Project Projectless
March 28, 2012
I’m stuck with an amazing problem that I never thought I’d have: I don’t have a miniatures project to work on. Ok, that’s not entirely true, as the Aliens board game thing is still very actively in the works. I’ve already painted all the models I need for it, though, so I’m left with terrain building. That’s fun in its own right, but I love painting miniatures. I also love the feeling of picking new miniatures for a project and splurging on them.
I guess this is the fault of being far too active this year. All the Colonial Marines I currently need are painted, and I want a small break from them anyway. Same goes for the Aliens and the Predators. My Blood Bowl team is painted, down to the coach. I could of course add to both projects, but there aren’t currently any must-do things there.
There are a few criteria to a new project:
- It should be gamable. Even if I never get round to actually playing a game, the potential needs to be there to experience that “oh this’ll be such a cool game” vibe.
- It should be inspiring. Well, naturally.
- Suitable miniatures should be available.
- The project should be scifi-ish. As much as I like vampires, werewolves and zombies, I’m not really in the mood currently.
Simple, right?
There are a few possibilities, which I’m liking at a 75% level. One is expanding the Colonial Marines force outside movie canon, into the comic book and fiction territory. I have somewhat done this already with a combat synthetic. This is a definite possibility. There are plenty of cool things out there. Battle suits, more combat androids, specialist teams, colonists, Xenomorph variants and the like.
Another is some opposition for the Marines. Aliens and Predators I have. Who else? I’ve never been that big of a Terminator fan, and the miniatures might be a tad boring to paint. Any other suitable scifi baddies come to mind?
Any ideas, dear readers? Fiction, comic or movie recommendations? Cool minis for me to look at? Everything will be considered!
Funnily enough, this lack of inspiration -post is the 200th I’ve made, yay!
Dawn of the Lead 
Jesus, I dont see this particular problem affecting me any time soon.
I currently have loads of figures that need to be painted for a couple of projects (Dredd and Malifaux primarily), but I am on a terrain buzz at the moment so the miniatures are sitting there.
Terminators (as in robots rather than Space Marines) are on my list, but like yourself I dont really care *that* much about them, even though I loved the first movie when I saw it initially.
Terminators also fit extremely well with the Aliens, Predators and Colonials, completing that eighties movie sci-fi set (trivia: Bill Paxton was the only actor to have played someone killed by an alien, terminator and a predator until the release of AVP, when Lance Henriksen joined him). Plenty of potential opponents for your games would likely be quite happy to be presented with a force of Terminators for a game. I certainly would.
They would be extremely fast to paint too, which has an appeal all of its own. A silver spray, a wash of blue, a wash of black and a very fast drybrush plus red eyes and they would be complete. Now I want to paint some.
The hardware in Avatar had a very Aliens feel to it if that movie floats your boat. It caused my boat to crash into an iceberg: no survivors.
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I can’t remember having a problem like this. First time for everything I guess! I might give the Terminators another thought. It’s true that they’d fit in nicely with the rest.
My stance on Avatar isn’t as harsh as yours. While it was nothing special as a film, the massive budget certainly showed. Some beautiful vistas in that one. I also liked the military, their combat walkers especially. Might be something there.
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How about Infinity – great SF-figures and interesting rules. I haven’t played the rules yet, but started with the figures. They are really nice to paint, check out my first batch:
http://miniatyrmannen.blogspot.se/2011/10/infinity-haqqislam-starter-pack.html
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Thanks for the idea Joakim, I’ve been checking out the Infinity stuff for ages. Sorely tempted here! Good job on your models.
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To go off your current boardgame projects you could build up boards for Zombie Plague, King of the Ring, Frag or some such. The advantage of this is that you can kinda run wild with it and because these games do not have set models, you can use pretty much anything.
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Not a bad idea Jules. I just think my board game quota is pretty full for the time being…
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[…] of the Lead Zombies and Miniature Wargaming « Project Projectless From the painting desk #15 – Marine medic April 2, […]
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I saw this today, guys from Rackham doing Zombicide, lots of good looking plastic zombies. Perhaps a future project?
I normally don’t get too excited by board games but this one look like it has a lot of promise.
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Ooh, that does look mighty tasty. My gaming group is often on the lookout for new board game goodness, so will need to keep track of this.
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