Götterdämmerung.... Weird Nazis.... & Purplebellies

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What is all this "Weird Sci Fi Nazi Domina" stuff anyway?

Answer: Fun way of reusing a lot of tired WW2 kit and creating an additional Low-tech Sci Fi army.

Plus, Sci fi Germans are very useful as Purplebellies! The clearest view of an Alliance Purplebelly in Firefly is in a flashback to the Unification War in The Message. Definitely Weird Reich territory.

Went back to work on Friday and was promptly sent home again. I worked from home today and as a consequence do finally feel better and will go back in tomorrow over "Donkey Cough!" at last.

A very real benefit of working from home in cash terms is saving myself twenty 'squid' on train fares and something for lunch, so I've reinvested £3.18 ($4.99) on the GEAR KRIEG German Walker Compendium 1 (Loki).

I'm not into Gear Krieg per se, simply bought this book for the eye candy if I'm honest with you and will probably never read the text. Was it worth that instant gratification that only a pdf can bring? Oh yes! Worth it for the photos of superbly painted 15mm WW2, Weird Reich and Gear Krieg kit by the talented Agis Neugebauer. And I've picked up some nice little touches of inspiration for my own Götterdämmerung collection.

What you get for your money is a 26 page book that's very professionally produced. When you purchase from Wargames Vault you will get a full colour download, a B/W copy to download, and a set of Unit Stats also. The latter has even more colour photos of individual German walker variants.

The very last photo in the Compendium made me want to go back into Wargames Vault and download the Rapid Fire! Battle of the Bulge scenario & mini campaign book ($17.50). Save that for another day perhaps.

Cheers
Mark
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Under the Radar..... Neo-Soviet Kombine Ramblings

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Back at the end of June I wrote about the suitability of the Flames of War 15mm WW2 Soviet Sapper-Engineer Flamethrower Platoon to become Traveller/Traveller Book 4: Mercenary mid-tech Infantry with laser carbines (Click here). Well, PROJECKT KOMBINE has been progressing under the radar since then.

My vision is a planetary Götterdämmerung! Continent sized cities are the battlefields, in a dystopian "diesalpunk" future inspired by Berlin 1945 and Grozny 1999-2000.

Initially I was thinking of only using the Flamethrower platoon figures as a Mid-tech energy weapon armed force. At this point I saw them very much standing alongside RAFM's ex-Traveller/Striker Mid-Tech Infantry. Discussing the project offline initially with Master Chef and latterly with Eli, I'm now aiming towards a Lower Mid-tech urban combat force which has a mix of high velocity Gauss neo-assault carbines (PPSHs) and early technology energy weapons (Laser/Plasma or similar).

Neo-Soviet Kombine
Urban Assault Batnova

To reflect the newness of this 'emerging' technology on TOE, one Plashnya per Kompnya will be armed with energy weapons. One box of SU803 Sapper-Engineers and 2 boxes of SU804 Sapper-Engineer Flamethrowers will give me a Batnova of 3 Kompnyas or preferably two understrength Batnovas.

The project received a boost when I discovered this superb Soviet era urban 'ameoba ' camouflage suit, which just felt like it had the correct Sci Fi and Neo-Soviet look and combined with helmet visors added from greenstuff would move the figures away from their more obvious WW2 origins.

At the moment I'm looking at using traditional FOW style bases for these miniatures and to make my life easier, the 4 man urban bases from The Scene are certainly worth considering.

Here's a rough impression I created as part of my 'mood board' to help me visualise the overall look of the Neo-Soviet Kombine urban combat force - naturally they will look better on urban terrain bases and to excentuate the urban devastation I've purchased a tub of GF9 Ash Waste Flock to try out.

For AFVs I'm looking at a mix of wheeled, tracked and early Grav technology. WW2 era T70s converted into troop carriers, Battlefront M3 Scout Cars (in lieu of a decent BTR 40), Skytrex BTR152s and GZG (grav) Light Gun/Scoutsleds.

I'm in no rush. This is a labour of love and I'll probably not get round to painting and basing until I have time off work at the end of October/beginning November. But, it's something fun to pull out and crack on with when I need a break from my mainstream Sci Fi projects.

Drasny Provovnik!
Mark
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