Hold The Line! Epic Fortifications

Posted on by skinflintgames

Way back in the dim mists of time, there was an era of peace and plenty. Colours were bright and gold, computers had but 16 bits, and the bases were always – ALWAYS – Goblin Green.

And yea, verily in that time did Games Workshop release the 2nd edition of Epic “Space Marine”, and yea, it was good. And Epic Space Marine begat many Whote Dwarf articles, not least of which was how to build your own fortifications – trench lines, barbed wire, and minefields. And lo, it was good.

Spring has sprung (boing) here in dear old Blighty and that can mean but one thing – the Great Star Wars game is approaching… A slightly daft and most definitely escalatory tradition here at Skinflint HQ, which climaxed last year with a spectacularly violent Rebel amphibios invasion on the Imperial world of Hazzard…

This year, it’s the Imperials on the offensive as they hope to stamp out the insignificant little rebellion once and for all – so their failure shall be complete – and so it’s granny grating time once again! But before we dive into that, the Rebels are going to be manning the defences and since we’re doing this in Epic scale (ish), it made sense to revisit some VERY old White Dwarf articles to build the stuff I never got round to as a youngling.

We have here minefields – represented by craters – and razor wire. These started as ePVC bases, cut and bevelled and sanded (well, a bit). Then I daubed DAS air drying clay and with a wet finger sculpted the crater shapes. For the razor wire, I made a low hill, stuck off cuts of granny grating (take a shot) and snipped out some auto mesh bought from ebay (the stuff they use for car body repairs) and rolled it round a pen, then superglued in place.
Next up, I painted the whole lot with PVA and gave it as olid texturing of Garage Floor Dust (TM) – sawdust, kitty litter and just general crud.
Began priming black.. and then the spray can ran out. Sigh. So white it is then – will at least mean I can do leopard spotting on the craters.

So, once primed, I gave all the ground (aside from the craters) a solid coat of brown – the craters themselves got the “leopard spotting” technique we’ve used before since learning it from Lukes APS – basically a white undercoat, splodge on some watered down yellow, then a bit of watered down brown, then wash the whole thing with VERY thin black paint…. then get depressed because it looks sh*t, wait for it to dry and drybrush with a cheap cream craft paint and revel in the fact that it now looks ACE.

Then I painted on the PVA, sprinkled dried earth, cement sand and green Jarvis flock over the brown paint, and when everything was dry I gave it a spray of isopropyl alcohol and sealed with watered down PVA dribbled all over it. A trip out to the shed for a spray of matt varnish and here are the finished articles!

Barbed wire
Minefields
Stormtroopers attempt to overwhelm the Rebel defenders..

And if I say so myself, they’re not half bad! Next up will be trench lines for the Rebels along with some defence turrets, and a LOT of extra stormtroopers.. and maybe something else for the Imperials!

Stay thrifty out there and Slavia Ukraini

Enter The Raptors…. Pt.1

Posted on by skinflintgames

A while back, we received an incredibly generous gift of MANY MANY BITZ from the wonderful Roger at Rantings From Under The Wargames Table, and amongst those MANY MANY bitz were lots of… bits.. of Space Marines, mainly metal torsos and lots of plastic arms. Since at that point Dan had his hands full with the 1991 Blood Angels and I think the acquisition of any more would have probably led to divorce, they stayed in the bits box “for now”.

But the other night we ran a FireFight game that featured a Levy (standard human infantry) squad led by a Crusader (power armoured human elite infantry of the Firefight lore) sergeant (played by one of Dan’s Blood Angels) and while it was cracking game -Firefight always is- the look was a bit off. Don’t get me wrong, bright vermillion and Goblin Green bases are GLORIOUS, but it didn’t quite mesh with the appearnace of the other models.

And as Dan himself commented, “he probably feels a right twat”.

And we couldn’t have that, could we?

So my first thought was to build these Marines as Crusaders in a scheme that fitted the Levy – bit grungier, maybe camo patterns… and then I remembered there is an actual 40k Marine chapter that does things in a fairly sensible way – yup, the Raptors.

So straight away, that’s double duty, and who can say no to a 2 for 1 deal? Not me!

So I put together this chap from the bits Roger sent us, based (PVA on the base and drizzle on Garage Floor Dust TM) and primed up (light grey, prewash with Vallejo Smokey Ink, drybrush with Vallejo white primer) and got to business!

I gave him two thin coats of Vallejo Russian Green, washed with Smokey Ink and then another very light drybrush with Russian Green as a base. From there, I painted on a digital-ish scheme similar to the “Dualtex” camo pattern demonstrated by Tacobat back before his blog was shuttered.. first was Vallejo Olive drab in big rectangle blocks and then “L” shapes with craft tan and Vallejo German Grey.

This actually turned out pretty well, but you wouldn’t know it from the pics as I then went and ruined it with a light tan drybrush that wasn’t quite as light as I intended… I wanted a grungy, dusty look but I think it just mushed everything together.. oh well.

The eagles where painted white and then with bone and washed with Vallejo Skin Wash, and the metallics done with Vallejo Mithril Silver washed with thin black craft paint – wanting them to look dull, not rusty. This ain’t Da Black Ork Cav.

Hmm… not convinced now I see these pics up close but you’ll have to trust me that he actually doesn’t look bad from two feet away….
Here he is leading his Levy squad – Valiant “1/72 heroic” figures, I reckon they scale pretty well.

So right now I have one guy to lead a Levy squad, but as we progress through Firefight I’m going to need a squad of 4 and then a whole platoon of 16.. and will this eventually lead to a full size Blood Angel style army?

I think we all know it will. Sigh. But look – wouldn’t a Rhino or Landspeeder look pretty badass in digital camo getup?

The moral of the story – ever heard the saying “There’s nothing more expensive than a free Ferrari”? Substitute “Ferrari” for Space Marine…. Thanks Roger! (although I should genuinely thank Roger for a proper act of generosity.. it’s not his fault I have zero self-control or budgetary skills! X-D)

The addiction demonstrably incurable, the addict prepare another fix… stay thrifty out there and Slava Ukrainia as always!

Today’s The Day! Apocalypse: Earth 2nd Ed is GO!!!

Posted on by skinflintgames

Oh HAPPY DAY!!

Yep, after what feels like forever, we are very happy to announce that Apocalypse: Earth 2nd edition is finally DONE and available on general release both in digital PDF format from the Wargames Vault and in print format from Lulu.com!

And special shout out to John from Just Needs Varnish for his help proofreading and explaing to us the difference between “it’s” and “its” !

So, what is this all about? Well, it’s our self-published ruleset set in an alternate WW2 where Germany won WW1 (kind of), set up a “proto EU” – the League Of European Nations – but Hitler never made it out of the trenches alive and so no Nazis. Stalin rose to power and something happened to make make him even more of a demented murderous lunatic than he was in our timeline and he set forth to conquer first Europe and then the world… meanwhile, the UK & US pooled their resources to create the Atlantic Alliance whilst a botched Soviet invasion of China led to the creation of an Asian power bloc…

Meanwhile, the Empire Of Japan, the international terrorist network of the Brotherhood, the pan-Arabic Jihad Pact and the mysertious extraterrestrial Greys all play a part (albeit so far a supporting one) in shaping a world in the grip of a truly apocalyptic war by the late 1950s, with practically every loopy defence project having received funding…

So there’s your background!

We’ll try and answer a few FAQs to get things underway:

What scale is this for?

15mm, 20mm, 25/28mm are all coverd with ranges and templates – the idea being that you can use your current model collection, whatever that may be.

What size is the game scaled for?

Anything from squad to company size, so from 5-10 models a side all the way up to 100 or so.

What do I need apart from the book?

Tape measure, some D6s, and you’ll want to scan / photocopy the order counters, templates etc that are in the book… plus somewhere to play and some things to represent terrain.

How long does it take to play?

About an hour for a small game, 2-3 hours for something 50-100 figures a side.

What factions are covered?

The Holy Soviet Army, the Atlantic Alliance, The Asian Communist Federation and The League Of European Nations all have basic lists in the book – other stuff will be released in free updates via the blog and our occasional e-magazine “The Skinflint Gamer”… we’d like to say we’ll be dropping big codex style books for each one but realistically as there’s just the two of us doing everything that’s not going to happen! We’re always happy to take suggestions from players as to potential units and how to make them work in-game.

What do I get in the book?

All the rules, army lists for the main four factions, the history of the Apocalypse War – everything you need to get playing!

I already bought the original. What’s changed?

Thank you! Well, fewer typos, clearer explanations, better illustrations… all the background is the same (again, a concession to the fact that there’s two of us doing this), but the rules are clearer and now it isn’t a pure alternating action sequence but an initiative driven one where play passes between opponents. You give your troops orders now but those orders can be enhanced by Command Points, which smaller, better trained forces are better able to leverage, giving an advantage against bigger slower-moving ones. If you’ve played the original game, this is an evolution – driven by us playing it for the last ten years, tweaking it here and there and all those tweaks adding up into something with more depth than the original but still feeling fast paced and lethal.

OK, I’m sold. Where can I buy it?

Wargames Vault (PDF) – here

Lulu.com (Print copy) – here

Can I see some pics?

Thought you’d never ask!

So there you go everyone, happy days! We’re also donating 25% of profits to help the DEC Ukraine fund so you’re helping a good cause too.

The extra bonus is that we can reuse alot of this stuff for Future Force Warrior, which is essentially the same game moved a few hundred years into the uture with mankind taking its first faltering steps out into a galaxy that reveals some horrifying truths about the nature of reality, as well as providing the backbone of the rank & flank fantasy/steampunk game Hyperian Wars… exciting times here at Skinflint HQ!

Stay thrifty and Slavia Ukrainia