A Diversion: 15mm Terminator !

 

A bit of a curve-ball here, in as much as I was looking at something different from the hordes of 2mm that I have been concentrating on lately…… I wanted a small diversion that would be self contained, and relatively straightforward in terms of painting, so took advantage of Alternative Armies’ recent sale and took the plunge in obtaining some of their characterful Automata.

 https://www.alternative-armies.com/collections/15mm-hof-science-fiction-range/automaton

These are of course, wonderful stand-ins for the cinematic Skynet-produced cyborgs, and I for one, given the recent media buzz about the advance of AI, hope these small renditions will go some way in pleasing our new Robotic Overlords……

The range has a lot of very useful types, with heavy weapons, a variety of small arms, and some interesting command figures alongside metal-shape-shifting polymorphs - as you can purchase them individually as well as in value packs, I picked the ones I liked the look of, giving me a mix of things to work on.

First up, from left to right, a T-1000-esque Polymorph, the Command pack figure ‘C’ and the mini-gun bearing Heavy Weapons ‘bot - all great sculpts, and as with all of the automatons, came with no flash or clearing up required from Alternative Armies in the UK, with their usual fast service and turnaround on orders, as well of course as their renowned ‘free’ gifts with every order ! - result !

Painting-wise, I went for a quick drybrush of silver over a black undercoat - not very inspired I know, and the detail on these figures would definitely reward a more considered approach - but the sculpted depth of each was quite forgiving to my paintbrush thrashings - quick and easy…. The heads in particular have great recessed eye orbits that are just crying out for a red glow !

For the bases, I went with the plastic tiddly-winks that I used on my 15mm dungeon denizens, and built them up with some basing sand and Mod-Podge white glue, along with a mix of rubble - this was made up of tiny cuts (with nail clippers) of defunct store and loyalty cards, snapped-off shards of MDF sprue, and some offcuts of blue foam and metal sprue left-overs, with some small metal staples added to the mix - the credit card snippings in particular are effective at this scale, as they offer different colours and patterns/discernible lettering etc that look like a good modern urban junk.

 The T-1000 got a splodge of silver ‘puddle-ing’ to his base to give the idea of him re-forming, but I think I was a bit conservative with the size of the puddle, so it looks a bit underwhelming - ripe for a re-do, methinks…

Rather than making them silver as well, I decided to paint the hand weapons mostly in an ‘army’ green to give a bit of contrast - just a block colour for the moment, they would benefit from a highlight - the packs from AA offer you SMGs, Assault Rifles and heavier MGs, as well as a pair of menacing-looking flamers:

I fear for the Human Resistance when they meet these !

It was perhaps inevitable that my quick and easy project would encounter a bit of mission creep, in that I realised I didn’t really have any suitable skirmish terrain that might go alongside the Terminators -  I needed something to scale that would be suitably post-apocalyptic and ravaged - so went looking on the inter webs as you do…..

I was pleased to find how more and more small-sized 3D designed and printed stuff is becoming available,  and bought some great walls and rubble piles from an EBay seller who does smaller-scale stuff alongside the usual 28mm offerings:

The pack of 15mm walls and detritus from HeadBunny Games was exactly what I was after:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/usr/headbun59

I thoroughly enjoyed painting these up, and the detailing on the walls in particular is amazing, with all sorts of cobbled together materials, tyre stacks, brick piles, oil drums etc in evidence - so will really look the part.

Now, having had so much fun with these destroyers of Humanity, I of course have hankerings to look at doing some Resistance fighters as their adversaries - so to coin a phrase, if you are wondering what will happen next - 

“I’ll be back”……

Latest 2mm Antonine Ancients - Review

 

Thought I’d take a look at some of the latest releases in the 2mm Antonine Miniatures Ancients range - I’m a little late to the party in that they have been available since before last Christmas, but I’ve only recently taken the plunge and bought some.

Antonine have added to the range available at Warbases in the UK, including six packs of Roman buildings with a useful variety of types, and a whole Republican Roman Legion unit alongside a pack of Phalanx Pike Blocks:

https://warbases.co.uk/product-category/games-specific/strength-and-honour/?orderby=date

The buildings look really nice, 3D designed and printed, if it were not for already having a whole plethora of similar types as seen elsewhere on the Blog, I would definitely have taken the plunge, but couldn’t really justify the expense - so I limited myself to purchasing just the new troop types.

The Phalanxes in particular caught my eye, and I wanted to see how the Republican Romans would stack up against the bases I had already created as early Legions using the individual blocks from Irregular Miniatures.

Above you can see how the phalanxes compare with a few other miniature types, in the centre a cavalry block, a skirmisher one and a single elephant from Antonine, and to the centre right a Pike block from Irregular and a strip of Hoplites from the same manufacturer.

To use the vernacular, these new blocks are some big beautiful beasties ! - definitely more in proportion to some of the existing Legionary bases from Antonine, and very much in the Macedonian Phalanx category of things - they make the ABG16 40 man pike block from Irregular look pretty diminutive !

The view from above presents a veritable forest of pikes, with the attendant figures to the side faces, and some extra ranks at the rear - in line with all of Antonine’s output, the pikemen themselves are plain shapes rather than having any particular detail, but this does not take away from the overall impact.

All of the blocks I received were cleanly cast, with no flash present or mould lines in the areas that matter - I think in similar terms to the minis I painted before from Antonine, they should go well with a simple dots and lines paint job - although that’s still going to mean a lot of dotting in the individual pike heads !

Three of the blocks sit comfortably on the basic Strength and Honour 120x60mm bases, with two of the same matching up on my ‘get more bang for your buck’ 90x60mm basing standard:

Above you can see a work-in-progress base of some Epirote phalanxes made up of the blocks from Irregular alongside their somewhat larger Alexandrian cousins !

I think it comes down to a personal choice as to which you might find fits the image better - and in armies of differing eras, the larger Antonine might be the better choice - certainly simpler to paint and to base up, being a gargantuan single unit…..

Turning now to Antonine’s Republican Romans, I think that the new pack is an excellent representation of the same, and also superlative value - you get all the necessary blocks for Velites, Hastati etc, with of course the option to use the different types on separate skirmisher bases. Again, if I wasn’t so invested in those that I already produced using Irregular, I would definitely have gone large in using them to make as many Legions as possible, with tactical formations easily depicted with their individual, smaller blocks.

Some of the castings I received had a small amount of flash in place at the edges, but nothing major, and will be easily removed with a sharp blade or metal file.

The whole pack populates a 120x60mm base size, and anything smaller would give you plenty spare to play with - I find the small Legionary ‘century’ or maniple blocks better proportioned than some of Antonine’s earlier Roman cohort blocks, which I felt were a bit on the large size - giving, if you counted individual ‘figures’ too deep a picture of Roman ranks - these blocks could easily be combined side by side to give a flexibility in what you can depict.

Up against one of my existing Irregular bases - you can see how they might compare all together on a 90x60mm:

I think overall, these are a great addition to the existing range, and give you a whole host of options now, combining with parts from existing packs - as well as some suitably ‘heavy metal’ phalanxes should the mood take you !