My first attempt at converting 3mm supertanks

I mentioned eariler that after reading/looking at BOLOs and OGREs, I got in the mood to make something similar myself.

Clearly both the CSA and their constant opponents, the Solar Bloc and the Outer Colonies, could use some huge warmachines to escalate their conflicts.

While these first units are very simple conversions, I already have plans for more specialized Mk II's and Mk III's..

But I'm getting ahead of myself, here they are, the Mk I Cybertanks:
 

Commissioned by the CSA when it became clear that the attempts at breakout by the OC were to be a longer conflict than originally projected, the New Hamburg factories started producing the Mk I. Previously mothballed due to budgetary constraints, the CSA brass has now approved the first unit for active field duty, to evaluate it's usefullness against the OC dissidents.

Armed with a 500mm plasma cannon main gun and missiles for all sorts of long range and indirect strike capabilities, the Mk I also sports no less than eight turret hard points that can be equipped with the buyers choice of weaponry. The CSA unit carries four each of lasers and coilguns, respectively.

Here are a few shots of the Mk I next to a CSA Chevalier MBT:

Unconfirmed reports coming from intercepted transmissions seem to indicate that the OC have managed to get ahold of a Mk I of their own. While the New Hamburg factories could theoretically have sold the weapon system to the Outer Colonies, it's considered unlikely by most senior intelligence officers that the OC high command could have afforded the cost of the unit, leading to wild speculation back on earth. 

 Recent imagery forwarded from a local operative does seem to support the claim, as a Mk I in OC colors have been seen in field exercises.

Attached are copies of the unit next to the standard OC tank unit :

(The surveillance equipment have since been sent for maintenace, to remove the foreign object from the lower left corner of the lens.)

With these two done, I'm all set for a game of Laserstorm in the near future! 

I'm also looking at bulking out the infantry units for my 6mm armies, so that full units of the NIJA and USS can take to the field as well. The USS have recently received a full three units of super heavies, to counter the NIJA Sohei tanks, more on those as soon as I get some paint on them!

That's all for today's update, til next time!

A train comes to town..

The repulsor lift train that I showed as a WiP is now all dolled up and ready to take both passengers and cargo where it needs to go on the fringe!

I considered adding some decals to the running cars, but held off for now. I might still do so in the future if I can decide on a design, and make it distinct enough at this size.

Clarke and a MBT from the USS have kindly shown up to give us some scale reference.

As you might remember, I also showed you a WiP of the Secure Outpost; a new building by AB.

I managed to finish this one as well, and even I got the missile launcher turned around the right way this time! A wandering Union trooper can be seen for scale in both shots.

That's all for today's post, just wanted to share the finished pieces while I prepare the finishing touches to my first 3mm cybertanks/super heavies.

Til next time!

More 3mm, including building/objectives and some 6mm WiP

Inspired by some recent posts and reading of good books about BOLOs and the Slammers, I've made an effort to create some more stuff for the 3mm forces, as well as bring their numbers up to an even one for Laserstorm, my intended ruleset for future 3mm engagements.

I want to apologize in advance for the quality of some pics, they were taken with the mobile camera instead of the proper one.

First we have some new buildings:

This big installation was meant to be some form of research facility, but by the time I finished it I realized it might well be suited as a hive-type small city. Or it could be just a REALLY large research facility.

A CSA tank for scale.

 A hospital block. Again with the CSA for scale.

The CSA reinforcements, bringing the force up to 4 full MBT units and 2 full mechanized infantry units.

The OC's new recruits. They are likewise at 4 MBT units and 2 mechanized infantry units.

Both sides are about to get some super-heavy vehicles to act as their super weapons, not unlike BOLO's or OGRE's. My order from brigade just came in, now I get to do some minor conversion work to turn them into superweapons!

The 6mm offerings I've managed to finish so far is quite few, but I have some WiP pictures to show you for now: 

These barbed-wire fences from AB was a great buy, easy to assemble and they came out great. 

The mag-lev train tracks are the last piece I've finished for now. I hope to make a station for the train eventually, so my mecha can attack/defend it! 

The last two pics are works in progress:

 The train to go with the tracks. I resisted my first impulse of painting in a grey or green drab. Hopefully it will prove to be a more interesting choice. In addition to driving carsm I got the passenger car as well as a freight car (2nd from the bottom).

 The last bit is the recently released secure outpost from AB. I thought to make it fit in with the offerings I already have from brigade, but we'll see how it turn out..


That's all I have to share for now, but soon there should be some pics of my Super-tanks for 3mm, and hopefully some finished train cars as well. There might be a mech or two on the way as well..
 The next episode of Saga of Clarke will also happen soon, I promise!

Til next time!

Battling: Heavy Gear Arena Mech duels

Last week my friend Daniel came over for a game of mecha goodness.

We were both interested in a ruleset we'd been only partially exposed to: Heavy Gear Arena.

Set in the same world as it's big brother Heavy Gear Blitz, HGA is all about mecha duelling, not unlike a futuristic gladiator sport, with mechs of course!

Since I'm preparing a mech-centric game as soon as I finish up the current arc of the Saga of Clarke, I thought an alternative to CotF might be worth looking in to.


I only snapped a few shots owing to the fact that we had some great fun, but here they are:

A part of my new board was cordoned off and some quickly assembled pieces added to make the arena.

Daniel's two heavily armored mecha. Just how heavily armoured? I was about to find out!

My own three, slightly less so.. Two of the mechs I borrowed, since my opponent had already painted up a few for the occasion.

As soon as we spotted eachother rockets started flying left and right, but no damage was dealt until the the mech in the bottom right managed to blow some extra armour off of my opponents top right mech with it's grenade launcher.

At this point we realized that Daniel had armoured his mechs a little too well, since we couldn't seem to damage them. I began to worry about the immediate future for my mechs..

Taking to high ground I started lobbing grenades at him while my heaviest mech attacked up close.
At the same time I took my first real damage myself as the mech in the lower left corner preformed a close combat manouver!

The distraction offered by the shelling allowed me to slip my mech up behind my opponents..

..And perform a attack to his slightly less protected rear. It went up in a ball of flame, mostly thanks to my opponent having some bad luck with his dice!

Since my grenadier still occupied the high ground, I got my other mech out of his way before trying another of the toys I'd equipped my mechs with: a heavy hand grenade. With a bit of luck, I hit my target square on and managed to destroy him outright by causing critical damage. Ouch!


The game was fun, but we did identify a couple of things that we'd probably make some house rules for in order to make it more playable. Amongst other things neither of us ever fired any of our projectile weapons since the rocket packs we had were far better and there was little chance of them running out of ammo. Explosive weapons are generally very good, a bit too much so we felt, so they will probably all run with limited ammo and be more rare than in the standard game. Armour levels will probably be kept intentionally slightly lower than the average is, just to make it fit the VOTOMS-style that we both love better.

We were looking to be able to play games much like battling from the VOTOMS series, and HGA was fast, furious and deadly. With the homebrew mods and addons, it might very well be what we were looking for.

I hope to have another episode of the Saga of Clarke done soon, as well as a trial game of CotF for my mechs and some more 3mm goodness.

Til next time! 

Multi-scale terrain, strange ruins and SADU Mechs

In tried and true fashion I've been working on a bit of everything over the last week or so, so today's post is a bit of this and a bit of that.

So let's get cracking, shall we?

I made these pieces hoping to get inspired to fix up the last few models I need to play some more Laserstorm, now that it's realeased. It sort of worked, but having read a Ogre/BOLO post too many, I'm now in the market for some BIG tanks for my 3mm forces. They may or may not be substituted with Titanic Mecha for the time being if I get too impatient however..

A good set, a few bases of woods or vegetation depending on the scale and a small rocky outcrop/hill.

The vegetation with a 6mm Union trooper for scale, good for a small copse or a bush of some sort.

The same vegetation with a CSA Chevalier MBT. The bigger one will make good forests at this scale.

The hill/rock with the 6mm trooper. Big enough for good cover and also blocs LOS!

Like with the 6mm, the 3mm units will most likely find this piece usefull as well.

A pond I originally made for T77/4, But since I didn't finish it in time for the game it'll be featured later. Could be poisonous, so don't drink it, ok?

The very same pond, with the 3mm tank for scale. It seems like I might be able to use this here as well.



I've been wanting a couple of things for my bigger engagements, particularly infrastructure to fight over, like bridges,powerplants and so on. A refinery of some precious mineral or handwaveium raw material was always looming in the back of my mind, so the other day I started to make one and this is what I came up with:

Front of the refinery/processing plant. Can you guess where the inspiration came from?

Back of the structure.

With the 6mm trooper for scale. It might work for 6mm too..

..And with the 3mm tank, at it's intended scale. I wish I made it a tiny bit bigger, but it'll fit in with the rest of my terrain I feel.

For the next episode of the Saga of Clarke I needed to make some ruins, since I had none, human or otherwise. These Alien ruins were made with air-drying clay, to give them a softer, more irregular edge. 

The group shot of the various bases of ruins. 

I thought that the 3mm models might have some use for these down the line as well, so I took a few scale pics for both 6mm and 3mm:

This strange standing stone is one of the many artefacts found in the ruins. Scans have been unable to penetrate the outer layer of the object, leading the scientists involved to speculate about it's mineral make up and origins.

This picture was also in the same data file, a holo-pic of the trooper who found the artefact. According to an attached report, the private in question have since disappeared..

The New Imperial Japanese Army's  Special Armoured warfare Development Unit have recently gotten a few reinforcments:

The new arrivals consist of two Turtle-class mechs, a mainstay of the NIJA's bipedal weapons, and a experimental combat unit known as O-Yoroi.

The Turtle-class mech, like the warrior, is a frontline mech, built for sturdiness and versatility rather than exellence. Standard loadout is a general purpose autocannon and a EW-suite tucked into the backpack unit.

The O-yoroi is another of the Sanada Heavy Industies prototypes. While it's not a dedicated command mech, the O-yoroi is the defacto commander when deployed with it's Turtle-class escorts.

Armed with two high-velocity cannons and shoulder mounts for either plasma or rockets, the O-yoroi is the most heavily armed mech to date in the SADU. At the same time, it's one of the first units equipped with experimental armour plating designed to counter both kinetic, direct-energy and explosive weapons. How good it actually is in the field remains to be seen, but early tests have been promising..

That's the mix of the week, next up I hope to have some pics from a recent game of mech dueling me and a friend played a few days ago and hopefully some more 3mm updates.

Til next time!