X-Wing: Sienar Systems Star Courier

Updates and X-Wing: Sienar Systems Star Courier

Well the last post has been quite a while ago, but judging from the incredible number of visitors i.e. 18.000+ (!!!) hits, the blog is really quite popular! Wow! :-) 

Thank you very much for your continous support!

So what have I up to in the last 6 months...?

Basically I have been working on lots of X-Wing stuff, refining some custom ships stats and maneuver dials and also been looking into the new huge ships and rules. Gamewise I think I finally found some useful tactics for Darth Vader in the TIE Advanced and the A-Wing too with the upcoming expansion. I will post my tactics here soon showing some crasy stuff that can be done with Vader...

Also as you can see in the pics I repainted my Revell Stars Wars Scimitar aka Sienar Systems Star Courier too in a paint pattern simelar to the Imperial Lambda shuttle, it´s a perfect fit size wise for X-wing. I like the paint pattern much better and I think it fits great with the rest of the Imperial fleet. 

I have no intention of fielding the ships as the Scimitar as the designs I come up so far with were not balanced and were no fun to use. In the moment I am re-designing the ship and its stats, I´ll post them here soon. 

My TIE Intruder and Courier Corvette CCC are also in a stat re-design process, especially with the upcoming 5th wave releases I got some fresh ideas about what kind of rules they should get to make them fun and different e.g. from the Imperial Decimator ship. The TIE-Intruder will e.g. shift to a Bomb carrier/scout combination role while the Courier corvette will use my Turbo Laser house rules to use its single turbo laser turret! :) 

Besides X-Wing I have been building up a 1500 army of Warhammer 30k Horus Heresy World Eaters Space Marines and am in the process of painting them. The army consists entirely of Mk.6 armored Space Marines with some old Rogue Trader models for the Land Raider Proteus, the Predator tank. Scratchbuild jet bikes and Rapiers currently accompany the lot, pics to follow.

Over and out for now,

Cheers

invivos

Dust Tactics Work posted

Jeremiah from http://www.front-toward-enemy.us was so nice to post some of my work regarding Dust tactics i.e. the Lothar II and Heinrich II Axis walkers :)

The entire post can be found here:

http://www.front-toward-enemy.us/2013/12/a-little-at-43-in-your-dust.html

I sadly didn´t have much time lately to post my work on my blog, hopefully I can take some pictures of new stuff soon...

Either way have a very nice X-Mas and Seasons Greetings! :-)

Cheers
invivos

Star Trek Attack Wing coming soon

Well our gaming group has a new game to try out that is Star Trek Attack Wing! This game shares many features with SW X-Wing and we recently had our first test games which were some fun, however there is a little space for improvement and balancing.  

Sadly the nicely sculped Star Trek pre-painted ships are not up to my liking so I chose to repaint the entire fleet, pictures of these will follow soon. 

Additionaly I already scratchbuilt some Borg ships i.e. the Borg Cube and some Borg Probes untill the Borg are released and I created some early house rules for them. Pics of the Borg will also follow shortly. So until further notice stay tuned and:

"PREPARE TO BE ASSIMILATED."

Cheers

invivos

X-Wing Miniatures game: Dash Rendar´s OUTRIDER YT-2400 light freighter (scratchbuilt)

X-Wing Miniatures game: The next new scratchbuilt ship from my home based "shipyards" is the Rebel faction Outrider YT-2400 light freighter!

Fluff (source Wookieepedia): The Outrider was a heavily modified YT-2400 light freighter used by the brash smuggler Dash Rendar. Rendar held that his ship was almost as well known as the Millennium Falcon.  One of the first modifications Dash made was to replace the original engines with three KonGar KGDefender military-grade ion engines. When Rendar could not avoid combat, the Outrider was more than capable of holding its own. The ship was armed with a pair of Dymek heavy laser cannons, mounted on dorsal and ventral turrets.

The ship: Well this scratchbuild ship was the most challenging build of a Star Wars ship for me so far. While its shape seems to be rather easy at first glance, the many, many hidden details and undercuts of the hull and the visible internals proved very time consuming and sometimes challenging to recreate. 

I wanted to build this ship for a quite while and it took me about 4 full days to build without painting. The main shape comes from Warmachine game large miniatures bases and some GW flight bases. Tons of details needed to be added to the hull in a sandwich manner and I tried to recreate the ship as close as possible. I have provided some WIP pics too so that you can see the unpainted built. All in all I am however very satisfied with the final result. :-)

Gamewise it´s weaponry is true to the fluff that it has a 180° fire arc of the main laser guns to the front. I wanted to make this ship simelar but also different from the YT-1300 Millenium Falcon in terms of handling that´s why it can also perform barrel rolls as it´s general shape reminds me a alot of a B-Wing crossed with a Millenium Falcon.

Hope you it too!

Cheers

invivos

X-Wing Miniatures game: TIE Experimental M1 (scratchbuilt)

X-Wing Miniatures game: Finally reinforcements for the Imperial fleet have arrived! Imperial scientists have developed the prototype of the TIE Experimental M1 fighter which is armed with a single deadly Turbolaser (yep!).

Fluff (source Wookieepedia): The TIE Experimental M1, also known as the TIE Bizarro, was an experimental member of the TIE series and a part of the TIE Experimental Project. The port pod held the control systems, and the starboard pod held a turbolaser much heavier than the laser cannons equipped on any previous TIE.

The Ship: The TIE M1 was scratchbuild according to the measurements of the TIE fighter and consists mainly of plastic card and parts from the Biotoxin plant kit for the cockpit and weapon pod. I chose to build two fighters at the same time because you can quickly repeat some of the plastic card cutting work while the other model is left to glue e.g. :) So now we have the evil M1 twins!

Rulewise this ship has no basic weapon and is special to my house rule "Turbolaser". The Turbolaser as a weapon must be bought separately for the ship. The rules for the Turbolaser are also intended for bigger ships to handle their multiple large scale (turbo laser) turrets e.g. for frigates, destroyers, etc.

Hope you like the evil twins!

Cheers
invivos

X-Wing Miniatures game: Rebel Transport GR-75 in action!

X-Wing Miniatures game: Well I was very lucky and managed to get my hands on an old toy GR-75 Rebel Transport!  :-D

The rather huge ship was mounted to a custom plastic base and then immediately pushed into frontline combat action!

In a 100 point game to escape from Planet Hoth, it served as the Imperial mission target that had to be destroyed, while the Rebels tried to flee their Transporter in one piece over the opposing table edge.

The Imperial Navy send waves of TIE Bombers and TIE Fighters to attack the transport, whereas the Rebels only had an A-Wing and a B-Wing for escort duty (the Rebel Transport counted in at 30 of their 100 points).

Although the Imperial Navy managed to block the Transports movement and bombarded it with missiles and even laied a bomb in its way, the transport was able to escape severely damaged from the grip of the Imperial Navy shortly after the last threatening TIE Bomber was blown apart! 

Ship design notes: I designed the rules for the GR-75 transport-pilot card with the "Protect"-Action from mission 1 in X-Wing rulebook in mind. Therefore the transport has a defense value of 0 to represent that it is a massive, easy to hit capital size ship. To give the ship/player some sort of defense possibilities, it can however perform an "Evade"-Action. Coupled with a pair of escorting fighters who "protect" (Action) the ship this has turned out to be a very realistic and well functioning game feature. Due to its very long flight base the GR-75 Transport is very fast however (despite its maximum movement being 2, see its flight dial here) so some good movement planning is necessary to keep the Rebel escort fighters close by.

I will paint and weather the Rebel transport too, just need to get some Ink wash as this big ship will eat a lot of paint... ;-)

I will also post two(!) new scratchbuilt ships on the blog soon, so stay tuned until I have taken some pics!

Cheers
invivos

X-Wing Miniatures game: Rebel Mk2 B-Wing (scratchbuild)

X-Wing Miniatures game: Here is the third ship in todays posting marathon, my scratchbuild and finished Mk2 B-Wing!

The Mk2 B-Wing model was entirely scratchbuild from plasticard with added bits from various sources for details.I think it turned out great :)

Fluff: The Mk2 B-Wing was a technology test bed to improve on the earlier B-Wing´s disadvantages and only saw limited production runs. It featured heavier armour shielding, improved flight controls and modular gun ports.

Below is a scale shot of my gathered Rebel Family: Prototype A-Wing, Y-Wing Mk2 and B-Wing Mk2 joined by a stock X-Wing.

Hope you like this one too!

Cheers
invivos