Preview of 15mm sci fi interior battlescapes

Here are previews of our upcoming 15mm scale Sci Fi interiors. They are meant to allow the gamer to represent the interior of a lab where something has gone terribly wrong, the interior of a starship that's been boarded by enemy troops or intruded upon by some horrifying stalker, the underground passageways of a massive defence complex, or whatever else strikes your fancy.



The first piece is your basic corridor, 150mm x 50mm (6" x 2").



Next up we have the smaller corridor, a corner piece or small room, 50mm (2") square.



To clutter up the corridors and to place barriers between them we have consoles/computers/etc, a drab looking desk (over which a guard may be draped, dead, or a desk with a half-eaten doughnut may be placed), and doors and bulkheads of varying sizes to split up your battlescape into fighting zones.



The console/computer pieces are meant to be two-sided, and have on their rear access doors such as those shown above.



Martin of Fire Broadside has done a splendid job painting these up in an ominous, businesslike fashion, and he took it upon himself to array the pieces together to show the kind of look the gamer can achieve.

One note, however. These pieces are not puzzle-like interlocking sets and were not designed to have curtain walls along the sides. The idea was that the gamer would build angular snaking sections which can be placed together in various configurations, but they do not interlock. Curtain walls along the sides, in our experience, tend to get in the way of model placement and a clear view of the action, so the vertical dividers, mostly doors but also including bulkheads without doors, are meant to create dead ends or dividers.

John Bear Ross has done an excellent job putting these together in the look of many popular sci fi realizations of interior battlescapes which we may all be familiar with. And there's more coming! A large round room (yes, round!) to represent a central test chamber, the bridge of a small ship, etc.; a spaceship or test chamber large control seat with readout console; a sleeper chamber for cryogenic preservation, an engine, generator, or other large piece of machinery, and a pillar to create the look of a support, or to put together an elevator, etc. All of these will be shown when they are ready for sale. The first pieces should be released soon. Thanks John and Martin! If gamers like these we will certainly make more.

Vulk Missileman, Jasmine Throne Foreign Battalions

Above is an image of a Vulk missileman from the JTFB, the Jasmine Throne Foreign Battalions.

The so-called Kingdom of the Jasmine Throne is a freehold in Federation space inhabited largely by humans, settlers primarily from the former Terran Central Asia, and their young queen, Roxann Diamunda, is a just and humane ruler. However, there has always been a great deal of intrigue, rivalry and dissension in the military and ruling caste of the Jasmine Throne, and assassinations and military coups were all too common in the past. This led the queen's great grandfather, the mighty Shapur the Wise, to raise four battalions of aliens to serve as his bodyguard, simply titled the Foreign Battalions.

The force has gradually been expanded and there now exist twelve battalions of JTFB as well as four armoured battalions. Each infantry squad member and vehicle crewman is a different alien species to prevent collusion in the ranks.

This system has worked well and there have been no successful coups since Shapur's time.

Aliens come from around the galaxy to serve in the JTFB, for many different motives. They may all look different but they wear uniform armour (modified to suit varying body shapes, of course) and use weapons of standard design (similarly modified by your friends at Mercanto-Dett Military Solutions). All must know at least rudimentary words in Federal Standard in order to obey simple commands. The training regimen is gruelling and many candidates fail, but those who succeed are members of an elite, hallowed formation indeed.In fact, it was Roxann's decision to send six battalions of the JTFB to Molch that turned the tide in the Molch/Vornid War.

Their battle cry is "to the queen!" which is a reminder that their most important role is to protect the queen and rally to her in case of a coup attempt.

All JTFB members are called "men" even though none are human and some are female. Vulk are some of the larger aliens serving in the JTFB and as such are often tasked as the heavy missileman in Fireteam A in a squad. Vulk are huge, ferocious carnivores and must undergo considerable conditioning to work with other species, but these dauntless warriors invariably earn the respect and sometimes even affection of their teammates for their coolness and bravery under fire. The huge Slaker cannons that native Vulk warriors employ are of no use to them in the JTFB as a logistical matter, and they are equipped with a standard heavy smart missile launcher, which is mounted on their armour and aimed and fired by a pressure point implanted in the Vulk's mouth.

This is the first sneak preview of our upcoming JTFB line, which will be made up entirely of unique aliens, each in standard armour and using standard weapons. They use MDMS vehicles, the Goanna/Taipan AFV and Canetoad APC, and there will be JTFB crew halves for those vehicles as well. We may even commission Roxann and her Neo-Sassanid legions as a future human faction (most of the army of the Jasmine Throne is human, only the queen's bodyguard being alien). Stay tuned for more details on the JTFB.

Space Demon Shockforce

In their ten millenium-long war with "Species 84," the Ti Monhids have bioengineered what we, in our dimension, call the Space Demons, viciously fearless creatures of unparalled close combat capability. Battle forces of tens of thousands of these creatures, swarming around their enormous Ti Monhid lords, have helped reverse the steady reverses that the Ti Monhids had suffered as, in their arrogance and wickedness, they attacked a far superior race.

Indications are that the Ti Monhids wish to finally gain the momentum in the colossal conflict, and have begun breeding a new species of Space Demon, one that is as skilled as its predecessors with fang and tailaxe but now carries a biorifle, firing chambered acid a very long distance and with great accuracy. (How they can shoot with such accuracy when the species has no eyes is still a mystery to Federal scientists.)

Here's a sneak preview of two of the five poses of the newest swarm bioweapon of the Ti Monhids, the Space Demon Shockforce. There will be five poses, four rifledemons and a demon with a heavier acid-cannon.

As befits a new sub-species, a new head has been developed, with sensor strands on either side to pick up the location of their targets with uncanny accuracy.

Stay tuned for more details.

Fur flies at Khurasan Miniatures!

Whether you like 15mm sci fi or high adventure, there's something fluffy for you at Khurasan Miniatures.

First up we have updated our Mystri Island range with some hominids who apparently found a coke bottle, or touched a black rectangle, or whatever, and now realise that the nearby bone bed is a splendid arsenal! Ten models in five subhuman poses.

They are available here:
Mystri Island



Pulp sci fi hasn't been neglected on the rug-with-legs front, as the Furrobots have invaded, the leader Spar Tan and his two minions (insert ancient civilization references here) arriving in a flurry of bubbles to wipe out mankind, but hopefully not the cutest girls.

The Furrobots are available here:
Planet 15

Exterminators

The Federal Defence Forces are static army units which defend far-flung worlds from alien attack or infestation, and preserve government control on planets subject to unrest or separatism. They wear some body armour, though less extensive than in the first-line Federal Army divisions, and it is of simpler design and tech. Their weapons are the older rifles firing caseless CPR but each one mounts a grenade launcher and this affords the FDF troops with considerable close range firepower.

Due to infestation either by Space Demons or Parasachnids, units of the FDF stationed in infested zones have become proficient at eradicating such "xeno-hazards." These units are called, with some dark humour, "Exterminators," and they are the only units of the FDF to be actively posted to foreign worlds, but only long enough to put in place a programme of eradication (POE) so that the local forces can then maintain the xeno-hazard.

One typical unit is the 1/2/469FDF (first battalion, second division, 469th FDF Division), a unit raised on Earth, in the FUSA (Former United States of America). Although raised in the Mid-West of the FUSA, the unit has been stationed for some years in the Florida Quarantine Zone, which was rendered uninhabitable by Parasachnid infestation after the First Pelagic War. It being eventually recognised that these infested zones would be difficult if not impossible to fully cleanse, the emphasis is instead placed on population control, planned and executed by the FDF division in the zone, in this case the 469th.

The most effective bug-hunting battalion in the division is the first battalion of the second brigade, a designated Exterminator unit self-dubbed the "Pointy Toed Shoes" because there is no place the bugs can hide once the second battalion is gunning for them.

Because of their Exterminator status the PTS are periodically deployed to other worlds as well, and they were eventually called in to implement a POE for the Parasachnid population after the Sepulvedan War was over. During this time they also had many battles with holdover Control Battalion Death Squads surviving in remoter outposts of the planet.

We are pleased to sneak preview the first three of nine poses of 15mm Exterminators which will be released shortly. The pack will be a typical squad, split into two four-soldier fireteams and led by a sergeant. Each fireteam will have a MLMG (mobile light machine gunner); one team has three riflemen as support for the MLMG, the other team having two riflemen and a flamethrower operator. These should be released in a few weeks.

The Karkwagon

The Karkarines are amphibious creatures that evolved from fish similar to earth's sharks. Their body form permits them to inhabit shoreline areas and to live in both the sea and on the land, a strong advantage for a sentient life form.

The Karkarines are the main line infantry soldiers of the Pelagic Dominate, and when their Cnidarian masters call them to war they fight in the very powerful, advanced tech anti-grav vehicles that the Cnidarians provide.

However, they have also ranged far and wide throughout the galaxy themselves, serving as mercenaries for any party willing to pay their price. They are not very good as garrison troops but are an excellent choice as troops to buy before a battle, for they are brave and have a serious attitude toward war.

When they serve as mercenaries they do not have access to the grav tanks of the Dominate, but that does not mean they go to battle without armoured support, and their forces are in fact highly mechanized. The most common vehicle used by them is the Karkwagon, an armoured personnel carrier offering a good degree of protection agaist small arms fire and shrapnel. The vehicle is fully tracked and has two heavy hydroplasma cannons as its main armament.



The vehicle is cramped and uncomfortable for humans but the Karks like it that way, their traditional form of social interaction being to stand or swim in close proximity to each other. The vehicles carry four large boxes which are filled with water before the vehicle goes on a mission, as when the squad deploys the rear door opens and much of the water in the vehicle escapes. When the squad remounts, the door is closed and the water pours from the spare tanks into the vehicle. The Karks can get by indefinitely without water, as they can extract oxygen from air as well as water, but they greatly prefer to have water flowing over their gills.



The Karks widely export the Karkwagon as well, and when they do most races naturally prefer to use the spare water tanks for storage. Some remove them altogether. The vehicles are cheap and simple, being welded plates for the most part, but they get the job done, being well-armoured and having good speed and reliability.

These vehicles, as well as the equally ubiquitous Karkpanzer, were used in great numbers in the Molch Vornid War.

The Karkwagon was designed for sci fi or Weird World War II gaming, and was sculpted by TMP's "Grabula." It is not a CAD design, it was made the old fashioned way! The kit is all resin and easy to assemble. The spare boxes are optional and any or all may be left off. The mail hull piece, not including the tread assemblies, is about 2 1/4" (57mm) long. Coming soon.

Federal Army Infantry Drone (preview)

Here's an advance look at the infantry drone often attached to Federal Army infantry at the platoon level. Remotely controlled, each of these micro-drones is capable of travelling along the walls of city streets, into a major built up structure or deep underground into an enemy bunker via an air duct or other entrance to deliver vital intel on enemy movements.

And for those moments when causing a little mayhem is in order, the drone will be able to mount an optional rack of F&F micromissles.

This is just one of a whole series of new items being cooked up for the Federal Army by Mike Broadbent. As usual, Mike's done a splendid job on this piece! Stay tuned for more intel.