Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Nice work.

 complex57 wrote:
Nice work.

Thanks,
Glad you enjoyed it.

I've been giving model railroading my hobby attention but Adepticon is comign up and I've got 3 large spaceships that I have to build in 3 weeks so get ready for some big updates!

Are you going to have any tables set up this year?

 whalemusic360 wrote:
Are you going to have any tables set up this year?

I'm going to be running Mech Attack on Saturday Morning. However my terrain will also be used to provide one of the tables in the Necromunda tournament, and possibly also for the Walking Dead event as well. I love seeing my terrain in-use, so I'm looking forward to seeing how others make use of it.

Going a bit nuts last-minute building the three spaceships that will be the focus of my Adepticon Mech Attack scenario.
Here's the start of one being built from a Star Wars toy.



Here's a second one whose starting point was a "Power Rangers Mission response Vehicle", but has alot of other toy chunks grafted on.


Full details, pics and my rambling explanations are here:
https://www.chicagoskirmishwargames.com/blog/2018/03/18/last-minute-adepticon-prep-3-spacecraft-for-28mm-mech-attack/

And a reminder that if you're going to Adepticon and need something to do on Saturday Morning, I've still got 2 spots left for "Mech Attack, Shootout at Valestetch Spaceport"! I guarantee big mech models on a big table with awesome terrain!

Finally got the battle report up for our Adepticon Mech Attack game.
https://www.chicagoskirmishwargames.com/blog/2018/04/24/adepticon-2018-showdown-at-valstetech-airfield/

It ended up being a very good game with a result that was in contention right up until the very last turn.


Of course it was also my yearly chance to put together a massive 8x8 layout with my whole sci-fi city. I've phased out the last of my contemporary 1-story warehouses and now almost everything is 2 stories or taller.


No surprise that the 3 objective spacecraft were the stars of the show.

I'll have a separate post for each spaceship in the next few weeks with lots of detail shots.

Your table gets better every year, kudos!

Well, hello there, Pyramidas. He certainly does make a good cargo hauler.

Kid_Kyoto wrote:Your table gets better every year, kudos!

Thanks Kyoto!
That's definitely the goal.

Barzam wrote:Well, hello there, Pyramidas. He certainly does make a good cargo hauler.

Thanks!
I think he makes a better cargo ship than he ever did a mech, though Power Ranger fans may disagree.

Big one for you today.
Here's the finished cargo lifter based on a SW "Republic Attack Shuttle".

The toy itself is OOP and ridiculously expensive now but I found a used example for much less.
It's actually well scaled for 28/30mm once you fix the cockpit area.

I managed to retain the opening to so the cargo area is accessbile and I cut away the intervening walls so the cargo ramp leads from the front of the ship all the way into the cargo area.

I think it'd be perfect for Legion, but it was great as an objective at the Mech Attack game I ran at Adepticon.
https://www.chicagoskirmishwargames.com/blog/2018/04/24/adepticon-2018-showdown-at-valstetech-airfield/

Lots more pictures and details here.
https://www.chicagoskirmishwargames.com/blog/2018/05/31/tutorial-spaceship-1-smugglers-cargo-lifter/

If anyone's interested, this will probaby be up for sale soon. I'm in a bit of a downsizing mood right now.

What a terrific table! And I love the cargo lifter- great adaptation of a found item!

Thanks for the kind words Meer_Cat. Glad you liked it!

"Found" items from resale are the basis for almost everything I build. Two more coming this week...

Here's the second if of my Trio of 28mm Space Ships.

Probably my favorite of the batch, this hard working "Cargo Lighter" invovled the most toybashing of the three.


The roof is largely cobbled together from sections of X-wing and Millenium falcon toys, but I think it works well.


Also has a nice number of places where miniatures can stand around the midsection.


And of course there's an accessible interior.


Lots more pics and such here:
https://www.chicagoskirmishwargames.com/blog/2018/06/04/tutorial-spacecraft-2-medium-cargo-lighter/

Great blog! Some really impressive terrain pieces there, and that cargo lighter is very nice.

Those ships are really choice, very inspiring.

monkeytroll wrote:Great blog! Some really impressive terrain pieces there, and that cargo lighter is very nice.

Kid_Kyoto wrote:Those ships are really choice, very inspiring.

Thanks guys!
Glad you liked them. I've wanted to try my hand at toybashing some 28mm spacecraft for years and it feels great to finally have done it.

The third and biggest one is coming soon and then I've got a couple of posts about doing some of 'bashing of Deadzone terrain sprues to improve them a bit.

This is the big one folks!
My Ventauran Assault Craft. Made primarily from parts of a very large Power Rangers "Pyramidas".
For some reason the pictures didn't turn out quite as good, but they get the point across.


The engines were a particular challenge, but lots of X-wing parts cut appart and reassembled, filled the spaces nicely.


Bridge. There are a few nooks like this and the flat top mean that there's lots of space to place miniatures if this is used as a static piece of terrain.


And like the others, this has a nice large cargo bay.
This one, however opens completely in the front and is big enough to drive vehicles inside!


Lots more pics and my ramblings here:
https://www.chicagoskirmishwargames.com/blog/2018/06/22/tutorial-spacecraft-3-ventauran-assault-craft/

Fantastic ship, can you show the cargo hold with a tank?

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Fantastic ship, can you show the cargo hold with a tank?

Thanks!
I would normally have snapped a pic for you, but I sold all 3 ships a week ago.
I liked them, but when I looked at how often they'd actually make it to the table vs how much I want a custom bass guitar that would get gigged far more often, it was an easy decision.

IIRC, it was big enough to roll a rhino into if you didn't have alot of antennae an such, but a smidge too short for a Russ.

So much to love in this thread! I am particularly fond of the train. Great work!

 Grumpy Gnome wrote:
So much to love in this thread! I am particularly fond of the train. Great work!

Thanks so much. It was a blast to build.

Finally getting back into building.

Turning a Paw Patrol flyer ("Super PAWs, 2-in-1 Transforming Mighty Pups Jet Command Center ") into a Spacecraft. This is a dual-scale project. The timeline is short as I'd like to have it ready for Adepticon for a 28mm Mech Attack wargame but after that I'd like it to be suitable for my son to play with varied action figures. I'm shooting for a generic look that will be workable in a variety of settings and scales. Leaning toward slightly cleaner BattleTech/Halo aesthetic with 2 swappable cockpits. A bridge for 1:56 miniatures and cockpit for a 1:18 pilot or two.

You can see lots pictures of the toy as-received with miniatures for scale here:
https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/930/689888.page#11316919
Scroll down 3 more posts for pics with 40k tanks

My example came without the cockpit section so I'm building a new blunt nose. Already shortened the front by about a half inch and done a bit of shaping on the front. As usual, not much measuring going on. Just a lot of cutting (Dremel 543 wheel is your friend), shaping and gluing.

The blue bathtub is the cockpit section base. I'll probably use this as the starting point for the 1:18 cockpit and build something else for the 1:56 scale bridge.It It's been trimmed back so it will slide right into the opening from the cargo bay.

Pretty excited about this project. It's been a few years since I built any large spacecraft models (You can see 3 of them here: https://www.chicagoskirmishwargames.com/blog/?s=Spacecraft ) and this is only my second time doing custom vehicles for 1:18. It's also one of the biggest vehicles I've attempted.

Looking forward to this!

I need to work on my Batman drop ship!

Progress being made.

I'm going to do a very detailed post about the construction and I'll link it here when I do.

In the meantime here's what it's looking like.

Basecoated black and then white.
Left the interior a bit darker.

Made a blog post with a more complete description and lists of bits used.
https://www.chicagoskirmishwargames.com/blog/2022/03/paw-patrol-jet-becomes-sci-fi-spacecraft-part-1-construction-begins/

Painting continues....

Still haven't quite finished up the spaceraft, but I finally got the post up about our Mech Attack convention game at Adepticon. After 3 years off, it felt fantastic to be putting on event games again. 8 players, a full signup list and there was about as many folks on a waiting list!

https://www.chicagoskirmishwargames.com/blog/2022/04/aar-mech-attack-battle-at-adepticon-2022/




The real joy is that my son was old enough to help for the first time and he seems to have been bitten by the wargames bug. He just finished putting together a crew of figures from Stargrave sprues and once they're painted, a game of planet 28 might be in order. Will post more about that in the future.

Inspiring stuff, Eilif!

 Momotaro wrote:
Inspiring stuff, Eilif!

Thanks!
I'm in communication with TMX to see if they can give us enough space to run the game there in June.

My son is assembling his first sci fi warband (pics later) so I've jumped in too with my first figures in a couple years. I'm building an as yet unnamed anthropomorphic Sci-Fi crew. Also serves as chance to paint up all the various futuristic animal-people figures that I've collected over quite a few years.
Row 1
Rambo Rabbit, 1980s Metal Magic with Hassle-free saw
-Turtle Guy from North Star. Originally for Rogue Stars
-Lion Guy, same as above. With Chaos SM power sword
-Rhinocerix, Super Villain -Reaper 50262 Chronoscope
Row 2
-Skraw, the last Armadillion Reaper 50292,
-Maelstrom's Edge Contractor with Stargrave Crew raccoon head.
-Monterey Jack Cowboy Mouseling. Reaper (discontinued?) With Heasslefree Grymn machine pistols.
-Unknown sci-fi dog. (EDIT: I have been informed that he is a minor character and part of 1980s TMNT line by dark Horse)

If anyone can tell me the origin/name of the dog and the names of the North Star figs I'd appreciate it. It's nice to be working with minis again though I'd forgotten what a pain it is to remove cast-on bases. Removing a mouseling tail from it's base is no cakewalk

I'm going to base these up on a set of Micro Art bases that I got in an Adepticon Swag bag some years back. At least two of these guys were similar freebies and at least half of the others were bargain bin finds. Gotta love free and cheap!