Other Projects: Babylon 5

Hi folks, and welcome to the first of my weekly spots on the other hobby projects taking up my free time. Like my regular posts, there probably won't appear at the same time every week, so expect them when you see them.


I'm going to begin with a game which was my first foray into the world beyond Games Workshop. This game is Babylon 5: A Call To Arms. It is a fleet combat game based on the epic (and in my opinion, vastly underrated) 5-year long sci-fi series that ran from the mid-90s. I only got into it a few years back when my dad started watching the dvds, but now I'm a die-hard fan, having watched it right through at least four times.

I happened upon the game during a google search in the middle of a B5 phase, and quickly bought a starter set, which contained the rulebook and a set of card counters representing the ships. The game itself is remarkably simple and yet full of depth, and faithful to the series. As a result, I moved on to collecting the miniatures.

Here are a few samples of my collection. Up first is the White Star, without a doubt the most elegant and beautiful ship in the series. It is a combination of both Minbari and Vorlon technology, both of these races are very advanced, particularly the Vorlons. They are very agile and pack a considerable punch for their size (that little bump with the yellow bit on top of the ship is the bridge). The White Star becomes the iconic "good guys" ship from season 3 onwards.


(Steel Legion infantryman shown for scale)
Next up is the current workhorse of the Earth Alliance fleet, the Omega-class Destroyer. These bad boys pack a huge punch with batteries of pulse and laser cannons. However, they are pretty slow and not very maneuverable. These ships feature a very distinctive rotating secion in the middle which at the time was Earth's only means to generate artificial gravity. This is probably one of my favourite ships, both in the series and the game.


Here we have the Hyperion-class Heavy Cruiser, which was the mainstay of the Earth Alliance fleet before the Earth-Minbari War. Like the Omega, it uses both pulse and laser cannons, but less of each, isn't as well armoured, and cannot generate artificial gravity for the crew. However, it is more maneuverable.


Finally, we have the Starfury, the main fighter used by Earth. These craft are highly maneuverable, and have the edge when dogfighting all but the most high-tech of ships.
These are normally supplied six to a base, but I ordered some custom bases which fit three, meaning I only need to buy half as many (or I get twice as much, depending on how you want to look at it). For an idea of scale, the black base is a 1" square.


So that's a quick taste of how it looks. The centerpiece of my collection is Babylon 5 itself - I managed to find an old model kit of it on ebay. I'll save that for my next post, in which I will also give a battle report in order to introduce how the game works (I've always thought it was the best way to show and explain a game to those who haven't played).


The game has had a few ups and downs, with the biggest down of all almost upon us - support is being pulled in June. The license will expire and Mongoose Publishing have no plans to renew. This means the miniatures will also no longer be produced, and as such I'm pulling out all the stops to grab what I can. I want to have a decent fleet for each of the ones seen in the series: Earth, Minbari, Narn, Centauri, Vorlons, Shadows, League of Non-Aligned Worlds (primarily Drazi, Brakiri and Vree), ISA and Drakh, with a few Raiders, Civilains and the First Ones. A lot of the ships in the game have been made up to flesh out the fleets a little, but I want the bulk of each to be made up of official ships. I'll also be scratchbuilding/kitbashing space stations for each race (except Earth, who have one in miniature already), as well as the Vorlon and Shadow Planetkillers. The ultimate aim is to be able to run club campaigns using the rules provided in the book, with all these races available to the players, and to be able to play all of the "historical" scenarios based on events from the series.


If any of you know anyone who is selling off Babylon 5: A Call To Arms minis, please let me know as I'll be glad to make a deal with them, especially if they're in the UK.

At present, I'm actually stripping the White Star in order to give it an improved paintjob, brightening it up a bit and adding a green tint to be more faithful to the on-screen version. After that, I'll attend to my Earth fleet, and order some more bases to get all my fighters done as well.


I hope you've enjoyed this little look at something different, and stay tuned for next week's introduction to the game mechanics with a battle report (probably Saturday).

1500pts Salamanders: Complete!

Hi folks!

At long last, I have reached the lofty goal of a fully painted 1500pt Salamanders army. It's taken longer than I'd expected but boy, has it been worthwhile.

The weather held just long enough for me to get my varnishing done, and has now returned to the usual wind and rain you'd expect from a Scottish springtime (or indeed any time).

So here is the last unit to be painted for the army, the Terminator Assault Squad:


In the end, I decided to keep their cloaks simple, and not extend them out further as with He'Stan's. As with the vehicles, the Forge World accessories made life so much easier. No fiddly decals to worry about, and plenty of detail to bring the mini to life. I suspect I'll be visiting Forge World again when I expand my Sallies in the future.

And of course, I had to set out the full army to see how it all looks together:


I can't wait to take them to the table on Sunday. I'll try to remember to bring my camera along to make a battle report or two.

With the Salamanders now done (well, almost... I've one last special treat in store for them for now...), I'll be moving on to my Steel Legion next. With a bit of luck, I'll have made a start to a second platoon by this time next week. I also have quite a lot of terrain to make, both for an upcoming Urban War tournament at the end of May that I'll be running (~20 participants, give or take), and a 40k map-based campaign I've been planning and putting together for a few months. I think I will end up donating most of the terrain to my club, partly because I don't have the room to store it, and partly because that's where I play most of my games anyway.

So that's the agenda for the next few weeks, and you can expect to see it posted here as always. With the easter holidays starting at the end of next week, I should have much more free time to spend on the hobby, so hopefully I'll get more posts in as well. As always, I'd love to hear from you all.

Other Projects

Hi folks!

I was thinking about how little I post here compared to some other bloggers, and I concluded that it's down to one thing. This is a pretty focused blog. Heroes of Armageddon is one project of many, and since I'm a fairly slow worker, that means updates just sort of trickle in.

I want to post more. I'd love to be able to do the likes of editorials, tacticas and such, but I haven't really used my armies enough to consider myself an expert by any means, nor do I get enough games in (only a couple every fortnight). Battle reports will help now that I feel like I can show off a whole army (and figured out how to stop my camera making silly noises whenever I use it), but I want more.

I thought what I'd do was have a weekly slot where I post a little bit about what other projects I'm working on as well. Initially I had set up another blog to do that but updates aren't really frequent enough to maintain it. So what I think I'll do is "merge" it into this one, and post once a week on other stuff. It could be about other games I play (such as Urban War and Babylon 5) and any associated armies, battles and campaigns, or stuff that's going on outside the hobby if I run out of gaming things to blog about.

I'd love to hear what you all think of the idea, it's you that's going to be reading it after all. I'll post up a non-project item this week as well to see how it goes.

On the topic of progress so far, the Terminators should be based tonight, and varnished tomorrow if the weather is suitable for spraying. I'm also finishing off a platoon of Steel Legion I started last year, with only the command squad to finish painting.

Weekly Update #5

Hi folks!

Again we see that this hasn't really been a series of "weekly" updates but I'll try to get them back on track. At least I've managed to keep blogging at a rate of slightly over once a week, so that's something.

This week has been a bit of a quiet one up until the weekend. It's the run up to the Easter holidays, after which my University courseworks have to be handed in, and I'd rather not have to work over the holidays. To that end, I've been putting in the hours and ended up rather exhausted come home-time.

But this weekend I've spent a lot of time painting. Here's what I have to show for it so far:


In fact, since taking that picture I'm about 75% done with the fourth. I'll probably finish him tonight, and try to get home earlier tomorrow afternoon to finish the sergeant, otherwise he probably wouldn't get done until next weekend. Basing and varnishing (assuming the weather co-operates for that) never takes too long, so I'm confident of a mid-week finish on these guys, and thus my 1500pt army. Assuming that gets done, I think I'll put together a battle report to celebrate having them fully painted (or maybe two reports, depending on how many games I get). I've only ever fully painted one army before, and I sold that off quite some time ago. I've still got the ebay photos, so I'll post them up later this week.

So where will I be going after that? Well with the new Imperial Guard codex looming on the horizon, I want to make a headstart on my Steel Legion. You might not think it if you just started following my blog this year, but I do in fact consider them my main army, and the "core" of this blog. Last year I found a method of painting them that gave the right look and let me churn out a squad a week - which is fast for me! So that's what's next on my agenda, getting a solid base of Steel Legion infantry, and maybe some tanks, so I can start putting a painted army on the table when the new codex hits. It also lets me get stuck right in to buying and painting some of the new toys that will be arriving with it, instead of having to wait until my core force is done.

I'm also planning an Apocalypse game for the end of April, to see out the old codex. I want to have a sort of "Bunker Assault" mission, and since I've been preparing some IG-themed bunkers for a map-based campaign I'm also planning for later this year, it will be a good excuse to get them done too. I might be able to convince my opponents to combine all our Tyranid forces for a proper themed fight, rather than Imperium vs everyone else. We'll see...

For now, I'll get back to painting those Terminators...

Final stretch...

Hi folks!

A little later than promised, but here are shots of my finished Dreadnought and Devastator Squad:






I took some extra time to try out my new varnishing regime on them. Two coats of gloss for protection then a layer of dullcote to kill the shine. I'm really pleased with the finish, and it should stand up to regular use.

With them done, I have 1000pts fully painted:


It's coming together quite nicely. And because I kind of jumped the gun and did the Redeemer early, I only have 5 Terminators to paint to reach 1500pts. Not bad at all. Should have them done within a couple of weeks, I reckon. Along with the special surprise unit. :)

So it's back to the painting table for me!

Some Minor Technical Difficulties...

Hi folks!

As you may have guessed, the title refers to the family computer, which has finally decided it can no longer go on with life. We're still trying to find out what's wrong with it. Luckily, we have everything backed up. I'm currently on my brother's computer, and it looks like I'll have to transfer all my stuff onto here for the next few days, or possibly weeks.

On the other hand, it's one less distraction from my army, which has already had results this week. I've finished both my Devastators and my Dreadnought, so all that leaves is the Terminators. It's too windy today to get my varnishing done, so if it hasn't died down by tomorrow I guess I'll just have to photograph them as they are... but I'd rather show them off as I want them to look.

The Terminators are getting a little extra treatment. Originally I was just going to leave them as-is, with FW shoulder pads to spruce them up a bit. But I've decided to go all-out and convert them with salamander cloaks. It'll take a while but I think it will be worth it.

Finally, once they reach 1500pts I'll be making one last special centerpiece unit. I'm keeping it a surprise for the moment but I think you'll all like it. I know I do already. ;) I've gathered most of the bits I need and made a headstart already - there's a lot of work to be done.

Thanks to everyone who chimed in last week when I suffered painter's block, it seems all the suggestions have well and truly demolished it. Kinda like how my Sallies demolished my brother's Necrons last night. I have the 1500pts assembled so I took them for a test run. We rolled Dawn of War deployment, Annihilation mission. I ended up losing my Terminators, but not before they crippled and drove off a 20-bot Necron squad with an attached Lord (with a pesky Res Orb). With that out of the way, the rest of the army managed to wear down the enemy and phase them out, with only 5 further brother marines lost. I've got another game coming up in 2 weeks, so my aim is to complete the Terminators by then so I can take some pictures of the game. My bro's stuff is fully-painted, so it should be a good sight.

Expect another post tomorrow with pictures of my week's work and a 1000pt army shot. Until then, take care. :)

Conversion Tutorial: Sculpting Scales

Hi folks!

After sharing the Vulkan He'stan conversion, I've had a few questions about how to sculpt scales. I touched on it briefly during the conversion tutorial for He'stan, and I'll expand on that with this tutorial.

All you need for this is green stuff, the surface you want to cover in scales, and a sculpting tool. I prefer to use one with this head:


Please note that I will be deliberately sculpting the scales larger than I normally do for this tutorial, so that you can see the procedure more clearly. I will also be sculpting them onto a 40mm base.

Right, let's get started. Mix your blob green stuff and spread it over the area you want to put the scales on. You should apply it with a thickness of about 1-2mm.
Tip: Remember to discard the thin strip of blue and yellow parts where they were in contact with each other in the packaging. Sometimes parts of it can set along this contact line, leaving you with little hardened chunks in the green stuff.


Next, use the sculpting tool to press a small, straight line in the green stuff, like so:



From the end of this line, sculpt another at an angle, and from the end of that, another...



...until you have the first scale. Tidy up the edges if need be.


Press in some more lines coming from that scale...



...to make more. Again, tidy these up, and keep building the scales off each other until you have filled the desired area.


Remember, it's a good idea to vary the size and shape of the scales to avoid making a regular pattern. Unless your army has a bee-ish theme. ;)

Leave it to dry overnight and then it's ready to paint!

Slump.

Hi folks!

Sorry for the lack of updates lately, I've been feeling a little uninspired towards 40k these past couple of weeks. An overdose of Urban War didn't help matters much. Speaking of which, I wrote up a report of my day out to the Urbanisation tournament (complete with pictures) here.

I have done a little bit of work though. Here's how the Devastators are looking:


Their three buddies are currently still in the "primed" stage. I really want to try and finish off my army either this month or, at the very most, next month, depending on how much else I have to do besides them. I've got an Urban War tourney to host at the end of May, which means kicking up terrain production into high gear, as the club's collection is a little small.

So how do you guys get over your "painter's block?" Those days when you just can't move yourself to pick up the brush, or at least find some other project that little bit more appealing. I'm thinking I need a good ol' game of 40k with my Sallies to get me back in the mood, since I haven't played in a month or two.