Chop Shop: Ogre 1 One Step Closer

 

Above is the model from last time, given a trim, and to check I took the photo and mirrored each half to judge how close I was to my goal, then, I mirrored the picture again.

Below the pictures on the right show the difference between mirroring using the center line of the tower versus cutting from where the tower meets the front slope. 

 

This was when I noticed my tower was skew-whiff. I hacked away at the tower to make it symmetrical, or at least more or less symmetrical, checking my overall progress towards capturing the original Martian Metals Ogre

Below is a birds eye view showing Keith Falk's Martian Metals Ogre, versus my conversion. As can be seen, my facsimile is going to be a quarter of an inch shorter than the Martian Metals casting.

It is what it is.

At this point I thought it was time to add the bug eyes. Drilling out the holes, revealed why I had been struggling to make the main front glacis symmetrical.

The work continues in the never ending saga of adding and subtracting putty.  

 

And a side shot showing the difference in the tower profile.

 

That's all for now. Catch you on the bounce.

MekTek Issue 2

Again another beautiful piece of artwork from Steve Kyte adorns the cover of issue two.

All uncredited articles and artwork contents for issue two were again me, and was again joined by Alex Stewart, and Simon Kemp who read the first issue, sent me a couple of reviews too.  

Mechs at Large editorial offering pointers to what I was interested in and what I would be writing about.

Japanima Talking about mecha animation shows on American syndicated TV, and how this fed back to influence what the Japanese animation studios were doing.

Manga, Manga  Started with me praising the American mecha comic Dynamo Jo by Doug Rice, which should be much better known that it is, followed by his four issue mini-series of Star Blazers. Also, mentioned were the translated Japanese properties Xenon, Area 88 manga, and Mai Psychic Girl.

Warnography Alex Stewart reviewed Price of Glory by William Keith, and The Devils Hand by Jack McKinney, with again a harsh, but fair review of the latter.

Encounter on Ice was a scenario inspired by watching Mad Max with four mech designs by me for the intruders to give Max's lance a hard time.

Snapshots Simon Kemp reviwed Aerotech, Technical Readout 2, and the Succession Wars Battletech boardgame. While I reviewed Stardate Vol 3, issue 2, and my thoughts on the first three issues of Battle Technology (buy MekTek instead).

Meka of Design was a long article by me breaking down the battlemech construction rules.

MekTek Trio I reviewed the BattleTech Manual comparing the rules against the original BattleDroids and BattleTech box set rules.

MekTek LOCs I published a letter by Sam Lewis of FASA, and two letters by readers of issue 1.

The plan is to put all four of the MekTek issues on DriveThruRPG at some point this year, along with the revised OHMU War Machine rules, which requires some work to make if a PDF.

Chop Shop: Ogre 1 Conversion Symmetry

Symmetry is a thing. One that castings made from sculpts were more of a suggestion, rather than something strictly adhered to. My Ral Partha original Mk5 is mostly symmetrical.

Converting it into a facsimile (word of the week) of a Martian Metals Ogre questions what symmetry means when the originals were anything but symmetrical. So, I took a picture from the front, and then split and mirrored each side, which can be seen below.

As can be seen, I haven't quite got both sides the same. So there's more work ahead.

Catch you on the bounce. 

OHMU War Machine Schrödinger Update

Given the last post about I did about OHMU War Machine was 2023, which itself referred to an earlier post in 2021, and an even earlier mention in 2012. It seems interest in OHMU won't die. 

However, one hurdle preventing some sort of re-issue has been crossed, now I've managed to have my copy scanned.

This is a big help towards proceeding forward with this project.

The question now is, whether this a facsimile of the original, or a revised an updated edition with errata? I'm tending towards the latter, because a facsimile would just be scans of the text as jpegs.

But, as you can see above the pagination will change the look of the book. Let me know your thoughts?

Either way, something is coming as a PDF, but as to when, I'll let you know when I know.

MekTek: A BattleTech Fanzine 1

MekTek was a British BattleTech fanzine produced by me, which came out in 1988. The cover of the first issue was by Steve Kyte.

All the uncredited articles and artwork in issue one were done by me, while the Warnography article was written by Alex Stewart, aka Sandy Mitchell author of Ciaphus Cain.

Mechs at Large was my 'raison d'être' for producing the fanzine, bemoaning the direction FASA focusing on setting, rather than game mechanics (oh boy, did that change later with excessive rules bloat).

Japanima I looked at mecha in Japanese animation, describing the three series that were combined into what became Robotech.

Warnography Reviewed the William Keith's first two Gray Death books, and Ardath Mayhar's The Sword and the Dagger. Alex wasn't kind to the latter.

Thundering Guns described a number of new weapons (Gauss gun; disruptor; fusion cannon; grenade launcher; two sizes of auto-flechette shot guns; medium range missiles; heavy missiles), with a table defining their stats.

Heavier Metal added two variant mech types. The first was armless bipedal mechs, which added the internal arm structure to the torso. The second was the Tetra mech, which was a different way to record a quad mech structure (a record sheet was included). Tetra mech records sheets made it possible to construct quad mechs up to 200 tons (divided into weight classes).

Grunts'n Groan'n When Rock'n Roll'n expanded the infantry rules (mechanized; body armour; platoon organization), and added troop quality too (militia; conscripts; regulars; veterans; elite), and a mechanism for tracking combat experience. A table defined the stats.

Apocalypse Choppers was my way of adding helicopters to the game. At the time this was written, CityTech had just been released, and I had opinions.

So, I'm noodling whether or not to put MekTek up on DriveThruRPG as a PDF, but I'm not sure an old British fanzine from the late 1980s holds any interest for todays BattleTech fan.