"Gaming Maschinen Kreiger.... am I insane?" Topic

In the mad rush to throw away all my cash during the Black Friday consumo-orgy this weekend, I stumbled across a 1/35 Ma.K. Gustav kit. I purchased it…. and well…. I started thinking. You get two powered armor suits in a kit, so can you game with these things?
I would love to find more of these kits- I know they are rare but i would only want a few to game a squad on squad action.

Has anyone out there done this and did they go completely broke and or insane in the process? Any help would be appreciated!

I seem to remember that many years ago the South London Warlords ran a game with these figures at Salute. Perhaps Mr Treadaway could point you in the right direction?

You can get the 1/35 completed minis if you look hard enough…
auction

$28 USD for 5 in this case.

Thanks for the heads up Grey Ronin! I picked up some 1/35 WW2 Germans I will turn into basic infantry…. somehow! LOL

I mostly use them for terrain in Infinity, though a 1/35 AFS is about the right size for a small TAG.

I'm sure I've seen some folks gaming in 54mm aka 1/35 scale, small skirmishes in built-up areas.

A few years back there was a fellow who used them with 28mm figures as large power armor. It worked pretty well judging from the pictures.

I picked up some of those you showed me Grey Ronin. I think the challenge will be finding the 54mm stuff and making it work for the setting.

DerKrampus –

I have a bunch of both the Melusines and SAFS suits like the ones in Grey Ronin's link that I'm thinking of getting rid of. I just have too many projects on the go, and something's got to give. :)

Also picked up two of these:

auction

(Note the top pic is of the 1/20 scale Gradiator, but the ones I've got are 1/35.)

PM me if you're interested. :)

Oh, BTW, take a look at Gundam 1/35 kits for infantry, vehicles, etc –

There was a boardgame for it in the 80s.
link

Caesar- I had seen that there was a boardgame version of this…. I have never seen it in real life! MacrossMartin- I can't pm here, my email is waffleofdeath at yahoo.com. Would love to talk deals!

Sure, we did some games with them in 1/35th
link
link

We used lots of the pre-paints which had been – for the most part – heavily worked over, with some scratch scenery, kit-bashed vehicles and home grown rules.

It was a lot of fun to play but any set of rules that deals with armoured SF infantry would fit the bill.

John T

Amazing stuff there John T! What I am planning would be no where near the scale of what you did. Simply breathtaking!

Thankyou DerKrampus :)

John T

Question- are the main weapons in this world lasers and RPG's mainly? I have seen some vehicles armed with gatling guns and such. I am using 1/35 scale Germans as Stahl infantry and they are armed with rifles and machine pistols. I have to admit I don't know a ton about the Maschinen Kreiger universe- so would light arms be enough to damage an armored suit?

Yes I plan to (once I settled on a set of rules and knocked up the scenery) been buying up the pre paint cheap when I see them.

Squeaky Pete- I am trying to think of the right size game for this. I would prefer fewer models on the table, but once I get the sickness….. :)

The 'sickness' is what got to us. The reality was that – for the same price as a white metal 28mm figure – we bought very nice figures painted by the manufacturer that needed only detail and some light weathering.

This gave us the option to do some more painting when we wanted to, build some scratch and kit bash vehicles and stuff and still had time to scratch build scenery.

The sickness was too good to miss and we wound upwith, er… quite a lot.

I can't remember, now, how many but – as you can see – we went a bit bonkers

John T

John T-

I am thinking of just writing some very simple rules to go along with the figures. Maybe throw in some rpg elements as well. I know I can't go too overboard, my lack of space will kill me. But this sets up my next project for the New Year!

I am actually building 2 of the Gustavs. I like getting back to my model building roots. This is such good stuff!

Bonkers, yes, but beautifully so. :D

DerKrampus – Lasers are the primary battlefield weapons in MaK. I don't think smallarms would be able to damage an AFS, except with a very lucky hit, like on the optics perhaps.

Given that the game's setting is about 1000 years from now (with a century or two of technological stagnation thrown in due to a few world wars in between,) I always worked my ideas in the game to the idea that the armour on an AFS was enough to defeat anything short of a laser or HEAT warhead. Considering how cumbersome and bulky those suits would be, why else would you wear them?

Oh, did you get my email?

MacrossMartin-

I did get your email! Thanks for the info… I might have to arm my infantry with some portable lasers or RPGs. I will email you back about the deals. Gotta get a few things in order (it's the holdiays…. lol).

I was only planning on using say 5 suits against 5 suits on a 6 foot by 4 foot table. It's the biggest I can manage at home, it keeps things compact and cheap too.

Will probably use on of the Two Hour Wargame family of rules (no doubt modded by me as I can't leave well alone).

I was thinking close to the same thing Squeaky Pete.

I was thinking that there is stuff I have never published about the SF3D game we did. Mainly stuff about scenery building but also the odd picture that didn't make it to the other web sites I knocked up over four years ago. I've also trawled around for the rules we did but – as I didn't write them – all I've come across are some PDFs of play sheets.

I've built a quick web site showing some of the building construction shots with some details, plus some more 'glamour' shots and links to the pdfs. This is as an 'add-on' (rather than a relacement) to the links I posted earlier. Sure, I should have them all in one place but… time's short and it was (for me) 5 years ago and I'm working on articles for this years Salute game, so…

Anyway – here it is: link

Hope it's useful!

John T

You're an unashamed conveyor of temptation and distraction, John, you know that, don't you…?!? ;)

I'd hope so MacrossMartin: I try reeeealy hard to both tempt and distract!

On that basis: have a bit more

Just to show that we didn't just make do with models painted by the manufacturer with just a bit of fiddle faddling, the last shot is one of the 1/20th scale nitto kits we built and painted for the game the first time we did it, sometime in the late eighties or early nineties…

John T

Caesar, I still have both editions of the old SF3D boardgame(and no I'm not parting with them). They both are sitting proudly over my workspace with AH's "Panzerblitz" on one side and Mayfair's "Hammer's Slammers" boardgame on the other. :)

I've loved SF3D since the mid-1980's when I saw the kits in Hobby Japan magazine. Oddly, I bought both of the games at an SF convention, before I bought any of the kits. Now I have just a couple of kits, several pre-painted figures, and SF3D/MaK books.

Artraccoon: I never realised they did a board game… I've never even seen one. Well well: you live and learn :)

Hammer's Slammers boardgames? Well, now you're talking, obviously… :)

Mind you, I might be biased!

John T

John T-

I aspire to your greatness! Thank you so much!

One of these days, I will have to make it to a UK wargaming show, where I could participate in one of these beautiful games…

I have atarted to collect SF3D (or MaK, if you will) in 1/76 scale with the intent on gaming them. I feel 1/76 is far more gameable, but unfortunatly not as flash as 1/35th scale. There are a few garage kits available every now and then on Ebay and of course the Nutrocker kit (which comes with a 1/76 SAFS). With the availability of the garage kits being more then than now, its a very, very slow process. Anyone know of a sculptor who would like to earn some $s sculpting the fighting suits (for my personal use) just pipe in here.

As a 6mm junkie I have thought that a 1/287 or 1/300 scale miniatures game of SF3D/MaK would be fantastic. In that scale all the other powersuits and vehicles would be mass combat gameable. Several vehicles never made it to kit status(very big machines) and exist only as Kow's artwork or his model work to be found only in his books. The closest 6mm minis in appearance are Jeremey Claridge's powersuits made for Brigade Models, which I painted up like the schemes in Kow's hardcover book.

Now if someone can talk both a game producer and Kow Yokoyama into the idea, and make games(6mm and 1/35th scales) and miniatures for the SF3D/MaK setting.

The 1/35th scale SF3D/MaK figures are great for small unit skirmishes.

I love the figures and board JT ! And yes, Brigades 6mm Power Armor is close to MaK for those of us who roll that way … And I too have a copy of the old Mayfair Hammer's Slammers board game … cool for it's time …

Thanks again all!

Legion 4 – The Slammers board game (off thread here but I have to say I don't, er, play it very often. Much…)

John T

Now if someone can talk both a game producer and Kow Yokoyama into the idea, and make games(6mm and 1/35th scales) and miniatures for the SF3D/MaK setting.

Artraccoon, the problem is getting the appropriate licenses. A lot of the Japanese companies that aren't big enough to have their own toy&model company will only license their IP for garage kits that can only be sold at Comiket or one of the other big trade shows. Maybe 3 days out of the year.

I'm absolutely shocked that someone was able to license the MADOX suits for a general release.

I'd also really love to see an official MaK gamecome out. Whilst I wait for that though I'll work with what I've got.

I found some links that I thought I'd pass on I hope they are some use to someone:

link

link

Cheers,

Pete.

Thanks, Squeaky Pete! I'd lost the addresses for both those sites. Lots of lovely info there. :)

Happy to help :)

Cheers,

Pete.

To be quite honest I have considered it, but in 15mm….

Consider Brigade's not-S.A.F. suits in 15mm… link

Yep infojunky: they look damn close, I have to say.

John T