Returning to 15mm

[Idle Doodler]

Been in one of those hobby slumps of late (well, a tactile hobby slump – I also blame Tears of the Kingdom and Shadows of Doubt for being seductive uses of time). The most recent sustained spurt of mini-ing had been putting together a travel-friendly 6mm collection but found trying to make scatter terrain for it something of an enthusiasm-sapping road bump.

So I return to a 15mm collection whose progress got disrupted by the release of 5 Leagues from the Borderlands.

I chickened out of basing the majority of them – my least favourite aspect of the hobby – since all the Ground Zero Games minis were pretty uniform, but in the time since then a few have suffered from storage and travel in a way my magnetised 15mm fantasy and 6mm sci fi minis have not.

So I’ve bitten the bullet and chopped them all up, ready for a marathon basing session or four.

I’m sure it will be worth it…

[Tony S]

Wow!  That’s some mighty fine painting!  Are those all from GZG?  I know the final photo of those Crusties are, but where are the others from?  I can’t seem to find them on the GZG, although some of the photos there are quite old and low resolution.

[Idle Doodler]

Thanks!

The majority of them are Ground Zero Games (the Crusties and all the humans/bots, largely from the civilian and human characters lists) but a few are from an ebay job lot. The first three alien photos come from Alternative Armies. I thought the snakemen were from Ral Partha but having just looked to check, the minis look quite different. Maybe they’ve updated their Critical Mass range? If not, I’ve no idea where they’re from!

[Darkest Star Games]

Great looking collection you have going there!  I too need to go back and do the old magnetized base thing for my 15mm troops.  Nothing worse than trying to fix some chipping from them getting knocked around in transport and it coming out looking even worse!

"I saw this in a cartoon once, but I'm pretty sure I can do it..."

[Idle Doodler]

It takes a lot for me to get over my sheer distaste for basing, but yeah, not having to cover up the chips and scratches from a journey will fall under that umbrella.

My 6mm stuff has yet to require any paint reapplication despite suffering the whims of public transport. These tins are just wonderful and, with 21mm depth, can accommodate most of my 15mm minis. Any particularly tall ones should be able to clip to the sides instead.

[Logain]

That looks like the original pack of snake men in Critical Mass’ line of Mercenaries. They were so popular a few of them were made into separate full lines – but Ral still has the first sets in with the mercs.

[ian pillay]

That’s a cracking painted collection of 15mm goodness. I like the silver cybermen looking guys and the SG1 team.
where are those tins from?

Tally-Ho! Check out my blog at…..
http://steelcitywargaming.wordpress.com/

[Idle Doodler]

Logain wrote:

That looks like the original pack of snake men in Critical Mass’ line of Mercenaries. They were so popular a few of them were made into separate full lines – but Ral still has the first sets in with the mercs.

Ah, great – I thought I’d seen them on the site. Just hadn’t scrolled through enough of the merc line.

ian pillay wrote:

That’s a cracking painted collection of 15mm goodness. I like the silver cybermen looking guys and the SG1 team. where are those tins from?

Thanks! Tins just came from Amazon. They’ve withstood pretty well being crammed into any available luggage space and, speaking as someone who’s sworn off borrowing other folks’ books for fear of property damage, if they can survive my hamfisted packing, they’re pretty well made!

[Cacique Caribe]

ID

Welcome back to the one true scale!

your painted figures are so inspiring.  Now I need to get busy with my GZG figures (militia, cops, colonists, etc).  I’ve had them stored up, unpainted, for much too long.

Thanks so much for sharing those awesome painted photos!

Dan
Loads of WIPs: https://www.flickr.com/photos/9593487@N07/albums/with/72157710630529376

[Idle Doodler]

Regrettably I too have left some of my GZG minis in storage for too long – more specificably the duplicate civilians and ravagers are stashed away somewhere very safe, too safe for me to know where. In my wisdom, I evidently decided to separate them from the rest of the reserves…

Sluggish pace on the basing. Got some done across the two rugby matches yesterday. Here’s hoping the basing mix is still good for today’s quarter finals.

[Andrew Beasley]

Congrats on the progress – I have two figure bases to do and keep putting them off!

If I leave them till I have a few more figures to do and I feel its worth getting all the bits out I’m then faced with a pile and less liable to do them…

Maybe I should try putting rugby on?

[Tony S]

Ha!  Thought I was the only one to lose figures that I know I bought and carefully stored somewhere.

(Although I must pat myself in the back – quite honestly inspired after seeing your lovely figures, I rummaged around and actually found some old Laserburn 15mm crew and civilian types that I had).

[Jim Webster]

Your post is inspirational and reminded me of why I love the one true scale 🙂

https://jimssfnovelsandwargamerules.wordpress.com/

[Darkest Star Games]

Tony S wrote:

Ha!  Thought I was the only one to lose figures that I know I bought and carefully stored somewhere.

I’ve done this a couple of times.  It both a frustration but also incredibly joyful when you re-find them, like discovering $20 in a coat pocket.

What’s even worse is that I recently re-found a model I made 3 years ago and had set in the “ready for production” bin and then somehow hid away.  I thought I had gone bonkers!  But at least now I can release it as a new product, finally!

"I saw this in a cartoon once, but I'm pretty sure I can do it..."

[Idle Doodler]

Certainly not the first time it’s happened, and I’m glad it’s not involving minis I’m desperate for – primarily duplicates, though I suspect they’re accompanied by some minis from Alternative Armies and other manufactures (I’m sure there’s a multitude of female photographers in there whose manufacturer I’ve not found) from an ebay job lot. I look forward to rediscovering them, though I can’t think where I haven’t looked around my hobby desk and there’s a slight chance they got lumped into storage, and I haven’t the heart to tackle that Big Yellow box any time soon…

Andrew Beasley wrote:

Congrats on the progress – I have two figure bases to do and keep putting them off! If I leave them till I have a few more figures to do and I feel its worth getting all the bits out I’m then faced with a pile and less liable to do them… Maybe I should try putting rugby on?

I seem incapable of making small batches of terrain mix, so it feels wasteful not to have a sizeable number of minis to do at once. But, by golly, it’s a tedious process. I’ve some mix left, and a gang of Copplestone barbarians which one of my D&D players painted up for me which I’ve prepped for basing, but I can’t face tackling them after these fellows.

After four excellent quarter finals and some time making use of my Nebula subscription, though, I just about got the minis all based in time for an upcoming house sitting fortnight. If the painting mood takes me I may give them a drybrush and colour the rims (and touch up some more chipped paintwork the process revealed). Otherwise I’ll be quite happy gaming with them. Just couldn’t face those bare metal base edges on the travel board!

I’ll seal the terrain mix up and see if it’s still usable when we get back.

[Idle Doodler]

Don’t usually paint mins for a specific scenario in mind, so decided to switch things up a little and rolled up a 5 Parsecs crew and rummaged around for some suitable figures from the pile accumulated from various webstores and ebay job lots.

Of course, the minis themselves were fun to paint and didn’t take much time at all, but the simple basecoat and drybrush for the bases took weeks…

With just the one pistol and two close-combat weapons between them, they’ll be looking to keep well clear of their opponents.

[Darkest Star Games]

Great looking crew you have there.  Post some AARs of your games, I’d love to see how they get on.

"I saw this in a cartoon once, but I'm pretty sure I can do it..."

[Idle Doodler]

I’ve got a brand new notebook ‘specially for it

Though Ivan has thrown a spanner in the works with a new expansion which, of course, must be tried out, and with expendable crews only…

[Tony S]

Darkest Star Games wrote:

Great looking crew you have there. Post some AARs of your games, I’d love to see how they get on.

I’ll second that!  If your terrain looks half as good as your figures, please post some photos of your games!

[madman]

Idle Doodler wrote:

I’ve got a brand new notebook ‘specially for it Though Ivan has thrown a spanner in the works with a new expansion which, of course, must be tried out, and with expendable crews only…

If this is the expansion which adds more “cinematic feel” to the game do some serious thinking. I have been following a discussion on board game geek in which a guy asked others opinions (I seconded that for myself). Those with definite thoughts feel it slows the flow of the play down very badly . Those who have not but have considerations (such as the original poster) seem to be talking themselves into similar conclusions.

https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/3194907/five-parsecs-home-original-vs-dramatic-combat-rule

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