"Ikwen by Loud Ninja Games Released at 15mm.co.uk" Topic

The background story and concept art are much appreciated. Inspirational and evocative. Clearly a labour of love.

Nice to see aliens coming out in enough poses and with enough weapons to be suitable for building a force. Hopefully, these will sell well enough for more to follow!

Awesome looking figures!

David
splinteredlightminis.com

Ah, most excellent!

Thank you folks!

Glad to have these out!

-Eli

15mm Kroot!

Really superb figures, and as a fellow GM and worldbuilder, I love the backstory: that kind of integrated development just leads naturally to inventive game scenarios.

The one thing they really really need is some command poses.

Maybe a pack of something like two officers, three NCOs and a comm tech?

Great looking figures nonetheless, Eli. Congrats on getting these out there.

TwinMirror +1

Excellent stuff, very well done!

The Ikwen story has been a fun one to develop. I am glad that it resonates with folks and I hope to develop it further through future releases.

There will be other poses coming out and among them some dedicated command poses though I do find that will irregular forces the commanders are always that easy to tell from the regular troops.

-Eli

I'm very interested in these, not least because it looks like you can put a platoon together with a good selection of poses and weapons.

TwinMirror – You get me.

-Eli

Cheers! It's good to know, as that's exactly how I proceed, too. If someone says, 'but why are you developing funeral customs for your game? What's that got to do with anything?' I'd answer that these specific rites could form the scenario for a game, a set of taboos influencing troop morale (cannot fight or fight poorly, or fight as berserkers until a certain condition is fulfiled, etc), an objective (specific items held by one side required by the other for the funeral, etc)…actually, the possiblities just spin on & present other previously unforseen cultural modes or forms, which themsleves lead to further scenarios. I may just be addicted to world-building!

And I have to get me some of these Ikwen!

I love world building as well. I cannot really do anything without creating back story.

The funny thing is that I used to be bit blind to why it was all done in the realm of system neutral miniatures design, but I have come to understand how it plays into creating unique ranges that are less cookie cutter.

-Eli

I, too, love world-building. Crafting my own worlds is fun but taking in other people's world-building excercises (and sometimes striking off on tangents from those) can be even better. To that end I've decided to represent and game the Ikwen pretty much as they're described in their "official" story. So, they'll be fighting mainly in warm-climate steppes, deserts and highlands (I'll assume for the highlands to be mainly of the arid sort – although regions with a climate and flora similar to that of the Andean, Great Rift and Fynbos highland regions would also be neat) and they'll be the low-tech insurgents with imported weapons in an asymetric war against domineering higher-tech colonialists/imperialists – probably humans or psychologically human-like aliens of a culture that's conceited and jingoistic but not totalitarian or otherwise "evil". I'll try to represent the designs of the zkoot loincloths in some abstract way that a middling painter like myself can manage.

That said, one addition I'm thinking of is to include the Prang, albeit in smaller numbers. Despite their somewhat brutish appearance and the fact they're labelled "raiders", I think the Prang have a sympathetic look to them, so I'm leaning toward having them be politically motivated foreign volunteers who have smuggled themselves to Kwiell in order to aid the Ikwen (just in case it needs pointing out, the Ikwen and Prang to me are not supposed to be like our contemporary Middle Eastern extremists, the Prang would be more comparable to SCW International Brigades but perhaps less numerous). That political motivation would probably be a shared sense of antagonism toward the race the Ikwen are fighting. It would likely be the case that Prang society, albeit more advanced and sovereign than Ikwen society, feels pressured by the hegemony of that third race oppressing the Ikwen. The Prang (or at least those young, idealistic individuals who have come to Kwiell) sympathize with the Ikwen but also think of themselves as aiding their own society's cause.

Anyway, this is perhaps diving a bit too deep but, Eli, do you have any "official" thoughts about the flora of Kwiell (like maybe a characteristic/prominent plant type or two to represent on the tabletop) or the style of Ikwen architecture? I've made some efforts to model setting-specific terrain and scenery for established fictional worlds in the past (specifically with Terra Nova and Caprice in the Heavy Gear setting) and think that sort of thing can be great fun, especially modelling flora and buildings to look like they're "supposed" to. If I'm getting ahead of you, say so

Rhoderic,

That sounds like an excellent angle. If nothing else the Prang could also be mercenaries, maybe even the off-world source for the Mugoda clans black market weapons.

As for flora I have been going with forms that look like they belong on an ocean floor. Tube plants, thick and succulent. Fan-like growths that strip moisture from the atmosphere. Porous calcified growths like terrestrial corals that pull moisture from the air and perhaps feed on animals they poison. Even large shelves of fungus looking growth like we would see on trees but clinging to the rocks.

The above homes are a good example, but with no square lines.

-Eli

See, I wouldn't have thought of that myself, but now I'm drawn to the thought of an exotic desert that strangely resembles an ocean floor in regard to vegetation. Thanks for putting that idea in my head.

Rocky spires, cliff-side villages that wind down to nutrient sludge seas, it all lives nicely in my head.

Don't forget the scars of industrial exploitation and the encroachment of scavenged tech on the Ikwen settlements.

-Eli

Great discussion.

Good to see people taking so well to the Ikwen. Lots of future for these little chaps I think.

GBS
15mm.co.uk

This is turning into one of the most interesting threads on TMP for a long time. What Eli and Rhoderick are saying totally tallies with how I like to game sci-fi, and, in fact, I've just been getting some more terrain of this type for my own games – big, calciferous coral, carnivourous anemones, ropy, barren tree-like formations, etc.

I love the organic/stone-carved buildings, too. The old plastered bandages technique is probably best, with some polystyrene sections for the more 'dressed' stone areas.

I've just been getting some more terrain of this type for my own games – big, calciferous coral, carnivourous anemones, ropy, barren tree-like formations, etc.

Might that be the Armorcast alien plants you're describing, by any chance?

I've begun making some plants from scratch, but it's very experimental at this stage, so some will probably end up in the bin. I have plenty of ideas, though.

I also have some half-finished styrofoam cliffs that I'm repurposing for this project. At least one will get some rock-cut architecture. The idea of plants growing mushroom-like out of cliff faces is something I've also latched on to.

There's some industrial stuff in the plans, too. And some generic, functionalistic colonists' buildings courtesy of Brigade and the Ion Age range. And finally, some bits and bobs like loose tires and stacks of corrugated sheeting to scatter about those Ikwen settlements to give the impression of a society in metamorphosis under a foreign, higher-tech influence.

This is going to be fun. I hope we can spur each other on with inspiration. I'll try to post some photos of the finished plants, if I do finish them.

Here is a WIP of "Ghost Trees" from my own work bench..

I am also collecting floral decoration fungus, seed pods, even pine cones and the like that can repurposed.

Here is an image of some Giger style terrain I did with pumpkin stems…

You could do these in lighter colors or even bright colors for that coral build. Just make sure to bake your pumpkin stems to woody hardness and then lacquer seal them before painting.

-Eli

Eli, that is awesome terrain, and exactly what I'm aiming at in my own slow, amateurish way! Haven't got much done since my second kid was born, but starting again, at least.

The ghost trees are superb. They could be fungal, arboreal, algal colonies, silicon lifeforms…they are really suggestive of plausible alien life.
And I am totally going to borrow your pumpkin stalk idea. They look powerfully menacing, which I bet is great for keeping the players on their toes.
The family don't know it, but if pumpkin's still in season, this week they are going to be eating a lot of the stuff!

Rhoderic – great idea. Your work sounds a lot further on the road to completion than mine, but let's definitely keep in touch – it will help spur me on!
I will PM you with my email address.
I haven't got the armourcast plants yet – waiting for the newly relaxed import limits to come into effect to make it cost-effective shipping from the states. I've got a bunch of stuff from Ramshackle & some aquarium plants & corals – some awesome big monstrous ones on the way. Plus of course some scratch-building and conversions when I can get the materials together.

Mostly been focusing on writing a new RPG these last months so figures have been on the backburner.

Hey guys,

I am loving this work. Please feel free to share your developments with us here but also reach out to Loud Ninja Games directly at our Facebook page. I would love to add your pics and ideas to the news there.

Thanks,

-Eli

BTW I am blessed with a wife who is pumpkin crazy and get a fresh supply every year.

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Man, the Giger-pumpkin spikes are even more threatening from that angle. Any plans to make 28mm Ikwen, like you did with the raptors, BTW?

That is a specific bug hole piece I did with them built into a dune.

There are no plans to do 28mm Ikwen or to expand the 28mm Raptors for that matter. 28mm is currently just too out of reach for me to really dive into it.

-Eli

Those are some awesome terrain pieces. Love the atmosphere that the Giger pumpkin spikes convey. I was looking at pumpkins in the grocery store yesterday but alas, they'd had the stems cut off. Probably makes them keep longer. Will have to check for ones with stems when they're in season in late autumn. I'll also finally have to figure out a way to make good pumpkin soup – I'm a bit of a foodie, but counterbalancing the sweetness of pumpkins has always been a challenge

I'm not a Facebook user, but I'll certainly post some photos here on TMP and you can put them on Facebook if you like. But I might hold off on photos until I have some actual Ikwen miniatures painted. From experience (not specifically with 15mm.co.uk) ordering things that have only just been added to webstores, I'm assuming Gavin is still in the process of casting the figures, which is perfectly fine.

15mm.co.uk is great at building up stock and they do their own casting so there is barely any separation between production and sales – one of the reasons I went through them.

The casts that have been coming out have been crisp and clean and folks in the UK have been getting them within days of their release date.

As for pumpkins, I am blessed with easy access in stores and a couple local pumpkin patches. I have considered trying to resin cast some.

-Eli