So What's New? Quar!

Not having purchased any unpainted metal figures for the past four years, I have been needing a change of scenery for a long time. Honestly, I've been bored with the hobby for a long time. Well, instead of endlessly debating if I should or should not buy something as I have been doing, I took advantage of ZombieSmith's February 15% off sale.

I love their Quar figures and have been eying them up for ages. So I ordered a couple platoons and support of their 15mm figures. I'll be basing them individually for platoon v platoon gaming. I've been wanting to get back into 15mm. This is a good time to do so. Many more possibilities now that the hard sci-fi that had been dominating the scale. I also love the Ion Age figures and many of Khurasan's new figures, which would work well against the Quar. Plus, the Quar just might invade 1940s Europe--you never know.No vehicles, but plenty of nifty 15mm WWI armor out there to modify.

I've also been eying up 6mm sci-fi for years now and decided to get into the waters with a bunch of  6mm Quar.

Below is the list. I'm excited. I placed the order last Monday but haven't heard anything yet. Hopefully they won't take long to get here. (I've posted some photos from ZS's website.)

15mm:
1x Crusader: Light Infantry Company
1x Crusader: Infantry Officers Pk. 1
1x Crusader: Infantry Officers Pk. 2
1x Crusader: Pack Cadier
1x Crusader: Snipers
1x Royalist: Rhyfler Company

6mm:
3x Crusader: Infantry - LMG Teams
2x Crusader: Infantry - Company HQ
2x Crusader: Infantry - Infantry Company

Update 3-15-14
It looks like my order was lost in the mail, so a replacement is being shipped as I type. This was to be my Spring Break project this week, but that was a bust considering that I had no Quar to paint! Hopefully I'll get these fellows in the mail in the next several days.

Update 3-18-14
Got my figures in the mail today. They look amazing. I can't wait to paint them up!

Deadball as Superhero Figures

Today, I saw some pics of the upcoming plastic figures for Mantic Games' Dreadball. I'm not into Dreadball the game, but I thought some of the figs might be good for superhero games and other sci-fi skirmish games where not everyone has to have a visible weapon--maybe something like Infinity. After all, who is to say they don't have weapons built into their armor, like chest beams or wrist beams a'la Iron Man. Many of the poses look like classic superhero fisticuff action. Some could be individual heroes or villains, depending on your paint job and desire. Some "teams" might make good armored henchmen squads. Just a thought while my pain meds kick in. Am I onto something here?

These Trontek29ers look the superhero part. They kind of remind me of the Rocket Red corps from the 1980s Justice League. Classic superhero poses. They really don't have a major football look. They could he armored henchmen or individual heroes or villains. I like these guys.

She's a pretty cool alien. Is that a football or a bomb!?!

This gal speaks superhero figure to me and is what gave me the idea.

Ok, he's an ork but it can work for an armored baddie. Better for superhero games than a regular sci-fi ork.

"Tears of Steel" Short Film

The 12-minute video below, "Tears of Steel," was made using Blender, a free open source 3D software package. The effects are top notch, along with the story. I was very impressed and enjoyed it. Filmed in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Check Blender.org for more info and to download the software and Tears of Steel's website for lots of info about the making of the film, which was crowd-funded. I like the robots, which remind me of robots from Critical Mass Games.

New Poll: Best Star Wars Soundtrack?

I just started the blog's first ever poll--Best Star Wars Soundtrack.  Please take a moment to vote and then feel free to discuss your vote in the comments section. We'll see how this goes! I'll kick it off, though my comments below sound more like my usual posts than comments! :-)

Though I like many tracks from the various episodes, such as Duel of the Fates from Phantom Menace and the opening battle sequence of Revenge of the Sith, overall best soundtrack for me just has to be Empire Strikes Back. You get The Imperial March, The Battle in the Snow, Main Star Wars Theme, Yoda's Theme, Asteroid Field, City in the Clouds, and more. Jam packed listening fun! Back when I first saw the movie in 1980, I ran out and bought the original flip-open, double-disk LP set with photo booklet inside and everything. I wore it out during our late-night RPG sessions! Sure, now I own the soundtrack on CD and have ripped it to MP3, but sometimes I miss opening that old enormous dust jacket, flipping through the photos, sliding out the albums, and putting the needle on the record. Ah, those were good times! Read more about the ESB LP and CD at its Wikipedia page.

Thrift Store Find: Star Fleet Battles

Yesterday was great weather here in Central FL. Jeremy and his mom went out shopping for the entire day to Mt. Dora, while I stayed home and worked on the outside of the house for several hours (windows and gardens).

In the early afternoon, I got an excited phone call from Jeremy. He said that he had found something at a thrift store, and that I would really like it--something from my past. Turns out it was the Star Fleet Battles box below.

And So It Began
Back in the late 1970's and early 1980's, we used to go to Virginia Beach for vacation. Aside from the beach and Busch Gardens, I used to go the tidewater area to photograph the Norfolk & Western and the Chessie System. When I got into RPG's, I began going to one of my all-time favorite game stores: Campaign Headquarters in Newport News. That is where I bought the deluxe edition boxed set of SFB, plus some expansions and Captain's Logs.

And so, like many others back then, my SFB obsession began! Like a true SFB player, I just had to buy everything SFB--and try to use it. Then, like every true SFB player, I burned out on the game. It became too bloated and complicated. Then college and girls entered my life. SFB went onto the shelf, never to be played again.

Gone...All Gone!
Sadly, when we moved 15 years ago from PA to FL, I left all my wargames, miniatures, and RPG's behind because I was no longer playing games and my wife worried they would be a 'bad influence' on Jeremy, who was 6 years old at the time. Of course, I came to regret that decision several years later! Every now and then, I get physically depressed thinking about all my gone games. Jeremy knows this. That's why he was so excited to find this set. We had a fun time last evening looking through it and telling some old tales.

Now I feel this urge to buy the newest version of the game. Someone, please tell me that would be a mistake! :-)

Look at that stack of ship sheets! I used to put them in plastic sheet holders and use grease pencils to mark off the boxes. Ahhhh...the endless nightmare of energy allocation and shields being sanded down. (I wrote a computer program to handle damage rolls. which sped up the game a bit.) And look at those teeny, primitive counters! Shortly after buying the game back then, I quickly ditched counters and went with the miniature ships.

Believe it or not, I've never looked at a Nexus magazine until yesterday. Wow, our hobby was so primitive back then, but loads of fun. On the bottom of the box, much to Jeremy's surprise, we found Nexus and some old adverts, which I loved looking through to see what I had owned and had wanted to buy but never did. Man, but I wanted a copy of Warsaw Pact back then! I did have the Traps and Citybook books, plus some other games, like The Barbarian. Good times. Good times. I loved 1982.

What We're Watching Now: Babylon 5

Last week, we began watching season one of Babylon 5 on DVD (the remastered version). Though I watched the series when it first aired, this is Jeremy's first time watching it. I've been chatting up the series with him the past 15 years (Jeremy will be 21 in March!), but he's never really been interested until now. He's always been a Star Wars fan, and recently a Star Trek fan (we had been watching Deep Space 9 until last week, stopping in the middle of season four. I kept telling him how DS9 was a poor ripoff of B5.)

I haven't seen these Babylon 5 episodes since they first aired and then rerun during the same season, waiting for the next season to begin. Plus, there were episodes in season one that I have missed, until now. Tonight, we just finished watching the episode "And The Sky Full of Stars," which I missed back in 1994. Wow. It's amazing how each episode has little clues (sometimes major clues) about the storyline/plot! Great foreshadowing as well. I try my best not to divulge anything to Jeremy while watching, but it sure is hard. I keep making little comments and sounds when something important is said or happens.

He's enjoying the series, though he's not as impressed with the Mimbari ships as I am. Oh well. Plus, the cheapness of the medlab's set bugs him, like it has always bugged me. As he puts it, the lab looks "so random," like a lot of the show's sets. But he's quick to mention that story is key, not glamorous sets, especially when the show's budget was a lot less than Star Trek. The lack of Star Trek Tech Babble is also nice.

Gaming: Late to the Show
Ironically, he's now interested in B5 but all the B5 miniatures and games are hard to come by. I still have my 2nd Edition of Babylon 5 Wars box set (never played) and the Babylon 5 revised boxed version of A Call to Arms ship game (played once). Sadly, no miniatures to go with them. I really wanted to get the Fleet Action ships back in the day. I was disappointed to hear that Mongoose went with the larger ships, and that their quality was spotty as I remember it. At least, ACTA has the paper counters. Looks like ebay will have to be my friend for B5 gaming.

A Spot of Luck!
Jeremy bought Season 1 on Amazon with his own money, paying $14 for it new. On Monday, he and I went out doing some shopping on the other side of the county, with the plan to hit Cool Stuff on the way home to pick up some new games, which we did. (More on that in another post.) On the way back, we decided, after much hemming and hawing, to stop by a Goodwill thrift store, one which we hadn't been to in a long time because we usually find nothing there. Well, just as we were leaving the store empty handed again, I saw a small rack of DVDs we had missed. There sat Season 2 through 5 of Babylon 5! No Season 1, but we owned that anyway. And the price? $9 each, in nearly new shape! So I plunked down my money. (Funny how I wind up buying all the other season sets???) We now have the entire series on DVD for only $50.

Taking a Slow Boat to Babylon 5
We tend to watch one episode an evening at around 10pm if there is no hot football or basketball game on. (Jeremy is a basketball freak,while I don't get the game.) I'd like to watch more episodes an evening, but he likes one a night. Hey, as long as he in enjoying quality sci-fi, who am I to complain?

Thrift Shop Find: Car Wars Gamebook

You must drive Orson Whitney, a controversial Church Elder, to San Francisco without letting him get killed in the process.

Welcome to the exciting world of Car Wars Adventure Gamebooks! I have been a gamebook geek since way back in early 1981 when I read my first. I don't remember what it was, but I was hooked. They were a nice change of pace from playing Zork on my Apple. Plus cheating was a bit easier with a gamebook--just a quick peek at Page 46 to see what happens when I open that door and then a quick peek at Page 87 to see what happens if I check the door for traps.... Oh, come on! What gamebook reader (player?) hasn't peeked ahead  just once!

This weekend at the local library used bookstore, I picked up a Very Fine copy of the Car Wars Adventure Gamebook: Badlands Run from 1987, paying a whopping 50 cents. The cover is still stiff and looks like no one ever opened it up to read. And get this. They had four more copies! Unfortunately, the other four were all badly damaged. Oh well. This book goes for $15 to $30 on the collector market. (Note, the photo above is not of my actual book. Just a photo I found online.) The cover just screams Car Wars and Mad Max. Back in the day, I was a big Car Wars player. This is the only CW book I've ever found. I also picked up a VF condition AD&D adventure gamebook #18 from 1988, but those are more common.

If you'd like more info on this book or adventure gamebooks in general, check out Demian's Gamebook Web Page.The link will take you to the Badlands Run page. Check those thrift shops for gamebooks. For us old guys, they can bring back some fond memories of misspent youth!

6mm GZG Photo

I'm posting this photo of Ground Zero Game's 6mm figures for Phil Walling and the guys over on TMP. He was asking for photos of the Tactical Interface Transport. You can see it in the upper-left corner of the photo. Hope it helps everyone. Note that I did not take the photo.