15mm combat drone walkers

Hello, just a quick unit painted up, 1 package of combat drone walkers from Critical Mass Games, can be found under their mercenary range. Very nice sculpting and detail. the Khurasan felid is their for scale purposes. These will have many uses....In AE Bounty, a hero trait is "Robotocist" ,whereby the hero controls 2 robot drones with fire capability. Also they will serve in my future droid army which will include Blockhead battle suits from Critical Mass Games, as well as Mechanoid troops and ships from Khurasan. I may even use them as proxies for GZG spider droids in the game Gruntz until I can order some.(may have to wait awhile...boo). I also envision them patrolling some scifi base or starport as security drones.

Ae bounty first game

Had my first game of AE bounty today. Enjoyed the rules and the experience immensely. There is so much tactical depth to the game , it is hard not to love it. I guess I like most games where half the fun is in the creation and crafting of a force. I played with Saxon Dog from TMP, and he had a pretty balanced mercenary crew, led by a logician with a light rapid fire psychic gun. Unfortunately for him my force was an evil pirate band composed entirely of pyschic Logicians. I had two squads of lookouts and 1 squad of space dogs, all of which benefitted from hidden deployment. My entire  force had  the mentalist ability to lower the drive or morale of the enemy, followed up by psychic guns which shredded his drive/morale further until the mercenariies' brains exploded out of their ears. It was a gimmick army, and I'm sure next time he will be sporting quite a few psychic nullifiers as gear choices. It was a great learning game, which seemed to flow and make perfect sense  in the area of small unit morale. I think the designers hit a homerun with this one. The only downside was that we played in 28mm, and now I'm itching to finish some 15mm bounty hunters and terrain.
Before you actually play your first game of AE Bounty, you concentrate on race choices, weapon choices, and gear choices in an attempt to maximize your firepower.
After your first game of AE Bounty, you begin to concentrate on the drive or morale of your crew and how to bolster and repair your morale throughout the game.
Very elegant and very fun. A fair amount of record keeping concerning temporary and permaneent drive modifiers to individuals and squads, but if you are prepared for it , the end result is a fun tactical experience
ending with rapid crescendos of doom or victory depending on the dice and your morale.

group shot of felids

oops, I guess I can only post 4 pics per post. Here is a group shot of my Felids squad.

Khurasan Felids

Just a quick look at my first squad of painted Felids by Khurasan. This is a light battle circle and comes with 10 minis-3 rifle poses in triplicate and 1 seargent with comm headset. I really enjoyed painting this squad- probably because I did it quick and sloppy. Trying to find a nice method that is still fast and yet looks sufficient for the tabletop. I went with a simple green, and an even simpler Lion face
Well, I should have about 8 more squads and 2 APC's coming in the mail

recipe for Felids-Khurasan

once again, another recipe entry that may only be of use to me. This time for the first squad of Felids by Khurasan miniatures. During my first big purchase from Khurasan, He threw in some freebies into the box.
One was an ogre beetle, the other being a squad of Felids, a light circle. I really like these miniatures ,and the fluff surrounding them, and when I saw them statted out for the beta game Gruntz, I placed another big order.
This time around I decided on a quicker, sloppier painting method- one that would allow me to quickly finish a sizeable fighting force. I finished my squad of ten cats in about 3 days of sporadic painting, and am just waiting on basing and then photography.
1) cleaning and basing-didnot take too long, a little flash between the legs, a little filing for a slight miscast
and glued to 20mm radius steel washers.
2)did not have access to my gesso, so primed with a mixture of reaper master series primer75% and black caligraphy ink 25%  holbein drawing ink
3) a quick messy dry/damp brush of americana craft-lt. avocado
4) a sloppy wash with my own mixture of ink(various old windsor/newton inks added together- a couple of greens and other colors and some black=end result a big bottle ofdark,dark green ink)- let dry
5)light drybrush of americana craft-celery green. armor done.
6)head/hands/feet- accent country colors-craft- wicker
7)future wash(mix of black and nut brown windsor/newton) for head hands feet. done
8)weapon-americana craft- graphite;hilite delta ceramcoat-hippo grey; barrel-reaper master series- shadowed steel
9) webbing and pack- delta ceramcoat- hippo grey; hilite  with a 50/50 mix vallejo game color cold grey and
soft white(craft  accent)
was going to go back and hilite head (with wicker)-black for nose, soft white under eye slits for a more LION look, but I think I will stop
they look pretty good for minimal effort and all that time to try to make them look lionlike can be done later if i choose.
as is I am pretty happy for the very minimal effort, and they do look feline , or lupine from a different planet.
and I am glad not to have taken the bait and tried to make them Tony the Tigers, as in the stock photo.
pictures later

recipe for alien mercs gzg

Hello, this post is really for myself. I like to post painting recipes for my projects, as I may come back to a project six months later and struggle to remember either the paints I used or the method I used.
GZG alien mercs.
1. painted on grey gesso-liquitex thinned with a little water and flow aid mixture.
2.washed figure with sennelier walnut lacquer based calligraphy ink to bring out details
3.skin= craftpaint americana FAWN; wash with future peatbrown mix;drybrush with FAWN
I always do the skin first, because i rely on ink and drybrush and if you get the skin right everything else follows. The two most important things are color choice and the skin. If you get those right you are well on your way. I usually agonize over the color choice for quite a while. It helps to look at a lot of other miniature artists work, and see what worked for them. Lately I enjoy looking at Spacejacker's work, as well as anything by battleworks studio, artwho, steve dean.
Its a lot different painting 15s and I still dont believe I have the right balance. I think I still try to paint as if I am doing 28s-which means a lot of extra steps that may not be worth it.
after the skin is done, I block in all the colors. do another wash with the future peat brown(careful near the skin), and then another layer of the original blocked in colors, leaving edges of  peat. when done with this I will go back and do  hilites- this is the area I need to work on for 15s-I think I need to exaggerate them more than I did for 28s.
4.boots= lamp ebony black-craft, highlites-graphite-craft
5. pants and headgear= graphite-craft, hilites a mix of graphite and hippo grey-craft delta
6. webbing= burgundy rose-craft delta, hilites same
7.gun=black, then shadowed steel-reaper master series
8. armor plates and gun bits= hippo grey- craft delta
9. insignia = final step; 3 colors used all are FW acrylic artists inks; opaque white;black; process magenta
just a thin black line on borders of white

more GZG alien mercs

oops, another post. My last one somehow dropped off 3 pictures.

Squad of GZG alien mercs

Hello, here is my first finished test squad of GZG's alien mercs. Consisting of 10 figures ( only 76 left to go !). These are the first
minis I have painted from GZG, and I am overwhelmed by their quality; barely any noticeable mold lines; full of character and detail. My only complaint would be that I wish they did not have goggles but bare faces- and that is only because I cant seem to paint goggles well.
I can think of a hundred uses for these guys, and wish they would crank out some more ,but I guess two packs is enough to give good variety. As I cant stand any of the GW fluff, I fought the tendency to make them 40k orks. My first thought was Mangalores from the Fifth Element, and that is how I envision my mercs, although in miniature terms a mangalore might end up looking like a khaki and olive drab blob. Hope you like them, still trying to harness the power of the camera and blogmachine. I am also quite excited to get the chance to peruse the beta of Gruntz, rules for 15mm scifi. I feel like I will start on some vehicles soon.

cheap dollar store find-painting aid

Hello, just wanted to pass on a cheap dollarstore ( poundstore across the pond) find that has helped my painting.
A simple pack of 12 multicolored, oversized pushpins featuring a strong magnet where the pin should be. After gluing on my flat steel washer to the minis base, I'm set to paint ,no longer plagued by constant dropping or smearing the fiddly 15mm troops. Sounds simple, yes; but it has changed my life for the better. featured mini is a GZG alien merc.