New York, London, Paris, Pripyat...

 This has taken a bit of time to get to this stage.

A Debris of War ventilator is placed above the vehicle bay.

Debris of War sofa and a chair provide some comfortable seating for sentries, a crate is convenient as a table.

A Crooked Dice electrical cabinet and air-conditioner adorn the walls.

The walls and roof were sprayed with Plastikote Rust Effect paint. The interior was sprayed with TTCombat Skeleton Bone. The walls were sprayed with Army Painter Fur Brown. The roof was sprayed with Citadel Chaos Black.

Brick detailing was Vallejo Black Grey, Army Painter Fur Brown, Army Painter Chaotic Red, Army Painter Stone Golem and Army Painter Skeleton Bone from a wet palette. 

The walls were drybrushed with Citadel Golfag Brown.

Anvil Zone Mercenaries

 Anvil Industries have recently released a Print on Demand range called Zone Mercenaries. with male and female figures.

They are equipped with reinforced armour, helmets and gas masks and AKM assault rifles.

The problem is, the weapons are rather large, partly due to the limits on the materials used for their normal resin ranges, but I suspect mainly to be in scale with their normal market of gamers who want something similar to but more interesting than 40K.

This is a bit of  problem as they do not look okay with my modern image type standard Empress figures' weapons.

However a plan emerged to use them as alternative figures for The Walking Dead: All Out War.

Size comparison between a female (left) and male (right) Zone Mercenary and TWD:AOW zombies.

Their weapons and equipment are a drop in replacement for The Commonwealth Trooper (you can probably build them using various existing equipment from the original range)

They are slightly shorter than the Commonwealth Trooper but look okay with the walkers and survivors.

To hide the height difference, I used Crooked Dice supplied slotted round bases and put a thin plastic card panel over the slot. It raises the head height slightly.

Crooked Dice Cold War Jeep - UAZ-469

Back in November 2021 I assembled and painted the Crooked Dice "Alien Jeep".

Comparison with other 1/50 scale vehicles showed that it was a bit large to be a proper UAZ-469 (even ignoring the two door design).

At Warfare this year I picked up one of Crooked Dice's new Cold War Jeep.

The kit comes in six pieces: A one piece body, four road wheels and a spare wheel.

The model has a fixed canvas roof.

Basic paint job:

Citadel Chaos Black spray undercoat.

Citadel Snot Womble Green base colour.

Windows are Army Painter Royal Blue.

Canvas is Citadel Death World Forest.

Tyres and windscreen wiper blades are MIG Rubber and Tyres.

As you can see, the Cold War Jeep is smaller than the Alien Jeep.

But scales a lot better with the Crooked Dice Land Rover.

Anvil Industries Leaper for Zona Alfa

 

Anvil Industries released a Print on Demand option at Salute and have been adding figures to the range.

At the end of 2023 they added Leapers, humanoid figures with long clawed hands, torn Gorka suits and gas masks.

There are four figures in the set, one crouching, one crouched down, one on all fours and one leaping.

There are four bodies (the one on all fours has both arms and legs attached). There are three pairs of arms, two sets of four heads (with different gas masks) and two tree stumps for the leaping figure.

The Gorka suit is Citadel Death World Forest.

The gas mask hood is Citadel Steel Legion Drab.

The flesh is Citadel Rakath Flesh.

Mask hardware is Vallejo Black Grey.

Lenses and wounds are Citadel Mephiston Red.

The flesh was washed with Citadel Drakenhof Nightshade.

The suit was washed with Army Painter Military Shader.

The hood and the boots with Citadel Agrax Earthshade.

The flesh does seem excessively grey.

So how do they compare in size to my Zona Alfa figures?

The comparison is difficult as the Leaper is crouched over. 

Here it is crouching next to an Empress Modern Russian.

Here it is with the compulsory William Killian comparison.

New York, Paris, Pripyat...

 At Salute I bought a Brick Workshop from Warbases. I was looking for a base of operations in The Zone for some dodgy dealers in black market goods (portrayed by some Rogue Traders).

The large doors will be replaced with roller shutters (removable) and external roller shutters over the door and window (raised). The door will be a suitably reinforced one (scratch built probably).

The workshop doors are big enough to take a Crooked Dice Transit van, not sure about the Soldiers of Fortune van.

The building will be in a compound (using the Sarissa Compound Walls). The ones here are the unfinished ones.

Modern Journalist

Though the Exclusion Zone, by definition is supposed to exclude the wider world, there are always journalists who wish get past the Corden and report what is happening to the world.

To do so, they need local help (and the brighter ones know they need some muscle). This is where a local fixer will connect them with a crew, that if they do not trust, at least are reasonably confident will return the journalist reasonably intact so they get the completion fee.

Empress do a Journalist set in their Universal Soldier range.

The guy in front of the camera is based on a former soap star, which did not appeal as a grizzled reporter, well used to facing horrors.

The Crooked Dice Flamboyant Agent head sprue provided a replacement (Dapper Spy) head (right end of the sprue).

So armed with my trusty razor saw, I cut off the original head, trying not to damage the neck of the flack vest.

Once the head was removed I drilled a pilot hole with a 1mm drill, followed up with a 1.5mm and a final 3mm bit as a neck socket.

The neck plug on the head was then cleaned up and the head glued in place.

It is at this point I should have smoothed the surfaces a bit, but it was not obvious to the naked eye. 

The figure was primed with Citadel Chaos Black spray.

The boiler suit was Humbrol 30 acrylic, the flack jacket Citadel Steel Legion Drab.

Flesh is Citadel Bugman's Glow, highlighted with Citadel Kislev Flesh. The hair was painted Vallejo London Grey.

Boots are Vallejo Black Grey, the helmet was highlighted with the same Vallejo Black Grey.

The figure was dry brushed with Citadel Terminatus Stone.

The hair was washed with Citadel Nuln Oil, as were the boots.

The boiler suit was washed with Citadel Drakenhof Nightshade, and the flack jacket with Citadel Agrax Earthshade.

The skin was washed with Citadel Reikland Fleshshade.

Now to complete the camera man.

Anvil Zombies

 Anvil Industries do a range of multipart/multipose zombies in 28mm size. One of the body types is the Modern Military Zombie. You select your required body type, then add a set of suitable arms. In this case the Zombie Fatigues arms.

The pieces are cleanly cast in a white resin. Minor flash is easily removed and there is next to no moulding lines. I wish some plastic figures were so nicely moulded.

Each body is wearing modern military body armour, in various degrees of damage.

The supplied heads include four with helmets and one bare headed.

Here is the first one assembled. Though there are only five body poses, there are plenty of assembly options plus other heads and arms in the range.

This shot does show some minor mould lines which will need fixing.

Scale comparison with the late and lamented The Walking Dead: All Out War zombies.

This one is shorter than  these two figures, though part of it might be the pose.

The height difference is slightly more noticeable with these two TWD:AOW characters.

One solution will be to add a piece of plastic card over the slot in the base rather than just filling it.

The obligatory William Killian comparison shot.

Some of the TWD:AOW figures are bigger than others.