Snow on the planet... and fire in the sky!

Hi,

I recently thought to build up some terrain pcs and paint a bunch of 15mm miniatures for an Arctic inspired scenario.
I still have a dozen Critical Mass Light Recons and I'm planning to paint them with a winterized armor or a colour scheme that could fit...

Below is my first attempt, I think I used too much blu ink! Any advice's welcome!

By the way... the terrain pcs on the right is a work in progress bunker made from a 28mm blister, while the APC is just an old toy.
Clearly the first Arctic Light Recon is intended to be Rep 5 in a CR3 game!

Cheers,
Andrea

BatRep: Battle at Monster&Co

Hi,

as promised here's my first batrep involving the terrifying Aberration Prime!
Unfortunately we made just a few pics, anyway, this was the situation:

An abandoned research site has been taken from a well armed group of rebels looking for a loot. They don't know about the experiments the Alliance was managing underground neither why the site has been abandoned... Before being locked down by AI systems, the site launched a desperade SOS request... Now a patrol has been send to investigate. But time is runnig out: the armour-plated doors connecting the undeground labs to the outside will not resist a long time against the frenzied Biological Weapons that are now crawling in the blood-stained corridors!

I played with 6 people (!) everyone having control of 3-4 troopers and divided between Attackers (the Alliance) and Defenders (the Rebels). The ruleset is CR3, with some material from CR2 and some draft tables and stats I made...






So... I think this will start a new adventure soon!
Stay tuned!

Cheers,
Andrea

"Biological Weapon" in my dictionary means "claws and fangs"

Hi,

I recently ordered a few miniatures at the Rackham store with my friend Affro, taking advantage from their summer discounts.
Years ago I was quite a fan of their "Confrontation" line of minis. The quality of sculpting and design was really high and the rules were quite epic and fun.

Some years ago they proved themselves to be skilled in differentiating their product and communication in the fantasy miniature wargaming market (and, by the way, they had their part in my degree thesis "Communication Mix strategies in the Miniatures Wargaming niche of market" -Yes, I really made it. Yes, I think I'm quite a lot nerdy-)

Now I'm not sure if they still produce/sell their line of fine metal minis but they started producing some wonderful prepainted miniatures both for their fantasy and sci-fi settings.

So... as I was looking for more CR3 action (I will soon buy 5150 -Ed's Sci-Fi System, but at the moment I'm using the basic system) involving biological weapons/alien style monster I ordered:

Aberration Prime, a WONDERFUL enemy for any 28mm figure. The prepainted model was so nice as it was supplied that I just added a very little painting and some work on the base (look at my former post to know where the sand comes from...)


I like it A LOT!
I think the pic above will give an idea of the impact it can have on a game... :)))
Then I ordered the Phemera Omega (I didn't take a pic but you can see them here).
Rackham produces also very nice prepainted sci-fi soldiers. A have a bunch of them:

Below, one posing close to a GW marine for size comparison:

I will probably post in the future some photos of my old fantasy Rackham miniatures.
Hope to share very soon a batrep involving my beloved ABERRATION PRIME!

Cheers,
Andrea

My souvenir from Greece

Hi all,

this small post just for fun and to say "I'm back"!
I've been with my patient gf in Karpathos, an extremely beautiful Greek Island... and now back home.
The island is quite small with just 4 gasoline stations (one with no gasoline at all, and the other 3 are all together in the middle of the island). Travelling around and about with a 50cc scooter -a crappy one, REALLY!!!!- me and Dani saw a lot of beautiful beaches.

From two of them come my souvenirs: two half-liter water bottles filled with fine/coarse sand... for miniature basing and terrains!


I promise to post very soon post more interesting pictures miniatures!!
P.s.: The pic above looks like Sitiako and Lyttos advertising.... ;)))

Cheers,
Andrea

Some 28mm madness - Prepainted minis

Hi,

following up my former post involving 28mm minis I post here some photos of cheap prepainted models I found (from wizkids) and re-based to play CR3.
Some people love prepainted miniatures and some hate them... I personally like them a lot. They definitely cut away a part of the hobby, but you can have a lot of different characters ready to play in a very short time... and you can always take a brush and add details.

I found that especially Horrorclix and Halo Action Clix are very well made although HAC are not pure 28mm but taller.
Unfortunately, it seems that wizkids is kind of dead... on their website there's nothing more than Super Heroes Clix.

Below are a couple of "law bringers":

And here some psycho ^__^ :

then, some innocent bystanders:

With a decent base I think they can easily be accepted by most people...
The prepainted solution would probably fit very well for gamers who play zombie games (horrorclix sets have lots of zombies and EBay is a good source for them) or games involving civilians or so (It's boring to paint dudes without armors/rifles/swords, isn't it?)

Cheers,
Andrea

Neverending Dilemma

Hi,

I'm into the average nerdy wargamer dilemma: what is the best scale to play with?
Ok- there's no one scale which is better than another... still, I'm promising myself to follow these guidelines that should allow me to use the TON of minis I collected in 28mm, 15mm and even 20mm:

-I will use the nice, inexpensive and space saving 15mm minis for large battles in "open" environments involving vehicles and buildings
-maybe I will sometimes use 20mm instead of 15mm (just for the pleasure of changing something!)
-My 28mm minis will be used for a slightly better personal feeling to adventures, and will be employed for dungeon crawlings as well as scenarios involving detailed characters instead of squads of grunts.

There are simply too many minis in the market -and in my house...- to give up with a scale.
Then, I found that CR3 system is perfectly able to manage all the level of details I'd like to try.
Add some features to grunts and Stars and you have a lite rpg.
Use more generic pieces and the game will run fast with more combatants involved.
Wow!

As I started my little blog with the idea of reducing posts without pictures to the lest possible (pictures are what I'm usually looking at on other's blog... and all the blogs I follow have plenty of VERY nice photos or images!) and in relation to what I said above about playing "detailed characters when in mood for 28mm", I post here a pic of the party I prepared some years ago for Inquisitor game (GW specialist game).

From left: Blood Angel Sgt, Space Wolf veteran, Inquisitor, Imperial Guard Sniper.

I played "Inquisitor" once but the rules were uber detailed for my/my friends taste... guess what ruleset I'm going to use, now? :)))

Cheers,
Andrea

BatRep: Battle at the Gym

Hi,

after the great satisfaction I had from playing CR3 intro game with Affro, I repeated yesterday the same "patrol" scenario (same forces involved but different terrain) with Paolo.
Paolo manages the gym I nonchalantly attend and he's a big fan of historical wargaming and a very pleasant person to play with.
We played in the tabletennis room close to the kickboxing training room (where some people were having their lesson!!!)

Please enjoy the... Battle at the Gym!


At this time a lot of very big people with boxing gloves were surrounding us to understand what we where doing... O_O

Two or three of the big guys were at this time quite interested in the battle going on...


After a very short time Paolo had a full understanding of CR3 rules...



and the battle lasted a couple of hours!

After the game Paolo was enthusiast of the rules and he asked me a copy I had on hand of an introduction to Ed Teixeira's system called MG42 (2nd world war scenario).
With the next games I'm planning to start a campaign, I still need to decide with the people involved if it will be in 15mm or 28mm!

Just a note... if we'll play in 15mm I will have to improve Sahadeen's Reputations as they were no match for our Kill Teams!!

Stay tuned!
Cheers,
Andrea