Xenos 'Nam

I popped over to Bruce's in early September for a Vietnam adaptation of Xenos Rampant. It was a rescue the downed chopper pilot scenario using Bruce's 28mm Name collection (mostly Pulp Miniatures).

I chose Charlie who was the attacker so got to choose which side the Americans entered on. I gave him rice fields and a village, in the hope that this would slow him down. 

Bruce did pretty well with activation rolls but his MG bogged down and the terrain was simply slow going.

I rushed my faster guys up in the hope of a grab-and-go victory.

His troops that dismounted from the M113 got chewed up by my MG team hiding in some brush. Bruce's team moved through the town but go knocked back my some RPGs. 

Eventually I was able to get to the pilot. I sacrificed a large number of troops to tie up his APC.

Then it became a foot race between my troops dragging the pilot to my base edge and his APC rushing to try and catch me. Some unlucky dice rolls saw the Americans stall and the VC hoof it off the table edge.

Overall, a solid game with lots of tension and drama. An airstrike beat up my units out in the open. There were also tough decisions on both sides about who to try and activate. I was fortunate that I'd divided up the tasks such that most of my units could auto-activate when I needed them to do something.

Assassin and goblins

This week, I continued with the 28mm fantasy figures, finishing off an assassin and some goblins.

The assassin (or thief, I suppose) is a board gaming figure of unknown origin. I decided to go with a monochromatic colour theme. Meh. Looks okay and could do for a villain or a player character.

I also knocked off the goblins in the box Chen traded me. They were fun and have bows on their backs.

 Up next: I really should finish off the British Crimean cavalry.

Druids and rats and bears, oh my!

Continuing this little 28mm fantasy kick that I'm on, today I have a druid, some doors, some rats, and a bear! 

The giant rats are from a set I got off of Chen and were nice and easy to paint.

I also painted a druid (some kind of boardgame figure, I think) and six of the doorway in the middle. I put in a Wizkids' doorway on the right for comparison. Close enough. The doors would have been more useful in the closed position, but whatever.

I also have a good-sized bear, again a boardgame figure I think. From some angles, he looks like a bear. From other angles, he looks more like some kind of giant weasel or beaver, minus the tail.

Up next: More fantasy!

Wizard, Kobold, Slime

This summer, Chen and I arranged a fruitful "your junk for my junk" trade and I ended up with a collection of fantasy figures to go with the dungeon tiles I bought off of Terry last year (or two years ago?). 

I decided to go with a bright-and-cheery approach to painting these, since the terrain (grey tiles on black cloth) would be drab, so everybody got a white primering.

The kobolds, meh? They came out more cheeto than expected. But whatever. The slimes were nice figures, cast in a translucent green plastic. These were both from a kick-starter box of fantasy figures Chen had backed.

He also kindly threw in a couple of Reaper figures, including this wizard. I debated trying to add stars and moons and such to his cloak and then figured a low-level wizard wouldn't have the dosh for that kind of embroidery.

I was happy with how his spell book and familiar turned out.

Overall, not a bad start. The dungeon tiles really popped with an additional dry brushing.

Next up: Either more Crimean cavalry or some more fantasy dudes.

Wrath of Khan Klingons

To go with the ST:TMP Federation Crew that I showed last week, I bought a 1982 set of Klingons that FASA released at the same time. 

These were really disappointing figures. Much like last week's set, they are very passively posed. The exceptions include the guy swinging a rifle (below right). His pose is anatomically possible but is extremely difficult to pull off.

The other animated pose (below right) is the fellow who is knocking, or leaning, or maybe dancing? Terrible pose. Like what the hell?

The sculpts have pretty good detail that matches the ST:TMP Klingons from The Search for Spock and they paint up fine enough.

They are, however way under sized for 25mm. Below, I have compared them to the 1970s 25mm Heritage Klingons and modern 28mm (Space Vixens from Mars, I think). Even with the extra height from the slotta base, the FASA figure is shorter and much smaller than the Heritage and looks more 20mm.

Oddly, they are even small compared to the Federation Crew from the same release. They came in a sealed set and included proper markings on the base so I don't think they are recasts (which sometimes shrink). Just a terrible effort by FASA all around.

Up next: Hard to say. Maybe some more Crimean. Maybe some fantasy.

25mm Star Trek Wrath of Khan bridge crew

As a birthday treat, I bought a job lot of 25mm FASA ST:TMP figures from the Wrath of Khan. It looks like I ended up without a Chekov (oh well!). These came with the trousers and tunics blocked in so I just completed the paint job and based them. I decided to go a bit brighter than I usually might.

These are fairly small figures (true 25mm) and have kind of useless poses. Since they were created for the Star Trek RPG, I'm not sure why they are all just standing around the bridge? Kirk even appears to be leaning on his chair. Savik is a nice find though.

I pulled out some of my ST:TOS figures. I'm pretty sure the one on the left is a Heritage figure, so they scale pretty well. Uhura on the right is newer and headed more towards 28mm, but I can't recall from where.

Overall, an interesting look back at the early 1980s. I have the Klingon set as well (although I don't think there were Klingons in the Wrath of Khan?). I will try to finish those in the next few weeks and post them.

28mm British Crimean Lancers

 And back to the Crimea yet again. This time, it is a bunch of British lancers from Foundry.

There were also these guys with swords. I painted them as lancers but they are more likely dragoons, now that I look at them. Oh well!

Up next: Wrath of Khan Trek.