Category Archives: All Quiet on the Martian Front

15mm/18mm Nissen Huts

I’ve just seen some fantastic nissen huts from the capable hands of Andy Cummings suitable for most things from FOW 15mm WW2 back to All Quiet on the Martian Front up to more recent conflicts.

The models are made of resin and are gorgeous.  I’m unsure of the measurements but from my poor memory would say around 6 inches long and 3 inches wide (happy to be corrected).  They come in various formats with door and window combinations.

They will be available for sale through Mike at The Scene.  I think that they will get their first showing at Penarth tomorrow (31st January).  I would imagine that these will go fast because they are such a versatile model.  For an early view check out the background scenery on this post for the All Quiet on the Martian Front game…

http://www.sadwargamers.com/aqotmf-game-saturday-24th-jan/

Hopefully I’ll be able to pick some up for myself.

All Quiet on the Martian Front (Swindon)

There was a massive All Quiet game planned for the 19th January at Andy’s house in his ‘garage’.  Unfortunately I was child sitting so wasn’t able to make it but did send my troops along so that I could at least participate in spirit.  Andy has now posted the pictures onto the sadwargamers website.

http://www.sadwargamers.com/aqotmf-game-saturday-10th-jan/

I’m unsure how many points made it to the table in the end but as our collections are now starting to come together it was a great site to see as the photos will attest.  My HMLS Bodger even made it to the table though I’m unsure whether it was a game piece or a scenery piece.

Hopefully I’ll be able to make it to the next one.

All Quiet on the Martian Front – HMLS Bodger gets it’s first coating

I gave the landslip it’s first undercoat and base paint layer.  A Pritt Stick funnel has been added.  I’ve used it upside down so that the lid can be glued to the ships hull but allows the majority of the ‘funnel’ to be removed for storage.

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The landslip was sprayed with a generic car grey undercoat, and then given an Armour Green top coat using the Plastic Soldiers Company Armour Green spray paint.

There is still a fair bit of detail required along with weathering.  Here the stairs and railings are being added.  Windows still need to be added.

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All Quiet on the Martian Front – HMLS Bodger

HMLS Bodger has slowly taken shape.

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The side sponson turrets are based around the top of the old GW hexagon paint pot lids.  I used the hinge as the gun attachment as it looked like something which swivelled up and down.  There are two of these on each side of the land ship.

The wheels were liberated from a broken Playmobil crane.

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The two main turrets were made slightly differently.  The main turret is a cream jar which is screwed into a hole cut into the hull.  This allows the turret to turn simply by screwing/unscrewing the turret slightly.  The turret at the front is a hazelnut spread jar lid.  It was originally constructed with a card sleeve which went around the lid and allowed the gun to rotate.  Unfortunately it became stuck during the painting so no longer rotates (something to correct in future incarnations)

Early pictures with a tripod to give some sense of scale.  the surplus parts from the US tanks were put to good use as doorways and panels, as well as additional small gun ports around the side and front of the ship.

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The central tower takes shape.  This dismantles to fit into the storage box.  The gun barrels were made from either plastic toy arrows cut up, biro tubes, or biro casings.

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Confirmation of the landslip at home within a 9 litre Really Useful Box.

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I’ll try and get the templates for the hull and tower up shortly as a Powerpoint slide or pdf.

All Quiet – Something Big this way comes

With our foray into All Quiet on the Martian Front we are now beginning to get sight online of the various larger toys available for the game.  Unfortunately as I don’t partake of the offer to buy these at the big discount during the Kickstarter I’ve pretty much resigned myself to not buying into these given the recently revealed prices.  The new American Land Ship is currently retailing at £150 through North Star!  I appreciate that given the propensity of on-line retailers to discount this will be available more cheaply, but even at 20% discount the land ship will still come in at £120, still too rich for my blood.

It was with this in mind that I decided to have a go at making one for myself using my junk box and copious amounts of card, foam board, tape, and glue.  Whilst I’d love the finished product to have the same fines as the commercial model I do have to be realistic about my own talents, and the limits to which empty paint pots and gaffer tape can be presented.

So I set out to make my own land ship, the HMLS Bodger.  My desire was to get the model to look as close as possible given my material constraints to the commercial model, whilst meeting some of my own design requirements.  The main one of these was that it had to fit into a 9 litre Really Useful storage box so that it would conveniently fit within my limited storage.  The second was that the model had to be robust enough to be handled as a game piece so that I didn’t become too precious about it.  The third was that the model was to be as light as possible (having previously made some beautiful Greek city walls with the help of Simon from Blotz I am now well aware of the issue of  carrying significant amounts of heavy resin around to shows!)

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I started out with a paper model which gave me the rough shape and dimensions to test the principle and simple aesthetics of the model.  I then used the paper model to design changes by simply marking out adjustments to the paper ready for the next card model.

Once I was happy with the size and shape I marked out the design onto some heavy mount board.  I also created a template for the bottom and top of the main hull for future modelling opportunities (or simply to make another if the first was a complete cock-up).

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All Quiet on The Martian Front

We recently had a game at the club using some of our painted troops.

The tripods were Andy’s and the tanks were a mix of mine and Andy’s.

We’ve now got a few games under our belts and the game is very basic with some interesting ideas.  The scenarios need to be played with care as depending upon how many points are played will determine the playability of balance between the two sides.  Sometimes low points will favour one side whilst playing the game with a lot more points will swing it the other way.

We are already feeling that we are having to introduce house rules to cover gaps in the rules.  This is OK when playing among friends, but doesn’t seem to lend itself to inter-club or tournament play.

More games to follow.

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All Quiet on the Martian Front

Last year my imagination was captured by the various Martian offerings on Kickstarter, not least the Alien Dungeon proposal for ‘All Quiet on the Martian Front’ a miniatures game set roughly around the time of the First World War but based around the events of the Second Martian Invasion.  Now that the miniatures have finally started arriving we can get some games under our belts.

All Quiet on the Martian Front is a 15mm (or rather 18mm) miniatures war-games based loosely around the First World War but with lots of human steam tanks fighting against the Martian tripods and their other arcane devices.

There are a few of us in the club (Swindon And District Wargamers www.sadwargamers.com) who joined the Kickstarter funding last year.  I did try to limit my financial exposure (for once I held back from the lure of all the amazing toys available) so my collection is somewhat smaller than my colleagues so I have been looking for alternative more mundane solutions to evening up the sides a bit…

Over the coming posts hopefully I’ll be able to bring the delights of their genre to you and hopefully explore the rules (for better or worse…)