Sons Of The...Sludge? 28mm Kolony Ferals

Productive citizens here - nothing out of the ordinary at all

While finishing off my Frank Hammond 28mm sci-fi models, I came across some primed-but-not-yet-painted bits in my 28mm figure pile - a pack of "Kolony Ferals", sinister dystopian troops from the collection of Pig Iron Productions.  These models are from the HQ pack, containing one, er, "NCO", a rifleman, a support gunner and an...elder?

An NCO, veteran of many...sludge encounters

Sludge Militia has access to the latest in sludge-wear

Like the other Pig Iron models these castings are very, very bulky figures.  No breeze will knock these over on the table:)

I'm sure the..."helmet" helps to ensure accurate shooting under sludge conditions...

The Kolony Ferals are great figures.  They look very spooky, without looking absurd.  These are what Chaos Cultists should look like, as opposed to the current shark-jumping sculpts emerging from GW Kaos Komedy Konstruction plant.

This gunner dude looked particularly spooky

The Elder in particular really captures the eerie feel of these models.

The Elder...you can see the glue drying under the grass tuft - I was too impatient to get the pictures taken

His cloak is covered with sludge-affirming markings...

I'm sure that head gear is comfortable

The downside of these models? These are the only four I have...I think I ordered them as an experiment or something, a slight character addition to the ranks of the TruKom rebel faction.   It would be neat to add enough of them to play a game of Tomorrow's War or Bolt Action, but for now, these guys will have to wait on their own.  It will be a little while before I add any new Pig Iron stuff.

Gün Schwarm Heavy Duty Sniper Team - System Troopers from Pig Iron Productions

"Starbucks spotted at three kilometres...."

Sometimes you need to sure something will get put down. With that in mind, we have a really heavy duty sniper team from Pig Iron Productions' System Trooper line.  The team has two figures, a spotter and a sniper sporting the sci-fi power armoured version of a Barrett Sniper Rifle.

Bird watching? FuturKom watching? Both?

Why do power armoured troopers need a sniper rifle? Who knows? But if power armoured troops are going to need to snipe things, you might as well have a very heavy looking sniper rifle, and Pig Iron delivers on this score.  The trooper holding the sniper rifle is a large casting, and it would not fit on a normal 25mm base so I mounted it on a larger 30mm one.

The super heavy sniper rifle of the future...

The models are also wearing camouflage cloaks.  I made a bit of an effort to match the camp pattern to the colours of the groundwork I've been using on the Gün Schwarm bases.  I think the results were a bit mixed, but it still turned out OK. 

Camouflage cloak - 3XL for the power armoured troops...

Maybe the only drawback of these figures is the lack of separate heads - the only System Trooper models without the separate heads.  So I couldn't match the helmets to the "Kolony Inner Guard" ones I used on my other Gün Schwarm power armoured troops. Looking at the castings, though, I'm not sure how sculpting the separate heads would have worked out.  Also, the helmet is mostly covered, so the difference does not stand out too badly. 

I really enjoy the heavy duty look of the rifle on this model, and I can easily see them putting a heavy calibre futuristic anti-everything round through all sorts of FuturKom stuff, including the driver plates on APCs (a virtual certainty if Mike F is rolling to hit).  I'm continuing to add more power armoured troops, and hopefully they will be ready for a confrontation with FuturKom (and their mercenary allies?) on the table soon. 

Gün Schwarm Medical Bot - Pig Iron Productions

Medical Bot on the move

Another bit finished for the Gün Schwarm lads - a medical bot from Pig Iron Productions.  This robot is a model from Pig Iron's Kolony Militia command group.  Dallas has one of these already for his FuturKom lads, and since the factions of our distant, conflicted far future seem to source a lot of a equipment from the same suppliers (for example, all armoured vehicles have the same searchlights), I thought Gün Schwarm could use a bot as well.

"Make the 'bot carry it."

Like all of the Pig Iron figures, this model is a lot of fun to paint, and is a wonderful sculpt. Naturally, when AI technology comes on line, the troopers make the poor robot schlep as much stuff as it can manage.  The sculpt portrays the robot loyally trying to keep up while carrying important supplies (ammo? refills for the coffee machine? both?). It's a great figure.

Important supplies - medi-bot is a reliable schlepper on the battlefield 

In addition to being a fun bit of fluff, or even an objective, the Tomorrow's War rules set has rules for medics, and specifically medical bots (referred to as "care bears"), and they have a significant impact on the game, lowering the odds that hits turn into KIAs and serious wounds.  This particular bot will be a good addition to the power-armoured system trooper models I'm doing for the Gün Schwarm troopers.

Gün Schwarm 28mm Power Armour Infantry - "System Troopers"

Gün Schwarm power-armoured infantry - "System Troopers" from Pig Iron

Continuing with the escalation in the race against FuturKom, I have painted up some 28mm "System Troopers" from Pig Iron Productions to serve as hard-hitting, power-armoured infantry for Gün Schwarm. Pig Iron offers a lot of interchangeable heads, and I opted for the "Kolony Inner Guard" heads instead of the standard issue ones. I find that particular head design maintains the armoured appearance, is slightly less bulky, and makes them appear to be a little more sinister - they are here to fight, but not to help, if that makes any sense.

See how I screwed up the one back-pack for the guy on the right? Didn't notice that until I was painting, and just left it like that to be stubborn - figured he was the "smart one" for the squad...

In terms of battlefield roles, I can't top Pig Iron's own description of this particular figure line: "Seriously heavy futuristic infantry - these figures feature large amounts of armour, equipment and ridiculously large guns (just as we like 'em) and are designed for cleansing pockets of fierce enemy resistance." These guys will help hold off the Kommulist hordes, and in particular look to take on the hard hitting power-armoured troops of FuturKom's elite recon forces.  

Special weapons - SAW on the right, some kind of plasma/energy gun on the left

These are very, very chunky models.  They barely fit on the standard GW round bases.  The weapons are huge, and the figures are big, solid hunks of metal.  The poses appear a bit laboured, but I think that is perfect to match the idea of troopers wearing powered armour that provides extra "oomph" and lots of protection while limiting their flexibility/maneuverability.

Rear angle view of the special weapon troops

In terms of special weapons, I had hoped to see something a little larger.  The SAW-style gun looks pretty good, but the plasma-gun-ish weapon is disappointing, and on troops this size, it looks like a hedge trimmer or something.  I am going to experiment with some conversions from spare GW weapons to see if I can come up with something a little more ominous-looking.

One drawback of the Pig Iron figures is that they are so incredibly chunky that conversions for anything other than different heads or backpacks will require a lot of work. But that's a pretty slight drawback in my view.  In a world of "Finecast", my praise for Pig Iron and their sturdy metal figures is high! I've heard reports they are going to do some multi-part versions of their models. That will be fabulous if it turns out to be true.

Evolution of Gün troops - regular Grenadier on the left, "Schwere" Grenadier in the middle, Power Armoured Trooper on the right - the Pig Iron System Troopers are healthy-sized 28mm figures

In "Tomorrow's War", the rules for power-armoured troops are pretty tough - a small group of power-armoured soldiers can take on plenty of enemies.  They have extra dice for armour, tend to carry lots of heavy weapons, and get first-aid-check benefits that makes them hard to put down. Eight or nine of these figures would be able to take on twenty five FuturKom regular troops, or even more if the differential is there (D10 vs. D8, for example).

Even small power-armoured fireteams are very hard-hitting in "Tomorrow's War"

But we won't just be playing "Tomorrow's War".  At some point, I know we will want to fill a 6'x4' table with tons of troops and vehicles again, and that will call for good old SpaceKrieg.  For when that day arrives, I'll need a lot more than eight of these guys, so I hope to paint about 24 of the figures.  I hope this will provoke Dallas into seeing his six power-armoured guys are outnumbered, and respond in kind...

Pig Iron's figures are an absolute joy to paint, and I do really like that "Kolony Inner Guard" head look, so I am experimenting with a paint scheme or two using the heads on the Kolony Militia figures.  Whether they will end up as stand-ins for 40k Imperial Guardsmen, or some new faction for SpaceKrieg, who knows?