Quick Review: Deadzone Marauder Ripper Suits

Today's random pick is two Ripper Suits and a Goblin sniper for the Marauders faction. All the minis come packed as shown below with no indication of what the models are or any instructions of how the pieces go together.

 

Here's all the pieces from the pack. Again hardly any visible mould lines but I did find a little bit of flash on the legs of the Ripper Suit models but it's not very noticeable.

 

Here's all the parts allocated to the various models. Again with no instructions it was hard to work out what went with what as there seemed to be spare pieces. So I found the models in the rulebook but couldn't find a clear shot of the close combat Ripper. The close combat Ripper has two saws and looking at the model it was obvious you could only fit one of them. So I was worried that picking one of them one would affect its points cost or combat ability. I had a flick through the rulebook and couldn't find anything about points or weapon choice affecting combat so I decided to have a look at the cards for this faction.

 

Each faction has it's own card deck. This deck has three types of card Mission cards, Battle cards and Stat cards. As you'd expect the mission cards tell you what you need to do to win but they also give you deployment zones. The Battle cards are used during the game and do things like giving you an a bonus in combat etc. The Stat cards though not only give you the stats for the model with their weapons but also have a picture of the model. I'll do a fuller look at the cards and rules once I've assembling the figures.

 

So looking at the stat card for the close combat ripper suit I can see that it doesn't matter which Saw I use as it's just cosmetic.

 

So on to the assembly of the models. The first thing to say is clear your work area of everything except the bits you need for that particular model as it's easy to pick up the wrong part by mistake. I was assembling parts for both models while the glue dried on one part and ended up gluing the wrong arm/weapon combo. Luckily I spotted the mistake before the glue set. Next thing is that the parts don't fit together well. I had to trim some pieces and even then there wasn't a perfect flush fit. I'm not saying the finished model looks bad, in fact I love how they look, just that you need to be aware that you'll have to do some prep work to improve the fit.

 

Dry fit all the pieces so you know where everything goes. This is particularly true for the chain gun as the ammo belt needs to be positioned correctly to make it line up well.

 

There are  alternate parts like the chainsaws and heads plus there are flavour pieces like the mini radar dish you can add to add to customise the finished model. One part that had me confused was the one shown above the goblin in the photo below. The close combat ripper has a hydraulic ram on his left arm and I worked out later that it was an alternate part that showed the ram retracted.

 

The last model in the pack is the Goblin Sniper. Easy to assemble as you just have to glue the head into place. However on my model the gun barrel was slightly bent but that's an easy fix.

 

The finished models with a Mantic ghoul for size comparison. Also included in the box are some 40mm bases to mount these on.

 

The pictures don't really give you a true impression of the size of the finished models. These Ripper Suits look massive, bristling with all kinds of weapons. I was going to go with Plague as my main faction but after building these I'm going Marauder all the way.

 

Tune in tomorrow for the next random pack.

Quick Review: Deadzone Rebs Faction minis

Each day for the next couple of weeks I'm going to be randomly picking a pack of figures from my Kickstarter box, assembling them and then giving my thoughts on the models and how they went together. First up is what turned out to be a couple of minis from the Rebs faction.

All the minis come packed as shown below with no indication of what the models are or any instructions of how the pieces go together.

 

The first thing to say is that there is no flash anywhere on the models and the mould lines are hardly noticeable. The loose pieces have been roughly cut off a sprue and will need trimming, more on this later.

 

The parts on the small sprue were easy to remove with no breakages, however on a couple of the parts the sprue was connected near where the part connected to the main body of the model and they have to be trimmed carefully otherwise assembly can be more tricky than necessary.

 

The parts generally have lugs and sockets of matching shapes to help with assembly. Although where some of them fit isn't immediately obvious. As you'll see in the pictures of the finished models one of them has legs where the arms would usually be and vice versa. After a bit of puzzling over how these went together I had a look for pictures of the models in the rulebook (they can be seen on page 20 & 32). Once I'd seen the finished models things were a lot easier.

 

The larger of the two models went together easily once I'd figured out where everything went. I did have a problem working out which way round the tail went but another quick look at the photo sorted that out. I had problems with the smaller one though. Both arms were tricky to fit as they had to join together at the weapon (I think where they'd been connected to the sprue and the subsequent trimming didn't help matters). I had to glue and remove them a couple of times and in the end had to fudge things a little.

 

The finished models can be seen below with a Mantic Ghoul to give you a sense of their size.

 

The figures themselves are nice with lots of crisp detail and should paint up well. Hopefully, now I know to look for the models in the rulebook and to be careful trimming the parts, the rest of the models will go together quickly and easily.

 

Tune in tomorrow for the next random pack review.

Quick Unboxing: Deadzone Kickstarter Box

My Deadzone package arrived bright & early this morning so I thought I'd post a few quick photos of what I received.
 

Here's the contents of my package laid out on a 6x4 table.

 

The 2' x 2' rubber gaming mat

The counters are on nice thick card

Some of the figures with the rulebook in the background

Some of the scenery sprues. There are 4 different ones plus a sprue of connectors.
Also shown a couple of the faction decks and some D8's and bases

The contents of the actual Deadzone box. More terrain sprues, card decks and figures.

None of the figures are labelled so I'm not sure what I've actually got. But they are all in their on bags so as long as I only open and build one bag at a time I shouldn't have any problems. There's no instructions on how to put together the terrain with the connectors but I think there's a video of Ronnie assembling them somewhere. Also there's lots of terrain but there doesn't seem to be many connectors but that may just be because the terrain sprues look so big in comparison.

Of course there's still more stuff to come in the second wave next year. Who knows I may even have all this stuff assembled and painted by then.

Deadzone on it's way!

Just had an e-mail saying my Deadzone Kickstarter stuff will arrive sometime tomorrow. I can't remember what I ordered so it will be fun opening up the box. Whatever it is it's heavy weighing in at 4.5kgs. I'll try and do a quick unboxing when it arrives. I think I got the pack shown below:

Quick review: Sarissa 28mm MDF Dark Age Ox Cart

Sorry things have been a bit quite lately but I blame Jake Thornton and Neil Shuck. After listening to the Meeples & Miniatures podcast about God of Battles I bought the rules and have become hooked. In the last two weeks I've bought and painted up two armies and I'm already thinking about buying two more! Thank god there's only ten armies in the book.

So with all the painting and assembly of various figures I've had little spare time for blogging even though I do have lots of things I want to post about. Anyway what does this have to do with the Ox Cart? In GoB you need a camp and a baggage train so I thought the Ox Cart would do nicely as the centre piece of the baggage train. It will also see some use with my Dux Britanniarum troops once I find time to paint them up.

The cart comes pre-cut on a single sheet of MDF with a sheet of instructions. It was easy to assemble, with the parts only fitting one way, so it just took a few minutes to complete. The finished model looks great. My only concern is that the yoke is a bit thin and may break easily if you're not careful. There's a few photos of the finished model below with some Mantic undead models to give you some idea of the scale. I haven't decided whether I'm going to paint the cart yet as it doesn't look too bad as it is.

The more observant of you may have noticed the square axles!

The kit is only £3.50 which I think is a bargain. I got mine from Arcane Scenery & Models (great service btw I ordered Friday afternoon and it arrived Saturday morning) along with a few other bits & pieces I'll post about later.

A great kit at a great price I give it 9.5/10 (I would have given it 10/10 if the yolk had been a bit thicker).

Great Service from WW Wargaming

Just a quick heads up on the great service I got from WW Wargaming.  I was seduced by some photos of the Mantic Goblin heroes pack and had to buy some for my 'God of Battles' force.

I was pleased when I found the WW Wargaming site not only sold the figures but that they also offered 25% off the RRP. I needed them quickly so rang to check they were in stock. The owner was very helpful and although they weren't in stock he made a special order of them for me the same day I enquired about them and then posted them off on the morning they arrived from Mantic. Nice to get some good service from a retailer.

My finished minis for Dropzone Commander

I've finally finished painting the UCM and Scourge armies that came with the 2-player starter set I bought. I've had the colour schemes and test models done for ages but other things have conspired to keep me from finishing them.

For the UCM I've gone with a dirty desert scheme instead of the army green I'd originally intended and I'm pleased with how it turned out. I sprayed the models with the Army Painter Desert Yellow primer and then picked out certain details with gun metal and gold. I followed this up with a coat of Army Painter Dark tone dip. On my Bear APC test model I'd painted the side pods red so I decided to colour code the grab pads on the dropships to match so it would be easier to spot which unit went with which dropship. So on with the photos. The coloured side skirts on the tanks and AA are not as bright as they look in the photos

The whole force

My Rapier anti-air tanks

The Bear APC's

The Sabre MBT's

The Legionnaires

For the Scourge I went with a silver basecoat with a purple wash followed by a coat of Army Painter Strong tone dip. I was happy with how it looked on my test model but the silver didn't show though as well as I'd have liked on the final models. I picked out the exhaust vent detail in gold and used a green wash to give a glow to the weapons. I carried on the colour coding by matching the colour of the headlights/sensors? on the models with those on the dropships.

The whole force

Hunter MBTs

Reaper AA tanks

Invader APCs

Scourge warriors

I've also had my first proper game using the scenario that came in the set. I was pleasantly surprised at the tactical complexity in the game and can see that games at 1500pts with the command cards will be a fun challenge. We picked up the rules very quickly and only made a few mistakes. I felt that the rules would have benefited from more examples to explain things and a detailed turn structure at the start of the rules section. But apart from that I was happy with my purchase and look forward to more games.

Test figure for 'God of Battles'

While I'm waiting for my copy of Jake Thornton's 'God of Battles' rules to arrive I decided to dig out some Mantic stuff I bought years ago. I'd bought the now defunct 'Mhorgoth's Revenge' 2-player set about three years ago when I decided to get back into wargaming. I'd thought it would be a good place to start as skeletons would be simple to paint. As it turned out I quickly got fed up trying to assemble the figures and as my local club weren't really interested in 'Kings of War' and the box got shoved back on the pile of forgotten projects.

My interest in fantasy rekindled I decided to dig it out and see what was in there. Although I don't have the rules yet I think I might have enough figures for a 24 point undead army. So as a change of pace from painting 10mm Dropzone Commander minis I knocked up a quick test figure.

I sprayed the figure white and then did a blue wash over the cloth, gun metal on the armour and sword, a few bits of leather and wood and it was done in no time. I didn't paint the bones as I was going to use the Army Painter dark tone to pick out the details. I'm pleased with how it turned out but I may add some more colour on the next ones I do as this one looks a little dull.

I must say I like the detail and variety in these Mantic skellies plus the sense of fun in some of the sculpts. In addition to the Raven pecking away as in the above photo there's also ones with axes embedded in their skulls.

I Hate Wargames Foundry!

Let me start off by saying that I don't actually hate Wargames Foundry. If anything I should say that I hate Neil Shuck but that's not really fair either, let me explain.

When I'm painting I like to listen to podcasts, in particular Meeples & Miniatures. This time it was Ep116 where Jake Thornton was talking about his fantasy rules 'God of Battles'. I have no real interest in fantasy gaming, but the fates were colluding to change that state of mind. I'd just watched a play though of Mantic's 'Kings of War' on Beasts of War and as the rules were free I'd toyed with the idea of giving it a try. So I was perhaps more receptive to the idea of fantasy gaming than usual. The more I listened to Mr Thornton talking about his rules and the ideas behind them the more I liked the sound of them. So when I'd finished painting I did a quick internet search for 'God of Battles' (there was surprisingly little out there) and read a couple of battle reports and reviews. I'd more or less decided to give it a miss for now as I have a ton of projects on the go, but then I had one of those 'what the heck, let's buy it' moments all too familiar to most wargamers.

This is where Wargames Foundry comes into the picture as they sell the rules. I placed my order on their site and noticed that they said they usually despatched orders on the same day but things could take longer. Now as a wargamer my mind interpreted this as being 'your order will be here tomorrow'! I placed my order on Thursday and of course it didn't arrive on Friday or Saturday or today, Monday. So I've been like a kid at Christmas the last few days waiting for the postman to deliver my present only to be disappointed when it doesn't arrive. Of course I realise they've probably been busy with the Crisis show being this last weekend but a wargamer's brain doesn't lend itself to logic.

To assuage the cravings I've been re-reading everything I can find on 'God of Battles' and even dug out some old Mantic figures I bought years ago that were still in the box. I'm wanting to get painting but without the army lists I'm not sure what I need. In short I'm suffering from withdrawal symptoms for a set of rules I haven't even got yet for a genre I'm not really interested in, and that's why I hate Wargames Foundry ... or Neil Shuck. I mean it's obviously not my fault I'm in this predicament ... is it?

New 20mm MDF buildings from PSC

Just seen this on Facebook. Plastic Soldier Company have released a range of 20mm pre-painted MDF buildings. No details on the price yet but it looks like they'll be on sale at Crisis so maybe more info tomorrow. Anyway here's the pics they posted.