Happy Easter and some hobby progress

Hello and Welcome back,

It’s April already and Easter is upon us. Happy Easter everyone. 

Hobbywise I have been a bit of a butterfly so far this year flitting between projects and finishing very few. Maybe I need to focus more but then hobby time gets regular catterference.

Here we see Dixie reminding me that I exist for his comfort after a few attempts to steal my paint brushes. It often feels like my moggies work shifts to prevent me getting anything finished.

Recently I got this Grauncher vehicle finished by Ramshackle Games. After assembly the Grauncher was primed and then put a side for a while. It was then painted brown with some grey patches to represent primer. Some orange splodges were added too for that harder rust. 

The Grauncher then had Vallejo chipping fluid painted on. Once dry the Grauncher was sprayed yellow with Army Painter primer. The chipping fluid was then scraped off giving this chipped look. One issue I had was the chipping guild took off the paint some places right down to the resin which had to be

I think in future I will be trying sponging on resin vehicles and keep the chipping fluid for plastic models. The Grauncher then got the details finished off and a brown wash or two. 

The Grauncher would suit hauling scrap across the wastelands or sat on a space port dockside waiting to move cargo. 

In addition to the Grauncher I made a crate from old robogear terrain set pieces. I painted it in a dark rust and sponged grey over it. Some contents marking were added. 

Some a bit more sinister than the others (well it is Easter!).

Looks like a certain mechanoid from a popular television show has been past at some point. Obviously just after he broke his programming as I can’t see him taking up graffiti normally. 

That’s all for now, thanks for looking.

Happy Easter and stay safe out there.

Cyborgs, motorbikes and dreadnoughts

Hello and welcome back.

No it’s not the title of a heavy metal album but a hobby update! March already eh? Where did the time go? Anyway, on with the madness. 

Four days march North-East of the Last City lies the Howling Hills. Deep in the hills lies the Giggles Valley home to the feared bunch weirdos known as the Giggles clan. The valley has many caves and abandoned mines in which the Giggles clan survived the end of Mattblackgod’s world. The Clan emerged and have continued to survive the harsh world by becoming cyborgs. These days most of them are more machine than human.

The most feared of the Giggles Clan in the huge Gilgamesh. Very little of the original man is left, just his skull of a man who should have been long dead can be seen. The power claw and cannons make the huge cyborg a fearsome opponent. 

Gilgamesh is a figure from the Nuclear Renaissance line by Ramshackle games. I also think this figure would make a great hazard in the ruins looming menacingly over your scavengers. Is the machine dead or alive? Noooo don’t push the button marked “START”!

The wastelands are a dangerous place on foot, it probably isn’t much safer for those lunatics who like to speed about on motorbikes. They are handy for reconnaissance work, fast attack or vehicle escorts. These two riders offer their services to convoys going out of Last City. 

Dag likes to get out on his dirt bike. He doesn’t trust the swirling toxic clouds and carries plenty of oxy cylinders to keep him alive. Dag’s weapon of choice is a meat cleaver which he uses to brain mutants and bandits that cross his path.

Spiker likes the classic chopper type bikes. Unlike others Spiker likes to camp out in the Wastelands mainly because he doesn’t like people or civilisation (or what passes for civilisation on Mattblackgod’s world). He likes to use a Lance on his bike to skewer mutants and bandits.

The Dag and Spiker bikers are from the Nuclear Renaissance line by Ramshackle games.

The Blackguard got a light combat mech recently known as a Dreadnought. This “dread” was found in a bunker on the edge of the Toxicity ruins that lie six days march due East of the Last city. Members of the 2nd Stalker Company found the relic mech and reported the machine to the commander of Patton Guard company stationed at Base Camp Skull (a salvagers camp that feeds Last City scrap and relics). The mech was hauled back to the base camp before being transported to the Last City.

The mech sports a pair of bolters and power fist on one arm, with a combination weapon featuring a twin laser cannons and missile launchers on the other side. The Dread mech can take a lot of damage and is used to back up the power armoured troops of the Black Guard. It provides capability to take out armoured vehicles, defences and those bigger mutant critters that sometimes wander into the Last City from the Wastelands. 

I picked up this old 40K Rogue Trader era Dreadnought on ebay. All I had to do was touch the paint up to fit in with the Black Guard and finish the base. 

I kept the 2000AD ABC warriors graffiti. 

Thanks for looking, stay safe out there.

Hobby Progress

Hello and Welcome back, 

It’s getting close to the end of what feels like the longest month of the year. It feels like an age since New Year. Things have been moving slowly on the hobby front but I have been trying to fit a little hobby time most days. I thought a little progress report would be in order.

One of my plans for the upcoming year is to create a pirate faction for my Wild Galaxy setting known as the Bloody 40, inspired by a story I found in a local history book. As a faction they will operate in two ways with a pirate crew with a vessel (the Bloody Vengeance) and a second group that operate as a high jackers operating within the ships they target. This lot is assembled will be the crew of the Bloody Vengeance. They might even be handy as a crew for Stargrave too. 

These figures are a mix of Northstar Rogue Stars and Antediluvian miniatures figures. I got them assembled, cleaned and primed ready for me to throw the paint about. 

I got a DnD fantasy magic robot Titan from a friend for Christmas. It needed to be shootier. So I clipped off an arm with a battle hammer which is easy with these rubber figures and grafted an old Robogear cannon. It wasn’t doing it for me so I moved the magazine and added a barrel to make a autocannon. The main weapon was reworked into some form of energy cannon using a cap off a tube of ointment. Cables or hoses made from greenstuff have been added. It’s basecoated ready for washes and detail.

The plan for this is to be some sort of dormant war machine in the ruins or to be a Behemoth class Immucyte for the Zone Raiders setting. 

I started this Gilgamesh figure by Ramshackle Games last year so I have been finishing him off. He doesn’t need much more. I plan on him being a derelict post apocalyptic cyborg or to be the head of my post apocalyptic cyborg clan. 

These two bikers by Ramshackle games are also in mid paint. I love all the cargo on the Lancer rider. It reminds me of going on camping trips or holidays on my motorbike (Lance not included!). 

Hopefully I will have some finished stuff to show in a couple of weeks. 

Thanks for looking

Take Care out there. 

Happy New Year 2023

Happy New Year, may 2023 be a great year for you and your families. 

22 was a real rollercoaster of a year for us with great high points and quite a few very low points which includes the loss of my Dad and two aunties. There seems to have been a lot of arguing with officialdom about stupid changes the local council want to inflict on our street. Don’t get me started on the global shit show and the state of the U.K. 

Normally I would do a look back at the year hobby wise but this Christmas season has been uncommonly busy at a personal level and I haven’t had the time to do one.

I was going to draft out a 2023 hobby plan, but looking back at previous years I see that I stray off course early on in the year and end up doing something else. No plan survives past its first draft intact as they say. 

A quick overview of what I hope to achieve in 2023 is:

Continued expansion of my Mattblackgod’s World and Last City setting (there are plenty of new factions and terrain in the paint queue).

Further expansion of my Wild Galaxy setting. As above there are plenty of new faction ideas waiting for paint. I have some painted minis from Evilbay which I hope to get based and into the wild Galaxy.

I am slowly working on bits and background fluff for my Zone Raiders/Matrioshka setting. I am thinking I will need some rusty high tech terrain. There is some plans forming in my mind. One advantage is that it would happily fit my post apocalyptic setting. 

I have several sets of Fogou’s beautiful resin terrain to get painted which will fit various game settings. 

Stoneage project: A new project for me. A shaman and his/her tribe trying to save their world from a great evil. 

The siren call of 15mm keeps attracting me too. 15mm has great storage advantages of 28mm. My problem is getting rid of or selling my old 28mm models. I seem to get attached to them and always regret selling old figures and models on. 

Get some games in. It’s the centre point of this hobby after all and to be honest I haven’t had a game in a long while. None in 2022. I think I only got one game in during 2021. There are plenty of rulesets I want to try including a few with solo rules.

Thanks for reading. 

Stay safe, stay healthy and stay lucky out there.

Kingdom

Hello and welcome back.

Time for a inspiration recommendation. I got this 2000AD graphic novel as a Christmas present (did I say that my Wife is a keeper?). I have been a long fan of 2000AD and it has given me lots of inspiration. At the time these stories were in the comic I wasn’t a regular reader for many reasons.




The premise is 
‘Earth, the far future. Mankind has been all but destroyed, those still surviving forced into hiding by Them – insectile creatures that have taken over the world. Charged with protecting humanity are genetically engineered dog-soldiers like Gene the Hackman – savage warriors that patrol the wilderness, directed by Urgings from their Masters.
Now without a pack and having the responsibility of protecting young Leezee Sower, Gene has to survive in the kingdom of Auxtralia, where if Them don’t kill him, the ‘Wild Bunch’ just might!
Written by best-selling author Dan Abnett and featuring the stunning art of Richard Elson.”

I found the comic full of great Post Apocalyptic ideas as a setting. Overgrown ruins, giant insects (I guess from the odd human comment that they might be alien to Earth), the genetically engineered dog solders (mix of dog and human dna with certain improvements), feral and mongrel dog soldiers and the odd human. All the humans (the Masters) are hidden away in cryogenic storage until the bugs go away. Apart from the two in the story that is. The problem is the bugs haven’t gone and those cryo units are getting a bit old.

You will need lots of giant bugs - get down the toy shop! For the Dog Soldiers Orks could be used at a push. Or maybe frostgrave Gnolls with Stargrave arms. Not sure on the mongrels but no doubt some inventiveness could knock something together. If the gang at Warlord and Rebel publishing are reading this - hint hint please! 

I really enjoyed the adventures of Gene Hackman in the comic and will be adding the later issues to my collection. 

Keep an eye open for it. 

Thanks for reading and stay safe out there.

Merry Christmas

Wishing all my readers a Very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. I hope you all have a wonderful time. 

Zone Raiders - life in Megastrata 170622B on the post singularity Matrioshka

Hello and welcome back. 

I am getting my background fluff together for my Zone Raiders setting. Zone Raiders is a small skirmish game by Tony Xano that is set in a Matrioshka sphere in the post singularity. It is a high tech post apocalyptic setting on what is essentially a unimaginably sized space station. 

The Matrioshka sphere is a thinking machine powered by a Dyson sphere built around a sun (possibly our sun the background doesn’t specify!). It is constructed with many spheres built over each other, each split into uncountable continent sized Megastrata. 

The post humans built Matrioshia to develop a fully automated thinking machine that would enable them to join together as one consciousness in the Singularity. This took a long time and the post humans used humans as workers, companions and possibly pets. During the time taken to develop, construct and perfect the brain, the post humans entertained themselves by creating genetic constructs, sentient robots, machine animals and many new technologies. When the brain was complete the post humans vanished into the singularity leaving their creations and humans to survive in the Matrioshka alone.

Megastrata 170622B - is over 12,000Km x 12,000Km in size. The floor of the Megastrata is littered with all manner of dead machines, ancient 4d printers, pipes, ducts, vents, tanks, vats, cables, towers, domes, biodomes, toxic lakes, radiation pockets, ruins, rust deserts and more. What townships or city’s that exist in the Megastrata are hundreds of kilometres apart. The city zones are the only true safe spaces from the dangers of Matrioshka. Although the city zones have the other dangers usually associated with civilisation. Beneath the floor of the Megastrata there are many hundreds of levels filled with tunnels, pipes, ducts and travel tubes. Legends speak of old domes and storage bunkers deep below the ground of Megastrata 170622B. 

The Megastrata ceiling is some 10Km above the floor. Massive inverted towers hang like stalactites from the ceiling filled with artefacts of the ancients (the post humans) and possibly supplies. These towers are incredibly difficult to get at. Old disused mono rails hang from the ceiling. There are hundreds of levels above the ceiling reaching the upper edge of the Megastrata. No one knows what exactly is hidden in the levels above Megastrata 170622B. All of the outer bulkheads of the Megastrata are hyperdense and impenetrable although that doesn’t stop attempts to break into the neighbouring Megastrata.  

In addition to the many environmental hazards in the dark zones of Megastrata 170622B there are wild tribes of Morlocks, prowling Immunocytes looking to attack for anything sentient , sentry nodes, out of control ancient industrial machines, wild electrical discharges, unmapped Immunocyte nodes, nano-swarm leaks, strange plants, toxic fungi, strange creatures and technobeasts. 

There will be future posts with more detail of Megastrata 170622B. Stay tuned.

Thanks for reading.

Stay safe out there.

Wasteland Wondering November 22

Hello and welcome back to another Wasteland Wondering. Pull up a crate to the fire and sit yourself down.

It’s now that time of year when my hobby time gets put on the back burner as we get ready for the Christmas season. It’s a busy time in our house. I may get to slap some paint on a figure or two. Hopefully I might get a little kit bashing done. Who knows I might even find time to run a couple of games especially while the football World Cup is on. 

While the lack of hobby time is frustrating for me during the dark season, it does give me more time to let my imagination to run riot and work on background fluff. As well as my imaginings for Mattblackgod’s world there will be some for my Wild Galaxy setting and he fluff for my Zone Raiders setting on the post singularity world of Matrioshka. 

Zone Raiders is a game by Tony Xao. The setting is one I keep returning to as it is rich and suits my figure collection. The faction lists would help anyone with 40K, Necromunda, Deadzone, Firefight or Infinity figures in their collection. One thing is definite, I will need a lot more rusty industrial terrain for the dark zones of Matrioshka. 

So while my hobby posts will be limited there will be a few fluff posts. There may be the annual review post too. Hopefully there might be a post Christmas loot post as well, assuming I am on the fat man’s good list that is.

Stay warm and take care out there. 

Thanks for reading. 

The Asterians

Hello and welcome back.

A couple of months back I picked up the Insurgent Earth rules by Patrick Todoroff. A quick overview of the rule background is that the Earth is attacked by alien invaders and quickly over run. In the game you play a small resistance cell. It is a solo or cooperative game. 

While I have more than enough figures to cover a team of resistance fighters I found that I didn’t have enough for the aliens. For the grunts and solider levels of aliens I chose to use the Necron Skelebots that I have for Zone Raiders Immuncites. For my flavour of Alien Invaders I decided upon robots controlled by a evil alien intelligence who is too smart to actually get involved in the dirty work of combat. 

Meet the Asterians 

But I needed more figures. I needed some figures for the alien elite, lieutenants and boss. Looking about I settled on Mantic Asterian Cyphers as alien elites, Black Talon Prime as a alien Lieutenant and a alien Marionette as the final boss. This also gives me the option of adding to the Cyphers ranks if I feel like it. 

The Cyphers

The figures are painted with Army Painter speed paints. I am not too sold on the scheme I chose for the Cyphers.

The Marionette (L) as the final Boss and the Black Talon Prime (R) as a Lieutenant. 

As I like to get the most from my collection the Asterians will also serve as a Nth Generation gang (think sentient robots with a common construction template) for Zone Raiders. 

Thanks for the looking, take care out there. 

The old storage tanks.

Hello and welcome back,

One feature of any old ruins, industrial sites, post apocalyptic bases, the Neo Soviet industrial wastelands of the “zone”, underhive or busy space ports is huge tanks. They could be storing water, fuel, gas, oil, chemicals, waste, neurotoxins or pan galactic gargleblaster. What ever is or was in them they make great line of sight blockers or table detail. For the more despicable gamer they might leak from stray shots or even explode causing much tabletop chaos.

These tanks will be handy table decor. They are HST boiler tank parts by Ramshackle Games. I was going to scratch build some tanks but these are probably cheaper and quicker. 

Thanks for reading, stay safe out there.