Sci Fi Terrain

During lock-down, which seems so long ago now, I decided to publish the Sci Fi rules I'd been working on for the last five years.

Having wrangled and re-wrangled the rules into some frame of playability, I realised it was time to move into some more serious testing.

Wanting to make things fun for those players who would give up their time to help nail down the finer details by playing, I decided to rummage through the Sci Fi boxes and finish some terrain.

So first came out the plethora, yes plethora, of tropical fish tank plants and they got a good basing and bit of paint. Then I started on some bunkers.

Pretty sure these were purchased from Dameonscape or GZG, not sure now as I can't find them on the Internet. But they all got a serious drybrushing and some signs, printed at the local printer.

There's three all up with a connector-thingy for two of them. 

They're a modular build so you can extend and join as you like, but after photoing them, I'm pretty sure they gonna get glued as the parts keep on moving when in use.

They came with resin roofs but they were a bit too busy for my liking so I made roofs from card, printed at the local printer.

They're originally made for 25/28mm and as I have no 15mm terrain at present, I built some add-on parts to scale the bunkers down.... using card, printed at the local printer.

As 25mm buildings

As 15mm buildings

Then I got the madness and built some crates and displays for internal details, also from card, printed at the local printer.

I made interior floors using the same technique which finishes the bunkers nicely.

The boxes/crates came together pretty quickly and the commons on the internet made for some interesting finds for private use.

The local printer was good value as my home printer doesn't print card and the colour from their printers is so much brighter and more solid.

Watch out  behind you...!

Then the perimeter wall got some brief attention with some grey paint, think these came from a bloke in Australia

Along with these awesome landing pads, which got some landing details and ramps for smaller scales, made from card, printed at... you know where

The fish tank plants take some 'suspension of belief' but really make for an excellent jungle planet.

Next blog, I made some external walls for the BattleSystems card terrain... as they no longer stocked the external walls for my five year old system, I made them from card... printed at the local printer.

Where you running to? To register for Beta testing for the Universal Science Fiction Gaming System!

Federation Troopers!: Armoured 25mm Sci Fi

The next items from my Clear the Desk painting challenge are done and also celebrating over 20 years of war gaming and 10,000 views of the blog! Thanks to everyone who has surveyed my wares!!


Now, don't jump to conclusions about the paint scheme just yet. These are Denizen Miniatures 25mm Federation Troopers, started in 1995 and finally finished.


Back then I was broke and couldn't afford Games Workshop 28mm Space Marines but I could afford these guys and the Citadel paints - see where this is headed. So I bought these guys and the Ventuarians - again of which I realise I don't have any pics up on this blog - will remedy. Hence the paint scheme.


After finishing most of them in the 90's, about seven years ago I realised I had more Ventuarians then I did Troopers, my OCD (Obsessive Collectors Disorder) kicked in, and I grabbed some reinforcements.


They went out to a commission painter, got prepped, and almost immediately came flying back unfinished - literally chucked across the table, with the grumpy quote "Paint your own xxxxing figures". I do. I have. 😆 But into the desk they went and there they sat, until now.


I was worried about the paint match up after 20 years but was astonished to find some of the paints actually used all those years ago (and they say hoarding doesn't pay dividends!), and more astonishingly, that some were still active and ready to paint.


The Ultramarines blue was from the Citadel paint renaming/bottling in the 2000s and needed a bit of coaxing TLC with some Lahmian Medium, but matched the 90's blue pretty much perfectly.


The Blood Angles red was hardened like plastic but I used it as a palate reference, and it turns out that 90's Blood Angles Red =  Evil Sunz Scarlet + Yriel Yellow - little dabs of yellow at a time until satisfied approx. 1YY : 5-10ESS).


Hats off to Citadel (ah come on, don't boo) as the rest of the lads have been painted and occasionally gamed with for over 20 years, without a vanish, and still look freshly painted, and were only very slightly chipped.


There's something to be said about these Denizen figures, I reckon they're still some of the best generic sci fi on the market. I think they've aged better design/figure-wise, than most of the more successful brands.


I also painted up these two behemoths in the 90s, as Dreadnought stand-ins, they scale pretty well. Not sure what code they are or were, but they're from the - still available - Dream Pod Nine, Heavy Gear range.


I also found these sentry guns in the same storage bin as the troopers, pretty chipped up, and touched them up. Not sure, but think they're either Ground Zero Games or Denizen.


Which brings us to the next job in the challenge. A half-completed blister of Games Workshop minis no less and some loose colonials - you can take that one if you like.

United States Colonial Marine Corps: Sci Fi Mid-Tech

"We're on an express elevator to hell, going down! Hoo ha!"
Thought I'd post these guys up after the GZG post, they're very old Denizen 25mm Mid-Tech from way back when.


White squad, after a quick touch up from nineties colour scheme below..
You can still get them today BTW from the Denizen website. They are excellent figures.


Yello squad, Hicks as sqaud leader - hoo ha!
These guys have some history, I must have purchased them in the 90s and was going through 'a phase', so they originally started out life painted as 'blue team', but so many people went "ah, um..." when they saw them, expecting marines colours, that in 2015 I repainted them all warry-like.


My original colour scheme from the nineties.


Red squad with no other than Vasquez on the squad support weapon.
I see from the pictures that some of the blue is still showing through so will remedy that before someone writes a decent set of &^%*&^% sci fi rules... and I have a game with them...


Commanders, hopefully my EEO Lt. will be better than Goreman.
Funnily enough when I watched Aliens to get the colour scheme rightish in 2015 (for like the millionth time), it was the first time I noticed the almost tiger-stripes DPM/camo on their trousers and more general tan/brown/green DP on the armour. Thought I'd give the armour DP a miss as possibly would be too disruptive at this scale - may revisit that decision!