Critical Mass Games - Strike Hawk - Assembled!

Kind of surprising, but I did manage to work on something out of the box tonight. I decided I would try out the Strike Hawk from the Critical Mass Games Kickstarter. I have three of these to provide some air support to my armored company. I figured I would spend some time and take some bad pictures as well. Taking pictures probably more than doubled the amount of time it took to put this together. I move right on to those, don't forget to read the captions.

First up the raw parts. The resin casts our outstanding. Some mold lines to clean up. The worst of the resin parts were the engines. Fortunately the side that needed the most cleaning will be facing the body.

And now the pieces removed from sprues and cleaned up ready to assemble.

Again these were the hardest. I didn't completely get the lines removed. These will be facing inward so its not a big deal.

These clean up nice, almost now mold lines to deal with.

The pewter ready to go. The skids were actually the worst.

Main gun and wings in place.

Engine pods. Some nice detail there.

Some energy cannons and rocket pods on the wings.

Skids are on and she is armed and ready to go. Zooming noises are now appropriate.

Great little kit, should hold up well on the gaming table. It went together easily, I think the hardest part of the assembly was actually the skids and getting them to sit even and even that wasn't particularly hard. I have two more to go. Still have to decide how I will arrange the armament on the other two.

Painting on the road

I was hoping to get a little break and spend some time at home between projectsat work but that is not to be. I was informed that I'm moving on to a project in Utah whether the LA project is finished or not (it should be, I just hate to leave a project before its finished). If I bring stuff with me to work on then I pretty much have to check my bag. That has its own repercussions. I have to wait at baggage claim and I have no control over the fate of what I put in my bag and I have to pay for a checked bag (well the company has to pay for a checked bag). I tried loading up the cardboard shoebox this time but it did not fair well. If I do this again I will not something a bit more rigid. I probably brought to much stuff with me.

So here is where I am and I hope that at least something in here gets finished or prepped.

Just in case I forgot which airport I just landed at.

The view from my somewhat expensive hotel room. Note the chicken wire. I'm speculating that has something to do with earthquakes. It is a very old hotel.

Just to verify that the view is of an inner courtyard. This is still not as bad as a view I had in a very expensive NY hotel once.

Okay, the downstairs is amazing

My tools of choice, ceramic pallet (probably lucky that didn't break in half), my paint brush case and the shoe box.

The inside of a painter/gamer's shoe box

The tools of choice

Stuff to keep me occupied. CMG 15mm Sci/Fi and On30 Wood Cab kit for my 4-4-0

Kickstarter Rewards Arrive - Critical Mass Games - ZAS 15mm Mercs

Nothing like a little care package in the mail! There was a package from the UK in the mailbox today so that meant it was time to bring out the camera to record the unveiling of my ZAS Mech Infantry Co. I took the upgrade to add IFVs and the light Grav Tanks and added three of the Strike Hawks for a little air support. I know that CMG was going to be buried in their very sucessful kickstarter so I ordered some additional support troops before that. While the Kickstarter was still in the pledge stage II ordered three Warmonger Grav Tanks, three Vanquisher SPA vehicles, and three Hellfire SPAA vehicles. I should be able to field a pretty decent force for Tomorrow's War now.

At this point I have received 10 of the 18 Kickstarters I have supported. Only one is really late (and I do mean really late at this point) and five are just now approaching their delivery dates. A couple of them are so far out in the future that I'm likely to forget that I funded them until some thing shows up on the doorstep.

Since the pictures are always better than my words here is some visual reference:

Kickstarter - Critical Mass Games - ZAS Mercenaries

Critical Mass Games' Kickstarter campaign is coming to a close, about 44 hours left at this point, and it seems to have lost a bit of steam. You know you need a 15mm Sci/Fi army for "Tomorrows War" and this is a good time to jump in and get that army started. The ZAS mercs would be a good starter force for just about every ruleset out there. After my exposure to Ambush Alley's Force on Force rules I'm pretty content to go with that right now. Of course, nothing will prevent me from playing other rules either.  I also received my reinforcements for my Mech Company this week, although I'm going to set those aside for a bit while I work on Calamity and my entries for ReaperCon this year.

So here's your selections for the ZAS mercs:

What you get

How much it will cost you later. Its a steal right now.

Because you know you want it all

What you get

How much it will cost you later

And of course I need to show off the reinforcements that my mech company will be using. This arrived on Wednesday, great service from CMG!

Hellfire - Self Propelled Anti-Aircraft (Grav Version)

Vanquisher - Self Propelled Artillery (Grav Version)

Warmonger - Heavy Tank (Grav Version)

All of these images came from either CMG's Kickstarter site or their web site.