Everything Five Parsecs From Home and eventually Stargrave.

I recently got my pledge rewards from the Heresy Miniatures Kickstarter, which was the Komodo mech suit and its rider.
Upon first seeing this mech I immediately loved it and thought it would work very well for the armoured trooper in Stargrave.

The miniature comes as a resin kit with numerous weapon options for the arms but I just chose something that I think looks good rather than a specific load out or worry about using magnets to swap weapons as I never feel like the miniature is finished if it’s all still in separate pieces, even when all painted.

In the game, you are required to pay 50 credits in order to use the mech for a game, otherwise you can use the pilot without. I thought I’d paint the rider in similar colours to the mech suit to match.

For the base I tried something new. I normally just go with a few tufts and call it done but I recently picked up some ground up corse foliage to use as a moss and I really like the effect.

I liked this mech so much, that while I waited for the miniatures to arrive I looked up some old drawings on the web to fuel my imagination.

In fact during the Kickstarter I couldn’t resist adding a second, all metal one to my pledge. This one I painted up red. I also used some wire mesh I got from Halfords for the base.

For its pilot I decided to use a Void miniature I’d already painted up for Space Station Zero as the miniature had a similar tight fitting suit with armour plates on and it was of similar build to the Heresy Miniature pilot so it would look like she would fit inside the mech. Also I’ve painted her up in red to match the colour of the second mech.

The bases don’t match for the reds but oh well. If I can find a more appropriate miniature later on I’ll do them on similar base to the mech and the Void miniature can go back to her squad on Space Station Zero.

As for Five Parsecs From Home there currently are no rules for mechs in the game, but it shouldn’t be too difficult to come up with some. Already since sharing a picture of the mech several people have suggested ways in which the mech could be used, such as either using it as something already in the game like a security bot, or coming up with brand new rules.

I’d heard interesting things about the card terrain sets from Corvus Belli for their Infinity game. When I looked into it a few years ago I discovered it that quite thing a saggy cardboard which really needed strengthening to be able to support metal models. I dismissed it at the time but recently I heard they are making new sets in 3mm cardboard so I decided to order a pack to see what it’s like.

The contents, lots of sheets of thick card and a paper map. I may use the map but really I’ll probably stick with my neoprene mats.

The terrain was easy enough to assemble and sometimes care had to be taken to prevent damage to the card. I assembled the whole things without glue.

Also each building comes with different images on each side allowing a choice of build options and appearance. You could buy a second identical set and how two different looking sets once assembled.

Here’s what it looks like, including miniatures for scale.

I’m really happy with this terrain. It’s relatively inexpensive, I payed around £25 for it, and it’s very sturdy and  gameable with plenty of room for miniatures to stand on the roofs and walkways and even the individual steps.

In fact I liked it so much I decided to get the other set in this series.

So with both sets together here’s some pics.

So with two sets I’ve got a full table of terrain complete with building, walkways and barricades.

I love this and will certainly be keeping an eye on what terrain Corvus Belli will be releasing in future.

In my opinion if I was planning on starting a game like Stargrave from scratch now I’d get the book, a box of miniatures and these two sets of terrain and I’d be ready to go. 

Here’s a few more pics where I’ve used a 3×3 mat to simulate a table for Stargrave.

It’s been sometime since I’ve posted anything here as I’ve been mostly working on Fantasy projects this year. But now I’m wanting to delve more into science fiction so I hope to post here more often.

Here’s the finished landing pad. I’m reasonably happy with my hazard strips on the stairs and adding some weathering certainly helped in their look.

For the price (TTCombat £12) I’m really happy with this.

More miniatures from Warlord Games’s Gates of Antares, this time a Hükk Bounty Hunter and his hunting angriz.

I wanted a miniature to represent an alien bounty hunter, particularly since Stargrave offers some solo rules for going up against a bounty hunter. I liked the look of this one and the fact that he came with some alien beats was cool too as I can use them as beasts or monsters in various games.

It’s been a while since I’ve worked on science fiction miniatures but I got these Misgenic rejects from Warlord Games for their Gates of Antares game. I thought they’d be great for either space zombies in Stargrave or Converted in Five Parsecs From Home, which are humans that have been altered by an expanding alien race.

I’ve also picked up some of the laser cut plans from Gamer Grass and I thought these alien Venus fly traps would look good. They seem very big in the pack but once you fold and bend them into shape they fit quite well.

I’ve got a few more from the Gates of Antares line of miniatures as I quite like them. I hope to paint them soon and post them in this project, not to mention play more games.

Just a small update as I’ve been working on other things.

I’ve had my eye on this Reaper Bones figure for a while but it’s often out of stock in the UK.
Finally I bought it and although I really like the model it’s bigger than I thought it would. I certainly think it’ll still work for both Stargrave and Frostgrave.

See post above this one.

It’s been a few weeks since I posted here and if I don’t post soon I’ll start to forget what I’ve done and where I’m up to, so time for an update.

I’ve haven’t done as much as I’ve been working on a few other projects not relevant here.

Those resin pieces I got from TTCombat are finally painted. Rather than using a specialist rust paint I thought I’d try using a mix of brown and orange paint to get a similar effect. Seems to work fine.

I’ve been eying these ships from Mantic for some time now as well as their landing pad and a few other Mantic terrain pieces. But then TTCombat have just released their new landing pad and Octo Pod Consortium, both of which looked like a great deal, so I went for these instead. Of course with buying a landing pad triggered my purchase of both the Mantic ships as well.

So this is what I’ve assembled so far. Although the Mantic ships didn’t include any assembly instructions they went together fairly easily, with only a few stray components left where I had to look up online. I also assembled both ships in their landing configuration as they will be mostly terrain pieces. I plan on doing a clean up to remove some of the join lines before priming.

I’ve included my shuttle from Core Space in the photos, which I think fits scale wise quite well with the Mantic ships. There’s a scenario in Stargrave which asks for 5 ships, and with another shuttle coming in Core Space Kickstarter (hopefully later this year), I’ll just need one more ship to be able to play it.

I’ve only assembled and primed the landing pad so far but I really like it. It’s quite large and pretty simple to assemble, and, most importantly, it’s large enough for the ships. Not bad for just over £12.