Tag: Retro Sci-Fi

Transforming a Corgi Toy Tiger Tank for the Imperial Felynxii Army

This project was a lot of fun! It allowed me to be creative and model something a bit different than just painting up a standard vehicle or unit of miniature troops. Retro sci-fi is a great genre to do just that.

Infantry need armored support in the retro sci-fi universe! I mentioned in my blog post on the Felynxii Imperial Scouts that I had a concept of adding armor to their force. I use Buck Surdu’s Combat PatrolTM WWII rules with my retro sci-fi modifications for these tabletop games. But, how to add an armored element?

First, let’s look at obvious inspirations – many vehicles have been given cat-like names. The US had the M10 Hellcat tank destroyer, The Germans have had many from the Luchs (lynx), Puma, Leopards, Panther, and … two types of TIGER!

So I began my search for a suitable toy tank or model to use that was of a workable scale. I have read often that some gamers prefer 1:48 scale or 1:56 scale for 28mm game vehicles. I was agnostic on this debate – I just wanted a good feline-inspired tank. Then I saw this old and somewhat beat-up Corgi toy from the 1970’s on eBay.

I thought this might work. The Corgi Tiger tank scale was about 1:50 (right in the middle of the two common scales). But I didn’t want to fabricate tracks. Luckily eBay had a seller (apejaycustoms) that 3d-printed tracks for a toy Corgi tank! That’s amazing!

Including shipping, I bought the tank for $12.30 and the tracks for $13.15.

I could have stopped there – but as most of you know that I usually don’t. What if the Tiger could be commanded by – A TIGER! That would certainly mesh with the feline Felynxii army.I looked at a few options on eBay and in local stores – and bought the following options with the idea that I could possible remove the head and put on the top of the tank in the commander’s cupula:

A resin Lynx
A Lion King plastic bobblehead
A resin tiger

All of these were too big – though the tiger figure was in the end useful to help me pattern tiger stripes. All ended up as gifts to my grandaughter post-project.

My ultimate tiger solution came with my finding a 25mm scale figure from Iron Wind Metals. It was – “Male Shape Shifter (Tiger Form)”, SKU DS-033. I’m pretty sure it was originally a Ral Partha figure, so in my mind it qualifies as an “Old School Mini”.

I thought I could modify it to work as a tank commander. I ordered two just in case for $28.90 including shipping. While 25mm is a bit smaller than 28mm – it was close in size to the Felynxii infantry from 1977. So all of them are 1970’s-era products.

Materials assembled for consideration and planning!

The Corgi tank needed work!

Need to remove decals and chipped paint! The barrel was also bent
Still see rug fibers in the roadwheels from old play.

As to making this old toy a retro sci-fi tank, a few additions and modifications were needed. First, some clean up of the old decals and chipped paint.

Of course, I thought it needed a big ray gun. After doing my best to straighten the gun I used a file to remove (as much as possible) its pot metal mold line. Using green stuff I added some number 6 Everbilt steel fender washers to the gun. This step was inspired by the fantastic efforts at kneadatite sculpting shared by two of my blog buddies – Roger (of Rantings from Under the Wargame Table – and Dave Stone of Wargame Terrain Workshop – check them both out). While I could have gone here with the thin look of the washers as they were – looking like a 1960’s TV Lost In Space weapon – I wanted them to be more retro sci-fi looking. Addditionally, I did worry that using the washers as initially secured would not be as secure as tabletop play might demand. That necessitated a two-step sculpt to give the main gun a more hefty look.

Step 1 was to get the washers fixed in place for 24 hours – before going on to further sculpting.
Another view of step 1.

While that cured, I went to work on planning out work on the tiger commander figure. I planned to have the figure’s head – or preferably its torso – coming out of the tank’s hatch. I realized that drilling out the Corgi tank commander’s hatch to insert a figure was impractical due to the thickness of the metal and the size of the hatch.

Doing a bit of research gave me insight into the different types of cupola’s that WWII Tiger I tanks had. One type swung up vertically, while another rorated out on a lateral swing arm. That would be my solution – build a cupola/hatch to mount the commander. It would also enable me to work on the cupola/hatch/tiger assembly separately from the toy tank.

Inspiration from eBay yet again. This would be the basic orientation of my cupola.

Now that I knew what I would do with the tiger figure, it was time to prime and paint it. However, I before I got to that stage – I chose to modify the figure as a tank commander with a green stuff-sculpted set of headphones and a garrison cap.

As received.
After cleaning up the figure.
Headphones and garrison cap added

While that green stuff set up, I cut out the cupola/hatch pieces from plasticard. There were 2 differently-sized pieces used. I sized them with a plastic drafting template. Then I cut them with a sprue cutter and sanded them as round as I could. Then I went back to the tiger commander and primed the top half so that it would cure.

The next day I moved on to “Step 2” of the main gun sculpting. This way I could smooth out the “insulator” shapes over the washers on the gun and be assured that they were structurally stable and durable enough for play.

Here you see the results of the step 2 sculpting of the main gun, the primed top half of the modified commander, and the two hatch pieces.

Leaving the bottom half of the figure unpainted helped me with ease of holding it for painting. The big resin tiger figure was a good model for patterning the stripes. Below are some images of how the painting went.

Switching back to the tank, it was time to prime it. Wanting to make sure that it got a good prime over the old factory paint job, I double-primed the tank. First, I applied a black coat, covering everything except the cupola area, the very bottom of the toy tank, and the plastic road wheels. I let it cure for 24 hours.

Then, I needed a second coat of white. Note that after the black coat was brush-applied to the toy tank, I blanked off the road wheels and the top of the existing hatch/cupola with poster tack. I did that for the wheels so as to keep the plastic green color intact – plus I thought that any paint on them would be very fragile and prone to rubbing off easily. For the cupola, I wanted to leave a somewhat bare surface so that the tiger commander assembly (when completed) would be easily attached with green stuff.

The tank primed black (I avoided the wheels), next to the painted commander, the cupola parts, and the unpainted tiger figure.
Wheels and cupola masked with poster tack before adding white primer.

It was now time to return to the tiger commander and the hatch/cupola assembly.

The tiger commander got a coat of varnish which I let cure. Then it was time to saw the figure in half. I was not sure of what angle to take with my jewelry saw. In the end, it took two slow cuts. I needed some minor touch-up work on the figure afterwards.

The larger cupola piece (the base part) was drilled out as was the bottom of the tiger figure. This allowed me to embed a paper clip wire through the bottom of the plastic disc and into the hole I drilled into the base of the figure. I secured this combination with green stuff over both sets of plastic and let it set. By doing this, I was able to do a couple of things. First, this allowed me to construct the hatch top in the swung out position as you will see below. Also, later I did eventually drill more holes into the bottom of the plastic disc in a honeycomb fashion – which provided more surface area when I used green stuff to attach the commander/hatch/cupola assembly to the Corgi tank.

First cut!
The results of the second cut showing the slice removed after the first cut.
The drilled holes, hatch base, and paper cut wire.
I set the hatch.cupola/tiger assembly into my vise using the extended piece of paper clip wire – and once that had set I added more details.

Those details included adding the swing arm (a toothpick shard) and some green stuff detail to the top. After this cured, I primed and painted it.

The hatch details added and the beginning of priming and painting.

Let’s now go back to my progress on the Corgi tank. I had the priming completed with the tank now primed white.

It was now time to make it really a “Tiger”. First some hot orange:

Added orange with my airbrush.

Then airbrushing some black stripes!

Looking tiger-y.

Keeping the tank on the plate, I painted up the detailed parts. The gun I wanted to glow green and purple. After removing the poster tack and more touch up work, I attached the previously dry-brushed tracks.

At this point, I wanted to give the tank a few decals – but what? I told CoPilot what I wanted for a design, and it came out perfect.

It says Imperial Felynxii!

When printed on decal paper, the design is less obvious and more black.

Felynxii design for insignia decal.

As for the attached decal looking black and less obvious – that frankly helps in my view and not hurts. It blended nicely with the stripes, and is subtly visible. I attached two decals on the side of the turret, one on its back. I also put one on the front of the hull.

The weight of the sci-fi addition to new main gun kept pulling itself down. To remedy this, I secured the gun in the elevated position.

The roadwheels got a light coat of green tone to dull the plastic. Here’s what my work area was looking like:

This was one of my more involved projects – and I’m pretty pleased with the result. I am also submitting this to Dave Stone’s “2026 Season of Scenery” annual painting challenge. Thanks for the invitation Dave!

This particular post is just what I did – could I have done something differently? Sure. But, I thought the sequence of events was worthwhile to share. Please let me know what you think in the comments section.

Eye Candy

Last but not least, I’d now be honored to share with you some eye candy – AND my first try at a movie of the finished work that you can check out – with an appropriate sound track. Then I’ll list all the paints etc. that I used here as a reference. The other references will be links to my pages on these types of projects.

Right side view.
Left side view.
Front top view.
Close up view of the cupola/hatch with the tiger commander.
Imperial Felynxii attacking!

A Movie! Turn up the Volume!

Below are a list of some references and links that might also be of interest. I use them to refer to when I forget painting schemes that I want to replicate.

References:

For a consolidated list of links for any of my previous “Anthropomorphic Figure Project Posts”, please see this page here.

For a consolidated list of links for any of my previous “Old School Miniatures” blog posts, please see this page here.

For a consolidated list of links for any of my previous “Figure Conversions” blog posts, please see this page here.

For a consolidated list of links for any of my previous sci-fi/retro sci-fi blog posts, please see this page.

For a consolidated list of links for any of my previous “Scratch-build Projects” blog posts, please see this page here.

PAINTS, INKS, GLAZES, SHADES, WASHES, PIGMENTS, FLOCKING, GLUES AND MORE THAT I USED ON THIS FELYNXII TIGER TANK:

  1. Poster tack
  2. Vallejo Primers “White”
  3. Corgi Toys Tiger I metal toy tank
  4. 3D-printed replacement tracks for Corgi Tiger I from eBay 
  5. Everbilt number 6 steel fender washers
  6. Green stuff (kneadatite)
  7. Plastruct Plasticard (91108 SSS-125), 7/16″ thick  Plastruct Plasticard (91108 SSS-125), 7/16″ thick 
  8. Vallejo “Premium White Primer”
  9. Vallejo Game Air “Hot Orange”
  10. Citadel Contrast Paint “Gryph-Hound Orange”
  11. Vallejo Mecha Color “Off White”
  12. Reaper MSP Core Colors “Pure Black”
  13. Vallejo Primers “White”
  14. Citadel Contrast Paint “Skeleton Horde”
  15. Vallejo Model Color “German Grey”
  16. Reaper MSP “Pink”
  17. Vallejo Model Color “Neutral Grey”
  18. Vallejo Model Color “Ivory”
  19. Army Painter Warpaints Metallics “Bright Gold”
  20. Secret Weapon Washes “Sunshine” (wash/shade)
  21. Army Painter “Light Tone” (wash/shade)
  22. Vallejo Primers “Black”
  23. Jewelry coping saw
  24. Paper clip wire
  25. Toothpick
  26. Plastic plates
  27. Vallejo Flow Improver
  28. Vallejo Thinner
  29. Vallejo Mecha Color “Dark Steel”
  30. Vallejo Model Air “German Red Brown”
  31. Folkart “Champagne”
  32. Army Painter Warpaints Fanatic Effects “Data System Glow”
  33. Citadel “Tesseract Glow” (Technical)
  34. Army Painter Warpaints Air Fluorescent “Violet Volt”
  35. Vallejo Game Color “Sepia Wash” (wash/shade)
  36. Vallejo “Gloss Acrylic Varnish”
  37. Army Painter “Green Tone” (wash/shade)
  38. Experts Choice Clear Decal Film
  39. Microscale “Liquid Decal Film”
  40. Microscale “Microsol” (decal softening fluid)
  41. Vallejo “Matte Premium Varnish”

Thanks for looking!

Reviving Retro Sci-Fi Miniatures: The Felynxii Project

I decided to take a break from painting up Wars of Ozz figures and terrain for a bit. Yes, golf still happily monopolizes a lot of my free time – ok MOST of my free time (winter eventually does come and no golf here then).

But even though we here in Massachusetts are in a minor drought, it does rain from time to time – and the sun even disappears for the night. No surprise there…so I could get some summertime hobby work in…

But what should I jump into?

Inspirations and Motivations

For me, inspiration came by way of the Combat Patrol WWIITM Retro Sci-Fi games that I ran at 4 conventions earlier this year. You can see those games at the following blog links: Cold Wars 2026, TotalCon 2026, and Huzzah 2026. (I also ran games at HAVOC 2026, but did not get to a blog post on that one). They were fun and a nice return to a genre that I really enjoyed.

As to which faction to get into – well, its a bit sad to say how I was motivated to do something feline. Why? Well, my daughter Ellen and my granddaughter Tabitha (Tabby) lost their pet cat Izzy a short while back. Also, our good blog buddy Roger from “Rantings from under the Wargame table” has lost another cat (Amy) not too long ago. This was in addition to a young cat named Flash a while back and a dog as I remember. Losing pets is tough. Therefore, in these kitties memory I went with the Felynxii from long-defunct Archive Miniatures. More about these retro sci-fi cats in a bit, but first some background stuff.

Background Information on the Figures

I have written many blog posts over the years about these old school miniature projects and companies – to include some information on their origins. I have two pages that catalogs my efforts that might be of interest to you:

  • For a list of my Old School miniature posts click here.
  • For a list of my Retro Sci-Fi and Sci-Fi miniature posts click here:

As you probably would notice on these pages, the majority of figures that I use for these projects and games are long out-of-production – to state it mildly. Most have come from two sources – Archive Miniatures (specifically the Star Rovers Line) and Crunchy Frog Enterprises (specifically the Critter Commandos line). The last time I painted an Archive figure was back in October of 2019. As for Critter Commandos, my last group was painted in March of 2018 – so its been a while.

Archive stopped producing figures in the early 1980’s and sold off its molds. According to Lost Minis Wiki:

Archive was probably run by Barbara and Nevile Stocken [1], this American company produced a wide variety of figures, many of which have been kept in production through other companies down the years. In the early 1980s they closed up and were superseded by R*kiiv.

Sculptors: Nevile Stocken, Steve Lortz

All sourcing of original Archive Star Rovers figures for me has been from eBay. Years ago I did recast some for personal use.

As for Crunchy Frog Enterprises, the Lost Minis Wiki says:

Team Frog Studios was founded in 1987 by Paul Arden Lidberg. They are a game publisher using the imprints Crunchy Frog Enterprises and Nightshift Games. They produce games with supporting lines of miniatures. They acquired the Living Legends & $tar Corp$ lines from Lance & Laser in 2009, and they ran some unfulfilled Kickstarter projects in 2012 & 2013.

The Crunchy Frog Enterprises website is still around. However I had some issues ordering Critter Commandos figures from them in the past. Perhaps it could be better now. As a result, I have only sourced their metal miniatures from eBay and Noble Night Games when I can find them reasonably priced. I still have a good number of them awaiting a paint job. The Critter Commandos line dates from the late 1980’s. According to Lost Minis Wiki:

Lance & Laser originally produced this Critter Commandos & Crittertek range of figures. [1] It is now owned by Team Frog Studios. The game Critter Commandos was created by Paul Arden Lidberg and first published in 1989 by Crunchy Frog Enterprises (now a “Team Frog Studios” imprint). The CFE codes on this page are those used by the imprint Crunchy Frog Enterprises; the figures have been renamed and recoded several times. Sculpted by Steve Lortz

Note that the late Steve Lortz was involved in sculpting both of these lines that I love. Until I began this post, I was unaware that according to Wikipedia, Paul Arden Lidberg passed away in 2022. RIP for both.

The two lines of figures mesh well for my purposes – as one would expect from the same scupltor like Steve Lortz – who also worked in a similar genres. It appears that Jim Johnson also sculpted for Team Frog.

Who Are the Felynxii?

For this particular project I chose to work on the Felynxii. Who are they?

The Felynxii are a race of bipedal anthropomorphic spacefaring Imperial felines from the Star Rovers universe. Archive made two distinct poses of these cats. The first figure was Archive #2070, “Felynxii, Imperial Scouts, Advancing”. The second was Archive #2071, “Felynxii, Imperial Scouts, Crouching”. I had 19 of these old metal figures, 7 of the “advancing” and 13 of the “crouching”. I’m pretty sure these are Steve Lortz sculpts, though they may be Nevile Stocken creations.

I decided one of these would be the platoon sergeant (a “crouching” figure), and two “advancing” figures would be squad leaders. Each squad would have an A and a B team. Each team would have a team leader (“advancing”) and three troopers (“crouching”). Some of the figures were in packages and some were loose. One or two had signs of early lead rot so I cleaned it up thoroughly before working on it.

That left me with a need for a platoon leader. I had a Critter Commandos figure called “MAJ Kitty”. I thought she was also a Lortz figure but is attributed to Jim Johnson on the blister card. Her Team Frog Studios SKU is 7648. I think I primed and dry-brushed her years ago. I decided that while her rank overqualified her to lead a platoon, she would do fine for my needs. As she is the sole representative figure made in the Critter Commandos line for “The Feline Confederation of Catslovakia”, she needed a job. Apparently unlike other Critter Commands factions, her kitty people were never properly fleshed out with other troops. Now she has a unit to lead on the tabletop. Meow.

The Figures

All of the figures I worked with here are definitely old school metal and 28mm. The Felynxii are armed with assault rifles, and MAJ Kitty looks like she has some sort of an anti-tank weapon. I’m calling it a “Katzooka”.

The Felynxii were sculpted back in 1977, and probably cast way back then as well. MAJ Kitty is probably from 1989-90 or so. All of the Felynxii figures are stamped on the base with their number and “1977”. It only took 49 years to get them painted! Almost all Archive figures were sculpted with a narrow rectangular base, whick doesn’t meet my needs for gaming. Therefore, I used Apoxie Sculpt and steel fender washers of different sizes to sculpt bases that would blend better on the tabletop. I did the same for MAJ Kitty’s base as well.

Let’s see the projects progress.

Project WIP

I had bought these figures years ago, so this diminishes my unpainted lead horde…

My starting supply of Felynxii figures. Some of the crouching figures had gotten some green paint on them but nothing like a priming coat. One had some minor lead rot. The advancing ones had been cleaned up by me years ago – and may have also had some paint on them back then. Note the 2 ones in the blister!

Below is a close up of one of the blister packs. 75 cents is a good deal!

Close ups photos of a crouching figure before painting:

Below are close ups of an advancing figures before painting:

The MAJ Kitty blister card with the already primed and dry-brushed figure.

The next step was to sculpt around the metal bases with a two-piece epoxy (in this case Apoxie Sculpt).

Once the epoxy had cured, I mounted the figures with poster tack to specimen jars and primed any that needed priming in black. After the primer cured, I dry brushed all to match MAJ Kitty’s state.

After dry brushing, it was time to start painting. Here are some shots before I got to adding any distinctive flocking.

The figures painted minus any base work or varnish.

For the bases, I wanted to have a deep brown clay-like look with Citadel’s now-OOP “Blackfire Earth” texture paint that would give a bit of granularity as well as contrast with the planned use of alien tufts.

Once the texture paint had dried on the sculpted bases, I added shading before varnishing the lot.

After varnishing, I added lots of differently-colored flocking. This will aid in tabletop recognition for players, as well as to add a lot of alien colors to the mix.

Let’s see some eye-candy. These shots are not as good as the ones you will see in the Instagram post at the end, but they will do. My lighting was challenging.

I also show the data cards that I made for my convention games – they are 3.5″ by 5.5″, with the reverse side (not shown) being the common Combat Patrol WWIITM quick reference card. Note that the data cards are color coordinated with the units to an extent. There’s also those kitty names…

The Felynxii Imperial Scout Platoon

MAJ Kitty, Platoon Leader

Base label

Platoon Sergeant – SFC Izzy

Base label
Data card for the Platoon HQ

1st Squad

1st Squad Leader -SSG FLASH

1st Squad Leader Data card
A Team, 1st Squad
A Team, 1st Squad data card
B Team, 1st Squad
B Team, 1st Squad data card
1st Squad Group Shot

2nd Squad

2nd Squad leader – SSG AMY

2nd Squad Leader data card
A Team, 2nd Squad
A Team, 2nd Squad data card
B Team, 2nd Squad
B Team, 2nd Squad data card
Felynxii Imperial Scout Platoon Group Shot

For a quick live (and perhaps better lighted) overview please check out my Instagram link:

In the future, I have some plans to potentially add some feline-themed armor to their ranks. Stay tuned.

Thanks for taking a read about this project. My hope is that you found it interesting and informative about some figures that you never heard about before or maybe just forgot about. While I do not own a cat (I am currently allergic), my daughter Ellen and granddaughter Tabitha like them a lot, and did not replace Izzy, so I hope they like the project too.

As always, I would love to hear your thoughts on the Felynxii here – did you find any aspect more interesting than another? Did I make the right choice to jump into as a project? Do you have any favorite figure or team?

The comments section awaits your opinions! Join the conversation!

Finally, below are a list of some references and links that might also be of interest. I use them to refer to when I forget painting schemes that I want to replicate.

References:

For a consolidated list of links for any of my previous “Anthropomorphic Figure Project Posts”, please see this page here.

For a consolidated list of links for any of my previous “Old School Miniatures” blog posts, please see this page here.

For a consolidated list of links for any of my previous sci-fi/retro sci-fi posts, please see this page: https://markamorin.com/sci-fi-retro-sci-fi-projects/

PAINTS, INKS, GLAZES, SHADES, WASHES, PIGMENTS, FLOCKING, GLUES AND MORE THAT I USED ON THESE FELYNXII FIGURES (INCLUDING MAJ KITTY):

  1. Specimen Jars
  2. Poster tack
  3. Vallejo Primers “White”
  4. 1″ Everbilt steel fender washers (for SKU 2070 and MAJ KITTY)
  5. 1.5″ Everbilt steel fender washers (for SKU 2071)
  6. Vallejo Primer “Surface Black”
  7. Apoxie Sculpt
  8. Vallejo Model Color “Off White”
  9. Army Painter Speed Paint 1.0 “Zealot Yellow”
  10. Army Painter Warpaints Metallics “Gun Metal”
  11. Army Painter Speed Paint 1.0 “Dark Wood”
  12. Army Painter Speed Paint 1.0 “Runic Grey”
  13. Citadel Contrast Paint “Talassar Blue”
  14. Vallejo Thinner
  15. Citadel Contrast Paint “Baal Red”
  16. Army Painter Speed Paint 2.0 “Pastel Yellow”
  17. Army Painter Speed Paint 2.0 “Familiar Pink”
  18. Army Painter Speed Paint 2.0 “Forest Sprite”
  19. Army Painter Speed Paint 2.0 “Battleship Grey”
  20. Army Painter Speed Paint 1.0 “Hardened Leather”
  21. Vallejo Mecha Color “Metallic Blue”
  22. Turbo Dork “People Eater”
  23. Vallejo “Thinner Medium”
  24. Army Painter Warpaints Metallics “Bright Gold”
  25. Tamiya “Flat Aluminum” (XF-16)
  26. Vallejo Model Air “Fluorescent Red”
  27. Tamiya “Copper” (XF-6)
  28. Vallejo “Metal Medium”
  29. Vallejo Model Air “White Grey”
  30. Vallejo Model Air “First Light”
  31. Vallejo Model Color “Black Grey”
  32. Citadel “Tesseract Glow” (Technical)
  33. Reaper MSP Core Colors “Pure White”
  34. Reaper MSP “Grey Liner”
  35. Army Painter Speed Paint 2.0 “Blinding Light”
  36. Reaper MSP Core Colors “Pure Black”
  37. Citadel Contrast Paint “Luxion Purple”
  38. Vallejo Model Air “Black Metallic”
  39. Citadel “Nuln Oil GLOSS” (wash/shade)
  40. Citadel “Nuln Oil” (wash/shade)
  41. Citadel “Blackfire Earth” (Texture)
  42. Vallejo Flow Improver
  43. Vallejo Thinner
  44. Vallejo “Gloss Acrylic Varnish”
  45. Vallejo “Satin Varnish”
  46. Gamers Grass 6mm “Beige Tufts” (flocking)
  47. Gamers Grass 6mm “Beige Tufts” (flocking)
  48. Gamers Grass 6mm “Alien Blood Moon” (flocking)
  49. Gamers Grass 6mm “Alien Purple” (flocking)
  50. Gamers Grass 6mm “Alien Blue” (flocking)
  51. Gamers Grass 6mm “Alien Toxic” (flocking)
  52. Gamers Grass 6mm “Alien Pink” (flocking)
  53. Avery labels
  54. Army Painter “Battlefield Rocks” (flocking)

Until next time…

TotalCon 2026: Gaming Events and Highlights You Can’t Miss

TotalCon 40 is an annual gaming convention that is held in Marlborough, MA at the Best Western Conference Center. There are events for miniature games, board games, RPG’s, and much more. Attendance is well over 1,000.

This year it was held between February 19th and 22nd of 2026. I usually run several tabletop miniatures games there. This year was no exception. I ran eight 4-hour games across the 4 days.

Several players who participated in my games are eager to see some game shots. Not to disappoint, his post will be picture heavy and text light!

On Thursday of every TotalCon, there is a large flea market in an adjoining room to the main hall. From Friday to Sunday, I get a very big table in that room. Because of the flea market’s need for space, I settle for a smaller footprint on Thursday. That smaller table was fine for two games (afternoon and evening).

Battle for the Pond

This was a Combat Patrol:WWII retro sci-fi game using the pond that I described in my last post.

My game flyer.
The tabletop set up for action. The F.R.O.G. Commandos are on the near side, with the Star Ducks on the far end. The Star Ducks are Archive Miniatures Star Rovers figures from the late ’70’s/early 80’s. The Frogs are Critter Commandos figures from the early 1990’s.
The Star Duck players move up.
The Star Ducks use one of their two jet pack moves to occupy islands. In the game, control of the smaller islands was worth 5 points. Controlling the largest island earned players 10 points.
The Frogs were also jet packing. The Star Ducks used mortars to lay down a protective smoke screen against their automatic weapons fire.
In the end, the luck of the cards deserted the Frogs, with almost every island in Star Duck control.

High Noon at the Cyber Ruins

I ran this Combat Patrol retro sci-fi game at Cold Wars, but on a bigger table. I used a different mat and adapted the game to a smaller footprint.

Game flyer.

To win the game, both sides get credit (victory points) for inflicting enemy casualties and finding hidden ancient robots.

The game was definitely full!
Retrovians and Space Cowboys move into the ruined city.
The Space Cowboys find a robot (an Archive Robot Cook) and get it to join their side.
Reinforcements arrive! Here come the Space Roos.
Retrovians take cover under fire while trying to clear the walls.
Retrovian infantry move into the city.

In the end, the casualties on both sides were high. But, the Space Cowboys possession of robots allowed them a narrow 15-10 victory. That wrapped up Thursday’s games.

I decided not to run a Friday morning game this year. Last year, resetting the flea market room took too much time. It interfered with my morning game setup. Instead, I had plenty of time to move everything into the “big room” and set up on the “big table”. My first game was a Wars of Ozz game. It was titled “The Great Munchkin Heist”. I had also run it at Cold Wars. This time I had an even bigger table than I had there!

The Great Munchkin Heist

The game set up – I loved creating this panoramic expanse!
Players arrive – once again demand to play was high!
1st Munchkin Brigade set up
That’s a full game!
Nitpik’s “Morin’s Monsters” armed with napalm blasters hope to cook up some Great Pumpkinheads.
A regiment of Great Owls (Munchkin allies) overflies the Lemon Drop Legionnaires and hits them in the rear!
Jinjur regiments (female pirates and Munchkin allies) breach the wall.
The Munchkins breach the western gate and their light cavalry pours through to look for technological treasures.
In the center, two axe-wielding Nitpik regiments have had enough of the Munchkins. The Jade Automata and the Pink Nightmare regiments charge over their defensive wall. Their counterattack wipes out the Munchkin artillery and drives two Munchkin infantry regiments from the game.
Another view of that mechanical counterattack.
Meanwhile, the cleaver Jinjur pirates locate some of Nitpik’s technological wonders in a wrecked building.

The game ended – in a dead tie 23-23! A real nail-biter to be sure!

The next game builds on this one. The Munchkins have found technology, but welshed on their agreement to share! Thus, they betrayed their allies. As a result, their former allies have jumped over to the Nitpik side. The Munchkins are fleeing to safety, with Nitpik in hot pursuit.

Revenge of the Tin Men

Another big game! The players plan.
The Munchkins have 4 heavy crates of technology carried by 4 regiments. The crates slow down the Munchkins. The little folk need to cross a line with the crates safely to gain victory points. Additionally, each Munchkin base that escapes the Nitpik pursuers gets a point. Nitpik gets points for recovering crates and for eliminating Munchkin bases. The Munchkins have set up a delaying picket line of light cavalry and sharpshooters between the two balloons. This is to give those fleeing a chance to escape the Nitpik and allied horde.
On the right, the Munchkin picket line. On the left, the pursuers!
There were many Nitpik pursuers. This included those who switched alliances, like Frost Ogres, Great Pumpkinheads, and Jinjur pirates. Traffic control became a challenge as they tried to catch the Munchkins.
The pursuers coordinate their movements.
The Munchkin Aerostat frustrated several Nitpik regiments. As they tried to advance, the Aerostat laid down effective disruptive musketry on the mechanical men.
Nitpik cavalry broke through and tried to run the Munchkins down. Several crates were lost as the Munchkins routed in disarray.
The game ended with this scene showing Sam disappointed. The Munchkins nearly won the game. Her unit only needed 1 more inch to cross the line of the crater with the crate. So close! (well played though Sam!!) In the end, Nitpik won a VERY narrow 12-10 victory.

That wrapped up Friday night. The next game would happen Saturday morning set in North Africa.

Il Duce’s Desert Gamble

This what-if modified What a Tanker scenario also filled up quickly as well.

Vichy French armor facing the Italians.
Royal Italian Army armor facing the French.
The players plot their moves.
An Italian Macchi C.202 Folgore (Italian “thunderbolt”) dogfights a Vichy Dewoitine D.520.
Leif smiles as he records temporary damage on his tank. The damage was caused by Leif’s very bad dice rolling for a very old and worn out French FT-17!
A Vichy SOMUA S35 knocks out an Italian Semovente 90/53.
French forces advance.

The game ended with Vichy winning 540-440.

For Saturday afternoon, I ran Operation Torch: Vichy Mounts an Armored Counterattack. This was also a modified What a Tanker game.

Operation Torch: Vichy Mounts an Armored Counterattack

The Vichy players plan their assault.
The American players are ready!
The Americans watch as the Vichy French get closer. They have plans of getting air cover and naval gunfire on the French!
Knowing this, the French spread out to avoid massing a big target.
Mal considers his next move.
Aircraft are deployed, but the US Navy rules the skies. This allows for the Avenger to call in naval gunfire from the USS Savannah. This destroys multiple Vichy vehicles.

The US air superiority and naval gunfire carried the day – with the US winning a significant victory.

RETROVIANS MUST BE CLEANSED

Saturday night’s game was upon me, and I had decided to run another Combat Patrol retro sci-fi game. This time, the Retrovians would face the Archive Star Rovers Warbots. They would also confront my own creation – the Mark 1 Sphere tank.

Happy Gamers at the start! Retrovians are on the left, Warbots on the right.
A Retrovian Bra’sheer tripod moves out front of its infantry. The Mark 1 takes up a supporting position as the Warbots march forward to glory.
The Mark 1 safely delivers machine gun fire from its sponsons. Meanwhile, the Warbots also take fire and are stunned.

I did not take many pictures of this game. I do believe that the Warbots wore down the Retrovians. Yes, they were “cleansed”. It was nice to see these figures back on the tabletop.

This was the penultimate game for me of TotalCon 2026. I headed off to my room. I was ready for the 2026 TotalCon “Tournament of Ozz” on Sunday morning.

I had 7 out of a possible 8 players. At random, one player got a “bye” in round one. The match-ups were done at random and 7 different 21-point brigades were assigned at random. Inflicting the most damage on the enemy was the victory condition to move forward in the tournament. Tie breakers were also in play if that was needed.

Glory on the Line!

In Round 1 – the match ups were:

  • Impkins (Ken) versus Munchkins (Eric)
  • Munchkins (Bob) versus Gillikins (Dave)
  • Winkies (Brad) versus Gillikins (Jacob)
  • Winkies (Leif) got the round 1 bye
Round 1 begins!
Brad’s Winkies devastate Jacob’s Gillikins
Bob’s Munchkins get into a shooting match with Dave’s Gillikins.
Round 1 winds down.

The Round 1 results were:

  • Impkins (Ken) defeated Munchkins (Eric)
  • Munchkins (Bob) defeated Gillikins (Dave)
  • Winkies (Brad) defeated Gillikins (Jacob)
  • Winkies (Leif) got the round 1 bye

Yielding the semifinals as:

  • Impkins (Ken) versus Winkies (Brad)
  • Munchkins (Bob) versus Winkies (Leif)
The semi-finalists!
Leif casts a poppies spell to thwart Bob’s cavalry,
Bob’s Munchkins prepare to unleash musketry on Leif’s Winkie Guard. They would rout!
Meanwhile, Ken’s Impkins got hit hard by Brad’s Winkies.

The Round 2 (semifinals) results were:

  • Winkies (Brad) defeats Impkins (Ken)
  • Munchkins (Bob) defeats Winkies (Leif)

Yielding the FINALS as:

  • Munchkins (Bob) versus Winkies (Brad)
Brad and Bob get ready to rumble!

In the end, Brad outlasted Bob – though it was close! Congratulations to Brad as the 2026 TotalCon Wars of Ozz Champion! Congrats to Brad!

The 2026 runner up Bob, the 2026 champion Brad, and your happy GM.

Thank you to all who helped me at the convention. Special thanks to Leif and Brad.

I also want to extend a very special thanks to Bryan Clauss, Steve Parenteau, Kevin Baumann, and the entire TotalCon staff. They do a magnificent job running a great convention! BIG THANKS!!

Lastly, a few areas that you can check out if you dare:

References:

For a consolidated list of links for any of my previous convention/club/game battle report blog posts, please see this page: https://markamorin.com/club-convention-games/

For a consolidated list of links for any of my previous Wars of Ozz posts, please see this page: https://markamorin.com/miniatures/wars-of-ozz/

For a consolidated list of links for any of my previous sci-fi/retro sci-fi posts, please see this page: https://markamorin.com/sci-fi-retro-sci-fi-projects/

Epic Battles at Cold Wars 2026: A Recap

Back in early February, I attended the 2026 HMGS Cold Wars convention in Lancaster, PA. The theme was “Wild, Wild, West”. this is not one of my usual game themes, but as you’ll see shortly I adapted for one game anyways. As I write this now it is already mid-March, so I thought it was about time to finally got around to sharing some of the games I played in and ran in the H.A.W.K.’s room.

The H.A.W.K.’s are a great club from Harford County, Maryland. Two of my good West Point buddies (Buck Surdu USMA ’85 and Dave Wood fellow USMA ’84) have been members for years, and I have been fortunate enough to be their New England carpetbagging GM for a few years now.

Buck, yours truly, and Dave

Prelude to Austerlitz (Wars of Eagles and Empires)

Thursday night I jumped into a Napoleonic 28mm game run by Buck, “Prelude to Austerlitz”. It used his Wars of Eagles and Empires rules.

It was a fun game and I was on the Austrian side with two other young players (they were young anyways). The French players were not as aggressive as they probably had wanted to be, which allowed us to successfully defend the town.

The Wicked Witch is Still Trying to Get Dorothy’s Slippers (Feudal Patrol using Wars of Ozz figures)

This was a fun opportunity to jump in a Feudal Patrol game with my old USMA roommate Dave. Dave does a great job as a GM and even won a PELA award at Cold Wars for his Zulu game. Dave uses 28mm Wars of Ozz figures in a skirmish game using Feudal Patrol rules. I played on the Winkie side and we were able to take Dorothy down and get those valuable slippers!

Dave as GM
My Winkies advance

After this game, I hit the vendors hall and got some lunch. Then I took the rest of the afternoon time to set up my Friday evening Wars of Ozz game. – “The Great Munchkin Heist“.

The Great Munchkin Heist (Wars of Ozz)

This was an epic back and forth Wars of Ozz battle, which really was great to see! Three brigades were on the attack (two Munchkin, one allied brigade, and an army reserve). The allied brigade was composed of two regiments of Jinjur female pirates, an Impkin slingshot battery, and a regiment of Frost Ogres (that Dave Stone will recognize!). The reserve came from the Land of Harvest – Great Pumpkinheads and regiments of eagles and owls. these allies hoped to share the loot with the Munchkins. Technological “secrets” were hidden in buildings throughout.

Three small but potent Nitpik mechanical men brigades and a small reserve force defended the formidable rusty steel walls of the Robotic Sanctum – a.k.a. the Industrial City. A small infantry reserve remained in the city, and there were rumors of a Nitpik relief force coming…

The Munchkin 1st Brigade advances on the left.
The Munchkin 2nd Brigade advances in the center.
The Allied Brigade ready for battle.
In the center was the Munchkin Army Reserve of Harvest troops under the command of Zoraster the Wizard.
The Nitpik Medium Artillery defends the left flank, with Elite Axemen behind ready to deal with any penetrations of the walls by the allied brigade.
Defending the Nitpik center against the Munchkin 2nd Brigade was the Lemon Drop Legionnaires at the wall (also with napalm blasters) and the axe-wielding Jade Automata.
Defending the Nitpik right was the 3rd Nitpik Brigade. They had Morin’s Monsters with napalm blasters and a mechanical mini-swarm.
A side view of the start of the battle behind the Nitpik lines. The Mechanical mini-swarm is in the foreground, while the sole regiment in the Nitpik reserve – the Pink Nightmares – is in the back left.
The battle begins.
The Allied Brigade moves up on the right.
The Nitpik Artillery prepares to fire at the Frost Ogres…
….who take casualties and rout in the face of withering fire.
Overzealous Lemon Drop Legionnaires take fire from the balloon and an unlucky reaction test causes them to jump over their protective walls towards the enemy!
This unlucky reaction subjected the Lemon Drop Legionnaires to Munchkin musketry at short range.
Morin’s Monsters hold the line.
Munchkin Light Cavalry and Landwehr move up on the left flank..
The Munchkin 1st Brigade moves towards the gate – somewhat stymied by the ominous rusty steel walls – their solution…
…climb the wall !! Assault Munchkins! (or Ranger Munchkins?)…they were soon in the town searching for technological secrets.
The Munchkins commit the Great Pumpkinheads and Great Owls and bypass Morin’s Monsters.
A female pirate regiment breaches the right wall and faces the Elite Axemen.
The Munchkin Center is breached as well.

The Munchkins searched in vain for any technological secrets. They did manage to inflict slightly more casualties on Professor Nitpik’s forces, resulting in a narrow 18-15 point victory.

Little Wars TV actually showed a snippet this game on their Cold Wars video – you can see it at minute mark 12:31. My players look happy!

That wrapped up Friday – and Saturday I had two games scheduled. The first was a What a Tanker “what if” scenario between Vichy French and Italian armor. I had to cancel it due to lack of players. That allowed me more time to set up my evening game and to play in another Feudal Patrol game run by Buck. It was a scenario based on a William Tell TV show from the ’60’s that I have no memory of! It was fun, we freed the good guys from the Austrians, and had a good time.

Tell Me the Truth! (Feudal Patrol/William Tell)

Buck prepping at the game start. I spent a lot of time in the game moving that bee hive on the hill!

At last it was time for Saturday night’s game.

High Noon at the Cyber Ruins (Combat Patrol:WWII – modified for retro Sci-fi)

This was my “western-themed” game.

I was really looking forward to this one as I got to use all of my rusty wreckage and ruined buildings that I have posted about here in this blog. It did not disappoint. The battle was full of action, with jet-packing cowboys (Texican Space Rangers) and Space ‘Roos engaging the Retrovians (Roger’s own). (More about Roger here.) Ancient robots were found and lost, some even getting violent when found. Buck got to play and channeled his inner paratrooper in the attack.

The game set up for action. Retrovians are moving into the ruined city from the left, and Space Cowboys from the opposite side. Space ‘Roos come in as reinforcements.
Players ready for action.
Skip maneuvers his troops in the background while Bruce deftly had his sniper climb the transmission tower. Obviously the figure would not stay, so we used a rubber band.
Retrovian Heavy Weapons Squad.
Movement into the city.
My friend Ken Howe snapped this shot!
Retrovian “Garkon” section.
Moving into the city – what to do?
Space Cowboys and Retrovians search for ancient robots.
Retrovian fire team mounts the wall.
Space Cowboys huddle in the wreckage from Retrovian fire.
The tripod “Bra’sheers” had a difficult tome getting over the walls. They did at points and instantly decapitated a few Space Cowboys with their claws.
A “Bender” robot was found – but was hostile and killed a cowboy and needed to be subdued.
Some of Leif’s Space Cowboys got on the wall in a conga line only to take Bra’sheer machine gun fire.
The conga line of death before machine gun fire…
Retrovians getting into the city in any way they could.
The battle rages.
Urban fighting!
Lots of combat in the city.
Buck jet-packs his Space ‘Roos and ambushes Bruce’s Retrovians, wiping them out. He was practically giddy in this game with how successful his tactics were.
Retrovians seek revenge with sonic cannon and sniper fire.
Space Cowboys and Space ‘Roos continue the search.

In the end, the Space Cowboys and Space ‘Roos alliance found 3/4 robots and successfully held on to them. All casualties mounted. But the victory was clearly in the hands of the Space Cowboys and Space ‘Roos!

After the game, with help, I was able to pack the car for a Sunday morning drive home. The temperature was well below zero Fahrenheit! With the wind chill it was -13 degrees Fahrenheit (or -25 Celsius for you metric types!).

Thank you to all at HMGS who made Cold Wars possible!

That wraps up this post – I still have a few that are in the queue , and I hope they are of interest.

I will be running these games again so see you at the next convention!

Next up? Some more terrain I think!

References:

Check these out!

For a consolidated list of links for any of my previous convention/club/game battle report blog posts, please see this page: https://markamorin.com/club-convention-games/

For a consolidated list of links for any of my previous Wars of Ozz posts, please see this page: https://markamorin.com/miniatures/wars-of-ozz/

For a consolidated list of links for any of my previous sci-fi/retro sci-fi posts, please see this page: https://markamorin.com/sci-fi-retro-sci-fi-projects/

Creating Realistic Ruined Buildings and Wreckage for Wargaming

Followers of this blog have seen several posts showing my “rusty” preparations. I have been getting ready for my numerous games at 2026 tabletop wargaming conventions. That preparation involves painting up figures and terrain for scenarios that involve a good amount of ruins and wreckage.

In a previous post, I shared how I built transmission towers and rusty walls for a Wars of OzzTM game involving Professor Nitpik’s Industrial City (the Robotic Sanctum). I ran that game at Cold Wars and will share more about that convention shortly. The theme for Cold Wars this year was “The Wild West”, so I also had planned to run a game involving Space Cowboys (technically Archive Texican Space Rangers” from Star Rovers).

I don’t run western games, but I could cobble together a retro sci-fi game using Buck Surdu’s Combat Patrol:WWIITM gaming system (with my modifications). In my game Archive “Space Cowboys”, and uplifted kangaroos  (“Space ‘Roos” ) combat blue-skinned “Retrovians” (from War Games Supply Dump). Both armies are searching for hidden ancient robots in the apocalyptic ruins of a long-dead civilization on a newly-colonized world called Dust.

To really make the ancient ruined industrial panorama that I wanted, I needed more buildings and structures than just my transmission towers, rusty walls, rusty generators and ruined chemical plant. I also wanted a lot of wreckage strewn about as terrain.

To those ends, I ended up making two ruined factory buildings, two industrial structures, and 61 scatter bases of industrial wreckage. These were all built at the same time. This enabled me to work around issues like drying and curing times as time was short. Oh yeah, and we had a few snow storms here in Massachusetts along the way that ate up some hobby time (not helpful at all).

I wanted to share my project and all its components here with you. As these were simultaneous efforts, you will see multiple project stages here. You may notice that I used a lot of repurposed bits of metal and plastic and Juweela products. The lists will be at the end of this post as is my habit. My concept was to achieve a Stalingrad-like look.

For the two buildings, I converted an iPad 16 box top and bottom. I used Apoxie Sculpt, steel washers, sand, multiple pieces of plastic, desiccant cylinders, and a lot of Juweela items to make the 61 scatter bases. And for two flat industrial structures, I reused two pieces of packing materials to repurpose them as flat rusted structures.

I started out with this iPad 16 box. I would use the top and bottom of this. It is plastic and cardboard.

I sawed out windows and doors on both box pieces and made each a bit differently in terms of architectural arrangement. I then hot-glued foam board to make rooms. For flooring, I broke up old popsicle sticks. These I had used previously to mount figures for painting on other projects. Lastly, I drilled out holes in the walls to simulate old bullet holes.

Cutting out the windows and doors on the first building.
Adding the walls, bullet holes, and flooring.

Then it was on to sculpting the outside walls. I did each building separately from here on so as to handle both curing times and to learn as I went as to best practices. Apoxie Sculpt and a Green Stuff World brick roller worked well.

Sculpting the walls. I used an awl to create and shape shell and bullet impacts on the outside.
Using the windows as gripping spots made the sculpting easier. I did need to then wait for curing.

While the walls cured, I worked on the wreckage bases – also using Apoxie Sculpt. I made the bases differently in terms of both size and shape. It helped to use one or more steel washers underneath the base sculpts. Using different sizes helped to make the shapes varied.

The biggest washer that I used and a base covered with Apoxie Sculpt.
Examples of the other sizes and shapes – all with steel washers underneath.

As the corrosion texture paint takes time to dry as well, I started adding that to various pieces of debris that I had saved up. I like to use a cheap old brush that could serve no other purpose – especially as it usually destroys it. The corrosion paint needed to dry and then got a second application.

Using the AK Corrosion Texture paint. Here I am using it on desiccant cylinders (from pill bottles), crushed plastic straw sections, and rubber inserts from a drain plug replacement.

After a day, the Apoxie Sculpt on the first building had cured. But I wanted there to be a small outside rim to it that could hold wreckage and brick debris. While a sheet of polystyrene was gluing to its bottom, I worked on the second building.

First building cured.
Bottom view – I needed more here underneath…but before that I finished the second building’s outside.
Second building outside sculpting…
….and second building flooring installation.

As the first building had cured, I started to paint it. Then I was able to glue a polystyrene base to building number 2.

Building number one with early paint work, and building number two being glued to the PS sheet under a heavy textbook.

As I was again dealing with drying and curing times, I went back to work on the wreckage bases. I used up some white sand on the Apoxie Sculpt bases and applied with PVA. Once that had dried, I added as much wreckage as I could to each.

Wreckage bases – I started with the largest. The two buildings are shown in progress as are the next batch of sculpted bases curing.
Close up shot of the larger wreckage bases in progress. Glue must dry…
Close up of building one with insides primed.

At this point, I added the flat clear plastic packing material to two square pieces of polystyrene by clamping and gluing them in preparation for corrosion texture. Then it was back to the wreckage bases. I had run out of white sand, so the next batch of wreckage bases got a PVA/grey sand application. As I used a lot pigments later, this made zero difference. At the same time, I also dirtied up the interior building walls and flooring using a sponge and various dark washes. The rim outside the buildings got a sandy texture paint covering.

The dark sand drying on the next wreckage bases, the flat structures with first application of corrosion texture, other bases in progress, and the buildings in the back.
A second coat of corrosion paint has been applied to the flat structures here. I also sorted the wreckage bases by size before adding pigments.
The flat structures and some other rusty paints I would add before augmenting with pigments.

Below you can see the wreckage bases after I added pigments to them. I fixed the pigments with Vallejo Thinner applied with a spray from a lens cleaning bottle.

Smaller bases done!
Medium-sized bases and flat industrial structures done!
Largest wreckage bases done!

Next, I added rusty industrial wreckage and scattered bricks to the buildings’ interiors.

After adding industrial wreckage and bricks to building 1…
…and building 2.

Clearly, pigments were needed at this point to make the bricks and wreckage look older and dirtier. More pigments and dark washes to the rescue!

The buildings after adding the pigments and washes to dirty and rust up everything.
Top view of both buildings as completed.

I was now ready to mock up the tabletop with everything! But first, the flyer for the game – which I finished before this project:

Game flyer.

The wreckage (all 61 pieces and the buildings really helped complete my vision. There are 24 possible search locations for the 4 ancient robots, known only to the GM. The four ancient robots I used were: “Folder Bot 3000” (aka Bender) from Armorcast Terraform Terrain Ltd.’s “Robot Townies” collection; and “RT22” from old Archive miniatures Star Rovers line circa 1977; and two Archive Miniatures Robot Cooks also circa 1977 (also Star Rovers).

The four ancient robots! Folder Bot 3000, RT22, and the two Robot Cooks.

I randomly select the locations for the four robots (see numbers on the map below). My playtest worked well, and here are some shots of the mock-up tabletop.

The mock up of the tabletop for the game. The Retrovians three squads and command group are in the forefront. The Space Cowboys are at the opposite side.
A side view.
View from the Space Cowboy’s side.
Generator side view.

I did not use all of the wreckage in the mock-up. I will share a Cold Wars post soon. However, as a preview here are a couple of shots of the game set up at Cold Wars in all its glory:

Photo of the game in progress at Cold Wars with me as the GM. (photo courtesy of Ken Howe).
Space Cowboys and Retrovians start searching for the robots.
The shoot out starts – while one robot has been found in the upper right. This was Bender, and he was not happy to be found and attacked and killed a Space Cowboy.

More about Cold Wars soon in a future post.

I hope you enjoyed reading this and seeing my rusty panorama come to life – on the tabletop anyways. If this WIP post helps you in any way, that is great! I am including these terrain pieces in Dave Stone’s PAINT WHAT YOU GOT 2025/2026 Challenge as these were completed in early February. For now, that’s it, until next time!

329 miles to Lancaster, PA and Cold Wars!

The materials are listed below as a reference for me (and you maybe).

For all of my previous posts on terrain projects, please see this page. For all of my previous posts on sci-fi projects, please see this page…for any of my previous posts on scratch-building, see this page.

PAINTS, INKS, GLAZES, SHADES, WASHES, PIGMENTS, FLOCKING, GLUES AND MORE THAT I USED ON THE TWO RUINED BUILDINGS:

  1. iPad 16 Box (top and bottom)
  2. Hot glue
  3. Foam Board
  4. Toothpicks
  5. Popsicle sticks
  6. Apoxie sculpt
  7. Vallejo Surface Primer “Grey”
  8. SIBE AUTOMATION “White Polystyrene 8″ X 12″ X 1/8″ Plastic Sheet”
  9. PVA
  10. Huge Miniatures “Brick Red”
  11. MSP “Brown Liner”
  12. Vallejo Game Color “Sepia” (wash/shade)
  13. Vallejo Wash FX “Dark Grey” (wash/shade)
  14. Liquitex “Burnt Umber” (ink)
  15. Secret Weapon Washes “Sewer Water”
  16. Vallejo Thinner
  17. Vallejo Surface Primer “German Green Brown”
  18. Vallejo “Light Slate Grey” (pigment)
  19. AK “Dry Ground” (texture)
  20. Vallejo “Carbon Black” (pigment)
  21. Juweela Metal Scrap Rusty Industry (23336)
  22. Juweela Debris Assortment (23316)
  23. Juweela Debris Brick Red (23315)
  24. Juweela Debris Assortment (23315)
  25. Juweela Bricks (23034)
  26. Juweela Metal Scrap Rusty Gear Wheels (23317)
  27. Army Painter “Red Tone” (wash)
  28. Secret Weapon Washes “Red Black” (wash)
  29. Secret Weapon Washes “Ruby” (wash)
  30. P3 “Red Ink” (ink)
  31. Vallejo Game Air “Red Terracotta”

PAINTS, INKS, GLAZES, SHADES, WASHES, PIGMENTS, FLOCKING, GLUES AND MORE THAT I USED ON THE 61 WRECKAGE BASES/PILES:

  1. Play sand
  2. Apoxie sculpt
  3. PVA
  4. Various scrap plastic pieces
  5. Cylindrical desiccant holders
  6. Rubber sink stopper rim
  7. Juweela Metal Scrap Rusty Industry (23336)
  8. Juweela Debris Assortment (23316)
  9. Juweela Debris Brick Red (23315)
  10. Juweela Debris Assortment (23315)
  11. Juweela Bricks (23034)
  12. Juweela Metal Scrap Rusty Gear Wheels (23317)
  13. AK “Corrosion Texture” (texture)
  14. Vallejo Model Air “Rust” (71.080)
  15. Vallejo Model Air “Rust” (71.080)
  16. Vallejo Model Air “Rust” (71.069)
  17. Vallejo Model Air “Orange Rust”
  18. Citadel “Ryza Rust” (dry)
  19. Vallejo “Old Rust” (pigment)
  20. Vallejo “Pigment Binder”
  21. Vallejo Thinner
  22. Vallejo “Dark Slate Grey” (pigment)
  23. Vallejo “Dark Yellow Ochre” (pigment)
  24. Vallejo Game Color “Sepia” (wash/shade)
  25. Secret Weapon Washes “Sewer Water”
  26. Army Painter “Red Tone” (wash)
  27. Secret Weapon Washes “Red Black” (wash)
  28. Secret Weapon Washes “Ruby” (wash)
  29. P3 “Red Ink” (ink)
  30. Vallejo Game Air “Red Terracotta”

PAINTS, INKS, GLAZES, SHADES, WASHES, PIGMENTS, FLOCKING, GLUES AND MORE THAT I USED ON THE 2 FLAT INDUSTRIAL STRUCTURES:

  1. SIBE AUTOMATION “White Polystyrene 8″ X 12″ X 1/8″ Plastic Sheet”
  2. Plastic packing material from a forgotten source!
  3. PVA
  4. AK “Corrosion Texture” (texture)
  5. Vallejo Surface Primer “German Green Brown”
  6. Vallejo Model Air “Rust” (71.080)
  7. Vallejo Model Air “Rust” (71.069)
  8. Vallejo Model Air “Orange Rust”
  9. Citadel “Ryza Rust” (dry)
  10. Vallejo “Old Rust” (pigment)
  11. Vallejo “Pigment Binder”
  12. Vallejo Thinner
  13. Vallejo “Dark Yellow Ochre” (pigment)

Crafting Rusty Walls and Transmission Towers for Retro Sci-Fi and Wars of Ozz Gaming Adventures

Imagine an industrial cityscape – an apocalyptic one. One that shows that “something really terrible happened here”. Now add 300 years to it and an arid desolate climate with a lot of rust. Lastly, add mystery – “what am I looking at?”, and you are here.

These were the thoughts that I had last month as I prepared to create and build components for such a wasteland ruin. As my 2026 “convention season” was nearing, I needed to build terrain for my tabletop games. For games of Wars of OzzTM, my goal was to build terrain pieces for Professor Nitpik’s Industrial City (aka the Robotic Sanctum). I also wanted to get back into some retro sci-fi games using Buck Surdu’s Combat Patrol:WWIITM gaming system (with my modifications). One of the games I envisioned for that would be using Archive “Space Cowboys”, my converted “Space ‘Roos” defending against an invasion of blue-skinned “Retrovians”. Click those links to learn more about those forces – and more about them in a future post. For now, I needed more rust than just my rusty generators and my ruined chemical plant.

I’ve been retired now since 2019. I got laid off of my last job when the company I was working for pulled the product line off the market. Never found a replacement gig. Back to the product I was selling – it was a pharmaceutical autoinjector device. We had dozens of electronic trainer devices we handed out to potential customers. These trainers acted like the real thing except without any needles or drug inside. After the layoff happened, I had a bunch of them, and was told by my former employer to just throw them away. They had a unique shape, like a cross between a card deck and a tapered brick. The outer layer was plastic, with a label glued on to it. I was running retro sci-fi games, and thought these would be good for making walls. I saved them, and they waited to fulfill their destiny until December 2025!

An example of the trainer.

To make sure what I wanted to do would work (and to learn from any errors), I went with a prototype. I used an Exacto blade to remove the outer label. Then, I sanded the exterior to make it rough. To attach multiple units together, green stuff was the solution. After that hardened, I coated the outside of the attached trainers with PVA – followed by a dusting of chinchilla dust on the glue. When that combination had hardened, I primed the combinations with black primer.

First prototype primed.

From this point, I used corrosion texture paint(let that harden), then used a number of rusting paints and pigments. I really liked the results and moved on to making two large batches of different combinations.

Walls after labels removed and sanded.
PVA and chinchilla dust application.
Corrosion texture paint applied and drying.
First half-batch of walls after being rusted up.
Close up shot of a 3×3 combination.
Second half batch done.

I ended up with 27 sections = a total of 17.8′ worth of rusty wall.

And here they are in total finished up mid-December.:

27 sections of rusty walls!

With the walls done, it was time to get some verticality for the tabletop. And get them done BEFORE Christmas.

I thought transmission towers – rusty ones – would be great in that role. I found a railroad terrain kit on eBay. It was HO scale. It would go well with the other pieces of rusty fun. These were “Walther’s Cornerstone Four Transmission Towers”.

The transmission towers kit.

Assembly was a bit fiddly but manageable. It was not immediately clear to me which sides were front or back – but by the fourth iteration I got it down. Luckily, plastic cement covers any mistakes in assemble. I did find using rubber-shoed alligator clips to hold sections together while the cement set to be VERY helpful.

The first assembly went smoothly…
…the second was off (again figuring out which side went where was a bit confusing). Alligator clips to the rescue!
All four assembled.
The cements I used.
The towers primed in grey.

Rusting them up was similar to the walls – basically minus the use of the corrosion texture paint. The lists of what I used for these and the walls will be listed at the end of this post.

Rusted up!
Close up shot of two.
View of one from a slightly different angle.

As you can see these are just plastic models and vulnerable to damage in transport! Unlike the walls, which went into a cardboard wine bottle box with some foam padding between levels, these needed a sturdy solution. They required something strong. I decided to modify the original box to accommodate the greater height needed when the models were lying down. I used more foam padding on the box bottom, and foam board to extend and strengthen the box as you see below:

Top view of the original box modifications with a sheet of green foam padding on the bottom. The sides and corners were reinforced by adding foam board set with hot glue on the insides.
Side view – here you see the added height with the foam board.
The original box top fit like a glove – and is significantly stronger than its original configuration.

That’s about it for this rusty old post. I hope it inspired you to rust up some stuff yourself!

As I teased, I will be sharing how these fit into both of the tabletop set ups for 2026. I’ll also be sharing some of the new 2026 units of mechanical tin men that will find these structures as part of their apocalyptic homes. Until next time.

For all of my previous posts on terrain projects, please see this page. For all of my previous posts on sci-fi projects, please see this page…for any of my previous posts on Wars of Ozz, see this page.

PAINTS, INKS, GLAZES, SHADES, WASHES, PIGMENTS, FLOCKING, GLUES AND MORE THAT I USED ON THE RUSTY WALLS PIECES:

  1. Old autoinjector trainers
  2. Green stuff
  3. Chinchilla dust
  4. PVA Glue
  5. Vallejo Surface Primer “Grey”
  6. AK “Corrosion Texture”
  7. Citadel “Typhus Corrosion” (Technical)
  8. Citadel “Ryza Rust” (Dry)
  9. Vallejo “Old Rust” (pigment)
  10. Vallejo “Brown Iron Oxide” (pigment)
  11. Vallejo “Natural Iron Oxide” (pigment)
  12. Vallejo Model Air “Rust 73.117” (pigment)
  13. Vallejo Model Air “New Rust 73.118” (pigment)
  14. Vallejo Thinner
  15. Vallejo Model Color “Dark Rust”
  16. Vallejo “Natural Umber” (pigment)

PAINTS, INKS, GLAZES, SHADES, WASHES, PIGMENTS, FLOCKING, GLUES AND MORE THAT I USED ON THE RUSTY TRANSMISSION TOWER MODELS:

  1. Walther’s Cornerstone Four Transmission Towers (HO Scale)
  2. Tamiya “Extra Thin Cement”
  3. Plastruct Bondene “Styrene & ABS Plastic Solvent Cement”
  4. Alligator clips
  5. Vallejo Thinner
  6. Vallejo Surface Primer “Grey”
  7. Citadel “Ryza Rust” (Dry)
  8. Vallejo “Old Rust” (pigment)
  9. Vallejo Mecha Weathering “Light Rust Wash” (wash)
  10. Vallejo Mecha Weathering “Dark Rust Wash” (wash)
  11. Vallejo Mecha Weathering “Rust Texture Matt”
  12. Vallejo Model Color “Camouflage Black Brown”
  13. Vallejo Model Air” Concrete”
  14. Vallejo Mecha Varnish “Matte Varnish”

Finally Getting Around to Building Generator Models for my Retro Sci-Fi Convention Games

My recent efforts on the hobby front have been focused on multiple projects. Some of these are figures and vehicles, others are terrain-oriented. These are all in support of the games I will run at multiple 2026 gaming conventions.

This year, I will be running Wars of Ozz and What a Tanker games. I am also getting back into retro sci-fi skirmish games with Combat Patrol:WWII. I have not run these games in a while and they were always a lot of fun. To that end, I decided to add more terrain to the mix.

As background, a friend, Chris Rett, 3D-printed three excellent generators for me way back in 2018 (I think). These were great terrain pieces. At that point I was still immersed in retro sci-fi skirmish gaming with Combat Patrol:WWII as my preferred system. However, I was on the cusp of jumping my focus to WWII What a Tanker games. Thus, the generators took a back seat. My gaming then went in sequence to What a Tanker, then Feudal Patrol for the Spanish Conquest in Mesoamerica. Finally, I moved on to Wars of Ozz. Recently, I felt a need for a bit more variety as I mentioned – so terrain is what I hit first.

The three generators would be useful for retro sci-fi apocalyptic planet scenarios. They would also be useful for some Wars of Ozz scenarios. This includes any involving Professor Nitpik and the Industrial City. That city was wrecked over 300 years ago in the “Last Great War”. Plus I could use it as part of a “Space Cowboys” apocalyptic scenario.

The generators at the start of the project.

I primed the pieces. Then I used AK “Corrosion Texture” on it. This allowed me to use different rust pigments and paints on it.

Primed with corrosion texture added and drying here.

After the corrosion texture dried, I used the paints and pigments to “rust them up”.

All rusted up!

Two of the models were identical – so I planned on using them symmetrically on a polystyrene base. Using sand and PVA, I had a substrate for the rust pigments.

Here I measured carefully to align the three equidistantly on the base. Then, I traced out on the base where they would be glued. The one odd generator is in the center.
Here you see the sand applied over the PVA. Note that where the generators would go is not covered with any glue/sand mixture.

Once the sand mix had hardened, I assembled the pigments as you see below. I fixed all the pigments with pigment binder, as I have found that other liquids can dissolve the PVA/sand bonds.

Ready for gluing down the generators. Then, adding pigments to the base. As is my habit, I list all the materials that I used at the end of this post. This practice served me well here as older posts I did on rusty walls had some pearls that I forgot.

The generators were secured to the base by Gorilla Glue. Once that dried, I added the pigments to the base and fixed them with the binder. I then decided that there should be more detritus and wreckage here. I added some of my rusty Juweela scrap pieces. Then, I applied more rust pigments to them. These actions are shown in the gallery below.

Finally, in an effort to add some wasteland life to the piece, I added multiple different flocking tufts. Here are some finished shots.

Thanks again to Chris Rett for this gift, and sorry it took me so long to finally complete it!

I’m looking forward to having this on the tabletop. It will be a companion piece to my rusty walls and ruined buildings. It will also complement my ruined chemical plant. I will be making other pieces soon. Stay tuned! I hope that you found this interesting or useful. Let me know in the comments section.

Until next time.

For all of my previous posts on terrain projects, please see this page. For all of my previous posts on sci-fi projects, please see this page..

PAINTS, INKS, GLAZES, SHADES, WASHES, PIGMENTS, FLOCKING, GLUES AND MORE THAT I USED ON THIS MODEL

  1. Vallejo Surface Primer “Black”
  2. Polystyrene sheet
  3. AK “Corrosion Texture”
  4. Vallejo Model Air “Rust” (71.080)
  5. Citadel “Typhus Corrosion” (Technical)
  6. Citadel “Ryza Rust” (Dry)
  7. Vallejo “Old Rust” (pigment)
  8. Vallejo “Brown Iron Oxide” (pigment)
  9. Citadel “Nuln Oil” (wash)
  10. Play sand
  11. PVA Glue
  12. Gorilla Glue
  13. Vallejo Surface Primer “German Green Brown”
  14. Vallejo “Natural Umber” (pigment)
  15. Vallejo “Burnt Umber” (pigment)
  16. Vallejo “Light Sienna” (pigment)
  17. Vallejo “Light Yellow Ochre” (pigment)
  18. Vallejo “Faded Olive Green” (pigment)
  19. Vallejo “Chrome Oxide Green” (pigment)
  20. Vallejo “Old Rust” (pigment)
  21. Juweela “Metal Scrap, Rusty”
  22. Vallejo “Pigment Binder”
  23. Gamers Grass “6mm Beige Tufts” (flocking)
  24. Gamers Grass “6mm Dry Tufts” (flocking)
  25. Gamers Grass “6mm Beige Tufts” (flocking)
  26. Gamers Grass “Tiny Beige 2mm Tufts” (flocking)
  27. Shadow’s Edge Miniatures “6mm Nightmare Tufts” (flocking)
  28. Shadow’s Edge Miniatures “6mm Scorched Earth” (flocking)
  29. Shadow’s Edge Miniatures “4mm Badlands” (flocking)

Sci-Fi/Pulp/Retro Diorama

This is a New Year’s Eve post from my Aussie buddy, IRO who can be found at https://imperialrebelork.wordpress.com/2020/12/31/sci-fi-pulp-retro-diorama/ and thought I’d share it. He incorporated one of my creations (my Mark 1 Sphere Tank) into a wonderful retro sci-fi diorama. Very cool, and thank you so much IRO!

Hello all, Well it’s 11:09pm on New Years Eve and I’m typing out a blog haha, I know how to party! I have a nicely aged Scotch beside with some Bob …

Sci-Fi/Pulp/Retro Diorama

Folder Bot 3000

I decided that I needed a short break from building and painting Aztecs – for at least long enough to paint one miniature anyways. This one is called “Folder Bot 3000” from Armorcast Terraform Terrain Ltd.’s “Robot Townies” collection. There are a number of unusual robots and Futurama-inspired lookalikes there. I bought this Folder Bot 3000 on a lark when I got some other terrain stuff from Armorcast a few years back. I do like robots and I do like Futurama and Bender, so I got this one.

(Oh hell, its really supposed to be Bender Bending Rodriguez – aka Bender – so let’s call him that !).

The figure stayed on my painting desk in its baggie as I worked on many other projects. This is definitely not my usual practice as I really had no place to properly categorize and put him away for a future game. It was finally Bender’s time…

The figure differs from Bender a bit – his chest “door” hinges are on the right, while the cartoon version’s are on the left, but otherwise it’s similar enough.

The Folder Bot 3000 figure as received. The casting quality was a bit off of what I had expected. For example the figure’s legs and arms did not line up perfectly during the casting process – leading to misalignments of the limbs’ rings. There was some flash and some pitting on the head, necessitating some filing and filling on top of the needed drilling and pinning of the arms, legs, and head.
The figure as assembled. I used E6000 epoxy as I wanted a strong bond on the components, but this proved to be a bit of a mess. I have a love/hate relationship with E6000 as it needs a day to cure properly and sometimes it goes where you don’t want it to go. Here, it needed to be removed from other robot surfaces that needed to be smooth. It does clean up with an Exacto blade and tweezers, but its a pain, and because its clear, you don’t always see it all.

I used a 1″ steel washer to mount the figure in lieu of the plastic base. After I assembled the figure, I saw that there were gaps under the arms and they were not fully affixed. There were also some pitting on the figure’s head and back, necessitating my using green stuff as a remedy. In retrospect, I should have just used green stuff to assemble him.

I also saw that the figure just had an empty slit for the “eyes”, and a tiny flat space for the “mouth”. Anyone familiar with Bender knows that he has very expressive “eyes” and a wavy three-lined electronic “mouth”. One of my goals in painting him was to make him as “cartoony” and 2-D as possible. There was no way that I was going to be able to paint the eyes in the slit effectively or to freehand paint the wavy mouth as the figure was then.

I decided to try to sculpt the eyes and the mouth with green stuff. I admire people like Roger at Rantings From Under the Wargame Table who are much better at sculpting with green stuff than I am (as shown by his efforts here). Undaunted, and inspired by Roger (but a little worried), I used green stuff to fill the slit, make eye holes, and to try to sculpt the “waves” on the mouth. The result I achieved is shown below.

Here is Bender after I had filled in the gaps on the limbs and head, smoothed/filled pits, and sculpted the eye holes and the mouth “waves”.

I was not happy with the “eye holes” and did not think that I could paint them as “expressive” like in the cartoon. I also did not think that the handle on his chest was big enough – so I used a pin vise to drill out all three. I then carefully cut and filed pieces of paper clip and glued them into the eye holes. This seemed better to me visually – and would be far easier to paint.

Bender after drilling out his chest and fixing his eyes.

As I mentioned, I wanted a cartoon-like miniature. This meant that I would by necessity be limiting any highlighting or excessive shading. Therefore, I also decided that this would be a good opportunity to try to use the Vallejo “Metal Medium” that I had bought to try over two years ago to mix with paints to create a metallic finish that would be in line with the cartoon. This would hopefully prevent me from needing to use any actual metal paints. he would have some shiny aspects, but hopefully not excessive.

I was now ready to prime and paint old Bender.

Bender after priming.

In line with my painting approach, I decided to wash the primed figure with “Nuln Oil” to give myself a better idea of where to apply the paint/metal medium mixtures. The wash really showed the casting misalignments on the legs and arms, and where some of the errant E6000 had gone. No worries, as I knew that I could both remove the more egregious excess epoxy and hide the casting errors as I painted. I used three different shades of gray, adding the Vallejo “Metal Medium” in a 50/50 mix (all the paints used are listed at the end of the post for those interested).

Bender after the wash – you can see the misalignments and excess epoxy issues that I described.

The painting was fairly straightforward. I used the darker colors on the limbs to hide the misalignments. The mouth was just OK, given how I had to sculpt it. I used some “Nuln Oil GLOSS” on the limbs to accentuate their ring-like construction.

Bender painted but before final base work and varnish. At this point I found a bristle or hair embedded in the paint on the back of his head that required fixing (ugh).
Bender with the image I took from the internet as a general guide.

To finish him up, I used a Citadel texture paint (“Astrogranite debris”) on the base and the added a a few colors by dry brushing similar to what I did with my Retrovian platoon. Lastly, I added a satin varnish as I wanted his paint job protected but not too matte.

Bender completed.
  • Right side
  • Back view
  • Left side
If there were no colors but grey, he’d look like this in an old movie serial!

This guy is not my best work, but not my worst. At tabletop distance he looks fine, and hopefully will put a smile on some gamer’s face. I just needed a change for a bit and the work on this little guy provided that for sure. I’ll probably use him in a retro sci-fi game of Combat PatrolTM at some point. I could have sculpted a cigar or a beer battle or two for old Bender, but I decided that was a bit too much for me.

And if Bender does not like that…

Thanks for looking – I am entering this small project into Azazel’s extended July/August community painting challenge in the “hero” category – cartoon robot division (I just made that last part up). Please feel free to comment below – always appreciated.

PAINTS, INKS, GLAZES, SHADES, WASHES, PIGMENTS, FLOCKING, GLUES AND MORE THAT I USED ON THE “FOLDER BOT 3000”:

  1. Gorilla Glue
  2. 1″ Everbilt Steel Fender Washers
  3. Paper clips
  4. E6000 Epoxy
  5. Poster tack
  6. Kneadatite (“green stuff”)
  7. Vallejo “Surface Primer – White Primer”
  8. Vallejo “Flow Improver”
  9. Vallejo “Airbrush Thinner”
  10. Testors “Universal Acrylic Thinner”
  11. Citadel “Nuln Oil” (wash)
  12. Vallejo Game Air “Wolf Grey”
  13. Vallejo “Metal Medium”
  14. Citadel “The Fang”
  15. Vallejo Model Color “Neutral Grey”
  16. Vallejo Model Color “Glossy White”
  17. Vallejo Model Color “Glossy Black”
  18. Citadel “Nuln Oil Gloss” (wash)
  19. Vallejo Model Color “Mahogany”
  20. Vallejo Model Air “Weiss” (off-white)
  21. Vallejo Game Air “Black”
  22. Citadel “Astrogranite Debris”
  23. Citadel “Druchi Violet” (wash)
  24. Citadel “Steel Legion Drab”
  25. Citadel “Warpfiend Grey”
  26. Citadel “Slaneesh Grey”
  27. Vallejo Model Color Varnish “Satin Varnish”

Combat Patrol and What a Tanker games – My TotalCon 34 Recap

It’s been about a month since the last gaming convention I attended, and my how the world has changed.  I cannot see how a large convention could be held right now (though Cold Wars indeed happened in Pennsylvania this weekend).  There are a few upcoming gaming cons in obvious risk – and for now I think it useful to blog and paint and reflect back until this COVID-19 crisis passes (and that it will).  Best wishes for health and happiness to all my readers all over the world, from the US to Australia to the UK, All across Europe, and Africa and Asia. Now with everything at a lock down or a standstill due to the coronavirus crisis, I thought it was a good time to write a post about the games at my last convention as a distraction.

I had promised you great readers a few battle reports from TotalCon 34.  It was a very large convention with around 600 attendees.  Miniature games were a smaller offering there compared to RPG, LARP, board games – and a number of other offerings with which I was unfamiliar!

The convention was held from February 20-23, 2020 at the Best Western Conference Center in Marlborough, MA.  I had signed up to run four games – two on Friday and two on Saturday.  Two were Combat Patrol™ retro sci-fi games – “Space Cowboys versus Giant Zombie Cosmonauts” and “Attack of the Warbots” with my mostly OOP collections from Archive Miniatures, Mega Miniatures, War Games Supply Dump (and my own creations).  The other two were scenarios for What a Tanker© that I have created and discussed previously in this blog: “Battle of France May-June 1940” and “Normandy Breakout!“.

Running four different games in two days was a challenge (my vehicle was full of mats, terrain, and miniatures) but I pulled it off well enough I believe.  I’ll share some photos and some descriptions of the action.  I think the players had a good time.  This post will be pretty photo-heavy.

The first game I ran was on Friday was “Space Cowboys versus Giant Zombie Cosmonauts“.  I had four players (though I could have accommodated 9).  It turned out that I had two seasoned gamers on the defending Space Cowboys side and two younger players on the attacking Giant Zombie Cosmonaut/Martian/Retrovian side.

02212020 TOTALCON Space Cowboys versus Giant Zombie Cosmonauts
My flyer for this game – the space on the right is for business cards to share information about my gaming club –  the Mass Pikemen Gaming Club.

1 set up from defenders side
View from the defenders’ side.  They must save the chemical plant from destruction or kill The Mind.

2 set up from attackers side
View from the attackers’ side.  They must destroy the chemical plant in 10 turns or less.

1 SC vs GZC setup
The game set up at TotalCon 34.

2 SC vs GZC setup
Retrovians prepare to attack.

3 SC vs GZC setup
Close up of the chemical plant before the defenders deployed.  I allow the defenders to deploy by any barrier or the chemical plant.

4 Retrovians attack
The attackers ponder their next move.  The defenders moved and took up good defensive positions in and overlooking the wadi.

5 SC take casualties
On the attackers’ left flank, Retrovian fire begins to take its toll on the defending Space Cowboys (aka Texican Space Rangers).

6 Martians take casualties in wadi
On the other side of the table, Martian infantry attempt to charge across the wadi.  Effective rifle fire decimates the Martians in the open.  The stack of cards on the right indicates a pile of Martian KIA that ran into a hail of cowboy lead.

7 GCZ take casualties and move towards wadi
The Mind and its Giant Zombie Cosmonauts get close to the wadi, while Retrovians provide supporting fire.

8 SC squad runs away
The Retrovian fire is too much for one squad of Space Cowboys, which fails a morale check and skedaddles for cover.

9 Robo servo gun and Brasheer knocked out
Carnage ensues.  A Robo-Servo gun is destroyed (black smoke), while another gun destroys a Retrovian three-legged assault pod.  The fleeing Space Cowboy squad from the previous shot is in the upper left.  The Mind is breaking through in the top center, but many of its zombies have taken hits to legs and are falling away from the advance.

10 Brain is killed
As the protecting zombies fall away, the platoon sergeant, Armando Garcia, jet packs next to The Mind in a desperate attack.  The Mind had a 60% chance to react to the move and preemptively fry the Space Cowboy, but failed in the attempt.  SFC Garcia fired his assault rifle and killed The Mind, ending the game.

The game was a blast.  The defenders took up good positions but the attackers’ pressure was building to a decisive point.  Unfortunately, The Mind became vulnerable and the defenders’ gambit worked this time.  The players quickly got used to the Combat Patrol™ system.

The next game was later that night, when I ran “Attack of the Warbots”.  I have run this game several times, and it always is a crowd pleaser.

02212020 TOTALCON Attack of the Warbots
My flyer for the game.

I had about 8 players for the game.  The attacking Warbots made good progress initially in breaching the wall.  However, the defenders jet-packed their bazooka-armed Star Ducks onto unprotected rooftops – and got pretty shot up.

1 Attack of the Warbots set up
The Biological Alliance is in an “Alamo” type of a defense, with a massive force of Warbots attacking from this side, and an allied Martian force (yup they showed up in this game too) from the opposite side.

2 wall is pierced
The Warbot on the far right uses a plasma beam breacher (basically a long disintegrator ray) to piece the defenders rusty wall.  This kicks up a lot of smoke from the vaporized material.  The Warbot that did this uses a lot of energy in the effort and is stunned for three turns while recharging (hence the multiple “stun” placards).

3 targets on the roof
More Warbot destruction ensues as they fire another plasma beam breacher through the Aphid position in the center.

4 Mark 1 Sphere tank stunned by attacking Frinx
Frinx cavalry (on glyptodons) armed with anti-robot arc weapons and blasters charge!  They manage to stop a Mark 1 Sphere tank with a non-penetrating hit that stuns it at the walls edge.

5 The other Mark 1 Sphere tank attempts to flank
On the left Warbot flank, a defending Space Roo player checks to see if his RPG-armed Space Roo can engage the other Warbot Mark 1 Sphere tank.  It could, and at extreme range knocked out the other Warbot tank.

5a end of game
The end of the game found the captured Warbot tank repaired and capable of driving off of the board.  Therefore, a Biological Alliance victory!

6 After Battle
Happy gamers (and me) after the game are all smiles!

After this game, (which was around 11:00 PM+), I and some of the players cleaned this all up.  As my next game was in the morning at 8 AM, I set up my Normandy Breakout! scenario for What a Tanker©!  I have a lot of  bocage (hedgerows) for this game as you will see.  I got set up, and ambled off to my hotel room for a few hours of shut-eye.

02222020 TOTALCON Normandy Breakout!
My flyer for the game.

This scenario is as described on the flyer above, but to be clear, the Germans are in hidden positions across the board known only to them and the GM (me).  Additionally, the exact force composition selections on both sides are done secretly, as each side buys vehicles and Bonus Attack cards with points.  Each side starts with 200 points.

Points are earned by the Allies (US and UK) for successfully reconnoitering hidden positions (which could have either possible or actual Germans there), for knocking out Germans, and for crossing the board and breaking out.  Germans earn points for unreconnoitered positions, knocking out Allied vehicles, and can get a game bonus for limiting Allied crossings to zero or no more than 1 vehicle.  The Germans vehicles are more expensive, so their defensive benefits need to be offset by successful ambushes and an overall defense against any Allied breakout.  I announce only who is winning at the beginning of each turn, but not the exact score – so as to keep the game feeling crew-focused.

I had between 4 and 6 players (some joined mid-game).  The Germans went initially with two 8-wheeled scout cars (an Sd.Kfz. 231 and an Sd.Kfz. 233, a Panther D, and a Tiger I, all of which deployed secretly.  They loaded up on Bonus Attack cards as well.

The US deployed on the left half of the board, and the UK/commonwealth on the right half.  The US chose an M5 Stuart light tank (with recon abilities) and an M10 Wolverine tank destroyer to start, while the Brits took a Daimler Dingo scout car and an M4 Sherman.  The Allies also maxed out their Bonus Attack cards possibilities.

1 Dingo and Achilles move out
The Americans move up their M10 Wolverine “Demon”, while behind a British Daimler Dingo recons a field.

On turn 1, the Allies spent 71 points on vehicles and cards.  They successfully reconned 5 positions at 2 points each for 10 points, leaving them with 139 points at the end of the turn.  The Germans spent 88 points on vehicles and cards.  The German Tiger I ambushed and knocked out the British M4 Sherman for 14 points.  At the end of turn 1, it was close – 139 to 126 in favor of the Allies.

On turn 2, the Allies respawned another British M4 Sherman for the destroyed one, and bought 1 more Bonus Attack card.  This new vehicle was at no cost as the replacement cost as much as the previous loss (the Germans did get more points for killing that previous Sherman on turn 1).  The M10 Wolverine rolled a great movement, and was able to breakout successfully, gaining the Allies 16 points and taking away half of any potential German end-of-game bonus for preventing Allied vehicle crossings.  On turn 1, the US M5 Stuart had been able to move into a field and successfully recon a position where an Sd.Kfz. 231 was hiding.  On turn 2, the Stuart activated first, and destroyed the German scout car, gaining 11 more points for the kill. The Germans for their part bought two more Bonus Attack cards for 10 points.  Overall, the Germans had a weak turn, and only recovered 2 points by activating their Sd.Kfz. 233 before the US could find it.  The successful M10 “Demon” crossing widened the score at the end of turn 2 to 161-118 in favor of the Allies.

2 Sd.Kfz. 231 is pursued by M5 Stuart with Brit M4 Sherman burning
At the end of turn 1, the M5 Stuart chased down a German Sd.Kfz. 231 in a field.  The M5 activated first in turn 2, and destroyed the German scout car.

On turn 3, the Germans knew that they were losing, but not by how much.  They made a bold move and chose an expensive new tank for a respawn of their lost Sd.Kfz. 231 – a Tiger II.  The net cost was 18 points after “credit” for the “trade-in” in lieu of a free respawn of another Sd.Kfz. 231.  Adding another Bonus Attack card brought the German spend for turn 3 to 23 points.  The US player got a free respawning replacement M10 for the one that crossed on turn 2, so the Allies spent no points at all on turn 3.  They did earn 6 points for reconning German positions.  The Germans got a bit of revenge as a Panther activated and took out the M5 that killed the Stuart for 12 points, and the Tiger I moved to a crossroads and took out a second British Sherman for 14 points.  The score at the end of turn 3 was 167-123 in favor of the Allies.

3 early game action with Tiger etc.

Turn 3 action – the destroyed the German scout car is the left.  The Tiger I has moved to an excellent position at the crossroads and has knocked out the second Brit Sherman.  The Panther (not seen ) was hiding at position “F”, and activated.

4 Panther avenges Sd.Kfz.231 by taking out Stuart
The M5 Stuart was no match for the activated Panther.

On turn 4, the Allies decided to get three more vehicles.  Two were respawning ones for turn 3 losses – the US got a “free” M5 to replace the one killed in turn 3, and the Brits “upgraded” its second lost M4 Sherman to an M10 Achilles tank destroyer “Tabitha”.  They also bought another M4 Sherman for a new very young player that joined the game, and a couple of Bonus Attack cards.  The Allied spend was 24 points.  The Germans only bought 1 card, for 5 points.

During turn 4, the Daimler Dingo had a fun time.  It successfully reconned the hidden position of the Tiger II!  Then, scared for its survival, it and its crew sped off down the road to cross the other side  – gaining 7 points for crossing and thereby nullifying any potential German end-of-game bonus.

The Brit side then flanked the Tiger I at the crossroads with the M10 Achilles “Tabitha”.  It took a quick flank shot on the German, and did some damage.  It then called in the RAF (with a Bonus Attack card) which destroyed the Tiger I for a big 25 points.  The Allies successes widened the score at the end of turn 3 to 177-118 in their favor.

5 Dingo finds Tiger II
Surprise!  Daimler Dingo finds a Tiger II and takes off before it can be destroyed.

6 Young player and his Dad use a SHerman
A young player takes command of a Sherman for the US.

7 lots of action and Tiger I hit by USAAF
The Tiger I is destroyed in the crossroads by the RAF.

Turn 5 would be the last turn of the game.  The Allies respawned another Daimler Dingo for the one that crossed in turn 4, and bought a couple more Bonus attack cards, spending only 10 points.  The Germans were despondent, and decided to buy a Jagdpanther and a Bonus Attack card for 29 points.

The M10 Achilles “Tabitha” fresh off the combined arms kill of the Tiger I maneuvered for a rear shot on the Panther – and killed it for 22 points.  The Germans tried to hunt down a fleeing M5 Stuart.  It lined up a deadly point-blank rear shot on the Stuart – only to miss the shot.  It was emblematic of the German sides day.  After another position was reconned, the day belonged to the Allies.  The final score was a lopsided 191-89 in favor of the Allies.

This was the biggest disparity in this game ever (and I have run it many times).  In my opinion, the Germans did not keep their eyes on the objectives.  They also did not effectively take advantage of their ambush positions, and left too many openings for the Allies, who maneuvered their lesser vehicles much better than their foes.  With that said, all had a fun game.

8 Jagdpanther hunts M5 Stuart
Turn 5 – the M5 Stuart is missed by the Jadgpanther.

With some help from players, the tabletop was cleaned and it was time to take a break.  I could have played a game but I decided to spend the next game slot relaxing as I felt a but tired.

My next game was on Saturday night – “The Battle of France, May-June 1940” for What a Tanker©.  The scenario reverses the previous game a bit, with the Germans attempting to break through the French defenses and head to the channel and cut off the Allied forces in Belgium.  There are also two different Bonus Attack card decks that I made for this scenario.  I described this scenario in my blog previously here.

02222020 TOTALCON Battle of France 1940
My flyer for the game.

I had originally 10 players signed up for this game, with 2 on a waiting list.  I was disappointed that I only had 5 players show up – but it was fine.  I had two German players and three French players.

Each side had 200 points at the start.  Here again, the exact force composition selections on both sides are done secretly, as each side buys vehicles and Bonus Attack cards with points.  Points here are earned by the Germans for successfully reconnoitering hidden positions (which could have either possible or actual French located there), for knocking out French vehicles, and for crossing the board and breaking out.  The French earn points for unreconnoitered positions, knocking out German vehicles, and can get a point bonus for limiting German crossings to zero or no more than 1 vehicle.  Similar to the Normandy Breakout! game, I announce only who is winning at the beginning of each turn, but not the exact score.  This definitely keeps the game feeling crew-focused.

There are a couple more key additional nuances to this scenario.  There are two bridges, and the French player can spend points to wire one, both or neither bridge for demolition.  Any French attempts at demolition may be tried at any time, but are not guaranteed.  They also get a “free” small minefield (that is not very effective) that is also secretly set at the beginning of the game.  The French decided to wire the bridge on their right flank for demolition prior to the game, leaving the one on their left with the small minefield next to it.  During the game (which I will discuss), the French did blow the bridge on the right, and were able to fool the Germans into believing that the other was wired as well.  This rendered the minefield a non-factor in the game, but made the Germans attempt to ford the river.

The Germans decided to buy 2 6-wheeled Sd.Kfz. 231’s and a Panzer 38(t) on turn 1.  They also maxed out on Bonus Attack cards for a total of 50 points spent.  The French deployed in hidden positions (half the tabletop is designated as under the control of French cavalry tanks, and the other half (mainly the town area) is under the control of French infantry tanks.  The French bought a Panhard 178 armored car, a Char B1 bis, and a SOMUA S35.  Their initial purchases all had radios (some French tanks do not), so they were able to max out their Bonus Attack cards.  The total initial French spend was 71 points, including the wiring of the right flank bridge.

During turn 1, the Germans drove one of their scout cars onto the right flank bridge, and the French successfully destroyed the bridge with the German on it, gaining 11 points.  This also spooked the Germans to avoid the bridge as they feared it was also wired (and it was not!).  After this the Germans were forced to use fords to attempt crossing the river.  The Germans did successfully recon one possible hidden position for 2 points.  The score at the end of turn 1 was 152-140 in favor of the Germans.

On turn 2, the Germans respawned a Panzer IVD for the lost Sd.Kfz. 231 at no net point cost.  They also reconned a couple of French potential positions for 4 more points.  The French bought an additional SOMUA S35 for the cavalry for 10 points, and uncovered three of their own positions in order to meet a table-crossing threat from the surviving Sd.Kfz. 231 and a Panzer 38(t).  This gained them 6 points.  The Panzer 38(t) is a fast light tank, and was able to ford the river, along with the other scout car.  The French recognized this threat, and attempted to deal with it by activating its vehicles in the town.   The Germans used a Bonus Attack card to bring down smoke and obscure their movements.  The score at the end of turn 2 was 156-136 in favor of the Germans.

1 Sd.Kfz. 231 and Panzer 38(t) skirt the town
The Panzer 38(t) on the left and the Sd.Kfz. 231 (6-rad) on the right successfully ford the river, fearing that the bridge was wired for demolition (it wasn’t).  They get ready to dash off the table into the vulnerable French rear.

2 Germans plan their assaults and roll dice
The Germans get some excellent movement rolls.

3 Char B1bis moves out in town
The French react and send tanks such as their Char B1 bis to stop the penetration by the Germans.

4 German smoke screen blocks Char B1
The Germans foil the Char B1 with a smoke screen.

On turn 3, the French hurriedly bought a Renault R40 for 8 points and tried to use it to stop the crossings.  The French also bought more Bonus Attack cards for 15 points.  The Germans bought nothing.  During the turn, the Germans successfully crossed the Panzer 38(t).  This despite the fact that at first the Char B1 crossed the smoke and missed it, and then the R40 shot at and missed it.  This crossing earned the Germans 8 points, and limited the French end-of-game bonus chances.

On the cavalry side of the table, the Germans tried another smoke screen to protect a Panzer IVD as it crossed a ford.  one of the smoke rounds hit the river mud and did not ignite – leaving a hole in the smoke screen.  The French cavalry S35 did manage to shoot and damage the Panzer IVD on the other side, just after it forded the river.  This pushed it back into the river.  The French SOMUA then called in and then destroyed it with an artillery barrage using a Bonus Attack card, earning 8 points as well (and blocking that ford).  The Germans also reconned another of the hidden positions for 2 points.  However, the Sd.Kfz. 231 made it to within 1″ of the other side of the table – and the R40 had a rear shot aimed at it at turn’s end.  The score at the end of turn 3 was 166-124 in favor of the Germans.

5 Sd.Kfz. 231 escapes R40 and Panzer 38(t) sees Char B1
The Char B1 crosses the smoke and takes aim at the Panzer 38(t) – and misses.  An R40 activated and missed the Panzer 38(t) as well.  The Panzer 38(t) then rolled well and was able to cross the table.  The German Sd.Kfz. 231 almost made it off of the table and was in the R40’s sights as turn 3 ended.

6 On other flank, bridge blows and fords attempted
The German smoke screen imperfectly covers the Panzer IVD after it fords the river…

7 Panzer IV knocked into ford and knocked out
The Panzer IVD is pushed back into the ford and destroyed by artillery and SOMUA fire.  This blocks the ford (to the consternation of the following Panzer 38(t)!).

On turn 4, the Germans respawned the crossing Panzer 38(t) and the destroyed Panzer IVD for identical models, and added a Bonus Attack card for a total spend of only 5 points.  The French bought 3 Bonus Attack cards in the hope of stopping the German scout car from crossing.  The R40 activated first, and then missed the Sd.Kfz. 231.  The German scout then crossed, ending any chance of a game bonus for the French and earning 11 points for the Germans.  The score at the end of turn 4 was 172-109 in favor of the Germans.

I failed to get any more photos after turn 4 (I think I was getting tired!)

On turns 5 and 6, the French were getting desperate as they knew they had lost the game bonus.  They bought an Hotchkiss H35, and a SOMUA S35 took out another Panzer IVD.  The Germans bought a StuG III ausf. A.  Both bought more Bonus Attack cards.  The Luftwaffe was called in on the Char B1 bis and successfully destroyed it.  That loss ended the game.  The score at the end of the game was 159-89 in favor of the Germans.

Both sides played well, bu I have to say the dice abandoned the French at critical times.  The Germans crossings sealed the fate of the game.  It’s nice to see that both games results have differed each time and that no side has an advantage.

After this, I packed up with help (especially from Leif Magnuson – who was a BIG HELP THANK YOU!), and went home to sleep.

I hope you enjoyed these battle reports.  Now that the COVID-19 is endangering lives, we’ll have to see if and when I get to run these games again soon.  Let’s all hope for the best, and prepare accordingly.

Wishing all of you and your families safety and health!

 

 

 

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