Author Archives: Alex

Stargrave Warband – part 3

27 Monday Mar 2023

Posted by in OldHammer, Stargrave

≈ 14 Comments

Greetings Terrans, how goes it? I have some more Stargrave crew to share with you today, continuing the theme of using only Bob Olley sculpts. So far I have two versions of the Captain, a First Mate, a ‘Burner’ specialist and a Medic, so that’s the bulk of the heavy firepower and a bit of durability sorted out. The next thing I wanted to do was to make sure that I could contest loot – a vital component of any Joseph McCullough game! However, Stargrave loot differs from Frostgrave or Ghost Archipelago in a couple of significant ways. Firstly, you need to pass a ‘skill’ role to be able to nab any loot… this requires a roll of 14 or more on a D20, so not exactly easy, unless you have particular skills or equipment to access said loot… This is further complicated because loot can be either Physical or Data, so there are two different variables to consider, but both will come up in most scenarios. Luckily, you can hire crewmembers who specialise in either situation by granting +6 to their roll for accessing either Physical loot, (Chiselers or Casecrackers), or +6 for accessing Data, (Hackers or Codebreakers). Chiselers and Hackers are the pistol-packing bargain version of each, and I wanted to include two of each crew type into my starting warband.

First up the Chiselers, Lego-ass and Grimly:

This pair is comprised of an old GW Squat, along with an Alternative Armies ‘Sidhe Clan Female Warrior)’. The Squat (Grimly) is pretty much stock, but I did model a crowbar in his right hand. The female clan warrior was a more extensive conversion, with her shield getting turned into some kind of hand mounted drill thing, some techy doodabs round back, and her sling getting swapped for an old Autopistol. In terms of painting, this pair follow the scheme already laid down earlier in the project. One obvious variance is the blue skin tone used on Lego-Ass, no reason in particular, I just thought it’d be nice to have a more unusual looking crew member, be they mutant or alien.

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Next we have a pair of Hackers – Blunder and Blix (with the cap):

This pair are both from the ‘Malig Goblinoid Infantry’ faction from ‘The Ion Age’ range. There wasn’t too much conversion work needed here, but I did sculpt on some data pads to suggest tools for hacking. Again, the painting really followed the same formula as the rest of the crew, though I did roll with the whole Goblinoid look here.

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As a final note on this update, I also prepped some Physical and Data loot terrain:

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And here they are being hacked and chiseled but our shifty crewmembers:

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And that’s it for this update folks – next post will be a pair of Troopers to round out the crew, and some final crew shots!

Stargrave Warband – part 2

16 Thursday Mar 2023

Posted by in Stargrave

≈ 21 Comments

Tags

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Greetings Terrans, I hope this finds you well. I have some updates to share on my Stargrave crew – full disclosure, I’ve actually completed the crew, but I’m spreading them over a few posts for the sake of content :-)

So, last time I introduced Capt. Zebulon Scoville in his Combat (i.e. Power) Armour. Problem is, in the Stargrave rules, you need to pay a fee to use Combat Armour… I’ve played enough of Joseph McCullough’s games to know that D20s absolutely hate me & that there will certainly be times where I don’t have the credits for this, so I wanted to do a version of Zebulon in heavy armour & packing a shotgun. This gave me a great opportunity to use one of my absolute favourite Olley minis:

I gave Zeb a holstered pistol, but otherwise this mini is unconverted. Paint job is as for the Power Armoured version – Mantis Warrior Green contrast paint & Red & Cream cheque detail.

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Next I put together a 1st Mate for the crew – a combat Cyborg called ‘Borgan Freedman’. I imagine Borgan is an old combat servitor dating back to the Olleyan Expansionist Wars, and that he was found & freed by Zebulon before becoming his loyal and capable Number 2:

Borgan is big fella, and is packing an oversized ‘Rapid Fire’ weapon arm conversion from one of the AdMech kits, the size of which probably explains his phenomenal quads! This is another superb model, and I wanted to really lean in to all the gribbly bits on this sculpt & I picked out as many of the little wires and doodabs as I could find. I went with a dark skin tone for some variety,, but otherwise he was painted in the same palette as Zebulon.

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Next up is BB-Q, a Burner Droid with code that is so corrupted that it actually seems to enjoy what it does:

BB has a simple conversion on the weapon to make it look more like a flame thrower / burner type weapon, but is otherwise unchanged. Nothing much else to add here, it’s a goofy sculpt but good fun, and looks decent in the crew colour scheme.

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Last one for today is ‘Doc’ Legg:

Doc had some conversion work to give him a syringe-gun thingy in his right hand, but otherwise he’s a standard Olley Squat from back in the day. The palette is also consistent, but with a bit more white & a medic cross on the shoulder guard for easy gameplay.

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And that’s all I want to share for now – more to come I promise :-)

Stargrave Warband – part 1

08 Wednesday Mar 2023

Posted by in Stargrave

≈ 22 Comments

Greetings Terrans, I hope this finds you all well. Wow, it has been over a month since I last posted, but honestly, I’ve had nothing to show you! I’ve been very slowly prepping a crew for a Stargrave weekender in Dublin next month, but I only just picked up the paintbrush the other day. Life is busier than ever at the moment- mostly in a good way I think, but hobby time is in short supply. I’ve also gotten a bit sick of the constant GW churn these days – I had a game of Cursed City and it was absolute dogshit, so I’m feeling pretty done with it all. So far this year, my GW spend is zero, and I want to really be strict with myself in that regard & paint what I already own as much as possible.

That said, there is no way I’m not putting together a new crew for Dublin though, so, as is usual for me, the first step in a new project is to decide my theme. In this case, I knew I wanted to go OldHammer, but given the caliber of OH Grandees at the Dublin event, I knew I wanted to do something a bit different to any of my previous projects… In the interest of painting what I already own, I went for a rummage & found a box of Bob Olley minis that I have been slowly accumulating since having so much fun painting the Iron Claw Pirates almost three years ago… I’ve been kicking around the idea of building an entire Rogue Trader army of Olley minis, and this seemed like a good opportunity to have a practice. So, the theme for the crew was decided – zero spend and Olley sculpts only!

Next I looked into the rules to sketch out a crew, but with a lot of back and forth to see what would work with the minis I had available. I settled on a Veteran Captain in combat (i.e. ‘power’) armour & grenade launcher, a cyborg first mate with a Rapid Fire gun, a ‘Burner’, a Medic, and two each of Troopers, Chiselers and Hackers. I also build an alternate version of the Captain because you can’t guarantee that your combat armour is always available in-game. Some converting was needed here & there, but nothing too hectic. I went with hex bases for a touch of whimsey & I cobbled together some loot tokens too. Building done, I just needed to wait for a warm enough day to get the crew primed – the Undercoat Gods duly granted my prayers late last week.

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The Combat Armoured Captain seemed like a good place to start, so start I did. Here is Captain Zebulon Scoville*, resplendent in his Ion pattern Combat Armour.

Zebulon is a veteran of the Olleyan Expansionist Wars, and he has been running his own crew of privateers (provisionally called ‘the UMF’) since demob:

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The base model is an old Ion Age ‘Retained Knight’ from Bob’s ‘Alternate Armies’ range – these minis have been kicking around since the late 80’s, but are still available for the princely sum of £3.50 on http://www.alternativearmies.com if you’re interested. They are a funny bunch with some strange poses & proportions, but honestly, they are a joy to paint.

He had some light conversion work to attach a combat blade to the weapon, and I glued on a Tau sidearm for his pistol, but otherwise he’s pretty much standard. I just went with the flow in terms of painting him up, with ‘Mantis Warrior Green’ as my main colour, and red & bone for the spot colour. Cheques were a must for that proper OldSkool flavour, and I do love the ridiculousness of hazard stripes on a chainsaw. Other than that, the only other thing to note is that I restrained myself on the weathering front, and I left out the skulls & other grim-dark GW guff, just to keep this project distinct from that whole vibe.

And that’s it folks, that’s as far as I’ve managed to get! I have the rest of the warband in various stages at the moment, so should have more to share soon :-)

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*Zebulon Scoville is a superb name, but is also an actual superb person too! He’s a NASA flight director who gets to drive the ISS… I read an article on him carrying out emergency maneuvers on the ISS back in 2021 & the name lodged in my brain to be used for just such an occasion.