Flying Time

 So they say time flies when you are having fun.  Well it also seems to fly when you are busy 'making it work' too.

So its been nearly a year, what the heck.  I did a couple post before along the lines of 'its been a busy year', well it has, but its been a lot of work too.  I work in a publically traded Biotech company so I can't discuss, but it HAS been a year...

But anyway, toy soldiers are more fun.  The East Coast GZG Con came and went, way too short, way too fast.  As always it was great to see folks and to play with some toys.  Mini-Me came again this year.

Mini-Me playing Full Thrust, see those asteroids, I didn't and flew one of my ships into one.  Bummer.

Mini-Me got the bug bad and used HIS OWN MONEY! to buy some ships.  We've been busy assembling them and he wants to paint them.

I ran a Stargrunt VOTOMS game, the players liked it and it was pretty, but...  ...I thinks its us getitng older and hankering for simpler rules but folks just are less into complex combined arms games.  I think the future is more character and story driven games.

Anyway, the goal of the attackers was to break into this lab and download the data on two new VOTOMS (Fatty-types).  For them I used model from the Heavy Gear Line (DP9).

X-COM is still ongoing (in 20mm)

An Advent antenna ready to blow up

6mm Hover van scaled up (in FDM), I added the skirt armour)

A couple 6mm hover jeeps scaled up, I added the fabric cover

Mecha.  OK, the crazy Dread is for my 20mm Orks, its too wacky to not have one.  The other felt so very Traveller 2300ad-ish in style I just had to.  Forgot to take a pic of my 20mm(ish) Scopedog to compare size

The lighting is not ideal but if you peer close you can see a pilot in there.

Orkses! (these days I think I'm supposed to shout Whaaah?).  Who cares my 20mm set is all oldhammer.

20mm combat bots, scaled up ones from Wardaddy.  Chunky, realistic with ballisctic fatigue covers.  Love em!

Skyranger!  Panthera Warforge Aircrew

The OG skyranger, and why not.  Had.To.Be.Done.

Hopefully its not going to be another year.

XCOM is back!

After playing XCOM2 a bunch recently I decided to revisit this as a wargame set.  Last time I tried it in 15mm, now I have a 3d printer I went for my favourite skirmish scale, 20mm.

Here's a taste of some of the figs I'm working on, ideally I'll cover terrain later.

XCOM team.  Reference figs: grey is 1/72 Revell US ground crew, green jumpsuit is 20mm Elheim Planner/Survivor

XCOM team is from Panthera Warforge.  They are originally scaled at 8mm.  My printer is an Elegoo Saturn 2, using water washable Elegoo resin.  My scaling for these to 20mm is x:325, y:325, z:350.  They are a bit chunky, but deliberately so that the small/thin bits don't become too fragile.

Skyranger inbound, XCOM team ready for pick up

Advent, from the blue site, these are pulled from the game.  They are lower on details.  Scaled to match the XCOM troops.  same ref figs

Advent on patrol.  This droid isn't in the game but it was too cool to pass up.

Advent reinforcements called

XCOM secure Advent resources

XCOM with heavy body armour

XCOM heavies with ref figs.  These are from the purple site, they are called Talon troops, I think they are from some video game.  The drone in previous pic is from the blue site, a random find

VOTOMS, I made this from the original file I used to make the VOTOMs game.  Its native scale is about 25mm.  Its been sat on my desk, I thought I'd paint it to use as a XCOM mech.

 Cool scuttlers found on the blue site.  The STL is terrible, the legs fall off when printed.  All bases are grey, urban themed fitting the predominantly urban nature of the XCOM games.

A year... ...in a post

 Wow, we have been busy.  Just not busy posting. so here's a minimal text update (its looong...)

Starting with gaming

Mini-Me and homies have taken up DnD

GZG ECC was Star Wars, these are all 18mm 3d prints (Wakesemporium)

Sith, Ventress is a mild convert

Jedi

Clones

more clones, a convert Jedi on ATRT

Command Droids, including a command head so we can play the Lego Star wars mission capture the head mission (the boys asked for this one immediately when they saw the command droids)

STAPs

B1s

B2s

mini-spiders

Droideka

Vehicles a mix of Revell kits, Micromachines and opportunistic shopping at Target

We did a LOT of scouting stuff

Camping, mini-me discovered the axe

and really likes it.

More Scouting, we took another crew up to Maine High Adventure Base

There is no road, you enter/exit via a boat

The crew decided to paddle the upper Allagash wilderness waterway (from Churchill dam to the top)

Some of this (Allagash falls)

And much of this, pristine weather and awesome days of adventure.  It was a great trip (both mini-Mes went)

One of my favourite pics, Mini-Me Minor poling on our final stretch up the Allagash.

And a bonus, Mini-Me Major and I paddled the lower Allagash a couple of years ago.  This trip meant that we have now completed the whole length of the Allagash.  We were quite pleased with ourselves...

Other trips/stuff we did

Mardi Gras was great as usual (Mrs OA is from Nola, so it a combo Mardi Gras and family trip)

Skiing the frigid NE area

New MTB toy

New Commuter toy (I do about 100mi per week commuting)

Trip back to England, visit Grandma and some cool spots

A bit of a country garden

Mini-Me Major is thinking of college, this is Manchester

and of course it rains.

And back to gaming, this was a banner year

Mini-Me Minor got his grades up and came with me to play soldiers at the GZG ECC !  

Woot!, stick a fork in me I'm done.