15mm Terminator: Civilians

 

I wanted to add a bit of extra ‘flavour’ to the 15mm Terminator project, so thought it would be good to have some civilians that could be either NPCs or act as plot points or objectives - Terminator must kill, Resistance must save sort of thing….. so delving into Alternative Armies’ extensive catalogue, I invested in some ‘Stellar Refugees’:

https://www.alternative-armies.com/products/hof58-stellar-refugees

These are a nicely characterised family group of four with appropriate impedimenta,  the only caveat is that I didn’t particularly like the look of the male figure and his ‘standing up in shock’ haircut, so felt with a different paint job, the adult female would be a decent stand in…. I very much had in mind the man and his son from The Road, particularly with the option of the useful cart:

 

So after converting the hover cart into something more ‘near future’ by the simple expedient of adding some wheels chopped from a 6mm vehicle, I came up with this:

The female is now sporting a painted-on beard/stubble, and being tall, I think looks the part - she originally had a sort of sci-fi harness as part of her clothing, but this filed off easily enough, and the gouges I made just added to the overall ragged appearance !

The child figure is leaning forward as it is supposed to be pushing/paired with the cart, but I based him up separately to be of more use - I wanted a wan, worn complexion for them both, but seem to have overdone it somewhat on the kid, who is looking pretty ghostly… maybe appropriate given the shock of the post-apocalyptic lifestyle…….

The girl was a bit more straightforward, with the added bonus of her evocative toy rabbit - the pathos of the refugees trying to hold onto some sort of normality amidst the chaos….

I also added a pet dog in the form of Alternative Armies’ Guard Dog from the Laserburn range:

https://www.alternative-armies.com/products/118-guard-dog

I wanted him to look quite the mangey cur, and thought he might be useful either as friend or foe - and of course perfect for sniffing out any T-1000s disguised as humans:

Here he is snuffling after Scooby Snacks, or alternatively threatening the refugees last food supply:

He joins the family on the road:

I was pleased to see that these new figures scaled up pretty well alongside the CP Models’ Resistance, given that they would be comparatively well fed in comparison to the strung-out civilians….

“Come with me if you want to live….”

Although the chap with the radio and pistol seems a bit worried about the girl and her toy rabbit - maybe it’s a new kind of disguised Terminator ?

Next, let’s see how they look against the Terminators themselves:

Again, scaling pretty well alongside, so I’m pretty happy overall - next up, when time allows, I’ll be moving on to thinking about scenery and terrain - maybe a small skirmish board or similar, populated with ruined buildings and scrap piles….. talking of scrap…..

“You can’t park that thing here mate…..”

The Terminator was obviously a traffic warden in a previous life…..

15mm Terminator: Humans vs SkyNets’ soldiers

 

Comparison shots, now, to see how the Alternative Armies’ Terminators match up against the CP Models’ Human Resistance - pretty well as it turns out !

As the Resistance are mainly in ‘tactical’ poses - running, crouching, firing etc, and the Automata are stiff and upright - jut as they should be, they scale really well, I think - the CP Models’ Human sculpts are of course, somewhat well-fed by comparison - but the Terminators are just animated exoskeletons, after all, so that works, too… 

So let’s take a look at some photos - first, a face-off !

Wouldn’t want to be up that close and personal in real life, but gives a good idea of the competing heights and heft…

Next a closer look at some heroes:

“I’m John Connor - No, I’m John Connor…”

I’ll let the pair of them battle it out as to which sequel/prequel/re-boot they come from….

“John Connor ? - never heard of him….”

“John Connor ? - yeah, he went that-away ……”

“Careful Human - you’ll have someone’s eye out with that….”

“Call that a Machine Gun ? - this is a Machine Gun….”

“I need your boots, your clothes….and your sunglasses…..”

So, overall, a pretty successful line up - quite happy with how these are turning out - I’ll be moving on soon to some terrain and scenery, as well as some other, special items….

Hopefully then, I’ll have a skirmish set-up that should see plenty of this:

“Hmmm - Time Travel, you say……?”

But in the meantime - Keep Resisting !

15mm Terminator: Human Resistance !

 

I’d been searching around for some opponents to the Alternative Armies’ Terminators I completed a while ago, and was having difficulty finding just the right look for my Human Resistance.

Whilst in the original film, the forces represented by Kyle Reese and John Connor had a sort of futuristic but not-too-far in the future vibe, I was more of a fan of the near-future washed out Mercs and Special Forces appearance depicted in the film Terminator (4): Salvation, the one with Christian Bale  - so more of this:

Rather than this:

I’m not too fussy about timelines, re-boots, who or what is ‘canon’ as such - I just wanted some gnarly looking dudes to be pouring fire down range at those tin-headed tyrants ! 

Limited to what was practically available in the UK, and so not being able to easily get my mitts on the splendid output of the likes of Khuruasan, Clear Horizon or Rebel Minis, I was finding mostly ‘future troopers’ with space age weaponry rather than faded spec-ops types with current gear, so was pleased to finally light upon the Private Military Contractors from CP Models:

https://cpmodels.co.uk/shop/mf1510-private-military-contractors/

https://cpmodels.co.uk/shop/mf1511-mercs-command-with-mg/

https://cpmodels.co.uk/shop/mf1512-mercs-support-team-with-rpg/

To my eyes, these have just the right look for a mixture of mercenaries, ex-soldiers and civilian volunteers that would make up the Human Resistance of Tomorrow……

The sculpts are nicely defined and absolutely bursting with all the M60s, M14s,/M16s, M203s, SAWs, RPGs, Molle webbing, knee holsters, pouches and rucksacks that you could ask for, and have some good dynamic posing - just the ticket!

They are currently a work in progress, as I want to finish off their basing and match the look to the 15mm Terminators, but let’s take a look at what I have so far - first up, perhaps a version of John Connor with his tough-looking bodyguard:

I wanted a sort of washed-out, worn-down look for the troops, so mostly avoided any bright colours - the only spot to catch the eye is the scrap of red material that is the symbol of the Resistance - “the colour of blood”…… I also avoided highlighting (which I’m pretty bad at in this scale, cf: my 15mm Dungeon Denizens) and instead went for a grey ‘under’-lighting and slathering on lots of Army Painter soft-tone wash !

Next, the heavy weapons dudes:

I absolutely love the look of the RPG team and the Squad Weapon gunner - plenty of interesting detail and full of character!

Uniform-wise, I deliberately was as less uniform as possible, mixing and matching kit where it seemed to work best, and given my limited abilities, painted the camouflage materials in, shall we say, an interpretative way, rather than adding the accurate patterns that you can find on the web on the works of better painters than me ….. green and brown splodges seem to work fine to my slightly imperfect eyes !

I’d like to think that the minis could be used in a number of post apocalyptic settings - I can imagine them in a sort of Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road” scenario, or fighting off the obligatory Zombies in whatever Day, Dawn or Night of the Living Dead it currently is ……

 If there are any slight criticisms of the sculpts , it might be the size of their hands, or perhaps their facial features - these are a little on the ‘broad’ side, with just a whiff of caricature - but I was pleased by this as it saved me the trouble of having to paint in their eyes ! (Some sunglasses helped too …)

I’ve based them up on the same 22mm diameter black plastic tiddly-winks used for the Terminators, and will go about adding suitable urban debris and detritus made up of old plastic or MDF sprue, plasticard offcuts and basing sand with PVA as before.

Finishing up, I’ve a total of sixteen guys to face off against a dozen of SkyNets’ finest, with hopefully enough weapons to stand some sort of chance - Rules wise, I was looking at FUBAR in its many iterations, or the free KR16/KometenMelodie rules by Michael Stockin available at CP Models if I wanted a bit more detail:

https://thegamesshed.wordpress.com/2010/06/17/fubar-one-page-sfmodern-rules/

 https://cpmodels.co.uk/downloads/

I’ve thoroughly enjoyed painting these guys, so will be looking at how they scale up against their foe in my next post - 

Remember, if you are listening to this - “You are the Resistance !”

2mm Napoleonic Troops in Review: The Austrians

 

Moving on to the Austrian side of the forces for Wagram 1809, a round-up of how they look arrayed on the tabletop- well, at least a table top, in that my terrain mats remain buried somewhere in the garage !  

On the upper left in the photo above, we see the mixed forces of the Advance Guard under Nordmann, an interesting unit that was perhaps ahead of its time in pairing cavalry, conventional infantry and light troops in each Brigade, alongside integral artillery - to be honest, they didn’t fare that well in 1809, being mauled by the French in more conventional array - I guess being a proto- ‘All Arms’ sort of Panzer Division meant you had troops of every type but never enough of each type all at once - I think in the Napoleonic era, concentration of force was key - that said, they’re colourful and pleasing units to depict.

Beside them in the centre, we have the main part of Rosenburg’s IV Korps, with three large infantry Brigades, paired with a final mixed one, on loan from Nordmann’s command - these are reinforced by Nostitz’s Cavalry Division, with a Brigade of Dragoons and one of Hussars/Cheveaux Legers.

Finally, alongside the Army Commander of Erzerzog Karl, or Archduke Charles, I did a Grenadier Brigade in storming columns, as well as a Cuirassier unit as back-up - I know that Charles rushed across to his left flank to try and blunt Davout’s inroads late in the day, so figured we might as well have some heavy duty types to fit the bill !

Let’s look at things a little more closely, starting with Nordmann - he at least was backed up by a couple of conventional Infantry Brigades in his defence of Markgrafsneusiedel….. I like the sight of the massed cavalry and light troops, including Grenzers, out front:

Rosenberg lends his support with his Austrian ‘Masses’ deep columns of Infantry that were an innovation of Charles, a counterpoint to the French tactics of advancing ‘en colonne’ that could also fend off cavalry by their compact nature - not so sure how well they’ll cope against French artillery however !

The Advance Guard unit of Provoncheres contains the small remnants of the Carneville Freikorps of both horse and foot - reminiscent of something you’d find in the Seven Years War - they had been steamrollered by the French on the first morning of the battle when they crossed the Danube in strength - dispersed along the bank in watching pose, they couldn’t do much to stem the tide - was it a fatal mistake for Charles to allow Napoleon to cross almost unmolested once again, after Aspern-Essling ?

I wonder if just like Rommel’s ideas for D-Day, you should be prepared to throw them back into the water, rather than allowing the enemy to deploy and then debouch from the beach head…..

The Cavalry wing of Wartensleben and Rothkirch similarly did their best out on the left flank, but got rather trounced by their French counterparts on the day - tough to face French cavalry when they have got their tails up and swoop forward, sabres swishing ! 

Plenty of nice cavalry blocks to look at though - although I wasn’t saying that when I had to paint them all up !

Finally, a look along the lines, as it were, with a sweep in close to some of the Brigades:

Plenty of colour and interest on show, I think, so hopefully living up to the ethos of the project, ‘limited’ in scope though it was, as my test of the Napoleonic waters - I’m off to rest my poor weeping permanently crossed eyes now, and leave the 2mm terrors resting in their box for the time being:

 

Next Post, something a bit different, and thankfully, a darn sight larger !