Psychos!

Hello and Welcome Back!

Get ready for some crazy screaming, its psycho time! 

"Kill! Kill! KILL!! Ha HAA HAAA!!"

Here we have some psycho bandits the next episode of my 5 Parsecs campaign. Anyone familiar with the Borderlands Computer games, will know all about the Psychos.

 

"No One Kills my buddy but me!!"

 

The Psychos. These loons form the rank and file of the various Psycho Bandit gangs. 

"I wonder if I plant you into the ground, if you'll grow taller!"

 

The Psycho Badass. A huge brute who acts as the leader for psycho warbands.

 

"BOOM TIME!!"

 

A suicide psycho. These guys rush up holding a primed grenade blowing themselves up with it.

Captain Loops and the crew of the Problem Child are in for a surprise in their next mission. There are plenty more where these figures came from and offers me some scope for conversions. The figures are from the Borderlands boardgame which has quite a lot of figures and offers a good bang for your buck if you can find one a set cheaply.  I found mine on Amazon, I think the seller got bored of it laying on the shelf. The movie flopping probably didn’t help. The figures scale up okay with 28mm heroic or 32mm. 

Although I am using these figures for my Wild Galaxy games, they will be useful as Post Apocalyptic raiders. 

Thanks for looking and stay safe out there. 

The Lone Scavenger

Hello and Welcome Back, 

A lone scavenger protects his camp.

I painted this figure towards the end of past year, but it has taken me this long to complete the base. This figure is a metal Stargrave Scavenger. This figure was a delight to paint. 

Thanks for looking and take care out there.

Scabies Crew.

Hello and Welcome back to my bit of internet land. 

Captain Scabies lead her people from an oldworld Military Bunker. The bunker's aging systems had begun to fail, forcing them above ground. Upon emerging into the highly contaminated eastern wastelands, the survivors trecked for many days towards the radio signals from Last City. The chance to join the last remnant of civilisation was a stong incentive. During the journey the toxins and mutated creatures of the wastelands picked off the squad members one by one. 

Scabies Crew

By the time they reached Last City only 10 of the squad remained. By this time four of the team sported heavy mutations from exposure to the many mutagenic toxins still present on Mattblackgod’s world. Although Last City is largely mutant friendly, Mattius Black decided that this crew was too horrific to remain in the city. So he posted the Scabies crew to camp Skull at the edge of the ruins of Toxicity, five days march eastwards.

Captain Scabies

The crew's numbers slowly dwindled defending camp Skull from all the monstrosities that live in the highly contaminated ruins of Toxicity. Deciding that they weren't getting what they needed from Last City, upon a relief crew arriving at Camp Skull, Scabies lead her crew to the Weird place some 5 days march south. They now run a salvager camp in the weird place.

Squad sniper and medic

Mattius Black has ignored the desertion as there is some good salvage coming from the weird place. It is also a bonus that heavily mutated crew are even further away from the city. 

The heavily mutated squad members.

Mutant Doggy Doo, who was once human but upon fighting a rad Wolf, fell into a toxins pool in the wastelands clutching the beast. Some how the mutagens in the pool bonded some radwolf dna to the Trooper. He became a twisted pseudo man Wolf. The crew couldn't abandon thier freind and Doggy Doo's sensitive nose has proven useful in keeping the squad safe.

Scabies Crew are resin figures from is the Weird war Desparate Trench Crew by Ramshackle Games. 

Thank you for looking, 

Take care out there.

Hobby Progress, February 2025

 Hello and Welcome back, 

Time for my monthly hobby Progress report for February. Again spare time has been short and my hobby mojo has been a bit hit and miss this month. As well as the usual drains on my time and "help" from my feline supervisors, I have been furiously getting my motorbike ready for its MOT next month and the arrival of biking weather.

I managed to finish the bases on the figures left over from last year. Hopefully I will get a chance to run the next episode of my 5 Parsecs campaign as they were painted for that. 

In addtion I have also painted Ramshackle games Werid War desperate trench crew. With a bit of luck, I will have some Blog posts written for all these figures soon. 

In addition I have a bunch of old Eldar figures on the paint table which will become GELF pirates for my Wild Galaxy setting. There has been some work converting dwarf figures to make a gang for the Big Red Mining company for the Skirm game. 

Terrain wise, I finished painting a pair of TT combat mdf Power Generators. 

The only figure purchased this month was a lone metal 40k RT era guardsman. The ones that had the separate plastic arms. As he has no arms, I am thinking of adding some Stargrave parts.

The order from Ramshackle hasn't arrived yet. But then given the avalanche of work Curtis got last month, I am not expecting them any time soon as he clears the backlog. 

Figures finished* = 7 *Figures that needed bases finishing from 2024

Figures painted = 6

Figures reworked = 0

Terrain finished = 2

Terrain reworked = 0

Vehicles finished = 0

Vehicles reworked = 0

Figures bought = 1

Terrain bought = 0

Vehicles bought = 0

That's all for now, and expect some Blog posts in the next few days. 

Thanks for reading and take care out there.

Skrim rules review.

Hello and Welcome back, 

The Skirm rule book arrived on my door mat last month and I thought I would knock up a review for you (yes it took this long). 

Skirm is a small skirmish Sci Fi game set in on the abandoned world of Tapu (also known as the Gutterlands), which is a world of ancient rusting junk and weaponry. The Gutterlands and the Skrim rules are creations of Bill Making Stuff. 

The rules are a A5 sized booklet with a indie punk zine feel to them. The game is figure agnostic but does encourage players to convert or scratch build models for the game (for inspiration checkout the Gutterlands website). The book has plenty of art work and model eyecandy to make you drool, all the work is by Bill Making Stuff. At the back of the book there is a quick reference sheet that should make game play easy. The game involves your squad having to search junkpiles for weapons, loot and ammo, while fighting off the other squads or factions. 

The rules are designed for a 3 foot x 3 foot table and each faction's squad is limited to 6 figures. There isn't any points calculations to sort out before you start playing. Which is a boon if you are like me and hate all that calculating. You will also need counters for ammo, 6 scrap tokens/piles, a scrapbeast and area effect templates. 

The game looks quick and easy to play. Its a 2D6 roll based game with some pretty nice mechanics involving rolling doubles which will add a element of unpredictablity to the game. Character armour is denoted by tokens next to the figure on the tabletop and is lost after 1 hit. The leader has armour and an ancient weapon. The weapons fall into one of two categories, scrap weapons and ancient weapons (these have special effects). Ammo is limited with each faction having differing ammo availability. Extra ammo can be looted from corpses or junk piles. Junk piles have an extra risk that a scrap beast might appear and rampage around the table. 

There are 4 different factions in the book, for playing Skirm the Gutterlands. Each faction starts with a set amount of ammo and has special attacks and abilities. The factions are Colonialists, Big Red Mining Corporation (Space Dwarves), DEAP troops (think mutated peacekeeping bioweapons) and Rusters (tribals who worship the piles of rust). 

While these rules are based in Sci Fi they could happily fit into a Post Apocalyptic setting. There are no solo rules, but the AI could be stolen from another game, such as 5parsecs or 5clicks. 

I am looking forward to giving these rules a whirl. They are also making me want to create my own versions of the factions which I can worked into my Mattblackgod’s world and Wild Galaxy settings. 

Thank you for reading, take care out there!

Hobby Progress January 2025

Hello and Welcome back, 

Well here we are, finally at the end of January. I don't know about you, but January this year has felt incredibly long. 

Believe it or not, but I have managed to get some hobby in during the opening salvo of 2025. Admittedly as well as the old problem trying to find the time, my mojo has been a little off. There has been a lot of distractions, both at home and the world beyond. 

I am now over on Bluesky, using the same handle as this Blog. I was so glad to leave the sewer that is Twitter. Bluesky is worth a look and there is a fast growing hobby community there. It feels a lot like Twitter used to before the propaganda & hate bots arrived. If you do join or are already on Bluesky check out the #wargaming and #nerdlings hastags. 

I managed to finish a couple of terrain peices and paint 6 figures up. The figures still need basing plus I have a handful of figures to base from last year. Pictures and fluff will follow soon, I hope. 

In addition I have been messing about with a couple of prototype walls made from scrap foam board for my Spaceport/space station/Zone Raiders table. I found the 3 inch (75mm) height too tall for narrow corridors. My huge mitts were knocking over the walls. So the next builds will be 62mm in height. 

The design is for free standing walls which hopefully will aid storage. One thing I learnt from my the building of my tunnel terrain was the amount of room required to store it. Not to mention the spatial awareness conundrum every time I had to pack it away. The final design will be built from courrated cardboard, mainly because we have a ready supply of it. The end peices to help the walls stand will be xps foam. 

The one thing I picked up from ebay last year was another Robogear Hex platformer set. With the spare bits from past platform sets, I have been playing about making new models for my Sci fi table. There will be a couple of 15mm peices too.

Another thing that arrived was the Skirm rules by Bill making stuff. They look right up my street. I am planning to do a quick review soon. In addition I am thinking of building some small gangs up to play, plus working out how to use these gangs in my own settings. 

After playing the Mad Max computer game, the appetite to get back into 20mm (ish) Auto combat has returned. I have spent a couple of evenings pouring over the Gaslands rules and my old favourite Axels and Alloys. 

Gaslands feel a little complex for me. It reminds me of the old GW Dark Future rules which I played quite a bit back in the day, but Gaslands is much simpler (DF had so many tables to cross check) and the road/track boards replaced by templates. That doesn't mean it wouldn't be fun and it is good to be familiar with as it seems to be a staple of many a games club.

Axels and Alloys is a older game by Owen Cooper, it is based on Jon Tuffneys Full Thrust starship rules. I played it a lot a couple of decades ago and really enjoyed it. It also made me invest in Full Thrust which was a lot of fun too. 

I favour Axels and Alloys as it allows the kind of wasteland auto combat I crave, that the more stadium based games of Gaslands. Although Gaslands revisited does have some Wasteland scenarios, they feel somewhat limited to me. 

I was doing so well with my New Year's promise of not buying any figures or models this year. I nearly got to four weeks, which is a record for me. Those of you who regularly visit social media platforms will know that Ramshackle games was in trouble with orders drying up. As Curtis is a mate of mine, I had to help. Despite not needing any figures I ordered a few figures that would fill out the Rustlords, Skrap Knights and Black Guard factions of Mattblackgod’s World.

The good news is that the response to Curtis' social media plea was massive and Ramshackle Games has been saved. I hope to see Ramshackle continue strength to strength in thr future. 

But there is more, I also could not resist Fogou's new Shack me up kickstarter. Some of these mix and match with the stacking shacks. It seems to be a good move to flesh out my township further. At least that is my excuse and I am sticking to it. 

Right, back to the hobby purchase embargo. Let's see if I can last more than 4 weeks. lol 

Thanks for reading and take care out there.

Happy New Year 2025 and hobby plans.

 Hello and Welcome Back, 

Happy New Year, I hope 2025 is a happy, healthy and prosperous year for you and yours. 

I didn't get a chance to do a hobby look back at 2024 yesterday. I did manage to get some good hobby in. Although my blogging has suffered somewhat thanks to many complications in my personal and work life limiting free time and brain space.

I even managed to play some games, of 5 Parsecs from home.

As its the beginning of the new year I think I should do the usual hobby plans. 

1. I plan to revaluate my minis collection. I plan to move figures into types rather than split down into unique factions. Hopefully it will help create more storage space. Of course some factions cannot be put into a broader group. 

2. Post Apocalyptic figures will get a paint refresh to give them more of right look. Patches/repaired clothes, scars, rust etc. Maybe if I can add extra items to them such as packs, pouches if possible. 

3. One of the harder parts of my hobby is keeping focus and actually look like I am making progress. So I am going to try and keep a record of what has been done in tally form. 

4. My terrain collection is to be reviewed and reworked. 

5. Due to the piles of unpainted figures and terrain, I will not be buying any new figures or models this year (apart from outstanding kickstarters I have backed). 

6. Press on with my 5 Parsecs campaign.

One thing that effected my blogging is that I found myself finishing lots of models at the same time, as I have been working on different things in parallel. So lots of things needed recording. Writing fluff can take a fair bit of time, being dyslexic I have to write stuff and return days or weeks later to edit it (or I simply don't see what needs to be edited and I write nonsense). So things get parked. I don't like the 'I painted these' approach as I like to tell stories with my figures. 

Hobby wise, I have lots of ideas and plans for both Post Apocalyptic and Sci Fi genres. Hopefully I can make 2025 a productive year. 

Thanks for reading

Take care out there, and Happy New Year.

Another Behemoth Immunocyte for Zone Raiders

 Hello and Welcome Back.

Now we return back to the artificial world of Matrioshka, in the post singularity setting of the Zone Raiders game. 

There are a many types of Immuncyte threats to the denizens of the Matrioshka world of Zone Raiders. The larger ones are known as behemoths. 

 

 This example of a Behemoth has been created in the form of a giant spider. No one knows who created it. Was it one of the post humans or was it created by the Matrioshka after the singularity event?  Armed with deadly powered mandibles, bladed legs and a heavy plasma cannon this ancient machine heeds the call of the other Immuncytes and joins the hunt to destroy all sentient life in the Matrioshka.

 

This model is a 40K Necron Spyder I got for Christmas a couple of years ago.  Necrons fit the descriptions of Immuncytes in the Zone Raiders fluff quite nicely. As many Immunocyte in the Matrioshka are aeons old I went for a rusty paint job.

 

I seem to have quite a force of Immucytes for Zone Raiders, maybe I should get a game in some time. Although I need more industrial looking space station terrain. I will also need to figure out just what to use as the dreaded Meta Demon....

Thanks for reading and take care out there.

Starport Scum 8

Hello and Welcome back, 

Time to visit the Wild Galaxy and take a peek at more examples of Starport scum. 

Briyce Lushian is a rebellious young lady who ran away from her old life to the frontier worlds.  Briyce hangs around the spaceport looking for work or adventure, while doing her best to steer clear of falling in with or foul of any of the space port gangs that may be operating here.

 

The figure is a classic Necromunda Esher juve that I picked up painted on ebay. The figure was reasonably painted so all I did was add some washes and high lights to make the detail pop. Some extra detailing work was added too. The figure was also rebased as the base was painted in the classic GW goblin green. 

I plan to use Briyce Lushian as a character in my 5Parsecs campaign.

TakA6 is an old CyberDan corporation Killstar Combat Android. This line has been long discontinued and there aren’t many Killstar Androids left in circulation. Most were destroyed in combat actions on distant worlds with the few survivors being taken for target practice use.

 

TakA6 became self aware after a high power electric jolt and a whack on the head. As the last remaining android in his unit he went AWOL, looking for a better life. The Android now offers his services across the starports of frontier space. His main concern is finding spare parts, although occasionally a scrap Killstar unit turns up in the starport junk dealers. TakA6 is looking for a good android repairer he can trust to repair him and maybe source or modify parts designed for other Cyberdan units. Although he will happily take parts from other sources, provided they work.

TakA6 is a old Robogear figure that came with their line of terrain and quirky futuristic vehicle models. I have a few of these figures so a Killstar unit may be on the cards in future. TakA6 will probably turn up in a future 5 Parsecs crew or as a hireling. Maybe even turning up on Maddans world as an adventurer or a freelance.

Thanks for looking. Take care out there. 

More denziens of the Wastelands.

Hello and Welcome back, pull up a crate and let me tell you about more folk who live in the Wastelands. 

The Technomancer

The Technomancer is legendary across the Last City and wastelands beyond. He is a wizard with ancient technology. Want to get that old tablet working or robot activated? Need to find out what that gizmo you found in the ruins is? Then he is the man to visit. Beware his staff. While it is fitted with a jury rigged scanner to find ancient technology it is also equipped with an electrical shock weapon which stuns living things and machines alike. The staff has been very useful when a dormant warbot awakes and goes beserk. The Last City Authorities take a dim view on rampaging Warbots within the city limits.

The Technomancer is a based on a Frostgrave plastic wizard figure. The head came from a Necromunda Orlock sprue. The gun arm came another Necromunda Underhive figure. The shoulder pad and pouches were found in the depths of the bits box. His shock staff/scanner is a Frostgrave wizard arm with a modified staff. A bead makes up the power pack while the scanner dish is a 1/76 tank wheel. The power lines are plastic cord from a bead set.

I imagine the Technomancer living in a tower of scrap and junk. That is a possible future terrain project. 

The Scavenger

Scavenging is a way of life for most out in the wastelands. This figure is a Stargrave metal scavenger. I am planning on making the plastics up make general wasteland rabble as they have the right look. There also a few other metal scavengers in the paint queue. So expect to see more in the future.

 

A new Guardian

The Guardians are a faction that horde military technology and weapons, apparently to keep the surviving humanity “safe from repeating the mistakes of the past” (inspired by Fallout's Brotherhood of Steel). They wander around the wastelands, lead by old power armored units looking for dangerous weapons and equipment. Often taking such treasures by force. While they view themselves as humanity's' saviours, they are viewed as bullies by the denizens of the wastelands. Their equipment is varied as the power armor came from many different sources during Mattblackgods world end wars.

 

This new addition to my Guardian forces is a resin Stargrave power armored trooper. While nice figures I found it a bit too detailed to paint.

Warlord Byron

Warlord Byron is the leader of the settlement of Byronville in the Freepeoples Wastes. He parades around in a old power armored suit (many of his “subjects” would say throwing is weight around) and offers his town’s support to the Freepeoples Confederacy. 

 

Warlord Byron is a resin Stargrave Power Armored Pirate figure. Again a very detailed, very busy figure which I found a pain to paint.

 

Nak the big un.

Nak is a mutant, appearing large and hulking compared to other Wastelanders. His size makes him stand out. Despite his size and strength Nak is a gentle soul who shuns humanity and other mutants. Sadly, his size and strength also makes him a target. He lives alone in the wastes preferring solitude and befriends (cares for) injured animals.

 

Nak is a super mutant figure from a cheap 54mm Fallout figure set.

 

“Hey Nak, lets team up. Your muscle would be handy getting those heavier bits of salvage back. We will split it seventy thirty! That’s fair, right?” 

Thanks for looking, stay safe out there!