The painting challenge.

Hello and Welcome back to my blog.

It is no secret that my hobby time has slipped in the last few years. Time seems to absorbed by a thousand other things. When I do get to paint my cats seem to take it in turns to stop me. 

As it is 1st of August I thought I would set myself a target. A challenge to keep me painting. I am aiming at painting a figure a day which will end sometime in mid November, which is when I put the brushes away ready to get the house “Christmassed up”. The target is to get 100 28mm scale figures painted. This should dent the unpainted pile quite a bit. 

There may be a few issues achieving this such as me going to this years BYOL, days out, Halloween  (it’s a big thing in my household), work and chasing electrical gremlins around my motorbike’s wiring. 

I will of course try to keep the blog updated with my progress. Wish me luck.

Thanks for reading, take care out there.

Post Apocalyptic Wargames forum 10th Anniversary

Wastelanders today is the 10th year of the Post Apocalyptic Wargames Forum out in the Wastes. Happy Anniversary!

Frustrated at various forums treating The Post Apocalyptic genre as a sub genre of Sci Fi I wandered the wastelands of the internet and founded the forum. There was a great movement to it proving that the genre was popular. 

The other forums eventually set up dedicated boards to Post Apoc, to stop us pinching their followers. New post apoc games and figures popped up. The genre got a boost with popular culture becoming interested in Post Apocalyptic themes again. Now we are spoilt for selection of games and figure choice.

To celebrate this there is the 10 year celebration figure. 

There is no weapon sculpted intentionally as various members play different time frames and equipment. Just add a weapon of your choice. 

Now to get your hands on this figure all you have is DM your name and address,  over on the forum. Or use the email contact address at the bottom of this blog. 

All it will cost you is.....Postage and Packing. That is right, postage and packing. Just DM with your location and I will get back to you with a price. I only take PayPal. The figure is supplied unpainted with a 25mm plastic base. Due to the limited amount of these minis I can only supply one per person. Get them while they are hot! 

The figure casting isn’t the best but a improvement over the original casts. It has been a pain to get here. Sadly I did not have resources, time or patience to pursue another figure. As these figures are not to my standards I feel that I cannot charge for them. 

Happy Anniversary Day! Parrttttyyyy! 

Carnage attack buggy.

Welcome back to my blog. 

Warlord Carnage rules the wastes with a iron hand. His fleet of vehicles keep the territories under his control safe from the crazies in the lands beyond. The usual methods of attack involve disabling vehicles or causing them to crash. His warboys strip the captured vehicles and build new vehicles. 

The attack buggy is a change of the usual tactics for the Warlord. It is only used when the citadel, gas town or ammo farm is under threat. The buggy’s aim is to destroy the enemy vehicles with fire power. It sports a heavy machine gun and a gauss autocannon. Here weapons where captured from a transporter. The story goes that they where taken from a Civilisation Interceptor. 

This started life as a Hotwheels buggy, the weapons where already on the car. All I have done is to add a blower and Jerry cans. 

Carnage will be getting more vehicles including a couple of odd ball vehicles and a possible warrig. 

Thanks for looking. Stay safe out there.

Autoskum reinforcements.

Hello and welcome back to my blog.

We are still riding through the wastelands around the dominion of the Warlord Carnage.

One of my long existing gangs is Autoskum. They need some extra wheels to bring up the numbers. 

Autoskum is a nomadic road/bandit gang who roam from place to place attacking and raiding where ever they go. They are not very good as bandits as usually they forget that they are supposed to be looting and speed off looking for something new to smash. They are mainly in the territories to the North of Carnage’s dominion and have have not yet had many clashes with Carnage’s warboys. As the Warlord expanding his control of the wastelands it can be only be a matter of time.

Vehicle colours are usually black, rusty or garish paint jobs (pink is popular). The vehicles are marked with anarchy, radiation symbols or smiley faces.

This new addition to the gang started life as a Hotwheels Roger Dodger. It has a girder bumper added. The ram blades are made from plastic card.

Each of the wheels had a putty disc added. Plastic card wheel blades where added. 

The windows where meshed and the roof has had a plastic card repair plate added. The tent roll is from a 1:72 half track kit. The tombstone plate is from Ramshackle games. 

Thanks for looking. Stay safe out there. 

Return to the wastelands

I did it! I finally did some hobby things! 

I have been working on some 20mm/Hotwheels stuff for my blood n fire setting. The focus has moved thousands of miles south from the lands around Civilisation to the wastelands around the dominance of the Warlord Carnage. 

This is largely inspired by Fury Road, Mad Max game and the Rage Game with elements from my collection from the last 30 years. Added to the mix are some other strongholds and gangs. So far I am aiming on 6 vehicles for each gang/clan/stronghold. There is a lot of gangs so I could be working on this project for a while. I am on getting some infantry done for this setting.

First up a couple of vehicles from Pinkeye’s stronghold. Pinkeye is a character/stronghold from the Mad Max game (voiced by Adrienne Barbeau of Escape from New York and the Fog fame). 

Pinkeye is a legendary black finger. Her great age means that she knows of many places that the good old world loot may be found. This means that Scrap Runners teams often hang out at Pinkeye’s trying to gain favour and salvage tips. The Pinkeye stronghold is in what was a old world power station and lies on the edge of Carnage’s dominion. Pinkeye’s parts stocks are legendary and has attracted the attention of Carnage’s hordes. The stronghold is often under attack. Pinkeye’s vehicles are marked by a pink eye icon. They are well built and quick. 

The van had its bonnet/hood removed and a custom ram made up. The windows where meshed up. Side bars have been added. The problem with a lot of Hotwheels is the vehicles are slammed. I got around that by removing the rear axle and cutting a a slot underneath. This raises the axle. A jerry can finishes it off. 

The Doom Bug started life as a Hotwheels VW Beetle. The rear was chopped up and a V8 engine added. The rear seat has a fuel tank in its place and it is crewed by figures by Ramshackle vehicle crews. The scrap metal ram plates and blades on the bonnet/hood are by Stan Johannsen miniatures. 

There are more vehicles to come. Stay tuned. 

Thanks for looking and stay safe out there.

Babylon’s Burning Revisited

Welcome back to my blog, 

Over on Facebook a friend has started a Babylon’s Burning Revisited page. 

So what is Babylon’s Burning? It was a 28mm post apocalyptic wargame by the sadly long gone Hetzerdog games, released back in 2003. It was set in what remains of San Francisco, five years after the world was destroyed by a fragmented Asteroid. The player could play Enclave (the last fragments of law and order), Mob (remaining maifa/other organised crime families), Street gang, Scavengers (gangs who dig for salvage), Cultists and Ghouls (half mad feral cannibals). 

Reading the FB page has made me all nostalgic. It was one of the few post apocalyptic tabletop Wargames out there. I was a fan of BB back in the day. I even set up the yahoo group and wrote a few house rules. My version was set locally in what remains of the UK. The army lists needs quite a bit of tweaking as automatic weapons are a rarity here outside the military.

BB as a game was a insanely detailed simulation. I think the main failure was that it was more suited to a RPG and not a squad to platoon sized game. I liked the rules back in the day as it what I wanted then.  Now I prefer games that have limited charts and rules to consult. 

The initiative phase in BB worked well for a squad and officer per side but got clunky and time consuming when running multiple squads, officers, medics, runners, snipers and heavy weapons teams. As a game aimed at squad to platoon level sized games, the intuitive rules were far too complex. In later games I used a playing card system, with a card assigned to each element which speeded things up. 

As the game background is set in the USA there is a fair amount of automatic weapons available for the factions. Auto weapon fire was deadly. The most deadly of any game I have ever played. Get caught in the open and it was game over. A game required a terrain heavy table to ensure the game wasn’t a massacre. The auto weapon rules was complex with tables and ranges to be consulted. It could be smoothed out (and speeded up) with a simplified range rules and a autofire system similar to other games such a Necromunda. 

I loved the background and it removed many of the nuked world elements (but not all) that would make survival impossible.

When I get a chance I will share pictures of my miniatures from back in the day and the details/ideas of my BB in the UK games. Expect more Babylon’s Burning posts in the future. 

Thanks for reading. Stay safe out there.

Doc Sawbones.

Just got into town and have a injury? Rad sickness maybe? Perhaps your party is planning a daring trip into the wastelands? Then go see Doc Sawbones, the best (and only) Doctor in the wastelands.

The figure is by Copplestone miniatures. I am a huge fan of Mark Copplestone's sculpts. There is enough detail to make them interesting but not too much to make them too busy to paint.

I have had this figure painted up for a few weeks now. The base needed finishing. 

Thanks for looking and take care out there.

Mad Max

I have been lusting after these cars for a long while but I could never afford them. I managed to find the 1/43 Mad Max 2 cars on EBay for pre Fury Road prices. That is over half of what they go for. They fit my 28mm minis nicely.

Now I have to dirty them up. I may need to watch Mad Max Road Warrior again, just for research you understand. 

Thanks for looking and stay safe out there. 

Hobby update

Welcome back to my blog, yes I am still alive. It has been a few weeks since my last post.

Things have been going slow on the ten figure front. With the caster of the Ten figure messing up the first batch, the caster denying any fault, all manner of vehicle failures (damn potholes are costing me a fortune), technology failures, bike problems (electrics falling to bits), my wife’s ongoing health problems and my never ending man flu, its been a bit of a uphill struggle since the start of the year.

I have been finding getting any real hobby time in. Even painting seems to be going slowly. Remember when I used to be a prolific hobbist? Life eh? That said I have been managing to get some time writing background fluff and working out ideas for Mattblackgod’s World.

The sculptor supplied a second Ten figure, sadly it is way too large so I am not using it. I didn’t pay for it so I am not complaining.

I took delivery of the second batch of Ten figures yesterday. They do look better than the first batch but are still not as good as I would have wanted. In a effort to decide what to do with them I have painted one up, just to see how it would look. This is a WIP. What do you think of the figure?

I am going to look into pricing of the figures and organise a sale thread in a couple of weeks when I work out the numbers.

Thanks for looking, stay safe out there.

Wasteland forces WIP

Hello and welcome back to my blog. I hope the wastelands have been kind to you.

Hobby work has been creeping along slowly. Some of this has been inspired by playing the Mad Max video game.

To that end I have been tempted to return to my 20mm Blood & Fire setting. I am itching to tryout Warlands or Gaslands. Warlands wins for me as it includes infantry rules, although I have figured out how to include footsloggers in Gaslands. As I am thinking about 20mm I thought it best to go look at my 20mm car collection. A few weeks ago a shelf collapsed in the man cave. The shelf where my 20mm collection was stored (note to self, don't put up shelves when you have the flu). With some trepidation I opened the boxes. Most of the cars survived ok but I had to carry out some repairs.

There is a mix of Dark Future, Warlands and many hotwheels/matchbox conversions in there. Lots of nice fun to get out on the tabletop post apocalyptic roads. There is plenty to work on too. I got so excited I ordered some of Stan Johansen's 20mm road warriors.

Some work on my 28mm has been going on too. Here are a few WIPs. I got the Nu Necromunda Orlocks assembled. They go together nicely, much better than the Eshers and Golaiths. They have one peice heads which helps. The Orlocks are going to be a trader convoy road guards. They have a certain Road warrior look to them and fit the Post Apocalyptic theme.

One thing that I do not like about these minis is the hipster beards and mustaches. I am not a fan of the look and they certainly don't fit the wastelands. As they are going to be out in the wastes it wasn't too difficult to make some greenstuff face scarves.

In general I like the Orlock kit and there are plenty of spares for conversions. The spare heavy weapons will be adorning some wasteland big hitter vehicles.

As I have been playing Mad Max I have been getting inspired to build a Wasteland Milita for the many strongholds out in the wastelands. Firearms especially automatic weapons are limited. These are usually armed with bows, crossbows and melee weapons. There is a long shot sniper and a couple of people with common firearms (pistol and shotgun).

The figures are WIP and are bitzas of old GW Mordenheim, Warlord Zulu War British, Warlord WW2 British and Wargames Factory Apocalypse Survivors kits. The arms and heads of the Apocalypse Survivors swap nicely with the Warlord figures. The figures need a bit of green stuff and some bits to finish them.

That is all for now. Thanks for reading.

Take care out there.