Sci-Fi Hangar by Impudent Mortal

I don't like MDF building kits. There are so many minor details that irk me —  the perfect 90 degree accuracy, the little pegs that show through on corner joins, the uniformity of design and identical thickness of every wall and element — each one contributes to breaking the immersion for me. I've held off on assembling any large MDF kits, but after seeing the Impudent Mortal display at Historicon last summer I couldn't resist any longer. I need to fill a table with sci-fi buildings, the Impudent Mortal kits were some of the best I'd seen and scratch-building my own wasn't going to cut it. I figured with a little extra care I could reduce the issues that bug me about MDF kits and still save time by using a pre-manufactured model. Check out my build after the jump.

An update on what I've been Up To (spoiler: it's Star Schlock)

Hello friend! It's been a while since I've posted anything to my blog, but I've been so busy on game stuff I haven't had a chance to log an update. I've been prepping to run my sci-fi skirmish game Star Schlock in February at Scrum Con, our club's convention near Washington DC. If you live in the area you should totally come. It's fun!

In preparation I painted up a few more figures for the game.

A mystery gunslinger I picked up at a con and a little Bombshell Miniatures bot I gave a gun.

A great alien leader from Colony 87. It took me a few years to figure out what color he needed to be.

The frog alien's stat card in Star Schlock. Any resemblance to a person living or dead is purely coincidental.

I also ran the game on New Year's eve to try some new units and rules out.

Evil Totalitarian Dominion dronetroopers face off for control of the spaceport against a royal house of the Federated Alliance.

Murdertron goes down in a hail of laser fire as the Royal Astro Guards storm the building.

Kroglogg snipers engaged in a firefight with dastardly dronetroopers.

I've been taking a lot of time translating my notes into an actual draft rulebook for the game. Star Schlock can get a bit complex, so a lot of my time has been simplifying, clarifying and reducing the headache of trying to learn the game from a written document. I collect rule sets to dissect, owning far more than I'll ever have a chance to play. While I like understanding how a game works, I find reading them can often feel like drudgery. I have some ideas for layout and design to make comprehending a new set a bit easier that I've started experimenting with. Will see if it pans out or if this is a design path that leads to a dead end.


I also received my final test prints of the 3D sculpts for my Star Schlock Astro Guards. I discovered a few tiny updates to make and then they'll be sent to the caster.

I'm hoping to run a Kickstarter for these in the spring, but even if I'm only to get a handful of master figures completed for myself I'll be happy. Sculpting and casting my own figures has been a bucket list item for me since I painted my first orc over 30 years ago. If you are interested in either the Star Schlock game or the figures, I've set up a website where you can sign up for updates. Until next time!