Thursday, May 5, 2011

Fenian Steam Raiders

Bleh…

I’ve been sick for the last week or so, and not been doing much painting at all! I started working on the big batch o’ Hobgoblins for Mike… but then somehow got a little distracted by these…

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)


I think these were made for Pinnacle Entertainment Groups Deadlands… but I’m not sure by whom…?

They’re supposed to be American Steam Rocket troops or something. Now, I’m not about to make any American historical or VSF forces, so I thought these might sit in the bin collecting dust forever. I suppose I could have used them in some Weird Wild West adventure scenarios… but then I remembered a Painting of the Battle of Ridgeway which depicted the Fenians in uniforms that looked very America but with Green coats, Grey trousers and Grey Kepis. Not entirely how accurate that painting is… But this is VSF, so WHO CARES!? Anyway, these chaps have thus become Fenian Steam Raiders and might just show up to battle the colonial British wherever they may be fighting… Mars…? Canada…? Zululand…?

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

As I mentioned I’ve been working on Hobgoblins – I was trying to do them as one big batch… but that’s proved a bit overwhelming so I’m going to break it down and do them in smaller batches, the first of which should be rolling off the workbench shortly.

Also polluting the workbench and causing considerable distraction are Martians of different sorts (an Oenotrian Legion and a unit of Parhoon Rifles), Zulus, British, and some Star Wars figures?! The kids have been all about Star Wars lately so I’ve been picking up a few of the old Grenadier/West End Games Star Wars figures and planning to try a little Savage Worlds Skirmishing with them.

6 comments:

  1. NIce stuff; the flying goggles kill me! What a nice detail. And I love the improbability of steam-powered jet packs (what with water, coal and steel drums being heavy and all--what kind of PSI is needed to get the thrust necessary for lift off? Awesome stuff!

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  2. maybe it's just a pressure tank that stores compressed steam or something... I was wondering how to treat them in a game - like light cavalry - except they ignore bad going woods/etc (because they fly over them) but can not land in bad going, and maybe give them some sort of "death from above" charge bonus...

    Or something a little more "realistic" (if any such thing could be in anyway thought of as "realistic") like on one, or maybe two, turns in a game they can move like light cavalry as above, but the rest of the game move like man-handled artillery...

    Or maybe it would be a fire-and-forget thing launch yourself once, then ditch the heavy beasts...?

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  3. Hi!

    I found your site looking for information about HOTT, and it´s great!

    I´ve been seeing some of your miniatures, and I like very much how you base them. Which is your basing scheme? I think you use 60x40 for blades or archers and 60x60 for cavalry, right? And for hordes or warbands?

    Thank you!

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  4. In HoTT, they would be good flyers.

    I like the idea of a one-time large move representing a big release of steam. Or, with more book-keeping, a fixed amount of flying distance that you can expend in one or more turns.

    Sine kind of penalty in combat until they unhook themselves would limit the ability of players to abuse them as if they were attack helicopters.

    In any event, great figures.

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  5. Cheers!

    I should really just do a post about this to direct people to as it is often asked and I have to go looking for an explanation in the comments of other posts (which, like this, are completely unrelated to the post) to copy and paste the same answer...

    Anyway, my DBA/HOTT basing goes something like this:

    Everything is 60mm wide as per the rules.

    Foot is mostly on 40mm deep bases, but some are on 60mm deep bases. generally use 1.5-2x as many troops as would normally be on there.

    So Spear and Pike, most Blade and some Bow and warband (which would normally have 4) have 6-8 figures. Pike I always make sure to cram 8 on.

    Auxilia, and other Bow, Warband, and blade which would normally have 3 figures, I use 4... sometimes 5.

    Psiloi - 3 per base.

    The only foot I do on 60mm deep bases are hordes and some warband. The warband that I am doing with 6+ figures are put on a 60mm deep base - usually orcs.

    Mounted are mostly on 60mm deep bases. There are a few I had originally put on 50mm deep bases, but I'm phasing those out in favour of consistency - and will eventually be re-basing the one still currently on the 50mm bases. I usually go with what they are supposed to have 3 knights, 3 cavalry, 2 Light horse. for forces that are strictly Fantasy I tried to do 3 for knights, 2 for Riders... but that didn't work so well (because a few of the GW figures I tried to use as knights were just so damn big...)

    So that's a simplified explanation of how I base stuff for DBA/HOTT. I generally TRY to be somewhat consistent... but there's always exceptions...

    Hope that helps...?

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  6. Very helpful!

    Thank you very much for answer the off-topic! Sorry, I read a lot of posts but I didn´t find nothing about this.

    I think I´ll try the same basing scheme for use my old miniatures.

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