Product Review - GZG Darghaur and Crusty Civilians

By Eli Arndt

A while back I received a couple of sample review packs from Jon at GZG for some of his new alien offerings and I thought it was time to review them.

The first of these was TW15-DG01 "Darghaur ten-pack". This pack of figures is a sort of sampler bag of the basic Darghaur figures and contains ten figures and sprues of separate heads depicting the various Darg ranks. The pack contains 7 poses armed with their basic combat weapon, 2 with their heavy weapon, and one with their SAW-type weapon.

This pack allows you to build three fire teams based on the Darg's TO&E from the upcoming alien and special forces supplement for Tomorrow's War "By Dagger and Talon". It also allows a single leader type for the overall unit. Other packs are going to be released in the future.

 

The sculpts are nice and clean as is expected from Ground Zero Games. The weapons are clearly detailed and the aliens armor and anatomy come through with little effort. One thing that might catch some gamers off guard is that the Dargs don't seem to have any visible sensory organs and only have horns or sawed-off stumps of them on their heads. This is evidently how they depict rank. The sprues for the heads are nicely arranged and the heads easily popped off without any tools and had little sockets to glue into on the bodies.

I have to say that I really enjoy these aliens. They seem to inhabit that subtle line between truly alien humanoid enough to be accessible to us human folk. They have two arms, two legs, and a torso, but that's where the resemblance ends.  

The second pack of aliens was a rare treat when it comes to scifi figures let alone aliens - CIVILIANS!

SG15-X16 Crusty Non-Combatants is a pack of eight (8) figures in four (4) poses and represents a sampling of ordinary civilian Crusties. The figures really seem to depict a day in the life with the poses being quite neutral and suitable for everything from background characters, to refugees, or even objective markers for scenarios. 

I have included Jon's catalog picture to give a nice crisp look at the figures but I've held them and look at them and I feel these figures are full of character. From the playful juvenile to the very young being carried by and adult down to the kneeling figure getting into his satchel (would make a good tech) they all succeed in putting a "face" on what might otherwise be a faceless alien menace.

Details are crisp and there was minimal work needed to clean these up. I think the worst I had was a bit of mold venting that needed to be clipped off but there were no mold lines or flash.

Cataloguing 15mm sci-fi females

After the success of my guest post on buildings, Chris kindly offered me to officially joint the Dropship crew... Thank you, Chris!

I heard last week-end on the radio that March, 8th was International Women's Day and got this idea for my first "real" post here... And yes, I'm late: I was waiting for Khurasan to be back on line (like I couldn't use the Wayback Machine) and then needed some more time pulling my thumbs out of my ass!

As I'm afraid that cataloguing female 15mm sci fi players might have turned out to provide me with too little content, I choose to catalogue female 15mm sci fi miniatures instead.

Just like for the buildings, I elected to organise them in a couple broad arbitrary categories to bring some order into my madness... They're just that: an organisation tool, broad and arbitrary. By no mean do I intend to pin a given model in a given role nor to force my vision of things on anyone.

Characters

Khurusan Jellina Jo-eli 1 and Lily 6 (picture from the manufacturer website)

• Not-Carter (from Stargate), not-Zoe (2 poses), not-Inara, not-Kaylee and not-River (from Firefly) are available in GZG Human Characters range 
• And not-Ripley (from Alien of course) among Khurasan Commercial Freighter Crew (also available with guns)
• Khurusan also sells charismatic resistance leader Desiree Kim and federal teenage secret agent Tornado Teacup and their nemeses: evil dictator Jellina Jo-eli 1 and her geniticaly engineered assassin minion Lily6
• Darkest Games sells anime Spec-Sec Agent Ionia 

Troops i.e. miniatures available in several poses (either all female or just some of them) and usualy intended to function as a (somewhat) uniform (para-) military unit

Rebel Mini Black Widows Mercs (picture from manufacturer website)

• Inspired by Heinlein universe, Khurasan Federal Navy Crews are largely female
• Khurusan Federal Army range used to include a pack of female troopers, but I can't seem find them (Dogmaanddragon's found them, have a look at his comment hereunder), one or both of its medics could also be female
• Khurusan various Sepulvedan ranges (Resistance, Provisional Army and Liberation Front) all have a couple of women among their ranks  
• Half the (8) models in GZG Colonial Security packs are women
• Rebel Mini Sahadeen field a female only unit: the War Maidens
• At leats 2 females are hiding among Rebel Mini Earth Force Infitrators
• Black skin suits, long coats, and pistols: maybe you can hire... Rebel Mini Black Widows Mercs
• Astro Miniatures not-Starfleet, not-Klingons and not-Romulans crews all includes females
• Battlestations also offers a pack of four crewwomen
• If horned women are your thing, have a look at Blue Moon Shivan Sisterhood

Civilians

GZG Civilians/Colonists (picture from manufacturer website)

• Nearly all packs of GZG Civilians/Colonists range include a couple of females: civilians, young civilians, armed civilians, technicians, space suits...
• Khurasan has a little girl, a pregnant woman and  a (not very scifiish, IMO) female scientist among the other civilians and scientists
• Women also serve in Khusasan's DPLS crew as first mate and engineer 
• Straddling the line between civilians, troops and characters, GZG Ravagers packs both include at least one female.
• Very near future (honestly, one might just call them modern) Oddzial Osmy journalists: the photographer wears a skirt
• Also sci-fi mostly by name, HOF refugee family includes a girl
• And QRF got a mother-and-children among its Deep Space Colonists
• RAFM actually has a pack of mixed Space Vixens
• Both Splinter Light space crews includes women
• Can't really be sure given the quality (or lack thereof) of the picture but I think one of Stan Johansen Ten Adventurers is a woman
• Darkes Star Games just released a pack of "sci western" Colonist Adventurers which includes two females
  
  

Aliens, mutants, humanoid robots and other not-quite-humans

CMG Vadorian Assains (picture from manufacturer website)

• CMG Mercenaries range has two packs of Vandorian Assassins, the first one is entirely made of (5) females, the second only has two (out of 5 minis)
• Not too sure about the rest of Khurusan Alien Legion, but the upper right green riflething looks female to me
• Two of the six C-3POish GZG Humanoid Bots are fem... Well they have breasts. Whatever robots might be using those for
• More robots with tits at The Department of Fabriquant Management: not-replicants for your not-blade-runners to track

When dealing with aliens, it might be difficult to identify the female gender (if there even is such a thing for that given species), so I purposefully left those (except for very humanoid ones) out of this catalogue, leaving each player to decide for himself what gender his favourite mass of tentacles or blob of goo is. The same goes for bulky (power) armours, they might just be female crewed but fall out of the scope of this post (just like a MBT might be female crewed and yet not quite qualify as a female model). The bottom line was that a model needed humanish visible female secondary sex characteristics (i.e. boobs) to figure in this listing.

Finally, I don't own every single pack of 15mm miniature ever produced (but I'm working on it) and I've written this based mostly on the pictures available on the manufacturer's websites. They might perfectly be some more girls hiding in other packs that I missed. Don't hesitate to let me know.

Cultists, Spider Bugs, and Spartan Tanks

by Chris

15mm.Co.Uk has added two more packs to the sinister HOF Cultists range. The Speeders look wickedly fast, and have that perfect ramshackle appearance that I've been envisioning for the Cultists. And the Holy Guard look like the perfect enforcers for the Cult. One can imagine these performing the most unsavory of deeds in a spaceport or colony setting, or maybe "enforcing the rules" among other Cultists.

The miniatures in both packs (as with the entire Cultists range) are also available as single castings.

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Rebel Minis has added the Spider Bug to the Sci-Fi Bugs and Creatures range. This is another product from the ex-Mongoose Starship Troopers range. Its legs are flexible enough to reposition; you could build 3-5 of these and they will each look like a unique sculpt.

It's great that Rebel Mike acquired these molds. Even though they were originally designed for 28mm, they work really well as big beasts in 15mm sci fi games. A handful of these are all you need for a single army - ambushing a convoy or invading a small settlement. I could even see these as being attack beasts in the employ of a sentient bug race - like the Rebel Manth or Highlander Studios Space Bugs.

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ArtCrime Productions will be releasing the Spartan Battle Tanks this Wednesday, March 13.

Available in tracked (Spartan-T) and hover (Spartan-H) configurations, the Spartan promises to be 78 tons of mobile destruction. In the Valkyrie universe, the Spartan is used by both the Nationalists and the Federalist factions of humanity. And it would look great alongside many other figure ranges, too. The tracked version especially has that near-future appearance desired by so many 15mm SF gamers.

QUICK LOOK: Khurasan Miniatures Federal Security Force Troopers

By Harold

Hi Everyone!

In this installment of Quick Look i'm going to show two product codes from Khurasan Miniatures, the Federal Police officers and the Federal Security forces. Available from: http://khurasanminiatures.tripod.com/15mmscifi.html  $7.99

These are the same poses as the regular Federal Police but upgraded weaponry and helmets. The pistols appear to have scopes and other tech pieces on them, and the troopers themselves appear to be armed with a baton on their side (maybe a stun stick?).  Included in the pack are more heavily armed security forces armed with the same "Pulse Rifle" as the Exterminators.  I really like this touch, as it adds some nice firepower against trespassers!   

I painted on little logos on the arms, I have a vehicles from Rebel Minis that I am using as their transport.  I will be posting a QUICK LOOK of that at a later time. :)

Here is a quick overview of all the different poses in the pack.  It's a nice varied selection.

And here are the Federal Police forces, three are painted as police, the other two are Corp. Security.  The police cruisers are from Khurasan Miniatures as well, and I used sequins (fabulous!) for the light bars.  I'm very happy with these, and they are definitely some of my favorites miniatures!

Review - Critical Mass Games Bastion IFV and Havoc Tank

Written by Chris

 

Last year, Critical Mass Games added an assortment of ten armored fighting vehicles to their great Mercenaries range. Craig sent me review samples of each variant back around the holidays, so it's high time I share these with you. We'll start with the Bastion IFV (tracked variant) and the Havoc Tank (grav variant). This seems like the perfect time to show these off - they are featured prominently in the ZAS Army Expansion currently running on Kickstarter.

QUICK LOOK: Combat Wombat ZHI-111 Chinese Assault Lander

By Harold

Hi everyone, and welcome to the second installment of "Quick Look."

Today, I'll be looking at the Combat Wombat ZHI-111 Chinese assault lander, available at http://combatwombatminiatures.com for $11.

This went together very easy.  It also included one of his turned brass barrel (which is very nice) and a mount for it, but I decided to use mine as an unarmed version so I left it off.

There were some slight bubbles especially in the engine intakes but it didn't really take away from the model, but it did require a little bit of work to clean it up

Also, I had a weird issue where the bottom of the model came off as a big, flat piece of resin.  It required a little bit of sanding and I needed to glue it back on, but in the end it was really easy to remedy. Otherwise it was a very nice, clean casting.

For $11 it's a great shuttle model, something that really fills a niche.  There aren't too many shuttle models available out there, and this is quite a nice one.  Reminds me a little bit of the raptors from the new Battlestar Galactica series (one of my favorite shuttle models).   You could easily fit a squad of 5 and a pilot and co-pilot.   Or, use it in a Firefly-type scenario as the transport from the main spaceship.

Here we have it painted up, I think it'll be useful in all types of scenarios.  This was my first order with Combat Wombat and I look forward to my next (I'm pretty sure I need the Bullfrog!)!