Aliens…Civilians

Well I just walked through the door 10 minutes ago. My plans for a sneaky painting session came to nothing as after my two youngest’s play, which was very funny .

I ended up being taxi for Eldest and Eldest’s friend. Not got a problem with that, but it was originally going to be my good lady doing the run, but as it was getting icy,. she asked me. Friend lived 15 miles beyond my house hence the late getting in…Therefore I haven’t the urge to paint anything. So instead I spent my 10 minutes hunting down some civilians in a brown box (which turned out to be white).

I got these a couple of years ago for an Aliens RPG using Savage Worlds. To be honest they are a teeny bit small(You can see the size compared to bishop), but they make some nice civilian scientists and security…Something the Wey Yu Commando might need to escort. This lot come from some Star Wars Game, apart from the winged beasties which are some kind of Heroclix monster. They were all really cheap, somewhere between 20p and 40p each. They will potentially get rebased sometime in the future.

Regarding the RPG

Having read the rules again last night a player doesn’t need to beat a score, they just need to roll at least one six.

So with a strength of 4 and stamina of 4 the player rolls 8 dice. If they get a six they succeed, any other sixes are bonuses and allows them to undertake stunts – basically bonuses based on their skill.

If they got no sixes they could push the roll, in other words roll all 8 again, but would then need to add one to their stress level and then roll a number of stress dice equal to their stress level.

Other players can lend a hand in a task, each giving one extra dice.

Group rolls are just that, one person makes the roll, with up to three others helping. Only one roll is made, not one from each player. Sneaking in a group is harsh… the player with the lowest rating makes the roll alone, which is, in reality, quite realistic.

The one thing it is very clear about in the game is that failure is failure, you don’t get another roll. You have to find another way.

Unclean, Unclean

So today has mostly been spent in bed, with odd foray to the bathroom or kitchen. I slept until 13.45 and have somehow managed 1200 steps on my fit bit.

Luckily the 3D Printer was nearby, so it hasn’t been totally unproductive day.

Five done with the sixth on the way. These are going to be Christmas gifts for my class.

I also spent this afternoon reading the rules for this…

I am getting the hang of them apart from the unskilled roll rule…

As soon as I copied this it made sense… each skill is based on an attribute… so strength attribute has close combat, heavy machinery and stamina as skills. You have 14 attribute points to spend between 4 attributes and then 10 skill points to share between 12 skills. In the game you add base attribute and then skill level. This gives you the number of D6 you roll. So if you don’t have the skill you are reduced to the attribute alone.You are allowed to push you luck by rolling stress dice based on your stress level. This increases the the likelihood of succeeding, but also rolling one’s which is bad. Up side is you don’t need to roll a dice for mundane things. Field stripping an M41A prior to a drop is easy, doing the same thing whilst the barricades are being overrun by Xenomorphs is a totally different thing.

Having read a bit more, further into the book each time you roll a dice you add the stress level dice too, getting a one means there is chance that your character panics. The system here is add a d6 score to the stress level and read off the chart. This runs from no effect up to catatonic. Mostly this only lasts for a single round, but if the score is high enough then the results can permanent.

Reading the pre generated game (cinematic) chances of survival for the players is pretty slim! It starts off on a small moon LV-426 in the terraforming facility of Hadley’s hope… whatever can possibly go wrong!

I cracked open the card pack too

There are:

22 weapon cards,

20 Character cards,

3 vehicle cards

10 initiative cards.

The weapon cards do have multiples so a number of repeats in there. There seem to be 20 separate characters who are used in the 2 published adventure modules, but are also useful as NPC’s

Three vehicles are the Cheyenne dropship, the Apc and the Daihotai 8×8 civilian tractor.

The initiative cards are simply numbered 1-10 so you can see what order people go in.

I am toying with the idea of printing the troop APC as well as some civilian vehicles. I have some civilian ones already downloaded from Thingiverse and RPG now, these were going to be for Starship Troopers so useful for both…

The other thing I have already is a shuttle craft..civilian, but still something useful for both games…

Tomorrow is my two youngest children’s Christmas play, with my eldest having a bean feast soirée. Not sure how much I will get tomorrow.

Undead Hussars…Almost Done

I managed to get some more done on these tonight.

I decided that one needed to be an officer, so one of the two with a sword got silver metalwork to show the difference.

A bit of tidying up and horse metalwork to do, along with the bases.

But this is what they look like so far….

I am going to try and get them all finished tomorrow.

Sadly my hounds didn’t turn up today, so not sure what I will paint next.

Hussars…First one Finished

Huzzah! Progress has been made on the Hussars (sorry couldn’t help myself…overdosed on cold and flu plus).

But tonight before tea I managed to get some work done on both the horses and one of the riders.

The horses are pretty much all done apart from the metalwork on the bridles.

This handsome chippy is just about done too…

Still the base to do, but on the whole I am happy with how he looks. The rest of the riders only have their cloaks done so a fair old bit to do to get them finished.

As am still feeling ropey I am typing this from my bed. Me in bed by 20.00 hours totally unheard of 😂.

Hopefully I can get some more done in these tomorrow as I can enter them in a painting competition at the club. Not really one for competitions but I am trying to show willing as a new club member. Not to mention the fact that the Predator hounds should be here tomorrow.

Undead Hussars…Further Work

Tonight I was feeling a bit under the weather and thought I would just about manage to tidy up on the white, however I got a bit further than expected.

I got a lot more done on them than I thought I would.

I painted up the lancer to test the colours. He will have white lace, as well as dark leather gloves. The saddle will be dark brown with a grey sheepskin. Metalwork will be the same copper colour as the rest.

Hopefully I will get more done tomorrow .

I had a visitor in school today…took over my office in fact.

Undead Hussars…Starting on the Mounts

I really didn’t get as much done as I wanted this evening. I painted bits white on both the horses and riders re glued a lance arm that was starting to get wobbly and then painted the bone and manes on the mounts…

I had a dry run with the riders in situ, and although one was a very tight fit, they all went on and stayed on…

Having had a look at one of the horses, I reckon it is a recast, if not there was a problem with quality control, it wasn’t that it had flash on, something I don’t see that often with Alternative Armies, but the fact is that one half of the horses skull was a bit in front of and slightly higher than the other. Now that they have the bone colour on, it is not as visible. I was going to photograph it, but now can’t be sure whether I imagined it or not

Tomorrow I will crack on with these and see how far I get.

Supposedly tomorrow I am getting a visit from a senior manager in the education service, as he has already cancelled twice then we will have to see if this is the case or not.

Cheap Desert Mat…

My daughter decided to buy her friend a fun present for Christmas. A giant burrito blanket. Both my wife and my daughter said I would be wanting to pinch it… a bit weird I thought, but then it came…

How cool is this? Just don’t tell my daughter I sneaked into the package…shhhh🤫

Okay it isn’t the highest quality out there but at 1.80m across it would certainly be big enough to cover my table even if it is circular.

Oh yeah the price…

£10.00 plus postage (randomly chosen from t’internet)

I grabbed this one off Amazon…

https://www.amazon.co.uk/HINATAA-Burrito-Multifunction-Tortilla-Perfectly/dp/B07QR5LLS4/ref=asc_df_B07QR5LLS4/?tag=googshopuk-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=399592519165&hvpos=1o4&hvnetw=g&hvrand=7545256997382169800&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=t&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9047006&hvtargid=pla-874115673964&psc=1&tag=&ref=&adgrpid=85065652036&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvadid=399592519165&hvpos=1o4&hvnetw=g&hvrand=7545256997382169800&hvqmt=&hvdev=t&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9047006&hvtargid=pla-874115673964

I just thought I would share my find 🙂

Undead Hussars… Greenstuff and Paint

Tonight when I hauled these in from the shed, two things became obvious (or more obvious). Firstly the small hole on the unprimed model, looked small, but on the primed one it looked like a chasm. Secondly, the riders were not going to stay sat on their horses with only a tiny bit of metal touching metal. Therefore I hauled out my Greenstuff and filled the hole as well as giving a big lump for the rider to sit firmly in place. I poked holes in it to paint it up a bit like a sheepskin. Why a wraith, would need a comfy bum is anyone’s guess, but at least he won’t fall of his horse😉.

The other thing I did, was to give them a quick test paint with one of the two reds I have. I really liked this colour when it went on so that was that 😉.

I did a quick test of the bone, which looks okay, so once the Greenstuff is dry, I will get it painted white. I still haven’t decided on the colour of the shabraque the rest of the bits are a black uniform jacket, red cloak and breeches. I might just go black and see how it goes.

Undead Guard Hussars – Making a Start

Tonight I didn’t get anything done on the Weyland Yutani commandos, I decided to make a start on the Sepulcherov Guard Hussars. These five miniatures are from the Flintloque range from Alternative Armies.

I only ended up with two lances, rather than the usual three. I have had them a while and cannot remember why this is. These have a two part caped cloak that means that they don’t sit on the saddle properly as the cloak sits on the blanket roll on the cantle. The arms come separate to the bodies so a bit of extra gluing took place to ensure more than one spot was connected for strength.

The skeletal horses are meant to have wings, but I have decided to leave them off as they are glued at the base of each and I can see them getting knocked off in transit, even with the white metal peg in a hole.

These Wraith cavalry are dressed in red cloaks, black tunics with white lace, red trousers, black shoes, and a black shako with a red top. Their gloves are white and horse furniture is black.

So they should work well with the Contrast paint (my gloves are more likely going to be a different colour. This is the beauty of an imagiNation style force. I can actually decide to do them whatever colour I like.

They will join their comrades in arms in terms of the lancers…

https://bogenwaldblog.wordpress.com/2017/10/01/bodyguard-finished/

Only taken me two years to give them some back up….Funnily enough I was mooching through back back post and in September 2018 I said I would possibly start on the Hussars.

Evidently I painted some Krautian dwarves instead…

https://bogenwaldblog.wordpress.com/2018/09/27/the-krautians-are-finished/

So anyway after glueing them all together I took them out to the shed for a spray… forgot my mask… naughty, naughty – one really can’t hold one’s breath long enough!

Anyway here they are curing…

There was a bit of a space so Aragorn as Ellessar sneaked in for a change of undercoat colour.

You can see the holes the wings go into on the front two mounts…the other niggle with these is that the base size they are on is a lot smaller than the other cavalry.

Tomorrow I will hopefully paint the bases and then make a start on these, errr, chaps.

Weyland Yutani Commandos almost Done…

Well tonight I would have got these finished, apart from a small mishap, but more of that later…

I have pretty much finished the actual bases, apart from washes, tidying up and the black edge.still a couple of bits to do on the actual miniatures. The metalwork on the flamer guys shotgun and the headset on the one with the cap.

As I said I would have got these finished, but for the mishap. As I was carrying in a pile of figures I caught my sleeve on the door handle and dropped a box of them. Sadly a plastic box full size of plastic figures onto a concrete floor didn’t end well.

So I had to repair half of the things in the box. I then built five miniatures.

Have you ever noticed, no matter how many things you dryfit and test things, the second you add the superglue then they won’t go together… not to mention add superglue and they somehow become covered in oil or something and ping merrily across the table like a miniature Barnes-Wallis Bouncing bomb!

But anyway I now have five scouts and twelve Genestealers to paint.. the eagle eyed amongst you will spot a bit of gaming nostalgia…

I have a toss up between painting the above or the following:

The above show off pretty much the remains of my Flintloque with the exception of the elf cuirassiers. So I have two dog gun grew, five dog Hussars and five undead wraith Hussars.

I am undecided on which to go for next, it will more than likely be either of the above sets. Hints and suggestions greatly appreciated.

On a totally different note, I ordered a pair of Predator hellhounds, they popped up on EBay for £9.99, I put a bid on and was the only bidder so got them for half the normal price.