All I can do in this blog is prattle on about my personal view of 15mm Sci Fi wargaming, offer my solutions to the problems posed, and cast an eye over what is commercially available. I fear that I have a less popular view of 15mm Sci Fi than many, but hopefully that will be interesting and thought provoking to others, regardless. You don't have to agree with me, everyone is entitled to their own opinion after all, but I hope you enjoy the journey as much as I intend to.
My thoughts on Sci Fi table top wargaming are that it should be high tech and distinctly Sci Fi. That means predominantly symmetrical forces with grav and air cushion vehicles, painted in outlandish colour schemes - they need to stand out from my WW2 forces With my eyesight I couldn't tell a grav tank from a Challenger tank on the table top, if they were both painted in 'earth cammo' and deployed on a grass green cloth !
With my 'Oooo Shiny' habit, I have struggled with a coherent plan for my forces and just ended up buying what looked good, without thinking about how they would fit into a table top force. This tendency has often been exacerbated by my not completely buying into the manufacturers vision of their forces, and ending up with odd platoons of tanks, APC's, or infantry - just because I liked them. However, this lack of co-ordination / planning therefore has recently started to change, helped to a large degree I think, by the plethora of manufacturers we now enjoy. This has had the effect that I can mix and match products more than ever before and achieve the effect I desire.
I must apologise, but in the short term, I will not be able to provide much in the way of illustration to this blog, as I am in hospital following a car crash and will have limited mobility even once I return home. But I will use manufacturers photos where I can, and backfill as necessary later. I also need to learn more about getting the best out of this blog engine and how to take good photos of miniatures.
At the moment I'm a bit of a traditionalist with regard to the TO&E of my forces, I tend to adopt a triangular formation, 3 sections to a platoon, 3 platoons to a company etc. That said, I like the slightly mix and match approach of the US forces in the eighties of Infantry Heavy or Tank Heavy Companies (think Team Yankee or Red Storm Rising). The Company can then be augmented with Battalion and/or Regimental assets as required, usually in the form of specialist Tank, Infantry, Recce, Assault, AT, AA, Heavy Weapons, or Indirect Fire units.
For example, one of the High Tech - Infantry Heavy - Grav Companies that I have been working on is based around Old Crow vehicles.
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| Three Infantry Platoons of APC's - Old Crow's Glaive |
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| A Tank Platoon of Gladius' |
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| Recce or Assault Platoon of Outriders |
That is the easy part, though, as I have yet to decide which infantry to use. I have a company of Alternate Armies Crusaders from 15mm.co.uk which I really like (though I will probably cut off the bayonets, I don't recall them from the original miniatures I purchased, but hey, it shouldn't be a big job should it.....) and I have a company of what used to be Citadel's Traveller High Tech troopers, now re-badged and available from Rafm, which I also like. But which fits best with the vehicles and colour scheme ? By the way, Rafm have a 25% off sale until June 17th, so I having recently made the decision to use Topgun Marketing's wonderful grav tanks and APC's as proxies for Traveller style Aslan, I just had to buy some more 'war hounds from Sirius' !
Martin.
