15mm Scopedog and a Standing Turtle

"How big are my VOTOMs?" Ashely asked, Blooger's not letting me reply, so here's a post instead with pics

My GoogleFu tells me the Scopedogs should be around 3m tall. Although when I watch VOTOMs that seems a little variable in the animation, but no biggie, I'm sticking with it,  so they are approx 32mm to the top of the dome.

By way of comparison, here's a GZG NAC (newer sculpt), standing next to a Scopedog.  The AT is approx 2x man height so it looks sort of the right scale to me.  PS, both 'dog and NAC are in the paintshop...

The Scopedogs were sourced from Cults, here: https://cults3d.com/en/3d-model/game/scopedog-mecha-miniatures-bundle

The backpack came from another file, here: https://cults3d.com/en/3d-model/art/3-robots-3d-printable-40mm-dextraguy

Both are originally scaled larger, 75mm and 40mm.  Scale reduction hasn't been too bad.

The first file is multipart, this is the file I used, the second is in two parts and the proportions for the two don't match, so I have not used the AT from this file.

I did use the Standing Turtle from this file, it is also in two parts, unfortunate legs-akimbo posing means it will produce less pose variety.

Turtle with HUGE missile gun.  Fortunately, its easily snipped off for replacement.  This sculpt is a real pain to print.  The plates are all hung off the 'body' and there is way too much fine detail for a small fig so there are a bajillion supports to remove.  Oh well, three down, 27 more to go...

VOTOMS, 15mm Scopedogs

 GZG ECC Scopedog build done

All so far...

Support weapons

Heavy Assault (heavy mass drivers)

Assault ATs

General purpose ATs

Alternative weapon ATs (command/security for support etc)

Specialist support ATs, ADA and light artillery

and again showing recoil support

All ready for priming!

All ATs were build from a couple of STLs, fortunately they were split up enough to make a bit of pose variety.  Almost all add-ons (everything in dark plastic) were spares left over from from the Heavy Gear Kickstarter. The only exception was the metal rotary cannon on the ADA AT, no idea where that's from other than the spares box.

Next, the other side, some Standing Turtles.  Fatties would have been better, but I couldn't find a file for them.

Etsy, oh you Temptress

What's wrong with Etsy?  Absolutely nothing if you like an empty wallet and to have drool over your computer screen.  But for those of us on a hobby budget and a shared home computer, its a challenge.  Back in early summer I saw some cool new terrain items so started adding to my cart, went to the summary and realized it was over $600, way too much for a one off set of terrain.  

Due to the costs on Etsy, I got curious and looked at FDM printers and it turned out they were on sale, a huge sale!  Elegoo were clearing '23 models to make way for new kit.  I got a printer and a ton of PLA plus the same STL files I was looking at on Etsy for a fraction of the price of that fancy new terrain on Etsy.

So now I'm in the make-my-own-toys biz, or at least I thought I was. 

 The FDM printer was a breeze to set up and get going.  Too easy perhaps?

A couple of early attempts, the building is a commercial STL, prints flawlessly, the VTOL is a freebie.  And the lesson learned, you absolutely get what you pay for...  And next, a stated scale in an STL seems to be completely arbitrary.  I've seem 6mm figs which are 10mm , 28/32 mm figs 40mm and more.  There is a lot of tinkering to work out if the print is the 'right' scale.

So, the FDM is great for big things but less great for small ones, Mini-Me Minor wanted to make some figs for his DnD campaign.  So we did, they are OK, at least when ~30mm-is size, but drop them to 15-20mm and they just don't work.  Turns out scaling 30mm down detail is too fine and gets lost, we have had more success scaling up 6mm figs for him.  But there is less choice.

On the other hand, there are lots of things I would like to make.  So it was back off to check out those sales, and here's where I ended up with a shiny new 8k resolution resin printer.  The learning curve with this is steep, but manageable.  I'm now getting there and planning to really use it.  How you ask? 

Well the next GZG ECC planning time is now, this is what I'm thinking of (some test prints)

These are 15mm Scopedogs from VOTOMS.  I'm thinking a VOTOMs like mass mecha battle could be a fun Cinegrunt game.

I now only need a to crank out whole bunch more for the next GZG ECC!

Its ovah! The GZG con that was

 GZG ECC XXV, been there, done that, had a LOT of fun (as usual).  Wow, 25 years of playing soldiers at this con, what a great bunch of folks it has been over the years...

Some pics, few words

Test layout of my game

Busy evac-ing supplies

Load 'em up

GZG ECC Con time...

Friday night Ken got stuck in traffic so I pulled out my Gundam's to play a scratch game

In summary: PEW! PEW!, SWOOSH! BANG! (and repeat)

 

These are DP9's Jovin chronicles figs (more on these later)

Lots of shooting at giant robots in space silliness ended with a duel between the leaders, plasma sword vs plasma axe.

Meanwhile Ken arrived, so I used the gap to set up for Saturday

Dropship down, marines debus

SAturday I played Mark Kinsay's Ghost in the Shell games (two episodes), this was the set for the second

Some nice figs and toys

The set for game 1, it was lovely

We played Section 9.  I've been watching it on Netflix with Mini-Me Minor, so I knew who I wanted, Togusa, the other players were kind enough to let me play him

The scene was a Yakusa bust where we had to hack the cyber brain of the boss, it started with Togusaa and Batu tailing the yakusa (in the red car) then the yakusa crash into the bus and leap out guns blazing.  What saved us was Scott racing in the yellow car and mowing down Yakusa flunkies allowing Batu time to hack the (by then) dying Boss' cyberbrain, then it was off to scene two.  A fun (but long) game, just as well I had already set up!

Its quiet...

...Too quiet

Stay...

...frosty Marines!

Bugs!

Dakka Dakka! Splat

Ewww, splat! Splat, sizzle... ...dead

More Dakka

Rescue!

Oh Noes, crash.  the dropship was swarmed by Xenos, so we rolled a completely random path fro the dropship to crash and it managed to crash right into the tower, no really, it was random

Chomp!

Nuclear reactor shut down effected, you now have 50mins to reach minimum safe distance  

(yup PO'd marines shot plasma cannons at a nuclear reactor... ...I guess, it is one way to shut it down)

As it was near the end of the game we did the countdown in real time

The W-Y guy decided it was game over, so did the young queen.  They both rushed to the only working evac ship on the table

Whooosh and away! 

(with 5 mins to reach minimum safe distance remaining)

Saturday night I played my annual FT game and Sunday I played a Two Fat Lardies tank game.  I played some fun games, players in my games seemed to have fun, a lot of banter with some great folks, so in all, an excellent weekend was had.

Oh and this happened.  I think this is the first time I've entered the Full Thrust category in the Painting Competition.  I put in a unit of Joviam Pathfinders from my Gundam game, and I won!  

I won this handy dandy miniature trophy, some custom GZG ECC dice and a fleet of ships.  Many thanks for the prizes, they are super.

And then 6hrs drive home to start thinking about games for GZG ECC XXVI...

Is it even a miniature?

This the biggest thing I've painted to date.  Its an old Mechwarrior dropship. Mini-Me-Minor loves it, all the door hinges are shot as he plays with it a lot.  We've used it to haul frieght, mechs, troops, jeeps and more.  Its been a great add to the collection.

Anyhoo, I didn't really like the MW paint scheme, I wanted to use it as a generic freighter, so here's a quick repaint.  It will next see action in my GZG ECC Aliens game.

I took all the guns off the turrets

And its now in Weyland-Yutani service.

Mini-Me-Minor's game

 While I was varnishing figs Mini-Me-Minor was hard at it wargaming

Multiple bases, a supply dump and airmobile troops

The Mech/VTOL hangar was busy too (this one is in the paint queue)