Carronade 2013

Yesterday was Carronade 2013, and was the debut for the newest demo game from our club, G3.

The game, X-Treme G 3000 racing, a fast, fun and furious race around the track to be crowned champion of the track.

The track in all it's glory, with the buildings I've slaved away over, plus all the over bits all the other club members have contributed.

You can see the LEDs under the track section here, though it was actually a bit too bright in the hall to get the best effect.

Apparently, when you google for fictional energy companies, the first one that comes up is Ewing Oil Co.

Some of the race attendees

Some of the races. From left to right "La Femme Fatale en Bleu", The Yellow Hornet, Edward Dredd, and Princess Barbara. Unfortunately I managed to cut The Red Baron off, so they'll have to remain a mystery.

More race attendees.

It's basically a homebrewed ruleset we came up with, which results in a reasonably fast, enjoyable game, that's basically a bit like Mario Kart or Wipeout. You get two laps round the outer circuit of the track, you go over speed boosts, or slow downs, you collect power-ups, and shoot each other with missiles and spin out.

We managed to run 5 games during the 6 hour show, and each game had all 5 racer slots taken up, with several more people coming up during the course of the day, asking where we got the track, the buildings, what was the game about etc.

All in all, it was a long day of talking to people, running games, and our shift system going out the window, but it was an enjoyable day. There wasn't really any downtime at the table, as the slots very quickly filled up once one game was finished.

All in all, I didn't get much time to wander around etc. I did manage to see a few of the boards and what not, but not really any other pictures other than grabbing these ones. However the guys from the club next door to ours, the Phoenix club, who organise Wappinshaw (which is the next show for us, on the 1st of June in Kelvin Hall, Glasgow) managed to get a good few, and they can be found here

Unfortunately as well, there was no prize this year, as it went to RAF Leuchars, who were running a game called Divine Wind, about Kamikaze attacks on an aircraft carrier. There's photo's of it in the link above, and it certainly looked a good table.

 In the few occasions I managed to get away for a wee bit, I did a quick round of the traders there, and it was a decent show as always, along with a new presence from Hawk Wargames who make Dropzone Commander. They along with Critical Mass games got pretty much most of my money, as I purchased some items from them, and a few packs of bases for 15mm stuff from Warbases.

Loot!!!

That's a set of Hawk Wargames new card scenery, which for £30 gets you enough 10mm scale roads and buildings to cover a 6' x 4' table. The road tiles are double backed too. The Arc Fleet Otilium refinery set from Critical Mass games, which given if you pre-order for the show it goes from £60 to £30, is an absolute steal. While it's 15mm, given it's big industrial nature, you can easily get away with having big doors, so can see use in 10mm games as well. Some of Critical Mass's Alien Jungle Flora stems, 18 for £7.50, to make some weird sci-fi planets with, some 15mm radars from CM as well, a pack of the digital camo MaskFX as I want to try it with my airbrush, and the bases from Warbases.

I also bought some more stuff from Hawk Wargames, though it's getting posted to me, though since I bought it on the day, they'll ship it free of charge, which is jolly nice, as the guys made the effort to come all the way from South London type area, and came up on the train, so couldn't carry everything. However it was really good to see them, and nice to see more companies coming up to do the Scottish shows, as I know it's a long day for them.

Possibly the best purchase though, and one which I have bought several of, in various colours I might add.

Knitted Cthulu says Fhtagn

 

 

I'll leave you with that image, as I don't think I can top it. Thanks for looking.

Deals, Deals, Deals...Summer Sales

So right now there is some great deals going on, and thought I'd write a quick article in case people were unaware of them.

Ground Zero Games

Ground Zero Games are having their summer sale, which sees everything in their store at 15% off. Yes that's right everything. The sale lasts till midnight on Monday the 11th of July, so you've got a bit of time, but I wouldn't leave it too long.

Ground Zero Games online store

So you can get yourself a Full Thrust fleet, some of their 15mm models, or some of their great scenery. I may be tempted to get some of the little add-on bits for buildings for my recently acquired GameCraft MDF buildings. And speaking of GameCraft Miniatures...

 GameCraft Miniatures

GameCraft miniatures are having a 4th of July weekend sale. Until the 4th of July, all their merchandise is at 20% off, as if it wasn't already good value. So why not go over their and get some great scenery to use on all that Ground Zero Games stuff you just bought.

GameCraft Miniatures shop

Or if you want to use that scenery for a different purpose why not head on over to

Critical Mass Games

Critical Mass Games are having their summer sale as well, with 20% off everything in their store until the 22nd of July, so that's a good deal of time to mull over some purchases. I've always fancied some of their scenery, and I think one of those Otilium refineries would go nicely with what I've just purchased.

And last but not least

Dream Pod 9

Dream Pod 9 have just declared the summer blitz to push Heavy Gear, their game of mecha combat.

To start with, their offering up the rules books for Heavy Gear for free. Yes that's right for free. To get them head on over to DriveThruRPG and simply download. Free, gratis, etc etc.

Locked and Loaded 1.1

Field Manual - Core Rulebook

Essentially the field manual replaces Locked and Loaded as the core rulebook, though Locked and Loaded is still required as it has all the army lists in it (unless you play one of the later armies).

And if that wasn't enough, they've listened to people about the game being a bit expensive to get into and they've launched some summer blitz packs. Now these packs are truly epic, and make for a great start. For example the Northern Starter Pack comes with

1 x Northern General Purpose Squad (DP9-9021, $43.50)
1 x Northern Strike Squad (DP9-9024, $44.50)
1 x Northern Fire Support Squad (DP9-9027, $53.75)
1 x Northern Recon Squad (DP9-9045, $43.50)
1 x Northern Infantry Platoon (DP9-9035, $23.00)
1 x Heavy Gear Blitz! - Field Manual Rulebook 60 pages black & white digest size book (DP9-9997h, $10.00)
1 x Heavy Gear Blitz! - Field Manual Rulebook Full Color ebook (DP9-9997 ebook, Free)
1 x Locked & Loaded Full Color ebook including Northern Army Lists (DP9-9996 ebook, Free)

Which costs $150 and ends up saving you $68.25, which I think is a pretty damn good deal for such fine quality merchandise. There is also a southern pack as well for those people who prefer the southern states.

Frankly, even if you're not sure about the game, I would urge you to download the rulebooks and give it a look, as frankly at the end of the day it's going to cost you nothing. Even if you pick it up later, you'll lose nothing by checking the rules out now, and hopefully you'll find yourself as enthralled by the setting as I was.

Hope these have been some use.

Mecha Ace out.  

Painted Black Talon and WIP Arc Fleet

Well painting and all things modelling related has been a bit slow this week. Mostly due to due to in real life problems like work etc. I honestly can't say whether it'll speed up anymore either, as Mass Effect 3 arrived on Saturday, so I'm going to start playing my way through that pretty soon, once more immersing myself in the wonderful world BioWare have created.

Anyways, onto what has been achieved. I've finished the test gear for my Black Talons for Heavy Gear Blitz. I wanted to do one as I had a pretty solid idea of the colour scheme involved, but wanted to make sure it was okay before I just went on and painted everything in that colour. Now I am sure, I'm already starting work on the other members of the Primary Insertion Team, while the Operational Assistance Team (the heavy hitters) are being assembled to receive the same treatment.

An Owl C3 with a medium rifle, the leader of my Primary Insertion Team.

I wanted to go for a black colour scheme, to keep with the whole stealth idea, though decided to do the cloth muffling around the joints a light grey, and to throw a small amount of red at the shoulders and knees, along with some metal to give it a bit of colour and provide some contrast. The base is done to look like desert, to show the Terra Novan desert/wasteland. I may add some grass tufts to it though, to make it a bit more lively.

And just to prove they haven't been forgotten about in all this.

3 Arc Fleet, one NCO and two missile launcher troops

Some Arc Fleet troops from Critical Mass. They've received the base colours and they've been washed. They've now just awaiting the blue highlight and painting the gun and visor basically. Then another three will take their place on the pots.

Shall try and post more pics soon, if I can be pulled away from the Xbox.

Heavy Gear Blitz and more Critical Mass

Managed to get some more work done over the weekend on some projects, namely finishing up the last of the Augment suits for my slowly building Arc Fleet force from Critical Mass, and also managed to finally put together my Primary Insertion Team for the Black Talon force for Heavy Gear Blitz.

So here we go then. From Critical Mass Games, some Augment suits. I've shown the lasers before, but I jazzed them up a bit, so thought I'd post new pics.

Augment suits armed with laser cannons

Augment suits armed with plasma cannons

These will be placed on a base of 3 figures, with one regular figure and two specialist figures per base. I decided as well that the lasers and plasma cannons needed something a bit extra, given they were special weapons, so decided to give them a bit of colour on the guns. It will also save a lot of peering at figures with black guns, trying to work out whether that's a laser cannon or a plasma cannon on the tabletop.

I must say, I'm really impressed with these figures as well. Until I saw these figs, I'd always kinda brushed 15mm aside as not having much detail etc, but these are really nice. The only one I'm not incredibly keen on is the Plasma cannon on the far right, as he has a bit of a knockity-knees pose.

Anyways, on to part two, my Black Talons for Heavy Gear Blitz, from Dream Pod 9

Black Talon Primary Insertion Team

Assembled these guys at the weekend, which took a lot longer than expected due to my superglue being more like water that eventually sets. For those interested, that's an Eagle trooper with a heavy autocannon/light grenade launcher, an Owl C3 with a medium rifle and satellite uplink, another Eagle, this time with a gatling laser cannon and chainsword (all Eagles have these, just he's got his in hand to dish out some close quarters fighting) and another Eagle with again a HAC/LGL.

The plan for these is (and this has already begun) undercoat black, drybrush with dark sea green to bring out the edges, cloth covering at articulation points a light grey and then some panels either a darker grey or a dark red, I haven't decided yet. All the optics etc will be done a green colour. Hopefully I'll get these guys up in painted glory in a while.

Critical Mass Arc Fleet troops

Well time for some stuff that I've actually painted. As said in the description, I am the slowest painter in the world, and I partly started this blog to hopefully inspire me to do a bit more painting by showing it off.

I bought these figures from Critical Mass Games, when they attended a local show called Carronade in Falkirk, at least a year ago, and until now haven't really touched them. I experimented with colour schemes with a few, but was unhappy, so until I finally came up with something suitable they sat on the shelf, in bags, awaiting the caressing touch of the hairy sticks.

Finally one day a paint scheme just kinda popped into my head, while looking at sci-fi art and I just thought "Yeah, that could work". So they were broken out, the ones with paint on them were put in Pinesol to strip and the rest got to work on.

These aren't the only ones I've painted, but thought I would show a few of each type that I'd painted as brief examples of what I've done.

Arc Fleet Augment suits with laser cannons.

Arc Fleet Augment suit command. Also painted up some of the regular troops.

Arc Fleet regular infantry NCO troops.

I've got more Augment suits sitting waiting to get painted, and some more regular infantry. I've started work on one of the vehicles, after figuring out how much blue/grey it's getting, and it's now sitting awaiting shading.

These guys obviously aren't based. I'm going to get them all painted first, then base them once I work out what I'm putting on what bases. Also the commanders are going to get something to distinguish them, I'm thinking a white shoulder pad and white helmet or helmet stripe.

And yes, I'm a bit of a rubbish photographer. Any tips are always appreciated.