Building a car for Gaslands

There are times when I wish I could control my butterfly tendencies, but this is not one of them. The devil that is the YouTube algorithm recommended Wastelands Raceway, a Gaslands channel, and I was hooked. Their battle reports got me thinking I should definitely give the game a go, so I quickly got on to North Star Military Figures and ordered some swag.

Those purchases ate up the last of my hobby budget for the month, so the tokens and templates will have to wait until next month. I might try Sarissa Precision for those, as the postage is much more reasonable. The bane of a hobbyist in Japan - postage.

I decided to start on my first car before the rules arrive, so I took a wander into town. One of the benefits of Gaslands, apart from its really low buy-in cost, is the ready availability of toy cars. I checked out some of the bigger shops in Hiroshima, but none of the modern cars were grabbing my imagination. I’m a child of the 70s, and the cars that appeal to me are those from the 60s, 70s, and 80s that I remember seeing on the roads during my childhood. Luckily, there’s a small toy shop near my apartment, and they not only had some Hot Wheels on sale, but they also had a car that caught my eye.

The minute I saw the Land Rover, I thought I could definitely do something with it. The first thing I had to do, after watching a few tutorial, was to take the car apart. This is probably the first time I’ve used a power tool in the last ten years. Drilling out the posts that hold the car together wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be.

I’m very fortunate to have a large bits box, a by-product of having so many different projects, so I started pulling out anything that spoke to me. I found my ridiculously large GW box of skulls, which I’ll never finish, and the idea came to me. This car should be a punk vehicle, covered in skulls and spikes. I did toy with the idea of turning it into a Viking ship, with a row of shields on each side, but I didn’t like the look of it. I think I made the right choice.

I was a little worried that some of the things I was adding weren’t attached very securely, so I turned to baking powder not only to strengthen the joints but also to add a bit of texture. I was hoping the effect would look something like bad welding.

I wanted a distinctive signature weapon for the Land Rover, and fortunately Gaslands has a decent selection of weapons — not as silly as Car Wars, but there are enough. After a bit of searching, I decided on a flamethrower.

Building the car was slightly delayed as I waited for some figures to arrive to crew the vehicle, but I decided to use the time to try a new paint technique. I am being pleasantly surprised by how much converting this toy car is forcing me to push my hobby skills.

I really wanted the Land Rover to be a proper rust bucket. I was going to use some rust-effect paints, but I thought I could try something different. After watching a few YouTube videos by Gaslands TV, I settled on the salt weathering technique. It didn’t seem beyond my skill level, and the effect looked really good.

After the crew arrived, I realised that I had made a small error in my build. The front windscreen protection I had added meant that I couldn’t fit them in, especially the driver. I ummed and ahhed for a while until I decided to paint the driver without his arms on. I thought I would be able to sort it out afterwards.

With the majority of the painting done, I glued the car back together. I do have some doubts that superglue will be strong enough, but that is a problem for another day. For the metallic parts of the car, I used two rust-effect paints by Vallejo: Old Rust and Rust Oxide. I was worried that the two different rust techniques I had used wouldn’t work together, but I am happy with the results.

To finish the car off, I painted the second crew member and the wheels. After a very pleasant few days of hobbying, my first Gaslands car is finished. I might still add a little dust, especially to the wheels, but I’m not sure it needs it. I’d like to think about it for a while.

Here is the Headhunter, driven by Paz and Baz — the Chuckle Brothers.

A final shot produced by AI to get a dynamic image of the Headhunter.

Tussle at Townwall-A two-player game of Rogue Trader

Tussle at Townwall

A two-player game of Rogue Trader

“This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it.”

I am not entirely sure how much I agree with Friedrich Nietzsche’s idea of eternal recurrence, but it does seem to ring true when it comes to my gaming. I have found myself drawn back to an old friend: the rules that spawned a multinational leviathan, Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader.

These venerable rules are hardly a streamlined, modern ruleset, yet I have a real soft spot for them. It seems almost surreal that Rogue Trader has been part of my life for nearly forty years.

Those of you who have been following this blog from the beginning will know that it all started with a series of solo games of Rogue Trader. I was spinning a narrative based on the characters and the events that unfolded on the tabletop. I probably burnt myself out trying to play and write up one game a week, so the Cantwara Sector has been left to sit for a while.

Although I was not playing Rogue Trader, I was still thinking about the characters and the sector; I simply needed the right moment and a little inspiration. Inspiration came from two YouTube channels: Tabletop Club, which perfectly captures that old-school aesthetic, and Uglub’s Armoury, which reminded me just how much I love these old figures.

Finding the right time was a matter of kismet: a friend was willing to give the rules a go, and I am on spring vacation.

Narrative

Green light illuminated Lieutenant Grey’s face as he scanned the auspex, his usually calm visage marked by a faint crease of worry. The rebellion was spreading beyond the control of the Imperial forces. The Thunderhawk banked hard to port, narrowly avoiding a burst of anti-aircraft fire. The Marine veteran’s hand brushed the purity seals upon his armour, and his lips intoned a prayer of protection.

His squad was hurtling planetward when his vox-caster crackled to life:

“Lieutenant Marcus Grey. Imperial Command Designate.

By writ of the Adeptus Administratum, and under the watchful gaze of the Omnissiah, you are hereby briefed.

The frontier settlement designated HIVE-OUTPOST ALKHAM-NINE has entered a state of sanctioned disorder.

Xenos presence confirmed. Classification: ELDAR. Threat pattern: Raid and extraction.

Their objective is a relic-signature emanating from the central ruin-zone. Artefact classification pending.

Risk level: SEVERE.

Your directive is thus:

SECURE the precinct zone. DENY the xenos access to the artefact. PRESERVE Imperial authority by force.

Civilian casualties are acceptable. Loss of the artefact is not.

Imperial assets at your disposal include:

Adeptus Arbites.

Imperial Guard elements.
Attached Astartes detachment.”

Grey turned to his battle-brothers. “The enemy lies below us — xenos and malcontents. We shall show them the light of the Emperor. In His name, brothers!”

The Eldar pirates offered a cache of advanced weaponry to secure the loyalty of the local gangs, mercenaries, and the Scargillites — striking miners whose anger burned brighter than their failing industry. The weapons would lend strength to their doomed resistance against the smothering dominion of the Imperium of Man.

Their fate did not trouble the Warlock. To Vaelys, the threads of possibility were already laid bare. He had foreseen the likely outcome: the miners crushed, the gangs scattered, the mercenaries slain or scattered to the void.

Yet even doomed pawns have their purpose.

They would bleed. They would distract.

And in that distraction, Vaelys would claim what truly mattered.

Magistrate Talia Arden struggled through the sucking black mud of Alkham Nine. Once verdant, the world had become a poisoned mire — first through relentless mining, now through war.

Mud dragged at her boots and stained her coat, but she raised her voice above the distant thunder of artillery.

“Forward! Close the distance!”

The soldiers of the 21st Dubris Regiment advanced, slipping as they pushed towards the trench line. They had barely reached it when the enemy opened fire.

Autogun bursts tore through the mud, cutting down the leading ranks. Las-shots answered in ragged volleys, but the defenders were entrenched and ready.

Arden did not hesitate.

She drew her sidearm and stepped forward into the storm.

Warlock Vaelys felt the threads of possibility slipping away. He had to reach the artefact before Imperial reinforcements arrived.

Ignoring his honour guard’s warnings, he rose from the trench and stepped into open ground.

A lascannon beam struck him at once, fired by a Space Marine through smoke and ruin. His guard retaliated, shuriken catapults hissing as monomolecular flechettes cut down three Marines where they stood.

Vaelys laughed.

His thread was not yet severed.

The displacer field flared, twisting space as the blast triggered its defence. In a shimmer of light, he was torn from harm and hurled across the battlefield.

When the glare faded, Vaelys stood beside the artefact.

The flash of light to his right made Gorick “Red Eyes” flinch. Steward of the Scargillites though he was, he was still unaccustomed to the brutal realities of warfare. The noise, the smoke, the suddenness of death — it was nothing like the picket lines and shouted slogans of the mines. He tried to shout orders, to steady his men, but they surged past him towards the enemy trench line, driven by anger and desperation, ready to spill the blood of those who had oppressed them for so long.

The men of Alkham did not realise what awaited them. Concealed within the trench was a squad of the feared Arbites. The blue-clad law enforcement officers stepped forward with cold discipline and calmly opened fire with their bolt pistols. The withering volleys tore through the charging Scargillites, cutting many of them down in the mud before they had even fired a shot.

The Scargillites were saved by Davidus Hurley and his gang of reprobates, the Chess Club. The name had begun as a joke, long ago in the back room of a workers’ tavern, but there was nothing playful about them now. These hardened gang members had clashed with the Arbites more than once, learning through bruises, arrests, and broken bones that the only argument the law truly respected was hot lead.

From behind a pile of concrete tubes and the rusting carcass of an ore container, they opened fire with practised discipline. The sharp, staccato crack of their autoguns cut across the battlefield, and two Arbites staggered as the rounds struck home, their blue armour splintering under the impact before they fell into the mud.

The firefight with the Eldar was not going the Astartes’ way. The relentless hail of shuriken fire had pinned his warriors in place, monomolecular discs whining and ricocheting from ceramite plate. Beyond the smoke and ruin, a band of mercenaries was manoeuvring to outflank them, closing the trap with grim inevitability. Lieutenant Grey could see no path that did not end with the xenos recovering the artefact.

The realisation settled heavily upon him.

Retreat was not a word often spoken by the Adeptus Astartes. Honour demanded advance. Doctrine demanded resolve. Yet command demanded survival. He would not squander the lives of his battle-brothers in a gesture of pride.

Failure would bring censure. There would be reports, inquiries, perhaps even rebuke. So be it.

Better censure than annihilation.

Grey activated his vox-caster, his voice steady despite the storm of fire around him.

“All units, fall back. Tactical withdrawal. Regroup at rally point Sigma.”

The order tasted bitter — but it was necessary.

A game of Zona Alfa in 15 mm

Zona alfa

Making good use of my 15mm Sci-Fi collection

At the beginning of January, I was watching some YouTube when I stumbled across Crusty Colonel’s Zona Krusti battle reports. If you haven’t watched them and you like an irreverent sense of humour, I recommend them. The battle reports got me thinking that I haven’t been making much use of the 15 mm sci-fi figures that I painted last year, and Zona Alfa could change that. 

I ordered both the main rulebook and the expansion book, Kontrabrand. Kontrabrand is aimed at solo and co-op play, which is definitely my cup of tea, but I am going to play the basic rules and really get them in my head before I turn to Kontrabrand.

I played a learning game of Zona Alfa today.  The rules are not that difficult but I am sure that I made quite a few mistakes but it was a lot of fun. I played the first scenario in the rulebook, The Crossroads at Blyatsk, with only one scavenger team, so it was a little easy but it gave me a chance to try the core rules of the game.  I still managed to forget that you gained pinned tokens when you roll critical failures and zone events completely slipped my mind.  Still there is always next time.

Battle report

The GMC sent a salvage team into the Alkham Valley Zone to recover sensitive documents from a missing transport.

Lieutenant Mettraux ordered his team to spread out, keeping their eyes open for any hostiles in the area.

Trooper Douglas pushed forward by himself; his impetuous advance woke a group of Alkham Weevils from their lair. The chitinous creatures burst out of a nearby building and charged the lone trooper.

Seeing the danger Douglas was in, Lieutenant Mettraux ordered the rest of the team forward in support.

As Trooper Douglas struggled to fight off the weevils, Penal Trooper K1985-Warsop rushed to his aid. The convicted beer adulterator was urged on by the drug system locked around his neck.

The trooper pulled out of the combat without looking back, grateful to escape the beasts, leaving K1985-Warsop — a man with little left to lose — to face the weevils alone.

K1985-Warsop laughed manically as the Alkham Weevils tried to eviscerate him with their mandibles. A gleam of joy appeared in his eyes as his shotgun blew the mutated creatures apart; their carapaces were no match for its power.

Seeing the way was clear, the technician moved towards the truck where the documents were located. Her presence reactivated the robotic crew, their corrupted coding twisted by the Zone’s influence.

Douglas smiled as he saw the droids slowly power up. He pulled two grenades from his belt and yanked the pins free with his teeth, then launched them towards the bots with practised ease. The explosives arced through the air and detonated in the middle of the droids, blowing three of them apart.

The last droid rushed the technician, the creak of its prematurely corroded joints cutting through the air. Technician Bakhuys drew her pistol and opened fire. The rapid bursts from her automatic weapon bounced harmlessly off the mindless robot’s armour.

Lieutenant Mettraux activated K1985-Warsop’s drug dispenser without a thought for the convict’s well-being. The chemical cocktail burned away any fatigue and drove the penal trooper back into the melee. He fired his shotgun like a man possessed, blasting the robot into fragments. The way was clear for the salvage team to recover the documents.

My Fifth Blood Bowl Team-The Seaburgh Gulls

 The Seaburgh Gulls

Inspiration can come from many different places. When I was thinking about which team I should paint next and what colour scheme to use, I found myself in a bit of limbo. I was waiting for some figures to arrive so I would have enough models for an Undead team and a Chaos team, so I decided to look in my cupboard. There, I came across a box of modern Blood Bowl figures: Imperial Nobility. I realised that if I added a few models from my lead pile, I could make another full team.

That sorted out what I should paint, but I wasn’t going to paint them as the Bogenhafen Barons. I struggled for a while, flicking through my old issues of White Dwarf looking for inspiration, but it wasn’t until I was walking towards the Peace Park that I found my muse.

I have always had a soft spot for gulls, so when I saw this solitary gull perched on a lamppost, I thought I would try to work out a colour scheme based on a gull’s plumage. A seagull gave me three colours to work with: yellow, white, and grey. White would be the primary colour for the uniform, with grey as the secondary colour, and yellow as the tertiary colour. One change I made to my initial idea was to add metallic silver to the chest armour, to make the uniform a little—well—less uniform. The solitary seagull also gave me the name for the team: the Gulls. Overall, I am pretty happy with the way the figures turned out, even though they took quite a long time; I started them in November. That is my own fault for choosing colours that take a lot of work to achieve a decent finish.

A chance to put OldHammer miniatures on the table. A game of Dragon Rampant 2nd edition

Putting Old Lead on the Table

A game of Dragon Rampant 2nd edition

The warband of Wilhem Kastring`s raid on Norman land.

I was lucky enough to play my first game of Dragon Rampant (2nd edition) last night. I took a Chaos warband made up of Oldhammer pre-slotta and slotta miniatures, along with a Satanic Panic giant, to face his historical Normans. I was hoping I could make his warband history, but the night was not to be mine.

This was my first game using these rules, but I have played some other games in the Rampant series, so they weren’t completely unknown to me. I found the rules to be quick and fun, offering some nice tactical choices. They gave me that old-school rank-and-flank feel without the need for fiddly rules. There were a few moments of flicking through the rulebook to clarify things, but my biggest mistake was forgetting the scenario objective. My opponent had won the game the turn before I finally wiped out his warband. We live and learn.

The Norman elite cavalry began a flanking manoeuvre, only to be taken out of the game by a string of failed activations.

The wizard Enkalon of Garusa began to unleash fireballs at the waiting Norman lines. However, his arcane talents were, for the most part, thwarted by the Norman shield wall.

Nud Spittlespine and his retinue charged into the Norman housecarls. The savage followers of Chaos hacked away at the disciplined Norman troops, both sides taking so much punishment that they eventually routed from the field.

The giant Gogmagog charged into the waiting Norman shield wall. The wall of spears forced the giant back, even after he had crushed many of the men of Anjou.

The disciplined members of Ansell’s retinue of Chaos marauders lined up opposite another unit of Norman spearmen, their screams of murder unsettling the waiting Normans.

The right flank of Ansell’s retinue was protected by a warband of Slaanesh followers. The decadent servants of the god of secrets could not hold back their desire to feel the joys of battle and emerged from the woods towards the Norman spearmen.

The Norman light infantry were charged by the impetuous Slaanesh warband. The spearmen made bloody work of the Chaos warriors, but the unit was heavily damaged in the combat.

Duke William charged into the remaining members of Ansell’s warband, his arming sword making short work of the battered unit.

Gogmagog charged into William the Bastard, unhorsing the Duke, but the battle had already been lost by the forces of Chaos, and Wilhelm Kastring sounded the retreat.