Fogou's Stackable Shacks.

Hello and Welcome Back, 

Sometime last year I backed the Stackable Shacks kickstarter by Fogou Models. I thought they would fit perfectly with the Fogou Wasteland Fortress.

The Stackable shacks would work nicely for a Starport or futuristic mega city slum. Or real estate in a post apocalyptic city. To my mind such tall structures in a wasteland town would be for public utility or the wealthy. You need some way to show off an excess wealth of scrap.

The Stackable shacks come in one story blocks which can be stack to make No Where Near skyscrapers. Each level comes with a roof, so the towers could be broken down to single level buildings to make a entire town. Or figures can play inside each level.

Like all Fogou Models they are nicely detailed and cast in tough Jesmonite resin. The resin is a delight to paint and happily takes paint without primer. Although I would always advise priming.

Paradise Towers (aka the Barracks):

Every township needs a place for the wasteland warriors to rest up after a hard day's barbaric raiding. The paint scheme is similar to that used on the wasteland Fortress (link). I kept this one with just white metal panels.

The Radlight Hotel:

When you wander through a town and you need some place to rest up, then visit the Radlight Hotel. Comfortable beds. Radioactive bedbugs provided for free. Breakfast provided for extra. All forms of salvage accepted. I handpainted the sign on a bit of old gift card. 

The Hospital:

Been wounded out in the wastelands? Spent a little looking for salvage near that crater that glows in the dark? Then rush on down to Dr Wildethroat's Hospital. All manner of health problems looked at. Free tetanus or sepsis with every operation. The sign was hand painted on a old gift card. I thought a hospital would have some sort of signage to be seen from some distance away, so I painted some slap dash looking red cross signs.

The Warlord's Tower:

If you are the Warlord what better way to declare to the wasteland rabble you are the boss than a huge tower. For this tower I used 5 of the Stackable shack segments to make the tallest tower of the lot.

To my mind the tower needed a platform for the Boss to deliver his daily ranting and raving. So I added one knocked up from plastic card and bits of plastic box section. What's the point of ranting if the entire horde can't hear you? No Warlord wants to have gone hoarse when issuing vital orders or threats. The speakers and stage lamps came from a Ramshackle Games Speakers & Tartan Blast set (toy car scale range).

Of course every despotic Warlord needs a banner. I drew this by hand on paper and painted it. It is based loosely on the logo I designed for this Blog page.

I think I should make some stencils of the spikey radiation logo, I would look great sprayed on a motorbike tank or car door.

At some point I may add a flag pole and flags to the Boss tower in the future. Should I ever decide to increase the height of any of these towers all I have to do is order the right sized shack from Fogou (a future plan).

Here is a shot with all the models split to make lots of shacks. I haven't painted a lot of the floors yet as I didnt see a need because I plan to use the Stackable shacks as towers. I can't split them down to single story buildings as I have glued them together. 

A rumble breaks out in scrap city. 

Thanks for looking and get a room booked in the Radlight Hotel. 

The Boglanders of the Strontium Swamps

Hello and Welcome Back. 

Out in the Radioactive Strontium Swamps of Mattblackgod’s world lives a bunch of mutants called the Boglanders. 

The Boglanders are armed with a variety of firearms looted from a old part flooded military bunker found in the centre of the Strontium Swamps.

Some Boglanders carry old black powder weapons, loving the simplicity, noise and smoke these weapons make. 

The Strontium Swamps are so contaminated even the frogs are massively mutated. They are kept as both a food source and pets by the Boglanders. 

Hmmm what every Boglander needs for lunch, a bucket of nutritious worms. There is plenty of worms in the Swamps some of them are pretty huge. 

The Boglander figures are by Ramshackle games but haven't been released yet, they have been through a recent Kickstarter. Curtis kindly sent me a set with a recent order. I was going to try and get the figures and blog post up to help generate interest in the Kickstarter. Sadly things got away from me. Naturally I had to back the Kickstarter as this little mob needs reinforcements. 

The Boglander figures are a reimagining of the more classic goblin descriptions from myths and fairytale rather than the more popular modern goblin image that looks like a green skinned, big nosed malicious wing nut. 

Thanks for looking and take care out there.

Warriors of the Wild Galaxy - Liberty

Hello and Welcome back. 

It is time to introduce a new faction to my Wild Galaxy setting. The Liberty cluster is a group of systems that are inspired by an old earth country. The nation has named it's systems,  worlds and stations after places and people from the legendry old earth nation known as the USA.

The main core of the Liberty forces are the Liberty Marines supported by the armoured shock marines. These figures are Viridians from the old Void line now sold by Seb Games. 

Armoured Shock Marine with power blades and shield.

Liberty's forces also employ special agents to assist in taking down objectives.

Due to the many different worlds Liberty's forces often have different uniforms. These local forces are often formed into volunteers brigades who support the Liberty Marine core.

These figures are from the Void 2.0 boxed set by Seb Games, which is a small skirmish variant of the old Void game. The Liberty faction is inspired by the Liberty faction in the old Freelancer 2 computer game. 

There are more figures to add to this faction, so keep your eyes open for future updates.

Thanks for looking and take care out there.

Behemoth Immunocyte for Zone Raiders.

Hello and Welcome Back.

Now we return to the world of Matrioshka, the post singularity setting of the Zone Raiders game. 

There are a few types of Immunocyte threats in the Matrioshka world of Zone Raiders. Some of the larger ones are known as behemoths. 

This is an example of a Behemoth. Armed with a autocannon, heavy plasma cannon and power axe. It hunts down all sentient life in the Matrioshka.

This model started as a DND Titan magical robot. The hammer arm was replaced with a weapon from a Robogear model. A cream tube cap made a new muzzel. The autocannon was built from a couple of bits of tubing and the muntion feed from the orignal Robogear model. Some power cables were made from greenstuff to finish off. 

As many Immunocyte in the Matrioshka are aeons old I went for a rusty paint job. I did attempt some object source lighting on the model but I don't think it worked too well. 

Thanks for reading and take care out there.

New addtions to the Wild Galaxy

Hello and Welcome Back

For a while now I have been doing the odd bit of hobby while plate spinning my real life. So to get me back into the blog posting habit here is a few random figure additions for my Wild Galaxy setting. 

The Assilimator:

The Assilimator is a weird alien creature (also known as the Anatonia noodle monster) first discovered by asteroid miners in the system 2706 Anatonia. The creature would appear silently from the darkness and grab its prey. The tactile like hairs entangle its prey and draw it closer to its maw allowing the Asslilmator to make its kill.

The Assilimator figure is by Antedivouian Miniatures.

The Prisoner:

A captured pirate, transport pilot or rebel pilot? This figure makes an ideal objective for those rescue missions. 

Those handcuffs look pretty sturdy. This is a Captive Fugative figure by Antedivouian Miniatures.

EVA suited crew member:

A EVA suited crew member out to repair the ship or maybe exploring this asteroid the ship is hiding on or possibly exploring that ancient alien wrecked star ship that won't have a hold of strange eggs of pretty lethal xeno bugs (honest!). 

This figure is a Gothic Void Engineer by Anvil Industry 

Combat Driod F1G47A:

F1G47A is a rogue combat droid that became self aware. It decided thst fighting for the cause it was built for was no longer worth it and F1G47A now operates around the spaceports of frontier space as a mercenary. F1G47A carries a combat power staff.

F1G47A is a rebased and repainted Clix figure.

Perry Trachett: 

Perry Trachett is an intrepid explorer and will be leading teams of explorers through the dangers of the post apocalyptic world. Although originally intended as a figure for Mattblackgod’s World, I also intend to use him as an explorer for (the nearly as dangerous) Maddans world in my Wid Galaxy setting (world background fluff to follow). 

The figure is a sergeant figure for the Iron Brothers range by Ramshackle games. I am not sure where the head came from. I chose an orange paint scheme for the figure. There seems to be using orange alot in my colour pallete of late. It is becoming a favourite colour to work with. The inspiration for the character came from the Late Sir Terry Pratchett as the figure's face kind of reminded me of my favourite author. Who else better to explore my worlds of imagination than a character inspired by a man who created Discworld?  

Thanks for reading and take care out there.

Sorry, its been a while.

 Hello and Welcome Back,

It's been a while since my last blog post. Life has been pretty busy and chaotic. Work has been manic and has been made recently worse by half the team leaving. A similar thing happened in my previous role, maybe it's me? Needless to say I have been putting extra hours in trying to keep on top of the workload.

For some months now my Wife's medical deliveries and prescriptions have been chaotic and unpredictable with lots of essential items missing. This lead to the redeliveries tuning up just in time and often late at night or me chasing around pharmacies for vital medicines. I don't like talking about politics on here but the UK's National Health Service is on it's knees and the shambles that is brexit have made getting vitial supplies worse.

Just to add to the spice of life various computers and other bits of technology have been playing up lately leading to much head scratching and trying to remember passwords. Sadly my desktop computer appears to be going through the early stages of hard drive death, causing panic backups. 

Despite all this I have been getting a bit of hobby time in to combat all the stress encountered in day to day life. I have completed some Ramshackle games Boglanders (which Curtis kindly sent me in my last order pre Kickstarter), the Void 2 set has been painted (Junkers and Viridians) to be added to my various Wild Galaxy factions, the Fogou Stackle Shacks have been painted up (in my usual style I have added extra bits to them), A space pirate crew called the Bloody 40 (A mix of Copplestone Rouge stars and Antuovidan figures) and various Sci fi figures. Hopefully I can get some pictures and background text sorted soon, so some much needed blog posts can follow.

I have had a hankering to put a world into my Wild Galaxy setting which will allow all the factions to get into bother with each other but not end up in all out war. The plan is to have a unclaimed anarchic frontier world  that is rich in rare minerals attracting colonies and get rich quick prospectors from across the Galaxy.

The fluff is still in draft and needs rewriting. But it has caused new ideas for the setting to pop into my head.

The odd trip out has also inspired some other ideas which I hope to post up in future.

Thanks for reading. With a bit of luck some posts will pop up here soon. Keep watching.

Take Care out there.

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.