Sigur in Space! - Update: GM Command Space Type!

[Rick]

Blimey, that takes me back. I remember we (my dad, my brother and me) having some of those when they were the 'new' Minifigs Napoleonics and a huge step forward at the time - they were the industry standard for detailed wargame figures! Oh and using the Airfix rules for Napoleonic games! 

[Battle Brush Sigur]

@Rick: I have to say, that the 25mm Minifigs Napoleonics look amazing if painted nicely and all ranked up and such.

Right, update time!



Imperial Harbingers:



Inquisition:



I got to play Battletech!



I'll have to write a bloggy post on that as soon as I got the time.

Also played Rogue Stars.


....and wrote a review and battle report and whatnot, but I'm sure we talked about that before in the other thread.

Last weekened I delivered some models to Vienna Comix. Local gundam club had asked if they could exhibit some of my models at their booth. A lovely honour.

My boys at Vienna Comix:


Last time I've seen them because I had a family committment on Sunday, so I couldn't pick them up or attend the event in any way. The club guys wrapped them up, said they'd be careful about handling them. Got me worried at first, but I'm sure they're okay. They're sturdy fellas.

Seeing the stuff the club had with them on the event got me inspired to get a little more work done on my own Zaku II "Melon Baby" (he's green on the outside, red on the inside). So probably the worst model possible to messthe primer up on. He's my experiment in "can I make up crappy, hasty primer job with grand amounts of varnish". But anyway. As I spent more time on him the past Sunday, we got friendlier again with each other.

[lasgunpacker]

Lovely models, particularly the grey armor and yellow helmets on the Harbingers.

Regarding Melon Baby, did you use the varnish over the smooth plastic as a primer?  Or did you mean that you smoothed out the rough primer by varnishing a lot at the end?

[Battle Brush Sigur]

@lasgunpacker: Thanks very much! Yeah, I'm a big fan of that colour scheme on the Imperial Harbingers. Not much else on the interweb about them; when I started painting the army (main part of it can be seen here: https://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=101560.480) and did some research I found one fairly cool illustration, checked with the gentleman whom I paint this army for, he told me he was familiar with the illustration because he'd commissioned it. But yeah, I like the more sombre colour scheme on them and tried to carry that on on characters as well. Not too much gold, more silver, only other real colour in there being that dark red/crimson. Love painting Space Marines armies. If anybody needs their GW army painted, let me know. I very much enjoy painting armies in general. Nothing beats the look of a painted army.

As for melon baby - my approach was as usual: primer, paint, varnish, etc. Problem is that the primer didn't stick properly. I used a rattlecan instead of lacquer, primed the dude whilst I was working on something else, but wanted to save time.  Disregarded the important rule: Proper stuff takes time to do, so take time to do stuff properly. The worse sentence in the world is "Oh, I got a bit of time, I'll just quickly....". And on a more problematic model I couldn't have done it, since the dude's all red, and I paint him green. Should have stripped the model right once I realized the primer didn't take properly in all places. Especially since I want to keep these fully posable AND gaming-resistant. A MIGHTY dangerous combination, but I'm kinda obsessed with re-colouring moving parts or stuff that gets handled. Love watching programmes about custom paintjobs on bikes, cars, whatever else is exposed to handling, so the paintjob has to be super-'ard. Oh well. Let's see how it all turns out. I'm sure it's gonna be OK in the end.

[Battle Brush Sigur]

Right, friends. Took some more photos. These make me slightly happier I think.






Love the grey background, but, as with everything else, it's not a "one size fits all" solution. Hope you like the pictures!


Right. Weekend. Do we have lovely plans?

[HerbertTarkel]

Always superb work, sigur!

I’m almost done my Harlequin grav-tanks, I think you’ll like the group shot. Using airbrush frisket to make a solid diamond pattern was a first for me at this scale, usually I use frisket for goalie masks.

[YPU]

Home page for the Bandai Gundam game is:

http://global.bandai-hobby.net/en-us/site/gundam-assemble/

First releases scheduled to "pre-launch" in July this year. Game looks to be playable with the lovely looking minis (50mm high) or without as a card game.  With models option is pretty pricey though.

Apologies for hijacking your topic for a moment Sigur, but figured I should rectify something I and others said/assumed before about this starter set with the models.

The starter set is for the card game only. it includes everything one player needs to play the card game (full deck, not just a half sized starter sample or some such). There is a version with just the card game.
There is also a version that has all that and 3 minis from the upcoming miniature game. The box for these has the name of the mini game "Gundam Assemble" featured front and center. But according to all info relased and product contents, it includes absolutely zero actual game support for the miniatures. You will NOT be able to play the miniature games with the figures included, at all at time of its release. The miniature game requires dice and a hex map, which could easily be provided by yourself, but the actual game rules are not included nor available anywhere. Additional the game ostensibly has multiple cards for each figure, which you use to secretly plan your actions for the round. (these are 100% not the same cards as the card game that these figures come packed with)

Its a very confusing situation and some extremely misleading product design IMHO, its been bogelling my mind for the past day but I'd figure I let the peeps in here who were curious about that game know.

[HerbertTarkel]

Apologies for hijacking your topic for a moment Sigur, but figured I should rectify something I and others said/assumed before about this starter set with the models.

The starter set is for the card game only. it includes everything one player needs to play the card game (full deck, not just a half sized starter sample or some such). There is a version with just the card game.
There is also a version that has all that and 3 minis from the upcoming miniature game. The box for these has the name of the mini game "Gundam Assemble" featured front and center. But according to all info relased and product contents, it includes absolutely zero actual game support for the miniatures. You will NOT be able to play the miniature games with the figures included, at all at time of its release. The miniature game requires dice and a hex map, which could easily be provided by yourself, but the actual game rules are not included nor available anywhere. Additional the game ostensibly has multiple cards for each figure, which you use to secretly plan your actions for the round. (these are 100% not the same cards as the card game that these figures come packed with)

Its a very confusing situation and some extremely misleading product design IMHO, its been bogelling my mind for the past day but I'd figure I let the peeps in here who were curious about that game know.

That does sound like a bit of a disaster of a marketing plan, and confusing. Boo…

[Battle Brush Sigur]

I vastly prefer that over a smooth and slick marketing plan. At least it's funny and memorable. Mostly I find myself buying things in spite of them being marketed well rather than the other way around. Also, it gives people an opportunity of using any rules sets they like rather than hopping into yet another "ready-made, rules-as-marketing-tool-by-toy-company" sort of situation.

Ramblings aside - thanks for the info, YPU! Very interesting indeed.  The other day I already saw somebody beg for 'pre-release' figures on a social media website to... I guess turn them into 'content' for their youtubes. I'm somewhat interested in that range, but for my own stuff I'll stick to 1/144th scale. I got so many miniatures already. Looking forward to how this whole thing unfolds.

[Battle Brush Sigur]

Well, I'm knee-deep in Stormcast Eternals right now, also in a whole bunch of "toughest girls of the universe" resin figures and god knows what else I SHOULD be doing. Like Chaos cultists. Looking forward to those!

Anyway, tiny little WIP update on Melonbaby:


Learning a lot on this chap there. Mostly how not to do things. Got a joint loose (fixed it) and the hip joint also is a bit wobbly for some reason. I already got that on the Guncannon, and i'm not quite sure what I'm doing wrong. All the solvent stuff I apply to these chaps seems to eat into the plastic

Anyway, this is after the first smattering of oils now. And boy did I enjoy that. Hope ye like him; there's a lot more left to do there. Side note - the first figure I did barely any panel line scribing or adding scratch-built details on. It's just an amazing kit, but I did a few whoopsies due to not being patient enough at first.

[Rick]

Actually just noted some of the details of Melonbaby - the entire lower half of the body is very similar to the T10B/C Blockhead mecha from 'Fang of the Sun Dougram', the right arm and gun a bit reminiscent of the H8 Roundfacer and the head is slightly reminiscent of the H128 Bigfoot, all from the same series and all used at one point by Battletech (Shadowhawk, Griffin and Wolverine respectively).
Well that is a curious thing. Look up the pictures and see if you can see a similarity as well?

[Battle Brush Sigur]

Two weeks ago, whilst trying to work on my blog post about Battletech, I read about the Shadowhawk and its inspiration from Fang of the Sun Dougram. Similarities between designs from that and Mobile Suit Gundam would make sense; both shows got their designs from the incredibly industrious Kunio Okawara ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kunio_Okawara ), with just a few years apart.

What I did not know was that Fang of the Sun Dougram is that it's also very much of the Real Robot genre and seems to be a lot about the tactics of giant robot combat. And it spawned Votoms, which many people love the robot designs of.

[Rick]

I wasn't aware of the Kunio Okawara connection, but that does make sense. I was aware of the 'Real Robot' approach of 'Fang of the Sun Dougram' - they treat them exactly as tanks and other combat vehicles; it's a good series. I think I may still have it somewhere on my computer, may have to dig it out and watch it again!

[Battle Brush Sigur]

Maybe I should as well. I very much dig the "let's pretend giant robots were a viable combat machine and go on from there" approach to the whole Real Robot thing. Love all the development history stuff about the One Year War mobile suits from Gundam, i squee when ever logistics and replacement parts come into play, etc.

[Rick]

Maybe I should as well. I very much dig the "let's pretend giant robots were a viable combat machine and go on from there" approach to the whole Real Robot thing. Love all the development history stuff about the One Year War mobile suits from Gundam, i squee when ever logistics and replacement parts come into play, etc.

Oh I'm with you on that - complete suspension of disbelief on how they work and stay upright, but give me a manufacturer and a parts number and I suddenly 'know' it's a real mecha that walks, moves around and fights as a combat vehicle!