Zentreadi Battle Pods - 1/200 Scale

1/200 scale Regult Tactical Pods from Nichimo

 The Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge is underway! If you want to see a lot of really cool figures in a great diversity of scales from a wide variety of periods and settings, I suggest you go check it out.  Check often - the submissions come in fast and furious - I don't know how Curt keeps up.Anyway I will share my submissions here too once they have had a chance to percolate a bit on Curt's blog.  I hope the other Fawcett Avenue member participating in the Challenge (Byron, Dallas and Kevin H) do the same!

My first submission was a pair of Regult Tactical Battle Pods, the main mecha used by the Zentreadi aliens from the anime series Macross (recognized more commonly in North America as "Robotech").  These are 1/200 scale multi-part models sold under the "Nichimo" brand many years ago, now available these days in isolated Ebay lots.  Six or seven years ago, long before any Kickstarter panhandling, I started piling together enough of these kits to play games of Macross with the gaming group here in Winnipeg.  They are not great models - they have to be screwed together (WTF !?!) so you have to fill those holes with putty.  But they look the part!  These models are about 4 inches tall.

The screw-holes on the backs of the models have been filled with green stuff prior to painting

 I've loved the Macross series - complete with its bonkers notions, whacky plot with rather large holes, and terrible, terrible "pop music" - since I first saw a few scattered episodes as a teenager.  Back then "GI Joe" and "Transformers" were popular cartoons, and in those shows nobody ever got hurt.  Along came this show with very cool animation, amazing mecha, and a plot that routinely killed off major characters (and also half the earth's population, ultimately).  It was quite a contrast! Robotech was WAY better than the lame North American "action" cartoons.

This screen-grab gives a rough idea of how the Zentreadi pilot is supposed to "fit" into the pod...

While of course the premise of Robotech/Macross was (and still is) preposterous, the themes from the show - duty, freedom, loss, homesickness, coming of age, friendship, love, and the question of what is really "human" - still resonate even when you watch it today.  I found the recent re-do of Battlestar Galactica shared many attributes with Macross (although BSG fans may hate reading that). I will toss a few episodes of Macross on when I'm painting from time to time. And although Macross fans rigthfully take many barbs for the awful pop music angle to the show's plotline, I don't take them too seriously.  Especially from people who in turn believe any comic, cartoon or show with a character like "Wolverine" is somehow good for anything.... :)

The alien mecha from Macross are beautiful.  With the reverse articulation in the legs, artful curves, the Regult pods fit the bill perfectly for alien bad guy soldier mecha.  They are armed to the teeth, elegant, maneuverable, funny-looking-but-cool-looking, and easily blown away by the dozen by the heroes of the TV series!  In the series, these pods were about 70 or 80 feet tall, piloted by 50-foot-tall expendable soldier-clone Zentreadi soldiers. The aliens would attack with an approach that made the Red Army appear spartan in comparison, and clouds of these pods would lead the assault, getting mowed down by the ace human pilots in their own super-cool variable fighter mecha. 

Ready for action on the gaming table

It was a lot of fun to collect these models from Ebay and paint them.  I haven't painted one in years, and these two had been sitting forever, primed black.  I figured I would clear them off the pending desk (I literally had to dust them off) as a way to recognize the expansion of the Analogue Challenge into the sci-fi realm!

Stay tuned for more entries! And go check out what others are painting - it's pretty awesome.  Byron has already completed some really, really nice WW1 stuff...he might share it here too...

Poll Results and New Poll

One of the cool things about Blogger is the ability to create polls for our visitors. On our blog the "Poll" is always at the top right of the page.

Our last poll asked:

Traditionally, model vehicles for wargames haven't been put on scenic bases. However, there's a modern movement towards basing vehicles for aesthetic and practical reasons. Do you think vehicles should be based for gaming?

Twenty-seven of you voted, and the results were as follows:

Yes, 15mm vehicles but not 28mm vehicles	13 (48%)
Yes, both 15mm and 28mm vehicles	7 (25%)
No, vehicles should not be based	7 (25%)

So, an overwhelming majority of three-quarters of you thought that 15mm vehicles should be based! Interesting!

New poll coming up about priming models in cold weather.

 

 

Winter Has Arrived Yay! (Not)

More 15mm winter WW2 troops and tanks

Well the winter has once again locked the Canadian prairies with its dreadful embrace.  The current day time "high" temperatures range in the minus 25 degree Celsius range, and once our enviro-guess-Canada weather "forecasting" service adds its random wind chill, the temps are even more awful.  So of course this is all perfect inspiration to finish some more winter WW2 stuff...

Matching the current weather outside my house. Note that an additional 30cms of snow has come since this photo was taken some time ago

Not much to show in this post - I've been away from the painting table for a few weeks, back just in time to take a stab at yet another Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge.  But it was good to get these bits cleared off before the Challenge started - a set of half-tracks, 251/7s, a few more infantrymen and another pair of Panther "A"s.

An SdKfz 251/7 - will need to warm up after starting the engine...

I opted for these half-tracks over more conventional ones to give the option of having an engineer/pioneer force.  Often they have the worst jobs - repairing bridge crossings, clearing minefields and other work, all under fire.

I believe those are meant to be temporary bridging sections on top there, but I have never been too sure...

This force is also semi-inspired by Scwhere Panzer Regiment Bäke, which included an engineer battalion on its roster for at least some of the period it was in action. The Panzer crews would have relied heavily on them to help keep their advances/breakouts moving, particularly in the face of tough weather conditions.

Peter Pig vehicles are real beauties, sharp castings with nice details like the stowage on the front.

A scenario where some engineers are trying to secure some rickety bridges somewhere on the Eastern Front during the winter, then trying to blow them just as the Russians approach - this appeals to me! I think that would make for a good Chain of Command game.

Some foot sloggers from Battlefront.  These castings look depressed, which I love about them.

The half-tracks are from Peter Pig, and were quite lovely to work with and paint. To my mind they remain top-of-the-list when it comes to quality 15mm figures and vehicles.There are enough half tracks to mount up a platoon - three vehicles.

Panzerschrek team.  I bet that was a fun piece of kit to haul through the snow...

The infantry are a smattering of spare castings from Battlefront - a panzerschrek team and a few regular panzer grenadiers. Once again I am impressed with the quality of these particular castings from Battlefront - their winter Germans are really well done.

Another snow cat, weathered to show it has fought its way through several kessels since the snow fell...

The Panthers are "A" variants, and the models are from Battlefront.  These were real beauties to work with and I had a lot of fun painting them.  The details on the hull are top notch.  While they are of course more expensive than the very, very nice models from Plastic Soldier Company, I still think these are tops in my books and a great value.

Panzer 314 ready to roll out.

As with my previous batch of winter tanks, these received heavy winter weathering treatment. Again, it's probably a little too much, but I still have a lot to learn when it comes to being a bit more subtle with the weathering on vehicles :)

Lots of wonderful, sharp little details on the Battlefront Panthers

So the Painting Challenge starts this weekend - I will be a slow starter in this challenge, but I've got a fairly high points goal (although the others are all just low-balling and sandbagging - right, Ray?) so I hope to tear out a few good starting pieces over Christmas.  During the Challenge I hope to do projects in different scales and periods including 28mm Napoleonics and Sudan, 15mm Arab-Israeli Wars, more WW2 stuff of course, and maybe some sci-fi! I know Dallas, Byron and Kevin are in for the Challenge too, so I'm looking forward to seeing lots of great Fawcett Avenue content lighting up the blogosphere!

Monogram MiL-24 Hind "D" in 1/48

OK, it must have been about 4 years ago that I picked up two 1/48 Hind kits by Monogram in a TMP deal. One of these ended up with Conscript Mike F. and has long since been completed. Mine sat in a box and I decided that once I'd painted the BMP for my chemical Commies, I'd better give them some air-transportability too.

I assembled and painted the model pretty much by the book, although I skipped the detailed interior. I found that the interior parts didn't fit that well and I hadn't intended to include opening doors, so there was no point in doing the extra work. I did heed the advice of Mike F. and rig up magnetic mounts for the rotors though. This was done post-assembly but turned out OK.

One thing I did do that I usually skip was to use the clear canopy. I usually paint over canopies because either there's no crew included in there, or I'm too lazy to paint them, but this time I made an exception. The crew figures included with the kit are very nice so I thought it would be fun to make them visible from outside.

Here's another blurry shot of Yuri and Alexei. There's something very cool about the Hind, it's just a purposeful looking weapon. Looking forward to deploying this one in a game soon. I've got a few goodies in store for my MOPP suited '80s Americans that I'm leaving to start until the Challenge begins next week but I anticipate they'll go up quickly...

15mm Modern Canucks vs. Red Army Battle Report (HNIC style)

Other than wargaming, one of Conscript Greg's and my shared obsessions is NHL hockey. Of course, being Canadians, we both grew up with Hockey Night in Canada and broadcast personalities like Brian MacFarlane and Howie Meeker. Classic!

However, nowadays we have "the Studio 42 crew" - Glenn, P.J., Kevin, Ron, Elliotte (sic) and the lovely Andi... These guys drive Greg crazy for many different reasons. Glenn and Kevin because they were formerly NHL goalies and Greg thinks goalies have mental disabilities (oh and did I mention I'm a goalie too?), P.J. because he has the intellectual acumen of an "enforcer" matched with the physique of Peter Dinklage, and Elliotte not only because he spells his name with a Smurfette-style extra "e", but also for his fetishization of the "ideal hockey" supposedly played in Europe, where the game is physical but there's no fighting, everyone is skilled but there's room for "role players", and there are never EVER any cheap shots.

Greg calls this "Hockey Night in Chardonnay" and it provides us with tons of laughs while we're background-watching games on Thursdays. So in honour of this motif we're doing a battle-report up HNIC style, with all of the cliches and overdone hockey tropes we love from our broadcaster heroes. On to the batrep... 

The game was the debut of Conscript Mike's gorgeous modern Canadians, replete with Leopard 1's and loads of M113s. The force might be smaller in size but certainly consists of skill players who are going to bring a high compete level to the game.

The Soviets are Greg's work and they are outstanding too. The BMPs provide flexible punch but the T-72s and T-80s are the power forwards that will really bring some needed physicality to the matchup.

The scenario was a home game for the Canadians - they are tasked to defend a small German village against the Russian breakthrough force. The Soviet objective is to punch through and exit as many elements as possible off their opposite table edge.

Soviets start from the top of the photo and have to exit from the bottom. Canadians deploy in a neutral zone trap to clog up the middle and stall the Soviet advance.

Once the game started I seized the opportunity to send one of the Canadian Leopards forward on a flank. The idea was to gain penetration and get some cycles going down low in the zone.

As the Soviets advanced, the Leopard disabled the main gun of one of the tanks but unfortunately the Soviets were able to activate their D and the Leopard was knocked out with a lower body injury.

Meanwhile on the other flank the Soviets are pressing hard getting guys to the net. At this point, the Canadians are really collapsing around their net and have decided to play for the single point as the Soviets really have some good jump in their game.

The Soviets really maximized their zone time as the Canadians hunkered down in the village. Getting pucks to the net was the key to their game as they got the cycle going and pummeled the Canadians from close range. The Soviets went to the hard areas and that was the difference-maker.

In the end the onslaught was too much for the Canadians as the Soviets played an excellent road game. The Soviets played a north-south game and really kept their feet moving. The active sticks from the tanks didn't give the Canadians time or space to get anything going. The one dangle from the lone Leopard was fruitless as the rest of the line was off on a change and couldn't provide any support.

You really have to hand it to the Soviets here as they managed the game well, kept it simple, took it one shift at a time, and played the whole 60 minutes. They'll cherish those two points and move on.

Thanks to Mike and Greg for bringing out their superb models and to Greg for running the game!

The Chicago Show and my new insane project

Back in October, several members of the Manitoba Model Soldier Society went on the annual road trip to The Chicago Show, hosted by the Military Miniature Society of Illinois. The Chicago Show is one of the biggest North American figure shows and competitions, showcasing excellent work from an international selection of modelers. I did not attend this year, but I did send a couple of figures down with the boys.

The full list of award winners is located here. Photos may be seen here and here. This year the MMSS had its most successful year, with several members garnering medals:

Historical Painters Gold
Jeff Burns - Celtic Warrior (Jeff's brushwork in the photo below is astounding):


Rick Taylor - Nurian Guard

Fantasy Painters Gold
Jeff Burns - Angron
Jim Robinson - Inquistor Cortez
Rick Taylor - entire display (Rick's freehand is ridiculous; in the three photos below, note that the figures are, respectively, only 40mm and 25mm tall; the Medusa on the female hoplite's shield is patterned after the famous painting by Caravaggio):





Historical Painters Silver
Jim Robinson - 7th Middlesex Drum Major

Fantasy Painters Silver
Jonathan Berrington - Dragon
Neil Berrington - The Fool
Dave Violago - Space Elf (I was surprised and pleased that my 28mm wargame figure garnered an award; the large silver medal I won is pretty spiffy, too)

Historical Painters Bronze
Neil Berrington - Varangian Guard

Fantasy Painters Bronze
Graeme Berrington - Katerina

General Medal
Doug Bedford - Arnhem
Bill Cann - Defending Mother Russia

War Game Award
Glenn Shott - Napoleonic Prussians

War Game Certificate of Merit
Doug Bedford - Prince Carl Res

***

In the last 18 months or so I have only completed two actual figures (not counting various tiny ships for wargaming). I was slowly working on my Crimson Fist Terminators, but Games Workshops' rules for the Imperial Space Marines have changed, yet again. Some of my figs now have illegal weapon loadouts! Sigh.

Hanging out with the MMSS boys for a couple of painting days prior to the Chicago road trip got my creative juices flowing again.

Awhile ago, I played in a great game of Sedition Wars, hosted by Conscript Byron. I really liked the figs, produced by Studio McVey (yet another company owned and operated by ex-GW staffers). I picked up the basic game, which comes with around 50 figs. By my rough calculation, that's about a dollar a figure. I managed to get some more of the Kickstarter rewards on eBay (like some mini-drone models), and I started trolling blogs and forums looking for ideas.

In terms of style, I like the colour scheme done by CorticalBackup, a fellow on the Sedition Wars forums, here. His figs are painted to look like Master Chief, from Halo. Below is one of his female Vanguard Lancers:

Long story short, I have now assembled 17 of the 25 Vanguard soldiers and drones that I want to paint up. They're made from a stiff plastic that is difficult to clean up; I am averaging about an hour a fig for cleaning, pinning, and assembling.



I shall be using my own zenithal highlighting and glazing style, like the Space Elf above. Followed by another 22 Strain models (think Resident Evil zombies and evolving bigger baddies), that will complete the minimum number of figs I need to play all the scenarios in the basic Sedition Wars rule book.

I am too late to enter Curt's annual painting challenge, but this is for me a pretty radical project activity. Wish me luck!

Plastic Soldier Company 15mm Sdkfz. 251 halftracks

 Also this weekend I finished up some models that had been languishing: 15mm Sdkfz. 251/1s from PSC.

Anybody who's read Greg's excellent posts or picked up PSC stuff for themselves will know how good these models are. They're accurate, easy to assemble, come with crew, and are cheap. What more do you want?

I hadn't painted a 15mm German for years but the PSC guys made it pretty easy. Looking forward to laying brush to some individually based figures soon.

I modelled the PSC vehicles with removable crew figures so I can represent the section mounted or dismounted. The squad MG looks very purposeful.

In order to minimize the potential for breakage, I glued the AA MG at the rear of the compartment in two spots - at the pintle mount and at the buttstock. Too easy for sticky-out bits to get mangled, I reckon.

Excellent stuff as always from PSC!! The last thing will be to decide whether to base these models on scenic bases. I'm inclined to do as as I enjoy the aesthetic (Greg has convinced me) - but I have a ton of other WW2 stuff and none of the other vehicles are based. Maybe an excuse to toss the lot and start over with PSC ;-)