Ace's Random Models (Updated!)

Scratch-built steam tractor. I made two of these and a bunch of wagons for the rural tables.


The trucks are Flames of War WWII Soviet ZILs, but they work well as late-model Fords. The steam donkey was scratch-built to go with a logging or mining camp setup.



Martian lobototons and drone overrun the defenders. The US Army is in full retreat!

yes - this is what I'm talking about!

The red brick roads in the urban terrain. How'd ja' do them?

I picked up a roll of rubber brick matting from Michael's Crafts around Christmas. The scale is off, but it's acceptable to me. I think you can order it, although it's much cheaper during post-holiday sales. I've used it for streets, marketplace squares, and roofing.

Part of my skirmish side project was developing characters. There was a storyline following a scientist and his traveling companion who track down radium ores within the "contested" Martian areas outside Spokane. Basically an Indiana Jones/Dr. Whom and femme fatale archetype (center, in the brown leather coats). I made from armed citizen militias from the refugee models. From the right is the Mayor, armed with Colt 1903 pistol, a Red Cross battlefield nurse, Father Flanagan reading quotes from his giant book of scriptures. I used the Marine models for State Volunteer troops, assuming their lack of equipment represented by campaign hats instead of helmets.




Of course the large tripods don't really fit into a skirmish level game, so something needs to control the drones and lobototons. In comes the Speaker drone, a special advanced model of autonomous drone designed to infiltrate and mind control humans. The Speaker drone acts as control node for the other drones and such, taking the place of a Slaver or Scientist. This model is using the dead corpse of a small girl like a puppet to speak with it's human adversaries. Father Flanagan is having nothing of this demon, however, staunchly facing it down with his faith. I made two preacher models, the other being an End of the World-type Martian collaborator. He's standing on a soap box with clap board and bible. 















The town militia holes up in the barricaded church until help from the Army can arrive. 

And finally, some of my Martian terrain. This is an assault on a Martian power node. Our scientist hero takes advantage of the chaos to slip through the melee and investigate the power node.



Unfinished work on a Martian harvester node in the ruins of a farmhouse, protected by Sentry turrets. It's hard to see, but there's human prey in the tentacles, about to be thrust down the bladed mouth-chute and processed into bloody goo, which is pumped into the nearby storage dome (painted red). This was to be a centerpiece for rescue missions.



The real reason it's so challenging photographing miniatures...

Absolutely marvelous work!! I bow before your superior mojo! Great creativity in units, terrain and storyline.

I'll post what I had finished pretty soon. The rules were fairly simple and built off the base game rules for familiarity. Big changes were how assaults are conducted, and changing turns into actions for individual models. Each model or unit has 3 actions per turn it can use to move, shoot, use equipment, or do something special. I felt the smaller focus required more depth of choice than the large battlefields represented by the core rules. Had a small list of equipment and weapons choices. I envisioned the scale would be up to light vehicles and drones, so missions would likely be focused around special actions like rescues, raids, or deep recon. The narrative storyline I was building involved the fall of Spokane as the Martians pushed west circa 1916 and the Great Pause where the main Martian forces seemed to go hibernate for a couple years. Small bands of holdouts and militia fighting in the ruins of the city after the main tripod advance moved on, and regular Army units conducting raids or recon prior to launching assaults into occupied territory.