USX: Modern Day Heroes

It seems to be that time of the year again. Gaming and painting is going a bit slow for me and most other things too really. But still I managed to get a game in with my regular gaming buddy Thorbjørn.

We tried out the USX: Modern Day Heroes system. It is a basic set of rules from RAFM, made to support their range of Modern Day Heroes miniatures and Cthulhu monsters. It doesn't really seem like they are putting any support into it anymore, but we still decided to give one of the basic scenarios a go.

Pitting Deep Ones against a modern S.W.A.T. team in the outback somewhere in Cthulhu County. The Deep Ones are trying to collect some boxes of unknown occult stuff in a small hut and the S.W.A.T. is going to hinder them.

Closing in on eachother.

Heroic Deep Ones gather.

First S.W.A.T. member down.

A Deep One picking up a crate.

In the end only this dude was left.

In conclusion, the rules are easy to learn and works out quite well. We only used the basic rules, but they were so easy that the advanced rules should be no problem to use in the future.

I will be showcasing this game at some local Danish events during the year.

Tactical Miniatures S.W.A.T. Team

This summer I am going to a private miniatures convention for our gaming group. One of the games I will be bringing is USX: Modern Day Heroes, from RAFM Miniatures, and for that game I need a S.W.A.T. Team and some Deep Ones.

I already painted the USX S.W.A.T. Team previously, but since I don't really like those miniatures I have been searching for substitutes and found these awesome miniatures from Tactical Miniature.

Tactical Miniatures S.W.A.T. Team.

S.W.A.T.s raiding a party of Deep One.

"Shoot to kill!"

Arashikage Ninjas (G.I. Joe Project)

I guess it was just a matter of time before I would start a G.I. Joe project. As a kid my favourite toys was always G.I. Joe (or Action Force, as it was called in Denmark to begin with). I still love G.I. Joe and I still have a pretty large collection of the toys and I have bought the re-released comic books.

The most exciting characters for me was and is the ninjas and during the original run of the comic they kind of took over a lot of the stories. So it was natural for me to start there and I have had some ninjas lying around for a couple of years now.

So to start off I painted some Perry Miniatures ninjas as Arashikage ninjas. The red mercenary ninjas which most of the time work for Cobra, sometimes through Storm Shadown, other times through Firefly and so forth.

Perry Ninjas painted as Arashikage.

I converted one of them to have an uzi, since they are modern ninjas and often are seen pictured with uzi throughout the stories they participate in.

Scarlet, Jinx and Snake Eyes encounter the red ninjas.

The first time they appear is in the classic silent story, where they work for Storm Shadow. But up against Snake Eyes they don't stand a chance.

That is all the models I have for now, but hopefully I will get some more for Christmas or else I will buy some more next year.

So far I have plans for Firefly. Originally he was not a ninja, but in the later stories he turns out to be the Faceless Master, an outsider who was allowed to study the arts with the Arashikage clan.

I think the RAFM USX Modern Ronin is perfect for Firefly. I have seen others use him too and since that model has an uzi too it fits well with the saboteur past of Firefly.

RAFM USX Modern Ronin

Then I will need a Storm Shadow. I don't know yet what side he will be on, but the classic set up would make him a Cobra ninja. Which of course is not really correct all the time, but I guess that is what most people think of him.

I think the Reaper Dragon Clan Ninja will be a good Storm Shadow. But I guess almost any ninja painted white would do fine. But I consider painting him in one of his later camo ninja suits.

  

Another ninja I will need is Kim Arashikage, code name Jinx. She is most famously pictured as a red ninja and it would fit well with her Arashikage heritage.

 

I had a kind of hard time finding a female ninja with the hood on, but eventually I decided that Oko from Hasslefree would be great for the job.

Hasslefree Oko

I will probably try and sculpt a bit on the hood, to make it pointy like in the comic book. And i might consider painting her white, since that is how she looks the first time we meet her or I could go with the bold Tiger Force green and orange.

Of course I will also need a Snake Eyes, but so far I have not found a model I like. I know about the Reaper one, but he is no good for me.

I would really want the old classic looks.

I guess it should be possible to find a model, but no luck so far, so I am open to suggestions.

Finished Terrain Pieces

For some time I haven't painted all that much, I have had a lot of things to do, which is not gaming related and when I have had the time to paint I have mostly been working on a few terrain pieces or I have been painting stuff which has yet to be finished.

But I have been able to (almost) finish a few terrain pieces. These pieces have been really fun to work on and I think they ended up looking rather nice.

I will present them a bit backwards since I have previously shown WIP photos of the pieces I finished last.

First I present the Rogue Trader watchtower and solar power plant:

A Rogue Trader Inquisitor in front of an Imperial Outpost.

These two pieces go well with some bunkers I did last year and even though I added a GW Imperial Eagle to the tower I think they are generic enough to be used for any sci-fi setting
 

Detail on the backside of the tower.

There is still a bit more work to be done on these two pieces. I would like to add some numbers to the door of the tower and my old bunkers and such, but for now I save that for later.

To round off these two I have a few WIP photos, which might or might not interest some.

 

The tower upside down (it used to be a wooden vase).

Entrance and greenstuff added.

One of my Gyrinx' helping me out.

Tile adhesive added for texture.

 

Some of the usual chaos in our living room... Ehm my work area.

Sorry about the questionmarks in some of the pictures, but that is because I was working on a secret project at the same time. Since then the secret has been revealed and it turned out to be a statue which is designated for a fictitious city called Røvede, which we use a setting in our gaming group. It will probably go well with modern gaming, pulp and would be fine for sci-fi and much other too.

I hope you guys like it.

Founder of Røvede - Stein Bagger.

I didn't take many WIP pictures of this piece. Actually I only took pictures while working on the plinth after the statue was painted, so unless anyone really want to see those pictures I will just forget about those for now.

As most of you probably can guess, the statue is some souvenir I picked up in Belgium. I do think it is a bit silly, but that will fit fine with my gaming group, since most of the people I game with is rather silly too.

The miniatures in the picture is a mix of old GW, Black Cat Bases, RAFM and Reaper Miniatures.

And to finish up this update I have a picture of some of the upcoming terrain I am working on:

Lot of junk, to keep in the Rogue Trader theme.

Great Cthulhu With a Hot Glue Gun and Sci-Fi Terrain

Me and a couple of friends have been having a few get togethers for building a small residential neighbourhood for our miniature games. So far I haven't been helping much and mostly done other stuff instead. So this last time was of course no different.

Instead I began to assemble my RAFM Great Cthulhu, but the kit is rather old, the pieces doesn't fit very well together and it is generally just a nightmare to assemble. So I decided to use a mix of hot glue gun, super glue and greenstuff and went on with it.

Pieces have been cleaned and assembly has begun.

Work in progress.

And Cthulhu lives!

Somehow I managed to assemble him. But in the proces I also managed to glue myself to all sorts of stuff, burn myself on hot glue and stab my hands and fingers on all the spiky parts.

Next step will be to give him some greenstuff to correct the ugliest places of assembly and then give him some paint with the largest brush I can find!

And lately I have also been working a bit on expanding my collection of sci-fi terrain...

Noodles box and a watchtower in the making.

Some solar cell lamps ruined to make a small powerplant.

And some single deathworld cacti to add to the cacti fields.

Deep Ones (From the Deep)

Ever since I discovered H.P. Lovecraft I have always been facinated by the universe of the Cthulhu Mythos. I learned about Lovecraft through role playing games and one of the first games I really got into was "Call of Cthulhu", so it was no wonder that I eventually would get myself some Cthulhu monsters after getting into miniature gaming.

I remember as a child, when my dad and I went to town, we always had some regular shops to visit. A couple of record stores, some second hand book stores and then we had to visit Comix. Comix was an awesome place for me, the stuff of dreams, they had comic books, role playing games and most importantly they had miniatures! Lots of them! I had no idea what games all those wonderful minaitures were for, so to begin with I just picked a few that I liked and could efford.

One of the things I always had to see in the shop was their glas cabinet where they showcased painted miniatures. They all looked so great and much better than anything I had painted myself and the crown jewel in their collection was (in my eyes) their painted version of the RAFM Great Cthulhu!

Since those days I have gradually picked up a whole bunch of Cthulhu monsters, and related miniatures. But I haven't really been painting any of them since they did not really come in handy for any of the games I played. At some point I even bought that old Great Cthulhu model, but it still lies unassembled and unpainted in my cabinet.

But the other day I decided to get some paint on some of the old miniatures, and some of the stuff I had lying around was this "USX Modern Day Heroes" starter set. It includes 12 Deep Ones and 5 SWAT team members. It doesn't seem like the game is supported anymore, but I found some old scenarios on the RAFM forum and thought I could give it a try, and if it doesn't work out for me I do have a completely different approach to gaming these days, so I should have no problem about putting these Deep Ones to use with other rules and games.

Gaaaaahh....

I chose a rather fast and simple paint scheme, but I think they ended up looking good enough for me to be happy about it . Also, I must admit, that even though I spend far more time painting than gaming, I will probably never have the patience to become a really outstanding painter. So I always try to find a way to balance between the time I use and the result I get.

Hopefully I will get around to paint that Great Cthulhu model at some point, at least he will have a bit of company when he finally awakens.