Moongrunt Terrain from Brigade Models

 

So with the completion* of two 15mm forces for "Moongrunt" (Chinese PLSF taikonauts and United States NASA astronauts) the next thing was whip up a bit of terrain for battlefield dressing. Rocks and craters are great but a couple of structures would be ideal. Enter Brigade Models (UK).

These little structures are excellent. They're one-piece resin castings (the dish on the larger building is a separate metal part) and practically no cleanup is needed before painting.

 

I primed this Storage Dome with matt white spraypaint and painted in the grey panels (Mechanicus Standard Grey), then applied some oversized decals I'd had made for my Hammer's Slammers project in 2012!

The other building (Utility Dome) was primed grey and that was an error I won't repeat. The panels took a million coats of white paint to get smooth. Ugh.

I built this structure with the comms dish. I got two metal comms dishes from Brigade in a small baggie - but unfortunately they didn't include any parts to mount the dish to the port on top of the structure. So I had to scratch build that out of scrap plastic sprue. Annoying but not a major problem.

I also got a couple of large fuel or oxygen tanks with cool little keypads. I really shoulda taken some closeups of these eh!

 
The structures are great and will be useful when we set up a game. Service from Brigade was great, shipping was expensive as it always is from the UK. Easy to paint of course and nice to get this out of the way and back to the Little Bighorn project...

*I said "completion" but the project likely isn't complete... I had an email exchange with GZG's Jon Tuffley who said that he's got some crew-served heavy weapons for Moongrunt coming down the pike in the next few months... I can't wait!

15mm Moongrunt Project from GZG

Well this is what I've been up to hobby-wise, instead of painting Plains warriors and Seventh Cavalry troopers. But now I'm done this and can get back to the Little Bighorn project. But let me talk a bit about this one first.

I posted a couple weeks ago about how visiting the Museum of Brands in London, England got me onto Space:1999 and the Eagle spacecraft, and how buying one of those got me back into 15mm astronaut combat, and this post is the culmination of all of that. I wrote about how I'd bought and painted some astronauts in EVA suits from Ground Zero Games, but together with that order came two "armies" from GZG's "Moongrunt" range - a Chinese PLA space force and some British that will stand in for NASA astronauts - I just liked the look of the British models and their suits better than the GZG Americans. The NASA gang I've painted from the GZG British is shown in these photos.

The GZG models are sold in packs of six, and I wanted a decent platoon on each side, so I ordered four packs, in this case three packs of "riflemen" and one heavy weapons pack. These I divided up into three sections of seven models each (fve riflemen and two with rocket launchers), and a platoon command section comprised of the platoon commander and two flunkies.

The models were painted pretty simply, with heavy overbrushes of Celestra Grey, Corax White, pure white, Nuln Oil wash, then pure white again. Guns were Leadbelcher with Nuln wash, and I painted a red armband on the platoon commander and blue ones on the squad leaders.

I also built and painted a vehicle and passengers for the force. This is a pretty cool little 8-wheeled buggy that carries driver, squad leader, and six passengers. 

I used some Lunar "NASA" decals on the vehicle.

You can remove the passengers. I superglued them together in groups of three (one on each side of the compartment) to make that easier.

I also added some weathering on the vehicle hull. I suppose that dust and tiny micrometeoroids would weather stuff on the moon.

Here is the opfor - the Chinese People's Liberation Army Space Force.

I organized the force the same way as the other one, but the Chinese have more heavy weapons, so they get four in each squad of seven men. I know that eight is an even luckier number in Chinese culture so I might either reorganize the force or just buy another pack of these guys.

First squad. The leader has a red stripe on his helmet. I first heavily brushed the models with Celestra Grey, then painted the suits Mephiston Red and Evil Suns Scarlet, then finished the helmet, boots and gloves with Corax White and pure white. Guns are Leadbelcher with Nuln Oil.

Second squad, contains two heavy rifles and two rocket launchers.

Here's the transport - a rocket-powered hovering sled. I made a base for it using magnets on the support post and underneath the vehicle.

So when the vehicle lands, you just take it off the flying stand.

Of course the passengers are removable (they are all superglued to the central seating construct) and the vehicle can be used as a cargo transporter!

I did a rough job on some cargo for the bed.

Well that's this project finished for now! This will let me get back to the Little Bighorn and I'm trying to motivate myself with some new reading - "Hokahey - A Good Day to Die" by Richard Hardorff, that chronicles the Plains warrior casualties of the LBH battle.

Anyway the next thing to do with these models is have a game of some kind. I also have to get a larger terrain mat, probably 4x4 feet. If you have any suggestions please put it in the comments!  

Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge XIV #6 - Star Wars & Science Fiction

 As part of last year's painting challenge I completed an assortment of retro Star Wars miniatures that were sculpted by Nevile Stocken of Archive Miniatures within weeks of the first Star Wars movie hitting the theatres. Alas, Stocken couldn't get a licensing agreement, and the line was modified to become 'Star Rovers' with enough changes made to circumvent copyright. These were a gift from a friend who got them from the estate of a mutual friend who had passed away. A total of sixteen figures consisting of Obi-wan Kenobi, Greedo, R2-D2, a Tusken raider, four Jawas, and eight Stormtroopers. With the exception of the Jawas, the figures stand 32-34mm tall. Obi-wan's light saber, and the gaffi stick of the Tusken raider  had broken off at some point. I rebuilt them using lengths of florist wire.

I was initially going to build the structure in the background as a Gondorian tower for Minas Tirith, but the materials I had weren't giving off the right vibe. I decided to add another building to my Tatooine collection instead. It stands 8" tall and the base is 8" on a side.

Somewhere in Mos Eisley

 

Stormtroopers

Tusken, Kenobi, Jawas, Greedo, and R2-D2

More Stormtroopers

 

 The last of the Stocken figures is a Bunny Stormtrooper, one of a variety of modifications to the original sculpts made to avoid copyright infringement. It could easily be converted back to a normal Stormtrooper by snipping off the ears, tail, rabbit teeth and toes. Unfortunately there was only one of these in the bag of minis my friend gave me.

In addition to the Archive miniatures, I also painted up two old-school 25mm Star Wars miniatures of Han Solo and Leia Organa from West End Games. They were painted with Vallejo acrylics, with a wash of Citadel Reikland Fleshshade on the skin areas. In the background is a plastic model kit released by MPC for 'The Return of the Jedi' which is approximately 1/78 scale. A bit small for the figures, but it works well on the game table.

 

Keeping with the Science Fiction genre are two female troopers from the Eurasian Solar Union by Ground Zero Games. I picked these up off eBay years ago with plans to add them to the mix of various manufactures that I painted up as my planetary militia. I had done a few of these for a previous challenge, and I used the same colour scheme using Vallejo acrylics and Citadel washes.

Lastly I painted up five resin cast vehicles from Scotia Grendel, consisting of two of their tracked Sci-Fi APCs and three of their wheeled A.T.A.C. APCs. I had purchased these at least fifteen years ago when I was still running an after-school wargames club, and I needed more vehicles for the large number of students who attended. In the end, I never found time to paint them and, after I retired, there was little incentive until now. Once again, the Painting Challenge has provided the necessary motivation to paint up items that have resided in a storage box for over a decade. 

The wolf's head on the back of the tracked APC is actually detail that is cast on the model in slight relief. I painted them white on both vehicles. 

A group shot of all five vehicles

6-wheeled APC, right side and front

6-wheeled APC, back and left side

Tracked APC, front and left side

Tracked APC, right side and back

 All of the figures and vehicles in this post were done for various themed challenges associated with the Challenge Library - Children's Books, Manga and Graphic Novels, Romance,  Science-Fiction, and Lady Sarah's Library Cart. It will be interesting to see what themed tasks will be presented in this year's 'Divine Comedy'.

The Doomed

Osprey released a new wargame several months ago called “The Doomed”. It’s a rules light skirmish game set in a suspiciously grim dark setting. The game depicts several factions struggling against giant monsters called “horrors”. The various factions have advanced technology, but are pretty medieval in appearance . The game encourages kitbashing the various factions and the faction descriptions are deliberately vague and open to interpretation. One of the factions is called the “Martyr Retinues”. They are basically tech priest in 40k and I decided to kitbash and paint a 5 “man” squad from various bits.

This guy is converted from a Heroclix Hulk model. I added a power fist from a 40k contemptor dreadnought as well as a backpack and bionic head. I imagine this guy is genetically engineered and then given bionic components to make him more suitable for battle against giant monsters. This has had an unhealthy effect on his flesh which appears to be approaching a state of decay.

This fellow is almost entirely bionic. He’s made from a mark III space marine chest, skitarii head and legs and arms from an adeptus titanicus knight.

These 2 grunts are made from a combination of genestealer cult and skitarri models from GW. The legs are from a copplestone robot and Victoria Miniatures.

The last member of the group is the leader. One of the weapons this faction can use is called a “thermal lance” I decided to literally interpret this as a lance. I used bits from my Bretonnians, skitarii and parts from an ork burner. Instead of a mount, he has bionic legs from a Mantic enforcer. The shield is from anvil industry.

I limited the number of colours used and relied heavily on washes to achieve a very grimy effect and to help unify them as members of a single faction.

This was a fun and goofy unit to build and the vague theme and descriptions really let you run wild. I plan to complete a few more squads over the winter, but now it’s back to the steel legion!

Thanks for visiting!

40K Squats - yes, Squats! (and not Leagues of Votann)

Well, this story began back in the Springtime at PrairieCon, western Manitoba's longest running (and obviously, best) gaming convention.

I've been involved with PrairieCon as an attendee, organizer, or volunteer for just about 40 years. For the last... let's say "many" conventions, I've helped run the game auction (that's me auctioneering in the green shirt below)

Anyway, at the last PrairieCon auction, one of the final lots was a large box of about 5 pounds of random miniatures. This was at the end, after about two hours of auctioneering, and I was beat. But the boxes within the large box of minis were tantalizing, to say the least, with some nice vintage Citadel miniatures boxes featuring prominently. WHFB Skarloc's Wood Elf Archers, 40K Eldar Harlequins, Space Marine Terminators, Space Ork Raiders... awesome stuff. Plus a ton of other old Ral Partha and Grenadier boxes. There was no time to verify contents of any of the boxes because I had to start the bidding. So away we went.

I wasn't gonna let this lot get away, even though I had no idea what was actually in the boxes, and I ended up winning the lot. Then it was time to sort out what I'd gotten myself into. And unfortunately, the very cool boxes were somewhat misleading because most of the contents weren't there. I think the Skarloc's box and the Harlequins box were missing only two models each (which I've since sourced from elsewhere), but the Terminators box and the Space Ork Raiders box were full of... SQUATS! Nearly a full plastic box worth of infantry models (35 of 'em), plus more than 25 metal models, including bits of bikes and some Chaos Squats in exo-armour. WOW!

So since I'd always thought the old Squats were kind of cool, and I'd now lucked into practically a whole army's worth of vintage models, I've decided to paint them. And this is the first post of several where I'll describe how I've done that.  

First off, a confession. Although I'd gotten a whole army's worth of Squats in one go, I can't help but add to the group with other stuff. This includes a very cool Squat Commissar from Wereweevil Miniatures out of Australia (more on them later). The chap on the right is a plastic Squat from the original "Space Dwarfs" box, with a sniper rifle from Victoria Miniatures (more on them later too).

I've painted 27 more of the lads so far and have organized them into a platoon of three sections. Each section has 9 models including one trooper with a heavy bolter and one with a special weapon (melta, flamer, or grenade launcher). The rest of the troopers carry lasguns from Victoria Miniatures.

Second section.

Third section. Since the plastic Space Dwarfs box only included three different heads (helmet, cap, blad with sunglasses) I did a lot of work with greenstuff to put some hair on a few bald heads and make some beards a bit bushier.

 

Close up of one of the squaddies. Paintwork was really simple - helmets and gloves in Zandri Dust, flak vest in Mephiston Red, shirt and pants in Castellan Green/Deathworld Forest, leather gear in Mournfang/Skrag Brown, boots and most of the beards in Doombull Brown. I went over the lot with Agrax Earthshade and re-highlighted in the base colours.

Unlike all of the other weapons which came from Victoria Miniatures, the heavy bolters are from the original Space Dwarfs box.

Some of the arms required some greenstuff work to make 'em fit with the Victoria lasguns. I do much prefer them to the old GW lasguns though.

This is the Wereweevil commissar. The company makes some very cool not-Squats; expensive, as they come from Australia, but I lucked out and found a bunch for cheap on eBay.

I love this sniper, the Victoria rifle looks really good.

Speaking of Wereweevil, how about these dudes? They're the Termineggs and they mix in very well with the old exo-armour Squats. They did need some conversion though - the Termineggs come holding guns in both hands and that doesn't suit the loadout in 40K. But never mind - I have a bunch of RTB-01 Space Marine power gloves in the bits box so I swapped those in.

Here they are with a Squat trooper.

Lastly - gotta have bikers! These are from Ramshackle Games, and I much prefer them to the old Citadel bikes. These ones are quite workmanlike and not crazy choppers like the vintage ones. These look like military equipment.

The Ramshackle bikes are great, albeit slightly on the small side - but no so much as to be really noticeable. The company has a ton of bikes and stuff to supplement a Squat army and I'm looking forward to painting more. One tip though - the resin that these are made of is a bit tricky to glue together - superglue for sure but sometimes a bit of greenstuff is needed too.

So that's the first tranche of models done. Next up is a command section for the platoon as well as some more bikes.

Stay tuned!