Inquisitor 54mm: Blast From the Past

While going through some old pictures of miniatures, I came across this gem:





He's a Bob Naismith sculpt, marking a brief return to work for GW--this had to have been made around 2002-2004, I think.

I loved the idea of the Inquisitor skirmish game, but going from 28mm to 54mm is a lot harder than going from 28mm to 15mm. It just represents a much greater commitment, and requires you convincing all of your gaming group to buy in with you. Ultimately, it was a failure, but I still have a half-dozen or so of the minis (including this one), and I pull them out every now and then just to gawk at them.

Now if anybody has copies of the Imperial Mine Workers Bob N. did for Inquisitor, let me know. Nostalgia would force me to try to swing a trade for them!

--Scott

Skaven: Meet Chieftan Skiklak

I knew I needed a Chieftan model (a sort of lesser warlord) for my 500 pt. Skaven force for the Phantom Doubles tourney. I decided to make one from components of the old Clan Rat boxed set, and some Kroot bits. As conversions go, this is a mild one, just slamming some bits together, but it's a nice result, I think.









Here's a comp shot of Skiklak with a new gen Clan Rat:



And Skiklak with his favorite slave, the Gnoblar named Kinni:



And Skiklak next to one of Moulder's finest Rat Ogres:



And finally a couple of close-up shots of that Rat Ogre, one of my favorites of the 6 I have done to this point:





Pics were taken on War Torn Worlds' excellent Swamp Lake terrain piece.

Thanks for looking!

--Scott

BattleTech: Kali's Daggers Gets Some Muscle

I had mentioned that I thought Kali's Daggers, my House Kurita, 9th Pesht Lancers unit, seemed a little light. Well, I have rectified that by swapping out one of the 55 ton Griffins in the fire lance with a battlefield reclamation 100 ton Marauder II. It's all-energy profile once again fits the unit's guerrilla M.O., and its jump jets will give it enough maneuverability to keep up with its fellows in the fire lance.

Modeling wise, this was a high degree of difficulty kit. I ended up pinning the legs. Lots of mold lines too, and some I did not catch until it was too late. Oh well.









And some comp shots with other 'Mechs in the unit:









Overall, I love the kit, and its scale fits superbly with the other models in the unit. Next up, Hannibal's Cannibals go shopping and get a BNC-3S Banshee!

--Scott

Rats of Unusual Size? You Better Believe It!

As promised, I have finished my unit of 6 Rat Ogres for the 500 pt. WFB Doubles event. Each Rat Ogre has his own unique skin tone, and please don't ask how I came up with each one, because I will never remember! The whole thing had a bit of a mad scientist feel to it, which is befitting a Clan Moulder warlord, I think.

Anyway, here they are!
















Now certain "friends" of mine are trying to goad me into expanding this unit when I make my larger Skaven army. I should note that none of these individuals have offered to a.) buy me the extra boxes of Rat Ogres, or b.) help me assemble and paint them. Oh well, they are a well intentioned lot. Still, I could see adding a third rank... I am a Moulder Warlord after all!

Anyway, I also have plans for that unit of 60 giant rats, so more on that when progress warrants a report.

--Scott

Skaven Plans

As I mentioned in an earlier post, we're having a 500 pt. Doubles Campaign at our FLGS. I am running Skaven, and my partner is running Dark Elves; we're calling it the "Of Human Bondage" alliance (named after both races' tendency to take a lot of slaves).

Anyway, he's taking plenty of ranged killy stuff, so here is what I am bringing to the fray:

Hero
Snikrak (Chieftan, extra CC weapon)

Core
Clan Rats (39, shields, HW, Standard, Musician)

Special
Rat Ogres (6, plus 3 Pack-Masters)

This works out to 499 pts. Snikrak will go with the Clan Rats. I'll have pics later this week.

This will be the beginning of my Moulder-centric list, which for larger games will also include a Giant Rat unit numbering 60 models! I will also be fielding Plague Monks and the Doom Wheel.

--Scott

BattleTech: Kali's Daggers!

I finished my House Kurita 'Merc unit, Kali's Daggers. This unit comprises a "light" company whose machines are best suited to guerrilla warfare.

Actually, having thought more about it this morning, I think I will add some white accents to some of the plates and make this company part of House Kurita's 9th Pesht Regulars. Since ComStar gave the DCMS so many 'Mechs at the dawn of the 4th Succession war, it makes sense that Kali's Daggers would be more of a regular House unit, since so many of their machines are old Star League designs. Plus, this will give my 'Merc company, Hannibal's Cannibals, a natural foe to fight.

The line-up includes:

Command/Assault Lance
Thug 80 tons (Ravan Sinha)
Black Knight 75 tons (Chandrahas Datar)
Crab 50 tons (Louis Weeks)
Crab 50 tons (Wendy Chong, f.)


Fire Lance
Grasshopper 70 tons (Paravi Chawd, f.)
Grasshopper 70 tons (Jeffrey Okoro)
Griffin 55 tons (M'Baku Sesay)
Griffin 55 tons (Elsie Simmons, f.)


Recon Lance
Thorn 20 tons (Tim Willis)
Thorn 20 tons (Shikha Gurijala, f.)
Jenner 35 tons (Stavros Mamalis)
Jenner 35 tons (Ronald Magee)

If you go by sheer tonnage, this unit measures a bit light, and I may tinker with the line-up a bit, but I am pretty happy with outcomes in terms of paint and overall look. I still need to come up with a unit insignia for them.









Later this week, it's back to Warhammer Fantasy Battle, as I feature my 500 pt. Skaven force to be used in Phantom's Doubles Tourney starting in August!

--Scott

BattleTech: The Crab!

I recently finished a very cool Medium 'Mech, the 50 ton CRB-20 Crab. It will be part of a new Company I am working on, Kali's Daggers, a DCMS/House Kurita unit.

I am making use of the great Army Painter sprays on this unit. Camo Green to be specific.









The Crab's potent, all-energy weapon mix of 2 Large Lasers, 1 Medium Laser, and 1 Small Laser make it an awesome guerrilla fighter, not needing re-supply. I plan to field a pair of them in the unit's command lance.

I'll show some of the other 'Mechs in this unit in subsequent posts.

--Scott

AE-Bounty Hardcopy Arrives!

I got my AE Bounty rules book in the mail today and I am smitten! What an awesome little, full-color tome! A really nifty package. This rules set will become my new gold standard for sci-fi skirmish!

And the fine folks at Darkson threw in a free mini as well! I will paint him up this week!

--Scott

AE-Bounty Update

Well, I have not gotten to play any games this week, but the rules are definitely exactly what I want in a sci-fi skirmish game. I will be playing a lot of this game.

In the meantime, I did paint up one of Zombiesmith's excellent sci-fi aliens last night, a colorful fellow named Ba'urti'oosin. These guys are stylistically very similar to Darkson's own minis for the game.











And here he is in direct comparison to some of Darkson's official minis:







As you can see, a perfect match of scale and style! I've got the whole set of these to mix in with my Darkson aliens, and I also plan to add to that collection as well.

Can't wait to roll up my sleeves and make some characters!

--Scott

AE-Bounty News!

Just yesterday I received an exciting offer from Darkson Design's Robert Kingery, lead designer of the AE-Bounty sci-fi game (covered extensively on the FCF blog last year).

The most exciting aspect of Robert's e-mail was the fact that the game is done, and set to be released soon! This is great, because I pre-ordered a while back, and like many other fans, have been waiting for this day to come. The second-most exciting thing was Robert's offer of a PDF preview of the game, which I accepted in a nano-second! All this week I will be reading and reporting on the game via this blog. Hopefully, this weekend, I will actually run a few games, take some pics, and report on that as well.

I can tell you that what I have seen and read so far is really exciting. If you're a story-telling, skirmish gamer who digs sci-fi, AE-Bounty will be for you!

--Scott

BattleTech and 1/300 Terrain Project: Finished Pieces

Ok, managed to finish two of my bases of terrain. The Listening Post and a Forest Base.

Here they are!









I need to get some more hard-board cut to make some more of these!

--Scott

BattleTech and 1/300 Terrain Project

This weekend I decided to work on a mini-project, making a couple of terrain bases suitable for BattleTech or other 1/300 scale sci-fi games. Here are the unpainted shots of the first one.







I used a series of plastic bits and household items to put this listening station together.

Painting it today--more pics tomorrow!

--Scott