Wednesday, February 14, 2018

15mm XCOM: Snakemen reinforcements

I managed to bury a few figs from my lead pile. These 15mm figs are from Critical Mass games and originally were 'mercenaries' but I believe there was a bit of a kickstarter to expand their range. I grabbed these fellows within the last year when critical mass were closing but hadn't yet been announced as being picked up by Ral Partha Europe. 
I previously had a set of 5 but thought it would be wise to get some extras when it was possible the range might disappear. Looking back at the blog I realized I haven't done anything on this front since late 2014. Shameful. Expect some developments soon.
A number of people have recognized their excellent suitability as 'snakemen' miniatures to match the some of the enemies in the wonderful computer game series XCOM.  So this is what I was channeling. 
 I first played xcom in the mid 90's and it was a very cool game. The reboot in 2012 took all the good, stripped out the tedious and made a sweet new package. Sweet enough to do a reimagining where the humans lost and are now the resistance in XCOM2. It's pretty amusing to see how far graphics have come in a side by side placement.










6 comments:

  1. I only recently played X-Com when they released it as an app. I knew about it, but it never really grabbed me. It seems to me that it is a game that not only would lend itself well to the table, BUT could be the starting point for the merging of a minis game on the table, backed up by the calculating power of a computer game.

    ...oh, and I almost forgot, nice Snakemen. They look great!

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    1. I had no idea they had ported it over to an app. I'm impressed, but thinking about it I wonder if that was a longterm decision that guided design. Very interesting.

      I'm intrigued by your statement: "... the starting point for the merging of a minis game on the table, backed up by the calculating power of a computer game". What do you imagine this might look like?

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    2. Basically an evolution. Players of popular games like 40k already keep their army list on a portable device. Next you could record damage on those lists.

      But further, there is a post on the "Scale Creep" Blog that is mostly about painting your miniatures,
      "We put up with the sub-par rulesets and antiquated you-go-I-go routines because the settings and the aesthetics are second to none but ONLY IF YOU PAINT THEM. Otherwise why even use miniatures?"

      Think about all of the stats, whistles, and bells X-Com hangs on its units that are missing from EVERY miniatures game. Now, a beautiful miniatures game with the advanced toolbox modern computing adds would really be something.

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  2. Snakemen look sweet mate. Really nice paintjob on teeny 15mm sculpts.

    Isn't XCOM the sequel to the 80's Spectrum game, Laser Squad?

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    1. Yes, I had heard that and the wiki backs that up. Interesting to read that the 90's xcom started development as laser squad 2. I also like that the new xcom 'box art' is an homage to the laser squad box art.

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    2. Laser Squad was my all time fav game on the Spectrum.
      Glad to see it lives on still in one format or another. :)

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