By Tom Crandall (MiniatureReview.com)
2010-03-08
Who does the sculpting for your 6mm Sci-Fi figure range?
For all vehicle and aircraft miniatures, the “sculpts” are actually 3-D desings made with a computer. Then, after a long and arduous process, they are produced in metal like all other wargaming miniatures. The designs are made by myself. The infantry models have been “traditionally” sculpted by Michael Lovejoy.
What was your inspiration for doing 6mm Sci-Fi?
The answer to this question is actually 3-fold. Firstly, I love science fiction in general. I’ve always loved it ever since I was a child and a good sci-fi setting or story still captures my imagination in a way nothing else can. I am a hardcore sci-fi fan and although I will occasionally enjoy a mature and dark fantasy story or game, when it comes to my creative ventures one way or another it always comes down to science fiction. Secondly, I love recreating mechanized warfare on a grand scale, with armor, aircraft, ships or whatever other hi-tech contraption, creating big amounts of mayhem.. The third aspect is that when I started the project there were no 6mm miniature lines that were close enough to my taste. The “hard” sci-fi look I wanted was nowhere to be found. So I started imagining , scetching and learning 3-D programs, one thing lead to the next and... voila, Plasmablast Games was born. With hindsight, knowing all the difficulties, the problems and especially the expenses involved I would never have started it but now it’s there and I’m happy about it.
Your current lineup consists of the Progenitor and Orbital Combine. Do you plan on releasing other armies?
Actually yes, the “races lineup” will be completed after the release of an strictly artificial intellingence-controlled race. 
The backstory of the race came up to me when writing about the story of the existing races, the Progenitors and the Orbital Combine. The new race (working title “Machine Legion”) initially were just a work force for the Orbital Combine which went rogue when their masters presence on their home planet was eradicated by the Progenitors. Of course before releasing any miniatures for the Machine Legion, I will have to finish the existing races first, which have several models each on the pipeline before they could considered “completed”.
Do you plan on releasing a backstory for your races?
This was a difficult decision to make. Actually I don’t want people interested in the Plasmablast models to be “forced” to connect them with any existing story. As a gamer I’ve found very often great pleasure in having some nice miniatures and creating my own imaginative world in which they belonged and fought. So, this “modus operandi” is what I encourage other people to do, i.e. use their own imagination and go along with that. However, it is impossible to stop my own imagination from doing the same and since the Plasmablast project is so committing, it would be a pitty not to offer to anyone interested my own vision of the imaginary world the forces belong to. According to this pattern, I will soon release a summary of the background of the 2 races involved up to now, and as a good start I’ll make available to you the descriptions of the forces.
Do you have a release date for any new figures....like the Orbital Combine Super-Heavy Tank?
The Orbital Combine super-heavy tank design is finished and the Progenitor equivalent is at about 35%. Once it gets also finished I will go ahead full-speed producing them but since the production pipeline is so arduous and long I’m afraid they won’t be available before June 2010. After that, the heavy assault tanks will be en route. These will bridge the gap between the heavy and super-heavy tanks, which will be really big!
What are your future plans for the 6mm Sci-Fi range?
My main plans for the 6mm range, apart from completing the existing lines and starting the new one I’ve mentioned above is to write a ruleset which will play in a way that will place emphasis mostly on C4I and also electronic warfare. My vision for it is to integrate air, land and naval units in a seamless playing system which will place its decision making weight not so much on modifiers manipulation but rather on command & control choices. We are already playtesting early versions of this ruleset and it looks very promising but it certainly needs more work and I cannot give any estimate about when it will be published. For sure the ruleset will be supported by a campaign mechanism and also a separate narrative campaign with branching scenarios and a strong backstory, a sub-project I’m very excited about.
I see that Peter Jones wrote up army lists for the Future War Commander ruleset. Do you know of anyone else with a ruleset that has created army lists for your figures?
Peter did an outstanding job in capturing the feel of the armies and reflecting the peculiarities of the models on their attributes, so I’m very happy about the FWC lists. Apart from that, actually there is a new science fiction ruleset to be released very soon by Karl Johnson for which there will be lists from the start. I have actually helped a bit for its development and I am cauurently under a non-disclosure agreement so I can’t really say much about it but I can certainly say that it looks really exciting, incorporating a unique –and very smart- mechanism to adjust the aggressive or defensive behavior of the units involved and has tons of other stuff too.
Peter Jones from
Specialist Military Publishing has kindly written army lists for the
Future War Commander
ruleset. The lists cover both the Progenitors and the Orbital Combine
so all of you who have this excellent ruleset will be able to play it
with Plasmablast miniatures without having to create a list by
yourselves. Visit
downloads to get them.
Do you plan on moving to other scales either with miniatures or with rules?
The possibility is always there, especially with the rules, since I love the process of developing a ruleset, plus I have experience on that with the “Assault Squad” ruleset. Assault Squad is a set of rules I had written for 28mm miniatures and forces of about a gang per side or so. When publicly released about 6 years ago, it was received with very good reviews (it was free too!) and it saw several revisions and improvements as a result. I am planning in expanding it, streamlining it, exhaustively playtesting it and then releasing it again because its core mechanism proved to be very good, it would be a pitty to just let it die. The only question is if I ever manage to spare the time for that!
Thank you very much.
To see a closer look at the figures please check out
this article