Guest Appearance on Brotherhood of the Fly

I was invited by "Brotherhood of the Fly" to appear on their YouTube channel to speak about myself, my sculpting, and my company, Loud ninja Games.

Vasseth Assembly Note

With Vasseths going out to customers I have had some questions regarding the weapons combos. Most of them are pretty much up to you, but the long range accelerator cannon is designed with a specific configuration.

The cannon is designed to be coupled with the boom-mounted targeting array as shown in the renders below. The sensor array could be arranged with the drone missile pod as well if you wanted to model a long-range antitank missile variant but was originally designed to be paired with the accelerator cannon. The two identical plasma guns were the original, basic armament of the Vasseth.

From The Wasteland Lumbers...

Terrorclops and Wasteland Buddies released by Loud Ninja Games!

Hey all,

I sit here in the early hours of Thanksgiving Day  here in the U.S. presenting, to you all, the two newest additions to my post-apocalyptic miniatures range. While my first two packs presented human-sized mutants of the gang or tribal sort, these two new figures represent a move toward larger miniatures - 

RAP028 Terrorclops (1) 5.00 GBP  is a huge mutant monster, the sort of thing that adventurers in the aftermath would encounter and overcome. I sculpted him to be monstrous and twisted have his anatomy rearranged so that his mouth is in his gut with a single eye taking up his whole face. He is armored on the back and armed with a wicked spike where a fist would be, perfect for piercing prey and feeding them to his gut maw.

RAP029 Wasteland Buddies (1) 3.00 GBP brings to you a paired up team of wastelanders. A human-sized survivor rides  atop a massive humanoid used as both companion and beast of burden. Festooned with gear the large mutant packs a a club made from a piece of an old lamp post, the concrete anchor providing a sturdy club. The smaller companion carries a long rifle for hunting and protection.

The are produced and sold across the world through our partnership with the excellent folks at 15mm.co.uk. For additional information these and other product from Loud Ninja Games and/or 15mm.co.uk read HERE.

The Vasseth Approaches - Coming November 17. 2015

The Chuhuac's first release since the original Kickstarter, the  RAP07 Vasseth Strike Tank will hit the scene on November 17, 2015. Available separately or in special unit packs, each tank will come with several weapon options allowing you to field any number of variants.

Keep an eye out here, on our Facebook page and at 15mm.co.uk for more news!

Check Out The Ikwen

Loud Ninja Games...


The miniatures company where being called "four eyes" is always a compliment!


Check out the Ikwen at 15mm.co.uk/collections/loud-ninja-games

New Chuhuac Tank in November 2015

Hey all,

Here is a sneak peak at an upcoming release. Due out in November, the Chuhuac will get some heavy firepower - RAP27 Vasseth Strike Tank.

The model will be sold for 6.00 GBP and will come with all the weapon options shown, allowing you to make any of the other variants.

I've included a picture of the cast model (resin body with metal bits) along with pics of the original print next to the Sirrus APC and the original render.

Yan'drassi Released

It is with great excitement that I am happy to announce the release of our Yan'drassi miniatures. 

This range was created through a successful Kickstarter project that not only achieved its goal but managed to squeeze out a couple of extras along the way, and if that wasn't cool enough, it shipped really quick. While most of the credit for making this happen goes to the backers on Kickstarter, I have to give equal credit to the sculptor, Sean Bullough, and Gavin Syme and crew at 15mm.co.uk for their  excellent artistic and technical work - both fast and proficient.

So who are these awesome aliens?

The Yan'drassi are collective of worlds all governed by the enigmatic and seldom (if ever) seen Yan. Each client race does its part to support the greater good of the Yan'drassi. Some do this through industrial, economic, or agricultural means while others have nothing but their own citizens to offer. These worlds with nothing of great value other then their people are those that make up the fighting arm of the Yan'drassi. The most commonly encountered species within the military orders are the Neeks, Tavshar, and Horgosi.

Neeks

Neeks are a diminutive planet-bound species of humanoids who were saved from catastrophic overpopulation by the Yan'drassi. They send countless numbers of their people into the stars to fight for the Yan'drassi. Being very simple creatures, they are the lowest rung of the military order providing ample cannon fodder. 

Tavshar

Tavshar are a warrior race who, while possessed of interstellar travel and their own collection of conquered worlds, recognized a greater opportunity for proving themselves in combat by joining the Yan'drassi military order. They are artful, martial, and precise providing the military orders with a core of elite soldiers and leaders for less capable troops like the Neeks.

Horgosi

Horgosi hail from a rugged world where they exist in a pre-stellar herd culture. Horgosi males prove themselves through duels and physical feats. Joining the Yan'drassi military order saved them from being used as labor and provided them with new ways to prove themselves. They are mostly used as assault troops.

Leaders

The Yan'drassi mlitary order also includes several sorts of leaders. Often these are just senior Tavshar weilding plasma staffs that function both as ranged weapons and energized melee weapons. They also work to give a nice zap to unruly Neeks. Horgosi will not be led by regular Tavshar leaders and usually follow their own. The exception to this would be the Tavshar Primes which are elite veterans of considerable skill, power, and repute. The Horgosi also have their own Primes.

 

 

Support

The Yan'drassi military order has many weapons at its disposal for the support of its troops. This release reveal two of these in the form of the Tavshar Gun Skimmer and the Horgosi Berserker. The gun skimmer allows a single Tavshar to fly about the battlefield bringing the firepower of two plasma guns and a pair of splinter guns to the enemy. Operated in squadron, they are lethal light air support. If needed, their riders can dismount to fight in close combat with plasma pistols.

The Berserker is a dishonored Horgosi made pariah to his people by murdering an opponent in a duel. While brutal to other forms of life, the Horgoi respect their own kind and nowhere else is this displayed more than in their duels for honor and supremacy. Those Horgosi who break this sacred taboo have their horn removed as a show of disgrace and live a marginalized existence on the fringes of their society. The Yan'drassi have turned these outcasts into weapons.

Giving them powered harnesses and with integral force field generators, kinetic force gauntlets and built-in splinter guns, they are charges at the enemy, rending anything unfortunate to get in their way to scraps. If killed, the  Berserker's harness overloads and detonates in a powerful ball of plasma energy.

All of these figures are available as separate packs and in unit packs at our store on the 15mm.co.uk webiste. For more information on the packs and offers go - HERE

Spring Sale at 15mm.co.uk Good for Loud Ninja Games Too!

Hey all,

Right now 15mm.co.uk is running a spring sale. We are happy to announce that this also applies to Loud Ninja Games miniatures as well.

Until May 1st, 2015 use the discount code "spring" and receive 15% off your order. What's more you will also receive a good bag worth 10% of your total order. The contents of the goody bag will relate to your purchase. Buy fantasy, get more fantasy. Buy scifi, get more scifi. You might even get the cool SHM aliens that I have sculpted for 15mm.co.uk.

Now is a great time to start new forces or add to an existing one. For more details on the sale go - HERE

Ikwen Rock Village WIP - Parts One & Two

Hey folks, here are the first two videos of an ongoing terrain project for the Ikwen. This is a build to create a typical, multiple family rock village which is a common structure among the Ikwen living outside of the coastal settlements.

Ikwen Ruin Vacation Plans

"No vacation plan survives contact with the Ikwen"

Josh, a customer and co-poster at the 15mm Scifi Miniatures Gaming Facebook Group recently posted some pics of his Ikwen. Fresh in from the mail, he put aside his current projects and not only started organizing them into units, but set to converting one of his extra squad leader poses into a commander sort.

He started with just the quick removal of the gun and the addition of a piece of wire in it's place. To this he glued a piece of plastic card in the shape a Huli blade. He then trimmed this basic shape int othe more refined shape below and blended the blade to the haft using green stuff.

This is a great example of a simple conversion that can make for a very visually satisfying leader figure. I can't wait to see it finished, but wanted to show it off in it's basic stages so folks could see the conversion work behind it. 

Painting The Ikwen - Part One

Hey folks,

I have had my test casts of the Ikwen for some time now and finally got a chance to start painting them. I am not far along with them, but I thought it might be fun to share how nice they look with just the barest amount of paint and a brown wash.

There is certainly much more to do to get them finished and I intend to post more pics as I go, but please enjoy this little glimpse into what these fun alien rebels can look like.

These miniature are available at our store - HERE

Take care,

-Eli

Reports Filter in of Ikwen Landing

We're hearing tale of folks in the UK and Europe as well as America getting their Ikwen in. Exciting news as the first wave of rebels report to the front.


FIGHT ON BRAVE IKWEN! Make your ancestors proud!

Hack and Slash

Melee Weapons Among the Ikwen

While the concept of firearms is new to the Ikwen (only within the current generation) they do have a long tradition of bladed combat. The Huli, which translates literally and quite basically as, "Blade", has taken many form among these aliens and their various cultures but is most commonly seen as a hooked sword or hafted weapon.

Huli weapons all share the common features of an inwardly curved blade, hooking to different degrees. The blade is edged along the entirety of the inside curve of the weapon as well as the back side of the curve itself. This allows the weapon to cut both on the forward and backward swings.

Most of the modern Huli are cobbled together from scrap and even pre-occupation Huli were often agricultural revisions of the more traditional weapon. The common Huli do indeed persist as they have been used for centuries as agricultural tools among more civilized Ikwen. The hooked sword, known simply as a Huli, was used for threshing and as a chopping tool for foods. The hafted Huli known as the Kragt-huli is used both as an agricultural and herding tool where the hook and point are useful in budging stubborn, thick-hided livestock animals. Hulis of other kinds can be seen among the more traditional and ancient Ikwen people as well as the Mugoda clans. These folk still maintain, to varying extents, the warrior ways of the earlier Ikwen cultures before settlement and agriculture allowed them to put away most of their need for weapons.

Among the steppes tribes, a common sight is the Goda-huli, a heavy-hafted hooked axe that is wielded to deadly effect from the backs of their massive steeds. In the case of this weapon, the haft is made thick and reinforced with resin and hide to help it absorb the shock of a charged strike. Where the blade turns in, instead of coming to a point it broadens to an axe-like head. The edge still continues to inside of the hooked blade but it gain a heavy striking head that can often remove heads and limbs in a single swing.

Another weapon common among most of the tribal folks of the Ikwen are short Huli blades, longer than a knife but not as massive and long as the machete-like basic Huli, the Katag-huli. These blades are used for ritual combats as well as a utility blade when hunting. Tribal Ikwen are also quite adept at throwing these blades as well as other Huli blades which they often do before they clash with an enemy.

Outside of the tribal Ikwen, the art of Huli combat has all but disappeared. There are still practitioners of ancient fighting arts and in some remote places there are schools that keep these techniques alive. A few remote villages have even kept alive the ancient Ikwen warrior ways and retain the traditional military orders of the Ikwen people training in many forms of Huli combat and wearing traditional armor and battle dress. Since the onset of the rebellion, these fighters have managed to find their way into fighting units and more than a few militia leaders have appeared wearing these ancient traditional costumes and weapons as a form of inspiration to oppose the invaders.

Ikwen For Gruntz

One of the more popular systems out for 15mm science fiction miniatures right now, is Gruntz 15mm. Gruntz is a straight forward system that allows players to build their own forces using a points system. It also allows them to build their own units and vehicles using this same points system. I have posted some reviews of the system at the end of this post but for now, let's dive into what I have done.

With the Ikwen being released I decided i wanted a way to really demonstrate how I see them being used in games. Having access to Gruntz and Gruntomatic, the free unit generator for Gruntz 15mm, I decided to tinker with some unit cards for the Ikwen. While my experience with the system is minimal, one of the beauties of the system is that it assigns descriptive values to the statistics of the game, allowing you to fit numbers to your theme and this is exactly what I did.

I have tried to post only units that can be made with the Ikwen miniatures currently available, however there are a couple that have been included, for the sake of completeness, that do not currently have miniatures. My hope is to expand the range to include all manner of units allow for a fully developed force. For those wanting to field figures for the cards that do not yet have specific figures, simple conversions will allow you to field them until such time as appropriate figures become available.

Purchase Gruntz 15mm - HERE

Gruntz 15mm Forums - http://gruntz15.proboards.com/

Overviews and Reviews:

http://www.gruntz.biz/p/about.html

http://adventuresinlead.blogspot.com/2013/11/gruntz-15mm-sci-fi-skirmish-rules.html

http://youtu.be/yPiDBPbshIM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBzwMl_ymw4

The Ikwen Uprising is Upon Us

Ikwen Coming March 4th, 2015

Over a generation ago, the planet Kwiell was set upon by aliens bent on exploiting the natural resources of the planet. The planet's native population, the Ikwen, found themselves suddenly enslaved and their society rocked as they were enslaved, put to work and in many cases hunted and killed. The Ikwen have spent decades in frustrated servitude to these invading overlords, hedging on their beliefs and their close-knit kinship ties to get them through. It was only when the invaders sought to remove their spiritual identities that they found the courage to rise up and go to war.

The conflict began as acts of sabotage, ambushes and in some cases organized resistance but as time went on it grew into a very real, very active militia war. Weapons were procured through theft or the trade of the very resources they had been robbed of. Groups of soldiers took to the wilderness, the highlands and steppes where they enlisted the locals there into their fight. Ancient desert fortresses and settlements were once more turned into homes for fighters and their families. Ancient warrior traditions and less-spoken of factions found a renewed place in the world.

The Ikwen are one side of an asymmetric war against a higher tech, invading enemy. They fight in a less organized, militia style, utilizing acquired weapons, not of their of own manufacture.

While we see them as very much freedom-fighting indigenous life forms, use them as alien invaders, allies, mercenaries or even lower tech indigenous forces for more organized warfare.

On 4th March 2015 we will be releasing the next packs in the Loud Ninja Games range at 15mm.co.uk . These will be the Ikwen as described in the words of their imagineer Eli Arndt. Sculpted by Roderick Campbell there will be three packs and a platoon pack with saving.

Here are pictures of the codes for you to look at:

RAP016 Ikwen Militia with Assault Rifles (6 in pack)

RAP018 Ikwen Militia with Light Machine Gun (6 in pack – 3 poses)

RAP017 Ikwen Militia with Rocket Launchers (6 in pack – 3 poses)

RAP016P Ikwen Militia Platoon (24) with saving!

We will be putting up more information real soon in a background posting before the release. These are lovely 15mm sci-fi miniatures with an original idea behind them and we love them.

We hope you do too.

-Eli and Gavin

Ikwen on The Horizon

Previewing The Upcoming Ikwen Pack Contents

Hello all,

February saw the release of Alien Encounters and Wasteland Mutants and, as we move on toward March, we are now working on organizing the Ikwen packs for release.

I have received test casts from the master molds and they are looking very nice. While inspecting them, I snapped a pic of how they will be arranged in their packs. There are three packs to kick off the range, each containing six figures -

1) Militia with assault rifles (bottom right) which is six individual poses.

2) Militia with missile launchers (top) - two of each of three poses.

3) Militia with Light Machineguns (bottom left) - tow of each of three poses.

We are shooting for a March release on these, as early as possible. Further announcement will be made when an exact time is figured out.

When they are released, they will be put on our store page on 15mm.co.uk

Enjoy,

-Eli

Upcoming Releases and New Ranges

Hey all,

Guess what time it is?

It's time for Loud Ninja Games to get rolling
.
Due to release Monday, February 2, 2015, are RAP13, 14, and 15 will see the start of two new ranges Alien Encounters #1 (RAP13) and my wild and crazy Wasteland (RAP14 & 15).

RAP13 Alien Encounters #1

RAP14 Wasteland Mutants

RAP15 Super Mutants

Alien Encounters will be a sort of grab bag of science fiction one-offs and small encounter groups geared toward collecting and role-playing but certainly not outside the realm of use for more traditional wargaming.

The Wasteland range will be just about everything I can imagine to fill a blasted, mutated, violent future. Mutants, savages, renegade, monsters, even some heroes.

Look for these in the Loud Ninja Games store at 15mm.co.uk come Monday, February 2, 2015.