Workbench: Modern Ruins and Ghar... with Pictures Even!

Unfortunately there was not a lot of hobby time this past week but I was able to mostly finish off the first of my Ghar miniatures.

A Ghar assault suit in all its red glory!

I still need to add some details to the back of it (painting the reactor plus some more glowing bits too) but its looking pretty sharp from the front.  I also based this one along with my Algoryn minis and I'm liking how it ties them together.  I still need to figure out something to add a pop to them as the green is so dark but I'm not sure what direction to go with it.  Thinking maybe some yellow accents but painting with yellow is such a pain.  Red would be my go to as its easy to get good coverage but I'd like to do something a little different.

I also set up the ruins from Mars Attacks on the board to show the coverage just from the basic game.

The terrain included in the Mars Attacks game.

With just in the box, its enough to break up the fire lanes and with the extra terrain I grabbed I can definitely get some good coverage. Probably not enough to do a full 4' x 4' table in ruins (Mars Attacks typically plays on a 2' x 2') but its good have some modern ruins that I can throw onto the table.  Mix in some hedges and trees and it should do nicely for a bombed out suburb or a war torn village in Europe.

I've also ordered one of the Infinity scenery sets to check out.  These are very inexpensive cardboard options for some quick terrain so I'm curious to see them first hand.  After all, quick and cheap terrain that looks good is always a good thing!

Workbench: Modern Ruins and the Ghar

With the high temperatures and humidity in the Northeast last week, I just decided not skip on any hobby until it was over.  Beyond it just generally being really oppressive, I wasn't sure how it would effect paint drying and such so a break seemed like the best bet.

Thankfully last weekend it cooled down considerably and I was able to break out some of the modern ruins from Mantic.  These were originally produced for Mars Attacks but they did expand the range some to include some complete buildings as well as the ruins.  Though they say that they can be rearranged, I'd read some reviews that said the concept was better than the execution so I decided to just go ahead and glue them together.

Yeah, there was supposed to be a picture of them here but I haven't had a chance to take one yet.

Overall I'm very happy with how they came together.  There were more than enough clips and a few nice little details that you can add (store signs and fuse boxes for example).  There was also a good amount of terrain just in the basic game though I had also picked up their Ruined Village set so that I would have some more options available.  Eventually I'll get some paint on them as well though for now I'm happy with just getting them assembled as I'll be able to push around a couple of scenarios for Mars Attacks so I can finally see how the game plays.  Plus these should work well for the Terminator Genisys miniature game as well which is a nice plus.  I'll take two birds with one stone any day!

This past week, I've gone back to my Antares miniatures and I've been making some headway with my Ghar.  Currently I only have a few of their minis but I'm planning on buying Xilos Horizon in the next month which will give me a solid core of battle and assault suits to build off of.  I'm also really liking the paint scheme that I choose for them; red with some black accents.  I still need to paint on the lenses, reactor lights, and the like but its good to finally have a direction for painting them in mind as I've been having a heck of a time deciding on the paint scheme.

I'm also going to try to work on some terrain for them as well.  While I have a good amount of generic terrain laying around (mostly fantasy stuff I'd been making for Song of Blades and Heroes) but I'd like to make pieces specifically for Antares.  At this point the thing that is actually stumping me is coming up with an inexpensive but durable way of basing the terrain pieces.  Warlord has some nice looking pieces that come with MDF bases but I haven't been able to find anything comparable online where I could just buy the bases.  It seems like its go to be out there somewhere, the trick is just going to be finding it.

Workbench: Painting the Algoryn for Gates of Antares

With the paint scheme on my Concord decided and well underway I turned my attention to my Algoryn troops.  They are a militant society and I do really like the red armor but I wanted to do something a little different.  Looking through their history, the Algoryn are a resilient people so harsh environments would of little concern to them.  Flipping through the mini rulebook for inspiration I was really struck by the image of a swamp world with a raised structure in the background (its on page 50 at the beginning of the terrain section).  I really like the idea of modeling terrain around this kind of image so I decided to have my Algoryn based on a swamp world.

My Algoryn troops outside catching some rays

Rather than the typical reds for their reflex armor, my troops are a dark green base, drybrushed up with an olive green similar to the technique I used for my Concord.  Once this was done, I went over their weapons with the medium grey you can see in the picture and then hit that with a thin black wash.  With some basing they're table ready though I want to try going back and adding more detail to them when things cool down a little around here.  In the meantime, I've picked up some supplies so I can start working on the terrain.