Rusters!!

Hello and Welcome back, 

Rusters, meet the Rusters...Great, now I have the theme tune to the Flintstones going around my head just with the word Rusters in it. 

The Rusters are a faction of the Skrim game by @billmakingstuff. The best way to describe them is as a tribal faction with cultist overtones (they worship a giant robot wreck in the Rusty Peaks). According to Bill's lore they arrived on a cruise ship that crashed on Tapu aka "the Gutterlands" centuries ago. The tribals claim the rust covered lands are sacred. They cover themselves in home made rusty junk armour and bear home made or salvaged weapons. The Rusters and Colonials are often in conflict over territory. 

Like Bill's Rusters the bulk of my Rusters were made from Warlord black powder Woodland Indians. The armour is made from scraps of plastic card, bits of cut up plastic toy bullets, bits of vinyl beads, beads and other assorted bits. This force of Rusters took over a month to put together and paint. Cutting up scraps and adding them took quite some time. Pouches and skulls came from the bits box just to some extra detail. 

Some Rusters wear helmets that resemble the robot head they worship. According to Bill these are made from hollowed out artillery shells. Mine utilises the toy bullet tips as they are the ideal size and shape. 

The Ruster on the right had a helmet made from a plastic tubing cap with holes drilled in it. 

The weapons were cobbled together from the muskets and various bits from the bits box. Some scopes were made from bits. Axes were made from plastic card attached to the Woodland Indian clubs. 

This Ruster on the right has a old missle attached to a lance for those precision explosions, assuming the warhead isn't a dud. I hope he doesn't mind getting caught in the blast.

An old Grenadier Barbarian leader (from Forlone Hope) was selected to make a leader (right). I wanted a figure a bit bulkier to stand out from the rest of the Rusters. The hand left hand was in right position to add a firearm, in this case a GW Necromunda Orlock autogun. Like the others, he had a lot of armor added from scraps of plastic. Although I am not sure about the logic of using a large land mine as a peice of armor. I hope its a dud. A cloak made from some weird animal skin, was made from Greenstuff putty and added to make the figure stand out futher. 

I wanted a female figure, so I picked up a Amazon from Forlone Hope (left). Once the hair and head had been removed the conversion work was easy. The hardest part was building armor around the breast area. I didnt want to go down the Maddona cones route. 

The paint was mainly rust tones with some dry brushing and the odd detail picked out. I plumbed for light blue skintones to make the Ruster flesh pop against the rust. In Skrim they are aliens but in Post Apocalyptic games they could be mutants. 

The Rusters will be a useful Post Apocalyptic faction. I can see them being a third faction in the war between the Skrap Knights and Rustlords. Or maybe to use them as foot soldiers in either faction's Warbands. 

Thanks for looking, 

Take care out there.

Skrapbeasts...

Hello and Welcome back, 

Time for a trip to the world of Tapu, also known as the Gutterlands. 

A scrap prospector stumbles upon a Skraprunt while checking out a potential pile of junk. In case you are wondering dear Reader, a Skraprunt is the young of the fearsome Skrapbeast, native to the world of Tapu aka the Gutterlands. 

"Gah, eat lead ya pesky varmit*" 

"MEEP! MEEP! MEEP!"

* the prospector could possibly be a descendant of Yosemite Sam. He is about the same height and has two six shooters! I think I will name this figure "Gutterlands Sam". I might have to ginger up his beard. lol. 

"RRAAH!"

"MEEP!"

An enraged Skrapbeast smashes out of a pile of scrap. Mummy to the rescue. 

The Skraprunt began life as a lump of spare Milliput. It was shaped and a mouth added before the putty set. The eyes are stick on decorative beads. The legs were made from wire with Greenstuff putty added. The teeth was made from Greenstuff putty. 

The Skrapbeast's body was made from DAS air dry clay. The mouth and jaw was added later from DAS. The legs were made from cocktail sticks. The leg segments were sculpted over the sticks from Procreate putty. The same decorative beads also make the eyes. Greenstuff was used to make the teeth. The scrap nest was made from the contents of the bits box. 

These Skrapbeasts were made to be hazards for the Skirm game by @billmakingstuff. There is a possibility in Skirm when looting scrap piles for one of these beasties to wake up and rampage around the table. Link to the FREE rules.  I decided to make the beasts from putty rather than breaking up toys like Bill. Mainly because I didnt have any suitable toys to attack and I don't want to be the weirdo mugging kids for their toys. 

I decided not to base the Skrapbeasts as they can be perched on scrap piles to add an extra air of menace. 

The Skrapbeast attacks Gutterlands Sam.

These Skrapbeasts would also make nice monsters for a Post Apocalyptic setting. This was a interesting project. I have learned quite a bit and used numerous new materials, methods and tools. I do have other (larger) Scrap beasts planned. There is also plans to create my own critters. 

Gutterlands Sam figure is a Dwarf Engineer by Heresy Miniatures. It is a nice figure that comes with 2 pistol arms, a pick axe arm and shotgun arm should you wish to pose the figure in a variety of ways.

Thank for looking, take care out there.

Introducing the DEAP from Skirm

Hello and Welcome Back,

The DEAP (Deployable Environmentally Adaptive Peacekeeping) Troops are a faction from the Skirm game by Bill Making Stuff. As the name suggests, they are a peace keeping Bio Weapon designed to be dropped as seed pods in troubled areas. They then grow absorbing absorbing local DNA so they can survive in the local environment. 

These DEAP were living happily at the bottom of the Neon Sea in the Gutterlands where they were dumped, until some bright spark decided to go fishing with a black hole grenade. The vortex forced the DEAP onto dry land were their peace keeping and law enforcement programming has kicked in. 

In my own settings the DEAP are a kind of GELF and will make appearances in the Corrosion and Mattblackgod’s worlds settings (except on MBW they will be seen as mutants). 

These figures started life as Borderlands game Psychos I had laying about. In true Bill Making Stuff style, I cut off limbs and added toy crab parts. The psycho heads were replaced with GW plastic ghoul heads. Two heads has their eye sockets drilled out and glass beads added to make bug eyes. 

A suicide psycho had the grenade drilled out and a wire spear added. I didn't like the look of it as the Spear head was too small...and sharp! It was snipped off and a trimmed pole weapon from the bits box glued on. A peice of wire was stripped from it's insulation. The core were twisted and then wrapped around the join like rope. 

Making these guys has been a interesting learning experience. Hopefully I have picked up a few new ideas for future conversion work.

I think the DEAP offer interesting conversion potential. How would they look if their spore pods had landed in a forest, jungle or tundra? I bet those DEAP won't smell as fishy as this lot.

Thanks for reading, 

Take Care out there. 

Rusty Scrap Piles

Hello and Welcome back,

While useful for a Post Apocalyptic setting, I made 6 of these rusty scrap piles as objectives for the Skirm game. A further 2 were made and a larger pile as terrain was also produced as I was in the zone. 

The objectives were based on 50mm bases. Skrim needs 25mm but I thought that would be difficult to make a decent looking scrap pile on such a small base. The inspiration for making these models came from a Bill Making Stuff video on YouTube.

All of the scrap piles started with a pile of tin foil flattened to make a heap shape. These were then superglued into position. Hot glue may have been a better option as the glue would have filled the gaps between the base and foil heap.

Then piles of junk salvaged from the bits box (in this case bits of hexagon platformer kits, cut up plastic junk, on toy bullets, model kit parts, figure casting tabs by Ramshackle games, model missles, bits of wire, 1/32 car wheels and other scrap) were then hot glued onto the piles in a random haphazard fashion.

The piles were primed with Matt Black (what else?) spray primer. When dry the piles were given zential priming with white spray primer. The whole thing was painted in textured paint which was a mix bicarbonate of soda, dark brown craft paint and pva glue in equal parts. This takes a while to dry but gives a nice old rusty pile effect. 

The piles got some orange and brown spots added and some light rust paint (army painter). A dark wash was added to make the details pop, such as they where.  

The bases then got a coat of textured paint which is a mix of bicarbonate of soda, fine sand, course sand, pva glue and yellow ochre craft paint. I tried to get paint on other areas of the models as sand gets everywhere. Once dry they got a Coat d arms Bone drybrush. 

I added some flame grass tufts as I figured anything growing would be contaminated by the rust. 

These piles were quick and easy models to make. It is deeply satisfying raiding the bits box and grabbing items of plastic to cut up to make junk. I recommend it. 

I have plans to make larger peices in future. Time to get those bits box emptied! Although I can guarantee that I will probably want those bits for another build a week later.

Thanks for reading,

Take care out there.

Another Beadbot enters the Fray

Hello and Welcome back,

I started this beadbot last year for the Bangarang game. It was stalled for some time after the spray primer went strange giving the model a strange grainy effect. 

I can only surmise that maybe there was some bicarbonate soda still on the model. In future I will have to spend more time cleaning a model before primingit. After some time trying to scrape and sand the primer off, it got close to being ready for a repaint. 

Some of the dodgy primer remained so I decided that this bot would now be a bit ccorroded. Some of the details were lost during the clean up, mostly rivets. The missing rivets had holes drilled to make it look like they had fallen out.

My plan was always to paint this bot in a style similar to the Wigan Warriors Rugby league kit. It was to be the beginning of my plan to paint a few more Beadbots in other sports teams paint schemes. All I need to do is build more. That said I have 2 beadbots and a scrapbot, so I think that's enough for a game of Bangarang. 

Thanks for reading and take care out there.

Wasteland Wondering May 25

Hello and Welcome back,

Time for another Wasteland Wondering, it's been a while since we had one of these. In this chat I will be highlighting the direction my hobby is going in.

There are four or five new blog posts queued, which I hope to get posted up as soon as I have grabbed some pictures. I seem to be struggling to arrange getting pictures recently.

My Post Apocalyptic setting is slowing down. PA isn't grabbing me as much these days. I am working slowly to populate the Skrap Knights and Rustlords factions. 

The Rustlords

Maybe I need to find another name for these rambling posts, as they aren't just concentrated on Post Apocalyptic.

The Wild Galaxy setting is growing exponentially and I am finding it quite inspiring. I think there is such a wide scope for creativity it keeps me interested. I have had to start a spreadsheet to keep track of all the nonsense I create.

A friend recently asked me why I use Genetically Engineered Life Forms (GELFs) for my other Space races instead of rebranding them as aliens. It is in part, a carry over from the Mattblackgod’s world setting as I wanted to use 40k miniatures, as stableised mutations felt a bit of a stretch. The introduction of my Ork collection as combat GELFs felt fitting for the history of Mattblackgod’s world. It just felt natural to keep the GELFs in the wider Galactic setting.

ORCS GELFs terrorise a frontier world settlement 

I have no issue with aliens in Sci Fi, it's just that I want them to be very different to humans. In fact there are some intelligent aliens in my setting. Not to mention plenty of alien beasties. 

But I have other reasons for using GELFs. Firstly, I feel just going "Aliens" is too easy and is a stale go to for most SF settings. Secondly, the chances that another intelligent race out there, being a four limbed biped is extremely unlikely. I feel it is somewhat lazy and arrogant to think so. Thirdly, the GELFs and GELF wars are a satirical view of human nature and it's behaviour to anything "non human" or in many cases other Humans because they differ in some way and our reaction when things go wrong. Our history is littered with examples of such behaviour. I suppose in some ways it's my version of a far future Frankenstein cautionary tale. 

To be honest ever since seeing GELFs in the Red Dwarf TV show, I have liked them as a concept. Even the main character in the 2000AD Rogue Trooper which I read when I was knee high is a type of GELF, genetically bred to survive a toxic contaminated world and operate as an enhanced elite fighting force. 

I have been considering doing a GELF fluff post, but there is so much material built up over the years it will need several posts. Speaking of GELFs, I am planning a new GELF group to add soon. By soon, I mean in probably in next two years, given my work rate! 

The miners of Maddans Independent Mining Company 

The Maddans world setting is slowly growing. I am thinking of adding the only city called Hecksclutch to the world, situated next to the planets main space port as a centre point for conflict. This lawless frontier mining world is inspired by Logans world in the 40K Rogue Trader fluff mixed with Pandora from the Borderlands Computer game, with my own slice of creativity added to it. It was created as a vehicle to allow all my factions to be on world protecting their colonies while trying to extract as much wealth from the world, before a legal owner is found. I am still working on the Dusty Space Port buildings for this setting. I still have a pile of wonderful Fogou Models to finish or modify for this setting. 

Iron Ladies gangers attack Shorty of Loop's Heroes someplace deep in Wreckage Station.

Regular readers of this blog will have seen the introduction of Wreckage Station during my 5 Parsecs campaign. I have been expanding the background fluff for this setting. Terrain has been knocked together from various sets to game in this old moon sized space station. As luck would have it these models will also be useful for the Zone Raiders game set in the Matrioshka. 

Rather than drop a massive peice of fluff for Wreckage Station, I am thinking of news bulletins dropped by the "Authorities". This way it slowly builds and adds colour to the setting. 

Readers of this Blog will recall me doing a review of the Skirm game by Bill Making Stuff. I have been slowly putting together factions and terrain for this game. Check out the Gutterlands or Bill's You Tube Channel. Both sites are cock full of ideas.*share links for Gutterlands and Bill Making Stuff YouTube channel* . I find the Gutterlands (or Tapu to give it, it's true name) setting quite intoxicating. Hobby wise it points to parts of the hobby I find really rewarding, kitbashing, trashbashing and converting models. At present I am working on the Skirm factions. 

Now as luck would have it, Wreckage Station orbits a dead world (called Skeletal worlds). A major battle during the GELF wars turned it into a dusty rock covered in skeletons, wrecks and ruins. I intended to develop it into a setting with crews from the orbital station making salvage ruins in the ruins. But I hadn't gotten around to any world building. So I began to mix inspiration from Bill's setting with my Wild Galaxy setting and Wreckage Station fluff. And so the lost world Corrosion was born. Some of the background for this world will be filtered through to this blog through the planned Wreckage Station News Bulletin. 

Some WIP conversions I am working on to make DEAP troops for the Skirm game.

I am looking forward to creating both colonists and terrain for Corrosion/Skirm/Gutterlands. There will be a lot of future conversion work.

My 5 parsecs from home campaign involving the crew of the Problem Child aka Loop's Heroes is still on hold. Hopefully I can begin organising games again soon. I am hoping to maybe include some future missions to the surface of Corrosion for the crew.

Anyway I have rambled on for long enough, thank you for reading. 

Take care out there.

Beadbot and the Bangarang

Welcome back, 

No, the post title isnt the name of a fancy band! 

A few weeks back I was sent the link to the Gutterlands website https://www.thegutterlands.com/ which is a bunch of background fluff around the models by the Billmakesstuff YouTube channel. The trash bash nature of Bill's models has really inspired me, and is the reason why there have been a few trashbash terrain posts of late. For me making models from stuff destined for landfill has always been a very rewarding aspect of the hobby. I blame the old 40K RT rule book model making section and possibly watching Blue Peter as a kid. 

I digress, inspired by Bill's models I had to try my hand at building Beadbots and picked up the Bangarang rules by Apocrypha_Now. Bangarang is a game to battle Beatbots in a Arena on the world known as the Tapu (also the Gutterlands). 

So what is a Beadbot? It is a robust style of generic robot that looks like they are built from beads, mainly because the tabletop model is built from beads. Part of thier popularity is the ease of repair and interchangeability of parts. AIs are easily swapped between bots. Bangarang rules also include rules for Scrapbots, Biobots and fancy uppers bots (rich folks' bots). 

Introducing Beadbot 01Buggi22. 

This is my first Beadbot following the basic instructions in the Bangarang rules. Some bits box delving found some extra bits such as 40k shoulder pads as hip joint covers. The weapons and back gubbins also came from the bits box. The colour scheme was chosen to appeal to my wife and I hope we can get some Bangarang games in future. I have found building the beadbot very therapeutic and there are more planned. Not just for the Bangarang.

Bangarang in the Wild Galaxy 

Robots of all styles are common across human space. As Beadbots are cheap and robust they are quite common. Scrapbots can be found too, usually on frontier worlds or in service in poorer communities. 

I quite fancy the idea of making a couple of beadbots as loaders in Spaceports (Dockerbots?). Bangarang arenas are common in frontier worlds where older Beadbots and Junkbots are pitted against each other for entertainment purposes of the masses.

Bangarang on Mattblackgod’s World

Beadbots still exist on Mattblackgod’s World but they are now symbols of wealth. Those factions lucky enough to own a functioning and surviving Beadbot would not risk damaging it in the Arena. Those few that do are usually showing off how wealthy they are, that they can happily wreck a functioning beadbot (which is the MBW equivalent of burning a million dollars). Junkbots are more common and often feature in the Bangrang in Last City’s Mars Arena. Meatyones occasionally feature too, captured mutated lumps of flesh dragged from deep in the wastelands. Uppers bots do not feature on MBW.

The fun of Bangarang has had me thinking of making all manner of Bots with different utilities for various factions in both the Wild Galaxy and Mattblackgod’s World. A Nth gen faction (robots) could also be created for Zone Raiders. Using similar beads keeps things in line with that faction's motif of all descending from the blueprint of a single ancestor bot. As a plus all this gets down on the contents of the bits boxes. 

I will also need to build some terrain for the Bangarang. It need 4 off 2x2x2 inch cubes, 4 off 2x4x4 inch cuboids and 2 off 8 inch bridges. These will have a junk look to them. My thinking is that I will also be able to use them as terrain for Mad Dan's Scrapyard (a future Last City location) and Zone Raiders. 

Thanks for looking, take care out there.