Serpents and Scenery

The first couple of units for my 15mm snake-army are done - the battlesuit platoon and an infantry platoon.

I picked up four of the battlesuits, and for the moment I'm fielding them as a single unit. Once I get around to finalizing an army list I'll probably allow unit sizes of 3-5. In terms of game stats, I'm thinking these guys should be more like light AFVs than MBTs, but with enough punch to threaten MBTs from the flank. (Incidentally, the intent is to have all of these guys, and the heavy weapons teams on Battlefront large bases; I just ran out and had to order some more.)

The first infantry platoon is also done.

Regarding the name of the army, since I'm not using any of Critical Mass's backstory I'm going to ignore the name Astagar. For now I'm just going to refer to these guys as "The Serpents". Not terribly original I know, but it's a cool word and a logical nickname human opponents might give them. When/if I end up creating some backstory they may get a more distinctive name.

15mm Scenery

With the Serpent army coming together, I decided to take stock of where my 15mm terrain collection stood at. The summary version would be "very basic". I probably have enough to play a game, but only just and a lot of it is unfinished.

My collection of woods and trees is decent. It helps that the local Hobby Lobby has a good selection of model scenery material, including a few varieties of ready made trees, and the flocked mats that I use to define the wood/forest areas. All I need to do is base the trees (and even that is somewhat optional).

For urban terrain, I have around 5 or 6 medium sized buildings, but unpainted and I need to purchase roofs for a couple of them. I also don't have any roads.

The other major thing I'm missing right now (and this is an omission for all scales, not just 15mm) is some hills. My ideal here would be polystyrene hills, beveled around the edge but flat on top, 40mm/ 1.5 inch high, and flocked with the same summer grass as my primary gaming mat. My first thought for acquiring these is to post on a local gaming forum and see if anybody would make these for me on commission (or at least has the right tool to cut the polystyrene to shape, after which I could do the surface detail myself). But if that doesn't turn up anything I'll head down to Home Depot, see what sizes of foam tiles they have, and what sort of tools for cutting it to shape.