Category: news

Car Wars 2004

When I was younger I use to play a lot of Car Wars and even had an article published in Autoduel Quarterly, the magazine for Car Wars. One feature of the mag I liked was the historical references to “current” day events.

I was looking for something else on the web when I came across this, the SmarTruck III.

Now the blurb from the website says:

SmarTruck III is built on an International medium duty truck platform and features the most advanced communications, detection and deterrent systems to be deployed in a vehicle-based mobile unit. The next three commercial variants of SmarTruck III will be delivered to the Air Force; other potential end users are the Border Patrol and the U.S. Marshals Service.

SmarTruck III, like its two predecessors, is loaded with sophisticated technology including a weapons station module – featuring a remote controlled 50-calibre machine gun – a surveillance module with a 360-degree camera, a pan and tilt night vision camera with laser range finder, a hydraulic assist system to help the vehicle during acceleration, a regenerative braking system, which stores energy and makes the vehicle more fuel efficient and a terrain adjustable suspension and chassis system. The vehicle has sufficient gross vehicle weight (GVW) to accommodate armor and additional weapons or control modules while still providing excellent performance and fuel efficiency.

(my emphasis)

Now if that is not straight out of Car Wars I don’t know what is?

Weapons of Choice – first part of the Axis of Time Trilogy…

I am currently reading and enjoying John Birmingham’s Weapons of Choice, the first part of the Axis of Time Trilogy.

It is not high brow science fiction and anyone who has seen the film the Final Countdown will be having deja vue.

There are a few references to Harry Turtledove’s World War series which aren’t really needed and of course there are a lot of similarities between the two books.

Having said that it is a fun read and I will be looking forward to the next two books.

You can get the book in the UK from Amazon.

American Empire – Harry Turtledove

Just finished the third book in the trilogy…

I have just finished reading The Victorious Opposition and I am about to purchase the next in the series, Return Engagement, which has just been published in the USA and available in the UK from Amazon.

You can purchase the UK edition in October (which has a much better cover in my opinion).

I am a bit of a fan of Turtledove, but didn’t enjoy American Empire as much as previous books until I read the final part of the trilogy which was very exciting and riveting. Glad in one way I left it a bit before I read it, as I have not needed to wait for the start of the sequel trilogy.

Favourite and least favourite models

On the EpiComm forums, one question asked was which are your favourite and which are your least favourite.

Here are my choices…

Favourite:
Infantry trooper – IG Codex Grey Infantry.
Light Vehicle – Ork Wartrakk (Epic40k version) though the metal Space Marine bike from SM1 was a close second, it’s probably as I have used the Wartrakk more in games.

Standard Tank – Leman Russ (Epic40K version), this was a difficult choice as I also really like the Epic40K Space Marine Vindicator and the Ork Bowelburna, Lungbursta were also in the running.

Super Heavy – Capitol Imperialis is I guess my fave, but I also like the E40K Imperial SHTs and Ork Battlefortresses

Fliers – Currently the E40K Ork Fighter Bomber, but I have some Forgeworld flyers in the post and I have yet to see the Landa in the flesh so this will probably change…

Titan (type and class) – Ork Great Gargant version 1 (all metal version from Space Marine)

Least favourite:
Infantry trooper – standard Ork Boyz, it’s just okay when it could have been so much improved for both E40K and EA, I am also not as fan of the Shooty Boyz.
Light Vehicle – Ork Plastic Buggy – ugh when I first saw it I didn’t realise it was a buggy, and was very disappointed with it!
Standard Tank – SM2 Vindicator, it’s just awful, no debate, just awful!
Super Heavy – Leviathan – was always way out of scale and never seemed to fit in with other models
Flier – Space Marine Thunderhawk (all versions but the first version was particularly awful)
Titan (type and class) – Mega-Gargant, though the Imperator Titan was a close second.

Furuta Star Trek Models

I recently talked about how I had found some new Star Trek models from a Japanese company called Furuta.

It would appear the boxes I saw were from the second series of models that the company have released and that my first assumption that they contained only the original series USS Enterprise, it now appears that each box contains a random ship – which makes it annoying if you want to collect the entire set!

Star Trek Models

Those of you who have looked over my website will realise that I have quite a large section devoted to Star Trek Full Thrust which covers using GZG’s excellent Full Thrust rules in the Star Trek universe.

I have a large collection of MicroMachines Star Trek ships and sadly these are now no longer available.

I was in Forbidden Planet and have found a potential source of models from a Japanese company called Furuta. Forbidden Planet only seemed to have one model, the USS Enterprise, but it looks like they could be useful as they may be bigger than the MicroMachines models.