Q13 AAR: Rivets and Ribbets!

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Those of you who read my last Q13 AAR will know that I am currently playing “king of the ring” with my new sci-fi factory complex. Last game, the Felids defeated the Hauk, so now it was their turn to defend, with their opponents being the Aphids: frog-like beings from Zombiesmith.

My opponents were Dave and John, who were on a strict time limit which actually nicely suited the type of game we were playing: they would play the Aphid attackers, and would have almost exactly 2½ hours to reduce my position.

Click on the picture below to see how they did:

BTR-50 PK APCs for Vietnam

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Originally posted 14th April 2014

More models that I picked up as part of Battlefront's 40%-off Vietnam sale: a platoon of five BTR-50 PK armoured personnel carriers.

This is a cracking example of buying stuff that I cannot think that I am ever going to use! Well they were 40% off: bargain!

Actually, they will do for some general purpose sci-fi APCs for Quadrant 13: and will actually fit in with my Aphids very nicely.

More Airpower for the Aphids

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Originally posted 22nd September 2011

The Aphids were still badly in need of some air power, so I have changed my mind about them having drones, and decided that their air assets are a bit more advanced than their ground troops: they have bought in better technology than they have invented themselves. The Aphids now have two types of aircraft: Lilypad-class single-Aphid fighters (featured as part of the 2nd September update) and Tadpole-class two-seater bombers. Both models are from Spartan Games' sci-fi fleet battle game Firestorm Armada.

Here are the Tadpole-class bombers: 

Air Power for Q13

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Originally posted 2nd September 2011

Air power is proving an important part of the new, full-length version of the sci-fi rules based on IABSM that I'm writing. With that in mind, I thought I'd better reinforce my ground troops with a selection of aerial drones: sort of uber-Predators.

All the drones, below, come from Spartan Games' excellent range of starships for theirFirestorm Armada game. They paint up very easily, and I would highly recommend them to people looking for this kind of thing. Each of the drone models, below, is about 3-4cms long, so ideal 15mm drone size. So, for my sci-fi armies, we have...

Lilypad Drones for the Aphids: 

Stalker Drones for the Felids:

And Cone Drones for the Spug contingent of the Hive:

Those of you who have followed some of the AAR on this site will know what a pain this type of drone has proved to me in the past: time to arrange a game with Neil for payback!

Froggy Tanks for the Aphids

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Originally posted 14th August 2011

Well, I seem to be going sci-fi mad at the moment!

The new IABSM-variant rules are now in final playtesting, and I'm painting up units right, left and centre to get as many different combinations of troops on to the table as soon as possible.

Here are some tanks for the Aphids. They are from Blue Moon Manufacturing, ordered via special order from Old Glory UK. Very efficient service, so highly recommended.

The tanks are great: they have a certain "frogginess" about them that fits in well with the Aphids. 

The tanks come as one fuselage, the rear turret, and separate "eye turbines" and gun. The turbines and gun need some work to fit and glue them into place, but the models paint up very well with plenty of raised detail to take a good dry-brush. The tanks also come with very good flight stands.

One minor gripe: the raw fuselage has a (human) skull design on the bit between the "eye turbines" that I had to green-stuff over to make a dome. I'm sure that skulls are lovely as tank decorations, but they do then rather limit you to using them for human-based forces!

"Flycatcher" tanks

GYFTOOMF: The Aphids

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Originally posted 18th April 2010

I've added the photographs of the Aphids: frog-like aliens largely from Zombiesmith. Unfortunately I'm having a bit of a mare with my photos at the moment: I had the camera perfectly set up to take pictures using normal light bulbs, but now we've switched to energy efficient ones  I can't get the colour balance right! So apologies, and I will replace them all in due course.