Separate weapon packs

We are now able to offer separate weapon packs, £3 for three sprues of three weapons and the code is SMA-01

Thank you

The City Martians and their ways.

The City Martians were left after their brethren took for the mountain ranges away from the canal networks. Staying around the canals that were once the lifeblood of the planet they have built new towns and cities, rebuilt a part of the canal network and have established many trading ports from the aftermath of the great storm. There are still plenty storms on Mars and Martian architecture reflects this as the buildings are steeply sloped and relatively low to minimise the damage from such storms.

The City Martians have also developed unique ways of farming in the thin soil. Angled screen protectors cover the plant beds and an underground irrigation system allows moisture to extend beyond the normal boundaries that exposed water would allow. The plants that grow in these farms are robust but do lack a certain amount of nutrition. The extra nutrition needed is gathered from algae that grow in the canals and is surprisingly quite tasty and has become a popular delicacy with the human visitors. Several types of beasts burden are reared to help with heavy hauling and also they can be slaughtered to provide a dietary change. There are also various types of fungi found in the caves of the canyons but this is in the claimed territory of the Sky Martians so as a resource it is generally left alone unless the need is great.

Each city is run by a council in similar ways to the Sky Martians, made from the elder members of the families that live in the cities. Differing to the Sky Martians in the fact that the males take the physical roles of the day to day happenings in the cities and the females look after the ever growing families in communal groups. Trade is important to the City Martians and some of the merchant families have become quite powerful in the running of the towns and cities with some families having complete control. This works up to a point until greed takes over common sense which is becoming more apparent now the humans have arrived: the City Martians taking as much advantage as possible with the new opportunities. There are two types of merchant family in City Martian society; the travellers and the dwellers. The travellers use the trade routes along the canals between cities and the dwellers stay in a local area, distributing trade goods etc.

As mentioned before the vast majority of the City Martian settlements are next to the canals, enabling quick and reliable trade: although on some of the longer routes waystations have been built with limited defences to protect from the Sky Martian raids. Long caravans of travellers sometimes spend weeks or even months on the routes travelling from town to town, city to city gathering news and new items to sell along the way. The caravans are usually composed of several different merchant families and their guards. Each family has at least two wagons if not more, one for the family and the rest for the merchandise. The guards sleep under the wagons or in a small wagon provided by the richer merchants. The journeys are normally a leisurely affair, weather permitting, and enjoyment is had from travelling rather from the crowded cities.

With the advent of increased Sky Martian hostilities the City Martians are starting to fortify their cities and develop a permanent military presence in almost every settlement. Rudimentary firearms have been constructed similar to human jezzails but using compressed gas as a propellant which is found deep in some of the canyon caves issuing from geysers. A small tank of the gas is kept on the back of the Martian trooper and a simple lever system is utilised for the firing of the projectile, usually in the form of a lead bullet. Obviously, compressed gas is not the best firearm propellant but it suffices if used in large numbers. The other typical weapon of the City Martians is the pike, very similar to the human weapon that was in use a couple of centuries ago. Used en masse against the descending Sky Martians seems to working but for how long. The most important merchant families are looking ever more to the human presence for weaponry to use against the Sky Martians but it comes at a high price with the humans demanding ten times what it is actually worth...

Sky Martian enclave

As we've mentioned before, the Sky Martians tend to live in the canyons of Mars, using the winds that funnel down to get their skiffs quickly to the target.

The enclaves are generally high up on the canyon sides buried deep in the fissures of the cliff faces. Platforms allow the skiffs to load and offload Martians and their spoils, normal cargo, emissaries etc. The entrances to the enclaves are small to prevent them being over run. Some even have small mounted harpoon guns and rudimentary ballistas for defence around the platforms in case of a rival attack.

For our enclave I needed to get some height and also give an impression of a different type of rock that we have used before (cork bark) so I went with insulation or blue foam. It's light and easily carved and I had a lot lying around to use for this project.

The first picture shows the blue foam in its unpainted form. The layers were hot glued together and then I went about hacking into it with my Japanese saw (probably the best tool for this). I tried to keep the hacking at a constant couple of angles so it didn't look too chaotic.

It was then plastered in a mix of wall filler, small gravel and textured paint just pasted all over but taking care not to let it collect and disguise the texture from the saw. I then coated it in a matt brown spray making sure that there was no exposed foam and left it to dry.

The painting was quite simple, some heavy drybrushing in ever lightning shades of yellow ochre and some washes of various greens and browns to help break up the monotony. Some wind shaded areas had small amounts of sand applied and this was painted red and drybrushed the same way and then a few small plants were placed here and there to also help break it up (it is quite a large peice).

The platforms needed to have a ramshackle but sturdy appearance and so I started with the frame work, using natural clefts in the cliff face to position the skewers at various level and supporting angles. The planking was given a texture on the top and cut out by hand but keeping steady so there is an element of regularity but not that it looks factory made. The upper supports we're placed randomly but bearing in mind that they would be load bearing. Cotton thread was used to attach the upper supports and the level ones giving the appearance of stability.

The platforms were painted with a light brown (the colour for most of out Martian wood so far) then washed and drybrushed the normal way, picking out the thread in white.

The two entrances were given protective tarpaulins above them which was cloth soaked in pva to give some rigidity.

Overall a pleasing result and it will soon appear in our games as we have a small campaign in mind but more on that later.

Onto the pictures :-)

A small conversion. Part two

Took a while for me to paint this as I've had a bad eye for a while but he's done now and I must say I'm rather pleased with the result.

The figure was undercoated with the new Halfords camo brown, a rather useful undercoat and the skin was painted with Foundry African flesh but only the two lighter shades as the primer matches the darker colour.

The armour was undercoated white first in several thin layers to get an even colour and then a mix of gloss varnish and a little silver paint with a touch or teal was painted over the white to give a pearlescent effect.

The cloak and loin cloth were painted using the two lighter shades of Foundry Linen and then a top highlight of normal white to complete the material.

The weapon was undercoated gunmetal for the blade and a normal brown for the haft. The haft being built up to a light tan and the blade was sketchily painted with silver to give the impression of rudimentary forge work.

The base was coated in normal builders sand and inked with Windsor and Newton sepia ink. When this was dry a drybrush using Foundry ochre and the final touch of a winter tuft to complete the model.

The bottom two pictures show the comparison between the conversion and the original figure. Subtlety different I think :-)

Thanks for reading

A small conversion

As we wait for some new character figures to be sculpted I thought I would have a go at converting the existing character that we have. Just a simple arm swap and the addition of a cloak was enough for me to distinguish between them.

The right arm was swapped with a normal arm with an open hand from the trooper pack and glued in place on the shoulder joint. This then had to be bulked out as the character was designed to be bigger and stronger than the normal warriors. It was bulked out with Super Sculpy which I'm really starting to enjoy sculpting with. I only had to bulk out the upper arm and the vambrace.

After this was cured in the oven I rolled some Sculpy out and cut out a rudimentary cloak and shaped it around the back of the figure. It's similar in style to a roman cloak but being on a Martian I think it looks the part.

This was also cured and then I made a spear for him to carry. It was made in the same way as the masters for the trooper weapons. A brass haft and a styrene blade.

He now has a coat of primer and I'll do a painting post in the very near future.

Thank you

Of flora and fauna

Mars isn't dead, it's dying and there is still plenty of life on the red planet whether it be plants or animals.

As Mars slowly withers away, direct water sources are becoming scarce; underground water tables being the main source for the numerous plant types that grow here. The various flora of Mars have adapted quickly to the changing environment and are steadily becoming similar to some desert species on Earth. The most common being the Ba'baak tree.

These trees store huge amounts of water in their bloated trunks and have one massive root covered in small tendrils that can extend down more than 50 feet in a bid to reach water. The bark is hard but a determined seeker of water can penetrate it without too much difficulty. Because of the rapid changes in the amount of water available the bark of the Ba'baak can split enabling easy access to the somewhat juicy flesh of the interior.

This flesh has a slight bitter taste to it but has nutritional benefits that can outweigh the flavour. The pulp can also be fermented and is brewed by the Sky Martians into an intoxicating liqueur. The bark itself can be stripped into long husks and made into a crude rope which Sky and City Martians use for the more heavy duty tasks.

The model itself was made from Supersculpy over a former of blue foam. Indents were made to represent the bark and a wire tree frame work was added to the top. One thing to note about blue foam is that it shrank quite considerably when the Sculpy was cooked in the oven (to harden it) and unfortunately the shell of Sculpy cracked, but you don't really notice. I'll use a different former that's heat resistant next time.

It was painted with Foundry American Tan, given a wash of some sort of GW brown ink and then drybrushed with a pale grey. Some winter tufts were added round the bottom to give a bit more detail. Finished and wip photos are below.

Thank you

Armour colours of the different clans

There are numerous clans of Sky Martians on Mars and each tends to have its own distinct armour colour therefore making it relatively a simple affair to distinguish between them in the event of multiple clan feuds.

The differing colours are achieved viv two main methods; either from ground minerals or from distilled insect shells. The armour itself is made from hardened leather but it is much stronger than the hardest leather on earth. Each piece of armour, be it torso or vambraces etc, can take up to a year to make thus making the armour a prized possession.

The colour is applied in one of the many layers of laquer that are painted on towards the end of the whole process. The insect shell method is the more time consuming and therefore the most sought after but this is unfortunately becoming a disappearing art; the secret being lost over time.

The mineral version is the more common but the colours are not as vibrant. Some clan leaders and their elite warriors are starting to mix colours in the armour to make themselves stand out more but most are staying with tradition with only one colour for the entire clan.

Various families within the clan tend to distinguish themselves by the colour of the loincloth or any other cloth that they might wear. Some families have simple patterns woven into the cloth, mainly straight bands of a complementary colour.

Below we have four examples of Sky Martian armour colour. The first is most common as it is the most simple to achieve but there are several different hues of the white so no two clans look the same.