gates were made with Hirst Arts sci-fi bricks. The corner turrets are Combat Wombat defense turrets. The temporary buildings of the base are a central Command bunker, and then groupings of the Command/Medic pods for use with the CW Atlas LSS transport vehicle, and the other buildings are the new pods for the Bullfrog Lander. The troops pictured are Rebel Minis Earth Force Marines.

The whole thing is based on a 1 foot square vinyl floor tile, which was sanded and flocked. The fort is sitting on one of the new Zuzzy Broken Blacktop terrain mats, Here's pics:


Pic above shows a view through the gate. A bullfrog Lander, having dropped it's pod, is preparing to take off. Earth Force Marines are manning the walls. The doors of the gate slide back into the towers forming the gateway.

Pic above shows a CW Heavy Grav Tank nosing through the gate. I designed the gate to be just wide enough to accomodate one heavy grav tank at a time.

Final pic is an aerial view from the lander that just took off. (ok, not really) It also gives a better view of the defense turrets. There's two Gun Turrets, an ATGM turret (right front) and a SLAM Turret in the left rear. These turrets are very nicely detailed and I think will make this base a tough nut to crack.

This is one of those projects I just had to do once I thought of it. It's very basic but I think the quality of the Combat Wombat sculpts saves it. Comments welcome and thanks for looking.

Luckyjoe

Back to Bloggin

Hi, folks. I'm back to blogging. I started a new second job back in November and was able to pick up a bunch of shifts during winter break and on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. I ended up with a bunch of 6 or 7 day work weeks in a row, so didn't have much time for anything but work and sleep. Now the schedule has slowed down some and I actually got to work on some projects. Here's what's first in the pipeline:

Small 15mm forward base/fort: made from plaster castings from an Ikea ice cube tray, Hirst Arts bricks and crowned with Combat Wombat Miniatures Defense Turrets (scroll down about 1/3 of the page. I'm also using the Combat Wombat Command Bunker, Command/Medic pods and the new pods from the Bullfrog Lander for the base buildings.

Sorry no pics, yet, maybe tonight.

Thanks for looking,

Luckyjoe