Amazing Things Are Happening!

Posted by

Over the past month or so a trio of really cool things happened!

>>>

First, I was invited to talk with the guys on the Skirmish Supremacy podcast.

Check it out: Skirmish Supremacy

Good times! [The audio’s a bit choppy; I think that’s on me as it was my first ‘cast and my first go at Skype. So, apologies to Nick and Tim.]

>>>

Second, Interloper’s Cyclopic Chickens made an appearance on the Guerrilla Miniature Games YouTube channel.

Ash and Jay had a throw-down of This is Not a Test, the latest chapter in their series called Nickel-City Stories.

Check it out:

There was much rebawking!

[Then round two came out today: Nickel’s Back]

>>>

Third, Ganesha Games — makers of Mutants and Death Ray Guns — co-created a Kickstarter called Project Simian Ultra X. It’s cool. But what’s really cool is this: Ganesha and Interloper are collaborating on the campaign book for the project! Andrea from Ganesha is writing up my figs as the rivals and enemies of their Simians.

This is gonna be great!

Three Things

Posted by

Here’s what I want:

things_01_02_and_03

The third film —  that red one on the right, there — doesn’t exist. It’s the poster I knocked together for the sequel I want to see happen right after Carpenter’s original.

The title is “The Thing” in Russian (well, according to Wikipedia and Google Translate).

Taking information provided in Carpenter’s flick and in the ’11 prequel, I want the Russians — warned by Kate, the survivor of the prequel — to go to the American station and find MacReady and Childs frozen outside per the closing scene of the ’82 original. [But because I want my dream third Thing to be about Cold War Russians and not about Kurt Russell and Keith David (I love both you guys, just not for this flick) I don’t want it to go exactly how Carpenter has talked about his sequel ideas.]

Since the “alien copy monster” part of the story is out of the bag because of the survivor of the prequel, I want the third one to be more the Aliens chapter of the story. Eerie Soviet nuke-suits and AKs all around. Cold War paranoia writ large. Some kind of a Commissar maybe, or at the very least a KGB plant.

I thingk (heh) extruding all of the following through the 3D printer that is Thing 1 and Thing 2 gets us quite solidly to a red and unpleasant land.

solaris_2010_01

world_war_amerika01

meteor_red01

red_galosh01

doctor_candidate01

For good measure I recommend tweaking the final product with equal doses of FPSRussia, every Armageddon scene with Lev Andropov and these:

red-star-winter-orbit01

30_days_of_night01

And because it’s the secondgoddamn week of winter” the Russians have their work cut out for them.

Oh, and I want Simon Roy to at the very least storyboard it. He is a guy who gets Russians-meet-Aliens:

jans_atomic_heart01

It is a dream I have.

[Edit: Speaking of Russian/Aliens, this movie has to have a Kamov in it!]

Honesty is the best policy

Posted by

I recently realized something about the shenanigans of published RPG articles, modules and supplements that throws off my various 3d6-in-order, etc. converters for Mutants and Death Ray Guns and Song of Blades and Heroes.

The characters in those RPG books were statted to be the class the writers wanted them to be for the story they were telling. None of those knights, witches, thieves and wizards were randomly rolled.

So to keep things honest I now do the following:

Immediately after converting a published character’s 3d6- or d%-in-order abilities to Song Of stats, degrade Quality and Combat by one each.*

Then apply Level advances to stats and special abilities.

*: No need to do this if you know for a fact the character was rolled randomly in order.

Thirty years on, I like what I like

Posted by

In 1984 Pepe Moreno created “Bunker 6A.”

bunker6a01

In 2013 Hajime Katoki directed “A Farewell to Weapons.”

afarewelltoweapons01

[The above link is a Japanese voice/Spanish text version of “A Farewell to Weapons.” This being the interweb, with its millions of Japanese speakers and millions more Spanish readers, I’m posting it anyway. Besides, it’s awesome in any language.]

“Bunker 6A” is about an extremely deadly eponymous pillbox. I loved the story and it led me down the Rebel-hole (but that’s another tale).

bunker6a02

“A Farewell to Weapons” is about an equally merciless autonomous tank which IDs itself as GONK-18

gonk_monster01

The two stories are similarly short and end in near identical fashion:

bunkerend01

gonkend01

 

Incoming!

Posted by

Now that it’s en route to casting, I can show you something.

Inspired by this:

And this (step ahead to 2:20):

I’ve done this:

bat_rider01

Another masterpiece by Bob Olley.

It comes B.Y.O.T. (Bring Your Own Torso) so you can make the rider look however you want.

Here are two excellent lists of torsos, arms, weapons and heads for all your space-poc needs:

The Imperial Patrol; and

The Twelve Olympians.

Of course you could also just dig a fig out of your lead mountain and chop it in half.

This horror should be ready for takeoff in December.

Dralasites and Death Ray Guns

Posted by

The madness continues. Today’s installment covers converting characters from Star Frontiers into models for Mutants and Death Ray Guns, and vice versa. I give you Dralasites and Death Ray Guns:

Dralasites_and_Death_Ray_Guns01

There is a ton of great Star Frontiers info here.

And Fight On! magazine published (in issue #11) a cool little article translating dralasites into 3d6-in-order D&D. It’s “Ducks, Dragonewts, & Draala” by Jason Vasché & Cal. You can find it here.

Time to dust off those Vrusk and Yazirian figs you’ve got squirreled away.

Warlords of Def-Con 4

Posted by

warlords_of_def-con-4_01

These two are a little too good together. I say that because they’re practically the same film.

They’re close to the same length.

Their palettes are similar.

Both were released by New World Pictures. Warlords was filmed in New Zealand. Def-Con was filmed in Nova Scotia. ‘Nuff said.

They both have a similar “rules have changed” line delivered by a criminal pseudo-soldier to a captive woman.

The images on both of the above posters are only vaguely relevant to the content of the films they advertise. For example, there are no androids in Warlords and there are no skeletal astronauts in Def-Con. Would there were in both cases!

Don’t get me wrong though. If you’re up for a double-shot of early ’80s (Warlords is ’82, Def-Con is ’85) high-Cold War post-apoc despotic barbarism, then queue ’em up.