15mm Sci Fi 'Bad Guys'

Feeling the need to field some bad guys against the space dwarves, exterminators, and space brits painted last year, over the holiday break I smashed out some more of the mountain of pewter.

First up some of Ground Zero Games, 15mm, Star Grunt, Alien Mercenary Squad and Alien Mercs II.

To me, and probably intentionally, these guys look like the Mangalores from the 5th element, so have painted as such.

Then I felt the need for some high-tech space lizards, so painted up my collection of Khurasan Miniatures, Garn Alien Warriors.

I finished a couple of hunting packs, distinguished by their lizard highlight colouring.

Also an overall leader and a couple of 'big boys' carrying support weapons. The leader's cloaking device was working exceptionally well and every picture I took of them was blurry. This is the best one.

The detail on these figures is awesome, including their cloaking/shield equipment.

I kinda like these guys. They tower over 15mm humans and, in my 'space world', have tech so much more advanced, that the humans mostly don't have a chance 😆

Next, I feel the need to field some killer flora!

 

More Retro Epic Astra Militarum

 

Another quick post for the last lot of Cadians done, a mechanised infantry company to go with the last lot of Cadians.

These are older, pre-Epic Armageddon Imperial Guard Chimeras, Griffons and infantry from way back, which have painted up OK.

Pretty sure Epic Armageddon companies were 12 stands plus a commander, so that's 7 Chimeras to carry them and a platoon of Griffons attached for direct support.

I've included a Commissar mainly because I had the figure. 

Again, I borrowed some decals from 40k sheets and meticulously spent hours giving the IFVs some numbering 😆.

 Think I might do some Orks next or maybe splash out for Steel Legion figs.

AWI: Grenadiers

A quick post for the last unit of British grenadiers for the Black Powder collection.

These are from BnB Miniatures and rank up nicely next to other manufacturers covering the period. Like the last unit, painted as combined grenadiers from different units in the field - hence different coloured facings and cuffs.

Also a small unit of (using what's left in the box) of French, Bourbonnais grenadiers from the Revell, Set 02574, Austrian Infantry. Another unit who were allowed to ware their Bearskins on campaign, despite the 1779 uniform ordonnance requiring grenadiers to wear tricorns.

15mm Hellenistic - Finishing a 20 year old pile of lead

Got the fever leading up to the holiday break and smashed out a mass of 15mm bags of ancients, in a box of 'To Do' that's been there for well over 20 years.

Mostly Frei Korps like the thureophoroi and thorakitai above, trying my hand at some more interesting and colourful shield patterns.

By the looks of it there's some Thracian thureophoroi mixed in with the regulars and yet another unit (4 DBx/ADLG) stands of Thrcians with rhomphaia.

Also some late Roman republic legionnaires, labelled Frei Korps on QRF's site but clearly a different style to the old 'bobble heads'

Some great detail on these 15mm figures and I think there's still six bags of these guys to go.

Also finishing off some cavalry to make up units for Hail Caesar, with some cataphracts finally making an appearance.

Which brings us to some rebased command and a raft of various psiloi.

Another 8 Cretan archers (above) because you can't have too many... and finally some slingers.

And including some Roman archers... to go with the legionnaires?

Then on to some Essex Miniatures 15mm in the shape of some javelinmen and hoplites.

I think these are several different baggies of Essex's hoplites, including mercenary and Thebans.

Where not molded on, the spears are all piano wire.

So having finished off another small hump from the mountain of shame, the only thing left to do is finish off the newer 15mm hump of Romans... and order some more 😆 

 

Rebels and Shoretroopers

I loved Rogue One and especially the battle on Scariff, and a while back I got some xmas presents in the form of SW Legion Shore Troopers and Rebel Troopers.

I thought the Shore Troopers were going to be a nightmare to paint but the scale and detail on the SW Legion figures is amazing.

Similarly, I thought matching the rebels' paint schemes was going to be tough, but turns out they're mostly military colours.

Had a lot of fun painting these and still have some Scout Troopers to paint up.

D n D: Props to Set the Scene

 

I know its not meant to be about the props and minis, but I've been trying to entice some beginners (a.k.a. my wife and stepson) to give DnD a go for about two years.

A 10x10 grid system, so peeps can figure out distances.

I might have been a little too enthusiastic to be fair, generating an entire world and set of scenarios... possibly... probably... and despite my stepson reading and retaining just about every monster stat in the book, things have gone cold.

Some simple and quick hovels made from XPS foam, EVA foam, and crafting sticks.

In the meantime we've be building up quite a lot of stuff to play the game, including a small village of hovels, playing grid - to scale for 28mm, and collecting minis as we find them.

I ordered in some Reaper Miniatures from Ausy and we've been getting monsters and characters from our local Wizkids suppliers Wizards Retreat and Iron Knight Games.

The Wizkids stuff sure does paint up nicely and really enjoyed painting the Beholder and Gricks.

Got carried away with the raptor painting, dabbing away down the sides with different colours, and I think the Orc on the end was free with a Reapers purchase.

Its not the same without some town guard to suck up some attacks, think these are Reaper Minis and the dragon born are Wizkids.

Hopefully we'll get a game in at some point in the near future 😆

Space Dwarves (a.k.a Squats)

 

Some more 15mm sci fi completed from my mountain of shame and as ever, I've had all these for quite a few years.

These are Khurasan Minatures, Thrainites and Clear Horizon Miniatures, High-Gravity Mercs (Sci-Fi Dwarves), with some Alternate Armies, Laserburn, V011 Scorpion Air Landers for on-planet transport.

The two figure ranges mix together seamlessly and I struggled initially to think of a paint scheme. But the shoulder pads and poses reminded me of Games Workshop's Epic and 40K Squats from eons ago. 

In the end, I mixed those old paint schemes with the more modern Leagues of Votann.

The landers are resin and were a bit warped, and I didn't really know what to do with them.

I ended up covering them in 1/72 scale stowage and greeblys, which worked well and applied a heavy layer of rust colour first before dabbing the paint on, using the painting technique from the Bill Making Stuff Youtube Channel.

After some eye watering painting, as these guys are really small, was happy with the colourful result.