Home Forums Sci Fi 15mm Sci-Fi New Hammer's Slammers force

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  • #49203
    Avatar photoJohn Treadaway
    Participant

    I have published the full details of the new Flaming Sword of the Holy Brotherhood force. These are based on new vehicles from Ainsty Castings

    Tank destroyer

    It features lot’s of detail on the force and the site now has proper links to the new Big Detachment sheet.

    gun mortar

    As the new Ainsty vehicles also cover a number of other forces, before I make play sheets for them, I wrote a small piece of fiction to whet your appetites centring around ben Medhi’s Legion, a replacement for Broglie’s Legion. Have a read if it tickles your fancy: Tribune

    Heavy Tank Destroyer

    John Treadaway
    hammers-slammers.com

    John Treadaway

    www.hammers-slammers.com
    http://www.hammers-slammers.com

    "They don't have to like us, snake, they just have t' make the payment schedule" Lt Cooter - Hammer's Slammers
    #49205
    Avatar photoVictoria Dickson
    Participant

    Nice. 

    I enjoyed the fiction, might have to go reread some slammers stories now.

    #49207
    Avatar photoirishserb
    Participant

    The fiction piece was great, many thanks for sharing it.  The art above is also quite nice, very inspiring.

    I so don’t need another gaming project and you are so tempting me.

    #49214
    Avatar photoAngel Barracks
    Moderator

    Those models are the bomb.

    #49220
    Avatar photoAnonymous
    Inactive

    Those are excellent but the only 25mm+ stuff I am buying anymore are from classic miniatures and Ral Partha/Iron Wind Metal to fill out legacy 1970s fantasy armies (Dawrf/Goblin/Elf) with everything else being 3mm/6mm/15-18mm sizes.

    At this rate I should not be buying any 25mm+ figures by Summer 2017 (unless selected molds are still waiting replacement.)

    But if I was still buying those size figures…

    #49221
    Avatar photoRhoderic
    Member

    I really need to sit down and read the Slammers stories. All these recent Hammerverse-related product releases and other goings on in the miniature wargames scene are starting to make the stories seem more attractive. Even my aversion for Hammerverse-style skirted hovertanks is slowly eroding.

    #49222
    Avatar photoAnonymous
    Inactive

    Great Fiction!

    #49223
    Avatar photoAnonymous
    Inactive

    I really need to sit down and read the Slammers stories. All these recent Hammerverse-related product releases and other goings on in the miniature wargames scene are starting to make the stories seem more attractive. Even my aversion for Hammerverse-style skirted hovertanks is slowly eroding.

     

    I hear your on the hover skirt thing but I have enough in 6mm to not be tempted to get more.  It’s fun to catch them in the flanks on roads passing through bad terrain in Dirtside II – especially with my second dislike : Walkers.

    #49225
    Avatar photoJohn Treadaway
    Participant

    Hi folks.

    Thanks for the positive comments on the post and the story 

    Glenn, bear in mind that those vehicles are 1/100th (ie 15mm) models! I stopped doing 28mm Slammers after producing The Crucible because, to be honest, everybody else wanted to do it in 15mm 

    In consequence, despite having a load of the larger scale models, I’ve done precisely one 28mm game since the 2010 launch – I’ve done more 6mm than that! (Especially since Brigade do all their stuff – now including Slammers – in 6mm as well – see the galleries on the Slammers site for a recent 6mm game I did with Tony from Brigade at the Maidstone club).

    Pretty much all I do now is 15mm and – for those not sooo keen on blowers and regular air cushion vehicles – the rules covers a load of different mercenary forces who use wheeled, tracked, grav assisted and VTOL forces: there’s a big selection from which to chose (like The Firelords in the story)

    I’m very pleased to say that the rules seem to cover a lot of users needs for larger (ie larger than, say, Gruntz!) sized games. There’s even a ‘non canon’ bit on the web site for walkers, power armour and mechs.

    For that matter, there’s another non-canon piece covering Ogres and Bolos written by an enthusiast of 6mm Slammers games!

    John Treadaway

    John Treadaway

    www.hammers-slammers.com
    http://www.hammers-slammers.com

    "They don't have to like us, snake, they just have t' make the payment schedule" Lt Cooter - Hammer's Slammers
    #49227
    Avatar photoRhoderic
    Member

    I hear your on the hover skirt thing but I have enough in 6mm to not be tempted to get more. It’s fun to catch them in the flanks on roads passing through bad terrain in Dirtside II – especially with my second dislike : Walkers.

    The funny thing is I tend to like walkers, although for the sake of variety it can be refreshing to game a setting that precludes them. What’s even more funny is that in one of my favourite mecha settings – Heavy Gear – there are hovertanks of a different variety that are even less realistic (no skirts, just vectored jets) and I rather like them within the framework of that setting.

    It all comes down to which frame of mind is represented by any given setting. I like flitting between settings and the different frames of mind associated with them. Heavy Gear is anime-esque, and as such it is action-oriented, “rule of cool”-driven and gleefully audacious. Humanoid mechs and flying tanks? Bring ’em! “Pew pew pew” and all that!

    By contrast the Hammerverse always seems to make such a big deal of the fact that the original stories were written by an actual tanker and this is apparently supposed to uplift them above most other military sci-fi. In my mind this has clashed with what I’ve been seeing/hearing about skirted hovertanks, primitive teleporting aliens, erratic-seeming technologies for interstellar communications, and other things I’ve previously thought of as “inconsistencies” in that setting. It’s taken me some time for the appreciation to sink in that these aren’t so much inconsistencies as they are instances of a kind of audacity (in a good sense) of their own on the part of the author. It’s also taken me time to learn to think of skirted hovertanks as “cool”. Maybe it’s a generational thing but I used to think of them as fairly quaint, almost borderline retro, in a “previous-generation sci-fi” sort of way. But I’m just about ready to give the books a try now, and as it happens I just bought the first book two weeks ago.

    #49229
    Avatar photoJohn Treadaway
    Participant

    Rhoderic

    The Hammerverse is – as you say – quite plainly based on a more gritty ‘reality’ (for want of a more appropriate word): ‘Nam in space, mixed with Dave Drake’s phenomenal knowledge of the Ancient Mediterranean world for plot devices (especially in the later stories). The game I did with Henry Hyde recently (appeared in the issue 401 of MW) was – frankly – Fallujah in space:  asymmetrical warfare with IEDs and suicide truck bombs and so forth.

    Oh and there’ll be a painting article by me in issue 403 which – although it’s a general one on quick paintng of vehicles – uses these vehicles, above, as examples.

    If you are reading the first of the three volume set of the collected Slammers stories then – depending on which version you have bought – it may well have my vehicle illustrations in it as well.

    The 6mm game I did with Tony Francis of Brigade is linked here, by the way.

    Four other sets of other vehicle ‘gallery pages’  here as well. The first page is almost all 28mm but the other three are almost all 15mm stuff!

    John T

     

    John Treadaway

    www.hammers-slammers.com
    http://www.hammers-slammers.com

    "They don't have to like us, snake, they just have t' make the payment schedule" Lt Cooter - Hammer's Slammers
    #49230
    Avatar photoAngel Barracks
    Moderator

    I have found that my life long dislike of both walkers and skimmer types is fading.
    In fact so much so, I now of course have skimmer/hover vehicles in my range with more planned.
    I blame HS and MAK.

    #49232
    Avatar photoRhoderic
    Member

    If you are reading the first of the three volume set of the collected Slammers stories then – depending on which version you have bought – it may well have my vehicle illustrations in it as well.

    Will you look at that! They are indeed in there. How cool.

    By the way, John, while I have your ear I’d just like to say I get a real kick out the fact that you keep your Hammers Slammers project so surpassingly visual. Your website is a treasure trove of visual inspiration for other sci-fi gamers. And not just the picture galleries, but the other parts of the website, too, like the “new forces” articles. I’ll go so far as to say it’s an exemplar for how to present the hobby and how to market a product to fellow hobbyists. It’s difficult not to get enthused by it all.

    Going OT for a moment (sorry!), Heavy Gear interestingly does have a strong “Vietnam in space” sub-theme (as does the VOTOMS anime from the early 80s which is its primary source of inspiration), most discernibly in the form of the Mekong Dominion. The first few mechs I painted are refurbished old Mekongese clunkers in drab army green. I like to imagine their pilots behaving much the same as the characters in a stereotypical Vietnam movie. But please ignore this, I don’t mean to hijack the thread.

    #49237
    Avatar photoJohn Treadaway
    Participant

    Thanks Rhoderic – that means a lot though I got paid in full for my work on the rules six years ago, I think it behoves me to carry on supporting it when I can which means assisting manufacturers that are still pushing out new product and supporting those players who have already bought into it and those who yet may. I hate it when people who write games or game systems then don’t support it*: as a player it kicks away my faith in the whole thing just a little bit. And yeah, I know the whole “well we had to pull out of this licencing agreement because we weren’t making a bean” argument, but…

    To be honest I don’t know enough of the details of Heavy Gear but I guess that – if we all accept that military commanders and the politicos behind them spend the start of every war refighting the previous one – then I figure it’s the same for authors (especially those who served).

    Other than Drake, for example, who hasn’t read – and loved – Halderman’s The Forever War ? Another post Vietnam retelling – and all the more powerful because of it.

    And don’t worry ’bout threadjacking, Rhoderic.

    John T

    * no names no pack drill…

    John Treadaway

    www.hammers-slammers.com
    http://www.hammers-slammers.com

    "They don't have to like us, snake, they just have t' make the payment schedule" Lt Cooter - Hammer's Slammers
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