Monthly Archives: January 2019

Custom SAGA Casualty Markers

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A set of six should be plenty for a warband since 6 point armies are the norm and each unit is normally 1 point.

SAGA has been one of the games that has held my focus for the last few years and a lot of my painting and building has been centered around the game. I always like to make things better and improve if I can the look or play of the game. I never like game tables littered with markers, chits, or anything that takes away from the visual and SAGA is very good in this respect only requiring “fatigue markers” when a unit is tired out for one reason or another. I have seen all sorts of things used as fatigue markers, the original game produced markers in the form of shields, as well as coins, beads, small rocks, etc… Our group started long ago to use small plastic “Skull” beads as they looked cool. I think the first skulls where brought in by me after my buddy Stevie G bought me a pack at a convention. Another member of the group started making little vignette stands that used dice as part of the vignette to show the “fatigue” level. Rick Abbo then began to make some that used spear shafts in the vignette allowing the Skull bead to be slid on, they looked cool!

Well I finally got around to making my own and once again they are highly customized. This first set is based on wounded / dead figures that could be Vikings, Danes, Saxons, etc.….(sure they really work with any warband) I’ve added a hand cut steel rod for a spear to each one by drilling a hole in the figure to make them look wounded and hold the “skulls”. I have also added extra pieces from the “bits” box, real and “epoxy” rocks to give more life and character to the stands. If I can find the right wounded/dead figures, I plan to do this type of “Fatigue” stand for other factions as well.

The spear a just long enough to hold three fatigue marker skulls since the new SAGA 2 rules treat 3 fatigues as exhausted and excess fatigue is ignored. I like this since before you had to make the spears longer to get more markers on and looked not quite right.

This figure got a hand made arrow of piano wire and epoxy feathers to show a wound. The “steel” spear was also added giving the effect that he’s trying to stand and get to safety.

This is the same figure as the standing figure above but slightly re-sculpted to a lying down version. I sculpted some big rocks from two part epoxy in order to prop the figure up a bit and a better viewing angle.

A view of the additional sculpted rocks.

The fresh blood look is a TAMIYA color “clear red” over regular Vallejo red. It has to be applied after dull coating.

I put an ax in his hands to create that finial moment as a Viking dies when its so important to die in battle clutching a weapon to insure entry into Valhalla!

I love this one! I added some extra items, the shield with embedded ax to further the appearance of an on going desperate struggle!

 

Another project off the shelf!

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Like I said in my last post I’ve been hard at work…ok well I’m making a real effort to clean out my shelf of partially done projects and I got to say that things are looking good! I have 3-4 projects finished and off the shelf and ready for a bit of a photo shoot when I get the time. This project here was number 4 to come off the shelf and just happened to get in for pictures ahead of the other projects. There is still a bit of work to do on the bases, stands, and maybe a bit more weathering, but I was so happy to get the project to this point that I couldn’t wait to get it up for all to see. Funny since it has been on the shelf for at least 5 years!

I have always loved the Starship Troopers mini’s and built an entire setup that I ran at conventions several times. I wanted to add to the ST universe on the Human side with additional forces to fight the bugs. The current force I used in the games for the humans were some Games Workshop Candian troops purchased off eBay fully painted. I bought them just to get the game going for the conventions. I had painted all the bugs but did not want to wait until I had painted all the Troopers to start playing. Now these “Mercenary” troopers were very well painted but me being me I wanted something different and painted by me. I thought about getting duplicate unpainted Candians, or stripping the paint off the current ones but wasn’t thrilled by either option. I then hit upon building a whole new force, different figures, not really military (tired of painting camo uniforms) but sort of “para military” and the idea for the “GALACTIC HIGHWAY PATROL” was born! A force that patrolled the Galaxy keeping the peace, restoring order, a force that would often find itself in unexpected and dangerous situations.

Your cruising along in your speeder on Rigeil 7, radio playing, your favorite green Orion slave girl at your side when you see this in the rear-view mirror!

I’ve collected a ton of minis for this force and this pair was the start of the project. I planned to paint them in an slightly updated style of the California Highway Patrol. A style I thought I could have fun with and would be very distinctive on the battlefield.

The decals were printed on a HP Laser printer using decal paper. The design being done with “vector” graphics instead of say a drawing program as bit map allows me to take and scale these up and down for any uniform or vehicle in the future without losing definition or sharpness! I scaled some down to make their uniform badges.

The minis were done so long ago that I can’t remember what I used other than I think the speeders were from some GW Eldar, the troopers are Candians out of a different GW flying gunship, and the Gatling cannon I picked up somewhere else. I remember I got to the point of painting them and was stuck on division of color for the vehicle and basic uniform color. I also was stuck on what to call them and how to paint all the insignia. I like to hand paint flags and such but in this scale on a more modern type project I knew that hand painting no matter how well it was done would not cut it! Finally, I bit the bullet and made my own “vector graphics” design and turned them into decals that could scaled to fit in several places.

All in all, I think it was worth the five years of contemplation!

 

I love the colors and the look of the California Highway Patrol now expanded into the future! The helmets came out just great!

I built a brass and steel pin system into the jet bikes frame so the under slung Gatling cannons can be swiveled around.

I’m thinking about ways to create some short clear windshields for them…..