Incoming Transmission..... Rebel Minis Preview

Mike at Rebel Minis has sent me photos of his latest greens to share with you. There are two sets of Earth Force Marine variants, civilian bystanders and rioters.

Rebel Minis 15mm URBAN Earth Force Marines

Rebel Minis 15mm HAT & MASKED Earth Force Marines


Rebel Minis 15mm Civilian Bystanders


Rebel Minis 15mm Rioters!

Mike hopes to have these on the site at the end of next week! His sculptor is finishing up the Earth Forces, mortar, machine-gun team and a few others, then he is starting the Sahadeen heavies, Warmaidens and a few other surprises...

Cheers
Mark

Weird World War Two

With the end of the month this week, pay day is approaching fast - phew! So, I'm planning a slight body swerve from my more usual hard sci fi gaming this month.

I have a strong interest in apocalyptic survival and therefore have to admit being fascinated by the dying gasps of the Third Reich, especially the last few days in Berlin, which is summed up so wonderfully in Oliver Hirschbiegel's film DOWNFALL.

Add to this a love of Zombie movies ever since a teenager and you can imagine that games involving Nazi science trying to forestall the inevitable but instead create the ultimate Götterdämmerung of walking dead, have an appeal I find difficult resist.

Well, I can resist it no longer. Battlefront recently released a natty little pack containing 3 Soviet Roto Razvedki Universal Carriers (with crew) or £9.50, though you can pick them up in the UK from some stockists for less than £9.00. £3 per vehicle including crew - bargain! I love the dinky toy look of the Carrier, one of my favourite all time historical AFVs, so this set is a definite must have!

I'm ordering these as part of a Soviet Zombie Hunter force for WWW2 Götterdämmerung games, along with the Soviet Leytenant A V Pyl’cyn and Submachine-Gun Company pack to provide the dismounted element. They'll also make a nice tabletop force for Ambush Allet: Force on Force and potentially some low tech militia too.


If the budget stretches, I'll buy the Soviet LW flamethrower platoon too this month but I am going to have to get some German WW2 Zombies first.....these will mostly be derived from Peter Pig's LW Germans surrendering pack 446 and one of the greatcoated mortar crewmen in pack 552. I'll bend the arms and pop the heads forward or to one side and even replace some of them with Peter Pig's separate 'skull' heads.

Now, I'm just wondering which fully armoured Sci Fi miniatures would be best for elite WWW2 Soviets. I'm tempted to field yet more GZG New Israelis but this time with Peter Pig separate heads wearing pilotka sidecaps or Soviet tanker helmets? Or again with headsops, possibly ex-MJ Space Troopers from The Scene?

If any of you are doing or thinking of WWW2 in 15mm I'd welcome any input.

Cheers
Mark

More 15mm Headswops....

A couple more WIPs. Another Vargr and my favourite; a 15mm Colonel Steiner, Michael Caine becomes a 15mm 'Space Marine' Merc Commander.

My name is Michael Caine...

The minis are brilliant (even if I say so myself) despite looking far too washed out and rather unimpressive in the pics. That 'light' blue is Citadel Shadow Grey which drys darker than you expect, then with an additional Asurman Blue Wash. The lighter 'flesh' colour is Citadel Tallarn Flesh which if you know, is actually quite dark. Nevertheless, I'm so impressed by how effective 'Steiner' looks here in front of me that I'm going to create a 15mm WWW2 Götterdämmerung unit of Waffen SS types in pea dot camo.

Bit ruff this morning.......

So, how difficult is it to do swop heads? The answer is, not very as long as you are not fussy. At worst, it can be time consuming and incredibly boring after your first half dozen or so. I took a pair of sharp wire stripping snips, snipped off the heads and removed the resulting ridge along the cut with a sharp knife.

Did I drill a hole to pin the head? Did I bollocks! Took the edge of the knife and gouged out a small hole approximately where the neck (spigot) would sit within a blob of glue. I use cheap knifes with those reusable blades you snap, 5 for £1 from Poundland. I snipped the neck spigot down to about 1 or 1.5mm. Steiners head was attached using UHU Superglue gel, the Vargr using an epoxy resin.

If the head is at a high angle or doesn't have much purchase, I would suggest an additional 'sock' of epoxy resin to secure the attachment for all time. If you are worried about longetivity, I have headswopped miniatures which are 7-8 years old and short of a nuclear apocalypse, nothing is going to remove their heads.

The Peter pig human heads are really small and trying to position them with your fingers is only going to end up in tears and stuck fingers - believe me I know! Instead, roll out a small amount of Blutack, stick this to the top of the head and hold the other end of the Blutack to control placement on the shoulders.

On my first headswops I carefully built up new detail using expoxy modelling putty, but you know what? This is 15mm and once the figs are painted, even holding them up to your nose, you will barely notice any roughness or small blobs of glue you missed. Unlike the camera, our eyes don't have a Macro setting.

Cheers
Mark

More Hammerhead Space Demon Pics

Emptying the Sim Card on my camera this morning I found these pics of an alternative paintjob I've used on my Khurasan Miniatures 15mm Hammerhead Space Demons. This more fleshy scheme came about as Heather didn't like the pale 'Pitch Black' paint job and wanted me to try something more "feral". So I painted several of my Space Demons like this for her and she's really happy with the result.


It's a Citadel Bleached Bone basecoat with an old GW Flesh Wash and a very very light Citadel Devlann Mudd wash on the tail. To produce the highlights, I ran the tip of my finger along the high points of the model such as the crest of the skull before the ink had fully dried.


I have to say my own preferred paint scheme is Citadel Bleached Bone with Devlann Mudd Wash accenting, for a 'Pitch Black' Demon effect as described in one of my previous posts. It's just more 'menacing' and 'other worldly' IMO.

For me, these Hammerheads are the real star of Khurasan's Space Demon range....and I want more!!!!!

Cheers
Mark

15mm Vargr Mercenary Conversion

GZG 15mm New Israeli 'leader' body

with Beast Wolf Head from Peter Pig

Still very much a work in progress. Before you ask.....why yellow combat enviroment armour? Not only did I want to paint something radically different to blue! But it's believed wolves can only sense red and yellow. So, as a Vargr Merc commander, Grav'RR bought himself a distinguished yellow battlesuit. Unfortunately, like his rifle, it's seen better days, better battles.

The head is greyer in actuality than it appears in the photo - probably due to the Citadel Devlann Mud Wash. I still need to sort the Vargr's eyes to my satisfaction though.


His troopers are going to be painted in Citadel Shadow Grey (almost similar to RAF grey-blue), possibly with Black & Codex Grey tiger stripes.

Cheers
Mark

Spartans - All done bar the basing!

I'd been looking forward to returning to my Spartans all day. So, straight onto the painting (a.k.a. kitchen) table when I got home tonight in order to make the most of the fantastic evening light.

'Blue' Spartan Platoons No.2 and No.3 were finished in record time. I also emptied the last zip bags of GZG New Israeli odds and sods to create a couple of additional support squads and then just painted every last miniature left on the table until there is a small sea of blue. My thoughts turn to Chelsea and I'm reminded of the 1979 the FA Cup Winners Subbuteo team I owned as a kid. Chelsea's main rivals were rather surprisingly Brazil, whom I don't think ever actually played at Stamford Bridge........

By 8.30pm, 60 plus Spartans and 3 conversions done in just two nights, with plenty of time spare to crack open a bottle of wine and plump down on the sofa with Heather to cringe in unison at the latest episode of The Apprentice on the BBC. Best TV of the week.

Cheers
Mark