Deadzone Birthday Bash

T'Other One is celebrating ' a significant birthday' and suggested a four player game of Deadzone to celebrate. Since we had a six player game of Kings of War for his Stag Do, this seemed a fairly normal request. 

He set up his magnificent terrain in advance, and had even pre selected four strike teams of about 130 points each.  I had Forge Fathers and Grim had Enforcers, working together as 'Team Uninfected', while T'Other One and Andy had two Plague teams.

The Battlefield from the Plague end

and from Team Uninfected's end

We played one of the scenarios from a second edition supplement, where a 4 by 4 central area contained high value Victory Point assets.  This was my first go at the new third edition.  There aren't many changes, it seems to be more of a tidy up of the rules.  One change is the new line of sight rules.  Rather than the previous editions LoS rule of simply needing to see any part of a model, the rule is now that a model is considered to occupy a cylinder the size of its base and extending up to about head level.  This sounds complex, but we found it very easy to apply in play, and it was relevant on several occasions. 

The Plague led the early part of the game, quickly gaining victory points for possessing smaller assets outside the central area.  Their faster move gave them the edge.  Team uninfected decided to make the most of their superior shooting, and moved to higher ground, hoping to dominate the battlefield from above.

The Plague advance towards the central objectives

Team Uninfected's shooting began to take a toll on the Plague forces, despite this they held the central area.  The Plague were now gaining Victory Points from objectives, while Team uninfected were mostly getting theirs from taking out the Plague.

End Game - The Plague attempt to hold on to objectives while Team Uninfected try to knock them off.

At the end Team Uninfected had the required 28 Victory Points, while the Plague had 26 (I think), so a narrow victory to Team uninfected.

Some highlights of the game included my missile Launcher armed Steel Warrior taking out a rampaging Murderbird with an amazingly accurate shot and the plucky Assault Enforcer holding up the Plague Burster on one of the 4VP assets, preventing the Plague gaining those important points in the last turn.

MVP was probably the Stage 2 who took everything Team Uninfected could throw at it and shrugged it off (helped by the Tough mutation for that round).  It weathered a huge amount of fire in the last turn, but kept hold of the 2VP asset, wounded, but alive.  We named it 'Floyd' as it was sort of pink, and carried a piece of wall around on its base.

Bloody, but unbowed

Great fun, and it reminded me of why I like Deadzone.  Perhaps I need to look at what I have and rationalise my collection?  Some more up to date Strike Teams painted ready for action would be good.

Orctober(ish) - Ripper Suits Finished

At last, I've finished the two Ripper Suits.  I started them here, and you can see some progress here, but then I got bogged down with the edge highlighting and with deciding what to paint detail wise.  It was a compromise between lots of spot colour with the various pipes, dials, buttons etc, and a sensible military approach having no bright colours to stand out on the battlefield.  I couldn't resist some glowing power panels though, on the backpacks and on the ranged weapons.

The two Ripper Suits; impressive war machines

There are a few things I'll do differently next time I paint Ripper Suits, and I have several more, so I suppose I will be revisiting them.  I'll try and build the next pair as differently as possible, and I'll definitely go for the option to have the Ram not extended.  I failed to notice that the extended ram is at an angle.  I'll also investigate reposing the minis, the arms wide pose isn't my favourite.  I have a mental image of the Rainmaker posed on one leg, leaning backwards, with both weapons out forwards.  I don't think that's possible, but I'd like to try. 
I may also try contrast paints on the bulk of the suits to see if I can avoid all that edge highlighting, T'Other One has had some good results using contrast paints on his Deadzone minis.  

The Mauler

The Rainmaker

At this point I usually say how much I enjoyed painting them, well this time, although I didn't hate them, I didn't love them either.  Nothing to do with the material, more to do with certain paint choices I made.

Still, I'm pleased with the end result and I'm looking forward to getting a game in with them, I just need to paint up some more Marauders to go with them.

Orctober - Mantic Marauder Ripper Suits Progress

With my Ripper Suits assembled and primed its on to painting.  I've done my research and watched a good number of YouTube videos and there are lots of ways I could approach the Ripper Suits.

I'm particularly taken with Sonic Sledgehammer's Grizzly Suit. The result is subtle, but looks very different to a Space Marine or similar, and I want to avoid that. I've based my painting on this, though with my own palette, and lots more fiddly details.

When it comes to colours, I wanted to avoid the 40K orc black or red with checks look; Marauders are much more militarily sophisticated, though they are happy to trade on the 'dumb brute' stereotype.  I didn't want an 'army green', with green skins there isn't much contrast.  I'm also avoiding grey, I might look at that sort of colour for my GCPS.  My previous Marauders (here) were a sort of vague Afrika Corps colour scheme (or any modernish desert unit), which looked good with the green flesh, so I went for a yellow/brown palette, conveniently close to the German Green Brown primer; you'd almost think I planned this.

The Vallejo Surface Primer was given a wash of Army Painter Strong Tone. Already I liked the results.

 

Primed and washed Ripper Suits

Once everything was dry I used Sonic Sledgehammer's foam stippling technique with Vallejo Extra Opaque Heavy Khaki. It gives a good effect, though I think I need to practice a bit to reach his levels of quality. I highlighted with a mix of the VEO Khaki and Vallejo Game Color Khaki with a final highlight of straight Khaki. 

I then went on to the details. Orc skin in two different shades of green, gunmetal for most of the metal pieces and VEO Heavy Charcoal for the pipes and tubes. 

There are a lot of little details on the models, pipes, straps etc, and there's a temptation to add a lot of colour here.  However, these are military combat suits built for effective use; none of this 'red to go faster'.  Real life military rarely go for lots of brightly coloured equipment, that said, a little bit of spot colour will lift the mini and give interest to the eye.

So the final stage will be to add some detailing, but not lots.  Family stuff has taken up a lot of October (plus the opportunity to have a day playing the music of Josquin de Prez), so I'll be finishing these in November.  After that, maybe I'll get the rest of a Marauder Striek Force done, as I now have Deadzone 3, and these Ripper Suits need some friends.

I also got to go to FIASCO today, Leeds Wargames Club's annual show.  It's been a while since I've been to this show, but it looks like the only one I'll get to this year, and the first one since Recon 2019.

I didn't get much, some cheap brushes and a couple of Reaper Bones minis, but it was great to get to a show again and meet T'Other One and Bodvoc, along with his SAD Wargamers (Settle and District).  Bodvoc has done a better write up of the show (with pictures!), I struggled with the dim lighting that the show is cursed with, so didn't do much more than just gaze in wonder.  One participation game that stood out for me was a Mandalorian themed skirmish.  The 3D printed minis were excellently done, and made me think I need to investigate this more for both my 28mm and 20 mm Star Wars games.

Orctober - Mantic Marauders Ripper Suits

Whilst the varnish on the 10mm Mordor orcs was drying, I started my next Orctober project, something for Deadzone.

I have quite a few* of Mantic's Deadzone/Warpath Marauders (or orx as they were briefly known).  I painted up the infantry a while ago but these were gifted to a gaming buddy to encourage him to start his own Deazone team.  I recently started rebuilding and painting the old restic infantry, but I wanted to add more variety to the team; the restic models aren't great for this.  When I heard about the forthcoming hard plastic Marauders I decided to hang fire to see how well components from those work on the restic infantry.  Once I get the chance to try, I'll let you know.  

I've never build any of the Ripper Suits though, and these are impressive bits of kit.  Building the two versions seemed like a good Orctober project, so here we go (NB: NOT 'Ere We Go).

I'm not a fan of working with restic.  There are techniques to learn and it cleans up differently from metal, resin or hard plastic.  Still, once cleaned up the models build up fairly easily once you work out what goes where.  The rotary cannon must fit on a left arm, but otherwise there is a lot of freedom with the components.  Some of the joints need a bit of help; drilling out the sockets on the arms is a must, but go carefully otherwise you'll have to fill with greenstuff.  I speak from experience.

Here they both are, built and undercoated with Vallejo German Green Brown Surface Primer.  I've left the heads off for now to make it easier to paint the suits.  They'll get painted separately and glued in place once everything's finished.

Note heads on sticks

I'll get some paint on them once the primer has cured.  Given the amount of armour on them I might approach them rather like Space Marines, or should I treat them more like vehicles?  I think I need to do some research.

*Or lots and lots, depending on your viewpoint.  I prefer to think of them as being the perfect amount.

More Star Saga Minions

Here are the last of the Star Saga Minions.

Corporation Rangers

I used effectively the same scheme and technique as the Marines, but I added some camouflage to the fabric of the trousers and the hard armour. I'm not convinced it's worked that well, but it does differentiate them from the ordinary Marines.

For the fuel tank on the back of one of them I applied a glaze over the base colours which, I think, gives a nice effect, though it doesn't show up very well on the photo.

Plague Victims

My Deadzone minis are currently unavailable, so I painted these up without reference to the Plague faction I painted a while ago (I since remembered I had pictures here on the blog, d'oh). The flesh was a base coat of Vallejo Game Colour Rotting Flesh with highlights made by mixing VGC Livery Green to Rotting Flesh. I felt it lacked depth so gave it a wash of very watered down VGC Heavy Khaki, then reset the highlights. The bony plates were VGC Khaki (the ordinary khaki this time), highlighted with VGC Bonewhite then Off White. The trousers were a simple base colour and highlight with a wash of Army Painter Strong Tone. The whole mini was then washed with Army Painter Soft Tone

I'm very happy with the results, but they don't really match my Stage 3s. It doesn't really matter of course.

One of each pose has orange trousers (prisoners from Perestia?) While the others have green. The crouching victim has some sort of display pad on his belt. It's just like the one that one of the Lab Technicians has. I was initially tempted to paint this model as an infected technician, but in the end I went with matching the other model, but there is a flat line output on the display.

I've realised that I haven't actually shown the Corporation Marines before, so here they are.

They were painted with a black undercoat, then the hard 'shell' armour was drybrushed with Vallejo Game Colour Charcoal, then lighter drybrushes adding VGC Sombre Grey. The webbing and pouches were given a black wash.

The fabric was basecoated VGC Gory Red and highlighted Bloody Red.

Star Saga Chovar

I'm still working my way through the Star Saga minis, and here's the Chovar.
It's a nice mini, if a little 'flat'. I wish now that I'd used the hot water method to repose some of the tentacles, but I'll not risk the the paint doing it at this late stage. Perhaps if I were to paint another?

I'm happy with how the mini turned out, but at the time I found it a bit of a chore to paint. I think this was because I had no mental picture of how I wanted it to look, and the various cables or tubes and other 'stuff' that keep the poor thing imprisoned baffled me.

I can use the Chovar as a Deadzone mini as well. Multiple use, which is good.

I'm now close to finishing painting Star Saga. I've some of the furniture still to do, and all the doors. Once I've finished basing the rest of the minis, I'll get a post up about them.

Star Saga Minis

I got Star Saga just over two years ago (here's my review of the boxed set).  Since then I've played it a bit, and kept promising myself I'd  get round to painting the minis.
With the Monday night group now nominally for board games and similar we've been playing quite a bit of Star Saga recently.  Its a great fun game.
When we took a short break for various reasons I took advantage of the chance to finally slap some paint on some of the minis.

Dulinsky, Wrath and Alyse

Curby, 'the Devil' and Ogan (Curby is waiting for some clear acrylic rod for his base)

Two of the Lab Technicians

Guard Commander Graves and some of his Security Guards

The GCPS Marines are done but are waiting for basing.  I've still got the Rangers to finish, and the Plague Victims and Aberration to start.  After that there's the furniture and the doors.
Once I've done these I suppose I should get the expansions done too.  Maybe I'll see if the group wants to go on with them first.

The minis were fun to paint.  The detail is pretty good; not as great as on the resin versions (which seem to be the ones used for pictures in the rules books), but quite good enough for playing the game.  I used a variant of my 'base coat, extreme highlight and all-over wash' that I use for 15mm.  I chose washes for individual areas rather than just one colour for everything (usually a mix of soft and strong tone from Army Painter).  I think they look OK.  I based the colour schemes on the ones in the rulebook, with a few simplifications in places.

Of course, I've not just painted the minis for the game, I've incidentally got a good amount of the minis needed for at least two of the new factions in Deadzone Escalation; Mazon Labs and Mercenaries.  I may well try one or both of these soon.  I have in my collection many of the other options for these factions, and the Star Saga expansions add further potential Deadzone minis (more Rebs and a specialist Vermyn list).  I do like it when a mini has more than one use.

Nexus Psi - Launch Code Accepted

I've got a bit behind in posting recently, but I've been keeping busy.
I managed to get another game of Deadzone in last week.  We finally finished the Nexus Psi campaign, which was great fun to play through.  This game was my favourite, probably because it was such a close run thing.

Excellent terrain from T'Other One, see more on his blog, for example, here.

A photo from the side of the table really gives a feel of the close packed terrain.

That's a lot of Plague there, yikes 

Bravely defending the Landing Pad

Perimeter Breach!

Fewer defenders

The last few Enforcers face off against the Stage 1.

I haven't done a full AAR, the game was too intense to make notes and we were having too much fun.

Highlights (from my point of view)  included a perfect shot on a Murderbird, taking it out on turn one, one of the Stage 2's going on the Rampage against the other Stage 2 (in hindsight I'd have been better off targeting one of the weaker Plague models, but it was too tempting a target) and, from shear awesome-to-see-ness, the Stage 1 chewing its way through anything that stood in its way.

In the end it was a win for the Plague by one point.  I think I made them work hard for their victory though, well played to my opponent.

In other gaming matters I've been plodding on with more 15mm stuff, I'll show the pictures when they are complete, and I've been working on a Battle Company for the LotR Strategy Battle Game.  That's got to be one of the most catchy names ever (NOT!).  All that and a D&D scenery project as well.

You will have noticed I've dropped totals of minis bought, painted, etc.  Truth is I found it de-motivating rather than a help.  I'll still update monthly with a rough idea of progress though (though February will  have to miss).  I am still on track for one game a month, I even hope to get another in in March, but I still have too many projects on the go as well.  Still, that's part of what the hobby is to me.

And finally, just a thought, but I wondered about including a book review feature.  Not so much from the point of view of quality of literature, but more from how useful hobby wise the stuff I read might be.  If you would like to read this, please comment.

Nexus Psi - Message Received

Finally, I got a game in, the long delayed fourth game in the Nexus Psi campaign for Deadzone.

I went into this game with two victories under my belt as opposed to one for the Plague.  The objectives are very clear in this game; stop the Plague from gaining control of four cubes (they are planting explosives to blow up the coms tower).  If I could hold out for four turns I win, otherwise the Plague does.

As usual we played on T'Other One's gorgeous terrain, and the set up with the tower was ideal for this particular game.  

The Enforcers ready to hold off the Plague...

While the Plague are raring to go.

I don't have a full write up, as its some time since we last played there was a lot of looking up rules, which was already slowing things down a bit, so I will just give a general impression.

The Enforcers began with snipers in the tower, trying to take down the advancing Plague.  As more and more of the mutated creatures appeared, the task seemed hopeless (I am always surprised at how many Plague there seem to be).  Early success at taking down a Stage 2 was mitigated by failing to finish off the teleporting plague Terraton (I would regret this many times later).  The Plague HMGs proved very nasty, suppressing three Enforcers who were hoping to take shots at the advancing horde.

The Plague had soon taken the nearest two target cubes and placed explosives in them.  It was time to withdraw and try to deny them the other two cubes.  But by this time many of the Enforcers were tied in melee, including by that abominable Terraton.  As the Enforcers fell one by one the Plague horde was thinning too.  Eventually the Peacekeeper Captain was holding the one remaining target cube, along with an Enforcer and a Specialist with missile launcher.  Fortunately, Enforcers are good at surviving, and several times I was able to withdraw them from melee and fire on their erstwhile opponents.  

At the end, the captain fell, but he had held of the plague long enough to secure victory.

Thanks to my opponent for a fun game played in a very friendly spirit.  Looking forward to the final game in the series.  

You can read about the last game here.

Sponge Painting Deadzone Part 2

Last post I started sponge painting a building for Mantic's Deadzone game.
The building should be looking reasonable, but just a bit more effort will make it look a lot better, and this time we get to use a brush as well.
Firstly the stripes.  I can't remember where I first saw this idea, but painting the raised vertical bands on some of the panels really helps by adding a bit of colour.  The test building was yellow, for this one I chose blue.  I try to go for different colours on the board, I think of it as individual owners adding a touch of personality to their otherwise quite drab and uniform buildings.

First mask off around the bits you want to paint.  Masking tape is cheap enough; for this you don't need the really good stuff, save that for airbrushing.  Just make sure it sticks down next to the area to be painted, but if its a bit loose towards the edge, that helps when you peel it off.  If you're careful you can even re use it.

For this I used my Vallejo Game Colours, a dark blue than a lighter blue to catch the edges.

Finally I mixed some VMC Oily Steel with black and painted the bits I wanted to look metal (with a brush!).  These were then highlighted with pure Oily Steel.

Other steps to consider; run very watered down black into the cracks to emphasise the shadows, Sponge (or drybrush) a sandy/dusty colour around the lower edges.

Add posters and/or graffiti.

Sponge Painting Deadzone Part 1

I recently posted a picture on Facebook showing my latest efforts at painting Deadzone scenery.

For speed (and as an experiment) I tried DM Scotty's sponge method, and I think it worked well.  A few people asked for details, so read on.
You will need; paints, I use cheap acrylic craft paints, they are quite good enough for this.  There are many brands, I just use what I can find.  For this colour scheme you will need dark and light grey, dark or mossy green and a reddish brown.  A very light grey (or white to mix in) is good for highlights, but by this stage using model paints isn't too expensive.  You will also need a sponge.  I use triangular make up sponges that I buy in a bag for £1 from a discount shop.  Anything with a medium texture will do; if you've got the sponge from a pack of figures that's about right, just cut it into a useful shape (triangular is good).  The triangular shape helps when adding detail and highlighting.  An old plate or takeaway container to hold the paint, and finally gloves, as this is a very messy process.

Firstly build, wash and black undercoat your Deadzone terrain piece.

Then give the whole building a fairly heavy sponge coat of dark grey.  I use a very dark shade, almost black, then gradually add light grey so the effect is mottled.  If you have a triangular sponge (and its easy to cut one to shape) use the largest side for quickest coverage.  The action is a dabbing motion rather than painting it on, and moistening the sponge first (though not soaking it) helps.  Dab the sponge onto some old newspaper or similar to take off the excess and get a good amount held within the sponge.  Be careful when applying; too heavy handed and you will end up with a smear rather than the subtle texture you want (and yes, you can see that several times on this).  If that does happen, repeated dabbing will diffuse the patch of colour somewhat and you can always go over with a darker colour again.  You can start to pay attention to where you want shade and highlights, but most of this comes in later stages. 

Rinse out the sponge and then add some different colours.  This gives a much more naturalistic result, as buildings are rarely one shade, even when made from just one material.   I sponged on patches of green and brown here, though I realised that I used a sandy brown rather than the reddish brown I prefer (wonder where that paint has got to?).  Looking at it now, I think this would give a good effect for any GCPS military vehicles, hmmm.

Don't worry about exactly where this goes, just aim for a fairly even coverage.  It's going to be mostly covered up in the next stage anyway. 

 You can just see the sponge I use to the right of the building.

Now sponge over again in a lighter grey.  This time pay attention to the areas you think would be highlighted.  You will be covering up some of those patches of green and brown, but if your sponging is light, some of the colour will show through.  If you have a triangular sponge, now is the time to use a smaller side to give better control, especially on those edges. 

Finally for now, highlight the edges and anything else you feel needs it with a near white (or very pale yellow or brown)  I used a craft paint that is very similar to Bone White for this, as I find pure white a bit stark.  I have tried to emphasise the tiled effect on the roof by catching the edges with the highlight. Use the edge of the sponge to catch these highlights.  With practice you have a good amount of control here, so quite delicate effects can be achieved (and yes, I did  rush this for the blog)

That gives a useable result, but a bit of detailing will really make the building pop.

Next time I'll show you how.