Mechanoid Domes - construction

Having made your Mechanoid army you want suitable scenery.

A lot of the games we have been playing on are on a Tinywar games Terminator mat with the 28mm iconography (tyres/skeletons/roads) removed and lately with red grass printed on it. See link

I now wanted a Mechanoid base or settlement but what to use. I was thinking of the Eden Garden Project for this.

With this in mind I went about normal life with what you know is a 'Wargamers eye', a request came in from my CiC to go to IKEA, and I was happy enough to go along with the idea even if it was only for the Swedish Meatballs. As ever we went to the left over bin, with old or damaged or ex-display stock and there it was my Mechanoid settlement. The CiC saw me looking at the redundant Xmas tree decorations, saw the look in my eye and said, buy it. She knew there would be no peace until I had. For less than £1 I bought two packets.

Once home and other duties complete I got out the old hacksaw and cut the very top off one and I cut the second in two about a third of the way down from the top. With that moment of instant creativity that sometimes catches you I  placed the small top of the first cut on top of the smaller top end of the second which gave me a small dome with satellite dish
In the image below you can see the just cut examples, the decoration to the right awaiting its turn.

I didn't expect to get three domes from two ornaments or indeed as I repeated the sequence six domes from four; it seems I bought too many ornaments, guess they can go on thee tree next year.

I based these up on old CD's first putting on a layer of wood filla I applied 'Copydex' (a latex glue) to the bottom of the ornaments and pushed them home. This basing system requires an overnight rest to bond well, but has the advantage of being very strong until you add a lot of water whereupon you can easily separate them with out damage to the models or scenery. However ready or not I could photograph them and here they are with newly painted Mechanoids, these have matching black bases.

Dry brushed and flocked they await the first game. The red flock/static grass is a home made mix of various reds and browns purchased from e-bay. The red bushes are pulled from the centre of a floor cleaner/polisher, the bit that is discarded to fit onto the head. 

I was going to paint or ink the domes, but thought hell no, let the alien sun shine brightly on the domes.

The green dials/observation nodes have since changed shape, and have been repainted as oblong like slits.

Mechanoids establish their grip on their new world

Every Mechanoid planet needs a name and this one they called; 01011010 01001011 00110010 00110101 00110001 00101111 00110011

As they move from the highlands where they landed and move down to the lowlands they encouter areas of 'fertile' scrubland, this they ignore, aware only of the possibility of hidden predators they push on seeking out the metals they need to create new Mechanoid life, the circuitry and metal carapaces.

First base

Mechanoids settle a new world.

I have been playing Future War Commander and wanted a new cloth.

I wanted an alien planet look.

A friend had already purchased a cloth from Tiny Wargames that gave me part of the look I wanted and as a previous purchaser I knew the product was of high quality and that they were prepared to supply the customer with what they wanted.

My request was straightforwards.

I wanted the Terminator cloth they supply but without the 28 mm elements, i.e. no skeleton, no tyres no road.
To further confuse I wanted red grass on it, if you see their arid cloth and then look at the arid cloth with grass you will understand what I wanted.
An exchange of emails, including photos to check his understanding of what I want and it was delivered today.

I was delighted and threw the cloth over the table and as it happens over some 'Really Useful Boxes'.
The effect was dramatic, so I hung an old star speckled cloth behind it and placed some of my Mechanoid force upon it.

If you want a cloth relevant to your game I can only recommend Tiny Wargames they are brilliant.

More on the Mechanoid models and scenery later.

N.B. I order a 7' x 5' cloth so I can throw it over hills and still have a 6' x 4' table to play on.

I think it looks better than placing hills on the cloth as they never quite match.

Establishing control

Hail Caesar 400 pts AAR - May 29th 2018

Have been busy painting up my Romans, Dacians and Samations. Have also been busy losing way too many battles, the former is why I haven't posted, rather than the later.

Last night I played another game and lost yet again, now a run of 8 I believe.
Still win or lose, it's all 'Blood for the Blood God!'

My army list

I have avoided archers as these have been the soft underbelly that has allowed my opponent easy melee victories that then allow him to flank superior units.
Skirmishers are more meat shields and if they survive long enough then they add support to the melee. My horse archers are to make up the points.

My opponent's

Over time he has dropped his archers and bolt throwers concentrating on warriors. The medium cavalry is a tactical choice and the skirmishers are to make up the points.

We play to the rules except for two house rules:

1. Infantry are allowed to counter attack if charged and turn to face if charged to the flank, in effect they follow the cavalry rules, but only against infantry.
2. To represent the inflexibility of  command the Dacians are limited to two commands, in effect minimum command of 6 units rather than 4.

Rome set up three core of 4 units each comprising 2 Legion and 2 Auxila, core 'A' also had a unit of medium cavalry, core 'C' the skirmishers, they were positioned as per the image below at the quarter and half way points of the board.

Dacian command was one large block of two halves, each consisting of 2 Falxmen, 4 warband and 4 skirmishers, the CiC core 'D' had a units of light horse archers.

The Roman General's plan was to move out to both flanks sending his horse sweeping around the bottom woods on to the hill to threaten the Dacian flank.
The Dacian General, me hoped to move forward in bulk accept some flank damage wipe out the Romans in front and then take out which ever of the flanking units was then closest.

Starting postions indicated with letters, final positon where seen or absent at the end of the drawn line.


Roman CiC is 'A'
Dacian CiC is 'D'

Rome began and in two turns quickly moved his Cavalry in core 'A' to the hill and his infantry to the bend in the red line.
Despite a blunder core 'B' took the hill and core 'C' were to get to the flank, again at the bend in the line.

Dacia had moved the troops forwards but on their turn two those in core 'E1'  had to turn to face the threatening cavalry the rest of the army plodded forwards.

In turn three Rome took advantage of the elements facing off the cavalry and charged them, one legion and two supports destroying the single falxmen and supporting skirmishers. The Dacian in 'E2' joined the fray but for the rest of the game the Roman line held. Core 'D' attempted to assault cores 'B' and 'C'  but failed.

Turn four and they succeeded, the CiC joined in the fray fighting with the 2 warbands against core 'C' who lost only one unit whilst detroying all of the 2 units in 'D1' and wounding the genera
The other 4 Dacian units in 'D' cored charged the Romans on the central hill and after two rounds of fighting they had also gone.

With one wing destroyed the battlefield belonged to Rome and the surviving Dacians legged it to fight again.

NB, my opponent complained about the overwhelming advantage 4 units of falxmen gave me and stated quite forecfully that there was  no point in playing such an unfair unbalanced game. Hmmmmm apology received at end of game

FWC Marine Corp aka Epic Space Marines

Missed the Epic boat years ago and have been slowly accumulating some models.

I play FWC and don't play Epic so I've based some models on the FWC bases I use  and painted up some Iron Warriors and World Eaters as you will see they are 30K colour schemes.

Iron Warriors painted and based

World Eaters

Bases flocked and ready to fight for the Emporer

Mechanoids

Some of you may be old enough (like me) to remember these from their first airing on Dr Who a reminder of the Mechanoids  and a clip from The Chase.

I've been playing Future War Commander and as my teleporting Terminators were winning every battle for me, my opponent was not  impressed. I play a Marine Corp army, essential 'Epic Space Marines' whilst I believe he plays an [FWC] Cybernetic Species X31 Army, using Dalek models.
He feels the Terminators with their teleport ability are under rated, a game changer and winner and he's probably right so I was considering another army

My wife is a quilter, this hobby takes up as much time and maybe more cash than wargaming, her stash may be larger than mine and I've lost a number of really useful boxes over the year but there are benefits there is rarely criticism of spending.

This year I was in Hobbycraft, whilst my wife was looking at buying a Sizzix machine, there was nothing currently that I wanted there for me but the Sizzix demo was still ongoing.

Mind empty waiting for release I waited for the pitch to end as I walked through the store then I passed by the bead counter, loose beads all sizes and types. Enter Wargaming Mode, the hexagon beads looked just like Mechanoids.

The Pitch over my wife didn't actually buy the Sizzix at that time but found me poring over and selecting beads. £7 ish for a large pot of mixed beads which she kindly offerred to buy for me as I'd waited so patiently.

We went back the following week when she bought it and I got in some more beads.

Once home I threaded them on to wire then sprayed them black.

Then I lined them up to see what I had whilst consulting FWC for the right army list, I decided it had to be Droids.

The Mechanoids of yore had a small black disc sticking out from the top, I figured a panel pin would do that trick

I decided the largest bead would be Battle Robots and also field as Psycoborgs be the Tanks/guns. You will note I attached small canons to them ssing the gold beads above.

The medium sized ones could be the polymorph assault droids.

The the smaller size would be the standard Mechanoid being both Cyborgs and Korbach, the difference in the two was the range so I painted the pins in the Korbach red and also the guns for the Pyscoborg (Mark 1) as they both had 60 CM range, would make it easier on the battle field.

I'd given the Psycoborg (Mark 2) a Cryonic device, and whilst that was only effective at 60 cm I painted the guns ice blue. Tru they also have a primary weapon with a 80 cm range, but it made the unit stand out.

So painted up, unusually I based them before painting, figured it would be easier.



I'd been painting the bases a Burnt Umber (see below left) but it was way too dark, so I added white to get a milk to dark chocolate colour as opposed to the very Dark chocolate/black colour it had been.

Added more white and dry brushed added even more white and dry brushed a second time.

Then flocked using a bright flock rather than my usual scorched grass

I did this as I had discovered my standard 28 mm basing was making my 6 mm models too dark they became just board pieces.

I think the lighter colour work and bring out the best.

No idea what the command pole/trees are meant to represent, I just like the beads, sad ...

Hope you like it. 

Army list at the bottom.

'Epic' buildings from Blotz.

Warfare was on this weekend and followed the usual pattern:

1   First check out the ‘bring and buy’ for 6 mm or 10 mm figures.

2  Collect Pre-orders at Baccus, Commission Figurines and get bases from Minibits

3  Walk around the show seeing what is new, and looking at demo and participation games for scenery/terrain ideas and new games.

This time I came across a trader I hadn’t seen before, Blotz, they had some beautiful well detailed buildings in 28 mm, 20 mm, 15 mm and 10 mm and did my eyes deceive me 6 mm!

I was impressed by their ‘Epic style’ 1920’s Mid-West collection, they certainly looked the part. I was encouraged to pick them up and discovered they were designed in stacks; base unit, middle block and top and they also sell all the items individually so you can add more middle units to vary the heights of the same building type or indeed swop the top to the damaged unit. You could even remove floors in game as the building received more hits changing the LOS.

So I bought 6 buildings and the 10 mm satellite dish which can be an objective and will look great on a 6 mm table.

There are also assembly instructions on the website and I certainly needed it for the satellite dish and the first building, subsequent buildings were newer and don’t yet have instruction, but having done one I understood the format.

I must say as I constructed them I was amazed at the level of detail both in design and in construction with facias that needed adding and recessed lobbies; I was constantly saying, Wow and ‘that’s clever’.

I will certainly be ordering some more buildings and extra floors; I suspect an order of £50 is in the making.

The sheets are cleanly lasered with facias to add depth and lobbied areas. In the disassembled picture, note the 'tangs' that allow the levels to lock together.

Not sure if the Cinema is 'right' for my war zones, but I bought it with the intention of converting to some kind of HQ/bunker.

PS, Gareth Beamish  commented on Facebook:
Got one of these buildings at Warfare too. They're excellent for making ruins photo here.

Giant Cactus 28 mm

An old one the idea dates back to 40k 4th edition with dangerous jungle plants

Using a polystyrene egg, I glued it onto a base using builders caulk, ('No Nails' melts the polystyrene).

Cocktail sticks are then pushed into the sides, and then cloves were pushed into the top for the flowers.

Early Imperial Romans Part 3

Finally in about 2016 I started playing Hail Caesar again.

Got a couple of games in and then a discussion started on basing.
As stated earlier we had been basing units on a 60 x 30mm base and command and artillery on a 30 mm square base. I think this was because the players were partly influenced by the way they'd based their Black Powder units and from the days they's played ancients before [Warmaster Ancients, DBA and rules older than that.]

A change was suggested so that:

• The unit could be more of a diorama
• More men per base to show heavy infantry as opposed to light archers for example
• Different bases sizes in depth for Warbands and Cavalry.
• New base sizes for small units.

The convention we decided upon was:

• 80 x 40 mm - Infantry default
• 80 x 50 mm - Cavalry units and Warbands
• 40 x 40 mm - Small infantry units of infantry 
• 40 x 50 mm - Small cavalry units
• Round bases for command any of; 20 mm, 30 mm & 40 mm The smaller base commands a division, the larger is that of the CIC. 

This of course meant I had to rebase all my army, strangely enough this didn't quite put me in the panic mode you'd expect as I'd been shown an easier was to base than my current one. [I'll post later]

So blade and plasters to hand I set off. I did separate one skirmisher from his ankles, but plonked him in the new basing medium and after flocking I can't see who he is any more, although he is shorter. My finger healed in the usual time span.

I have chosen a rather dark base paint, but unless I change them all I'm stuck with it for this period.

Naturally I increased the number of units at the same time, 4 psiloi units were changed to Skirmishers with slings or Javelins and additional units acquired to give me more choice.

So my units went from this

to this:

In my opinion it looks more like a dynamic unit rather than a playing piece, but OFC each to his own.

Some of you will see the small dice on the base, this marks the current stamina level.



Most of the units available to my Early Imperial Army

12 Heavy Legionary units                                6 Medium auxilary units
2 Medium Archers                                           4 Scorpion Bolt throwers
2 Heavy Cavalry                                              2 Medium Cavalry
4 of many Light horse (small) units                10 Skirmishing units, javelins or slingers (small) units.
                                                                              I do have many more skirmishers and light horse.

Left wing

Medium and heavy cavalry, light horse, Archer, Auxila, bolt throwers and skirmishers javelin units and slinger units.







Centre

Romes' finest with skirmishing slingers and the command bases.

The larger size is the CIC, and generally I use the medium and smaller units.
The larger one is planned for a big battle 1.5k points. (A man can dream).

Right wing


Medium and heavy cavalry, light horse, Archer, Auxila, bolt throwers and skirmishing javelin units.


And that's where I am today, with 2 more medium cavalry undercoated.
Will post them when done.

Early Imperial Romans part 2

My First Hail Caesar! Army

It was bought in April 2011, the same year as HC came out.

You can now buy army packs specifically for Hail Caesar!
The units have been selected by Mr Priestley for Baccus and IMO are roughly about 500 points.









6 units of Legionaries (AIR1)
4 units of MI Auxiliary Infantry (AIR2)
2 units of LI Auxiliary Infantry (AIR2)
2 units of MC Auxiliary cavalry (AIR3)
2 units of MI Auxiliary Archers (AIR4)
2 small units of Sk Javelins (ACE3)
1 small unit of Sk Slings (ACE4)
1 small unit of LC Bows (APA1)
1 unit of Bolt Throwers (AIR5)
3 Commanders (AIR6)


Of course you will want to add to the army, probably add more of the same and other different units to reflect the way you play.
How you base, how many men per base all depends on the look you want .
Initially I was basing up for Warhammer Ancients.

A quick view of the Legion, unpacked and glued to a lollipop stick.

We all paint differently, but I try to use a small palette per army so all the units look like a cohesive whole. I also try to identify an element that makes the unit stand out, Cloak, Kontos or in this case shield.

A quick undercoat of black, remember to keep it thin, detail can get easily swamped with any undercoating, especially at this scale.

The Romans were easy for a lazy me.

Drybrush Boltgun, highlight with Mithril Silver, faces hands and calf flesh, hint don't try to apply paint to hands or face they way you might on a 28 mm model, just dab it on. paint skirts and shields red with brass boss, spears brown with metal tips

The centurion, Signifer, Cornicen and one legionnaire are a one four man strip which I positioned to the centre of the front rank. With white to the crest and brass/gold to the horn and signum.

The same pallet was used on all units and commands. Initially I mounted the Legionnaire two deep the same as the Auxila, but decided they needed to look heavier and went for three deep so had to recruit more from Mr Berry.

A Legion and a command base.

Four  Auxila below

             

Two bases of 9 medium CavalryAuxila

4 Bolt thrower bases

Psiloi / Skirmishers

Archers

The Army.

We played some games and then butterfly like moved to other eras and games.

I knew I would come back, I'd already purchased a Dacian Army to fight the Romans I didn't realise how long it would be.

Early Imperial Romans part 1

Then 6 years ago.

Never ever loiter near Pete Berry, especially if his alter ego, my mate Trev is also there. They said nothing one merely took my money the other smiled. Mind you I say merely, the machine refused to accept my plastic, but I was foolishly determined and handed over cash instead and then paid extra for bases.

I'd always wanted to play big Roman armies, that's why some years ago I’d bought three 15 mm DBA Roman armies, Republic, Imperial and Italian Ostrogoth, the plan was to play DBM as well. I also think 15 mm and 6 mm are very much the scales for large battles. Although I've hesitated to go down the 6 mm route as I feared I wouldn't be able to see much to paint, but I've been sitting next to 6 mm players and listening to too much 6 mm prattle as well as reading similarly themed threads on my club’s forum.
That Friday game before Salute between Chris McGill and his friend again showed the advantage of a large 6 mm game, two games played in one evening and so little to pack away afterwards.

So Off to Salute 2011 to buy 20mm DAK, I should have known it was a mistake to loiter near Baccus, it had already been a day of 180 degree change arounds.

I'd never intended to go to Salute that year and hadn’t decided to buy a new army never mind a 6mm Roman one but a Roman army pack was now nestled next to my 20 mm DAK.

Now

It was a decision I’ve never regretted. Sure it took a while to understand how to paint 6mm, but once I’d stopped trying to paint a 28 mm model and accepted I was painting a 6 mm unit it became easier. Yes I know some can do wonderful jobs, but to be honest I don’t care. I paint so I can play.
The advantages are real
Cost of an army circa £60-100, that’s for all the units you could ever really need, of course you will expand on that but the price of an extra unit is less than the price of a couple of extra 28 mm men, a true economy of scale.
Storage space, I can get three 500 point Hail Caesar armies plus variants in one 9 ltr Really useful box. Another box will carry all the scenery and terrain I need a third the dice cloth and rule books.
One trip to the car, less setup time, no movement trays, more play and beer/coffee time;  I could go on.
However the overwhelming reason for me to play in 6mm is my desire to play big battles. I always preferred the skirmish of 40K or WHFB in 28mm but for that massive battle I would drop down to Epic or Warmaster.

My unit of 48 Roman legionnaires has a foot print of 80 mm by 40 mm, how big is yours?
In my 500 point army I field 10 of those plus 3 units of 6 skirmishers (40 x 40 mm) plus two units of 9 Medium cavalry (80 x 50 mm) and two units of 24 medium archers (80 x 40 mm).

These all line up outside of bow or indeed Light artillery range, with plenty of space to then manoeuvre and wheel on a 6’ x 4’ table.

Were you to field your 28 mm models 480 Legionaries, 48 archers, 18 skirmishers and 18 cavalry on that size table, all you could do is charge forwards and shoot. That’s not the sort of battle I want to play, in my opinion it is a large skirmish.

The picture above was taken in Feb 2012, at the time I was basing on 60x30mm or 30x30mm as this was my club's standard. More on why I changed in part 3