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:

Q13 AAR: I Did See A Putty Cat!

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Regular visitors will know that at this year’s Salute I purchased a bargain pack of mdf sci-fi terrain from TT Combat and have spent the last couple of months building it. It was now time to get some figures onto the table and actually use the damn thing!

The scenario was to be a simple attacker/defender game, with the Hauk (sci-fi birdmen from Khurasan) defending the industrial complex against an assault from the Felids (sci-fi lionmen, also from Khurasan). I would play the Hauk, friend Neal would play the Felids, and in order to make things interesting, there was a time limit for the Felids to take the complex.

Click on the picture below to see what happened:

MAKO System for the Felid

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Originally posted 27th April 2013

I have often raved about Khurasan's range of 15mm sci-fi figures: Garn, Felid, Stikk, Kingdom of the Jasmine Throne, Karkarine...a seemingly never ending list of top class models. Now, however, Jon has broken even better new ground by launching the MAKO range of 15mm sci-fi support equipment.

The range consists of a gun tractor and cruciform stand onto which fit a range of different support weapons: currently an autocannon and a heavy mortar. So far so good, you say: cool idea, but not incredibly novel. The new bit is the fact that Khurasan are producing crew figures for each of their alien races to go with the support weapons,  so that you can use the MAKO equipment with whatever range or ranges you happen to be collecting, with the possibility of two opponents on the same table top using the same equipment to fight each other.

Although the Kark crew aren't launched yet, the Felid are (along with other ranges I'm not yet collecting) so here are the current Felid MAKO units in all their various combinations:

Mako Autoguns with Felid crew on mixed mounts

Mako Autoguns with Felid crew on Mako Gun Tractors

Mako Heavy Field Mortars with Felid crew on Mako Cruciform Stands

Mako Heavy Field Mortars with Felid crew on mixed mounts

Garn List Updated

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Originally posted 29th March 2013

The promised update to the Garn/Felid list as I add the Mako weapons system just released by Khurasan. 

I've also added a picture of the Mako figures taken from Khurasan's website, showing how the system works. You buy the guns (a mortar and a twin-barrelled piece) with the crew you want (there are crew figures available for most of Khurasan's main ranges), and then choose the mounting you want: either a static stand or a small tractor. This multi-race approach really has to be the way forward for multi-range, sci-fi figure manufactures.

Pouncer Portable Missile Launchers

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Originally posted 22nd April 2012

As I have often mentioned, one of the problems with some figure ranges is that they don't include any infantry support weapons. Plenty of men-with-guns, sometimes plenty of vehicles, but very little in the way of things such as the sci-fi equivalent or mortars and medium/heavy machine guns.

I accept that argument that in the future that sort of weapon might be redundant (firepower supplied via enhanced personal weapons, battle suits, different sorts of vehicles etc) but it's still nice to see that Khurasan Miniatures provides "full" ranges rather than just the grunts.

Here's my latest bit of painting: Pouncer Portable Missile Launchers for the Felids, and the other great thing is that the mortar operators can also double as drone operators for the Snaggletooth attack and Whiskers scouting drones.

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!

Final batch of painting for 2010

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Originally posted 27th December 2010

Soviet heavy mortars; Lion class transports for the Felids to join the barn force; and a battery of US medium artillery.

Soviet 120mm mortars from Battlefront

Lion class transports from Khurasan

US medium artillery battery from Battlefront