Matakishi's Tea House
A simple little site...
Future War
Here's the plan. I want to play near future infantry conflicts using the Crossfire rules. I want to have a company of so of humans, probably Pig Iron figures and a couple of alien forces of corresponding size. I'm going to begin with some Greys using the out of production Harbinger figures that I've had sitting around for a while now. These are nasty mean Greys, not at all cute, and are perfect for the feel I want to evoke.
I want a variety of battlefields including parts of Earth for which I already have plenty of terrain and some alien worlds of which I have scenery for one and a half and hope to make a third. I'm hoping the third one will be very dark and desolate, plans are underway already.
For a change there's nothing to buy to begin with so it's straight into the painting. I'm going to start with the Greys and let them Fight my modern Americans (and possibly the Somalis too) and then move on to getting the Pig Iron figures. After them I want to do some Xenomorphs (Aliens) and a Spug force.
I want a variety of battlefields including parts of Earth for which I already have plenty of terrain and some alien worlds of which I have scenery for one and a half and hope to make a third. I'm hoping the third one will be very dark and desolate, plans are underway already.
For a change there's nothing to buy to begin with so it's straight into the painting. I'm going to start with the Greys and let them Fight my modern Americans (and possibly the Somalis too) and then move on to getting the Pig Iron figures. After them I want to do some Xenomorphs (Aliens) and a Spug force.
Here are the Greys being undercoated ready for the off.
I got these figure from Patrick Todoroff (Dentatus of Running Black fame). Patrick had mounted them on washers and sprayed them black, I'm in the process of redoing them by hand. I can't remove them from the washers without a huge amount of work but luckily 3 washers fit on a 60mm round base comfortably so that isn't a problem.
Here's the starting Grey force; three platoons each made up of three squads, a command figure and a Copplestone Bio mech alien for heavy weapon support (also from Patrick). There are two psychic Greys in their hover chairs that will essentially be artillery/mortar units and company commanders combined. The Games Workshop Vortex markers are going to be psychic shields (I think) I have four altogether, two for each psychic.
The colour scheme for these little chaps is going to be, well...grey. I want them to be dark grey at their feet lightening gradually up their bodies to their faces which will be almost white to accentuate their black eyes.
This is my test piece. His feet will look darker once his base is its final sand colour. You can see the shades I've used from the paint pots behind him. The camera has evened out the contrast a bit but you can get the idea. I am undecided whether to paint the eyes as black gems, I'm not sure it will work because the shades will duplicate the body colours. I will probably just leave them black and gloss them after varnishing. I think even a white dot highlight will take away from the effect I'm after. I plan to do the guns and equipment dark blue with an electric blue/white highlight around the barrel, something else that may well not go as planned. The good news is that since he's just drybrushed and not blended his friends will be fast to paint, at least to this stage. I am prepared to spend more time on the weapons but if they don't come out as I plan I will just pick a suitable basic colour and go with that.
Half a day later and they're beginning to look like what I imagined. I'm considering silver weapons now.
By the end of the Easter weekend all the basic troops are done as well as an attack saucer (from Glencoe Models). I went with silver weapons, the electric look didn't work, they don't show up here very well but hopefully the final photos will be better. Only the psychics and the robots to do and then it's full steam ahead with the basing.
The Greys are all done. I've based them with a bare desert look so they match my Alien World scenery. I haven't given them my customary matt varnish as I didn't want to dull down their guns too much, I've gloss varnished the eyes though so they gleam.
Here are the two Psychics and the attack saucer.
First 'platoon' of Greys.
Second 'platoon'.
And third 'platoon'.
click on the picture for a larger close up.
Next up is an 'Alien' army based on the Aliens films, using Kryomek figures from Scotia Grendel.
I've always wanted these figures ever since they were first released but, until now, I've never got round to buying any.
Here are the basic troops, 52 figures for £70.09 including postage. this will give me 16 bases of aliens and 4 leader figures. I plan to use a Games Workshop Tyranid Red Terror for the Queen which I've bought off eBay for under £10.00.
I found some alien eggs on eBay too, a company called Dark Art Miniatures makes them in resin for £5.00 a set.
The aliens are done and will be based this weekend (I hope).
click on the picture for a larger close-up.
The green doesn't show much because of the lighting and angle of the photo but you can get a general idea of what the horde will look like. Still waiting for the Queen so no pics of that yet.
I'm also re-basing my colonists/civilians/technicians on multiple bases.
Here's everyone, except the still-not-arrived queen, based and matt varnished. There's still a bit of work to do spotting and blacking all the tiny bits of silver that are showing through but that will take weeks to finish and I'll do it in stages. I'm undecided as to whether I should gloss the snouts to give the impression of slime. I'll probably do it to the queen and see what I think.
click on the picture for a larger version.
The green still doesn't show in the photos but it's there.
Here's the egg chamber and the Queen.
And, finally, the Hive entrance.
Click on the photo to go to see how to make your own.
The first of the Machine Horde, Talos units from Scotia Grendel.
And some Terminators from Copplestone Castings and Em-4 Miniatures.
Predators’ suits give them the ability to become invisible, this is fine if the Predator doesn’t move, Crossfire has a simple mechanism for dealing with hidden troops lying in wait to ambush. However, a predator prefers to move and hunt so this won’t do. Moving an invisible model by map or written commands etc is a very tedious thing to do and completely against the spirit of a Crossfire game so instead I suggest the following:
You can use a marker next to the figure to denote an invisible predator or perhaps a blip counter such as those available from Litko, a clear resin predator from Old Crow, or a standard figure painted to resemble an invisible one, white or jungle patterned might look ok.
An invisible Predator rolls 3 dice every time an enemy wants to shoot at it. Each dice that is 3+ removes a shooting dice form each attacker; this is in addition to any cover bonus.
E.g. An invisible Predator moves into a forest area in sight of 2 human stands, a rifle squad (3 dice) and a HMG (4 dice). Both decide to form a fire group and try some reaction fire.
The Predator rolls 3 dice, scoring 1,2,5.
The 5 removes a firing die from each attacking stand leaving the rifle squad with 1 die (3 dice, -1 for forest cover, -1 for Predator score of 5) and the HMG with 2 dice (4 dice, -1 for forest cover, -1 for Predator score of 5).
The human player decides to open fire with the HMG rolling 5,6 which suppresses the Predator and makes it visible. The rifle squad now rolls 2 dice because the predator’s invisibility has gone (it gets back the die removed by the Predator’s original score of 5) and scores a 1,5, a pin which has no other effect.
Initiative switches to the human player and the Predator will stay visible until it can move out of sight of any human units.
A pinned Predator cannot move but can still shoot.
A suppressed Predator cannot move or shoot and will become visible if previously invisible.
A predator that is killed with three hits or killed in Close Combat dies immediately. A predator that dies from 2 or more suppression results has time to initiate its self destruct. At the end of the next human player’s phase it will explode doing 5 dice of damage (less cover bonuses) to every unit, enemy, friendly or neutral, in LOS of the explosion.
Predators remove a pin with 3+ and suppression with 4+
Predators shoot with 4 dice but cannot combine fire, they are after personal trophies after all.
In Close Combat each predator gets +5 (2 predators attack, +10, bad luck).
Predators will not attack civilians, civilians can only move when in contact with an armed human unit or command figure.
Victory points should be awarded to the human player for rescuing civilians and killing Predators. The Predator player should get them for killing armed humans for trophies, more VPs for a Close Combat kill would seem appropriate.
Balancing the firing dice is a good way of balancing the forces with any odd going in the human player’s favour. For instance, three rifle squads and a HMG mustering 13 dice (3x3+4) should face off against 3 Predators mustering 12 dice (3x4).
Humans
Here are the unlucky colonists.
And their colony.
Details of the colony construction can be found here:
And their colony.
Details of the colony construction can be found here:
U.N.I.T
Earth's defenders. Figures are from The Assault Group except the Doctor and Brigadier who are from Black Tree Design.
Daleks and Cybermen from Black Tree Design.
The heavy Weapon Dalek below is a gun turret from Bronze Age Miniatures, I've ordered some more so I can have one for each group of Daleks in matching colours. I made him float so he looks less like an implacement and more like a Dalek.
Timelords from Heresy Miniatures and Malamute (home sculpt) TARDIS from Old Crow.
