Droids, Clone Troopers and... Grubs?

Ebay delivered some more Star Wars minis today.  Mostly droids and Clone Troopers, I have another 20 Clone Troopers on the way too so I think I've got just about enough of them.  Wouldn't mind a few more droids though, especially those nasty droidekas.

More droids with some of the cool rocket battles droids and two of the crack shot battle droid assassins.  Also some super battle droids, you can never have too many super battle droids.

To help even things up a little there's some heavy duty firepower for the clone troopers.  Some heavy clone troopers and some clone trooper grenadiers.  Note the later period clone troopers in the back left.

I never knew clone troopers rode grubs.  And now that I do know I still don't understand why.  But the mini is pretty cool looking even if somewhat strange.

A very nice looking chameleon droid.

To lead the clone troopers who else could I turn to but Aayla Secura.  Need to sort the light saber out.  Just have to remember to keep the clone troopers in front of her at all times.  Order 66... nasty business.

And to lead the bad guys I just had to have Darth Sidius

Like I mentioned earlier I have another lot of clone troopers coming as well as these scum:

Don't know how they'll fit into Star Wars Commander games but they're so cool I'll just have to find a way.

I'm Still Here

I'm still here and I'm still pottering around with my various projects.  Although I really haven't spent all that much time with either a paintbrush nor dice.  I've been in the study most nights but I've been getting reacquainted with my arch nemesis the treadmill.  It's been a bit of a battle but it's one I'm slowly winning.  I'm feeling so much better for it and my energy levels are at an all time high.  So the plan is to start channelling that energy back into my wargame projects.

Star Wars Commander is coming along nicely as I've been able to spend some time during lunch to work on it.  I have a couple boxes of minis coming my way via eBay and hopefully some more via the guys at the local club.

As a side project... no I won't call it a distraction as this project has some relevance, I'm looking at getting some of the Star Wars Starship Battles minis and using them for a Bag the Hun variant called Bag the Jedi. 

More to come soon.

Supplies from eM4

An order of dice and bits from eM4 arrived this afternoon and was promptly put on the desk while I was busy with other things.

Everything came packaged in a padded bag with the contents all sorted in little ziplock bags which always helps with checking the goods vs the invoice vs the actual order.  Everything was present and accounted for in this case.

I ordered three lots of 20 x 10mm D6 in "Assorted Colours" and I'm pretty happy with the breakdown.  I got at least six of each colour (I know there is only five white dice pictured but one is being used for the photo below this one), the order even included some ivory and purple dice which aren't an option on their website.  The thought behind purchasing these dice is to use them as markers/counters for specific effects or statuses on the battlefield: suppressed, routing or horrified units.  The coloured die can be used simply as a coloured token but can also double as a hits/wound counter and so on.

Bag the Hun will probably get the most use of these dice.  The colour of the die on the base represents the ability of the pilot:

• Yellow: Sprog
• White: Regular
• Blue: Veteran
• Red: Jnr Ace
• Black: Top Ace

I'll probably need to buy some more yellow and blue dice for the bigger games but I should have enough for a few games to see if the system works on the table as well as it looks on paper.

A comparison shot of the dice to give you and idea of size.  Left to right we have: Bloodbowl block die, a 12mm(?) die from the Warhammer/40K box sets, an eM4 10mm die followed lastly by an eM4 7mm die.

My dice box after adding in this lot.  I think we're going to need a bigger boat.

The 50mm round bases are a nice fit the 28mm prone Black Tree miniatures.  The MG-42 is a little snug but I don't want the base to be too big either so I think it's a good compromise.

Echo Base, this is Rogue Two. I've found them. Repeat, I've found them.

The Star Wars minis arrived from Hong Kong, which is suprising since they were the last of about three orders I placed and they're the only ones that have arrived so far.  I'm so bad at waiting for international orders.

The minisatures themselves are basically what I expected: great sculpts and posing with very average paintjobs.  I had to touch up a couple minis, Wedge had a huge black spot on his nose which just had to go.  I almost started touching up other parts of the minis but resisted... for now.

I'm a little annoyed that the Tauntaun riders have different sized bases.  They'ye both Rebels riding the same beast and yet a everyman Rebel trooper has a bigger base than Luke Skywalker?  I may even rebase them one day but for now they'll do as they are.

With a bit of luck I'll get some more bases done this weekend and maybe even start playtesting Star Wars Commander.

Artoo Says That The Chances of Survival are 725 to 1

But he has been known to be wrong... from time to time...

Hoth terrain it is... sort of, well more like Hoth inspired terrain.  Going for snow and glaciers would look nice on the table (easy to make too) but I'd just end up with a lot of terrain that I probably won't use for anything else.  Snowy, icy, muddy, rocky terrain still fits in with the theme of a Snowtrooper and would be very welcome on any game that had a Western European theater of conflict.

I managed to nab quite a few items on e-bay last night, mainly troopers and a few semi-famous characters.  Who knew that some chick called Arica was actually Mara Jade in disguise?  I sure didn't. 

The prizes of my haul:

• Ewok Shaman Logray
• Luke on Tauntaun
• Rebel trooper on Tauntan
• Leia Organa
• Han and Chewie in their Hoth gear

My eldest son looked over the list and nodded, "Oh cool, but you still haven't got a Threepio though".

My work is never done.