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.

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.

Gribblies and Suits

I went to a major sale at a local hobby shop recently, and they had some Confrontation pre-painted miniatures marked at half price. I'm not a player of any Rackham game, but some of the miniatures interested me. There was a box of "Scorpion Phemera Omega" miniatures for $15, so I bought those.
There are 8 in the box, and these creatures remind me of hormagaunts from Warhammer 40k, but in a size appropriate for 1/72 miniatures. For pre-paints these are not bad, although they have rather large bases that I may have to replace.
As you can see in this comparison, they are a decent size to go with modern 1/72 miniatures.
Another angle shows some of their detail. You can easily imagine a horde of these attacking.

I'll probably look around for more sales to buy more of these creatures. It seems appropriate for them to come in a large group.

Also, inspired by Eric at 1/72 Multiverse, I bought some reduced-price AT-43 Red Blok battlesuits from the War Store. These are nice miniatures, especially at their price of $13US for a box of 3.
This shot shows the type with a machine gun and a flame thrower next to a 1/72 scale VAB. These are meant to be powered armour in 28 mm scale, but they seem to fit nicely as battlesuits or mini-mechs in 1/72.
Another shot with one next to a Sagaie.
Two of them next to a Caesar 1/72 scale nun. They are suitably imposing compared to 1/72 scale humans, and should put a good sci-fi element into games when mixed with moderns. I may repaint these to a colour scheme more appropriate to my setting.

Painted Armoured Cars

In the last while I was playing the Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2 video games, so I didn't have much time to paint or update. (I blame Kevin's company for this)

Now I've managed to put some camouflage onto the two Sagaie armoured cars from the previous post. So here they are:

It's interesting to see the middle pair of wheels suspended in mid-air like that. On the real vehicle these are in a retracted position normally and dropped down for extra mobility.
The pair of vehicles from the back.

Overall I liked the vehicle models, but for something bigger I think I'll get resin kits with fewer pieces. That is, after I finish the Ace T-72s on my plate. Those are nightmares.

Little Armoured Cars With Big Guns

I've been building a couple of ACE models 1/72 scale Sagaie armoured cars. These are interesting modern French vehicles that look like they can be used for a low-tech sci-fi setting. However, design-wise ACE models are almost the exact opposite of the Heller VABs. Even for small models like these, there are many pieces to glue together, along with tiny etched-metal fittings. Taken together, they produce excellent detail, but are often not suitable for wargaming. I've left off many small plastic pieces as well as most of the etched-metal fitting, otherwise they'd come off the first time anyone moved them around on the gaming table.

The two armoured cars, showing their long 90mm guns in proportion to their bodies.
The front of the Sagaie, showing the detail of the turret mantlet.
The back of the Sagaie, showing the detail of the amphibious propeller housings.

Now I just have to paint them in a similar camouflage style as my VABs.

Trucks and Trucks

I've been building and painting some more vehicles recently. I'm aiming for models that will be generic enough to be useful in several settings, so I can get the most out of them.

For all guerrilla/insurgent forces modern and futuristic, they need cheap transports and weapons platforms - enter technicals. I tried doing it the cheap way by starting from some Matchbox pickup trucks, and the results don't seem bad.
I repainted a couple of Matchbox Honda Ridgelines and added Liberation Miniatures DShK heavy machine guns to them. The result looks haphazard and threatening at the same time - which is good for the intended effect.
The Matchbox die cast model has a full gray plastic interior, including cup holders, (!) and I left that all untouched.
The truck beds have boxes and packs in them, so I painted these to give the technicals a lived in look. The beds are also big enough so 1/72 figures can be placed in them to give them more flavour. All in all, this is pretty cheap and effective, considering that the trucks were $1 each at Wal-Mart.

I also built a pack of 2 Pegasus quick-build WWII US Army GMC trucks. These are very nice models, quick to build but with good detail at the same time. I painted them in a generic olive green colour that's suitable for many wars, settings, and factions.
These trucks are quick and easy to get to a gameable state, and are yet another Pegasus offering aimed at wargamers.
You can see the detailed folds of the canvas top, which I painted in a khaki colour.
The trucks also include a driver each, and I gave them a quick paintjob too.

I'm very impressed with the Pegasus trucks, and will probably get more. These will be good as both transports and objectives in gaming scenarios.

Sci-fi Miniatures and Scale, non-power armour

On the Ambush Alley forum, I was asked to post a size comparison similar to what I had done before, except with non-power armour GZG 25mm miniatures. So here they are:
A GZG 15mm Ixx, a GZG 25mm NSL Panzer Grenadier, a Caesar 1/72 modern French soldier, and a Caesar 1/72 nun.
A close-up of the Ixx, 25mm NSL Panzer Grenadier, and 1/72 French soldier.

After I took those pictures, something felt wrong, and I realized that I based the 25mm GZG figure on a washer so that the base was taller than the others. I then compensated for this by placing the other figures on washers of the same size.
These are the same as above, but with washers under the other figures so the 25mm GZG is not propped up unfairly.

What to think then? While the GZG 25mm power armour miniature can get away with being bulkier simply by virtue of being power armour, the non-power armour 25mm soldier doesn't look quite right with 1/72 miniatures. The proportions of the GZG miniature, even though it's miles better than heroic scale "28mm," still doesn't quite match the realistic proportions of 1/72s. So even as bulky sci-fi armour, it still doesn't really fit. But like always, this comes down to personal preference.