15mm Sci Fi: Killer Space Vegetables & Solo Battle Report

 

Some more 'bad guys' painted up for the growing 15mm Si Fi collection, this time it's a whole lot of deadly flora, 'Day of the Triffids' style.

Bought about ten years ago, I got these out to alleviate painting the endless white straps of my AWI collection and then promptly gave to my wife to do... she offered, honest!

Alternate Armies

These are mostly 'Triffic' (not Triffids) from Alternate Armies.

Above and below are from the SHMP25 Triffic Killer Plants pack.

Below are some Death Spores from AA's HOF46 Creegan Doom Spores pack.

Khurasan Miniatures

A score of Triffids more on the 'human' analogy - these kinda have arms and are holding 'weapons', with a great colour job. All from their Alien Civilizations Listing.

A couple of packs of Botanoid plantman heavy weapons specialists.

Some Botanoid plantman commanders and high commander.

And finally a swarm (several packs) of Botanoid plantman battleteam.

Battle Report

Nearly as far back as I bought these guys, we've been developing a home-grown set of rules we're calling Universal. I think it's finally reached its zenith in terms of development and I used them and a supplementary pack to run some of Khurasan's Defence Force troopers through a jungle romp.

The board is set up with random placement of the KSVs with an objective down one end of the board - in this case an APC. This was done by dividing the board up into a 10cm x 10cm grid and rolling 2 x 1d10s for general placement - then scatter dice and a 1d10 for final placement - this took a while. 

The random placement added a few KSVs right next to the objective. But with the board set, I headed the platoon down an edge of the board, trying to avoid certain death.

But once the good guys have moved, the plants move by themselves using a scatter dice and a 1d10.

My strategy worked all the way up the board until it didn't and a plant randomly moved into contact with the squaddies. 

They fired and cleared out a whole bunch, taking a couple of casualties... 

... and triggered reactive responses by the plants who (within a certain range) headed directly towards the troops.

Things were looking grim as the plants surrounded the troops so they went quiet again and tried sneaking the rest of the way...

... only to have their way to the transport blocked.

More firing ensued, drawing in further nearby plants, with only two death spores left to get past.

With this being the first real wargame I've played in nearly five years, its nice to know that I can still make dumb decisions, even when playing on my own. I was so fixated on getting to the transport that instead of shooting up the plants some more, I ran at the spores, triggering their attack and firing back at them.

The result is that the troops were worn down to 50% and failed their leadership test. They should have gone fleeing off into the jungle to meet their death, or until rallied, but I prefer the above result where they all reached the safety of their transport...

It was great to play a solo game with these figures  - given I live in the middle of nowheresville and  especially with the excellent paint job from my wife. Even my step son came up with a game of his own using the same figures and rules, and a 60 x 60 gridded play area we made for DnD.

Warhammer 40,000: Hive Fleet Behemoth

 

Something a bit different, a post that showcases my wife's amazing work completing the Tyranids from the Leviathan box, bought over two years ago now.

Winged Tyranid Prime

I think the first thing I should mention is that my wife has only been painting miniatures for about as long as its taken to complete these Tyranids.

Screamer-Killer Carnifex

While I might have guided her on colours and techniques, I think its fair to say its her own talent that's produced this amazing finish.

Neurotyrant, Neuroloids  and Von Ryan's Leapers

Obviously, having chosen Macragge as the landscape for my marines and the Ultramarines as the chapter, the Hive Fleet Behemoth colour-scheme was a no brainer.

Psychophage

I think she's used all Citadel Paints, contrasts for base painting, washes to add depth, and colours for highlighting - with maybe Vallejo for basics light white, etc.

Barbgaunts

Basing was the traditional black rimmed base with liberal use of Games Workshop's 'box'o'skulls' and various manufacturers' tuffs.

Termagants

This was to represent the mountainous, rocky north, where the Ultramarines had their last stand, and we tied in some base colouring with the marines I'd already finished.

Hormagaunts

I think there's a box of Hormagaunts in here from the Tyranid range as well, an addition which my wife graciously accepted into her painting queue - because they didn't come in the Leviathan box and I *really neeeeeded* them 😝

Neurogaunts

I really do think she's done an amazing job with these Tyranids and I'm stoked that I have a completed army of them.

Ripper Swarms

I guess its up to me now to finish the Ultramarines from the Leviathan box, which is in the queue after I've completed my AWI collection.

Multi-Scale: Sci Fi Industrial/Post Apocalyptic Scenery

 

Yep, old plastic containers, bits off of bottles, a massive raid through a giant bits box, and the use of a scenery kit purchased nearly 20 years ago. Nothing was held back over the last year as we feverously built up a table's worth of Sci Fi terrain.

Having been inspired by the motto of the 131st Pi Orionis Mechanised Hover Infantry, I thought a table's worth of run down, weather beaten terrain from one of the mining planets in the Pi system would be perfect.

But having a large collection of 15, 28, and even 25mm sci fi figures and vehicles, I really wanted to make the scenery usable with all these scales.

Its definitely worked with the 40k stuff and the terrain scales well with both the Tyranids and Ultramarines. 

In fact I don't think I'd do anything more to this stuff before being happy having a game with it at 28mm.

The 15mm stuff on the other hand, while it works reasonably well, I think it will need some additional scale pieces done in the same style before it sits well.

But there's now plenty of terrain to set up a full table top for a game.

Some bunkers for firebases are a must for any game.

A lot of the pipe and installation greeblies are from a Chemical Plant Construction Box I bought many years ago - a couple of places like ebay and Pegasus Hobbies are still advertising them for sale.

Other parts are from plastic supplement bottles and even chocolate boxes. These were heavily sanded first, to take the printing off or to dull the shine of the plastic.

Earlier this year my brother moved into a smaller house and donated a giant box of spare parts collected over the last 40 years of modeling.

Suffice to say that greebly time is now made a lot easier and the box was used extensively with this terrain. I think there's some EVA foam on some of the pieces as well.

These ash/tailings piles were made by first bending cardboard into cones, gluing them on the base, then covering them in ground cover.

But this was done old style without printing a single part - although there's a couple of printed bits on the piles. And a further thanks to my wife who decided she wanted to finish off at least half of the pieces and patiently matched the style I'd started off with.

6th Maryland, Patterson’s Massachusetts, 7th Pennsylvania, and Virginia Light Horse

 

Another push to get this entire collection painted, with only another 6 standard Black Powder units worth left to go now. This time its three standard infantry units for the American's plus a small unit of light horse.

The flags were from a random search on Mr. Google and the uniforms are once again, straight from Baccus' excellent uniform guide.

Patterson’s Massachusetts Battalion

This is one of the last two units, from the 8 boxes of Italeri American Infantry, which I bought back in ~2014. Not sure if the drummers wore reversed coats but for ascetics I thought they'd look cooler in buff coats.

7th Pennsylvania Regiment

The last unit from the Italeri boxes, I couldn't go past the 7th Penn as a unit. 

I've issued these guys a BPL MkII (Bush, Portable, Low) for the same reasons as I did for the 2nd Canadian, just a fact of life for these aging 1/72 scale figures and the varying pose quality you get in the sets.

6th Maryland Regiment

A few years back I could be heard saying that I'd never buy any more 1/72 scale stuff. For the most part I've stuck to that focusing on 15mm and 28mm. But then earlier this year HaT Industrie released their American Infantry set.

So this is the first unit from the box I bought (😆) but in my defense, I'm not going to be using the IMEX stuff as I wasn't happy with the Green Mountain Boys unit I made using them, as I didn't really like their poses.

The same can't be said for this HaT box though. You get enough figures (96) to make 4 standard BP units, with great poses (marching, firing, loading, and ready).

Virginia Light Horse

Another light cavalry unit made up from the old Revell, Set 02573, Austrian Dragoons, with head conversions from the A Call to Arms, Set 65, British Infantry 1775. As per previous units, some of the detail had to be 'assumed' and painted on, so these don't bare close inspection.

Only a couple more standard infantry units to go, along with a small unit of light infantry, and a few artillery crews left for the Americans.