Artizan Miniatures Frontier Scouts

As part of my new Space Frontier obsession, courtesy of Five Parsecs From Home and Star Wars threads on Lead Adventure (the most dangerous website to visit, even more than Ebay), I bought a few new figures.  I got the brand new Artizan Miniatures Frontier Scouts (FSF002) which were just released a couple of weeks ago as part of a small new line of figures (just the two packs).  Since they are so new, I have not seen any pictures of them anywhere, so thought I would take a couple of comparisons to show them off.

Artizan Miniatures Frontier Scouts against Stargrave body

Picture 1 shows one of the figures against a Stargrave plastic crew person body, and you can see that he is much taller, and thinner. (look for a more comprehensive review of the Stargrave crew I box in the future)

Artizan Miniatures Frontier Scouts compared to various miniatures

Comparison shot against a grab bag of figures I pulled out of a few drawers.  Left to right we have: Copplestone back of beyond, GW Stormtrooper (old), the three Frontier Scouts, the Rogue Stars Rogue, an old WoTC Star Wars figure, and oldest of all a Necromunda Scum figure.   As you can see the Frontier figures fit in pretty well here, but are tall and thin, with more realistic proportions compared to many figures. 

Artizan Miniatures Frontier Scouts height

Over all I really like the figures, as they have sort of a retro 70's Scifi look that is a bit rare, and their relatively low level of equipment presents more of a blank slate for imagination/additions than many figures these days.  Two of the figures have pistols (which look as if they could either be machine pistols or laser pistols), and one is unarmed, which is unusual for these sort of figures. They are a bit tall at 32mm+, but overall I think an interesting development for Artizan, and I would like to see more of them.  Listed for £6.60 they are not too expensive per figure either. 

Starmada: It is full of Stars.... and madas?

The most excellent Stewart of the blog A Terrible Loss of Lead and Wealth, came round this weekend for a game of TNG era Starmada.  He brought his lovely 1/7000 ships, the mat and the rules, all I provided was lunch and a venue (as well as an escape from relatives...).

As it was just the two of us Stew looked up a scenario from the rulebook, and we set out some fleets.  I ended up with the noble Klingons, and Stew took the cowardly and weak Federation. As usual we got caught up in the game and I failed to take as many pictures as I should have, but here are some. 

Now, fortunately for the noble Klingons, they have ambushed, er gloriously engaged in battle with only HALF the Federation fleet, the other half to arrive later as a rescue.  The Federation fleet started with a Galaxy Class, and two Excelsiors. Klingons has two Vor'Cha class cruisers, a Vor'Cha with a torpedo module, a D7 analog, a warbird, and the Tsanenn, a heavy command cruiser. 

Close range disruptor practice on the appropriately named "Fearless"

This next picture shows what happens when two wings of your fleet cross on the location of a weaker opponent's ship.  Starmada utilizes written orders for movement, so usually we would futilely drift past each other, or end up with the business end of the ship facing away from the action, but a couple of times it all came together nicely.  This is also a nice closeup of the ships.  Look how pretty they are! 

After the unfortunate end of the Fearless the other half of the Federation fleet entered the board, and an Ambassador, as Akira, and a Defiant class ship warped in to join the fun.  The Akira has a whole mess of torpedo tubes and a pretty healthy phaser array so it was rather worrying.  The Defiant class is a slippery little thing with too many guns, but fortunately it spent most of the game moving past targets, or pointing those guns away from my ships! 

Two Vor'Cha ships uselessly pointing away from the Endeavor

Since the Tsanenn's guns all face forward, the Hardrov is in for a bad day

Keeping your ship squadrons intact when one or more of them take engine hits is complicated, particularly as they drift further apart and make several turns. The two Vor'Cha class cruisers on the bottom right of the picture were supposed to be staying together, but it was not working very well by this point. 

By the end, the Federation had to retreat, and the Klingons got to celebrate their victory with some bloodwine.  Another lovely game with Stew and all of that has prompted some more interest in getting through the TNG/DS9 era Cardassians I started last year, and I printed off a few more Galors of various sub-types, a small group of Netels (an obsolete destroyer), and a pair of Keldons.  I also struggled my way through the Starmada ship calculator, which is really not that bad, once you realize that not every ship can do it all.  So hopefully another game in the near-ish future with a new fleet! 

Holidaze 2024

Well hello again. 

Happy New year and Merry Christmas to you my dear reader(s)! 

Hopefully everyone is well, and you got what you wanted from Santa.

As for myself, my family was very generous, and I got a few gaming related items.

Dark Reapers are nearly built, just need to magnetize the Exarch's gun options

Santa brought the family a Nintendo Switch, and I am not sure if that is a good idea or not... the kid got enough Space Marines to be a whole new army AND an Imperial Knight kit, which is just too much.  I will have to get some more brightlances out to compensate.  Maybe a Fireprism is needed?

Inbetween early November and now I have played a couple of games, both thanks to the local library:

Godzilla Tokyo Clash! (obligatory exclamation point)

Flamecraft

Neither was something that we needed to own, although Flamecraft was an interesting cooperative engine builder that I could see being fun to play more.  The "board" was a neoprene mat, which was cool, and certainly easier to put away. 

I also managed to squeeze in a couple of short D&D sessions with the kids and their cousins, which was great, except that now the level 3 party is left between sessions facing down a green dragon... TPK for the new year?

As for upcoming projects, I have a lot more Eldar in various stages of completion, a couple of updated D&D character figures, and as I mentioned LAST year, I would like to get back to my WWII Normandy stuff... we will see what actually gets accomplished.

What about you?  What are you planning on working on this year?