Painted Terraforming Mars tiles

 OK, not really painted painted, but touched up. I went in on the Terraforming Mars 3D tiles kickstarter that shipped earlier this year, and while the terrain markers for this game looked pretty cool as sculpted, they were missing somthing.

But with a wash and some drybrushing, these terrain pieces really pop. The city has more depth (maybe not visible in this pic), and the forest seems more lifelike.

The TM expansion came with 24 city tiles, 40 greenery tiles, 9 ocean tiles, and 14 special tiles. I gussied them all up, and now my games of Terraforming Mars look that much cooler. 

New painting experiment

I've seen plenty of videos and blog posts about using contrast paints, and while they give great tabletop standard results in a short amount of time, I don't want to pay retail game store prices for a few milliliters of color. So when Youtube's algorithm presented me with some videos about making your own contrast paints, I decided I will give it a shot. 

Armed with a craft store gift card from my wife (another great Xmas gift), I came home with some inks and matte fluid medium. With these three primary colors along with the medium brown (I already have some black and dark brown inks), I figure I can mix whatever hue I need. The recipe seems pretty simple: equal amounts of medium and water, along with the suitable mix of inks for my preferred color. 

If anyone else has made their own contrast paints, please let me know how it worked out for you.

Wishing you a merry Christmas

I hope you all have/had a merry Christmas, including some good food and drink, and time with the folks you care about. Happy holidays from Super Galactic Dreadnought!

Some more bugs

Some more MAATACs* from my MillenniumCon score. These are the Dragonfly-class troop carrier galactic war machines.

After words of encouragement on my first painted MAATACs, I decide to go with a similar scheme here: watered-down, color-shifting paints--but this time I drybrushed a non-shifting metallic color as well.  

I like the way these came out, even if it's not what I'm used to. I'm at least trying something different.

And this batch should put me over my goal of at least one miniature a week for the year, if you count the buildings and scatter terrain I made (which I do).

I've also been rereading the MAATAC rules, and even playtesting the game a little. Athough it's a little primative and somewhat incomplete, I can see getting some fun gamesout of that rulebook.

I hope to have some more of these painted up in the next week or so. Here's to more gaming in the coming year!

*Multifunctional Armed & Armored Tactical Attack Computers

Holiday gaming

With things slowing down for the holidays, I had a chance to play Terraforming Mars with my gaming buddies. Although we tried to get going again last summer, the increase in COVID meant we put our weekly games on hiatus for awhile. But since we're all vaxxed, we got together to make the Red Planet habitable. Here's how that world looked at the end of our game (note the 3-D tiles, which I detailed with some washes and drybrushing):

Although it was a low-scoring game since a couple of us wanted to finish terraforming to prevent other players from generating more points through their economic engines, we had a good time. I came in second out of four players in what turned out to be a pretty challenging match.   

We liked it so much, we have plans for another game next week. I hope everyone has a chance to relax over the next few days, and hopefully get in a game or two over the holidays.

In the early days of Christmas ...

 

My true love gave to me some hobby-related gifts: brushes, glue, and this nifty set of Abandoned Factory scatter terrain from Mantic. I'm very lucky to have such a thoughtful and considerate spouse who supports my gaming hobby. 

My first painted MAATACs

As part of my pledge of painting at least one miniature a week in 2021, I applied pigment to some of the castings from my recent MillenniumCon score.

These MAATACs* are recognition code Black Widow-class destroyer galactic war machines from the Entomalian Empire. Note the articulated legs, giving this vehicle an advantage in difficult terrain.

These 1:285 (6mm) scale vehicles share the same setting and designer as Starfleet Wars, the space combat game by Superior Models. The MAATAC rules and minis can now be found at Monday Knight Productions.

Instead of my typical Bug paint scheme for these insectoid vehicles, I decided to go a different route: I used various hues of watered-down color-shifting paint atop black spray primer. I still can't make up my mind if I like the way these came out--they seem almost too garish.

Like their spacefaring counterparts, these designs carry a lot of detail. However, I wanted to get out of my comfort zone of drybrushing everything. So I decided to experiment.

The destroyer galactic machine is one of the smaller classes of MAATAC, but still more sizable than conventional armor, as you can see from this comparison shot with an obsolete heavy tank from a now-defunct Terran polity.

I may end up redoing the paint job later on, but for now I've got four more miniatures painted and ready for battle. Now to put together a short solo game to learn the rules.

*Multifunctional Armed & Armored Tactical Attack Computers