New wastelanders from MEP miniatures

Hello and welcome back,

Back into the Wastelands of Mattblackgod’s world. Some new additions to my post apocalyptic collection from MEP miniatures. 

The water weirdo: 

This character wanders around the Last City muttering about the sea and smelling of fish. Which is strange as the Last City is no where near the sea. He grabs anyone who will listen and bores them with tales of the distant sea. That is until the overwhelming smell of rotting fish makes them run away. It is a mystery just how the Water Weirdo (as the residents of the Last City call him) got to the Last City or what he is doing there. Asking  questions often lead back to him babbling about the sea. He carries a trident which he likes to use on those who aren’t too polite about his fishy tales. Although a wild eyed loner the Water Weirdo will often join groups looking for salvage or adventure in the wastelands. 

The Hill People:

Once or twice a year the mutants living in the distant hill make the perilous five day trek to the Last City to trade salvage, grown and foraged foods and (not always) animal skins for non perishable foods, ammunition and medicines. 

These mutated savages are not to be messed with out in the wilds. They are strong and won’t hesitate to launch an attack. 

Some of them have weird nasty growths....

The Followers of the Special Child. 

Coming from a distant land this cult follow this “special” child across the wastelands protecting him and doing his bidding. Generally it is not known what is so special about the child but his acolytes worship him. They wear keys as symbols of the lost bunker he lead them to in a dead forest. He opened the bunker with a key he found on a skeleton (they still call it a miracle). They also found the weapons they carry in this bunker. The followers wear masks made from tree bark (collected in the same dead forest) which Mr Cuddles (the Special Child’s teddy bear) told them to wear (in the special child’s voice, strangely) to keep the out evil spirits and temptations of the post apocalyptic world. 

The Water Weirdo referees a rumble between the cult of the special child and the Hill People.

Thanks for looking

Take care out there. 

Spaceships for Stargrave

Hello and welcome back,

As one of the scenarios for the upcoming Stargrave takes place in a hangar I decided I needed to get some space ships for the scenario. 

Mooching around Amazon I found a deal for 3 Star Wars ships for £40. It seemed too good a deal to miss. The deal had 2 A wing fighters and a Y wing. All come with electronics which lights bits up and makes noises. I have yet to disable them. All three kits are snap together and went together quite quickly.

The A wings look a little to big for 28mm (judging by the size of the pilots) but hey this is Sci Fi so a little bigger works. Both cockpits open and undercarriage retracts. Handy for those parked up and needs attention look I want from the space craft.

The Y wing looks more suited to 15mm and has a twin seat cockpit. However it would work for a small race in 28mm. It will also see some action in my 15mm games. 

The plastic kits looked too clean. So I painted some bits silver (engine parts) and then dry brushed silver or grey on the guns and gubbins. I then added silver wear to various parts of the spaceships. The ships then got a black wash to make some details ping and make them look grubby. 

I may at a later date do a little more work on these. Maybe get some grey weathering around the panels?  But for now they will do the job. 

Thanks for looking 

Stay safe out there. 

Painting branding scars?

 Hello and welcome back.

I had an idea to add branding scars to some figures. It seems to be a fair chance certain post apocalyptic groups may use it to mark some as property (see Mad Max Fury Road) or as some sort of tribal markings. 

Having done a Google search on branding scars, I didn’t realise just how popular it is as body art. Not my cup of tea I must say. However looking at the scars they go from a very pinky - red (fresh) to pink and the older scars a lighter skin colour. To be honest they don’t look much different to other scars. 

I attacked this old figure as a test piece. As I want a healed branding I went with leather brown with a bone white highlight. I did try a scar pink colour as a highlight but it looked wrong. 

I am not entirely happy with it. What are your thoughts? Ideas to make it look more realistic are welcome. 

Thanks for looking

Stay Safe Out There!

Pyro

Hello and welcome back. 

Isn’t it typical? You wait about for a post for weeks and then three come along at once! The horde of Immortan Ork has a new warboy - Pyro. 

Pyro got his name because of his fascination with fire. He built his own custom flame thrower and chainsaw combi weapon. Thrust into the front ranks of the warboys Pyro has proven himself the flamethrower torching mutant swarms, charging crazies and dealing with vehicles with ease. 

Pryo is a Pious Vorne figure from the Blackstone Fortress set. I trimmed the spikey bits off the figure and slapped a bit of putty over the shoulder pad. There was a gap in it. 

The Warboy horde so far. I didn’t realise it had gotten that big. 

Thanks for looking. WITNESS! 

Stargrave Pirates or Star B**tards??

Hello out there! 

Back in the midsts of time, in the year 2018 there was a group project on the Oldhammer forum to create “Star Bastards”. The aim was to create a rag rag groups of Space Marines that had spent their entire lives caught up on the front line. As front line units they should have mismatched, patched up armour and equipment. The plan was to have them ready for Bring Your Own Lead 18 where a mass battle was planned as they invaded Helsreach for some RnR. 

As I like to use all my figures for my Post Apocalyptic setting Mattblackgod’s world I was going to rebrand them as the “Bunker Bustards” and have them as a team of bunker raiders, hence all the cool kit they sport. They will still see action on Mattblackgod’s world in this function.

Assembly begun but sadly I couldn’t get them finished in time for BOYL 18. They sat languishing in a box until last year when I finished assembly and conversion. There was a deep bits box raid grabbing heads and parts from many 3rd party bits suppliers. I even managed to get them primed.  

This figure was a metal beakie marine. I carefully shaved the mask off and trimmed a Iron Pig head to fit into the hole. I hated the pose of the original figure (a Rhino rider) so I lopped the offending arm off and replaced it with a spare plastic arm. 

Early this year I begun to see blog posts by about the forthcoming Stargrave game. I realised these guys would make great Space Pirates for Stargrave. I ditched the military colours and rust pain scheme I had planned and went for something more (40K) Space Mariney. As these guys are pirates I went for a mismatched colour scheme with a fair bit of owner customisation & graffiti. The shoulder pads have a stylised skull and crossbones painted on them. 

The guy on the left has a later Space Wolves head and a set of mechanical legs intended for a Ork. I can’t recall the manufacturer. The guy on the right has a aftermarket head and a wolf pelt from the space wolves. 

The figures are all classic Space Marines that I have converted. Mainly plastics with a metal figure thrown in. 

The dude with the skull face mask is a old favourite of mine, painted back in the midsts of time (c1988) with the old update over the decades. He is intended as the gang’s leader. 

Thanks for reading and stay safe out there. 

Xenomorphs! Aliens!

Hello and welcome back, 

As you may have read earlier this year I bought some Aliens/Xenomorphs by Galeforce 9. I fancied they would create some interesting problems for the inhabitants of Mattblackgod’s world (as if they didn’t have enough problems). It has also occurred to me that these critters maybe useful for the game “Stargrave”. 

The Queen went together easily. The warriors was a bit more challenging especially for my fat sausage fingers. Their tails where particularly fiddly, needing time for the glue to set. I ended up using piles of coins to rest the figures on. 

Paint wise I decided just to touch up the details, as the figures are gloss black and Xenomorph aliens tend to be gloss black. 

Thanks for looking and nuke the site from orbit.

Take care out there.

Still alive and kicking

Picture from Metro Exodus game.

Hello, out there.

Just a quick post to say that I am still alive. February already, where does the time go? Winter hasn’t yet gone away but hopefully spring isn’t too far away. 

Life has been insanely busy juggling work and  running my wife’s daily treatments. Work isn’t helping too much especially as it is now one man doing the work of three, trying to catch up on 12 months backlog of work. Sadly there is no sign of any help on the horizon. Despite all this you will be glad to know that I have managed to get some hobby time in. 

Mainly working on odds and ends for the forthcoming Stargrave game which I am looking forward to. I am also working on assorted figures from MEP miniatures for my Post Apocalyptic setting. 

As soon as I get some figures & models finished I will be posting them up. 

Stay safe and take care out there. 

New additions for my table

Hello and welcome back.

I had some Amazon vouchers burning a hole in my pocket from Christmas. So I plumbed for some gale force 9 Aliens stuff. 

First up is these assets and hazards.

They will be handy for adding dressing to bunker/vault explorations. I may try to make a press mould of the face huggers so they can be used to decorate various bits of terrain. The set may also make good dressing for those folks with a thing for the Necromunda Underhive or Judge Dredd/Strontium Dogs settings.
As if the denizens of Mattblackgod’s world don't have enough problems I also got these:

Each alien body has a option of two heads, which the spares may also be useful for set decoration. Or possibly a head swap with a genestealer. As I also have the Warlord Judge Dredd set still to paint I guess I will be able to run some Dredd vs Aliens games. 

The figures are 30mm and are multipart hard plastic. So they should fit nicely with the rest of my 28mm stuff. 

As the prices aren’t too bad I ordered the Queen and Solaco set with the lifter. £12 for the queen compared to £30-ish for the 40K ambull. No brainer really. Although a quick google search had the dreaded Ambull sets are currently coming in at a whopping £120!! Are people mad?? 

I guess that my figure buying embargo for 2021 has gone south already. 

Thanks for looking. 

Take care out there and remember they mostly come at night.....mostly.  

Happy New Year 2021

Happy new year to all my readers. Let’s hope 2021 is a better, brighter and more stable year for us all. 

Believe it or not I have some plans for 2021 although I suspect that they may only last a few weeks before I get distracted. The overall plan is to try to hit similar painting numbers as 2020, that is at least 2 figures a week. I also plan not to buy any new toys, however we like last year I doubt I will last long on that one. Especially with Stargrave lurking on the horizon (a space variant of Frostgrave). Although my collection probably has enough figures to cover this game. 

Mattblackgod’s world:

Setting may need more melee figures. I figure after 100 years firearms would start to reach non functioning levels. There would also be a drop in available ammunition. A couple of years back I knocked together a load of PA melee figures from various kits. Hopefully I can get to them. 

2000AD:

At the end of last year I picked up the Warlord Judge Dredd set so there is a fair amount of figures to paint up for that. In addition I still have half of the Strontium Dogs figures to paint up. The good thing is that many of the figures in both sets are compatible. My PA setting is futuristic so the figures can fit into it as well. I will hopefully be able to run a figure comparison post to Mongoose’s 2000AD figures. 

Dreadball:

I have some extra Dreadball teams to paint up. There is the Dreadball Extreme set up get paint on too. It is a street version so there are booby traps and other hazards that don’t turn up in a Dreadball league game. It looks to be a fun variation.

Mytharth:

Mytharth is my own fantasy setting designed to run with Frostgrave games. There is a bunch of resin barbarians in the paint queue waiting to become a warband. My collection of unpainted Wizards has grown too. 

Zone Alpha:

Not much needs doing for Zona Alpha. I have plenty of figures and terrain to cover everything. That’s the advantage of being a fan of the Stalker and Metro computer games. Over on Facebook the Zone Alpha group has a competition to build a zone anomaly running throughout 2021. So I am planning on building at least one.

Oldhammer:

My collection of Oldhammer figures still waiting for paint will hopefully get coloured in and applied to what ever faction on Mattblackgod’s world. Some of them may also be useful for the forcoming Stargrave game. I would love to make a Ork Slaver Walker as shown in a illustration in the 40k Rogue Trader rulebook.

Trogs/Orks:

I have plans afoot to get more Orks painted for MBW. 

15mm Post Apoc:

Inspired by the Rage 2 computer game I have figures to paint various post Apoc factions for the MBW15 setting. The advantage of these is that a few of them can be used as factions in my Wild Galaxy setting. 

Wild Galaxy:

Apart from stealing factions from my 15mm Post Apoc setting I have a few terrain ideas to pursue. I would also love to build a 15mm scale cargo spaceship from junk. A frontier world space port is another idea that I would like to pursue. 

Gaslands:

I have a large fleet of vehicles from my Dark Future, Axels & Alloys and Warlands collections. To play Gaslands all I need is some race gates. If I keep them scale neutral they may also be useful for 28mm racing games. 

Prehistorics:

I have a bunch of 15mm cavemen and woolly mammoths to paint up. Hopefully I will get to them before the year is out. I would ultimately like to do different tribes (maybe in 28mm) inspired by the Chronicles of ancient darkness series of novels by Michelle Paver. 

These novels are a excellent read by the way. 

Those are the plans. We shall see how much I get through. As a old manager of mine used to say “A plan only survives it’s first draft”. 

Have a happy, healthy and prosperous 2021. 

Thanks for reading. Take care out there. 

2020 rear view

2020 has been a strange year filled with trepidation, confusion, unexpected challenges, restrictions, idiots, loony politicians, facemasks and wayyy too much time at home. One thing it has proved is that human stupidity is able to spread faster than any virus. 

While 2020 has had its challenges it’s not been all bad for me. The lockdowns has helped me to get some decent hobby time in. This year’s hobby tally is:

Figures painted: 100

Figures reworked: 22

Terrain finished: 32

Terrain reworked: 1

Vehicles finished: 2

Vehicles reworked: 0

Not a bad tally, that is nearly two figures painted a week which was my aim this time 12 months ago. Especially when I think that I have had a few weeks of mojo loss here and there. The tally has been massively helped by painting some 15mm scale. There is has been a fair bit of terrain knocked out too.  I even got a game in! 

The hobby bingo card got to about 85% complete. I missed painting a 20mm figure, convert a Hotwheels and convert a 10 figure (plenty of these still available should anyone want one!). The hobby bingo card was a good way to stay focused but I doubt I will keep it up in 2021.

Despite the lockdowns I didn’t get half of what I had planned hobbywise done and it didn’t take long to fall off the no purchases wagon. Saving money on the commute to work did allow for a few new purchases. 

That’s all for now....If I don’t get a chance to post....

Happy New Year, I hope 2021 is a better, more stable year for us all. Hopefully we will get a break on the war on Covid 19 and we can return to a more normal life. 

I hope you enjoy bringing in the new year in whatever way you choose. That’s if you don’t choose to spend it with the lights off hiding behind the couch, which looking back is perhaps how we should have all celebrated 2020 new year! I plan to spend the new year relaxing, eating cheese, drinking beer and watching a die hard marathon. 

Stay safe and healthy. Catch you all in 2021!