The Scrap Dogs! A space pirate band for Solar Empires

I've got about 20 of these Games Workshop Chaos Cultuist for Warhammer 40,000 which I picked up to used as a pirate band.  The only problem is that they only come in five poses so I'm doing some conversion to add some variety.
These guys will be called "The Scrap Dogs" and will be from the Asteroid Belt.  I've got a mech I'm working on for them as well.  I'm trying to make them look like scavengers which I think the cultist are pretty suited for.  The only problem is that I got the first group together and base coated before I figured out what I am doing with them and I intend to add some scrap piles to their bases.  I think I can just work around the painted ones and either hand paint the junk piles on their bases or hit them with another coat of spray paint.

Solar Empires

I've finally settled on a name for the Sci-fi setting we have been playing our "Station 42 War" and "Maxed Out" games in.  I'm going with "Solar Empires".  I had previously called the setting "3031" and "Moon Miners and Terraformers".  I didn't like the first choice because it seemed silly to name a setting for a single date and I didn't like the second one because it was a mouth full and sounded dated.  I Google searched "Solar Empires" to check for conflicts and found that there was a video game named "Sins of a Solar Empire" but no game or anything titled just "Solar Empires"  Although this is merely a personal setting for my home games I would like to have an original title if possible in case I decide to develop it in the future.

I feel this name reflects the various different factions well.  Governments, corporations, and criminal enterprises can often be called "Empires" and since my setting is based on the Solar System it seemed like the best choice.  

I have some basic setting notes that we have actually been using for a couple of years now that I have not published because I was never satisfied with the setting name.  I have now created a new page for those notes on this blog here:   http://ironworkersminiatures.blogspot.com/p/solarempires-nathan-miller-2013.html
I plan to add some artwork to the page as soon as we create some.  As it stands it is just a big block of text and I want to make it more interesting to read.

Station 42 Outskirts project.

Now that we have Station 42 in a playable state as far as the buildings are concerned we have started working on some of the points of interest that are near the station. I outlined the various points of interest in this post http://ironworkersminiatures.blogspot.com/2011/06/klancys-general-store-wip-and-station.html.
The buildings above are some I've been working on for the villages of Hardscrabble and Ramshackle. Most of these are basic houses but I have a com station (the finished one) and a light industrial building. I did the com station about a week ago but the other 10 buildings I knocked out a couple of days ago in one building session. I'm also going to build some more "ramshackle" buildings to fill out the villages. There will also be a large crater filled with water that will separate the two villages. This set will be designed to be played on a 4'x8' table. There will actually be more buildings than station 42 but they will be much smaller and more residential.

Here is a closeup of the com station. The buildings are made out of cork tile. You can find some great ideas and tips for building with cork at Matakishi's Tea House: http://www.matakishi.com/makingbuildings.htm

The roof is made from scraps of card from various cardboard food packages. The detail bits come from; model kits, bottle caps, toys, disposable razors and other things. I still need to make the doors for this building.

We've also been working on the pirate based. These are the main buildings. The Pirate base is suppose to be an old abandoned military bunker complex. We decided to base the complex on this bunker: http://ironworkersminiatures.blogspot.com/2011/06/quick-and-dirty-bunker.html we made a few months ago. We will be buildings an underground complex to go with the bunkers based on our "Simple Complex" project: http://ironworkersminiatures.blogspot.com/2009/06/simple-complex.html

We will probably simply expand on this project with some more specific rooms for the pirates who use the base.

Last up is a simple farm house. We hope to build 3-6 farms that can be set up in various configurations to represent the various hydroponic and livestock farms surrounding Station 42. My wife made this building and I think she did a great job getting both the futuristic and farm house feel.

Station 42: Phase 1 Complete!

Well we have the Station 42 project to the first phase of completion. The buildings are all done and we have about 7 ships and a number of vehicles ready for the table as well as a number of miniatures. We still have a lot to do not only on the Station itself but also on a number of the surrounding locations. We have already made good headway on the pirate base and we should have some updated for that soon. Here are some pics of the Station as it is:

Station 42: Works in Progress

We worked on quite a few projects today for the Station 42 setting. This is a simple stage I made from a Platformer kit from Pegasus Hobbies http://pegasushobbies.net/catalog/. The kit is not as easy to put together as it appears and the schematics are really poor but it's a neat kit with lots of potential and it's not too expensive for what you get. This is only a small test piece and it took some time for me to put it together. Also the kit is suppose to be able to be assembled without glue so you can tear it apart and use it for whatever design you want. In theory that makes sense but I'm gluing mine into permanent models. This stage will be useful for a number of scenarios. I primarily designed it for slave auction Seniors in "Junktown".

Also I converted a sniper for my Wolfhound Freikorps mercenary unit using a sniper rifle out of the Malifaux Modern Weapons pack from Wyrd Games http://wyrd-games.net/. It took a lot of cutting to get the rifle to fit but I'm pretty happy with it. I just need to seal up a couple gaps where his arm meet his torso in the back and I'll be ready to start painting him.

Over the Thanksgiving break I also finished three more pirates for my "Bloodborn" pirate gang who have already been involved in a number of encounters in the setting. This makes 11 pirates painted and about 9 more ready to be painted. I still have more on the way. I plan to have at least 30-50 pirates for this force. These are entirely kitbashed from various GW kits.

This is a work in progress shot of the main command bunker that will make up the Bloodborn Pirates main base of operations. In addition to this larger bunker there will be three smaller bunkers and perhaps a few outbuildings and landing pads. We will also be using our underground facility which we plan to expand on in conjunction with these bunkers for the base complex. It should work very nicely when we are finished.

Here is a top down shot of the command bunker. We are considering adding a floor using window screen and a supporting structure. This is going to be a nicely playable piece that is going to be heavily weathered and trashy looking. Should make a great base for pirates!

for some reason blogger is screwing up and I can't highlight txt to create hyperlinks. I'll fix this

3 new ships for the spaceport project!

I just got three new ships for the spaceport project on Monday. These are all G.I. Joe toys I picked up off Amazon. The big dark blue one is a Cobra "Night Raven". The smaller white one is a G.I. Joe "Sharc Tooth" and it's suppose to be a submarine but I think it looks an awful lot like a small shuttle. The grey one is a Cobra "Gunship". I've already converted and nearly finished my first Cobra "Gunship" in the "Black Dog" project. This one I will probably tramp up a bit more. The "Night Raven" and "Gunship" both cost me about $18.00 each which is much lower than the retail price for either ship. The "Sharc Tooth" only cost about $8.00 so I think I got a great deal on all these ships.

Here are a couple close up shots of the "Sharc Tooth". As you can see the landing gear consist of really simple pegs. As I've said before I'm not a bit fan of scratch building landing gear and the gear on this ship does at least hold it level really nicely. I may still decide to add some simple runners to the pegs probably made out of plastic cloths pins but I'm not going to go crazy and do something complex.

Here's a couple shots of the "Night Raven". It's a pretty cool ship and a good size for RPGs. Large enough to look impressive and also large enough to be a party ship for an RPG but not so huge as to take up too much space on the table. It's landing gear are fine for this project but the little grey gun handle thing near the back of the ship has got to go. All in all I think it will be a pretty easy ship to convert and fix up for 28mm miniature games.

I didn't take any additional pics of the "Gunship" because I've already show it extensively in my "Black Dog" project.

AE Bounty Battle Report "Bloodborn Pirates vs Boons Irregulars"

We tried out first game of AE Bounty and we used out new spaceport terrain for the first time tonight. The game pitted Boon's Irregulars against the Bloodborn Pirates. Boon's men were trying to destroy a pirate starfighter which had been repaired at Rosie's workshop. The pirates were attempting to save their ship.


The Bloodborn Pirates
Standard Crew

Captain Cyclopes (Human Veteran Blooded Warrior Hero)
M/3 RC/3+ CC4 A/5(7) S/3 DR/5 W/3
Equipment: Particle Beam Rifle, Light Armored Suit, Personal Magnetic Field
Ability: Apathetic, Command, Get up and shoot!


Quartermaster Grimm (Human Regular Individual)
M/3 RC/4+ CC/3 A/5(7) S/2 DR/4 W/2
Equipment: Particle Beam Rifle, Light Armored Suit, Personal Magnetic Field
Ability: Apathetic, Issue Equipment

Quartermaster Vinnie (Human Regular Individual)
M/3 RC/4+ CC/3 A/5(7) S/2 DR/4 W/2
Equipment: Particle Beam Rifle, Light Armored Suit, Personal Magnetic Field
Ability: Apathetic, Issue Equipment

The Ductrats (Human Green Squad)
M/3 RC/5+ CC/2 A/3 S/2 DR/3 W/1
Equipment: LFR Slugthrower, Light Armored Suit
Ability: Apathetic, Random Equipment


Da Gurlz (Human Green Squad)
M/3 RC/5+ CC/2 A/3 S/2 DR/3 W/1
Equipment: Slugthrower Pistol, Light Armored Suit
Ability: Apathetic, Random Equipment

Dirty Trick: Scouts



Boon's Irregulars
Mercenary Large Crew

Sargent Carson Boon (Human Veteran Unkillable Hero)
M/3 RC/4+ CC/3 A/4(6) S/2 DR/6 W/4
Equipment: LRF Slugthrower, Personal Magnetic Field, Cybernetic Eyes
Abilities: Inspiring, Command, Get up and shoot!, Impervious (5+), Unstoppable, Night Vision, Aim

Redjack Unit Sniper (Human Regular Sniper Individual)
M/3 RC/3+ CC/3 A/3 S/2 DR/3 W/2
Equipment: Slugthrower Long Rifle, AP Rounds, Cloaking Field
Abilities: Hunter (Human), Crack Shot

Smith and Jones Hired Guns (Human Regular Squad)
M/3 RC/4+ CC/3 A/3 S/2 DR/3 W/1
Equipment: LRF Slugthrower, Fragmentation Grenades
Abilities: Inspiring

Frank and Jessie Fresh Meat (Human Green Squad)
M/3 RC/5+ CC/2 A/3 S/2 DR/3 W/1
Equipment: Slugtrower Rifle, Fragmentation Grenades
Abilities: Inspiring

Bonnie and Mr. X Fresh Meat (Human Green Squad)
M/3 RC/5+ CC/2 A/3 S/2 DR/3 W/1
Equipment: Slugtrower Rifle, Fragmentation Grenades
Abilities: Inspiring

Chuck and Red Fresh Meat (Human Green Squad)
M/3 RC/5+ CC/2 A/3 S/2 DR/3 W/1
Equipment: Slugtrower Rifle, Fragmentation Grenades
Abilities: Inspiring

Dirty Trick: Satchel Charges

The pirates set up the Duct Rats as scouts. Armed with LRF Slugthrowers these guys did some nasty damage to the approaching mercenaries.

The fighting started to heat up around the objective. Early on it looked as if Boon's men might over run the pirates and end the battle quickly.

Things started to get nasty. Both the group leaders were trading shots and both sides were taking wounds and casualties. The particle rifles that the pirate captain and quartermasters started taking their tole on Boon's crew.

In the end the pirates prevailed pretty handily. The particle weapons and the personal magnetic fields made the pirate individuals very nasty to deal with. Vinnie the quartermaster was able to get to the fighter and fly it to safety although most of the mercenaries had been taken out of action by then.

The $1.00 Pirate Starfighter

Several years ago I purchased several little plastic starfighters at a $1.00 shop because they looked like they would scale well with 28mm ship. I think I bought 6 or more. After all they were only a dollar each.

They each had one of those pull back motorized gear boxes to make them roll on little wheels. I've never understood why you would make aircraft/spaceships with this kind of thing but I've found it's pretty common especially with cheaper toys. Anyway I took the wheels and motors off and messed around with a failed landing gear idea and them boxed them for over a decade.

I think they sat around that long mostly because they were too cheap for me to feel the need to put much effort into. They aren't exactly stunning looking either but they seemed like too good a deal to pass up. Well I decided yesterday to start digging them out and putting some landing gear on them so I could paint them.

I know I make a lot of ships out of cheap toys but I suck at making landing gear. In fact the gear on this ship is scratched from: some wooden stir sticks, wooden beads, a toothpick, and some plastic clothespins. They are simple and the hold the ship up and don't look too awful. I'm not a scale modeler and I'm not building these things for display.

Here is a shot of the new pirate starfighter along side two other ships in my collection also modeled from toys. I'm pretty happy with the way it looks considering it's cost in time and money. I've got another of these set up right now with landing gear but my daughter has claimed it. I'll post a pic when or if she finishes it.

Brethern of the Belt: Growing Crew.

Well I finished three of Axel's Lads tonight. These are minis for my "Brethren of the Belt" space pirate army project. These guys are fron the crew of the "Bloodborn" like Vinnie's Duct Rats I did earlier.

These minis were kitbashed from various GW parts. The one in the center has; the head of a Chaos Marauder Horseman, Torso and Backpack of a Tau Firewarrior, Legs from a Catacan Jungle Guard, arms from the Empire Militia set, and a Dark Eldar rifle.

Here they are standing in with "Vinnie's Duct Rats" who are all from the Urban War militia box. The Urban War minis are slightly smaller scale but that's ok because Vinnie's guys represent younger new recruits and Axel's lads represent regular crew.

Axel's Lads

Well it's been two years since I made any progress on my space pirate army but I'm finally starting to get some more things done for it. Axel's Lads here are more of your regular pirate crew type miniatures. I made these guys entirely out of Games Workshop plastic kits. I think there are parts from the; Catacan Jungle Guard, Caidian Shock Troops, Empire Militia, Knights of the White Wolf sprue, Tau Firewarriors, Dark Eldar, Eldar weapon sprue, Chaos Marauder Horseman, and Caidian heavy weapons sprue.

I'm pretty happy with the way they are turning out considering they were made from left over kits. Keep watching this space for more progress.

Vinnie's Ductrats Finished!

I would have probably had these done at the start of the week but for the last several days I've been pretty sick and not in my studio much. What was suppose to be a side project for a few days took 8 days to finish but that wasn't all brush time. In fact even when I was in my studio I rarely had more than an hour at a time to work on these guys. Although I lost track of my time log I estimate I have under 20 hours in these guys which is still a bit much. I need to get a group like this down to 10-12 hours at most. I got a bit fiddly in places on these guys so they ended up just a tad nicer than what I should consider rank and file figs but not by too much.
Ok tonight I pretty much just had bases and some touch up to do. I started the bases by drybrushing with GW boltgun metal. The Tank on Liza's stand and the ammo box of Vinnie's stand were painted and highlighted before this stage.

Then I applied a fairly dark rust wash that I mixed with some craft paints. I think Delta Cermacote Autum Brown, Midnight Blue, and Black. I like using craft paints for rust washes because they are a bit grittier and more random which for rust is what you want.

I then used some Vallejo Model Color orange brown for some of the newer rusty spots. I want to point out that normally when I paint miniatures on plastic bases I paint the edge of the base black and only "landscape" the top area under the figures feet. For these guys I decided to go a differtent route and continue over the edge with the rusty effects. I just felt it was a better choice for this type of base effect.

After putting down the brighter rust I washed over the base again with a slightly darker but thinner wash similar to the first one. I also added a bit of dark glaze to some of the areas on the figures that needed a bit more definition. It's most clearly evident on Gomez and Fabio the two cats with the submachine guns. You can see where their arms rest against the body of their jackets. That's where I added the dark wash it give a little more seperation and depth. I didn't go overboard on this however because these guys are just rank and file after all.

That's pretty much a wrap on these guys. I'm pretty happy with the way they turned out but I feel I need to loosen up just a bit more if I'm going to start doing big armies again. Clearly these are looser than I normally go on character type figs but you just can't spend 8-20 hours each on rank and file figs in a big project.