Kublacon Report: Robotech!

Strike Team: Zentraedi Hunting!

 Max Sterling had hunted in the asteriod belt before. The Zentraedi liked to attack with a mob of battle pods led by one larger Glaug Officer Battle Pod in each group. That's okay. The chaos of an asteroid field suited his squad of Vf1 fighters just fine.

Warning lights lit up across Tracker's console. " Watch it team-incoming missiles! Zentraedi warpods spotted in the asteroid field!"

Two USN Strike teams have been sent out to the asteroid belt to find and defeat any Zentraedi battle pods. The rules used are Mecha! From 7th street games. the combat is Mecha! is fast paced fluid and three dimensional, actually using 3D flight rules, giving you the simulation of the action, pace, and drama of Japanese animation giant mech combat! 

Kublacon Game Report: 

This year at Kublacon I went way back to my roots. Mecha! was the first set of rules I helped write and publish with a gang of my gaming pals, when most of us were still in college. When we wrote the rules, we always wanted to play Robotech/Macross- but Zentraedi pod models, even with access to Japan town hobby stores, were rarer than hen's teeth and very expensive if you could find them.

Flash forward to today, I got a scad of models from the ill fated Robotech Tactics Kickstarter- and ran my dream game at Kublacon!

First turn- missiles acquired from across the table! 

Zentraedi were hiding in the asteroids with the objective of capturing intel from the base

The good guys! 

My players were well versed in Robotech, and did as much roleplaying as gaming, throwing out qoutes like," I rolled a 1 because that pineapple salad was bad".

Zentraedi make it to the base, and have to stay 3 turns to download the intel.

Max Fokker comes in from behind and causes great havoc!

Typical of the shows, Rick Hunter scored a lot of hits, and took as many too- but Max Fokker stole all the kills. Lots of smack talk- just like the show- ensued!

Behind the movie magic! 

Pilots looking as handsom as the show!

Over all the game went really well, especially since I have not played the rules in over a decade!  I'm going to tune down the Zentraedi armor a bit, and add more of them in for the next game so we have more boom!

Thanks for taking a look!

Robotech Playtesting!

Mecha! rules, the first published rules set I worked on

Kublacon game convention is next week, so I've set up my Robotech game in our work game room for some playtesting. I've not played Mecha! a rules set I worked on like 29 or so years ago (eesh)
so I need a refresh. And you know some game balance tuning might be good.

Zentraedi ambush side

Ace Pilot human side 

The scenario is as follows: Reports of Zents have been spotted in the asteroids near a secret human research facility. Ace Pilots are there to scout, flush them out, and engage.

 The Zentraedi's objective is to get one of their command pods onto the facility and download the specs for the new Human Destroids and learn their secrets.  Should be a fun battle.

Stay tuned for more! 

One Day Build: Command and Colors City Hexes

5 inch hex "city" marker for 6mm Command and Colors

One Day Build:Aspern and Esslin-ish

Well, its convention season again, which means that one of my gamer friends comes to me with a " hey- can you help me make this- like before the con?!" Request.  Don't tell them this, but I actually enjoy these challenges, both as an exciting break to what I'm doing, and that I get to help them out.

On my end I challenge myself on how quick I can flip the request. This was basically a one day build, ala Adam Savage. This particular project was to create a series of hex squares that have a "city" in them to represent Asperg and Essling  for a 6mm Napoleonic Command and Colors game.

The Challenge: 
Create 9  5 inch hexes with representative buildings which can accommodate command and colors stands on the hex.


 The Build: 
 I already have a cache of "stage flat" style buildings from a project that I worked on with Jay Wiley of Wiley Games    which I used as a starting point for making the buildings. I then scaled them down to a 6mm-ish size and made templates on how they would fit and slot into the bases. This worked out to one main longer center piece and two shorter side wings.  Once I had that all figured out, I made some quick variations and then got to cutting.

Not optimally layed out, but remember- one day build!

Buildings are Birch ply, with MDF hex bases.

28mm White walker for scale!

Assembly and Painting:

I pre-painted the MDF with a couple of Rattle cans mixing a Krylon moss green and Army painted Desert sand (?)  to get a bit of variation.  This saved a lot of time especially drying time if I had painted them with brushed on paint.

The buildings are slotted so assembly was just glue in place. Before I did that though I looked on line at some cool period buildings, or models other folks had made, and then went to work getting a paint theme down.  As I would not have time to paint them all, I wanted to create an easy to follow set up that would hopefully read well on the table.   Here are the paints and inks I used.

The color swatch was for my friend to take. I ended up also giving him some ink as I had a spare bottle.

Painting these is very quick and easy. The first step was to pick an angle from which the sun was coming and stick with that. I chose kind of an 11 oclock as the angle. First I painted down the roof colors, then went in with Agrax Earthshade and added shadows across the buildings and on the roofs (once dried) . Next grey was mixed  in the with some blue grey (AV dark sea blue) to create "slate" colors, or to add a stone color to some walls or buildings. the light tan/ unbleached titanium (actually called Menon White Highlight, a P3 color) was used to add highlights to the buildings on edges, cover up some sins from over paint, and added into the roof colors to bring out a bit of dimension.

All told, a set of buildings took about 15 minutes. For fun I added some green to one of the buildings.

A more painted in scene. This was the first set.

A half done version, needing highlights.

Another angle, showing off my Elite Hussars

And yes they stack for storage! 

 This project took me about 6 hours from start to hand off. I only painted 2 of the 9 sets, so figure had I had time to do them all it would have been another couple of hours to maybe complete them. Okay,  call it 3 hours because you know I'd keep fiddling on them, and I didn't do anything to the backs!

I am keen on seeing how they turn out on the battlefield, and look forward to pics from Pacificon!

Cheers!

Galleys Guns and Glory!: Turk and Malta

Knights of Malta and Turkish galleys

I am in the middle of several projects at the moment, non ready for camera- or that I can reveal. I was digging through some older folders and found these pictures of a commission I did last year. These ships were done for On Military Matters, a book and game store on the East coast that carries my Galleys Guns and Glory! line of ships and rules.

Turkish galley with crew markers

Knights of Malta galley, showing smoke marker and crew markers

Nothing fancy here, just good examples on how a few colors and the flags, awnings and a bit of rigging can produce a handsome gaming model.

 Lastly I took this image to show how to paint up crew markers. I always give you extra for each ship, because I lose things. Also a great way to experiment on different color choices. Or new buttons for your favorite gaming shirt.

My name is Skull and Crown and I play with 6mm sci fi

Steve Jackson Ogre MkIII and some forge world tank busters.

Coming out of the Closet

It's true. For several years now I've been collecting and painting 6mm sci fi. Tanks, Mechs, Ogres (or as I like to think of them, BOLO's) troops, robots, Titans- the whole shebang! My close friends have known for years, and have supported me throughout tough times, like the Ogre kickstarter, and have tolerated my 6mm napoleonics.
 Now I'm ready to admit it publicly, and embrace- nay- be proud of my wee ways.

But in order to come out, I needed to have  platform upon which to do it. 

Offworlding

I was keen on making a new "planet" inspired by Venus and Mars and well, any good sci fi movie. Part of the plan was to incorporate all the vaccuform craters I've been hording over the years. I know I wanted an orange look, but not too orange. The main choice of color would rest on what paints were available at the local Home Depot and ACE Hardware off color bins.

I scored a  gallon of  deck paint with sand already in it, tannish color for $8, a quart of red brown for $4, and a  pint of yellow for $2. I already had a sampler pint of orange and a gallon of "Vallejo flat earth" that I had custom made last year as my base color (I use it as the base for all my mats no matter what terrrain, so my bases can match). 
One stretched canvas later,  some foam cut hills, and  a few layers of paint and drybrushing, a decent enough planet was made. 

under painting of the Vallejo brown. This is really a stain on a very wet canvas

The done mat- in the shade, so the colors here are muted. 

This picture captures the true color of the planet. Hm.. I need a name....

Troops in review

Infantry use the leviathan for a screen, and take advantage of it's shields

cute light jeeps scout ahead and worry about their cammo choices...

As my Combat! rules allow for Bolos, or Leviathans as I call them, the classic Ogre model fits the bill. I swear the lines on the Steve Jackson Ogre are as iconic as a 62 Chrysler 300.

Heavy Gear Mechs are swarmed by Skyth bugs

These pics cover just some of the collection, set up for a test photo shoot. As you can see, I'm all over the place with manufacturers. One company who's minis I am keen on is  the Dark Realm Miniatures line from Microworld games. They are actually quite pricey for 6's, but I love the sculpts.

Right, now that that's out of the bag, time to actually get these rules penned up.