Outbound Minis

Here's a couple of 40k models that got the shortcut to the front of my queue. Ironically, neither of them will be residing on my shelves, these are export only.

One is an older, third edition Space Marine Librarian updated with some newer gear. He's going to be a Deathwatch Librarian painted up for one of the winners of the Minions of the Monster Master contest that just wrapped up. That's right, just one of many winners!

The second is an old, lead Eldar Harlequin for Tristan of GW Pertinent. He's collecting Eldar Harlequins painted by other people, if you have one laying around paint it up and send it to him. If not, he's got extra Harlequins he will send you to paint up. For this one I'm going with a Death Jester paint scheme.

Assemble the Deathwatch!

After wrapping up the Techmarine the other day I figured it might be a while before I paint any other troopers so I figured a muster shot was in order. I do have three other figures (two regular and one Terminator) to paint up, but they're not even in the HUD so they'll linger a while in the bits bins. Here's the breakdown...

Tactical, Apothecary, and Librarian Ultramarines

Tactical and Techmarine Black Templars

Tactical, Apothecary, and Assault Sons of Minos

Blood Angel and Salamander Tactical Marines

Devastator, Assault, and Tactical Dark Angels

The others I mentioned will get painted up eventually and added here, making for fifteen total Deathwatch troopers and a single Terminator Captain. They are; a White Scars tactical Marine, a Fists (Imperial or Crimson) Assault Marine, and the aforementioned captain whose parent chapter I don't know yet.

The Mayor of Newcastle

After playtesting the High Plains Drifter PKowboys variant the other night we played a follow-up game. There were a good number of tweaks and changes we made to it, and they all seemed to work out rather well. The point of HPD is to speed of PKowboys while still keeping the essence of what makes PKowboys a great game to begin with. The point of our changes were to streamline this even more.


For this game we tried a bit more of a storyline scenario; the bad guys had the mayor of the town of Newcastle holed up in the jail. The good guys, who had been run out of town, have returned with reinforcements to save the mayor, liberate the town, and cut down the bad guys.


There's a new livery in town...and fences!

The good guys were able to get in there, smoke out the bad guys, and rescue the mayor. It was touch and go for a while, but after a couple of foes went down, the good guys were able to assault the sheriff's office en masse.

The rules went a lot smoother this time around, with the only discussion points or hiccups revolved around Piquet-specific terms and items that still linger in the rules for no other reason than "they've always been in there". Not being a dedicated-Piquet rules group however, these don't hold much water.

The High Plains Drifter (now double) modified rules work great and drive the game faster than before while losing none of the charm of the game itself. The downfall being that one-shot games are about all the mileage you'll be getting with them. Sure, in the works are extended rules for campaign play, and experience tracking, and what-not but why reinvent the wheel when games like Rules With No Name and Legends of the Old West already have those in spades?

Speaking of Legends of the Old West, my order of cowboy figs is in (six mounted, six foot) and hopefully we'll be getting some games under our belts with these. I do foresee lots of Cowboy content showing their hide 'round these parts.

Mk6 Deathwatch Techmarine

On the eve of the last Deathwatch RPG game I finished up this figure for one of the players at the table. When rolling up his armor and armor histories he got both the Mark 6 Corvus armor as well as the "xenos foe" history. I don't remember the details exactly but basically his armor has the claw of some alien embedded in it. This old school Techmarine model is perfect for that since it has a Genestealer claw adorning the right shoulder.


Over at Constantly Ricking Obscurity there is an amazingly awesome tutorial on how to make your own servo-arms. It came about a month after I kit-bashed the one you see here, but it's good to know for future reference.


Of all the Deathwatch I figure the Techmarines are the most particular about their equipment, so I kept the backpack/servo-arm and the helmet traditional red. I also painted everything with a lot of wear-and-tear, scratches, dings, and dents. The right pauldron is covered by the Genestealer claw, so you can't see parent chapter livery (this Techmarine is a Black Templar) and the left pauldron looks to be a mass of nuts, bolts, and wires. Not exactly the Deathwatch symbol and crest, but I didn't want to hack up a classic model.

L to R: Librarian, Techmarine, Tactical, Devastator, and Apothecary

Here's the whole five-man team of RPG player character models. There is still one model missing, and that would be Andy's Space Shark assault marine (can't find any pics of it but here's some of his Deathwatch). Our RPG group is a little different from the tabletop group in that most of the RPG guys don't currently paint figures, that's why I painted all of these up for them to use in our Deathwatch sessions.

PKowboys Variant Playtest

Tuco and Rafael emerged from two days in the desert upon the unsuspecting town of [insert clever western town name here]. Between the two of them a machete, a lever-action rifle, and a terrible thirst were all they owned.

Little did the duo know that a pair of cow-hands had just arrived as well on the other side of town. A herd the two brothers had just spent their life savings on had died of Blackleg and the bank refused to refund their money. They would have what's rightfully theirs, one way or another.


During my "pre-blog" period we played a lot PKowboys, the Piquet rules variant that covers the wild west. We managed to get in one weekend of it a couple years ago, reported here. It's a good game, I don't need to go on about here suffice it say you use random action cards and it creates an unpredictable, but extremely fun game where cowboys, outlaws, and townsfolk are shooting each other up and painting the town red.

About four years ago a set of rules were written up as a "highly modified" variant of PKowboys called High Plains Drifter. They provide greater detail where needed, speed up some of the action as needed, and have a neat little "action counter" component where you pre-decide what your character intends to do and then hope they can still do it after the dust settles. I should point out that High Plains Drifter is not intended to be published or distributed. Here's a direct quote from the author that sums up what they're all about:

"There are huge differences between PKowboys and HPD. Actually there
is nothing similar about them except for some of the card names.

HPD is my attempt at writing skirmish rules the way I envision
skirmish, 1 on 1, combat. The requirements for my skirmish rules are
as follows.

1. Must play very fast compared to rules on the market today.
2. Little or no down-time for players. Skirmish games need to be high
[octane] and players need to be always thinking about their next
tactics.
3. Game rewards folks that can think on their feet.
4. Has to be Fun!
5. Can lend itself to a campaign.
6. High drama.

I think HPD fits these criteria. HPD was intended for my club's
personal use, but after Historicon Jeff (PK Skirmish author) thought
he could use some of the ideas from HPD in PK Skirmish. So HPD is
still for personal use, but I will give it to PK Inc to take whatever
ideas they like and put them into PK Skirmish." -E. Burgess

We've had a lot of fun with Gutshot in the past, and sort of recently I picked up the Rules With No Name (which good a lot of good reviews). Andy has the Warhammer historicals lineup, and we always have the original PKowboys to fall back on...so we're not hurting on cowboy rules at all. It is nice to try something a little new and different at the same time.

The game we played here, three players running two characters each, was a run-through for a larger follow-up game two days later. That next game is in the future as I write this, but in the past as this is posted...confusing, I know, but it means I should have the follow-up game written up and ready to post for you very soon.

HPD was fun, but as to being "hugely" different from PKowboys, I didn't see it. Then again I'm usually not big on details. It was solid, but seems exactly like what it was; a modified PKowboy game, nothing wrong with that. For long term cowboy shoot 'em ups I'd like to spend some serious time with Rules With No Name (hey, they're free!) and Gutshot (hey, it's cheap!) only because I feel they give a great variety of cowboy-ness between the two of them on the tabletop and each one deserves its legitimate shot at longevity. Really, having read through the Warhammer Historical Legends of the Old West, I'm sold, I just can't find a copy anywhere!

Looks like my "minis bought" stat is about to increase... [EDIT: Actually it just did, by twelve. I picked up three Cowboy Wars packs, more on those later!]

LEGO Thursday: Hardsuits

Posting all of these old pics is really inspiring me to go back and do something with some of these ideas. This was a series of attempts and test drives for me to see if I could feasibly work a solid "hard suit" design for mini-figs. The only part that's truly mini-fig here is the head, the rest of the suit is made up of fiddly bits.


Speed suit


Combat suit with melee and fire support


Armored flamethrower unit


Reaper-class gladiatorial chassis


Dual-sixshooter wielding Dinosaur Planet patrol suit


Standard enhancement suit


Maintenance suit, useful on high-grav worlds


Officer Friendly in his Riot Control and Interdiction suit

Shootout at Sundown Ridge

It has been a while since we played Gutshot around these parts, but it seems Cowboy gamin' is on the upswing right now. There's a locally organized gaming con coming up next month and I've volunteered to run Gutshot there, so to get some practice for that we broke out the terrain and since I don't have any painted cowboys at the moment so I opted for some Lego figs (of course). There will be a Lego Thursday at one point detailing the figs themselves.

An unseen native scout observes the townsfolk below

In Gutshot you can pretty much play with just one character per player, which is one of the main draws to running it as a con game, you can play up to ten people with no problems. Combat isn't so deadly where you're going to die off too quickly, and there's plenty of detail on your character sheet to keep you focused and with your head in the game.


Surreal normally wouldn't be the proper term normally, but in a gaming sense, yeah it was a bit surreal. The Legos were a sharp contrast to the tabletop terrain and made for a neat overall setting. It was super-populated, with tons of NPCs and lots of random horse, even some livestock. We treated the bystanders as "portable cover", which was helped along by Gutshot's rule of near misses.

If you miss your intended target, and there's someone within an inch of said target, well, collateral damage occurs. I've been watching a lot of western movies (mostly old but some new) lately and this almost rarely happens so it's interesting to see in Gutshot.


The player characters are mounted on larger, display type bases but the bystanders were equipped differently. Originally I had envisioned a bunch of random actions of the civilians and what-not running around. It was quickly determined that this would only bog the game down quite a bit, so the random NPC movement got canned.

NPCs on yellow bases are, well, yellow. Each turn when their activation would've come up they would have randomly moved for cover, or a marshal, or the like. Those on black bases were just regular folk, they'd just move regular I guess. Ahem, as you can see I didn't fully flesh out the random NPC movement thingie. Last are those on red bases (red for danger!) and their activations would center around making attacks, usually ranged, on those PCs that are closest to them. Even writing all of this sounds complicated!

Never bring a knife to a shovel fight!

Here the "Thug" (high ground with the poncho and the knife) dukes it out with the "Sodbuster" character, who was given the shovel as an afterthought. I really like melee in Gutshot, the shooting and what-not are solid but nothing spectacular, but it's the fisticuffs that stand out for me. Instead of just making an attack you choose what kind of attack you want to do, whether it's a jab punch, a long punch, a backhand, what-have-you.

Each type of attack comes with its own target number, and each attack deals specific damage. So a backhand might be easy to perform, so it has a low target number. The catch is it's just a backhand, so it is going to do little damage. A kick on the other hand is going to do a lot of damage to your target, but it's going to be the hardest type of attack to pull off.

"Marshal! You've got to protect me, not use me for cover!"

Homesteaders...can't live with them, can't live without 'em

The dual-wielding Texas Ranger stalks his target across the pen...

...and brings the Gambler down

It was a fun game for sure, and although the rules are easy to pick up on the fly we still had to some learning on the fly as well. If you're looking for a good skirmish game set in the wild west, I'd strongly suggest Gutshot. It's good for pick up games, spontaneous games, and the like. Not to mention the book itself is quite an enjoyable read with lots of side text and other fun nuggets about six-gun life west of the mighty Mississippi.

Infantry Company; the Vākāṭakans 432nd

Here is my finished 15mm sci-fi company. Unfortunately I don't have any vehicles so it's pure infantry. Some APC's would be nice, but if and when I opt to mechanize them that would be a huge project in its own right. I would need at least a dozen APC's, a command vehicle, and three drop-pod like devices. Yeah, it'd be expensive and that would be a lot of painting and assembly. The good news about 15mm though, it should paint up faster and be a fraction the cost of its 28mm big brother.

I've had these painted up for some time, with just a small amount of squads to finish somewhat recently. The figs all come from Ground Zero Games. They're great sculpts, don't get me wrong, but frankly when this project was started there just wasn't the huge outlet of 15mm sci-fi selection and variety that we have now, GZG was about the only option out there. I had a specific TO&E in mind when I put all of this together and I tried to keep the platoons separate but still let them have a bit of their own versatility and personality.

I also had a specific fiction in mind, something along the lines of Earth in the next hundred years or so. Constant conflict, global ecological changes, a few loose nukes, and what-not have created a perpetual war-zone mostly centered in Africa, the Middle East, and southern Asia. Colonization efforts are underway off-world, near FTL travel has been invented, and contact has been made amongst the stars with sentient aliens of comparable technology levels. Of course there's bigger, better stuff out there in the cosmos, we just haven't stumbled across it yet. My army here represents an Indian force.


The 432nd is a multi-role company that is made up of a variety of different types of platoons. Mixed companies such as the 432nd have the most flexibility in mission-adaptable operations and are ready for a wide number of battlefield roles.

The 432nd consists of four platoons and a headquarters squad. Three platoons consist of three squads each led by a dedicated command squad, all squads have eight troopers each. The fourth platoon consists of three power armored squads with six troopers each. Finally you have an eight trooper strong HQ squad.


The 432nd's Shudran platoon consists of troopers of the lowest overall quality. Their dependable equipment and basic training does give them something of an edge over comparable enemy units. They are found as the backbone of police forces assigned to colony ship departures. Sometimes an entire Shudran company is formed specifically to accompany a colony caravan, becoming PDF forces upon arrival. For most of these troopers service is the only means they have to leave Earth.


The Vaishyan platoon consists of the most plentiful of troopers in the overall army. The largest number of dedicated companies are ones that comprise of nothing but these troopers. Vaishyan troopers are the enlisted men and women that see the widest range of action across the most number of battlefields. These career soldiers have the better equipment in the field compared to enemy units of similar strengths and continually train when not on campaign. Special forces draw the most number of recruits from the Vaishyan ranks as well.


The 432nd counts itself extremely lucky in that it has a full platoon of Satrians, alien commandos unparalleled in fighting. Most companies are able to temporary requisition a single squad at best, and only for specific parameters. Their equipment comes from off-world, as do their strategies and tactics. It's as if every facet of Satrian warfare is a mirror of human warfare, only exemplified.

When this space-borne race was encountered it was quickly (and astonishingly) realized that the Satrians' religious doctrine was almost identical to Hinduism. The Satrians considered themselves lost pilgrims trying to find their way back to what has been loosely translated as the Indus Valley. For this reason the alliance between the Satrians and India has been fully realized and seamlessly enacted. Other nations might employ alien mercenaries, but none come close to the assimilation between these two entities.


Rounding out the platoons of the 432nd are the Kshatriyans, fearsome power armored troopers. Being chosen as a power armor trooper is a great honor and only the most distinguished soldiers make the final cut. Because of their elite training, power armored units are autonomous and do not utilize and attached command squad.

Power armor is the pinnacle of infantry battlefield technology. Thanks to knowledge shared from Satrian scientists, Indian power armored units got a leg up in design innovation and power plant efficiency. The bottom line is that these suits can last longer in the field and take up less room that comparable power armored suits.

Shown here as well is the company headquarters squad composed of top military leaders and strategists. They are equipped accordingly with high tech arms and armor and although the squad is rarely in the thick of the fighting, they are more than capable if need be.


There you have it, I hope you enjoyed reading the fluff as much as I enjoyed writing it. Looking back over this post I realize I'd like to go a little further and finish this army out. I said in the beginning it'd be a long, arduous journey, but I think this army deserves the full treatment. Namely transports, but other things like a support platoon of tanks, some aircraft or whatever, maybe some walkers even. Too many choices, a blank canvas is as much a curse as a boon.

As for rules, bah, whatever goes really. This is a large army as it stands (over a hundred models) so I don't imagine I'll ever field it all at once. Lots of candidates out there to use too, it's just a matter of getting them on the table and sticking to it.

Iron Arrival

Got my Iron Man in the mail to join the rest of the Avengers...

The son of a wealthy industrialist and head of Stark Industries, Howard Stark, and Maria Stark, Anthony Edward Stark is born on Long Island. A boy genius, he enters MIT at the age of 15 to study physics. After his parents are accidentally killed in a car crash, he inherits his father's company.

While observing the effects of his experimental technologies on the American war effort, Tony Stark is injured by a booby trap and captured by the enemy led by Wong-Chu, who then orders him to design weapons. However, Stark's injuries are dire and shrapnel is moving towards his heart. His fellow prisoner, Ho Yinsen, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist whose work Stark had greatly admired during college, constructs a magnetic chest plate to keep the shrapnel from reaching Stark's heart, keeping him alive. In secret, Stark and Yinsen use the workshop to design and construct a suit of powered armor, which Stark uses to escape. But during the escape attempt, Yinsen sacrifices his life to save Stark's by distracting the enemy as Stark recharges. Stark takes revenge on his kidnappers and heads back to rejoin the American forces, on his way meeting a wounded American Marine fighter pilot, James "Rhodey" Rhodes.

Back home, Stark discovers that the shrapnel fragment lodged in his chest cannot be removed without killing him, and he is forced to wear the armor's chestplate beneath his clothes to act as a regulator for his heart. He must also recharge the chestplate every day or else risk the shrapnel killing him. The cover for Iron Man is that he is Stark's bodyguard and corporate mascot. To that end, Iron Man fights threats to his company, such as Communist opponents Black Widow, the Crimson Dynamo and the Titanium Man, as well as independent villains like the Mandarin, who eventually becomes his greatest enemy. No one suspects Stark of being Iron Man as he cultivates an image as a rich playboy and industrialist. Two notable members of Stark's supporting cast at this point are his personal chauffeur Harold "Happy" Hogan and secretary Virginia "Pepper" Potts, to both of whom he eventually reveals his dual identity. Meanwhile, James Rhodes finds his own niche as Stark's personal pilot, revealing himself to be a man of extraordinary skill and daring.

The comic took an anti-Communist stance in its early years, which was softened as opposition rose to the Vietnam War. This change evolved in a series of stories with Stark profoundly reconsidering his political opinions and the morality of manufacturing weapons for the military. Stark, however, shows himself to be occasionally arrogant and willing to let the ends justify the means. This leads to personal conflicts with the people around him, both in his civilian and superhero identities. Stark uses his personal fortune not only to outfit his own armor, but also to develop weapons for S.H.I.E.L.D. and other technologies such as the Quinjets used by the Avengers, and the image inducers used by the X-Men.

Iron Man possesses powered armor that gives him superhuman strength and durability, flight, and an array of weapons. The armor is invented and worn by Stark (with occasional short-term exceptions). Other people who have assumed the Iron Man identity include Stark's long-time partner and best friend James Rhodes; close associates Harold "Happy" Hogan; Eddie March; and (briefly) Michael O'Brien.

The weapons systems of the suit have changed over the years, but Iron Man's standard offensive weapons have always been the repulsor rays that are fired from the palms of his gauntlets. Other weapons built into various incarnations of the armor include: the uni-beam projector in its chest; pulse bolts (that pick up on kinetic energy along the way; so the farther they travel, the harder they hit); an electromagnetic pulse generator; and a defensive energy shield that can be extended up to 360 degrees. Other capabilities include: generating ultra-freon (i.e., a freeze-beam); creating and manipulating magnetic fields; emitting sonic blasts; and projecting 3-dimensional holograms (to create decoys).

In addition to the general-purpose model he wears, Stark has developed several specialized suits for space travel, deep-sea diving, stealth, and other special purposes. Stark has modified suits, like the Hulkbuster heavy armor. The Hulkbuster armor is composed of add-ons to his so-called modular armor, designed to enhance its strength and durability enough to engage the Incredible Hulk in a fight. A later model, designed for use against Thor, is modeled on the Destroyer and uses a mystical power source. Stark also develops an electronics pack during the Armor Wars that, when attached to armors that use Stark technologies, will burn out those components, rendering the suit useless. This pack is ineffective on later models, however. While it is typically associated with James Rhodes, the War Machine armor also began as one of Stark's specialty armors.

The most recent models of Stark's armor, beginning with the Extremis Armor, are now stored in the hollow portions of Stark's bones, and the personal area networking implement used to control it is implanted in his forearm, and connected directly to his central nervous system, making Stark essentially a cyborg.

Last Chance Deathwatch Contest Reminder

Since I'm a co-author on another blog, the Minions of the Monster Master, I try not to double up subject matter with my posts here. However there is a Deathwatch contest going on over there currently that is over tomorrow night so I thought I'd mention it to get the word out.

Also, since I'll probably end up being the one to do the painting for the prize, it's fitting to mention here as well since you'll probably see it eventually come across the feed at Mik's Minis in one fashion or another.

"So what's the prize Mik?" It's a Deathwatch Space Marine, painted up with whatever chapter livery you want and whichever of the three specialties you choose; Librarian, Devastator, or Assault marine.

The fine print is all over at the Minions blog. In truth, not a lot of people have entered so it could come down to a coin toss in the end for you!

Check it out before it's too late!

LEGO Thursday: Party On!

This one's an old file indeed. These were going to go out on invitations printed up for a party. We ended up just calling people on the phone, but I think this would've been cool to get in the mail as a postcard. So, umm, party on!

Hover Tank Alternatives

I've been picking these up at the store one or two at a time over the last couple of months. As you can see from the packaging, they're from the new Tron movie (which I still haven't seen). It was one of those things where I was standing in the toy aisle and thought to myself, "Self, these would make pretty good 15mm hover tanks."


Maybe third party tank turrets on the flat spots up top?


Comparison shots with some GZG Kra'vak (some excellent ones here)


They come apart easily enough as you can see. The bottom part is plastic, so I'll be able to drill a hole and use a clear flying stem. The top part is die-cast, which I'll just prime over the top of. For the 'windows' I may just leave them alone since they're an opaque smoke.

I've got a color scheme in mind, something of a large, blocky woodland camo scheme, but with geometric shapes. Something like this Lambo, but in greens. Of course I have a 15mm sci-fi army, and they're not green so this means these will have to belong to another entity altogether. That reminds me, I need to do a muster post of that army.