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 !”
No comments:
Post a Comment