6mm Dr Who: Dalek Heavy Metal

Thoroughly inspired by my recent reading of the fantastic narrative and pictorial work over at Mechmaster's CG Lair, I thought I'd re-visit an old project, and add some new Heavy Units to my Dalek army.

http://www.cg-lair.co.uk/daleks/secemp-index.htm

The online graphic novel adventures of 'Daleks- Second Empire' are are an absolute creative tour de force, and cannot help but get fans like myself thinking of the various possibilities if you lay the traditional 'canon' story arcs to one side, and go wild with the inherent potential of those tin-pot dictators playing out their meglomaniac plans.

I heartily recommend reading the online novel from the very beginning; yes, the humour can be a bit off the wall, and purists may shudder at the interpretation, but I think it is highly entertaining and well worth a visit as it continues.

Having in the past added some flying saucers to offer an air capability, I thought it only fair that any expansion of the force should see some naval craft; we've seen on screen, at least, that the Daleks can move underwater - there is that iconic image of one emerging from the River Thames - but I don't think we've ever come across them speeding about in boats.

My starting point, as you can see above, was the slightly unusual candidate of the IKBO4 Monitor from Irregular Miniatures' 2mm 20th Century Boats range. The sculpts in this group are quite quirky and enigmatic, and perhaps are not that closely representative of actual vessels, but for some reason the shape of this particular craft has always caught my eye.

Perhaps it is the flat forward turret and its guns that are so suggestive of the mid body accoutrements of the Daleks, but after a bit of surgery on some of the NSF7 'attack robots', I couldn't resist popping some on top:

I envisage these as a form of fast patrol craft that enable the Daleks to conquer even watery worlds, speeding along hovercraft-like as scouts or interdictors.

You can see them above next door to a Germy-designed 'GMM-42' 18mm Mecha from Ground Zero Games, that I was contemplating working on, when the influence of 'Second Empire' really took a hold of me.

If the artist/creator there can come up with everything from special sniper units to pink-coloured TV Reporter Daleks, why couldn't I go the extra mile as well......the only downfall of the pepper-pot dictators has always been their inability to climb stairs, due to their obvious lack of lower limbs, so I thought, why not terrify the Universe out of its complacency, and give them legs?

So now nowhere is safe from their depredations:

The Mech head was left off, and replaced with a piece of plasti-card bridging, topped by a steel spacer from my bicycle brake pads (Hope these won't need replacing anytime soon...!), to give an invincible walking Dalek.

I may well add in some weapon packs for extra fire-power on these, as well as toying around with the idea of modelling hover cushions to go under the water-craft, but you can see the general theme emerging here; the Daleks are going to be an all-arms, all terrain force from now on...stay tuned for some updates as work on these and other insane creations progresses!

2mm Colonial: Adding some VSF back into the mix...

Some readers might remember that my 'dipping of the toe becomes large splash' entry into 2mm Colonial began with the initial idea of doing Infantry-based forces that would support some Land Ironclads models that I have, but soon morphed into messing about with Mahdists.

In the spirit of a return to the original idea, I've been tinkering with which of Brigade Models' excellent minis would do duty alongside my late Victorian soldiery, and as you can see in the photo above, have plumped for the ostensibly un-British VLI-203 Lafayette Ironclad.

Oh the ignominy! Not only is it a contraption built by those pesky Yankees, but is named after a Frenchie who fought with them against us during their unfortunate Revolution....tsk, tsk, whatever will the Memsahib say?

Putting aside these objections in typically arbitrary fashion, I'm going to stick with this as I felt for a Colonial-type force anchored from around 1875 to 1890, something that had a nice 'Land -Train' appearance would best fit the bill, rather than some of the more Dreadnought-like offerings available in the British range.

Apart from the paint-scheme, of course, I'm going to Anglicise the appearance by the subterfuge of exchanging the turrets included, which to my eye, are a bit too modern in profile, with some spares available from the always useful Aeronef VAN-7011 British gun turrets accessory pack:

This should hopefully render a more suitable appearance, as well as effectively up-gunning the resulting vehicle:

If I really wanted to go the whole hog, I suppose I could further internationalise the whole with the VAN-7053 Heavy Russian turret, but I think this will probably be overkill; all three turret options can be seen below:

Brigade, of course offers real 'Land-Tain' types in the German range, but these are a bit too overpowering for the context in which I want to use them, and besides, the Lafayette is considerably cheaper!

Moreover, they should scale well alongside my existing Land Dreadnought, originally acquired for the 'Weird' WWI project, the 2mm IKSF26 from Irregular Miniatures:

As you may remember, the HMLD indefatigable had a few bits of work done to the basic model, including the addition of funnel and mast, so I would be looking to do the same with the new recruits; all we need now is a name..... perhaps the Burgoyne Land Locomotive Ironclad.....?

Aquanef: Submarine Revenge of the Militarists

I've recently got to thinking about how the whole Nemo vs. the Militarist factions of the Pacific War 1879 might develop, and in particular how the more conventional historical based vessels might actually cope when taking on the steel monsters of the Deep.

There are rifled muzzle-loaders and Dahlgren guns a-plenty, but could these really compete with the armoured submarines of Nemo and his Allies?

It seems to me that the Chileans and Peruvians, in response to the superior armaments of their mutual foe, would soon have to come up with some super weapons of their own, so I have been delving into the contemporary navies for a few ideas.

Imagine my surprise, then, to discover that it was not the 'Hunleys' and 'Alligators' of the ACW that had cornered the market in early subs, as indeed, both Chile and Peru had tested advanced designs of their own in circa 1864, and actually come up with some decent machines.

Chile, in response to conflict with Spain, had commissioned an immigrant German engineer named Karl Flach to design a submersible that would help to offset the superiority in shipping of their Continental enemy. His steel creation was 12.5 metres in length, pedal powered by a crew of 11, and featured two cannons, one built into the nose of the vessel itself!

Unfortunately, disaster struck on a proving run, and the designer, his eleven year old son, and another nine men were lost. There are some details on this Wiki page here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flach_(submarine)

also, more interestingly, some artist's impressions of how she may have appeared here:

http://thesubreport.com/blog/?p=126

and details on the current search for the whereabouts of the wreck, with a view to raising her for posterity:

http://thesubreport.com/blog/?p=123

The tragedy curtailed Chile's submarine ambitions, but the same conflict with Spain also motivated Peru to seek a similar technical advance.

In 1864, Federico Blume, a railway engineer, developed the 'Toro Submarino' or submarine Bull, which included such innovations as ballast tanks and a rudimentary system of air schnorkels; the end of the conflict with the Europeans saw it retreat to the drawing board, only to resurface when the strife with Chile began.

Blume's vessel was a 48' craft built from 1/4" boiler iron, was crewed by eleven men, and launching in June 1879, attained in trails an operating depth of twelve fathoms for a duration of thirty minutes, and a speed of 4 knots. In October of the same year, she was deployed to engage the Chilean Blanco Encelada and Almirante Cochrane near San Lorenzo Island near Callao with a pair of towed torpedos, but the mission was scrubbed when the vessels moved the location of their anchorages at short notice:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toro_Submarino

http://shermyjllore.blogspot.com/2009/03/first-submarine-peru.html

Once Chile's star was firmly in the ascendant, the submarine Bull was scuttled with the rest of the Peruvian Fleet, and so the underwater advances of these two South American nations were stillborn - doesn't mean I can't resurrect them however, does it?

I think I feel a bit of a scratch-build coming on...... :-)

Taking things somewhat further, I've also been considering beefing up the surface vessels of the belligerent nations, with input from some contenders available from Brigade's Aeronef ranges. Now of course these are supposed to be aether craft, but a bit of surgery to remove the tail apparatus and a few additional bits and bobs, and these should make some decent looking 'super-Monitors' or 'Ironclads-on-steroids' to take on Nemo and his ilk.

(Of course, Peru had some real ACW-era Monitors serving in their historical fleet; see here for the Mano Capac:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Oneota_(1864)

and the Athualpa:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Catawba_(1864)

both bought surplus from the USA.)

First up then, I'm looking at the VAN 1401 Peruvian Sanchez Carillon class Frigate, which with the tailplanes off and the bottom of the hull filed flat, should make an interesting addition to the mix:

Additionally, we have the VAN 803 Brazilian Gustavo Sampaio class Light Cruiser, which will see some similar attention to produce an ocean-going heavyweight worthy of a fight with Nemo:

So hopefully lots to look forward to here, whether some revivified historical subs, or some more imagineered surface craft!

In a coming post I'll be looking to put down on paper some technical specs for the respective fleets, as well as hopefully some scenario ideas based around the real events of the Pacific War - so stay tuned for more Aquanefiness to come.....

2mm Web Resources: New Entry

A new entry, now, into the ever-widening presence of 2mm miniatures on the old WWW, here in the form of a great pictorial entry at the Blog 'One more gaming project':

http://onemoregamingproject.blogspot.com/

Chris Palmer has posted photos of his growing forces for use on Mars, this time with the focus being on the Germans, but he promises more to come - some excellent painting of Brigade Model's Land Ironclads and GW conversions being on show, but also some beautifully painted 2mm Infantry and artillery from Irregular.

Swing by and take a look if the tiniest of minis are your thing - it's already been bookmarked by yours truly.

http://onemoregamingproject.blogspot.com/search/label/2mm

Aquanef: 1/2400th Militarist Flotilla is launched....

A look now at some of the South American inspired 'Militarist' ships that have so far left the slipway, as it were. These are about 80% complete, in that they need some tidying up; doing the Macro photos and seeing the results up close sure helps in flagging up those problem areas!

Having painted a lot of Pre-Dred 1/3000th, and dallied with the 1/48ooth Napoleonic from Tumbling Dice, I thought that these might sit nicely somewhere in the middle, however, I found them quite tough to deal with.

My 'style', if you can call it that, is quick and dirty, and whilst the clean lines of 1/3000th don't allow for too much straying into blobby territory, and 1/4800th actually benefit from a broad brush approach, these were more problematical.

Heavy handedness here meant some obviously over-thick applications of paint, and some very wobbly lining out being more apparent than usual....thank the gods that I have never been brave enough to let myself loose on quality the like of Rod Langton....that would be a car crash!

In my own way, though, and in terms of the tabletop, I'm fairly satisfied with them, and some re-touching and a bit more detailing, along with an ink wash, should finish them off alright.

Below we see the Peruvian ships the Huascar and the Independencia mounted on their integral bases:

I decided to keep the foremast of the Huascar in place after all, as I think it would have looked a bit naked without it - although it might complicate things somewhat when action stations are called!

The other ship needs some attention to the ratlines, and I might change my decision to go with a white trim and brown ship's boats - I think that all-black hulls might be a bit more realistic, if a bit bland, and as most contemporary pictures have the boats in white, then this would add some spots of colour to the whole.

The Huascar in a closer view; I tried suggesting the two 10" Armstrong guns in the Coles Turret with a couple of black 'windows':

Now for the Chileans; on the left the Almirante Cochrane, and on the right, Tumbling Dice's generic steam screw Corvette, depicting perhaps the Chacabuco:

I went with white masts not for any particular historical reason, but rather just to contrast with the yellow of the Peruvians; they might unite to fight off Nemo and his Allies, but are, after all, enemies. In terms of the look of both sides historically, it seems that they followed the standard black, white and yellow ochre peace time scheme of most navies.

I've been very pleased with the integral bases, they fit their respective ships like a glove, and also allow for a bit of 'heeling over' for dramatic effect, should you require it.

I've solved the storage issue by applying magnetic sheeting to the bottom of each, and trimming to size.

I suppose the only thing is that they are really too small to add in any sort of national identifier or name/data, although I am thinking of running with an idea to have a sort of trailing slip which could hold this information, which could be added to the various ships as and when required, but this has yet to leave the drawing board.

So, somewhat tentatively, then, the Militarists deploy their vessels to meet the strange threat of the unknown monster fish causing havoc with their merchant shipping....although apparently on a rather green and fuzzy sea....perhaps it's the Sargasso?