Combat Wombat Assault Lander and Kitbashes

Another round of VTOL 15mm goodness.

First up is the Combat Wombat Assault Lander. Scotty at Combat Wombat very kindly sent this to me along with the missing pod from the first of my Bullfrogs - he's a clearly a gent of impeccable taste and refinement so I encourage you all to order oodles of his fine wares.

The combat Lander comes in 7 resin parts and 1 turned brass barrel for the nose mounted gun. The resin parts are three landing legs, the main body, two engine pods and the chin turret. There was some flash and a few bubbles on the model, but nothing that a few strokes with a file couldn't clean up, although I was rather brutal with the delicate edge of the engine intakes on one side and erased some of the raised detail. My own fault entirely.

All the parts fitted well together with minimal sanding to get the engine pods square. The gun required a small hole expanding in the chin turret to take the turned brass barrel. 

I have added a pair of missile pods to the sides to give the Assault Lander some extra teeth. The ship very much reminds me of the Raptors from the new Battlestar Galactica, and I recall there were several episodes where the normally unarmed Raptors were loaded up with missiles. The pods are actually made from a pair missile turrets designed for 6mm miniatures from Old Crow.

You can just see a chip in the resin of the lower corner of the canopy from my clumsy handling (or more accurately clumsy dropping).

Overall the assault lander makes for a really nice little model. It's generic enough that it could fit into a near-future game as an aerodyne or VTOL lander of some kind, a space opera or star-trek style game as a shuttlecraft or even some sort of combat lighter for a GrimDark game if you choose.

Next u is a kitbash of a Revell KA-50 Hokum snapfix kit.

I originally picked this up when Hobbycraft was closing down to use in Battlefield Evolution: Modern Combat as a proxy for a Chinese helicopter gunship. First game out I was chiding my nephew about being careful with his M1A2 Abrams tank models so as not to damage the delicate aerials on them when I turned around and knocked the unfortunate helicopter to the floor, snapping it's fiendishly complex contra-rotating rotor blades off and dislodging the cannon, never to be seen again. Much hilarity ensued.

Since then the chopper has languished in the bitz box. I eventually got around to doing something with it. Antigrav pods are the breech units of some spare weapons from the CMG Blackguard Mecha. The barrels have been chopped off and sanded down to leave the ribbed pods. I have some detailing parts on the way from Japan that I will use to add errr... detail to the pods before painting. Other bits include a spare cannon from my CMG ZAS tanks , rocket pods from Rebel Miniatures and spare missile clusters from Clear Horizon Miniatures excellent Raven VTOL.

I have to add the details as mentioned above, plus do some gap filling before she'll be ready for painting. I think the final decision on if the kitbash has worked will only come after she's been undercoated. At the moment the yellow/brown/green camo pattern looks juts too toy like. Watch this space.

Next we have a platoon of hovertanks kitbashed from a Battlefront PT-76 platoon that I got half price at SELWG this year (bargain!)

I have put the tracks in the bits box and replaced them with VTOL lift engines from Micropanzer. When I contacted Jason he originally had the lift engines as resin pieces and I wanted to check he'd be OK to cast up 50 of them (8 per tank plus some spares, 'cos who knows when you'll need a VTOL engine). Jason advised he was now able to produce them in metal and 50 would be no problem. As it happened I used 9 on each of the tanks anyway, so the spares came in handy.

Shots on my painting table. Sorry about the mess (flips a coin to the bartender...)

Each of the tanks got 4 lift engines on either side plus an upturned one on the rear as a drive engine. The engines had a gentle sweep down to a point behind the duct which I had to cut away. You can actually see the same piece in use on the Bullfrog Lander  from Combat Wombat as a lift engine in my previous post. I believe this is a result of Scott and Jason working together on some designs in the past.

I was originally going to replace the Battlefront supplied 76mm cannon with a 4mm steel ball bearing and a small disk of styrene to make a short barreled laser emitter, but instead I used another of Scott at Combat Wombats turned metal barrels. With just a short pilot hole drilled these fitted perfectly. I also added a pair of missile launch tubes from a die-cast toy and relocated the Dshk heavy machine-gun.

The turrets were affixed using the supplied 2mm rare earth magnets. I even managed to get all the polarities round the right way so any of the turrets could be used on any of the tank chassis.

I've also added flight-stand toppers from Litko (available from Figures in Comfort in the UK) which I find to be an excellent way of supporting most flying things. I use them on my Full Thrust ships, Tumbling Dice 1/600 aircraft for Air War: C21 and as flying stands for various 15mm. I've also chopped some stands down to give a grav-floater effect, as you can see in the group shot below.

GRUNTZ AAR - Action at Valin Farm

TGP and I played a game of Gruntz today based on a scenario from the Tomorrows War rulebook. I modified the background to match my Gruntz forces and translated the units from one to the other as best I could. I added a few extra units on each side to up the points values slightly.

We also used two house rues for our Gruntz game. Firstly, we used the random dice draw for unit activation from Bolt Action. Each side uses different coloured dice (mine were green, TGP was red). Each unit on the table has a single activation dice, and all the dice are added to a pot and drawn one by one. If a green die was drawn, I activated a previously inactive unit, if a red was drawn, TGP activated one of his units. If a unit suffered a compulsory move action, like a condition brown move, they immediately forfeit their next activation dice, so if they haven't been yet, their dice are removed from the pot and if they have already been activated their die was left on the table at the end of the turn, so there would be one less die in the pot. Once all the dice are drawn, the turn is over and all the dice are returned to the pot, excepting destroyed units, units on overwatch (who keep their dice) and units who made compulsory moves AFTER they had activated. It worked well, and I think it will probably become our standard method of initiative for Gruntz.

The second house rule was fairly simple one - the weapon ranges were treated as range bands, with each one after the 1st conferring a -2 modifier. The Mortar got -2 within the first range band (hard to hit close by with a mortar) and nothing in the second, -2 in the third and so on.

The scenario description was as follows:

Glory, in the Foix Gap, 2298

The long-standing feud between Zydek Adaptive Systems (ZAS) and the New Kiev Defence Force (NKDF) has finally erupted into war! ZAS forces have plunged deeply into the Foix Gap, only to find their advances blocked by advance NKDF National Guard and militia elements. Sharp engagements are being fought wherever the two forces come into contact. One such meeting engagement occurred at the tiny farming village of Valin Farm.

The picture above shows the table, with the village of Valin Farm in the centre (I really need to finish basing those trees...). The ZAS forces would deploy from the table edge at the bottom of the picture and have to head up table to exit off the far edge. The NKDF got hidden set-up for some of their units, who would be dug in to prepared positions (+2 guard and soak). On turn 2 the NKDF would recieve reinforcments arriving on the top left table corner.

Woods were delineated by the areas bounded by the hexes, and were impassable to all vehicles. Hedgerows blocked movement for the vehicles (think space bocage).

NKDF Forces

Objective:
ZAS Forces have broken through all across the border. One of our militia units has established a defensive position in the village of Valin Farm. They are not strong enough to halt a concerted ZAS advance. Due to the importance of the road connection from Valin Farm to the critical bridge over the Resolution River, you must reinforce the militia and destroy or ablate any advances by ZAS forces! We have very little armour to allocate to this operation, but we do not believe they are aware of our advances in powered armour. You should be able to deliver a surprise blow that will leave ZAS reeling and perhaps blunt the speed of their advance across the breadth of the frontier.

Starting forces:

5 x NKDF Militia Squad

2 x Specialist NKDF - Fusion Gun Team

1 x Specialist NKDF - Mortar team

Arrive on Turn 2 at point 2:

1 xM233 Cossack APC with:

                                2 x Dragoon PA squads

            3 x RGM 85 Exosuits

            1 x M-64 Wolverine tank

    

  

ZAS Forces:

Objective:
It is important to maintain the timeline of attack while simultaneously reducing any NKDF forces encountered. Assault past Vallin Farm and join up with your flanking units at the Resolution River Bridge. Try not to bog down in a toe to toe fight with expected NKDF resistance, but do not leave a strong NKDF force behind you to threaten your communications or menace follow on units!

3 x ZM-55 APC  each  with:

2 x ZAS Fireteam

3 x ZM-89 MBT

2 x ZA-2 “Purifier” Light Mecha

1 x ZMQ-1 Attack Drone

    

Unfortunately I don't have any in-progress shots of the battle, only the aftermath. The ZAS forces deployed to the left flank, shielded by the farmhouse and woods at the left side of their deployment. they moved upo the left flank, taking fire from the fusion guns emplaced in the village. The drone made a pass over the hedge line to the right hand side of Valins Farm, dropping it's guided bomb on two of the Militia units. It circled around the village, firing missiles at the fusion guns. The ZAS Mecha deployed in the enclosed field on the baseline and moved up through the centre, taking pot shots at the fusion guns. The ZAS APC deployed behind the tanks. Two of them dropped off infantry into the woods and hedgerow, then split up, one heading around the woods to the left and the other two heading up the centre through the road, following the tanks.

The NKDF militia split into two, with two squads heading into the woods on the left, and the remains of the two bombed squads and one full strength squad deploying for flank shots on the vehicles passing through the village. On turn two the NKDF reinforcements arrived. The tank drove up the left flank and, in concert with the fusion guns and mortar, destroyed two of the ZAS tanks at the edge of the woodlands on the left. The APC dropped it's two squads of powered armour off in the copse of trees to the left of the village, along with the two militia squads, then pushed up to assist the tank. The three exosuits split up, one following the tank and two heading around the back of the village to face off any units that made it through.

The final two turns saw the ZAS forces loose two tanks on the left flank to the fusion gun, tank and APC fire. A further ZAS APC made a break on the left flank, but an ENG critical denied it the double move it needed to get off-table. It was then destroyed by a combination of exosuit and tank fire. The drone passed over the village and made a strafing runs on a militia team and PA suit squad redeploying into the town, only to be brought down by accurate and effective fire from the other PA suit squad in the tree line. The remaining ZAS tank charged through the village, taking flank shots from militia squads and exosuits and downing an exosuit and the mortar squad on the way through in return. An empty APC followed, finishing off the mortar team. The third APC halted at the hedgerow, risking point blank shots from the fusion gun, to deploy it's two infantry squads. It then rammed and destroyed the third exosuit after surviving a hail of fire from all sides.

Meanwhile the ZAS infantry from the hedgerow advanced behind the tanks and APC's to assault the left most fusion gun. The ZAS infantry in the woods exchanged a few rounds of fire with the militia units in the woods to the left of the village before the tank arrived. An attempt to assault the tank was largely ineffectual, and one fire team were slowly whittled down by the tanks hull MG. A later attempt by the other fire team to assault the exosuit was likewise ineffective, with the exosuits demolition ram smushing one of the ZAS soldiers.

The final actions of the game were the assaults on the fusion guns. The one to the right of the road was successfully assaulted and it's gun crew captured. The assault to the left of the road was a dismal show all round, with the assaulting team scoring just one hit that was soaked, and the gun and a supporting squad of infantry failing to counter assault then failing a condition brown test. The supporting infantry ran away, after the ZAS infantry failed their free assault, as did the gun crew.

The final outcome was a victory to the NKDF on points. They had blunted the ZAS attack, but taken quite a beating in the process. If the ZAS force had managed to get the APC with the engine critical off the board, and the drone hadn't been shot down, it would have gone the other way.

Final dispositions.

ZAS troops assaulting exosuit - less one smushed trooper. Tank has it's turret traversed to rear to shoot at fleeing APC.

Captured gun crew from right fusion gun.

RPG alley. Multiple militia units in place for flank shots. Downed exosuit has just been rammed by the ZAS APC.

The two decisive kills, the drone and the crippled APC.

PA suit squad.

ZAS Mecha.

Left fusion gun after fleeing from assaulting troops - not in a great position...

Rear view of RPG alley, just visible at top right is the PA squad who shot down the drone.

ZAS ZMQ-1 Drone. Effective spotting and missile work made it one of the ZAS most effective units.

A few observations we made after the game were that the skill/shooting levels of the troops were possibly too low - we seemed to do a lot of rolling, but not much hitting. I had statted the units as seasoned/veteran, apart from the ZAS APC's which were average. On the other hand, it may be that we are just used to an unrealistic casualty rate. If you read modern combat reports and compare them with wargame AAR's where it's not unusual to see entire forces wiped out, the modern reports have very low casualty rates in comparison. Perhaps the volume of fire versus the hit rate is actually about right but we are just used to a more unrealistic baseline.

The other observation was that the assault rules didn't seem to work well. I did suggest to TGP that lightly armed troops assaulting a tank or a heavily armoured exosuit can't expect to do well. Neither of us was really happy with the way that the assault on the left hand fusion gun had gone, but couldn't really point out a problem with the system - it just seemed like the fusion gun team wouldn't have dragged the gun with them when they ran off. I did advise TGP that the fusion gun model was a proxy as my NVL heavy weapons team were on the windowsill unpainted. TGP also wasn't happy with mortars attacking tanks, but I suggested that hi-tech mortar rounds could easily be variable role frangible or self forging anti-tank. He accepted that idea, grudgingly.

But, overall we had a really fun game and will certainly be using the Gruntz rules again with a few tweaks.

Miniatures used were CMG ZAS for the ZAS tanks, infantry and APC's. The ZAS mechas were converted and now OOP GZG Landmate figures. The Drone was a Matchbox die-cat toy repainted and slightly modified.

The NKDF infantry were Oddzial Osmy New Vistula Legion. Tank and APC were by Old Crow. Exosuits are Khurusan Miniatures and the PA suits were Brigade Models. The fusion guns were kitbashed from spare cannons from the Rebel Miniatures Sabre gunship.

Terrain was a mix of scratch built (the domes, bocage and the white building) and 4-Ground laser cut MDF for the two farmhouses. The coloured containers are also now OOP GZG.

Kitbash Part 5

Long time without a post, so you get a great big one now. The lightbox is also still kaput, so apologies for the murky photos.

First of all, a couple of kit bashes for my 15mm Scifi. I was recently inspired by the Khurasan Miniatures soon to be released Doe Gunship to try and build a squad lifter for my NKDF forces. A number of threads on TMP suggested various donor vehicles, but I eventually settled on a Revell 1/72 model of a Revell Kamov Ka-29 "Helix" helicopter:

The model itself is quite nice, with good detail on the various kit parts. It fits together well, even the spindly support struts for the rocket pods and under carriage.

To convert this from a helicopter to a VTOL shuttle I used several additional parts, engines from an Revell Easykit A-10, a LONGBOW radome from a Revell Easykit Apache, a Twin Gun turret from Old Crow and two side mounted thruster pods from Combat Wombat/Micropanzer (although I can't seem to find the thruster pods on either Combat Wombat or Micropanzer's sites now).

The conversion was fairly straightforward. I built up the model to the point where the hull was sealed but no external fixtures added. I then cut down the A-10 engine pods and attached them upside down on either side of the top rear fuselage. There was a handy rail on one side above the large crew door that acted as a brace, but nothing on the other side. In Hindsight, I could have added a piece of scrap styrene here to make my life easier, but ho hum. I then  glued the Micropanzer thrusters to either side between the locating lugs for the weapon wings. I then cut the middle braces out of the weapon wings and glued them over the top of the thruster pods. The wheels and undercarriage was then added, as were the various nose sensor devices. Remembering that this is going to be a gaming model and not a display piece, I left of the various fiddly and delicate aerials and grab handles (bitz box fodder). The final addition was the large Old Crow turret added to the bottom as a kind of remote bombardment turret for fire support, a bit like the AC130 gunship.

Once complete it was given an all-over undercoat of Army Painter Army Green - a very versatile green base coat that covers well - that tied all the parts together nicely. Next step is to paint it up to match the rest of my NKDF vehicles, so darker green stripes with grey and black offset "chocolate chip" patterns.

The next kitbash is of the old Matchbox Personnel Carrier inspired by the updates done over on Mini Metal Mayhem of the old Matchbox Stoat armoured car 

I had one of these from my childhood, and managed to pick up three more, all in pretty bad states of repair. I disassembled them, binned the two rows of seated passengers and the bendy plastic guns and dunked them in a pot of nail varnish remover for a week to try and get rid of the worst of the grime and old, flaky paint. It didn't totally work - when they painted something in the 1970's it was designed to stay painted, dammit! A lot of the paint did come off, but some of it is so welded on, I'm just going to paint over it.

Originally I was going to keep them wheeled, but swap out the big slicks for something a bit more rugged. However, when I saw the grav engines from Micropanzer, I decided to give them a go. You can see the engines on this thread at TMP (you can also see the thruster pods that I used on the Helix conversion on the shuttle in that same thread).

The wheel wells were filled in with some strip styrene and the grav engines glued in place. More strip styrene adds a few gubbins details besides the engines and the top deck was selaed over with sheet styrene. Details were added with half-round and tread plate styrene and a top hatch was also added. The bendy plastic gun was replaced by a spare from a GZG 6mm hovertank (The Rommel)

I've only completed one so far, and it's yet to be painted, but I'm really pleased with the progress.

Finally we have another 15mm Scifi piece, not a kit bash this time. This is a Khurasan Miniatures PA-3 Python Powered Armour Suit. This is again for my NKDF forces, to give them some light mecha support to compliment their big stompy robot.

Simple green/tan camo this time, as the green/dark green didn't totally work on the last NKDF Mecha. These are very nice little robots with a selection of arm poses. I have 3 more to finish off which will make a nice little strike team, or allow them to split up to add a bit of punch to individual platoons.

Crazy Space Dogs and Angry Space Cats

A while ago I previewed some of the amazing Felid troops from Khurasan miniatures. I picked these up just as soon as they became available and they've been languishing in my To Be Painted Mountain Of Lead (TBPMOL). I have just about a platoons worth of foot troops and 6 of the amazing grav bikes.

Originally I was going to paint them in either a sort of desert tan colour or maybe an attempt at tiger stripes with white chest and bellies, but I thought the former too boring and the latter too corny. I was sat at my painting station brooding over pallets as AGG wandered by. I asked her what colour she thought I should paint them and she replied, without hesitation, "Purple". "Purple," said I, "why purple? It's not very military, or terribly inconspicuous?". "So," she replied, "they're space cats, they can wear what they like and still look cool." How right she was.

So these chaps got a white undercoat and then a liberal wash of purple ink (an old GW one called - and considering GW's frankly downright bizarre naming policies on paints I can hardly believe that it's this and not something like Throbbing Vein Purple - simply "Purple Ink"). Some got a watered down wash and others a neat ink wash, which accounts for the shading differences. I have noticed that the ink doesn't adhere or cover as well as paint. It very quickly rubs off the raised areas, and there are some areas on the undercoated figures where it just would not flow onto. Even when applied directly with a brush, it just pooled away from a few spots. Weapons were picked out in black and Boltgun with Catchan Green for the ammo hoppers, and I painted Hobbes style Tiger faces with white and orange.

The Bike needs a bit of cleanup work here and there, I've splashed "over the lines" in a few places, but I like the overall scheme.

Here they are enjoying some of my new scratch built stackable hill sections too.

I also picked up some of the Critical Mass Games Protolene Khanate figures to use as crazy space dog pirates. These were painted according to their function. Line troops are in red (ohhh....redshirt, bad luck), support weapons are in green, leaders in black with gold or silver trim and specialists in dark blue. I figured that they're space pirates, so they want to look scary - they show their "Fierce Face" when attacking, plus dogs are colourblind, so maybe they don't realise that they really stand out on the battlefield.

 The figures were all primed white and again painted with GW inks, in this case red, green, blue and black (obviously). I tidied up the bits where I didn't want the primary colour to be with a bit of white and then used the old GW Flesh Wash, Windsor and Newton Peat Brown and Chestnut inks and GW black for the faces and hands. Weapons were black with a few Boltgun highlights and the armour accents were Boltgun and Shining Gold.

Heavy Weapons

Business end of the Space Pirate Boomstick!

I also had a pack of the 15mm.co.uk Lawdogs which I painted up as protolene attack hounds, or Protohounds as I have dubbed them.

 And here they are also playing on the nice new stackable terrain...

I'm pretty happy with how they've come out, and they are nice, quick paint jobs too. The Protolene are just about done, plus I picked up a sweet ride for them too in a Dr Who Chula attack ship from the Dr Who Micro-Universe range.

I still have about half the Felids to do, and I'm looking around for some suitable vehicles for them to spill out from. I'd like something consistent with the bikes, so it needs to be grav. I'm pondering the Old Crow Glaive APC with Grav drive for them, but may hold on until Salute and have a looksee.