Tomorrow's War meets Battletech: House Davion's "Locust" painted

Based upon the unseen Mech design, primarily for scouting and recon. This was a multi-part resin kit, based upon a scratchbuilt Mech. The N-scale community demanded copies, so the creator got his scratchbuilt custom Locust casted - and I was happy to obtain two of them.
Armed with only a Martel Medium Laser and two Sperry-Browning MGs, it cannot withstand any other Mech for a long time, but that's not its purpose in the first place.

I based the Locust on some rocky surface to increase the height slightly.

I wanted a striding pose, just as in the old FASA artwork of the TRO 3025.

The Locust is currently the smallest Mech used within the Inner Sphere.

A tiny, filigrane little BattleMech - I just love that thing.

Iraq Terrain - 2 storey residence/shop (work in progress)

Some of the latest pics show recent progress. I finished off most of the details that still were to paint and added posters and shop signs.
The sand that was put into place at the lower end of the building was to conceal the flaws of the house (many of them). I've painted it to match bases and my desert gaming board.

I also painted the sidewalk that goes all around the building. The yellow and white stripes are typical for Iraq (they really have them).

The water tank and the electrical collectors got their rusty finish.

You may have noticed that also the satellite dishes have been attached now.

The corrugated metal roof has turned out better than expected. Probably the part I like most on the building.

Rooftop air cons painted now and Pola lamps attached.

Iraq Terrain - 2 storey residence/shop (work in progress)

Wo-hooo. More progress :-) Spent some hours to rust n' dust a couple of things. Basicly all you do is painting small random blotches of Scorched Brown, paint a smaller blotch of Bestial Brown on top, add one of Red Gore and finally add tiny dots and lines of Blazing Orange. Looks like rusty metal doors. There is probably better ways to achieve that look, but hey - for the work of a couple of minutes it didn't turn out tooo bad, did it?
Rusty corrugated metal. I started with a mixture of 25% Bestial Brown, 25% Red Gore and 50% water and painted on a bascoat of this redish-brown colour. I then reduced the amount of water in the mix step by step and painted on random (!) blotches. Due to the wet paint (lots of water) it took a while to dry. Once dried, I painted on streakes (from top to bottom) with pure Bestial Brown and pure Red Gore (use variable length for the "stripes"). With a tank drybrush I then brushed a mix of Blood Red and Red Gore from left to right. Finally, a wash of thinned down Dark Flesh was put into the recesses. When the wash had dried, I used an old drybrush (a really messed up thing) to dab on small dots of Blazing Orange.

The garage doors where painted with Ice Blue and got a filter of thinned down Black Wash (not Citadel foundation one, the old one).

Basicly the rust effects where done exactly as on the metal doors above on the other side of the house. Blotches of various brown colours, each "dot" smaller than the one I painted on before. Then red colours and finally the Blazing Orange highlights. Finally I once again took the base colour of Ice Blue and covered all messy parts/mistakes that occured.

Off for more details now.

Iraq Terrain - 2 storey residence/shop (work in progress)

I was experimenting with the base colours of the Iraqi house I am currently working on. Some friends passed on pictures they took in the middle east and those turned out to be a huge source of inspiration as well as a good reference for painting.

This is the "base colour" although it actually is four colours!! I started with a tank brush (GW), painting the entire building in Dheneb Stone. Once I was done, I used the same brush size to paint on some "streaks" of Kommando Khaki, followed by Iraqi Sand (Vallejo) of which only on the edges of windows and rooftop some streaks were applied. Khemri Brown was used from the top down, streaking on some random "rain marks".
Finally, some Charadon Granite was used to splash on some spots of darker brown. These marks can be all sorts of things - bullet holes etc.

After the base colour(s) dried, I used masking tape to mask the upper part of the building. I wanted some colour to break up the overall sandy look. A red stripe goes all around the building (its about the height of a 20mm figure).

Using the same colours as for the base colour and parts of an old Citadel miniature blister "sponge" (the stuff GW puts behind its miniatures in blisters), I was weathering the red stripe that leads around the first floor.

I just dabbed the sponge into one of the base colours at a time, dried it on some kitchen roll and then went ahead putting colour down in a random pattern. Finally I blended the worn, chipped paint into the upper half of the house by drybrushing the passage between sand colour and red stripe with Vallejo Iraqi Sand.

That left me with the bricks being visible in the open parts of the stucco. Reference pics clearly show that both, classical "terracotta" coloured bricks and sand coloured ones made from mud are used widepread in the middle east. Sometimes even both on the same building.

I was trying the red ones first and liked it that much that I decided to use solely red bricks.

I started with a base of Bestial Brown in all open stucco holes. On top I dabbed Red Gore which was followed by Blazing Orange in a random pattern. Make sure you don't paint over all layers you painted before - leave some parts visible. A wash of strong thinned down grey colour was used to determine the joints between bricks.

After the grey has dried I brushed Mig Pigments (African Sand) into the gaps and used thinner to fix it in place.

Now off to paint details! :-)

Iraq Terrain - 2 storey residence/shop (work in progress)

Basecoat added. It really comes together now. I already painted up some parts. More pics of that progress later.

Iraq Terrain - 2 storey residence/shop (work in progress)

I am going to expand my terrain collection for Iraq games with Force On Force by a couple of "urban" buildings. While I do already have a lot of houses, most of them are rather "rural" by their shape and size.

This is going to change now. For quite some month there was this unbuilt Stonewall Combat Scenics "two storey residence/shop" lying around my stash of unbuilt stuff. It was only a couple of days ago when I realized it is a) missing parts (roof and some doors) and b) doesn't fit at all.
This was the worst piece of terrain I ever came accross. But it doesn't help me - I need to get it fixed.
So here is what I came up with - tons of materials from even more sources.

The building like I said is from Stonewall. I had to replace the missing roof with styrene sheet.
Thanks to not fitting at all, plenty of putty was used all around. The satellite dishes are from S&S as are the bigger air conditioners.
Rooftop mounted AC are from S&S, lamps by POLA (H0 scale), the balcony is from another kit by Lasermodellbau (Najewitz), the corrugated metal shed from a Conrad Garage in H0 scale.
An old measuring cup with H-profile styrene sheet underneath makes a good water tank. The smaller AC units are also from Lasermodellbau.
The electrical collector was made from scratch, using Italeri parts.

WWII Special Rules from 1st Edition Force on Force

Published by Shawn Carpenter over at ambushalleygames.com
Friday 25 November 2011, 03:36

First Edition Force on Force included special rules for adapting the game for use with WWII scenarios. These sections were omitted from Second Edition (the “Osprey” edition), in which we chose to focus entirely on post-war, modern combat. We’ve received a constant stream of requests to post these rules up so that players with the new edition of the rules could also use them.

Well, here they are!

Here’s a couple of important caveats to bear in mind with the use of these rules:

1. These rules have not been modified in any way from their 1st Edition format. You may find that you need to make some modifications to use them with the 2nd Edition of the rules.

2. The rules presented here may or may not be carried over for use in an upcoming Ambush Alley Games WWII rule set.

With those comments aside, ENJOY!

- The Crew at Ambush Alley Games.

http://ambushalleygames.com/resources/downloads/31-extras

Generic Iraqi Force: Infantry support weapons

A couple of days ago another packet arrived at my home. Mark T. has sent back to me all of my Iraqi Gun crews - a mix of S&S and RH Liberation Miniatures. He was tasked to paint them to standards as he did with my Republican Guard last year. I completed the miniatures by adding a few details here and there, putting tufts etc. on bases and finally built and painted all weapon systems they are going to man. Thanks for your help, mate!

Iraqi Gun Crew #1: RH Liberation minis with RH Liberation Type 63 towed (Chinese) 107mm rocket launcher.
Iraqi Gun Crew #2: RH Liberation miniatures with RH Liberation SPG-9 73mm Recoilless Rifle

Iraqi Gun Crew #3: RH Liberation miniatures with MAC 1/72 Soviet mortar (plastic piece that comes with their UAZ jeep)

Iraqi MANPADS team: Soviet-built SA-7 Grail (IGLA) gunner (RH Liberation) with spotter (S&S Models)

Iraqi DshK team: Gun crew and DshK by RH Liberation, additional team member by S&S Models.

I saw a sign.... The Road To Baghdad: Iraqi Highway Signs

Force On Force's first supplement is called "Road To Baghdad". I am in need for more Iraqi looking terrain. I thought an "actual" road to Baghdad would just do, especially as it is used in some scenarios/missions.
Task Force 1-64 on its way to Baghdad.

I made the highway signs using styrene profiles and sheets from Evergreen.

The actual signs came from a decal sheet from TheSquare. They were applied onto 1mm styrene sheet and then glued into place.

This layout only displays a fast scene I set up for the pics. The gaming table for the scenarios will be twice this size to give the Americans a challenging distance to travel while being attacked from left and right.

These road signs aren't exactly in scale as they are from Verlinden's range for dioramas in 1/35.

Nonetheless I think they fit just fine.

Another shot of the Verlinden variant.

The roads are from ESLO terrain of Germany. Lamp poles are 1/87 H0 scale and the telegraph poles from Italeri.

TF 1-64 scanning for targets.

Just another generic shot from the miniature's perspective. :-D

More terrain to come...

Generic Iraqi Force: BMP-2 with anti air gun

After a long time I finally painted some 20mm stuff again. I hereby present my Iraqi BMP-2 with 23mm twin anti air gun. I used a mixture of wargaming models for this kit-bash.

Back view of the RH Liberation BMP-2 chassis.
Detail shot of the crew and ZSU-23-2 from S&S Models. The gun shield was made from styrene sheet. The figures were painted for me by Mark Taylor.

I went with a worn&torn look, using oil paints, paint chipping techniques and weathering powders.

Added some markings here and there to add a little colour.

It even got a liscence plate ^^