15mm Terminator: Junkyard Dogs

 

I’ve started work on sourcing and painting up some scenic elements and terrain for the 15mm Terminator project, and am kicking things off with some wrecked cars and a suitably scrappy junkyard.

I’ve found that 15mm vehicles in a pristine state can be fairly expensive to buy, given that in the Post-Apocalyptic wilderness they will be just heaps of rust - so have resorted to utilising some HO/OO scale railway pieces as stand-ins; I think they measure up pretty well alongside 15mm minis as depicted here.

That said, some Railway Model scenics can be pretty pricey too, so I was happy to be able to get hold of these simple plastic HO chassis types, made by Jouef in France, via an EBay joblot. No bells or whistles here,  just the shape of the car and some plain generic wheels:

There are no interiors or windscreens, but as I was about to commit grievous bodily harm on them anyway, there were no worries about prior disassembly, masking or other details, just needed to give them a suitably grizzled rusty blitz over the original colour:

 

These should look good populating the ravaged streets of an urban area after The Fall, and being basic plastic, might also lend themselves to being cut-up or ‘crushed’ by chopping down the roof supports etc, so could become part of larger scenic elements for the Terminators to hunt in….talking of scenics, lets move onto the aforementioned junkyard:

This is a large all-in-one resin piece for Railway Modelling that again, I was lucky enough to dig out from EBay, and had been provided with a basic paint-job by the previous owner:

I don’t know if it is a commercial piece or something that someone cast up by themselves, but there is a lot of nice detail with realistic looking wrecks and junk - a nicely scaled actual piece of chain had been added in the past - all I needed to do was to make the thing really, really grimy, so out came the rust related paints and washes once more:

Not to get too precious or artsy-fartsy about paint Triads, but I found the following from Vallejo’s Game Effects ranges to be definitely up to the job:

Throwing in the HO scale car wrecks, and some water puddles splashed on by the simple expedient of squirting the last drops out of an old bottle of plastic cement, got me to here:

Just a few self-adhesive grass tufts and the job is done:

Pulling out a couple of 15mm adversaries, some views of how the yard might accommodate them in play:

Not looking too shabby, or rather, should I say, as intended, definitely looking shabby ! 

I think the junkyard will benefit from having some perimeter walling or gates added, so I will likely base it on some plasticard or similar to give it some edges to work from, and then let it sit neatly into a wider urban setting.

I’ve just realised that the one mini I didn’t put out for the photo session was the actual ‘Junkyard’ dog that I painted last time - but I’m sure he’ll get the opportunity to try it out eventually….

I feel that beyond Terminator, the piece could be used for other settings too - it occurs to me that there is something green and nasty leaking out of those military-grade barrels in the lower left corner…. Looks like a zombie spawning ground if I ever saw one……

Anyway, wonderful British Summer Weather permitting, I’m planning an outdoor session of spraying lots and lots of MDF with acrylic sealant, prior to painting, so stay tuned for some Post-Apocalyptic town planning soon !

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 !”