Starport Scum

Hello and welcome back, 

I am trying to keep the blog posts rolling while I can’t get anything painted up. I am way behind and need to catch up. 

This year my focus has been more towards Sci Fi skirmish games, 5 parsecs from home and Stargrave especially. I have decided while my painting has slowed down I will focus on going through my collection looking for suitable figures to play either game. This will be a regular feature as I come across figures. 

So let me crack on with the Starport scum hanging around the space ports & colonies around the edge of human space in my own Wild Galaxy setting. 

The Blue Genes Brothers:

The Bluegenes brothers are a pair of GELFs (Genetically Engineered Life Form) created in a lab on Earth’s moon. They formed an entire brigade and were deployed out in the old Earth Empire. On the still unexplained explosion of the Earth, Human space was thrown into chaos. The Bluegenes brigade were deployed to protect some Empire assets by the replacement government in the Nu Terra empire. They were betrayed and deployed into a trap. In the resulting battle the Bluegenes were massacred and only a handful of these combat GELFs survived. 

Unlike other GELFs the Bluegenes cannot reproduce and  they could only be reproduced in a lab or vat. The reason lay deep within the lab on the moon. To reproduce they needed to access the lab. The problem with this is that Earth’s moon had vanished. It was either destroyed when the Earth exploded or was sling shot out of the solar system. 

The Bluegenes went to the now anarchic Solar system searching for the moon. After centuries of searching (the GELFs were created for battle and it was expected they would be killed in battle, so no expiry date or lifespan limits) some of the Bluegenes moved to the Edge of Human space were they work in spaceports or as crew hoping to hear of rumours of rogue dwarf planets which may point to their holy grail. 

These two figures are a poorly painted experiment, I didn’t clean the old paint off and just painted over them. Tutt tutt, very sloppy work. The sharp eyed will spot a bit I missed. I like the colour of the skin and I have some metal 40K catachins I plan to paint properly in this scheme at some point. These two will see action as muscle for crews in both 5 Parsecs and Stargrave.

Major Lee. 

The Major sports the uniform of the Nu Terra Empire. After his special forces team was massacred in a suicide mission he decided he had enough of the military life and retired (read deserted) to the Edge. Out here his uniform isn’t recognised much as they are a long, long way from Nu Terra. Still he would like to change into something else. Lee is low in funds and hangs about the space port looking for work. Eventually he would like his own ship and crew but for now he will have to take orders from others. Lee knows how to take orders. 

Lee was painted by a friend (thanks Xander) and is a 40K figure. I am not sure what capacity he may serve in 5 Parsecs or Stargrave. 

Captain Groat Blackbreath. 

Blackbreath arrived in the space port alone in a uparmoured & boosted elderly space freighter (the dark raven) with a small but expensive cargo. This raised some eyebrows as to where was his crew. Rumours say he murdered them or spaced the crew to keep his profits to himself. Once he traded his cargo Blackbreath began looking for crew members. Strangely there doesn’t seem to be much interest. 

In truth Blackbreath was a pirate captain, his vessel was ambushed by the Brittannia’s (who are little more than legitimatised pirates). Sustaining heavy damage & casualties his ship fled into an asteroid belt. Blackbreath ruthlessly sacrificed his ship and crew making it perform a locked out, pre programmed suicide run towards the waiting Brittanian vessels just after he fled in the only escape pod. The Dark Raven was a captured vessel Blackbreath had stashed during his nefarious pirate activities, loaded with loot as an escape or retirement plan. His planning paid off. 

Blackbreath is a old 40K adventurer figure I have had since 87. He never fitted my post apoc collection but fits nicely into my space opera. He will probably see action as a Rival crew captain in my 5 Parsecs games. 

Joey Raff

Joey Raff is a typical space bum looking for adventure and work by joining a ships crew. He hangs about asking ship’s captains for work. He has had no luck finding work so far. 

Joey Raff is a resin figure from a Steampunk line whose names escapes me. He makes a great lower level crew member. I think he would make a good Stargrave runner or chiseler. 

I am off now to dig through my figure collection to get some more figures together. Keep your eyes open for more Starport Scum posts.

Thanks for looking,

Stay safe out there.

Cargo piles.

Hello and welcome back, 

Another blog post! Things are looking up. I have been busy putting some crate stacks together. 

I have had a hankering for a some piles of cargo for some time. Piles and stacks of crates creates plenty of cover, tight spaces and multiple levels making games more challenging.

Perhaps these stacks of crates lie deep in a post apocalyptic bunker or a forgotten warehouse in the ruins. Or maybe they lie on the landing pad or dockside warehouse of a frontier world space port.  Maybe they sit in the hold of a starship. 

These crates came from multiple sources. There are some mantic, Gale Force Nine Aliens crates (given away by the Wayland Yutani logos), a few 3D printed crates (the wooden ones) and some unidentified Sci Fi resin crates. Many of the crates came in a cheap eBay lot. 

The crates were super glued together into stacks in a variety of formations. I added some tarpaulins made from a dried out water based baby wipe. I gave the crates a quick and dirty paint jobs. I used several colours to make the crates look like they came from different sources (or they have been reused). Some signs and paperwork pouches were painted on the crates.

I had fun making these crate stacks. There are other crates in my terrain piles including cargo stacks made from bottle tops. I feel the need to revisit and update some of these older sets. 

Thanks for looking, pass a crow bar.

Take care out there. 

Wasteland bounty hunters

Hello and welcome back. It’s been a while. I have been struggling to get time to get hobby stuff finished of late and to get blog posts written. 

Mungo and Jerri drift from township to township across the wastelands looking for bounties. In a world short on law and order bounties seems to be a good way to protect your township. For people who struggle to survive day to day, bounty hunting is a good way to make a living. Of course the bounties may not always be just, worth doing or sometimes the hiring party tries to not to pay up. But then that is often the risk of dealing with “civilisation”. 

Bounty hunters often keep themselves busy by acting as muscle for merchants or exploration/salvage parties. 

Mungo (on the left) is a old grenadier future wars figure I got from EM4. Jerri (on the right) is by Ramshackle games. 

There is more hobby stuff to put up on this blog, which I hope to get posted. 

Thanks for reading and stay safe out there.