Ground Zero Games Update for February 2003 (Full copy in PDF can be downloaded
from the downloads section of the website at www.gzg.com)
DIRTSIDE II Rules are again Out Of Print for the moment. - Sorry.
APES WITH GUNS!
> From EUREKA MINIATURES, produced in the UK under licence by GZG.
Foot figures £1.00 each; Mounted figures £2.50 each.
AWG-01A Gorilla on foot, standing with rifle.
AWG-01B Gorilla on foot, rifle held one-handed.
AWG-01C Gorilla on foot, advancing with rifle.
AWG-01D Gorilla on foot, firing rifle.
AWG-02 Gorilla Officer on foot, with club, pointing.
AWG-04 Gorilla juvenile on foot, with rifle.
AWG-05A Gorilla waving rifle, mounted on standing horse. £2.50
AWG-05B Gorilla with rifle, mounted on cantering horse. £2.50
AWG-05C Gorilla firing rifle, mounted on standing horse. £2.50
AWG-05D Gorilla with rifle, mounted on galloping horse. £2.50
AWG-06 Gorilla General, mounted on standing horse. £2.50
AWG-07 Gorilla General on foot.
[PHOTO]
AWG foot: left to right: AWG01A, AWG01B, AWG02, AWG07 AWG mtd: left to right:
AWG06, AWG05A, AWG05C
-------------------------------
NEW FULL THRUST STARSHIPS Just a couple of FT releases this month, but
definitely a taste of things to come! Over 2003 we plan to add some NEW ship
classes to the existing FT fleets, as well as creating more completely new
fleets for you. The two ships in the photo are the first new additions to the
Federal Stats Europa and Kra'Vak forces, and are also the first to be sculpted
for us by Oerjan
Ohlsson - we think you'll agree he's done a superb job of following the
style of the original FSE and KV ship designs while creating some excellent
new miniatures. Watch out for a lot more coming in the FT line throughout
2003! AVAILABLE NOW: FT 425 Kra'Vak TO'KI class Destroyer (pack of 2) £2.50
FT 625 FSE HYDRA class Destroyer (pack of 2) £2.50
[PHOTO]
left to right: FT425, FT625
-------------------------------
"HAMMER'S SLAMMERS" FIGURES -
APPROVED BY DAVID DRAKE! There can be very few fans of Military Science
Fiction who haven't heard of David Drake's "HAMMER'S SLAMMERS" stories. For
any of you who are not familiar with the Slammers, they are a Mercenary
Armoured Regiment for hire in a future universe of highly "balkanised" human
colony worlds. If your neighbouring colony is getting uppity and your
citizen's militia can't
cope, hire Colonel Hammer's Regiment - they don't come cheap, but they
get the job done! The Slammers books have been firm favourites of SF wargamers
for years, but
until now on-one has produced any miniatures that REALLY depict the
toughest Mercenary unit in human space as the author intended them to look.
Now, with the incredibly kind permission and approval of author and creator
DAVID DRAKE himself, we are very proud to present the DEFINITIVE miniatures of
the Slammers troopers in 25mm scale:
FIRST RELEASES: all at £1.00 each.
HS-01A Trooper or Crewman standing, holstered 1cm pistol, hands on hips
- in
body armour and commo helmet, faceshield OPEN.
HS-01B As HS-01A, but with helmet faceshield CLOSED.
HS-02A Trooper or Crewman standing, 1cm Powergun SMG at ready - in body
armour and commo helmet, faceshield OPEN.
HS-02B As HS-02A, but with helmet faceshield CLOSED.
HS-03A Trooper or Crewman kneeling, firing 1cm pistol - in body armour
and commo helmet, faceshield OPEN.
HS-03B As HS-03A, but with helmet faceshield CLOSED.
HS-04A Trooper or Crewman standing, firing 2cm Powergun rifle - in body
armour and commo helmet, faceshield OPEN.
HS-04B As HS-04A, but with helmet faceshield CLOSED.
HS-05A Trooper or Crewman advancing with 2cm Powergun rifle - in body
armour and commo helmet, faceshield OPEN.
HS-05B As HS-05A, but with helmet faceshield CLOSED.
[PHOTO]
left to right: HS-01B, HS-02A, HS-03A, HS-04A, HS-05A
The NEXT batch of releases, due very soon, will include the Slammers Infantry
on their individual "skimmer" sleds, plus female troopers
(Hammer's Regiment is very much an equal-opportunities unit!) and
figures with support weapons such as grenade launchers and the infamous
"buzzbomb"
anti-vehicle launcher.
Very special thanks to DAVID DRAKE for his permission, approval and design
input, and also to JOHN TREADAWAY for his wonderful graphics work in
visualising David's concepts which enabled us to design the figures. Watch our
updates and website for more news on the ongoing "Hammer's Slammers" project!
[quoted original message omitted]
> Alan Brain wrote:
> >The two
Dunno who that is - it's not my family name <g>
(I and my SO have *almost* the same family name - mine is "Ohlson", hers
is
"Olsson" - so we're always bickering about which of us it is who spells
it incorrectly... so of course I can't admit to being called "Ohlsson"!
<G>)
> >- we think you'll agree he's done a superb job of following the
Thanks for the compliment :-)
> > FT 425 Kra'Vak TO'KI class Destroyer (pack of 2) £2.50
Same way as Schoon did the FSE Requin, Jon did the new FT ranges and Tony
Francis at Brigade Models does the various SemFed ships: by glueing styrene
bits of appropriate shapes together, making sure that there are no cavities
inside the model ('cuz if there are, it'll cave in during the
mould-making). Railway modelling shops have a lot of styrene strips,
tubes etc. in all kinds of interesting shapes which provides nice raw
materials, and so do plastic sprues from model kits (eg. the Hydra hull
structure was built from parts of a GW plastic sprue). A sharp knife, razor
saw and mitre, and a file or sanding paper did the rest of the shaping.
Sounds easy? It really is! (...though a bit time-consuming to put all
the
small details on - if Paul Copeland used this same technique to create
the original FT ranges, I'm frankly amazed that he had the patience to do all
the tiny panels everywhere...)
Well, at least the modelling is easy as long as I stick to straight edges;
I'm still trying to figure out how to do decent-looking large curved or
double-curved surfaces like the nose of a Komarov or an NAC bridge
section <g> I guess there might be a reason why Brigade Models have so few
SemFed
ship designs with large curved surfaces ;-)
The hardest part was to come up with the ideas for the basic hull shapes
-
similar enough to the older models to fit in well in the existing ranges
yet different enough to be distinct new models. The Hydra and To'Ki ("Seeker
Spear") were both originally created to represent ship designs I've used
enough in my own games to want dedicated models for (in these cases evolved
variants of Rob Hofrichter's Epée and Tur'Kee designs respectively, so he
gets part of the credit for these models and is really
to blame for me getting into modelling in the first place :-) ) Most of
the other models I'm working on or planning now have similar backgrounds,
being inspired by designs I've used and liked, both my own and ones I've
picked up from others.
(The "and liked" bit is important - while I have used NAC fleets a fair
bit, particularly during playtest games, I like neither their visually
appearance nor their game stats very much - so don't expect to see any
new NAC models from me!)
> Don't spose you'd care to flesh out the OU range a bit?
Not anytime soon, I'm afraid - mainly because I don't have any good
ideas for new OU ships at the moment (at least ones which don't just look
exactly
like the existing models scaled up to BC/BB/DN size...), while I do have
ideas for a fair number of other ships I want to build first and not very much
time in which to build them! (I'll also need to ask Eureka for permission, but
I don't think that'll be any problem.) Will keep it in mind, but I won't
promise anything.
Later,
> Oerjan Ohlson wrote:
> Same way as Schoon did the FSE Requin, Jon did the new FT ranges and
I know all about this one... the new Dreadnought model that I made over
Xmas took me around 12 hours to detail spread over several evenings. In the
end I decided to try and approximate how many individual pieces I'd used in
the model, just for my own satisfaction, and estimated that I'd cut and stuck
almost 1000 separate parts to make that model.
> Well, at least the modelling is easy as long as I stick to straight
There are two reasons. The first is that, as you point out, curved surfaces
are diffiicult to get right using styrene construction, especially if you're
trying to make a symmetrical piece such as the NAC bridges. I've had some
success by making up a block of styrene by laminating sheets together, then
carving this roughly into shape using a
knife (carefully - we don't want to cut off any fingers !). I then
smooth this off, firstly with an electric sander and then by hand using
fine wet-and-dry paper. This generally involves lots of elbow grease and
filler putty to get the surface smooth.
The second reason I don't use many curved surfaces is that they are
difficult to detail using the styrene panel method - the tiny pieces of
10thou plastic card that I use to surface detail won't conform to curved
surfaces (especially compound curves) so you end up with a model that's
detailed on the flat surfaces but not detailed (or detailed in a
different style) on the curved surfaces - which to me looks a little
odd. Paul Copeland obviously found this an issue as well - the NAC
bridges, for example, are detailed in a different style to the flat hulls.
Oh, yes - very nice work, by the way :-)
On Wed, 12 Feb 2003 21:38:17 +0100, Oerjan Ohlson
<oerjan.ohlson@telia.com> wrote:
> (I and my SO have *almost* the same family name - mine is "Ohlson",
<G>)
You think that's bad? My fiancee's first name is Alana. So, after we're
> You think that's bad? My fiancee's first name is Alana. So, after we're
NSTRH: I knew two guys who were roommates, both named Mike Green, both wore
glasses, both played guitar, and both went to the same church. One was
African-American and the other was Caucasian, so they referred to
themselves as "Light Green" and "Dark Green".
> --- Allan Goodall <agoodall@hyperbear.com> wrote:
On Thu, 13 Feb 2003 09:30:23 -0800 (PST), Brian Bilderback
> <greywanderer987@yahoo.com> wrote:
> We're Brian and Bryer Bilderback. Bryer's parents are
Oh, man, that is so good!
Alana's father is Alan, and she's marrying me (Allan). Her step mother is
Marie. Her brother married Marie Vee (first and middle names). Alana has a
step brother and step sister. Her step sister is Jenny. Her step brother is
marrying a woman named Jenny. (Her step sister goofed by marrying Tim; middle
children, again.)
I'm abashedly ashamed to admit I beat you all when I named my daughter:
> --- Allan Goodall <agoodall@hyperbear.com> wrote:
You now that "BBBBBBBB" sound you make by blowing through your lips as you
flick them with your finger?
We call ourselves that -- The "BBBBBBB"'s.... LOL
> Alana's father is Alan, and she's marrying me
Beautiful.....
(Her step sister
> goofed by marrying Tim; middle
What's her step brother's name?
> --- devans@nebraska.edu wrote:
My parents almost did, but there was only one of me. They had expected twins,
if so, my names would have
On Thu, 13 Feb 2003 10:51:50 -0800 (PST), Brian Bilderback
> <greywanderer987@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Beautiful.....
Her step brother's name is Lamar. Her brother's name is Mike (or, as we like
to think of him, "Dr. Mikey"; he's a research scientist in a university in
Cincinatti and he's younger than Alana). Marie Vee is a researcher at Proctor
and Gamble. They're one of those amazingly overachieving couples that you'd
hate if they weren't so darned likable!
> --- Allan Goodall <agoodall@hyperbear.com> wrote:
> Her step brother's name is Lamar.
No wonder her step sister married a Tim. LOL
> They're one of those amazingly
Ugh. I know too many of those.