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2015/02/15 00:45:42
Subject: Re:S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Lost to the Zone - Mutants
Some Dutyers made from Empress DEVGRU, just with head swaps. As ever I have no idea what purpose that red camouflage would serve, but hell maybe in the zone it might find a function with all that weird terrain (or perhaps there's an over abundance of red clay?). ...Ah, yeah, sure here's the minis. Head's are from Secrets of the Third Reich and Dust Tactics.
Yes Duty camo is typically black with red highlights, and I'll probably do that with most of their guys, but this red stuff adds a bit of variety. Tsk, and black is such an ever so full colour. ...Ah, I won't be giving them any Ali G pink camo though, keep that for the bandits.
Spoiler:
Along with them there's another Dutyer and a Mercenary, both based on what I think to be Copplestone Castings SWAT. The guns would be all right for Fallout, but I dislike using fake ones given the less sci-fi Stalker setting. Meh, I'll make do. =P
In other news I'm still working on more mutants. These are major WIPs (literally just frameworks with some), but I thought I'd show something. Poltergeist (it'll be floating when its done), Snork (he's blurry, but it'll be painted soon), Pseudodog and a Tark.
These need to be moved off my table, so here's some derelict vehicles. They're 1/43rd scale, but they'll do as wrecks. That Empress figure looks titchy in comparison. =/
Ah right, and I put together a few more sets of fencing. Just a low mesh one and some wire ones. I think there's eight of each type, with about half of each being torn up a little. No use in showing them all though, so here's an example of each. =P
So where am I headed? Well at the moment I've base coated a few of those Cold War Soviets who'll probably wind up being bandits. The Snork's having a coat of paint too. There's still two jeeps to finish, but they keep being pushed to the side for other things unfortunately. Oh and I've started on two Monolithians. Besides the general clear out of what I have at the moment, I've kind of sort of been eyeing up some more Empress stuff. This time its they're Russians (to act as Duty or Military), Australians and Chinese (in there case Monolithians. I don't think I'll start a Chinese force like the one from the book).
2015/02/16 03:16:13
Subject: S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Lost to the Zone - Some Duty and other Stuff ...Woo!
I managed to pick up something like fifty of the things from Poundland!
I think I've probably discussed them before in my Fallout thread, but there's a thread on them here too. A Russian Distributor carries them still, as can you find them easily enough on Ebay by searching "Russian Diecast" (the 1/43rd scale bits helpful too), but certainly at prices nowhere near as cheap as what I paid for them. Given the scale they'd suit 40k quite well if that's what you're looking to use them for. Hell I have enough of these things lying about that I may just have a go at turning one of that white car at the front into an Imperial one if I have the time.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2015/02/16 03:49:01
2015/02/17 02:47:39
Subject: S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Lost to the Zone - Some Duty and other Stuff ...Woo!
Hey I've ordered some Humvees. ...The less I talk about the hell I've gone through to finally buy some of these things the better. Anyway, three Humvees which I've sort of planned out there use for already.
The first one will be one of those enclosed Ukrainian military variants. I'll have to order the machine gun from another source (Eureka Miniatures have a team carrying one, but its like £9 and has to be shipped from Australia). I found some plans to make the armour out of so hopefully it won't be too tough. If everything works out I'll certainly have a pretty cool vehicle (and perhaps the only guy in the world to have one in 28mm, the only ones I've seen are 1/35th).
The second will be kept for the most as is in its pickup configuration. With this one I intend to add the odd bit of hillbilly armour, though I'm not entirely sure I could use it as a technical as the diecasts are 1/43rd so it would be difficult to mount a gun on the backbed which doesn't look awkward. Anyway, here's another of these from Ukraine.
And the third and last one is a softop. However I don't really like how it looks right now (half its parts have been swapped out for canvas for some reason) so its my plan right now to take away all that and have a humvee which has its doors exposed and a flat canvas roof.
Those ideas are all subject to change obviously (well the third one may, I'm definitely going to try the armoured one). Heh, anyhow just showing up to tell you about the latest plans and what not. Till I actually have something painted to post, see ya.
2015/02/20 05:18:32
Subject: S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Lost to the Zone - Humvee Waffle
"Your mumblings are awakening the sleeping Dragon, be wary when meddling the affairs of Dragons, for thou art tasty and go good with either ketchup or chocolate. "
Dragons fear nothing, if it acts up, we breath magic fire that turns them into marshmallow peeps. We leaguers only cry rivets!
2015/02/20 22:38:04
Subject: Re:S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Lost to the Zone - Humvee Waffle
Huh, has it? Ack well, don't dare to question the quality of my filler posts!
That work? Honestly just search Humvee Ukraine and its the first picture which turns up. Funny that they're using the same Humvees that they did in the Middle East, but though they were apparently fine to use in their regular state over there, now they feel the need to add improvised armour to them. ...I guess there's less paperwork though in the current war.
2015/02/21 02:26:05
Subject: S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Lost to the Zone - Humvee Waffle
That pic worked Wyrmalla, so options for vehicles for your S.T.A.L.K.E.R. project.
"Your mumblings are awakening the sleeping Dragon, be wary when meddling the affairs of Dragons, for thou art tasty and go good with either ketchup or chocolate. "
Dragons fear nothing, if it acts up, we breath magic fire that turns them into marshmallow peeps. We leaguers only cry rivets!
2015/02/21 12:02:46
Subject: Re:S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Lost to the Zone - Humvee Waffle
Walking about Rivet City in Fallout 3 to this tune has to be one of my most memorable moments from that game. I've never been able to find a DvD of that film here unfortunately (yeah I could totally just buy it off of Amazon, but screw that its fun to scry shops), but meh its right next to Tarkovsky's other films and stuff like Burnt by the Sun and Siberiade on Youtube.
@ shasolenzabi
Eugh, for a game system which rarely uses vehicles and a video game which barely shows working ones I think I'm probably going overboard with my vehicle pool. Meh, they're fun to make and I haven't been able to touch modern stuff that much with my Fallout minis. Oh, penned in for the current set are: a Gaz-69 jeep, a Land Rover Defender (both of those are armoured), two quadbikes, the three humvees and a BMP-1. The jeeps and one of the quadbikes are being painted right now so my next post'll just be them. The Snork's having some love too, though I'll probably stick to just the vehicles for a bit of consistency or whatever. =P
2015/02/21 13:39:43
Subject: S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Lost to the Zone - Humvee Waffle
Well, Ramshackle Games is working on rules for post apoc with vehicles kind of setting.
"Your mumblings are awakening the sleeping Dragon, be wary when meddling the affairs of Dragons, for thou art tasty and go good with either ketchup or chocolate. "
Dragons fear nothing, if it acts up, we breath magic fire that turns them into marshmallow peeps. We leaguers only cry rivets!
2015/02/21 14:30:12
Subject: Re:S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Lost to the Zone - Snork
I was considering Skirmish Sangin actually, but I'm not sure about all those d100 roles. Force on Force might work too, but for the moment I'll use 7Tv till I can work something out.
Here's the Snork. Its made from a Wargames Factory zombie which I cut up and reposed. The gas mask's greenstuff with some wire for the tube. Its mounted on a 30mm round base because of its splayed pose (which also meant that taking a picture of this was hellish, you can just see the burst open spine).
Yeah I'll probably make another one of these at some point. One in the in game outfit rather than the blue and white vest (which I took from a cosplayer as it seemed like a cool idea given that's what Russian soldiers at least wear under their uniforms, though I can't speak for Ukrainian ones).
That cosplay of the snork is really well done and creepy!
"Your mumblings are awakening the sleeping Dragon, be wary when meddling the affairs of Dragons, for thou art tasty and go good with either ketchup or chocolate. "
Dragons fear nothing, if it acts up, we breath magic fire that turns them into marshmallow peeps. We leaguers only cry rivets!
An odd choice of cosplay at that as well. I doubt many con goers could even know what he was, rather than just some creep with a gas mask over his eyes. =P
But back on track. I've managed to throw together these vehicles in a state to post. I probably already have more of these things that I'll ever use, but hey they're fun to make. Anyhow.
First is an armoured Gaz-69 jeep. Its based another of those 1/43rd diecasts, this time with armour bolted onto every surface to turn it into some Frankenstein's Monster version of itself.
And the original in case there's any Gaz-69 enthusiasts who want to cry.
Then a Hillbilly Armoured up Land Rover Defender. Again there's an image of the original beneath for reference. I tore off the roof and rear cab to turn it into a sort of technical, even if due to the scale I'm hesitant to mount a gun on it (the gunner would have to stand on their tip toes to see over the roof). Any passengers are advised to wear protective suits as all that ventilation's doing nothing to stop airborne contaminants.
And last is an Airfix 1/48th British Military quadbike which I painted up in civilian colours. Eugh, that company's kits are a chore to make at times. Its like playing Tetris. This'll probably serve better as a terrain piece than an actual drivable vehicle due to the lack of armour, but I suppose it could have its uses.
And that's that for the current vehicles. Those Humvees turned up yesterday, but I'll probably leave off them till I've finished some other stuff. I've started on some more Stalkers, this time mostly bandits, but there's a pair of Monolithians and a Duty guy as well. The cabin's coming along too. All that's really left to be done with that is to paint up the furniture, so expect to see that turn up in my next post likely. Here's what I have at the moment, hopefully it hasn't made anyone want to bolt rusty steel plates to their hatchback.
2015/02/25 14:22:10
Subject: Re:S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Lost to the Zone - Country Living...
Now what’s on the plate today? Something which sticks in your teeth probably. Hmn, and has a kind of clammy after tastes. Eww.
…
…Right, sorry thinking about what I had for lunch there. Today’s serving then. I managed to finish the cabin off to a reasonable level this morning. Yes I’ve had this for a while, but now that space its been taking up on my table can finally be used for some other crap that’s going to take up space for months.
This thing’s almost all balsa wood bar the corrugated plasticard roof and the bits of tat (…some of which are made from balsa).
There’s my first largish terrain piece for the setting complete then. Following this up I suppose will have to the Hind, which I was finishing the building stage of last night. I’d rather work on the more useful stuff first, so the monuments and signs will have to wait for a bit yet (namely I can still use these outside of an urban setting, such as in a village instead, but well I need to actually have the village first). Anyway, ploughing ahead expect to see some more Stalkers following this, though I think I have a game planned next week so it’ll really be down to working out what I need for that (and if that thing is running it’ll be the first game of the setting I’ve run, so that’ll be interesting).
2015/02/25 15:25:53
Subject: S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Lost to the Zone - Country Living...
Nice work on the trucks and quad, but that hut is great. Like the grass growing on the roof, good touch.
Look forward to the Hind, although it'll be sad to see it crashed (I like Hinds, and I'm not even being rude saying that).
Mastodon: @DrH@dice.camp
The army- ~2295 points (built).
* -=]_,=-eague Spruemeister General. * A (sprue) Hut tutorial * Dsteingass - Dr. H..You are a role model for Internet Morality! // inmygravenimage - Dr H is a model to us all Theophony - Sprue for the spruemeister, plastic for his plastic throne! // Shasolenzabi - Toilets, more complex than folks take time to think about!
2015/02/25 15:35:39
Subject: Re:S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Lost to the Zone - Country Living...
"Your mumblings are awakening the sleeping Dragon, be wary when meddling the affairs of Dragons, for thou art tasty and go good with either ketchup or chocolate. "
Dragons fear nothing, if it acts up, we breath magic fire that turns them into marshmallow peeps. We leaguers only cry rivets!
2015/03/01 17:14:31
Subject: Re:S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Lost to the Zone – Crashed Hind Gunship
I guess the Ukrainian military didn't just lose a few of their fancy Stingrays flying over the Zone. =P
So the Hind's finally painted. I went for Ukrainian military colours on it, but obviously a rather dingy variant. The Hind itself is an older variant (note the missile pods) made by Revell and yes the Ukrainians are using more modern versions currently, however saying that I was surprised to see these flying about on the news still. The ones in the games are the older variant IIRC, so this'll do fine.
It may have crashed, but I didn't want to make it look like the crew died as to not limit its use a bit. See I had thought about adding graves about it or the odd bit of blood on the windscreen, but instead it looks like the crew just up and left. ...That or there was no sign of the crew (having vanished under mysterious circumstances) and someone just came by and looted it.
Anyway its a cool piece to have and I'm pretty happy about it. ...Ok the paintjob could be better, but I'm just chuffed that it'll be turning up on a table some time. Heh, I'm getting flashbacks to DayZ just looking at this thing.
So what else have I been up to? Hmn, stuff not quite as interesting as the Hind obviously. I'm finishing off more of those fences that I had shown, though I could always do with more (...I'd bore myself to death with them before that ever happened however). I set aside the Stalkers I was working for this, as did some Eureka ones turn up in the post yesterday. I'll prioritise them based on what I need for a game I'll be running, even if I still haven't decided what I'll be fielding in that. Scenario wise I'm thinking something like a Stalker heading home with an artefact only to be ambushed by some bandits. Meanwhile a Freedom Patrol happens by who the Stalker's friendly with, que skirmish (I spent all night planning that).
Ah, anyway there's your fill for the moment. Off with ye. Git!
2015/03/01 17:44:33
Subject: S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Lost to the Zone – Crashed Hind Gunship
Very fitting as the Hinds used during Chernobyl would have been the 1986 or earlier models
"Your mumblings are awakening the sleeping Dragon, be wary when meddling the affairs of Dragons, for thou art tasty and go good with either ketchup or chocolate. "
Dragons fear nothing, if it acts up, we breath magic fire that turns them into marshmallow peeps. We leaguers only cry rivets!
2015/03/01 18:05:42
Subject: S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Lost to the Zone – Crashed Hind Gunship
Really nice work on that house and the crashed Hind. Very cool.
Marneus Calgar is referred to as "one of the Imperium's greatest tacticians" and he treats the Codex like it's the War Bible. If the Codex is garbage, then how bad is everyone else?
Nice work on the Hind. Shame to see a crashed one, but good job.
I prefer the Hind-D (due to the 3-barrelled chin turret) over the Hind-C (with the side mounted gun, as on that UN one). Neither of which we can see on your crashed example, and so it could be either to me (I don't know if there are any other differences, I can't spot them on the one on the shelf behind me).
Mastodon: @DrH@dice.camp
The army- ~2295 points (built).
* -=]_,=-eague Spruemeister General. * A (sprue) Hut tutorial * Dsteingass - Dr. H..You are a role model for Internet Morality! // inmygravenimage - Dr H is a model to us all Theophony - Sprue for the spruemeister, plastic for his plastic throne! // Shasolenzabi - Toilets, more complex than folks take time to think about!
2015/03/04 00:20:53
Subject: Re:S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Lost to the Zone – Crashed Hind Gunship
The one I have has the chin mounted turret. Its just that it crashed front first so its buried in the ground and probably torn off.
Tsk, its late so sorry I won't be taking any pictures right now. I'm just back from playing a game using these models however. Though I forgot my damn camera (facepalm) the guy I was playing did have his phone, so I'll see about putting up some dodgy pics later once he's sent them to me. I did learn some things however and I'll see about integrating them into later games. Ack maybe I should give a proper run down of events once I have images, but meh not much really went on.
The scenario for the game was as follows. A Loner returning from an artifact hunt was set up to be ambushed by some bandits. It was her objective to make it from one side of the board to the other. At the opposite side of the table from where she deployed a squad of Freedomers were set up, representing a group of guys who just happened to be in the area. They see a Stalker running at them with an artifact and some bandits eyeing her up and step in (a cut of the artifact's profits go a long way too). The bandits set up on one of the long table edges in the middle, and in the table's center I put down some blind dogs which were attracted to gunfire or someone moving loudly.
I, playing the Bandits, wound up prioritizing the Freedomers rather than the Loner dumbly as they had a much better firing position on me. The Loner ran up the middle of the board, ran into a cabin, and instead of doing an epic leap through a window spent too turns trying to bash it open with her rifle (I mentioned later that the Freedomer who was standing outside the cabin was shouting at her telling her to undo the damn latch). She made it to the Freedom guys vehicles and they made it off the table with minimal losses. The Bandits however... Three of them died when running across open ground to cover. One spent two turns being mauled by a pair of dogs. One ran full pelt at a SAW LMG with predictable results and the remaining survivor drove off in the Land Rover leaving his companion to bleed out. ...No honor among thieves obviously. Did I also mention that nearly every one of the bandit's guns jammed at one point or another?
The Freedom's Veteran did however manage to miss a Blind Dog their Ghillie sniper was fighting and riddle the poor guy with bullets. The Bandits thought he was a bush the whole game based on their inability to see the damn guy (he had a special rule which meant that unless you're close enough you have to make a test to actually see him).
Fun and it was good to see my terrain together, what little I have (heh, sorry then for not having any pictures at the moment, I'll try and remember next time). I mentioned wanting to drift away from straight military fire fights (if a guy wearing Nike jeans could be called military) and wanting to include the more supernatural elements and there was uptake on that, so I'll probably see about including more mutants in my next game. As I wasn't GMing this one I didn't have the focus to sit there and control mutants much (the Blind Dogs just ran at things), but I'll see about next time. =P
What else have I been up to? I started on a few swamp bits there. One of them is finished and I used it in my game tonight. I'll wait till the others are done though before posting them. I also started on a Deer Stand (taken from DayZ) and my first anomaly. The anomaly at the moment looks like a load of floor boards from a house which have been twisted up oddly, where in the middle will sit some sort of gravitational artifact (I don't know if I want to include the actual artifact or leave a space where I can put a round base with the artifact sat on top of it so it can be removed and carried about). The way the artifact tonight was handled was to have it as an item on the Stalker's profile. I like that (or having it as a card), particularly as if I were to run a campaign I'd have it so Stalkers could collect and trade numerous artifacts and have them as a sort of wargear (only ones with artifact containers could use them obviously, ie only characters). Meh, people seemed positive about the game, so I'll look into what rules I can come up with to differentiate it from Fallout (particularly, as I noted tonight when it was brought up, in Stalker you won't be scavenging gear. Your Stalkers are already kitted out. When the player attempted to scavenge the cabin he found a picture of Stalin and some Russian dolls.
2015/03/04 01:34:44
Subject: S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Lost to the Zone – Crashed Hind Gunship
How rare is the Russian Stalker boardgame? I'm super tempted to pick it up or maybe get a friend from Russia to grab a copy for me.
Have you read Roadside Picnic? It's what inspired the games and I think you would have some good ideas from it, small touches like the silver cob webs (they use them in CoP but differently) would cement the terrain as Stalker terrain and not just random society block looking.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2015/03/04 01:36:02
2015/03/04 02:15:08
Subject: Re:S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Lost to the Zone – Crashed Hind Gunship
Its still on sale in Russia (check out the thread I made asking if anyone had a copy for a link to a site selling it iIRC), or at least if it isn't being made any more there's still copies about. The only reason I don't have a copy is because the last order I made to Russia was stuck in customs for ages, and that was before the embargo. =/
This is my avatar over on another forum.
Yeah I have a copy of the book and need to pick up the sequel to it some time. Unfortunately my Cyrillic's horrible and I doubt an English copy would be easy to come by apart from in collected works of the authors.
As far as taking nods from the book and such, I prefer its setting over the game's, but well that would be an entirely different skirmish game. But yes, I'm starting off making terrain which I can use not just for the setting as I don't have all the time in the world, so what I do have needs to be versatile (I could have added silver webs to that cabin I posted, but then it'd only be usable for this one thing. Don't worry I'll make a screwed up one later. Even weirder to have just the one cabin which is all messed up to hell, but all the others are fine looking). Like I mentioned in my last post however I'm currently making my first anomaly (I'm trying to find an image of something similar, but its literally a load of floor boards which are twisting up into the air away from a central point) and I'll see about making more, though they're not strictly as easy to make as more grounded scenery (ie a gravi one is just a twisting in the air, difficult to reproduce on a model and have it usable). But yeah, whilst it couldn't be said that anomalies aren't common in the games, most of the scenery is stuff that you could see in the real world, so I'd rather have a load of that first whilst supplementing it with the stranger stuff.
And yeah, if I wanted to take more ques from the book then I'd have to move the setting over to Canada.
...Yes I will be painting up some of my Ecologists to match the book's description. However I'd also note that a company has recently (accidentally) bought rights to make a video game of the book. I doubt they'll use the licence, but it would be cool if they did.
Heh, and hey did you sign up here just for little old me? Damn I'm wondering how you found this thread now. ...Hmn, I knew the Kremlin was after me!
2015/03/04 17:56:47
Subject: Re:S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Lost to the Zone – Crashed Hind Gunship
Still nae game pics (I wouldn't hold out on the quality anyway), but here's what's currently sitting on my table.
The deer stand's based off of the ones in DayZ (or rather ARMA II), though its a little larger just for ease of model placement. I'll add in a few crates before I paint it probably. The other thing's my first anomaly, which is meant to look like the artifact's twisted up the floor boards. Ah, the artifact's currently represented by a round base as it will be removable if the Stalker interacting with it has an artifact detector/container with slots, otherwise its just a hazard.
So that's what currently is being worked on as far as terrain goes. There's swamps too, but the one I have painted is sitting at the bottom of the box I was using yesterday, so I'll leave off posting those till they're all finished. Besides those I have something like thirty Stalkers to paint, though yeah obviously I won't be doing that all in one go. I'm interested in expanding what I have that would suit a village, so I may start work on another house. That or the general store from DayZ (though I'm not sure about the size, its a little large looking).
2015/03/04 18:46:10
Subject: S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Lost to the Zone – WIP Deer Stand/ Gravity Anomaly
Thats a nice gravity! As a bit of a stalker fan (film, book, 3 games) I am very happy to see someone making stalker minis and especially terrain, the HinD is amazing.
Have you thought about representing a whirligig? a spread eagled corpse floating in the air.