Friday, May 21, 2010

A touch of Sci-fi

Over now to another of my wargaming interests - sci-fi.

I'm not one for Warhamster 40K/AT-43 style games with hordes of mutant armor-clad soldiers and overblown war machines set against a background of eons of constant warfare. My taste is toward skirmish level games, where warfare gets downright personal. The kind of game with a scenario or plot, requiring thought more than brute force. The kind of small-scale action where the ground-pounder has to figure out what's over that next hill, or in that building - and whether he/she will get the chance to kill it before it kills them.

With this premise in mind I built up a modest collection of 25mm figures, mostly from Ground Zero Games in the UK with a sprinkling of other makes.

The action in my games takes place on the planet Fomor, an inhabitable Earth-size world with a warm-to-hot overall climate, a few, small oceans and quite a lot of land much like the Australian Outback. Fomor's star-system is located out on the Human Frontier, where folks learn to fend for themselves and make the best of what they have - or perish. That's not to say the planet is ignored. Quite a number of polities and organizations have vested interests in the quadrant, and Fomor is a handy-dandy place for those interests to clash...

In the middle of it all is the Keynes County Militia. A platoon-size outfit with an average of thirty or so personnel, it's charged with defending their neighbors in the nascent colony against all comers. When the alarm sounds, Militia members are expected and required to drop everything and pick up their rifle. Sometimes they face human foes: sometimes not.
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My buildings and some vehicles are mostly scratch-built, with a leavening of the excellent vehicles produced by Old Crow Models in the UK.

For now I'll turn my attention to a building constructed from Hirst Arts blocks, mostly from their Gothic range. Just because it's the future doesn't mean to say there aren't retro touches in architecture to be found here and there.

The building shown in the photos below is intended to be a focal point for games. It could be the access point for an underground complex, or a bunker, or even a civilian dwelling. In time I intend to get the starship component molds from Hirst Arts so I can build starship modules and underground complexes to skirmish through.

We know you're in there, ET! Come out with your appendages up!

Three members of the Keynes County Militia aid a local cop.

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The model was built from Hirst blocks and foamcore and took only a couple of days. It's not finished - I have to add a few components like air-con/filtration system boxes and uplink antennae. The gray panel on top was made using that molded packing material cookies are stacked in inside tins. I decided not to have it so the roof lifts off, although it's entirely possible to make it this way. Now, what color to paint it? I'm leaning toward a sandstone/limestone effect. None of the gray gritty grimy oily color schemes to buildings on this world unless they're industrial premises.

Anyone home?

Nope, he ain't back here either.

2 comments:

Alan said...

The blocks on the side of the front door, are those the slightly angled blocks for making secret doors?

And I love the use of a cookie tray for the top panel. I am *always* looking in packing material for uses like that!

A J said...

Hi Alan, yes, those are the secret door blocks. The idea behind the angled blocks is to guide people inside the shelter of the porch in the event of a whiteout or sandstorm.

The cookie tray even led to me being able to fabricate some plaster steampunk wheels for a landship. =)

 

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