International Brain Machines - IBM - A Steam Valley Inventor.

 Way back in 2015 I started a new VSF project called Steam Valley.  Steam Valley background

It consisted of a number of inventors or companies' proposed military inventions, all suitably Victorian Science Fictiony. Click the Steam Valley label to the left to see them all. The one I never got around to completing was International Brain Machines (aka IBM) but a late 2025 purchase of 10 Necron Warriors for $17 allows me to finish them off. (I am way to cheap to purchase a new box of Necron Warriors that would cost $87 from GW.)

International Brain Machines

IBM is a consortium of investors from the United States of America who have developed a way of integrating human brains with machinery and using the brains as a control mechanism. They have been supported by project money supplied by the US Army's DARPA division (Daring And Revolutionary Proposals  Agency) in their attempt to ensure that future American armies will not have the same casualties as were incurred in the civil war.

IBM has opened a laboratory in Steam Valley to be closer to suppliers of specialised equipment but primarily  for the location's renown tolerance for the weird and wonderful, including human experimentation, that seems to cause other societies to reach for their pitchforks and torches.

IBM have developed three different automated weapons for the US Army who have sent along Major Arthur MacArthur Jr to monitor their investment.

A Steam Powered Vehicle with a three Brain control unit - Major MacArthur to the right. 
One brain is the commander, the second the gunner, and the third the driver. IBM found that trying to use less than three brains in the turret was inefficient. 

Heavy Assault Automatons.

Assault team.

Regular Automatons for the army. Useful for defence and also as follow-up for attacks by the assault teams. Powered by the new Curie Radium Atom Plants it gives them a healthy green glow.

All teams come with support personnel with extra brain liquid to keep them functioning at 100%

Well the lucky purchase of the Necron warriors helped me to complete the figure portion of this project. While building the rest of the factions 10 years ago I had made all the terrain so now I am finally in a position to actually fight the battles between each of the factions. I had purchased the GASLIGHT rules for this so I will use them for the games.

Hopefully I will get around to this soon or at least this year.

Butterflies and Disney Princesses

 A random inspiration while perusing a manufacturer's website was  making a small 28mm skirmish force of Snow White and the Eight Dwarves. This was then followed by pondering what other Disney Princesses could be used.

Elsa for Frozen was front of mind as my grand daughter is infatuated with her. Then I thought of Cinderella and a collection of "mouseketeers" with a Fairy Godmother sorceress. Mulan and her warriors and a dragon. Then came the Princess and the Frog as I already had a frog army for my 40k Dangerous Fauna.

A purchase of 15 snowmen was quickly made from Aliexpress for $10 and I already had some penguins with SMG so Elsa's force was complete.

However, unusually for me, I thought "What and when would I use these for?" Having no answer I rationally decided that while these would be fun little projects they were not needed when there were already a lot of other projects waiting for my time.

I searched for an Elsa so the snowmen would not go to waste and found her plus a friend in a packet of two resin elf sorceress. The second one was suitable for the Princess and the Frog so another $12 later I was closing out the purchasing for this butterfly project.

Here are the pictures.

Elsa and her gang.

Inspiration from Disney's version

My Elsa interpretation

Elsa and some friends... sending a cold front to someone

Elsa and more friends

Elsa's heavy hitters  "Reservoir Penguins" *

The Princess and the Frog

Inspiration from Disney

My version with her two froggy princes

The Princess sends out her horde of frogs.   They fear no one except the French.

Well, all in all I got out of that with little expense in either time or money.

This got me thinking about all the projects half done that I have waiting in various boxes. I really do need to concentrate on some of these so the Napoleonic British are going on hold** until I sort everything out and make a plan.

* "Reservoir Penguins" - stolen from Mr. Tarantino's film Reservoir Dogs whose characters hid their identities under colourful names.

** I am sure many of you are thinking that I am just increasing the number of unfinished projects and so making things worse, and, that's a good point.

See you next time with something a bit more rational - we hope.

French Napoleonic - Grenadiers

 First post for 2026 and last post for the French Army Painting Project

The last two units for the French Napoleonic Army.  the 92nd* and 72nd Grenadiers*

The 92nd marching in column head on.

The 92nd marching in column at an angle

The 72nd in line. Unfortunately for them I have run out of drummers.

* these flags are from line units left over so I have used them.

Finally the army is completed.  An army review to follow.

10mm Figures and flags from Pendraken.

300 of        300 Infantry              10 units of 30        Completed 100%  YAY.

55 of        55 Skirmishers              5 units of 11        Completed 100%  YAY!

60 of        60 Cavalry                    4 units of 15        Completed 100%   YAY

9/36 of       9 Guns with 36 crew.                             Completed 100%    YAY

5 of            5 Command stands.                                Completed 100% YAY

I have now flocked all the bases and they look better and just have to do the photo shoot (I wonder if that is why we call it modelling?)

In January/February I hope to tie up a few loose ends from 2025, the Napoleonic army review, and update my census of painted and unpainted figures as well as my current list of stalled projects.