Tag: Navy Marines

Steam Wars – Prepping For Our Next Game

Another couple of weeks without a post and the guilt is upon me again.  Best to do something about it before it gets to be too long and I forget what I have done.

The last few weeks have been surprisingly busy. Not on the blog front (obviously) but I have been almost too busy with completing hobby stuff to find time to write these words!  I have taken a few photos though, and played a couple of games in that time as well.  I have even painted a few neglected models, though I suspect that as I haven’t bought many recently, most of my collection is now likely to be classed as neglected.

We planned a warm up game of Steam Wars, so that we could remind ourselves of the rules (even the rules we write become forgotten when not played regularly) as a larger game was planned for later the same month.

My plan was to add in a few new units to the US Navy army so that they could be trialled in this smaller warm up game and then used with better results in what was planned to be a ‘big weekend’ of Steam Wars.

Also some of the other units that had been finished over the summer, but never deployed, would get their first outing in the warm up and either prove their worth or be reprofiled to play better in the bigger game. The joy of Steam Wars is the ability to profile up the units and vehicles as and how you want.

Want your Monowheel tank to be armed with Quad Ack Ack? – fine.  Want it to better its chances of hitting? – play it as being armed with two sets of ‘Twin Linked’ Ack Ack.

It also afforded me the excuse (not that I need one) of painting up the last of my Pulp Figures Rocketmen.  My last unit of these were SMG armed fly boys, and can deliver a good number of shots up close to any target.  These guys are pistol toting fly boys and are more close combat orientated.  We have found that a flying unit is difficult to destroy using traditional land based firearms. however, flying up to the aircraft and shooting the pilot in the head seems to do the trick quite well.

I will let you know how the actual game goes when I next get time to post something…

 

Steam Wars – US Navy Deck Guns

So my excitable little self has grabbed the first set of deck guns and given them a very simple, quick paint job.  I will likely make up the other two sets that I have with more care and attention but for now I have some I can use in our games of Steam Wars.

The US Naval Air Corps is fully armed with new weaponry.

Electro cannon and ships mortar now mounted to the rear of their aether steamer

Deck mounted autocannon and steam truck mounted rocket launcher.

The heavy heat ray has been allocated to their new sky ship and will soften the enemy while it delivers a unit or two of assault rocketmen.

Scale shots with the Black Pyramid gun crew and their gallant officer (available separately).

Autocannon.

Electro Gun. (I have added a small nail art gem to the end of the barrel as a beam focusing lens).

Heavy Heat Ray.

Mortar.

Rocket Launchers.

And now for something a little different…  In honour of Justneedsvarnish some 20mm figures included for scale shots…

In my opinion these 2 guns are most likely to get nearer to the scale.  Remember that the resin is nice to work with, so it should be easy enough to shorten the mountings to get an even closer match to 20mm scale.

Hope you like them.  If so, they are available from Black Pyramid Gaming (sadly I am not on commission I just want to see what other more gifted people can do with them).

Steam Wars – Resin Cast Deck Guns

I have not been doing much lately. That said, I have managed to get a couple of games of Warhammer 40,000 and Gaslands in over the last week or so.  The Knights are 2-0 up at the moment but I forgot to get any photos while I was playing (it was a novelty to play for once, as I haven’t gotten a game in for about 2 months).

I did have some good news and a nice surprise from the postman though.  Back in April 2016 (blimey has it been that long?) I finished a small set of Navy Deck Guns for Black Pyramid Gaming and sent them off to be cast up and put up for sale on their webstore.  Not authentic in any way, as these are Steampunk guns, they were based on my own Steam Wars Navy guns.

Scratch built from Plasticard and MDF I was unsure how (or if) they would come out ok.

The final set that the guys at Black Pyramid have had cast up is based on the weapon options available from their already popular gun carriage range.

I have to say that my initial impression is that they have come out very well.  All five sets are cast in a good flexible resin that lends itself well to filing and scraping without any brittleness.  That said the casts, shown here straight from the packaging, don’t look like they will need much work at all to get them ready for painting.

Mounted Mortar. Three part kit.

 

Heavy Gun/ Heat Ray. Five Part Kit.

 

Twin Missile/ Rocket Launcher. Four part kit.

 

Small Electro Gun. Four part kit.

 

Autocannon. Five part kit.

These are planned to be next on the paint table so you should see finished versions very soon…

 

Steam Wars – Biplane With Rockets

A model that has sat unfinished in the shed for months now is a biplane that was slated to join the Steam Wars Navy but never started.  I got the pilot ready, an Ironclad Gyro copter pilot, months ago and still it was not promoted to the front of the queue.

With the recent good weather, and with me undercoating stuff in blue and grey, this got its base and top done in these colours and a boost up the paint queue without realising it.

With so much of it complete after just the base coats it only needed a touch of black here and a bit of silver there.

A propeller and a set of decals later and she was almost done.

The wing mounted rockets went on after painting along with the MG, and suddenly after 5 months, she was done.

The ironclad pilot was a tight squeeze to get in (so lost his legs before being seated…)

This photo does it no justice but underside in blue…

…and top in grey makes it a match for the first of my Navy fly-boys.

I may go back and trim that overly long rocket stick.  Hadn’t actually noticed that until looking the pictures over…

Steam Wars – Scale Shots Of Navy Skyship

As I have been trying to remind myself that it is useful to have a sense of scale in my last 2 photo posts, I thought that a few shots of the new Skyship, with crew, would be useful.

28mm miniatures from a couple of manufacturers on 25mm round MDF bases. As a transport ship it can hold 20-25 figures with room to spare.

As Steam Wars uses 5-6 man units this is going to be more than I need in most games.

With the Blotz Tesla guns on board I can still get 3 units onboard and still have room for crew if I wanted.

Painted to match the Skyship the Deck guns are a nice addition to the boat.

For a little perspective (and as I had them still sat on the drying table) the new Mole and Ball Tank along side.

Not bad for a couple of weeks work…

Steam Wars – Navy Ball Tank

Another easy to complete miniature is the Ball Tank for my US Navy Steam Wars army.

This is a West Wind Productions German War Wheel from their recent Kickstarter.

Obviously I will be using it for the Navy, so it has had their usual battleship grey paintjob.

Decals freshly applied and in need of a coat of varnish to blend them to the hull slightly.

Again, sand to the base, keeps it in line with the US Navy army theme.

Not a huge tank but a weighty piece of resin all the same.  I like it for its uniqueness and its 4 gun heavy weapon armament. A valuable antitank presence that I used to lack in the Navy army.

Steam Wars – Navy Mole Finished

I have managed to find a few more minutes in this busy life to hide in the shed and get a few items finished off.  The first of these is the Ironclad Tunneller that I was working on last week.

Not much was required to finish this model off.  A bit of brass to the bands on the main body of the thing.

A couple of decals to the rim to show its allegiance to the US Navy forces.

Sand has been added to the base plate, as this brings it in line with the Navy basing scheme, and tries to get it to lighten up. The original base I had painted was looking very dark…

I always forget to give a bit of scale with models in photos.  Today we have a Pulp Figures 28mm miniature included for scale.  It also shows that it can easily hold a five man unit, ready for deployment as it breaches the surface…

A great little model and easy to prep for the table.  It also adds a new aspect for my army to use with the Steam Wars Rules.  Deployment from a tunneller is slightly random, as 3 tokens are placed on the table, and it will emerge from one of these during the course of the game…  That way your opponent can’t be sure where it will pop up…

Steam Wars – Navy Mole

The recent painting spree that has resulted from the ability to undercoat so much recently includes an Ironclad Tunneller.

Undercoated in Bone, along with a number of other items.

Work in progress still, with silver to the drill and brown washes to the base and wood.

More WIP shots as the silver gets finished on the drill head and more colour is added to the base.

I didn’t get the chance to finish this over the weekend, but I plan to get the rest done before too much longer.  The final metallic parts will be the central bands in brass but I feel that the base will need lightening slightly at this point…

Steam Wars – New Navy Tank

The Steam Wars Navy have been well supplied with light HMG tanks and small bore anti tank guns.  Lately they have taken delivery of a new design of tank that will be able to do more damage against heavier targets.

This is a new West Wind Productions model that was in their recent Kickstarter.

Listed as a German War Wheel, this will be a US Navy Marine Corps tank on my table.

Quad anti tank guns might be hard to profile up for Steam Wars so I plan to go with a set of twin linked medium anti tank guns and see if this proves effective.

This should be easy to paint and get finished.

Another quick win if I need one next weekend…

Steam Wars – Navy Skyship

I am jumping the queue with this post slightly.  I have other posts, that I expected to post before this one, but the month is almost over and if I plan to get something posted for Azazel’s Assembly April challenge I will have to shuffle that queue…

The kit I planned to build for this challenge was one that I bought before Salute.  Its an Oxford Class Patrol Skyship from Blotz.

As with most MDF kits it come in what seems like a trillion pieces… It needed some patience and lots of sets of hands (or rubberbands if hands are in short supply) to put it together.

Dry fitting of parts is essential as I plan to paint the model as I build it. I would need to decide on what stage to stop, and paint the parts, before restarting the build.

A couple of Tesla Guns from Blotz are to be its main deck guns although I will leave these unglued as I then have the option to use my older deck guns when needed.

Bleached bone deck colour

White hull colour.

The new Skyship comes up as shorter than my original steam ship but its wider deck can hold more miniatures when fielded in a game.

Again, dry fitting the parts allows me to see if they need to be painted before gluing them in place.

Those Tesla Guns might be a tight fit when the hand rails are all in place.

Did I mention that it appears to have trillions of pieces, 58 supports are used for the hand rails.

The design is excellent though, as each part fits well, and gives a great visual effect when completed.

As of today the decals are on and it sits waiting for a second coat of varnish to seal them.

I went for a paint scheme that was similar to the original on the BlotZ website.

My decision to paint it while building it meant that the project took slightly longer than normal but probably made it oh so much easier than trying to paint it after it was constructed.   For anyone interested in how I painted the metallic parts, I have to admit that I cheated. I used silver and bronze Sharpie metallic pens as my hand is slightly steadier with a pen than a brush it would seem.