The FEF Growler

About 2 months ago, I decided to start up a Summer project. It had been a long time since I'd dabbled in actual mini painting and modeling. Probably about 8 years. I wanted to play around with it again - to explore whether I could produce some decent, little, metal men.

Another impetus for mini modeling/painting was that I was putting together a Traveller rpg campaign for Jake's group, and wanted to give the campaign a bit of a personal touch by using my own minis. Hell, having scifi minis handy for other campaigns - or even for small-scale wargame skirmishing - would be cool. I've owned some in years past - resold some; gave some to Adam - they've all disappeared over time.

The first step was to determine what scale of minis to invest in. I did a lot of looking around at both 25/28mm and 15mm lines from different companies, and I was really impressed by what I saw in the 15mm scale. There were a lot of solid manufacturers in that scale, and generally it's a little easier to paint 15mm since extreme levels of painting detail aren't necessary. 15mm is also quite a bit cheaper than the larger scales which was another factor in my decision. I bought a few random packs from RAFM, Khurasan, Ground Zero Games, and Critical Mass Games. Aliens, mid- and high-tech level soldiers, technicians, robots, vehicles. All very affordable.

The attached image is a tracked, civilian exploration vehicle that I've been working on. It's getting closer to completion - some flock or static grass would be nice to add to the mud and rock surface. Likely some paint cleanup so the basecoat doesn't look as dark. And I'll need to spray on some dullcote to cut the gloss shine from the "Army Painter" dip I used to shade and seal the mini. I've christened the vehicle, the Frontier Expeditionary Force (FEF) Growler. (A "growler" being a great unit of beer measurement, of course, as well as a cool name for a tracked vehicle). :)

What does this have to do with AT-43? Nothing at all. :) But, whereas AT-43 is a great wargame, modeling and painting isn't necessary to play it. Which can be it's greatest advantage and disadvantage at the same time. I'm certainly not going to take a break from playing my robots crabs, or space americans any time soon. It's just a relaxing little side-hobby.