Sunday, April 11, 2010

Painted Resin

Well, I managed to paint the resin vehicles to a gaming level pretty quickly. The resin material seems to have taken Gesso (which I use to prime) and paint fairly well.
Here is the AMX-10RC from its left, rear, and right. I used the same camouflage pattern as the Sagaies and the APCs. The vehicle is a very solid piece of resin, quite a bit heavier than plastic kits. I hope the paint job will hold up well against bumps and bruises. The vehicle is in 20mm (1/76) scale, but looks fine enough compared to the 1/72 plastic kits, and is suitably intimidating.
Here are the VBLs. I painted the windows a dark blue colour to represent the glass, since this is what I've seen other people do for solid resin vehicles. The effect seems fine enough.
Here's a close-up of one of the VBLs. The kit is quite functional, probably with less detail than a plastic kit would have, but it's good enough for me and builds up a lot faster. Hopefully it will also turn out to be more durable in gaming.

Overall, this is has been a very positive experience for me. I'll definitely be getting more resin vehicles for gaming.

Monday, April 5, 2010

Into the Unknown

Frustrated with plastic kits that have too many parts, I recently purchased some resin vehicle miniatures from S&S models. These are designed for wargaming and have very few pieces. Although marketed as 20mm (1/76) scale, they seem close enough to fit well with 1/72s too. Since I've never worked with or painted resin models before, I'm in unknown territory.

These resin models have flash and excess bits that need to be trimmed, but because of the very few parts, the overall preparation time was far less than plastic models.

I bought 2 VBL models. As you can see, these are a combination of resin and metal, but they do seem to take super glue well enough. I'm thinking of making removable upper torsos of crewmen for all my vehicles to indicate buttoned/unbuttoned status in Ambush Alley games.

This is an uparmoured AMX-10RC, and it will be the heavy hitter in my games. It's got the same resin/metal combination as the VBLs. I'll have to see how well these materials take paint.

Well, on to priming.

Friday, April 2, 2010

Even More Partisans and Some Terrain

I've been doing more painting and building in the last while, mainly for the upcoming Mayday Ambush Alley game I'll be running. I've done up more partisans and some terrain.

I've painted up some more partisans from Caesar's first WWII partisans box. This set has a different group of poses, including an interesting man with an explosive detonator. In addition, I painted some more Caesar modern insurgents, for the RPG and SAW support.

Another interesting figure is an Orion modern Chechen fighter I painted up, for use as a Person of Interest in games. The Orion sets are not as detailed as Caesar, but match up fairly well in size, as can be seen in this comparison with the Caesar nun.
I've also made some simple mud walls from styrofoam. These are just strips of foam with drywall compound texture and a simple painting scheme. They are low walls that offer cover.
Also, I painted some Liberation Miniatures DShK heavy machine guns. These are generic enough that I can use them for several settings. Here, some partisans are reloading theirs.

I finally managed to base the GZG Ixx miniatures properly, and now they look quite a bit better. I'm getting to like them more and more, since they fit so well with 1/72s.

Thursday, April 1, 2010

Squadron Strike!

I recently bought the starship combat game Squadron Strike. This is a fast-play, beer-and-pretzels game from a company called Ad Astra Games. It's meant to capture all the cool space combat you see in the movies, with no regard to newtonian physics or actual science at all. Sounds like a lot of fun!

I plan on kitbashing a lot of 1/72 scale space craft miniatures and bringing them to the Tuesday games. (It's a board game, but miniatures can be used on the hex board) The rules are fast and simple, so games shouldn't take longer than 30 minutes. Whole tournaments can probably be done in the Tuesday night time frame.

Hey, I should check out Squadron Strike's even simpler cousin - Attack Vector: Tactical.