Terra Force

Unfortunately, time is a precious commodity for now. Spring has brought a raft of tasks and the hobby time has suffered greatly. I am very busy in my free time building 15mm paper terrain for my new forces to battle around. I've also acquired the Industrial Terrain pack from World Works games to make a massive warehouse for Dr Dread to conduct nefarious business from...and for my children's Supers to fight in.

The first four vicks up for review were submitted for the painting challenge and are for use for the Terra Force which for now will be the principle foes for the Alien Legion.

They are from Rebel Minis and are a hybrid kit of pewter and resin. They have differing names on the website but they are Humvees and MATVs. They come with a sprue containing rotary cannons, mk2 50 cals, mk19 grenade launchers, and m140s. You get them and gun tubs to attch to the resin bodies which do require some clean up. They attach to metal chassis and wheels which are the same for both kits.

These are the first 15mm I painted and among my first submissions for the challenge. The MATVs were tarted up with ruck sacks from Khurasan Miniaures SEAL Team. 

I had a grand time painting them up and inventing a camo pattern for them. The primary concern was not to paint them tan!

The walkers are from a company who's name I forget at the moment. They give Terra Force a heavy punch. They were a chore to put together as the legs are an assembly of 9 separate metal pieces and the models had no instructions. I acquired them from a friend who was going to use them as robotic sentinels for a 40k guard force. They fell apart constantly and even defied pinning. I finally got them together by pinning everything and mounting them on trash CD-ROM discs.(the old AOL offers!)

Although they were a pain to put together, They were a lot of fun to paint! I really like them now!

I got rather good with the NMM on them and really enjoy the effect it gives them. The Camouflage from the trucks really shines on them too.

The vents and armor plates, the optics, the lights, and the cables hanging from the legs....I really like the look of them.

I used off cuts of evergreen plastic sheets from past projects and bits from my horded "box of reclamation" to tart the bases up. The disks have a lot of vacant spots that scream for attention!

Again, I hope to have some new for next week like the 15mm terrain that I'm working on. I have also found the old tanks from the Cadian 7th. The 7th will feature across several posts this summer. They recently added another defeat to their fame. My buddy Dave trounced them with his Space Wolves!

I plan on completing the old tanks to match the ones I did for the painting challenge, but before I do so, I need to take advantage of them and show how far my painting has come along in all these years....I also have to finish them as my goal is to complete them and my not finished British Infantry of the Peninsular War .

I have drill and a PT test approaching and must step up my running and exercise regime. Softball and baseball games, garden needs tilling and planting, work , honey-do's, perhaps we will count it lucky if I post next week! ;)

Alien Legion

I have a lot to share, I'm still working on more newer projects. I have a huge backlog of stuff painted for the Analogue Hobbies Winter Painting Challenge. I should just let them lie, gathering dust and cobwebs in the murky depths of my drives, dusting them off periodically to present here. Maybe get back to posting on a Thursday or Saturday each week. I just couldn't let them lie that long. Alien Legion is my favorite work in any media. I cannot think of any aspect about them that I do not enjoy.

I've wanted to game them for a long time. I always held out hope that somebody would make them. In the end, I found stuff that I could use from Khurasan Miniatures, Critical Mass Games, and Rebel Miniatures. 15mm....I don't paint 15's, I'm a 28mm fellow! I made a huge list from the internet and gave it to my wife( I was not allowed to purchase new stuff at the time). To welcome me back from Afghanistan, I got Christmas and birthday presents sourced from my lists with extras that my wife and kids thought that I'd enjoy...and use.

I never did get all the comics, when I was younger.( I may rectify that with Amazon!) The few comic books I did get, though, firmly cemented that the snake-man-alien, Sarigar, was an absolute bad @$$! Jugger Grimrod was a very rough customer too. Sarigar is the leader of Nomad Squad of the Alien Legion. The Alien Legion is very much like a French Foreign Legion in Spaaaaace! The big difference is the Legion serves an intergalactic empire using the dregs from that society. They are volunteers, 'Volun-told', prisoners, cutthroats, degenerates, scum, misfits, and pretty much anyone that no other military outfit would want. Some of the Legionnaires really hate their squad mates as generational bigotry and rivalries have been inbred into them. They get suicide missions, racially charged missions, diplomatic travesties, last stands... their equipment is old, the armor not up to snuf, and they must beg, borrow, and steal to survive. They don't do 'Dog and Pony', 'Meet and Greet'. They are always going to go someplace nastier than they were before.

 

This is my command squad with the center being a conversion of Sarigar. Sarigar comes from a Critical Mass Snakman alien mercenary. He got a head swap with a Pangalactic alien model, blue paint with a couple of dabs of orange finished the look. He is flanked by Critical Mass Viridian Assasins who are proxies for a commo trooper and medic. The back figures are Command models from Rebel Minis Pangalactic Legion who are an XO and 1st Sgt to the force. The Yellow denotes officers/characters, Blue is NCOs, Red is Special/support weapons, and Green are specialist like Commo, Medics, Observers, etc.

Above are just a few of my favorite Khurasan Miniatures Jade Throne Foreign Battalion. They really capture the Alien Legion very well with all sorts of bizarre and varied creatures in the squads. Khurasan is my favorite for this force bar none. I just discovered that they have a leader model for the JTFB that is a snake-oid, blue skin alien with a tall pointy hat( like Sarigar wearing a funny pointy hat). I like my conversion better, but I may pick up that model in the future.

The tractors are from Khurasan too, a cruciform anti-air/anti-personnel and a howitzer. They were very easy to put together and the crew models are really good. I also have the JTFB tank crew halves, but I still have to determine what sort of armor the Alien Legion will get- track, antigrav, hover,...

The NCOs of the legion. In front is Khurasan flanking a Rebel mini, the back row is a snake merc from Critical Mass, a Khurasan, and a rebel mini Pangalactic trooper.

I tried to retake this, but Sarigar must have a distortion field. Jugger is in the center and is a stock Pangalactic Legion from Rebel Minis. The only model that came in the pack with a helmet and it seemed a dead ringer for Jugger...but no knifes. Jugger is very good at hiding weapons though!

The Virdian Assassins have formed a Ranger Squad with Jugger. The have a Comms trooper, a rocket launcher, a NCO, an Officer, and a PanGalactic trooper with bladed gauntlets...they also have Jugger!

The Virdians are all stock, but I did add a Khurasan Power suit rifle to the NCO who had no weapons. I'm certain the Assassins are pretty hard core in the system they come from, but I'm using them as Jugger's Pathfinder Team.

This is what  a squad would look like. A critical Mass NCO leading a mixture of Rebel and Khurasan models.

A whole lotta Legionaires to choose from. Besides the Rangers, I can make five 10- being squads.

These are the close combat Pangalactic legionnaires. I didn't have them on my list, but I do like them! each squad gets them to cut thru stuff, walls, people, etc.

All the squad support weapons. The back row is all Khurasan, the front row are two Critical Mass Snakeman mercs and one Pangalactic Legionnaire. The Red snake alien has a larger Khurasan power suit rifle added. I believe he was supposed to be a close combat trooper, but I needed another big gun to round out the squads.

Just like the books, I kept the body armor white and the bodysuits black. I went to town on the alien skin though! I used colors that I haven't used in a long while too. When I first entered Painting challenge #5, this army was my #1 goal to finish. The theme was Anti-hero and the Alien Legion are true antiheroes. They made a nice final entry for me. I also got to practice on all the other 15mm stuff that my wife and kids had gotten me before I began these guys. 15mm is a total deviation from what I usually do. It was really different painting in the smaller scales. The head swap for Sarigar was not easy either. I glued his head on upside-down on the first go! They are finished and ready for battle.

A buddy has Gruntz and a sci-fi force ready to rumble. I bought 5150 Star Army. I will give them both a whirl. I haven't read Gruntz yet, I have read 5150 though. I have Ranger squads for the elite of the Star Army. I plan on running all my 15mm forces as Star Army which will keep weapons and squads pretty even for both sides with maneuver and tactics being key. 5150 is easily adapted to being solo play which is a bonus. Sometimes my kids want to do something else and sometimes friends can't get out to the country to play. Solo play seems wrong, but sometimes it's just pure fun to chuck dice!