Now I was always into my Airfix as a child but I’m a very keen sci fi fan and when I discovered Warhammer as a teenager, I was hooked. Warhammer had all the fun of model making and painting but it also had the most amazing back story which is still rapidly expanding (thanks to the great work of the Black Library). It is also a wargame but to me the main attraction is the fiction with the painting and modelling a second. I am, however, no good with the painting lark but I do love the conversion and modelling side of thinks.
What’s this got to do with aircraft modelling? Well over the past year I’ve been building up (ok, buying, but since last September, I’ve not really had the heart to paint or build any of the models) my army. Of the many races, I collect Imperial Guard – the human army in a universe filled with super human warriors and aliens. It might have been mentioned before when I did my Imperial Guard loadout (something I want to resurrect if only I could come up with enough people to create rag tag guard bunch!). Around February I felt the urge to buy something and model it. I know I have a lot of stuff lying around in boxes but I wanted something large, something I could use as a centre piece in my army.
Now my army is focussed on an artillery company. Don’t ask me why particularly but I love scenes such as this one in “A Bridge To Far”.
The aim is to pound the enemy to dust with big guns. However these still obviously needs support and when Games Workshop released the Valkyrie I couldn’t resist it. The model is fantastic. It also adds tactical flexibility to my army and would allow a conversion to take place.
Taken from the Games Workshop Website
This aircraft keeps my army theme together – the artillery pound the enemy and the dropship flys overhead to deliver the elite stormtrooper squad inside to where ever on the battlefield. However I had noticed was that my army lacked any anti tank hunting capabilities. The artillery I use (Medusa’s) are a serious threat to infantry but if you take the anti tank shells, it makes them less effective at the infantry. Also the artillery itself is inaccurate so using something with a little more accuracy to target the tanks made more sense.
Therefore I decided to convert the Valkyrie into the Vendetta gunship with 3 x twin linked lascannons which are devastating to armoured units. It’s job is to fly around and take out tanks (and possibly deploy some units behind enemy lines). Obviously this required some modification to take place as there’s no parts in the box to make what I wanted (typical!) so I dug around in my bits box and pulled some lascannons out from my heavy weapon squads – they all use mortars or heavy bolters so there are a few left over. With some plasticard and putty, I fitted them under the wing.
Also as this is a large model, I decided it needed to be done well so I’m also sorting the base out to be a fully detailed miniature diorama. I toyed between using Epic scale models to represent the Vendetta flying at high altitude or to have it flying over a kill. In the end the kill option won out as I had the parts to start getting on with it.
Now it’s currently work in progress but here it stands currently.
The base has a the remains of a Chaos chimera which I got from a Basilisk kit I had which had an extra sprue of armour plating in. The model is supposed to be flying low over the Chimera which it has just destroyed – the Chimera has the gaping hole where the las shots entered and this will be painted to show molten metal (or ceramite to Warhammer fans!) as the “kill” is fresh. The white parts are supposed to be the escape hatch that has blown out due to overpressure (the explosion of the Chimera!). The green stuff is putty and is there to represent the sand as as the side comes to a stop from exploding out from the side of the tank. It will be covered in sand along with the base. I also intend to scatter a few bits of “burning” debris around to base once the putty is fully cured and base is covered in sand.
The model is not affixed to the stand to allow for ease of carrying and to make it easier to know when the place is hovering etc in game. With a little luck, it should come along soon but I’m going to have to redo the black undercoat as some of it has gone horrible and bits are missed.
As for the paint scheme, I’m undecided. It will have to tie in with the desert themed camo that my guardsmen wear but I’m currently unsure how to pattern the craft – I would like to use an airbrush but they are quite expensive so I’ll have to consider the options. I certainly wont be using the Games Workshop “airbrush” as it’s terrible! It’s more an undercoating device…
It appears a new site has sprung up in Leicestershire.
Stealth Tactical Airsoft is in Lutterworth, just south of Leicester so it might be worth a visit from Rusmil to see what it’s like. The website seems to be lacking pictures at the minute but when it gets them I’ll be sure to check them out and see what it’s like.
As regular readers may remember, I got my Kalash AK74S upgraded over the Christmas period with a MOSFET and deans connectors. I got to use it in anger in the last week at the Grange Farm game in January.
I thought this would be an ideal time to give a few words on it and a quick after action report on the game.
Gun Performance
When I got the gun back I was happy with it however I got a bit concerned when I got it chronoed at the start of the day – it was still shooting ~220fps even though I had a new spring put in. This means that the old spring probably wasn’t the issue and I may have an air leak somewhere, either in the gearbox or in the hop unit. Odd as the hop seemed to be working fine. Otherwise the gun performance was good.
The deans connectors increased the RoF. In fact, the site owner asked me what the gun was as he said it sounds like a beast and was very nice looking (due to the real steel furniture). The deans connectors improve the rate of fire by providing a large surface area and better efficiency for current transfer. Anyhow, I was happy with that and all my charging cables seemed to be fine for it.
The MOSFET is a nice addition. I didn’t realise the difference it made until I compared my 74S with my 74SU. It actually made an impressive difference. And since I bought mine, RSOV have started selling a MOSFET for the AK here. for the price, it’s a very good addition. For those that don’t know, it essentially makes the trigger connection electronic rather than mechanical. It speeds up trigger responsiveness which is always a good option.
Game
The game itself was good – unfortunately no pictures as my camera wasn’t present. Getting to the site was interesting due to the large quantities of snow that managed to fall overnight – there must have been an inch of snow which made driving a little interesting! However once the M1 was reached, it wasn’t to bad and we eventually made it there.
Game was slow to get started as we waited for people to arrive due to the snow but we played a good few games during the day – the snow made it very wet and cold through the entire day. The snow melted about lunchtime but it hadn’t warmed up at all.
Games were quick and punchy thanks to the cold – however one game seemed to drag for a bit and we seemed to be taking the brunt of the enemy attack and seemed to be failing. And then just like that, it suddenly changed and the battle swung in our favour completely – I’ve no idea what happened but one minute we were losing, the next, we’d won!
Anyhow, it was a good day all round, if a bit chilly. The benefit of the Partizan I have is that it’s designed as an over suit (at least it seems like it), so I happily stayed warm by wearing some “civvie” clothes underneath to keep warm. And during the summer, I can wear just that to keep cool! I think I’ll be purchasing another set in the KLMK pattern to replace the KLMK suit I sold on.
Anyhow, another big thank you to Grange farm for another great days airsoft!
Well the new PC has performed admirably and whilst it copes very nicely with Dawn of War 2, I wanted a fairly modern game to try and tax my graphics card. Now when I saw that what Steam was running for free this past weekend, I jumped at the chance to try it for free.
Shattered Horizon
Shattered Horizon is an interesting idea for an FPS – rather than the age old “fight in a space station” somewhere, this shooter puts you outside in space. In zero gravity. This obviously gives you a whole 360 degrees of action and movement rather than the rather linear gravity based shooters where everything is essentially on the floor with you.
Not only the gameplay sounds good, but the graphics look fantastic.
However this comes at a cost – it’s a Direct X 11 game only so requires either Windows Vista or Windows 7 to run. No issues here as I’m running Windows 7 Professional (thanks to University discounts) , however readers might not have this.
First Impressions
Loading the game up and starting playing and the game lives up to my expectations. Considering I hadn’t heard of it before, I assumed it was a fairly simple affair and I wasn’t wrong.
There is only one weapon – an assault rifle that has fully auto fire and also a sniper capability. It also has an attached grenade launcher with 3 different grenade types (EMP, Explosive and ICE). Controls are fairly basic and just like in space, when you stop pushing forwards, you wont really stop moving forwards so the controls may take people a slight getting used to.
Gameplay is quite fast and frantic and there are a few different game modes, such as assault (attacking fixed points) and the standard death match. The levels are quite large and open with lots of differing routes around the levels.
After a While…
The space and zero gravity aspect works very nicely – whilst your assault rifle doesn’t have any kick back as such, firing it in sniper mode will send you spinning wildly. Therefore you can land on any scenery an secure yourself to it so you can fire as a sniper quite safely without spinning into a meteor field. With no health or ammo pickups, flying off into spaces isn’t really a great idea!
Ammo seems to be unlimited for the assault rifle but you need to reload after every 60 rounds. You have 3 grenades per life and the different grenades come in handy – you can time them to explode when you want and they can bounce off scenery. The ICE grenades are essentially smoke grenades, they make a large area unnavigable for a while. EMP disables a spacesuits control systems making the player move very slowly and the explosive do as they say!
All the technology you are wearing comes at a a price – the suits radar can detect your team mates and enemy alike. That is until you switch to silent running, where all suit systems are turned off so it’s harder to move, however you don’t appear on enemy radars. Check this video for an example:
However this comes at a cost – it’s a Direct X 11 game only so requires either Windows Vista or Windows 7 to run. No issues here as I’m running Windows 7 Professional (thanks to University discounts) , however readers might not have this.
Conclusions
Shattered Horizons is a simple FPS – for £15 on Steam, you don’t expect massive, genre changing, gaming. Yet Shattered Horizons manages to set itself apart from other FPS games with the addition of the zero gravity element. It all combines everything for a simple to pick up shooter.
Don’t expect deep character development or anything – this is a pure shooter which is pure and simple and addictive. It does feature a stats feed (mine are here), however due to the simple nature of the game, there’s not much to track (unlike Battlefield 2’s award and medal system).
Overall, well worth the money (I paid £7.50 as it was half price this weekend) if you want a shooter that is different to the current offerings.
Alright, I’m a big fan of lego, even now as an adult! So when I stumbled across the extremely interesting BrickArms website, I knew I had to share it with readers!
As you may know, ASCUK died last year – the admin pulled the plug and that was it, gone.
However it appears that the moderating team have decided to open a new forum and it’s running as UK Airsoft Zone now. It’s nice to see the familiar faces (well names!) from the old ASCUK and it’s by far a better community than it’s competitor in the UK!
Rusmil may see a resurgence of PC gaming soon – I treated myself to a new PC as my Atom based desktop was just lacking behind what I needed for it. It’s primarily been built for my work as I use LaTeX for my writing and while this can easily be edited on any PC with a text editor, when you come to compile the code, it requires CPU and the Atom just wasn’t coping. it’ll also mean I can go back to a dual screen setup, making it easier to work as I can view a PDF on one screen and Word or Texmaker on the other.
Therefore I purchased the following:-
Gigabyte GA-73PVM-S2H
ATI HD3850 Radeon GFX
Intel E5300 @ 2.60GHz
320Gb Samsung HD
Kingston 2Gb
OCZ StealthXStream 400W SilentPSU
Cooler Master Elite 335
Coolermaster Hyper TX3 Cooler
Windows 7 Professional
The aim is to over clock this when the TX3 arrives (it’s currently running on the stock Intel cooler) and apparently it should easily reach 3.9GHz but we’ll see what happens. This all came from Aria (except the TX3, which is coming from Play).
Of course, with the power, it can play some games which I intend to use it for at times. I’m eagerly awaiting the new Dawn of War 2 addon, Chaos Rising, that arrives in March. I’m currently going back and playing through the campaign and the new downloadable content, Last Stand, where you have to face multiple waves of enemies until you die.
I also bought Titanquest and it’s add on from Steam a while ago but was unable to play it so I’ll be having a go at that as well – it’s the closest game I’ve seen to Diablo 2 which is a personal favourite so that’ll be played. I also have Blazing Angels but this doesn’t appear to work on Windows 7 with Steam which is a royal pain and I cant get a refund on this without getting Titanquest refunded as well so I’ll stick with it and hope it gets updated.
Well it turned out into one of those days. Unfortunately, the game didn’t go ahead due to my mate ordering the wrong size batteries for the M4 he recently bought. I told him to order a crane stock battery which he did and then it turns out the battery was to wide to fit as it was using large battery cells and should have used stick battery cells!
As my AK74S is still in the shop being repaired, it meant that we had one AEG between us and therefore we had to call the whole thing off. We did try and construct a crane battery out of his old small battery but very quickly realised we’d be spending more than £15 on making it and thus we might as well call off the weekend and he’ll order a new battery.
Well from this, it pays to find out what batteries your AEG takes before ordering!
This will be my first game of the new year and will be a chance to try out a new site.
It so happens I am doing an interview in Leeds the day before this and so a short stay over with a friend and then on the Saturday I’ll be trying Fearful Silence. The game site looks to be good and there seems to be a reasonable number of players so it’ll be nice to try somewhere new.
Due to some upgrades on my main AK, I’m reduced to using my AK74S but this shouldn’t be an issue as recently it has been outranging the longer AK74. I’ll mention more on the upgrades when I get it back from the gunsmith.
