Dr Steel's Christmas Message

I received the following communique today:

Happy Holidays, Toy Soldiers! With the holidays now upon us, Dr. Steel has sent a special transmission from deep within his laboratory to wish us all a very merry Christmas. Thank you for helping Dr. Steel take over the world!

May your holidays be filled with joy (and robots)

Dr. Steel Holiday Greeting

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Pre-Dreadnought prototype from North Head Miniatures

I got this email today from Simon at North Head Miniatures:

Dave and were having a discussion the other morning over the paper and our morning tea about where we could possibly expand into next year, 2008. We want to continue working on the 1/1200 Ironclads and I have a project that I am working on that we have yet to agree on. However, we both have a love of pre-dreadnoughts and WW1. So we were thinking of maybe producing a range of ships for those periods, maybe focusing on the Med and the Black Sea.


We have rather quickly knocked out a sample to see what it could look like and I have used my rather poor painting skills, as Dave was busy designing, to show you what would be possible and ask if you thought it was worth going forward. The miniature is the Italian Regina Elena . Your thoughts would be appreciated.

I for one love this period (almost as much as the Ironclad era) and heartily support the idea of expanding such a range in this scale, which matches nicely with Aeronef and the forthcoming Land Ironclads and Aquanef.

What do you think? Leave your comments here!

Steampunk Dalek

You may recall this Steampunk Dalek by Promus-Kaa:

Steampunk Dalek by ~Promus-Kaa on deviantART


Well now its animated too!


but I prefer the B&W render for truly authentic feel:

Converted Steam Chair

• You may recall that last week I posted a link to Thunderchicken's 15mm VSF gallery here:
  http://pauljamesog.blogspot.com/2007/12/new-15mm-vsf-pics.html
  
  Well he has produced something new and outdone himself this time - modifying Eureka Miniatures' 25mm scale Lucifer Hardlove's steam chair to a 15mm vehicle.
  
  

Great work Tunderchicken, just the thing I need to scout ahead of my mechanised force for next season's invasion of Zululand!

http://www.displacedminiatures.com/Thunderchicken/image.html?galleryId=2529&imageId=24908

http://www.displacedminiatures.com/Thunderchicken/image.html?galleryId=2529&imageId=24907


You can see the original model here: http://eurekamin.com.au/product_info.php?products_id=1937

Kinder s'prise model

This great VSF/steampunk model by "leborico" was scratchbuilt from a Kinder Suprise egg. He also used "electric wires, paper, solder wire, a piece of grid from a coffee machine, gears from an old watch, copper pipes"

Well done indeed!

Tribal Villages

.
Either as an objective of a punitive expedition against errant tribesmen, or an Encounter in the Lost Valley, native villages are an essential part of any VSF or colonial game.

TOP: The ubiquitous native village!
Now, complete with fire pit!

I just found this simple and effective method for scratch-building such villages at Terrain Thralls:
http://www.terrainthralls.com//articles/village/firstpage.aspx
.

HMS Recalcitrant

This is a great scratchbuilt burrowing vehicle, or as I call them:

Terra-nefs

Taken from:
http://redjak.com/ImpMechSapper/Recalcitrant.htm

A great way to transport combat troops under an aerial barrage, or as a method of transportation to the Lost World!

How to Build The Heavy Mechanical Sapper

"The Recalcitrant or similar vehicle presents an ideal way of inserting those pesky, overpriced, underarmed Imperial close combat troops. With simple, easy to obtain materials it could be built in a few nites of work. The materials required are a styrofoam cone (craft store), a McDonald’s styrofoam coffee cup, some airdry modeling clay, some sheet styrene, dress snaps, paint and paper mache or patching stucco. Paper cardstock can be used to replace sheet styrene though it will take less of a beating."

"Roll out some modeling clay in a string that is thick on one end and thin on the other. At the pointed end of the cone start with the thin end of clay and wrap it in a spiral around your cone. Then work the clay into the shape of a screw thread and set aside to dry. Take your cup and cut it at an angle to make your vehicle look like it’s coming out of the ground. Wrap the piece with thin sheet styrene. Secure with a small strip of styrene across the spice point. Trim the top and bottom edges of the styrene to match the shape of the cup (the styrene wrap can be glued to the cup with white glue as well)."

"Cut some sheet styrene to make your door hatches and door frame assembly. Half of a dress snap forms the hatch wheel lock mechanisms. Cut a hole in the body of the vehicle just a bit larger than your door opening. Glue your door assembly over the hole. Add bits of scrap as decoration (fins, vents, gunports, access doors panels) as you like. Small styrene rod, round or hex shaped can be sliced for rivets and bolt heads. Cut a disk shape from styrene scrap to serve as a separation between the end of the cup and the screw drill point. Once dry glue the two pieces together. Paint the vehicle the colors you desire. Insignia can be drawn with a computer program and printed on a color printer. Cut it out and glue it on. Glue the vehicle to a base of matte board or other suitable material. Work up ground cover with stucco spackle or paper mache mash. Once dry paint it in earthtone colors. Using the same earthtone colors weather the vehicle so it looks like it has actually spent some time boring through the earth."

"Bada bing, bada bang, bada boom you’re done. "

Thanks very much indeed - Great stuff!
.

The speed of a T-Rex

When hunting big game, it pays to wear sporting apparel to ease sprinting...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6956867.stm

Or you can stand fast and take it like a man of course!

Science vs Pluck

Anything that says: Tea and buttered scones should be available at all times, stronger spirits only after noon has got to be at least OK in my book, so I present this yahoo group to you here:

‘Science Vs Pluck’ is a game of the Sudan wars set at a ‘generalship’ level; in which players portray officers in the service of Queen or Khedive, and seek to solve a variety of problems posed by the enemy, the harsh terrain and climate and, indeed, their own orders. All the participants serve together in, one would hope, some degree of cooperation, while one or more umpires, control the wild Sudanese foe-men, other Imperial officers and their, troops, and the universe in general. A distinct degree of role-playing is required; players are expected to devote themselves to behaving in a properly ‘Victorian’ manner, while the umpire will ensure that his own dramatic performances of fellow Britons, Arab merchants, Syrian interpreters and suitably obsequious ‘other ranks’ are appropriately Kiplingesque.

http://ca.groups.yahoo.com/group/ScienceVersusPluck/

Wheel Tank

This hybrid vehicle, shown in the livery of the White Russians, is another quality product by Vanvlak Industries:

The BK-1 Pillbug Rotary Tank

One of the less well-known tractor designers in American history, Charles ‘Cop’ Keiston was a brilliant innovator who lost out to Holt for lack of funding. Apocryphal industrial legend tells how despairing of ever finding a cost-effective method of fabricating reliable track links, Keiston was toying with a wooden model of an idler wheel when this rolled away and trundled over his work bench, scattering toy soldiers left there by his nephew. The inspired designer reinvented his concepts and came up with a tractor which was driven by one man in a fixed cabin, with an engine mount at the rear driving a huge cast wheel surrounding the driver and engine compartments. The ingenious transmission and clutch systems which drove the machine were installed in a wooden mock up, called ‘The Pillbug’. Traction of farm implements would be achieved by means of fixed trace brackets on either side of the rotating hull of the machine.

The wooden demonstrator was successfully presented at the Tanksarusse State Fair, where it attracted a lot of attention but no sales. This successful demonstration drew the attention of financier Tobias Butler, who realised the machine (...as intended) had military potential. Within a week the Butler-Keiston Manufacturing Company had been registered, and the first metal tractor, the BK-1, called, like the prototype, the Pillbug, trundled across the Tanksarussee grassland five months later.

Appearing late for WWI, the new rotary tank was lacking a market. The redoubtable Butler approached Russian financiers, and through them sold four of the Pillbugs to the White Russian forces. Intending to use the Russian Civil War as a proving ground, both Butler and Keyston embarked with their vehicles in March 1919. Little is known about the performance of the BK-1. Non-rotating side sponsons were fitted to the sides of the hull in Russia, armed either with a pair of light machine guns, or with a single light cannon of unknown calibre on one sponson and a machine gun or the other.


Although the tanks took part in some skirmishes, the well-designed drive and clutch systems were beset by troubles in the cold, dusty or muddy Siberian environment, and lacking maintenance and spares, the little tanks fell one by one into disuse. At least one was however successful in supporting White troops attacking a Red troop train on the Trans-Siberian Railway. Plagued by clutch slip problems, however, the Pillbugs were soon abandoned as they became prone to gyration: the sponsons and crew compartment would start to rotate along the wheel, resulting in loss of control and a very dizzy crew.

Keiston, involved in one of these incidents, gave up his plans and returned to America to become the successful founder of a toy industry. Butler disappeared late in 1919; it was rumoured that angered by the plight of civilians tormented by the less sympathetic White commanders, he switched sides, and for some time there was mention of ‘Red Butler’ in the more volatile American West Coast press.

One of the tanks disappeared without trace; a second is rumoured to survive hidden away in a Siberian barn. The other two were sold for scrap, although one of these was preserved for some years in Kursk prior to its ultimate fate. Leading an attack against a beleaguered Red strongpoint, the tank suffered clutch slip and rolled down a hill crushing a White Cossack charge, to become the sole recipient of the Tractor-Tank-Hero of the People Star.

Greetings Gentlemen

First Off I'd like to thank Sir Paul

for the invitation to join your

select group of adventurers!

I hope that our collaborations

will provide us all with much

to add to our respective journals!

Well enough idle chit chat, lets

brake camp and see what's over

the next hill......

Don M

Carnivorous Plants Part II

Thanks to all the chaps who so kindly directed me to other sources of man-eating members of the Plant Kingdom!

QRF have a range of '15mm' scale (Actually standing about 17-18mm tall) plants, various types including spine shooters, stranglers and grapplers.

Link here:
http://quickreactionforce.co.uk/catalog/index.php/cPath/24_55_347

It would also seem that Armorcast arent quite as OOP as I originally thought - Ive always loved the "Medium Man-trap."

Link here:
http://armorcast.com/store/index.php?cPath=37&osCsid=4863b353c22ab8a224c7407bee80cd0d

Hydra Miniatures also have their new "plant men" - just the thing for Venus I think!

Link here:
http://shop.hydraminiatures.com/product_info.php?cPath=3_30&products_id=39&osCsid=2b63e53e3f02df2e87594a0a57c804aa

The 'Mouth-arm' by Emperor Miniatures reminds me a lot of the nasties at the bottom of the crevice in the new King Kong movie


Link here:

http://empcho.bizhosting.com/moutharmmini.html

Fenryll offers these nasty looking pot-plants:

Link here:
http://www.fenryll.com/en/miniature-442.html

Link here:
http://www.fenryll.com/en/miniature-439.html

And Kilroy Industries has these nice looking 'spider' plants

Link here:
http://home.insightbb.com/~kilroy07/products/alienplants/alien_plants.htm

Enjoy!

Carnivorous Plants

I'm currently scanning for some vegetative nasties to inhabit Venus/the Lost World/Skull Island etc




Here are some nice looking ones from the Wargames Supply Dump and at 1pund each the price is nice enough to make a small forest of them! Though there are 25mm scale, who says carnivorous trees have to be small? So these would be quite acceptable carnivorous trees for my 15mm Dinosaur Hunters



http://www.wargamessupplydump.co.uk/specials.htm





HLBS also sells some man-eating plants, this time Triffids (shown here) and again in 28mm. Watch out or that stinger could knock over one's crystal decanter!
http://www.wargamessupplydump.co.uk/specials.htm


Any more out there? I know Amourcast used to do some lovely ones in resin but they are sadly now discontinued...

15mm Dirigible

I grabbed one of these at Toys R Us yesterday - its a movie toy from "The Golden Compass" which I think will make a superb 15mm scale Dig! A gondola, a paint job and some inevitable steampipe work and gubbins and she will be ready to take to the air!




Maybe I need a couple more now I think about it...
Didnt find the aerial galley behind it, but that has loads of potential too!

More Tooth and Claw discussion

Its seems that Chris Peer's new Tooth and Claw rules are stirring up some controversy at TMP...

Link here:
http://theminiaturespage.com/news/talk/msg.mv?id=17238