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!

 

Defiance Games UAMC- supposed to be Pinzgauer

It's been a pretty good week thus far! I'm still adjusting to working days. It seems that my biological clock says SLEEP TIME at 830ish in the evening. I'm really not used to that! My daughters also are adjusting to having me around in the evening hours. I have been plagued with pop music earworms like "thriftshop" "royals", "applause" etc. I find myself humming them at work which is really odd as I am more of a hard rock head banger type. Metallica, AC/DC, Ramones, etc. that is more my speed with a little bit of Supertramp and Linkin Park. I found out that my darling girls play bubblegum music while I sleep and they are involved in schoolwork. My wife did not approve my proposal for blasting Judas Priest or Queensryche at window rattling decibles during my 3am workouts as a reprisal. She was more diplomatic and headphone usage is now mandatory.... A shame as I had Manowar's Hail and Kill ready to go for my morning workout!
 So now on my day off, I am awaiting my wife to return from shopping with friends as she gathers culinary ingredients for Thanksgiving. My sole obligation for the day is hanging pictures and shelves, but I have to wait for her presence so that I will not have to do it twice. In the meantime, I decided I'd use my downtime to further present some work from the summer months. It seems that Fridays will be the new day for posting unless overtime prevents it in which case I'll get something up on Thursdays. Todays subject will be the mighty Pinzgauer cardstock space shuttle that I finally completed months after the time it was needed for a game that was canceled due to conflicting summer schedules of all parties.
Unfortunately, I was not able to salvage a good photo of the shuttle with it's entirety. The photos taken were too washed out in the flash. I was able to rescue a few shots of the Defiance Games UAMC conversions that I did as well as locate a photo of earlier conversions with the kit and a shot of the mini paint I mentioned last post.

Perched upon the top of the Pinz you can see my Free French Colonial Marines. Behind them lurk a multicam marine and a specops marine. The Pinz was printed as the subdued SpecOps perfect for delivering my SpecOps marine platoon.

The Free French were just a head swap with Perry Napoleonic French Infantry. I actually chose the blue fatigues in inspiration from the French Marine units used in the French and Indian War.

just a barely salvageable photo of the marine fireteams deploying from the Pinz belly.

The French Marine fireteam was just a quick test on what to do with all the plastic bits I have.

The SpecOps were one of two ideas I had for the plastic kit and each box provides enough for a platoon. I have given my kids a fireteam each of NCO, rifleman, Squad Support Weapon Specialist and assistant gunner. I had ordered two boxes, received two more as gifts then got another pair of boxes as a gift while I was deployed and sorely missing the hobby.

In the box above is the multicam platoon and the SpecOps platoon they both were used in the sands of the COP I lived at while in Afghanistan. They were painted when I returned to the States last October.

I couldn't find any photos of the Pinz other than the small portions showed here and in the shipyard posts. I did find this photo of my first conversions of this particular plastic kit. I was inspired by the work I was doing by going on missions with the ANA. I used some spare heads and arms from the Perry Zouaves plastic kit to make these fellows.

They also were the first minis to get hit with the new paints by Derivan, which are pictured behind them. The Reaper Nova marines pictured behind them were the other test batch, but they were coated in my traditional black undercoat while my "native" troops got the old fashioned whitewash to see which undercoat works best this particular paint. I was really interested in how well they dilute.

All my paints get water added to them to where in the end the paint pot is just a thinned out mostly played out wash! considering that my P3 and citadel paints are 12ml and these are 36ml, I think it will be some time before they become just another wash. Since they are of the dropper sort of bottle, I played with the palette in mixing and thinning them. the results of which you can see on the Scifi troops pictured above.

That will be all for this week, I got chores to do! I also need to get cranking on my Naps and Zomicide figures. If I do not get moving on them, I'll ruin the luxury of the reserve photos I have taken! I was at least more fortunate in photographing my very own artwork.

A self portrait of myself(younger) crouching over a French soldier

This is how St Peter would be if he was Algonquin and not Catho! ;)

detail of St Peter. I drew this overseas for a battlebuddy who was shopping for a tattoo.

German Scifi troops(picture heavy)

So, Halloween has passed. I did get the obligatory zombie post out of the way, albeit with scarier photography! This month has been zooming along thus far. I'm still working lots of OT at work, plus household tasks, and still have military obligations. On the upside, Zombicide has arrived!
I am still working on my British foot, but I couldn't resist slapping some paint on zombie convicts and guards. I even added to the ranks by selecting a few "normal" zombies to share in prisoner orange and guard black. I'll get them up here later, and hopefully with better pictures as these sculpts are top notch for a boardgame and really match the games artwork. My kids are excited as well and looking forward to our first outing- hopefully next weekend!
I finally got the old tower computer desk removed and replaced with one of my drafting tables. This is a fantastic development as now I can paint and model at a proper table ;as well as, work on my laptop for surfing internet, art, or online courses. My wife appreciates the ease of cleaning her living room and the sudden disappearance of the tv tray I was confined to. I would remove all my stuff to the garage-aka mancave-, but it is not climate controlled vs Michigan weather. The garage is also now a repository for other projects and tasks I've yet to accomplish!
In continuing with gifts received LAST year. I have my oft promised Defiance Games German Panzer Grenadiers. Although I am a tough old goat and can still run, ruck, and fight with the best; superglue gives me a rash like you wouldn't believe. I'll sort, prep, and stow several projects just to spend a day with my nemesis and keep the rash time to a minimum. Usually in the Spring or Fall so cold does not effect the joins and heat doesn't add to my skin's discomfort! The Germans are made of the restic stuff( you know not plastic/ not resin but an unholy union of both). But, I digress, here are the pics!

The back of the box, I got two enough for two gruppes!

My good buddy Jeremy Bernhardt painted the very capable looking female troop on the back, alas I'm not at that level.

You get a plethora of these baggies in the kit.

yes, another bad photo of a prospective closeup...I promise more bad photos!

a prone gunner and a few casualties. The later is excellent for scenic bases, terrain, or objective markers. Although I do not actively look for them, I consider them a bonus as I enjoy terrain building and objective markers as much as building my armies of minions.

you also get these sprues of arms with all the weapons you'll need for the troops and the detail is fantastic!

some loose weapons too which will also add to my supplemental builds.

another shot of the weapon arms

you can make them all helmeted or go with patrol caps.

the heads of the fellas...

...and the women.

 

You can make them faceless as well

some more arms(support side) and the squad support weapon arms.

I really like the detail of these scifi german troops

Minimal clean up required, you will need to wash them as they feel slick to the touch and resist washes unless you clean them first. I don't like to use superglue more than once, so I washed them well to ad in the bonding

a lot of legs to vary your troops! My only complaint is the kneeling pose as a soldier will sit on their leg to achieve a more stable firing position. this one is more of a transition or rest pose.

great armor and pads though

the straps are not obnoxious,yet raised enough for contrast in the painting.

torsos and back packs

a  better shot both front and back

Diamond deck plate bases, they are quite solid too and add to the heft

I do not really like the whole space-Nazi vibe often used for Sci-fi Germans. These troops do have a helmet reminiscent of the old German style, but honestly it is a good design and one most modern helmets have taken. It is one of those designs that could last a long time

I went with a green fatigue and coyote armor to totally side step the space-Nazi flavor. Unless you are really looking, these sculpts could be anything else besides German

The Gruppes squad support weapons, two different styles of carry to further add variety.

Two troops without helmets, male and female.

I like how the heads do not look out of place on them. Honestly at the distance and in all that armor you would be hard pressed to find the girl...yet, I did not include a rear pic of the female troop as I know you would all be trying to check out her @$$!

;)

 

I haven't decided how to paint the rest of the Germans. I am thinking of an urban scheme or perhaps just run with the colors of WW2 German airborne. I have converted some of the bits with the UAMC Marines. These guys are really close to the "true"(whatever that is) 28mm like Perry. Games workshop and some Reaper will tower over them. I like them a lot, they are my favorite kit that I've worked on this year. If you want some cheap Scifi troops, this set is just under $20 for 16 troops PLUS three casualties AND a prone gunner. Not a bad price and great for some "hard" Scifi troops not festooned with chainsaws and skulls.

I've since finished this section of troops. I'd show you the finished group, or the Zombicide Beserker Zombies; but I still have scores of preloaded photos of summer work to get through. This is my last week of night crew anyway, I'll be back this coming Monday with pics of my unfinished Napoleonics!...at least since my waking hours will be different, I will have more time on my off days to chase the elusive daylight!