Saturday, December 29, 2018

Houston we have a problem...

I like playing soldiers with the kids but Mini-Me Minor can be a little 'accident-prone'.  The problem is he loves playing with my Aliens drop-ships from Galoob (who doesn't!).  Anyhoo, as these are about as rare as hen's teeth and twice as expensive I've had a search running on Ebay for a while for an inexpensive one for him to play with.

The search got a hit not long ago, I managed to be the only bidder on an inexpensive one in great "played with" condition.  Mini-Me Minor was overjoyed.


While looking at the results of the search one day I saw a new manufacturer of drop-ships.  The blurb and pics looked promising so I went ahead and bought one (OK, I bought two, I do need to drop a platoon at a time after all)

The manufacturer is EagleMoss Collectibles:

I'd never heard of these before, turns out they are into making movie-based collectible figures.  Enough preamble, onto the dropship!

The EagleMoss (EM) ship is slightly larger than the Galoob one.  The EM one is also better scaled than the Galoob toy.
The toy has overly large joints and cockpit and is kind of squashed in length.  It is clearly built to withstand play.  Despite this, this has been the go-to standard for many years, its painted and decalled well and fits reasonably well for a 15mm dropship. Unlike Galoob, EM modeled their ship in a static manner, the wings, rocket pods and landing struts do not fold.  It is also painted in a brighter green than it should be.  Regardless, its painted well, with weathering and extensive decals.  Befitting its nature as a model, detail and scaling is far superior to the Galoob toy.

 On a one-inch grid its clear this is a big model

 Painting and decals are neat and well done
 Even though its modeled in 'open' configuration that should be no problem for gaming purposes

 Top decals

 3/4 aspect
 But is it big enough for an APC?  This is Konami M577 under it (its the same size as the FATC resin ones)
 From the front its a close fit, but a clear fit

There is enough clearance for the APC to deploy

From the top, the APC is just a bit too big, so its not 1:100, but its close enough for wargaming!

 The EM dropship comes with a short flight stand and base

 Its way larger then the NECA ships.  3/4 aspect

 EM vs NECA front

 but its still tiny compared to a 1:100 Halo Pelican (Revell)


Here's the rub.  EM are into collectibles, so it looks like this is a limited run kit with, as this certificate shows, a run of 3000.  As this looks like its a worldwide limit then these will end up harder to find than the old Galoob ones.  

If you have a 15mm Colonial Marine army I think these EM dropships make an excellent add-on, but given the limited run it may be worth checking them out sooner than later.





Painting Progress and revisiting an old favourite

Been doing some painting this Christmas vacation.  Here's some odds and ends...


Hellboy from Khurasan

 A 20mm Spartan from a kids toy set (some kind of fake lego)

 A mobile vending machine from the Ion Age monthly collection

 A couple of slacker Zombie hunters (Khurasan?)

A character figure in case the Mrs OA ever games with us

A kitbash Jedi and robot sidekick for Mini-Me Minor (figure, no idea, robot is Ion Age I think).

Weird brain alien (Bombshell minis I think)

Mini-Me Major recently got into reading my old 2000AD and Judge Dredd comics and graphic novels.  He's got into it enough to want to play soem games with my old figs so I dug them out and finished off a couple fo them and rounded out the stuff I had.

Street Judges, black uniforms at the back, then kind of like the comic, I then switched to a blue uniform.  The white helmet is a Rookie, the no-helmet can act as a psi-Judge.  Figs are old TableTop Miniatures (now 15mm.co.uk).

 Same group, because, Judges.

 Judges and Lawmasters, mounted and dismounted (more TableTop)

Holding Posts, midly modified Old Crow gun barrel variants

Justice Department vid-phone, no idea where its from

 This is a 28mm model cut down to use in 15mm, Judge for scale

 Justice Department hover patrol car, with Judge for scale (Darkest Star Miniatures I think)

 Patrol car in flight

H-Wagon with Judge for scale.  Made by TableTop many years ago, I picked it up at a wargame show over 20 years ago.  I've no idea if this even made it to TableTops catalogue, I've never seen or heard of another...

It is modeled off a Manta Prowl Tank, but its way too small for that so I use it as a H-wagon.  Even as a small H-wagon its pretty cool and fun to have to back-up the Judges

Friday, December 28, 2018

Now for something VERY different

While sitting with a beer one night I had a bit of inspiration: "hey, perhaps we could play a Christmas wargame"

I went out and looked for figures.  Turns out the Ion age/Alternative Armies folks have a bunch. So I bought their painted HOTT figures and some for me to paint.  I also found some RAFM familiars which would work.

So we have:  The forces of Nice

Massively-armoured Santa, Chrimbot, Jughead the not-so-jolly-old-elf, The Tooth Fairy and Rudolf the Red-nosed Robotic Reindeer

Armoured Elves

Robotic Reindeer.

And for the Naughty Force

 Psychotic Snowmen and Irate Gingerbread

Unwrapped Presents and Killer Trees

Gingy, leader of the Gingerbread (he's so irate he ripped his own head off), Some Halloween techno-Witches and overall leader of Naughty, Jack Frost

Heavy muscle provided by two Yetis

Yet to be painted, Halloween forces to add to the Naughty list (not pictured some ghosts)

And as we have Ghosts and Halloween things for the Naughty, for Nice we answer with "Who You Gonna Call?"

Why, the Ghostbusters of course!


For terrain I went off an bought some cheap Christmas decorations, which turned out to be ideal

Some pre-snow sprayed trees and a Xmas tree ornament, plus from the bits box an orb thingy that is going to serve as a marker for Xmas magic/spirit of Xmas.

And finally, some house ornaments that are ideal for an Elves village
Ok, its silly, but the kids and even Mrs OA have had a few games now and they have been fun and it has been a fun mini-project to build.



Monday, December 24, 2018

The forgetful war gamer

A while a go I played a game of ambush alley, I forgot to save the pics and upload them.  Colonial Marines have to clear out a slum full of angry Crusties.  Essentially, it is the mission 'Sweep and Clear' using Ambush Alley rules.

Even though I'm forgetful, it was just as well I took lots of pics.  So, here they are with few words...






























































































The Marines won, but they took a bit of a beating.  Without the APCs they probably would not have won.  Anyhoo, a it was a fun Tuesday night game.

Next, onto to something different... ...very different indeed