Painting a fleet of spaceships has been on my to-do list for a long time, but the complexity of a fleet and the sheer variety of ships I saw in most ranges were baffling. Luckily, GZG’s Ravagers seem to be a manageable challenge: there’s a Light Carrier, a Cruiser, two types of Raiders and an Attacker (these are approximately the equivalent of destroyers and frigates or torpedo boats) and that’s all. Experienced players might find this range of ships insufficient, but for me, it seems to be the perfect starting set.
Continue reading Space Pirates – The Birth of a FleetTag: GZG
All About That Base
As I mentioned in my previous post, I have been fairly busy in the last few months and one of the reasons for this, has been a massive hobby project: painting a customised base for my 15mm minis. I have a whole platoon of infantry with a matching battlemat and the next logical step was adding a set of buildings to my collection. There are many options available on the market and it was difficult to pick one, but in the end, I decided to buy the research station set from Brigade.
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A Favourite Reborn
My blog has been pretty quiet lately, because the last few months have been exceptionally busy on all fronts: work, life, painting and playing, but now I have much to share.
The Spider Drones of Ground Zero Games have been a long time favourite of mine: I have plenty of them waiting for me in different stages of unfinishedness. A six-legged spider-like drone with a rotary gun – yes, that’s exactly what I’m thinking about when I imagine a sci-fi battleground. When I ordered a few more of them recently, Jon was kind enough to ask if I wanted the new version. Is it possible to say no to this?
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OutRim Coalition Marines – Stargrunt II Data Cards
Now that I have a full platoon of OutRim Coalition infantry painted, I think it’s time to summarize how this army works and what it is capable of in a Stargrunt II game.
The Outer Rim Coalition (aka OutRim Coalition or ORC) is one of the smaller factions in the Tuffleyverse. The Full Thrust, Dirtside II and Stargrunt II rulebooks don’t give too much detail about them: basically, they are the people born and living in the outer worlds, on starships and on space stations, at the edge of the human influence zone. They are not associated directly with any of the Terran nations and they are facing all the threats lurking in the unknown depths of space. They kind of resemble the Belters from the Expanse series with this background.
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The Heavy Weapons Have Arrived
I took my first steps in the world of 15mm wargaming a year ago, when I painted the first squads of my OutRim Coalition army. I collected and painted several assault troops and support weapons (plasma guns, missile launchers, snipers) since then, so it was time to add the heavy weapons as well.
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Winter Haul Report 2020-2021 – “It Wasn’t Me, It Was Santa”
Christmas is about friends, family, celebrating, spending time together, having fun and exchanging gifts. Sadly, most of these were impossible at the end of the last year, which is why I focused more on gifts – some for my loved ones and some for myself.
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Autumn Haul Report 2020 – aka The Treasure Hunt – Tranche 3
Not much has changed since the last haul report: there have been no face to face games and no wargame shows either but apparently, this didn’t stop me from buying new stuff.
The first item, TravelBattle from Perry Miniatures, was a real surprise. Though it’s a very interesting period, I have never considered buying Napoleonic minis and I was also sure that I would focus on 28mm and 15mm, with a few 6mm pieces as a rare exception, but after reading an article about this game, it looked very engaging. One single box that has everything you need: terrain boards, troops and a rulebook. After reading a few reviews, it quickly became irresistible, mainly because of the quick and simple but fun to play rules. The size of the minis is 8mm, which is a scale I have never seen before and there are probably not too many accessories for it on the market, which is in a way a blessing in disguise: it will stop me from expanding this into a massive collection with dozens of extra units.
Continue reading Autumn Haul Report 2020 – aka The Treasure Hunt – Tranche 3
Summer Haul Report 2020 – aka The Treasure Hunt Goes On
This quarter has been busier than expected, practically I haven’t painted anything but have luckily had very good RPG (Cepheus Light and D&D) and wargame (Stargrunt II) sessions. COVID-19 is still around, so there was no wargame show to report about and the games I played were online, not face to face. But there is something reassuring about buying hobby stuff. This time it wasn’t panic buying like it was in the spring, but a more methodical one.
Let’s start with Patrick Todoroff’s Hardwired rulebook and The Tsim Sha Tsui expansion: these are both short, fifty-page black and white booklets with a bit of background, complete rules, list of equipment and a handful of missions for cybernetically enhanced agents. Sounds familiar? There’s a good reason: Syndicate, the old PC game was one of the inspirations for this game. The subtitle “Cyberpunk espionage and mayhem” refers to a cyberpunk setting, but it’s very adaptable – you can swap the agents with a black ops team, a commando unit, a squad of mercenaries, a recon or a SWAT team and swap the opposing security forces to insurgents, alien bugs, zombies, rogue AI robots, vicious gangs, or your favourite villains.
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Spring Haul Report 2020 – aka The Big Spring Treasure Hunt
In a previous post about the cancelled wargaming show, I suggested checking the manufacturers and traders online and spending your show budget on games and minis. Well, I did walk the walk. I have had a proper shopping spree this spring…
On one hand, it was a kind of a panic buying: having an incomplete collection is somehow deeply disturbing for me. On the other hand, I found massive discounts! Most of the things I bought were on my wishlist anyway, so sooner or later, I would have ended up buying them.
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The More the Merrier
After finishing the first three squads of the 15mm OutRim Coalition Infantry , there was no turning back. I had to go on.
I have painted standard troopers, medics, squad leaders and SAW gunners so far, but I decided to add more support weapons (plasma guns and two different missile launchers), snipers and two assaults squads. I used the SG15-RC09 and SG15-RC04 sets from Ground Zero Games’ OutRim Coalition range.
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