USGMC Exterminators

These are Khurasan Miniatures 15mm Federal Defence Force "Exterminators" for use with/against their awesome Space Demon line (not Aliens).

I'd got a bunch of 'not aliens' finished back in 2016 by commission. I'd painted the vehicles back then too but was unhappy with the result. 

So I took the plunge and bought a company's worth of Exterminators and have been finishing them and their vehicles over the last few years. This included doing a bit of movie research and getting some custom decals made for them.

These marines hail from the United Systems Galactic Marine Core vessel, USGMC Odessa -  a slightly larger cruiser than the Sulaco (both named after cities in the US).

I got sucked into the 'lighting' debate regarding the Aliens movie and after much thought, went with a dark grey green for the main grunt armor and vehicles. This is because I don't have the lighting effects from the movie on hand for most games... I did stay true to the film though and made all the pulse rifles a scale version of Brown Bess.

Marine Platoons

There are three platoons of about twelve multi-tasking soldiers, each with their own APC - Khurasan's M2189 Caiman.

Tan coloured fatigues and helmet covers - different colours for different platoons.

Jungle green fatigues and helmet covers, closer to the movie.

A generic grey, just to distinguish platoons on the table top.

Company Commanders

There's a company commander and 2IC, both with their own 'command/support' cars - Khurasan's M3918 Polecat.

Dropships

For the dropships I went with Khurasan's Cormorant Lander and am thinking of printing an APC version of the drop cargo. 

Where there was space, I placed the name of the ship on vehicles, taking prompts from the APC in the movie.

Atmospheric Craft

Still in progress are a series of atmospheric craft and I've chosen Clear Horizon's Condor Heavy Lift VTOL and X-14A Raven-Class VTOL.

Support Weapons

There's a raft of support weapons which the grunts can break out from their APC when needed. In game, you have to swap out standard marines from the platoons to field these... because there are never enough marines.

Sentry Guns

I also got some sentry guns, because, well, why wouldn't you? They were in the movie and its fun to set something up on the tabletop that fires at anything that moves in front of it - including marines.

Hard Suits

For troubling infestations I painted up three sections of Extreme Environment Suits.

These guys can head down into xeno lairs and passages like tunnel rats, clearing out the menace without fear of xeno acid splash.

I'm pretty sure these are based off the peeps that come into the prison with Weyland at the end of the 3rd movie .

Basing

Using Flames of War as a 15mm reference, I've used MDF and magnetic bases from LITKO and always get the best service from this company. 

This allows me to field the grunts in FoW style squads or as individuals, but still moving them around on bases for ease of use during a game.