The Device

Agent Red wishes he had paid more attention to the briefing, especially as his boss' club was a street away.

The Device is a modified Ainsty The Device!

A roller cover was made from Slaters' corrugated plastikard has been added over the gubbins, leaving the switches and dials clear.

The US identification stars are from Warlord Games, the number from Rubicon's US decal set and the radiation tri-foil from I-94 (available from Minibits/Pendraken).

The I-94 decal set has tri-foils, danger and ammo items of different sizes. unfortunately they appear to be printed on a continuous carrier film, unlike the Warlord and Rubicon transfers which have item sized carrier film. This lead to a large shiny area of carrier film.

All transfers were treated with Humbrol Decal Fix in an attempt to improve the appearance. Some of the decals were  added to areas that had been pretreated with Citadel 'ardcoat. This may have gone 'off' a bit as it was glossy when dry.

There was no appreciable difference between those added to the base coated areas and those on the 'ardcoat treated areas.

The decals attached smoothly to the corrugated faces of the model nicely (I did not try any using plain water).

I used 'ardcoat to protect them. This did leave a lot of shiny areas, so I filled in the bits around the decals (and the carrier on the I-94 tri-foil) with Vallejo US Dark Green, which was a mistake as the base coat was Humbrol 86 light olive spray (see below). This was not noticeable under my work light.

I have replaced the picture with a revised one with Humbrol acrylic 86 Light Olive.

Danger 5

Danger 5 is an Australian action/comedy television programme set in a 1960's style interpretation of World War 2.

The Danger 5 of the title are an Allied team whose aim is to kill Hitler.

Crooked Dice's 7TV is a perfect game system to recreate their adventures, and they have released a licensed boxed set containing the team, their boss, the eagle headed Colonel Chestbridge, Hitler and a dog which can represent Blondi, Hitler's dog or a Danger 5 Mechanoid agent.

So here are the agents:

Left to right: Jackson, Ilsa, Pierre, Claire and Tucker.

The faces need a lot more work, zoomed in the picture shows up the problems.

Head comparison

A quick comparison of Crooked Dice heads and Crossover heads.

Crooked Dice and the Goon Leader head sprues.

Commandos

Here are the first of my Warlord Games Commandos.

The Lieutenant.

And yes, he is using a captured weapon.

First squad.

Second squad.

Sniper team.

Warfare 2014

Warfare at Reading is a two day gaming and trade show.

This year I managed to get there.

Thanks to all those I talked to (and relieved me of my money ^___^). If I forget to mention you, I apologise.

First up was Crooked Dice, for their recently released Once And Future supplement for 7th Voyage, more X-Commandos, the new Chronal Commandos and the licensed Danger 5 box set.

Empress had the new British troops, an M113 for use by Federated Security and Skirmish Sangin.

The nice lady at the Plastic Soldier Company had to pirouette around the hall to get a signal on the card machine so I could pay for the Rubicon plastic tanks. They had a special offer on three non Tiger models (I also bought a Tiger). The best location was adjacent to the Ainsty stand, much to the amusement of a member of the Ainsty team.

Ainsty had their new Musketeers miniatures and the 15mm scale etched brass tank bustles (the latter may end up on a T34).

Additional scenery items and the Tank Girl charity set were added to my shopping bags.

Next was Warlord Games. They had their new Armoured Fury starter set and the new Cromwell. I had a look at the Panzer IV plastic kit that is due for production shortly.

Pendraken supplied some more Crossover miniatures super hero figures.

Antenociti Workshop had their one piece taxi and two person cars and some some MDF buildings.

More later.

Once and Future options

Crooked Dice have just released the Once and Future Supplement for their 7th Voyage game (currently as PDF with a printed version out shortly).

This includes three new settings, Beowulf, King Arthur and (topically) Robin Hood.

Now, this gave me the inspiration to dig out some of the plastic box sets I bought a while back (and buy a new one at the weekend).

Beowulf and the sagas are an opportunity to use the Viking and Saxon figures from Gripping Beast (and Wargames Factory) and perhaps the Celts by Warlord Games.

 Gripping Beast Saxon and Viking together with a Wargames Factory Saxon.

Bring Me Sunshine...

Warlord Games Celt.

The King Arthur setting (I know he was Dark Ages, but the normal setting is more 14/15th century).
Perry Miniatures do four box sets, Men at Arms, Foot Knights, European mercenaries and Knights.

 Two Men at Arms

Foot Knight (with a Wargames Factory Survivor head).

And finally a comparison shot:

A Million to One...

All Quiet On The Martian Front was a Kickstarter financed 15mm scale miniatures game involving the second Martian Invasion, this time in the USA.

The Martian tripods are available separately, and here are some pictures of the first one I have assembled.

The box set (purchased from Ian Allan in Birmingham) contains three identical sets of two sprues (see above, the brown circular object is a 25mm base). There is a bit of flash and minor mould lines, easily removed with a scalpel blade. Two of the legs are not articulated, one has a ball joint and two normal joints allowing that leg to be posed. The joins on the articulated leg need some patience (something I am lacking) to get the two pieces that wrap around the ball joint to fit neatly but they go together eventually. Dry runs are a must.

The sprues contain all the options, default Heat Ray, Heat Ray plus Green Gas grenades and Heat Ray plus Black Dust Launcher.

For the first one, I went with just the Heat Ray. Just to be different, I used the Green Gas grenade holding arm rather than the normal one.

William Killan volunteered as the scale figure.

Even scaled at 15mm, they are large compared to a Crooked Dice 28mm figure.

The two tentacles are quite delicate, I managed to break its left one while cleaning up the mould lines. applying plenty of liquid poly to melt the two faces of the join and then steady pressure allow the tentacle to be re-attached.

Not shown is a sort of hip/waist piece that joins the legs to the body, I did not think ti added to the figure and it goes together fine without it.

 The carapace is quite plain

the face is also quite plain, the eye could do with being a bit more distinctive with some lens detail to aid the painting.

So, quite a nice Martian figure, or where you want a tripod.