GALACTA: Another Trip Down Memory Lane

   In a recent discussion on the Reaper Forum ,the topic came up of the old Sci-Fi miniatures game called "GALACTA", which was produced by Heritage Miniatures.  I got the basic game set for this game for Christmas in either 1980 or '81, and I can remember spending a good part of Christmas afternoon painting the figures.

The orignal rules sheet that came with the boxed set.

  So, I was inspired to dig my old GALACTA figures out of a box full of assorted gaming stuff I never use, and look through some cabinet drawers to find where I had stuffed the old rules sheets; and spend a little while with my memories from the beginning years of my journey in the hobby of miniatures gaming.  While not the first miniatures I ever owned (that would be 15mm ACW) , these were certainly some of the earliest, and in turn some of the earliest figure painting I ever did that I still own. Needless to say, my skills have improved in the past 35 years. And, I truly think there is a certain charm and character to these old sculpts.  In fact, I'm happy to report some of these old warriors still are part of my current armies.  The "Octopoid" figures that I got in that first basic set, still make up part of my force of Wellsian Martians for my VSF on Mars armies.
   

Rebel Leader, Rebel Adventurer, and Woman Assault Leader

Stormtroopers and Storm Trooper Officer.  These were the ones i got in the original boxed game  set

At a later date I added another squad

A pair of Alien Squogs (Squirrel Dog) and a big lizard guy.  One of the Squogs came with the boxed game set, the other was part of a later purchased Aliens blister, along with the big lizard guy.

Planetary Striker Officer and Planetary Strikers

2 Security Bots and Warbot

Octopoid Grenadier, Section Leader, and Cannonier. Note the updated bases to use with my current troops for Mars.

The original painting guide and scenarios sheet.

"Fate of Battle" Rules at Cold Wars '13

Co-authors Buck Surdu and Dave Wood put on a combined four "Fate of Battle" (aka- "Look, Sarge, No Charts: Napoleonics") Napoleonic games at Cold Wars this past weekend. All were well attended, and most all the players seemed to have a good time, and picked up the rules quickly.

The Battle of Laon, 1814 using "Fate of Battle" rules and 25mm figures.

Dave Wood's game was The Battle of Laon, 1814. Dave re-purposed his old 25mm Minifigs by putting them on magnetic “sabot” bases and adding labels. You can see the game looked great and was a nice way to play the game without the effort of permanently rebasing his figures.

Another view of The Battle of Laon, 1814

Close up of some of the figures used in The Battle of Laon game.

Buck ran three "Fate of Battle" games, using his collection of 10mm Old Glory figures. He writes of his games:

   "I ran three games at Cold Wars 2013 with 10mm Old Glory figures. All three were 1814 scenarios from a scenario book we are writing: Vouchamps, Montereau, and Craonne. The games went very well. Each of the battles was very tight until the end. At Vouchamps, the French captured two of the three roads along the Prussian line of retreat. At Montereau, the French only penetrated one of the three phase lines needed to achieve victory, so the Austrians eeked out a victory. At Craonne the French had initially achieved all their victory conditions; however, when their cavalry routed and a Russian brigade pushed through a gap in the French line, the Russians emerged victorious. The players quickly caught on to the rules and were running the game by themselves after a couple of turns. I saw a bunch of folks walking around the convention with copies of Fate of Battle under their arms."

 

The Battle of Vouchamps, 14 February 1814



Close up of some of the units used in The Battle of Vouchamps

Players move their forces during the Battle of Vouchamps game.

The Battle of Montereau, 18 February 1814.

Close up of some of the forces inThe Battle of Montereau.

The Battle of Craonne, 7 March 1814

Buck Surdu, (in blue, on right) helps players work out a melee during The Battle of Craonne.

Sponge Bob Idol at Walmart

I found this cool Sponge Bob Idol in the aquarium section of Walmart today for $6.00. I see so many possibilities for it! I may have to get another one to paint in a more brown and tan scheme for desert/Mars settings. Shown with a 25mm figure for scale.
I wonder how easily I could saw the top of head off above the eyebrow to put an upper floor in it to make some sort of observation post or gun position.

This Month's Painting

August turned out to be a slow painting time for me. I only got a handful of figures done. There just always seemed to be something else going on.

I've been working mainly on Kroot/Parrotmen for my Fall-In Venus game but I did, however, manage to get a few other things done too.

First up is my first foray into a tentative 'Lacepunk' project. This is a Laughing Monk figure called "The Scarlet Woman" that I picked up in the discount bin at the local gaming store. I painted her up as Betsy Ross- Revolutionary War spy and adventuress. The red, white and blue scheme was a lot of fun, and I figure she can always double as French if need be.

Next up is a set of Parroom Station Landship Crew. This is a nice set of four figures that contain: a commander talking into a communications tube, a fellow shoveling coal, one pulling a lever, and one using an oil can. I got these in the Historicon Flea market, and while I have no immediate plans for them they are good basic all purpose figures that are nice to have in one's collection. You never know when you need to have some crewmen to set out on the table. I decided to give them a nondescript uniform so they could pass for whatever nationality I need them to be. I also gave them a plain brown base so they would fit in equally well on the ground or on a deck.

Mars and Venus by GASLIGHT

I have recently moved two back burner projects to the front of the line: VSF Mars and Venus. I had been toying with doing GASLIGHT games set on these planets for a few years now, and had slowly been purchasing the figures and terrain I would need for them. I think the arrival of the John Carter movie trailer, as well as making tentative plans with Buck Surdu for a Historicon '12 Mars game inspired me to start the Mars project in ernest, and the purchase of some great jungle terrain made by Harry Kogelschatz in the Historicon flea market that inspired me to dust off my unpainted (and in some cases, unassembled) Venus figures.
So, I thought today I would share some of my first efforts that I have completed. The extreme heat and humidity here on the US East Coast has made any attempts at spraying futile, so these figures have sat without their varnish coat for almost a week now. A nice break in the temperature yesterday, allowed me to get them outside and finish them.

Fist up is a set of TinMan 28mm miniatures. These are their: (l. to r) Skiff, Moola, Jack Carson, and Princess Livia figures. I got their Livia figure to be my Dejah Thoris because I didn't really like the striding pose of their Princes Delia figure. I have added a sword to Dejah Thoris' hand so she doesn't have to always be the helpless captive.

Here is a close up of our heroes



..and a rear view. I enjoyed the opportunity to practice painting skin tones, and actually found these figures to be fun and easy to paint.



John Carter skimming across the Martian plains on his trusty skiff.



These are some Martian rock men. They were converted from Heroclix Korg figures. I separated the figure from it's base and glued it to a washer. I also changed some of the arm and leg positions to give each figure some individuality. I added a Milliput circlet around one figures head to represent the unit leader. Being Heroclix figures, they come prepainted, but I also gave them a wash with Windsor newton Peat Brown ink, and then dry brushed them with a little GW Dwarven Flesh.




These are two specialty figures for my Parrotmen of Venus army. Both are Games Workshop Kroot figures. The big gun mounted on the beast had a futuristic muzzle break on it which I removed to give it more of a smoothbore look. Perfect for putting holes in those nasty French Steam-walkers. The other figure will act as the overall tribal chief for my Parrotmen, and here again the muzzle end was removed.

A closer view of my Parrotmen 'big gun'.

And a view from behind.

A close up of the Parrotmen Tribal Chief.

And a view from behind.

Quick and Simple Parrotmen Houses for Venus

About six months ago I saw these small (appox. 5") .99 cent wooden bird houses in the craft store and thought that they would make cool houses for my Venusian Parrotmen. Where better for Parrotmen to live, than in birdhouses? I bought a half dozen of them with plans to finish them in a suitable woodsy style, but was always stumped at the best quick and easy way to texture them to resemble a trunk-like bark surface without doing a lot of spackle work.
Then last week, when I was in JoAnn's, I stumbled upon rolls of thin paper-like "bark". Ideal for my purposes of texturing the surfaces of my parrotmen houses. The stuff appears to be made from a composite of flattened decorative fungi. With this stuff in hand, I began to create my houses.

How the birdhouses come; straight out of the craft store.

First, I paint the top portion and the bottom a dark brown.

Shown also is an example of rolled "bark" in it's craft store packaging.
It comes in several different lengths, and I found it in the floral department.



I cut the bark to size with scissors and applied glue,
then held it in place with rubber bands while it dried.



Then I slathered the roof with glue, and applied a big clump of "floral moss",
pressing the moss firmly down into the glue.



When all this dries, I remove the rubber bands and trim up the moss for a neater look.
I also wrapped a bit of twine around the perch to give it a finished look.



Here's the completed house with it's base flocked and detail plants added. Next to it, on the right, is an ornament that is very similar in style that I found in Walgreen's at Christmastime last year. It was loose in a box of similar woodsey themed ornaments labeled "Natural Ornaments"

The Floating Flora of Venus

The local PetSmart went out of business a few months ago, and one of the things I picked up in their going-out-of-business sale was a pack of floating terrarium plants. The long tendril like roots made me think that these would make really cool floating plants for the jungles of Venus.

The plants are plastic, labeled "Water Lettuce", and were manufactured by Exo-Terra. I happened to have a number of peg-type flight stands left over after switching my aeronef fleets to magnets and Litko stands, and I thought these would be perfect for using as the bases for my floating plants.

I cut a few of the central tendrils off each plant to make a spot to clue the top of the flight stand. I used E-6000 glue as I find that works really well on odd plastic surfaces. I'm very pleased with the results, and cant wait to get these in a game.

A Venusian Parrotman runs in terror from the poisonous tendrils of the hovering Venusian air-plants.

New Pulp Robot for German Army

I started collecting Monsterpocalypse when it first came out and was struck by the conversion potential of many of the miniatures. I finally got around to finishing one Monsterpocalypse Monster conversion project that has been sitting on my work table for a year now. The miniature I used is called Defender X and it is part of the G.U.A.R.D. faction in the game. It was a simple conversion, merely slicing him from his base and gluing him on a fender washer, then trimming down his head and gluing on a spare helmet from a 1/35 scale WWII German Infantry set.
I base coated it with flat black primer, and then gave him a spray of German dark Yellow, and then blobs of dark green and red brown. Then I added some detail painting and some spare decals, and finished up with a black ink wash, and some random highlighting.
The end result is shown below with some 28mm miniatures for scale.
Remember you can click on any photo to enlarge it.

"With an army of these we will conquer the world!"

Jetpacks on the back allow for short flights around the battlefield

Sarge plays 'catch the hand grenade' with the Germans' new secret weapon.

Dr Panzerkopf stands proudly next to his latest creation.

Robot conversion next to the original Monsterpocalypse figure.

Clusters of rocket bombs surround each wrist.