Battle Force Scale Mechs (3mm)

From Left to Right: Brigade Models 6mm building, Ironwind Battle Force, 3d print, 3d print, Ironwind Battle Force.
 

Relicblade Adversaries

This week I have been working on four Adversary characters for Relicblade.  Here are the four miniatures from the Wretched Hive faction - they add up to around 20 points more than the Temple of Justice set I did last week, but another model or some upgrades should even them out. The Hive is made of Iguan, sort of a lizard-man warband. Having used green as one of the primary colors for my Temple of Justice figures, I decided to try a red paint scheme instead of the traditional lizard green. I have mixed feelings on how they turned out.  I'm not sure if the Cleric of Justice (see last week's post) is supposed to be an Iguan as well, but he looks pretty darn similiar so I used a very similiar paint scheme for their skin.  First up, a Mangrove Basilisk.  This was a super fun model to paint and is my favorite of this batch:

It sure looks like it could eat a Rogue or two.  Next is the Iguan Poacher: 

Another great sculpt, and I'm reasonably happy with the paint job on him.  Not great, but he will look fine on the table. I was surprised at how stable he is for such a dynamic pose! He seems like a pretty solid model.

The third is an Iguan Slaver - he is my least favorite of this group, and I botched his paint job  pretty bad in few places 😕:

His whip is very delicate - I won't be surprised if it breaks before long. Also, my camera refused to focus on him ... I guess it doesn't like the paint job either. There are some really awesome paint jobs for this same figure out there if you want to really see it at its best.

The last figure for this week was the Iguan Witch: 

I really liked this one too - but I definitely need more practice at painting magically flames - this was my first try and I am not super happy with the results.  

But in less than three weeks I now have two warbands ready for Relicblade, and overall I am pretty happy with how they turned out. I have a few terrain features in the works and then I should be ready for a game or two. My goal for Relicblade is to have two playable forces each with a few options and a set of scratch built terrain put together by the end of February.

First Relicblade Team

After nearly two decades of gaming at smaller scales, 2024 has started with something that I had thought I'd never do ... investing in a 28mm miniatures game. My older brother, who first introduced me to the hobby by buying me numerous GW games for my birthdays as a kid, and who lured me back into it after a 5 year hiatus during college, has once again been the catalyst.  For the last few winters I've have been painting miniatures of his choice for a Christmas present, and, to tell the truth, I have had a great time painting 28mm sci-fi for his collection. 

After selling some old projects this winter, I was looking for a small project to start with the resulting funds and settled on Relicblade - a 28mm fantasy skirmish game created by Sean Sutter.   Sean is a one man show, doing all of the writing, sculpting, illustration, game design, and sales himself and his game has been growing for 9 or 10 years now. 

For those of you who are unfamiliar it plays on a 2x2 ft table with 4 or 5 miniatures per side.  Games are quick, fun, and tell a great narrative over time. I made a 15mm set for the game several years back using proxy miniatures, and have enjoyed the game enough that I thought I would spend some more money at Sean's website to support his work. I picked up hard copy rulebooks to replace my pdfs and some 28mm miniatures for the game.  The game play is very simple and fun, with some great player aids - I'm hoping my young daughters might enjoy it in another year or two. They already enjoy painting miniatures.  My goal is to have two forces and terrain for a small board completed by the end of February.

Below are the first models for my Advocate faction -

First is the Cleric of Justice:

And the token for his spectral hammer spell:

Followed by my Questing Knight:

And my Rogue:

Four miniatures is all you need to start a campaign, but I'll probably add two or three more for a little variety down the line. These were super fun to paint - I only paint an hour or two each week, so I'm not the greatest at doing these sculpts justice.  We will see how the next batch turnout. 

Building a Multi-scale Geomorphic Skirmish Board

 There is something about Geomorphic playing surfaces that I find very appealing.  I've done modular caverns and swamps in the past that turned out great.  This time I wanted something that I could use for both 3mm and 15mm Sci-fi.  My inspiration came in part from the geomorphic urban terrain that Space Jacker made years ago and displayed on his Tiny Solitary Soldiers blog (which was just recently removed from Blogger - 😕).  Here is my take on it so far:

I have five tiles completed, and a sixth under way.  Instead of sidewalks made of single large squares, I used smaller ones to make it more scale neutral.  I also went with grass instead of concrete for most of the board. Instead of a blasted out concrete ruin, hopefully this futuristic city will look like a place worth fighting for. 

The basis for the tiles are heavy duty commercial vinyl tiles from the local box store.  They are very rigid, measure exactly 12x12 inches and cost less than $1 USD each.  I started by drawing the pattern on the tiles, the road ways are the exact size of a very narrow two lane road in 15mm and in 3mm would be the sort of wide multilane road typical of a large city. 

The Project Supervisor Reviewing the Plan

The spaces outside the roads and walkways can be divided into nice 4x4 squares, making it easy to base and configure terrain to place on them. The sidewalks were made from cutting up empty egg cartons and the grass is old coffee grounds glued into place with PVA and painted with craft paints.  All together the six tiles will cost less than $15 in materials. 

I currently have the first five done, including two curves, two T's and one straight piece, giving me a wide variety of layouts.  The sixth tile will be just be grass, no roads.  My plan is to work on some hills and forests that fit those nice square surfaces to make the seams less noticable. Hopefully by next week I can post some photos with a few completed buildings and other features!