Saturday, February 1, 2020

Albedo Combat Patrol - Skirmish Starter Set - part four: EDF Heavy Infantry

Back at Salute 2019 I bought the Albedo Combat Patrol Skirmish Starter set from Sally 4th.

A while back (but less than a year ago), I started assembling and painting them.

I have now finished the painting (though the basing will have to wait until I have bought and painted some more - for consistent basing).

Albedo Anthropomorphics was a comic book anthology series that started in the 1980's. It included Erma Felna: EDF written by Steve Gallacci.

Erma Felna: EDF was a hard SF Military story. The EDF or Extra-Planetary Defence Force was the Interstellar ConFederacy's military.

The story followed the internal struggles within the ConFederacy, and their conflict with the Lapine supremacist Independent Lapine Republic.

So here are the four EDF heavy Infantry.

Trooper armed with LAKW 1-56 Assault Rifle.

The battle dress is Vallejo English Uniform, dry brushed with Citadel Terminatus Stone and washed with Citadel Agrax Earthshade.

The armour is Vallejo Russian Uniform Green, dry brushed with Citadel Terminatus Stone and washed with Citadel Athonian Camoshade.
The fur is Citadel Mournfang Brown over Citadel Dryad Bark. Drybrushed with Citadel Terminatus Stone.

Trooper armed with LAKW 1-56 Assault Rifle. 

This troopers had its face, tail and hands undercoated with Humbrol Matt White 34. The red parts are painted with Citadel Joker Orange and dry brushed with Citadel Terminatus Stone. The eyes are Vallejo Flat Yellow. The red parts were washed with ancient Citadel Flesh Wash.



Trooper armed with LAKW 1-56 Assault Rifle. 

The fur is Citadel XV-88. It is dry brushed with Citadel Terminatus Stone and washed with Citadel Seraphim Sepia. The eyes are Citadel Jokaero Orange.



Squad Leader armed with MPKW 2-18 Machine Pistol

Same as the trooper.




Saturday, January 25, 2020

BA-3 Heavy Armoured Car by Rubicon

At Warfare in 2019 I bought a number of Rubicon kits, including the recently released BA-3 heavy armoured Car. It is referred to as a "Heavy" armoured car due to its weight rather than due to it being heavily armoured. It does however pack the same turret and gun as the contemporary Soviet T26 light tank.

The kit comes in the traditional Rubicon box.
The kit contains a slide mould body (which eliminates the need for a lot of  assemble of the vehicle body). There is a set of decals including those in use by Finnish and Axis forces.
There is also one sprue that contains the rest of the kit.
I assembled the kit according to the instructions, going for the BA-3 rather than the later BA-6 version.
Most of the assembly used Tamiya extra thin liquid poly (which can just about melt the ABS used by Rubicon) though I did tack pieces together in a few places using Humbrol liquid poly and then add the Tamiya extra thin to make the joint permanent (there is enough polystyrene in the liquid poly to make the surfaces "sticky").
The kit went together well, I did have some problems getting the hull machine gun in place (I drilled out the mounting hole to make it easier).


I undercoated the model with Citadel Chaos Black spray. Unfortunately I had run out of the Humbrol 30 Dark Green spray I normally use for my Soviet vehicles, so ended up brush painting it with Humbrol 30 Acrylic Dark Green.
The Sarissa Russian hut provides some background, while a Bad Squiddo female Soviet soldier provides some scale.






Top views.


One Careful Owner, Wear Value 6... Empress HMMWV for Twilight 2000

Twilight 2000 was a nineteen eighties role playing game that explored a future global nuclear war and its aftermath. There are a number of posts on this blog about it.

One of the iconic vehicles is the humble US HMMWV, and this is often the vehicle that a starting party escapes from the collapse of US forces on the Eastern Front.

At Warfare in 2019 I bought an Empress 28mm scale US HMMWV with 0.50" HMG for that purpose and other modern games with limited support.

The model comes as a multi-part resin kit with white metal details.
This is the model dry assembled with William Killian for scale.
A comparison between the Empress HMMWV and the Crooked Dice version.
The Chinese owners of the vehicle in the foreground should wash that dust off.

The view from above showing the part depth hatch.
As this is primarily intended for Twilight 2000, the vehicle is loaded up with gear. Parties rarely have a base to return to, they need to carry everything. Oh, and fuel has to be brewed and distilled, so the energy content is much lower than the fuel you would get from a forecourt garage.

I used baggage from a number of sources including Crooked Dice, Debris of War and Empress Miniatures. Additional soft stowage was sculpted using GreenStuff using the usual methods. The two jerry cans are by Empress.

A long rod aerial was added on the right hand side of the roof.

The pintle mount awaits the addition of the 0.50" HMG.
A pickaxe and shovel from the Empress US stowage set was added on the sloped back of the vehicle.
A rail was added to the boot hatch to secure the stowage.
 The spare tyre was pinned to the back of the HMMWV.




Sunday, January 19, 2020

Crooked Dice Security Troopers

Crooked Dice recently released a pack of Security Troopers for their Colony 87 SF range.

Each of the four figures are in two parts, a body and a head. There are two styles of head, a reinforced perforated visor and a smooth glass style visor. There are two armed with assault rifles, one technician with side arm and one with a cut down heavy cannon.

 The figures were undercoated with Citadel Chaos Black spray followed by Citadel Death Guard Green spray. A camouflage pattern was added to the cloth parts with Citadel Rhinox Hide.

The gun was repainted with Army Painter Black then a mixture of Army Painter Black and Vallejo Black Grey. Pouches and the holster were painted with Citadel Death World Forest.The figure was dry brushed with Citadel Nurgling Green. The cloth parts of the suit were washed with Citadel Agrax Earthjshade.


The visor was painted with Vallejo Game Colour Night Blue.







 Three of the four figures.
 So what was I going to use them for? Well, I thought that they would make good reconnaissance troops from some shady government group exploring the Zombie apocalypse.
I did have a quick add up of the required points for skilled troops with body armour, Assault Carbines, ammo etc.
It turned out that you would have ten to eleven walkers per trooper.

 They are of a reasonable match with the Walking Dead zombies.