Space Cowboys

I kitbashed the new-ish plastic gunfighters from Great Escape Games with some spare 40K weapons I had lying around:

I'm happiest with the cigar-chomping gunner, who has a backpack on as well. The others lack a je ne sais quois. I think they aren't quite grimdark sci-fi enough. They need a bit more greebling, and could probably lose the hats. I do have another five to fiddle with.

I do love the idea of the space western, and will continue in this realm. Here are some 3D prints from Anvil Industry:

They are a smidgen more sci-fi, and I should print some more.

Five Parsecs. Campaign Game 7. Vigilante posse

Marbic receives a job offer from a guilder patron on Hydresar X. The crew have to ‘deliver a package’ and they will receive a generous reward.

Lady Heldycryn tours the town and meets Venda Hezel, a downhiver with a knack for tech. The crew has been suffering with poorly maintained weapons, and Lady H thinks she will be a useful asset. Marbic begrudgingly agrees, but it will eat into his profits… He decides to accept the job offer and get Hezel to ‘deliver the package’.

 Newcomer Venda Hezel. Will she earn a spot on the crew?

However, someone is opposed to the crew’s mission. A bounty hunter is after them and has raised a vigilante posse!

The central storage tank is the crew’s target

Roma, Lady H and Julio take one flank

The rest of the crew take the other.

Here comes the vigilantes!

They rush the centre

Hezel runs toward the tank as Chugger puts down suppressing fire

But she goes down!

The Bounty Man charges ahead of his heavy weapons

Roma comes under heavy fire

She prays to the Emperor as shots fly past her

The vigilantes run into a murderous crossfire,
and a frag grenade finishes them off.

Julio picks up the dropped meltabombs and ‘delivers’ them to the storage tank. Hezel is lightly wounded but will pull through. The guild contact is satisfied and the crew get a generous ten credit payday. They drink together and tell stories, but Roma has found religion and now will talk of nothing else.

Back in the desert, a mutant rat sniffs at the Bounty Man. He’s not dead!

The Bounty Hunter is a super-fun sculpt from Imitation of Life. I couldn’t bear to see him dead, so he will return in the future.

Our rookie, Hezel, is from Tagged Events. Her arms didn’t print properly so I added some from the bits box.

Cacti

Just a quick one today. I improved the biodiversity of my battlefields with some cacti from two sources. The first was Pegasus Hobbies. I picked up two sets on special, and mounted them on 40mm MDF. Some basing, a quick overspray in green and sand, and done. I was pretty happy with them.

Pegasus Hobbies cacti

The second batch are resin 3D prints from Vae Victis, painted and based the same. These are stylistically a bit chunkier than the Pegasus ones, but you don't really notice. You can scale them up and down to add as much variety as you want. I'm a big fan.

Vae Victis cacti.
The skull is from Great Escape Games.

They're all on 40mm MDF bases. I have thoughts of doing sabot area bases. I'm also recalling the classic 40K styrofoam balls with red cocktail sticks... 

Cacti patches side by side.

CanCon 2022

After a pandemic hiatus, CanCon was back for 2022. It suffered from dealer and participant uncertainty, not to mention not enjoying a public holiday long weekend, and was reduced in size. However, it still felt and looked like CanCon and there were a few new traders. It wasn't as blisteringly hot as previous years, either.

Entry was (cheaply) ticketed for the first time, to allow for venue capacity limits and attendance tracking with QR codes. Masks were compulsory. The second hand stall wasn't as mosh-pit-like as usual due to this, which was great!

I didn't grab a lot of photos, but concentrated on scenery which grabbed my attention. The system which was booming was Star Wars: Legion.

Crashed walker

Crashed flyer

Crashed pod

There was a bit of Bolt Action as well.

Battlefield Accessories continue to reinvent themselves with photo-realistic pre-printed MDF. They also have backdrops you can see in these photos.

There was a participation game which I think was the 1941 Battle of Fallujah, with the British Habbaniya Brigade (including Gurkhas) having to capture and hold a bridge from the Iraqis.

My loot: A few impulse buys and second hand bargains.

Eldar Rangers

I've always liked these 1989 Jes Goodwin sculpts, and found some on eBay. I did them in the white & green Biel-Tan scheme which I think is quite striking, and made their camo cloaks reversible.

Thirty years of scale creep. I'm not the only one affected by the snapping of this rifle, and haven't got around to fixing it.

"Stay away from me and my son!"

Éowyn, Dernhelm and Merry

Then Merry heard of all sounds in that hour the strangest. It seemed that Dernhelm laughed, and the clear voice was like the ring of steel. 'But no living man am I! You look upon a woman. Éowyn am I, Éomund's daughter.'

JRR Tolkien, The Return of the King (1955)

Éowyn masquerades as the Rider Dernhelm, pulling the wool over the eyes of Théoden, Merry and the Witch King. This is a gorgeous 2019 plastic kit. You get a mounted Dernhelm and Merry- and Merry is detachable. He sits solidly without pinning or magnets and is easily removable. The join is not apparent. I enjoyed painting the cloaks, with a more grey tone for Merry's elven one.

sans Merry

avec Merry

You also get a dismounted Dernhelm and Merry.

"Her eyes grey as the sea were hard and fell,
and yet tears were on her cheek."

I also had a metal Éowyn - if I'm already painting two Éowyns, what is one more?

"... the helm of her secrecy had fallen from her,
and her bright hair, released from its bonds,
gleamed with pale gold upon her shoulders."

And I dug up an older metal Éowyn and Merry for completeness. I painted these over ten years ago, and was really happy with her face. I prefer my old Merry's underjacket colour.

"... maiden of the Rohirrim, child of kings,
slender but as a steel-blade, fair yet terrible."