Legions of Steel meets BattleTech (Steve)

 It seems I got lost for a couple weeks in one of the Janitor closets at the AHPC studios.  Any rumors about me spending an inordinate amount of time aggressively disagreeing with a closet door regarding the directionality of push verses pull are (aside from the parts that are woefully true) categorically false...

When I emerged from my accidental oubliette of sanitary supply storage, I found myself at the edge of the AHPC Sci-Fi studio lot. 

After a quick accounting about my piles of unpainted shame, I was presented with many a legion of unpainted 40k and Necromunda minis that could be fit to this studio's purpose,  all calling longingly  for the caresses from a paint laden brush.  However, when I thrust my hand deep into the pile of neglected and unloved lead, it was the Legions Of Steel that were found by my grasping palm.

I remember buying the Legions of Steel box game when it was released in 1992, thinking it would be a unique game that I could host for my gaming circle at the time. However, due to the gravitational forces of all things Games Workshop dominating the zeitgeist my 90s gaming group, after only a couple nights gaming the Legions of Steel fell off the play time radar. Then a few years later a busted game box after a house move saw to the departure of all the game pieces but the cool minis.  The Steel Nightmare minis I have were painted long ago, but these Commandos who opposed them have long awaited paint.

I decided to see if I could try to 'Speed Paint" these minis, priming them with a dark blue and then hit with  a white zenithal coat, followed up mostly with yellow/orange Army Painter speed paints.   But let us just say my planned efforts ended up as more a longish learning experience  with enough redo painting to leave the notion of speed behind, but which did give me a better understanding for how the resins in some speed paints behave (and reactivate!) 

 and also...

When I grabbed the Steel Legions Commandos from the the old pile of grey lead it seems there was some 90s mini magnetism at play, as my only old  Battle Tech 'Goliath' mini  came along for the ride to the AHPC sci fi  studios.

 Battle Tech was a hot game topic for a couple months in my old game group before Battle Tech (like many other 'new' games at the time)  simply could not over come the Games Workshop dominance for consuming player game time and mini money.  This old Ral Partha sculpt saw a few games (and few rounds of bad paint and paint stripping) but now this AHPC inspired  modern mix of paints, speed paints and dry brushing I think can at last take this old chunk of lead out of the pile of shame and onto the display shelf.

So for the AHPC studios this week  I laid paint upon some old minis to craft a 90's Sci Fi film, as a homage to the doomed diversions that were the games tried in yester year but denied the many more hours play time they deserved.

x9 28mm Foot Figures, Sci Fi        Total = 65 points

Legions of Steel Commandos ( 8x5pts) = 40pts
Battle Tech Goliath                                 =  5 pts
Green Studio Pass: 'Sci-Fi'                     = 20 pts 

Steve - 10mm characters and terrain for Kings of War

 This week I competed the last  of the minis I needed to have a fully painted 2000pt Despoiler force for Kings of War, with a few extra minis to have some options to change between games.  A magus conclave for ranged attacks, and a couple mounted commanders and a spell slinger I can attach to regiments.

I play a lightly bent version of KoW with 10 mm minis rather than 28 mm minis on base, and I use Depoilers as proxies for units from the rule book's Varangur army list. Same rules and points as the real KoW rules, but a different look on the game table.

For the Magus conclave, which serve as an artillery unit, I roughly applied a base layer of spackle in an effort to create the impression that the five mages were collectively summoning up a swirling mass of chaotic energy from which each turn one among them could channel a magically lobbed ranged attack.  (So I am hoping this pieces does not look like five guys in bath robs standing on a badly mowed lawn.)

I also completed the first of the 10mm terrain I am working on to enable me to host a KoW game upon a wargame table kitted out to look more like a combat among the ruins within the lost wooded scrub lands, rather than a battle upon the endless blasted barren plains (which is the kindest theme I can think of to describe the shameful horror of a naked game table top).

Both terrain pieces feature some spare bits and bobs ByronM gifted me, and both pieces  make use of old CDs for the base bottoms.  I reimagined a slightly miss-printed castle corner tower into a lone tower a top a jutting mound, and I fashioned some extras from a bag of tiny trees into a wooded hill.  

The tower is 6 inches high and a CD is 5 inches wide, so I am thinking the two terrain pieces combined neatly fill a 6x6 inch cube. 


10mm figures - proxies for Kings of War
Despoiler Lord On Steed (Mounted) 2x2pts = 4pts
Despoiler Mage (Foot Figure)    = 1 pt
Magus Conclave  (Foot Figure) 5x1pt = 5 pts 
Tower and wooded hill (Terrain) 6x6inch = 20pts
Total 30 points