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”……