Halo Micro Ops

The Halo franchise has been very successful, and I've played the game a few times, but it never really appealed to me. I won't go into the backstory, since it did not seem particularly innovative, but what has interested me with regard to the Halo franchise, is that McFarlane Toys has released a series of toys that are in the 1/76 to 1/72 range.

I picked up the ODST Drop Pods set, since it came with three figures. I'm guessing the guys in gray armor represent Sgt. Edward Buck and the Rookie, while the one in blue armor is Veronica Dare.

The kit also comes with two ODST Drop Pods, one with a drag chute and detachable stand, and the other with an impact crater to use as a support.

The doors open on both pods to display the interior. The front panel is not hinged, and just comes off.

The human figures in the small sets seem to be closer to 1/76 scale. I'm not sure how the aliens scale out, but they are quite a bit larger than human sized. Series 1 also includes some more expensive large sets, and from what I saw at the store, the figures seem to be a bit larger as well. I may get one of the Falcon troop transports to do a comparison in the future.

Dragonsnail

Dragonsnails are gigantic chaos-mutated pond snails that mostly sport one or two heads, and enjoy eating people. They inhabit the swamplands of Prax, in particular the Devil's Marsh, where they presumably originated.

Pictured here are two dragonsnail miniatures. The snail on the left is a Drakesnail from the Dreamblade CMG (Chrysotic Plague #20). The snail on the right is a Ral Partha dragonsnail from the Creatures of Glorantha boxed set (RuneQuest 10-402), also available in the Dark Denizens blister pack (RuneQuest 18-015).

The earliest dragonsnail miniature, however, was produced by Archive Miniatures, and faithfully replicates the artwork by Luise Perrin from RuneQuest 2nd edition (shown at the top of the page). It is a particularly difficult miniature to find, and remains high up on my hunt list.

All the available dragonsnail miniatures are two-headed versions, so anyone wanting a one-headed (or three headed) dragonsnail will have to make their own. Probably not too difficult to do using seashells available in any craft store.

I just quickly made a couple of mock-ups out of Elmer's-Tack, but when I have some time, I'll make up some proper one-headed dragonsnails.

Vul-Kar

While doing an image search for OSR artwork, I came across an illustration by Stefan Poag that reminded me of the Vul-Kar idol from the Fireball Island game made by Milton Bradley that I bought a while back to use as a piece of dungeon terrain.

The idol is made up of three pieces molded in a very dark brown plastic.

I decided to wire it up with some LED lighting to spiff it up a bit and make it look more like the artwork from the game. To do that, I drilled out the eyes to allow the LEDs to shine through.

I then drilled two small holes in the base to accommodate wiring for the LEDs, and a larger hole for a burning flame.

The flame is a Mega Bloks torch flame from their old Dragons line.

I wired it all up in series, soldered the connections, and used some electrical tape to hold down the loose parts.

9 volt battery attached, and voilà!

As an aside, Vul-Kar bears (at least to me) a strong resemblance to Zardoz.

Zardoz (or Vul-Kar) may also have been an influence on the decoration on the front of the Iron Claw Goblin Stone Thrower as well.