The Loose Association of Wargamers

We're having Indian tonight. Im thinking Butter chicken tikka.

I took the day off sick with a chest cold (an occupational hazard). I've just had the pleasant surprise of the postman delivering me a package from North Star, my Stargrave Nickstarter, ordered more or less on the spur of the moment on it's last day. Two weeks later to Oz is good going.

That's me (& the cat, busily chasing the foam peanut packing) entertained for the rest of the day!

There's a bit of a 'Not Blakes Seven' vibe to the troopers too, which is nice, lots of alternative heads and weapons, although only standing poses. Crew and Mercenary sprues are more assorted, as one would expect.

There are alien heads etc on the sprues but it might be a bit of a challenge to make them not of the 'heads, two arms, two legs' man in a rubber suit look beloved of TV sci-fi, but that's part of the appeal. They should be easy enough to cross kit to other plastic figures too, (says he, remembering a sprue of Warlord Ashgari sitting in the pile).

So that's 70 plastic figures and another half dozen metal ones to add to the pile. Fortunately I've got some reasonably scale agnostic scenery to use with them too.

Norman Hunter from the Mercs set


I bought a bunch of space ships from The Works and I'm attempting to re use the packaging as landing pads.

I reckon the spaceships look brilliant. Though I would be repainting as I prefer my spaceships more Nostromo than that. The front two especially look like ground landers.

And I found stl files to print an 'Aliens' style APC...

Buff Redux wrote: ↑Mon May 10, 2021 7:46 am Norman Hunter from the Mercs set

Great minds think alike. Just needs a Leeds jersey...

A couple of 1:300 ship purchases from a guy called Stuart Dobson at Magpie Designer - a large(ish) freighter and a sinking RN armed trawler. Both are excellent models, albeit the air vents on the freighter are a bit fragile - that said, the guy sent me a set of 24 spares, plus a spare funnel, as he was not entirely happy with how they had come out (it's a big bit of resin so I can understand him not wanting to reprint it, although the original is actually pretty good). He mostly does 1:1800 and 1:2400 WW2 naval for those of you interested in that scale/genre.

In the same vein, I found three other sites for 1:300 vessels, two of which either beat Warlord comfortably on price, or on price AND accuracy (eg more common/useful variants of several German types). The first sells/makes available STL files (Doug has printed out a couple of these and they look good); the second is a UK manufacturer (not bad on price but you have to buy guns etc separately); the third is in the US so not really a goer at the moment with postal charges the way they are:-

https://www.wargaming3d.com/product-cat ... /ww2-1300/

https://www.syborg3dprinting.co.uk/3d-m ... -300-boats

https://www.seadoggamestudios.com/produ ... aval+300th

Added to which, my local gaming buddy is doing a Michaelangelo on the inside of his shed roof to deal with condensation, but otherwise "Der Bunker" is finished and we will have a 12' by 6' table on which to unleash our coastal forces (which I'm now beginning to think will actually accommodate slightly larger vessels than I had previously considered).

And I printed off the S30 and downloaded files for various Fairmiles, etc. Will have a go at printing these once I have finished off the components for an Aliens Colonial Marines APC, which is going to use up all my available stock of resin...

Two of the flaws of the Cruel Seas "starter" set issued alongside the rules, were that (1) S-boats versus Vospers on their own is a very unequal fight, even using just the S-38+ series - you need one or two Fairmiles in the mix to give The Andrew a chance; and (2) the standard S-boat tactic, even before it acquired more substantial opponents, was to dash in, fire its torpedoes, turn tail and bugger off - very often not even using its rear-facing armament to avoid giving away its positions. Neither of those two options gives much of a game.....

(PM sent.)

Not bought but being sent free from my go-to internet guy for 1/32 scale toy soldiers. A Soviet officer from the very rare Esci 1/35 sets, which are exactly the same size wise to Airfix 1/32. He'll go nicely with my Airfix.