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.

15mm Evil Empire - The Dark Suns Alliance

At the far edge of the Wytch Star Zone lies a desolate are of space known as the Dark Suns Nebula. Millennia ago a giant O type star collapsed into a supernova of gigantic proportions. The star systems around it were bathed in the outpouring radiation, plasma, gas and dust, and several other stars went novae as a result. After hundreds of thousands of years the shock waves had passed and the systems began to settle again, aside from occasional flares and meteorite impacts from the remains of the shattered star systems.

When humanity first explored the Dark Suns Nebula they found a collection of systems that had been enriched by the multiple supernovae, vast deposits of rare metals and minerals could be found in drifiting asteroids and the scarred and cratered planets that remained. But conditions were hellish, radiation was high and almost none of the planets retained their own atmospheres. Giant industrial complexes were buit on the remains of shattered worlds, and clone-bred workers were forced into servitude.

The hellish conditions took their toll. Mutation and radiation damage began to be seen in the clones, and their level of inteligence was stunted, even as their strength was increased. Some of the clones were more resistant to the debilitating effects of the radiation and their mutations manifested in another way - increased mental capacity.

These clones demonstrated the ability to control the more brutish clones, and in a short while an uprising began. One by one the colonies fell to the mutants, who took over industrial plants, colonies and space stations. Very quickly a hierarchy formed, with the most mentally gifted of the clones at the top, dominating those below them. Some pure-strain humans remain, those depraved enough to side with the clones against their former masters, or those weak willed enough to be dominated by the mental prowess of the leaders. Some pure strain humans who had essential skills or special talents were also kept, and their offspring were born into a life knowing no masters but the mutant leaders.

Now, the Dark Suns Alliance, as they have come to be known, has reached a turning point. Their clones continue to be affected by the radiations of their suns, mutating in unpredictable ways. The clone leaders need to restore their corrupted genetic pool and they have decided that expansion into the nearby Border Worlds Alliance is the way to do it. Slave raids on colony worlds have begun, with captured colonist being sent to processing plants to be sampled for genetic compatibility with the clone banks. Those that are found to be compatible are rendered down to their base organic material to feed the clone tanks, those that are found wanting but are able bodied are sent to the mines and industrial centres whilst those that are not fit enough are sent to "work" in the protein vats and flesh farms.

In the Border Worlds, colonists now watch the skies and fear the night, as they keep a look out for the blood red ships and the faceless soldiers that spell the doom of another colony world...

Symbol of the Dark Suns Alliance

The Dark Suns Alliance are my attempt to create an "evil" antagonist force as an OPFOR for sci-fi gaming. The imagery is based loosely on the old Red Shadows from the 1980's range of Action Force action figures by Palitoy. These figures were the European version of GI-Joe, and featured some of the same vehicles with different branding. Eventually Palitoy was bought by Hasbro and Action Force was morphed into GI-Joe, including extensive stories in the Action Force comic to explain the changes in the brand.

The original Red Shadows were a WW2 German soldier body and helmet, but with a sinister face mask and coloured red. The action figure carried a bazooka reminiscent of an SA-7 Grail, but smaller. Later figures would update the body and provide different weapons, but the one or two I had were limited to the bazookas. At that time I was 10 or 11 years old, and right in the target market, but mostly I was a Star Wars fan, so the few Action Force figures and Vehicles I got wound up being folded into my imaginary Star Wars Mythology.

  My second inspiration for the Dark Suns was the first set of RUSK troopers released by Armies Armies. I got in on the pre-order for these ages ago, but they have mostly been languishing with base coat on, with just a few figures painted.

I also got an undead Nazi figure from Rebel Miniatures, I think, and he seemed to be  the ideal commander for them, adding a touch of the Red Skull to the mix.

The two large droids either side are Rebel Miniatures TOMCats, the one on the left above having been modified to include a large heavy weapon on his left arm and an extra powerpack and connecting cable on his back.

In addition to the ground forces, I also have some vehicles already painted up for the Dark Suns, the Poundland hovercraft I had previously blogged about, and the kit-bashed skimmer from the Land Booster Spirit kit.

I also have one of the old style Dream Pod9 Moab Combat Mounts, which is all metal and ever so slightly different from the one in the link. I have yet to photograph mine, but here is one painted by another, mine is in the same red and black as all the other DSA troops.

Mighty Armies Campaign Game 3 - Orcs Vs. Undead at the Fletcher's Cottage

Our third battle of the Mighty Armies campaign saw Goblin's Undead face off against MBB's Orcs (actually my orcs, but MBB has no 10mm fantasy, so it was that or face off against the 3rd Reich in 6mm). It also saw the return of my patent pending "Shake-a-tron 3000 Blur-o-matic" mobile phone photography technique. Next game I WILL remember the proper camera.

The Orcs and undead legions were facing off for ownership of the Fletcher's Cabin. As a reminder, possession of this upgrades archers by 1 level, so from shooting 1 to shooting 2, shooting 2 to Long Ranged and Long Range to Artillery Range. The Undead started with possession, and also had the explosive ammo for their catapult as a result of holding the town with it's attendant Alchemist from the invading barbarian hordes in game 1. 

The cabin was placed in the centre and then 5 stands of trees were placed, alternating placement by each side with a random roll giving the Undead first placement. Goblin made a bit of a boo-boo here and placed three of the stands near his baseline. He had quite a shooty army build, with Long Ranged archers and the exploding ammo of his catapult, but he reduced their effectiveness by putting them all behind the LOS blocking trees. The Orcs Flying Beast had Scout, so could setup further forward than the other troops.

Setup

Turn 1
Turn 1 started with the undead making an aggressive charge up the centre with their wolf packs, and the bone beast levitating into the air to confront the Orcs flying beast. The Bone Beast and Flying Beast would proceed to dogfight for the next 3 turns, diving away or drawing in combat each turn.

The Orcs responded by advancing across the board, with all units pushing forward.

Turn 1

Turn 2
Limited movement on turn 2. The Undead moved up their heavies, the Vampire and Mummies, on the right and began to move their archers forward, looking to get out of the woods. The Orcs began to consolidate their right flank, advancing the Trolls and the Orc archers.

Turn 2

Turn 3
The limitations of the Shake-a-tron 3000 show up here, as all the other pictures apart from the one below of turns 3 and 4 are useless. On turn 3 the Undead advanced their wolf packs to the right and the Vampire and General straight forward setting up to threaten the flanks of any Orc cavalry charge. Unfortunately they were a bit premature, as the orcs general split off from the cavalry and advanced around the woods to allow the cavalry to use their mobility and charge the wolf packs and destroy them all. The undead archers continued to stroll through the woods as the trolls and Orc Archers moved into a position guarding the Orcs right flank.

Turn 4
On turn 4 the archers reached the edge of the wood and a gentleman's agreement said that the two half-stands that were out of the woods were as good as a single stand, so they had a pot-shot at the trolls. The mouldering bowstrings of the skeleton archers proved effective and one unit of trolls met their end. On the opposite side of the battlefield the Vampire Lord split off from the mummies to meet up with the single stand of undead cavalry and form another attacking force. The mummies advanced through the woods.  The dogfight between the bone beast and flying beast was concluded as the magics animating the bone beast were disrupted by the flying beasts attacks and it fell to the ground in pieces. On the Orcs turn the cavalry trampled over the corpses of the wolf packs to charge the Mummies. The now unoccupied Flying beast dropped down behind the mummies to support the attack. The combat was very close, and a single stand was destroyed. The mummies would have been pushed back, and thus destroyed by their retreat being blocked by the flying beast behind them, but they were fearless, so didn't need to retreat.

Turn 3/4

Turn 5
Turn 5 was over quite quickly. On their right flank the Orc archers fired on the skeleton bowmen emerging from the forest and killed one unit. On their left flank the Orc wolf rider cavalry and bone beast once again attacked the Mummies and destroyed the last stand. With more than 50% of his forces destroyed, the Vampire Lord was forced from the field and the Fletcher was left to the tender mercies of the Orcs.

With the first full campaign turn over the campaign map looks like this:

The Orcs and Lizard-men both own 4 territories and 2 special locations. The Undead have 3 territories and 1 special location and the Barbarians have been pushed back to just 2 locations. Next turn sees the Barbarians attack the Wizards Tower, the Orcs attack the Town, the Undead attack the Mill and the Lizard-men attack the Barbarians +10gp location. Favoured units will start appearing at the end of the next campaign turn too.

Kitbashes Part 2

As I mentioned in the last post I've snagged a bunch of el cheapo diecast toys recently from end of run sales at Toys R Us and Poundland (a UK version of a Dollar store, except with, y'know, pounds). Poundland had a run of very useful 6 wheeled APC's and dune buggy's, and a load of Tron Legacy toys all going for just £1 each. £10 got me a host of useful conversion fodder and 50 plastic shot glasses that come in useful for mixing paint, measuring out plaster, cleaning airgun nozzles and even drinking shots if you can't actually find anything constructive to do.

The first conversion is the Dune Buggy.

BRRRRRRM-B-B-B-BRRRRRRM

I've superglued the wheels in place and added some window protection in the form of some textured plasticard and fine mesh cut to size and superglued on. I've also added a spare grenade launcher to the roof from the very stylish and marvellously styled Khurasan Alien Light Scout Vehicle sculpted by the ubiquitous and talented Mr. John Bear Ross

The paint scheme is basic wasteland dirt over rust and primer pattern and was applied quickly and without a great deal of thought, but actually works quite well. I have some Rebel Minis Sahadeen on order and these vehicles are going to be the fast support for my Ash Wastes raider force.

A quick note on the backgrounds, I usually use a light box that I picked up for a song at Maplins (Radio Shack in the US) but my recent experiment with MiG pigments resulted in the dropcloth getting completely covered in rust pigment. Until I get around to cleaning it, my new light box is a couple of sheets of blue insulation foam I had earmarked for some terrain, hence the lines all over them.

The next kitbash is another quick and simple one to provide the Ash Waste Raiders with some heavy support. Flame Tanks!

I picked up a box of Armourfast PzIII G for a 20mm WW2 skirmish game that never got off the ground years ago. They've been sitting in the box for 2 or 3 years now and I was having a clear out when I rediscovered them. Fairly simple conversion here, I built the body from the box and added a small remote turret from a GW Tau shield generator and Heavy Flamer. A couple of sets of Tau Photon Grenade racks were added to each side as well. I had intended to run some sort of tubing or cables from these to the turret, but in the end left them as is.

The paint scheme is, again, wasteland dirt but I tried to at least give some impression of a camouflage scheme here. It's GW Foundation paints, Charadon Granite, Adeptus Battlegrey and Calthan Brown with Orkhide Shade for the sighting unit on top, I think. A fairly quick and simple conversion.

Kitbashes part 2 - the WIP's

A second lot of kitbashes today.

Firstly, a simple addition to the excellent Sabre Class Dropship by the supremely talented Mr. John Bear Ross. I love the Sabre, both the dropship and gunship versions. When no one is looking, I like to fly mine around the room making "neeeeeeeeooooow! vwoosh! dakka-dakka-dakka!" noises.

There is only one small problem with it, when landed it rests on it's chin mounted Gatling cannon. There are 4 pads at the corners of the pod section, but they don't quite reach the ground. I can imagine the pads from the pod extending, or the dropship hovering and dropping the pod, but I wanted to be able to depict it landed on the ground.

I had some styrene strip lying around, and came up with this:

I think it adds to the model in a complimentary way, and reminds me a bit of the choppers in Avatar as well.

The second kitbash is an attempt to reclaim some figures that have been languishing in my lead mountain for about 10 years. They are old 25mm GZG Landmate Suits which I don't think are in production any more. There are lots of more modern figure designs for amazing mecha from CMG, Rebel, DP9, Zandriz IV, ArtCrime and many others, and these look very dated in comparison.

To be fair, they aren't great figures. The detail is sketchy at best and they actually look nothing like the Landmates from Appleseed that thy are supposed to be, but at the time they were all that was available. I've decided to try and re-purpose them for 15mm as early versions of mecha instead,

Both figures have had 6mm MRLS packs added to their left shoulders as missile packs, and small 6mm Gatling turrets to their right shoulders as a form of CIDS (close in defence system, like Trophy or a tiny CIWS). They have had a couple of spare bits from a VOTOMS kit glued to the front of the helmet as a sensor cluster and the guns have been cut down and re-built with Greens Stuff, styrene strip and spare barrels from some Old Crow vehicles.

I think the make or break will be the paint job on these guys. Without hacking them to pieces or going mad with the Green Stuff - which I'm not much good at - this is about as good as they'll get for now. I may add another sensor of some kind to the front of the helmet and possibly add some sort of backpack.