Tag Archives: 15mm

Critical Mass Games ZAS Kickstarter Delivers

I’ve become a bit of a Kickstarter addict. I’ve pledged hundreds of dollars over the last 6 months on various miniature and other gaming related projects. The one that started me down this path of addiction was the Critical Mass Games ZAS 15mm Mercs.

Well, today it arrived. It’s the first Kickstarter I’ve backed that has delivered (it was the first one I pledged, so I guess that makes sense). I pledged Mechanised Infantry Commander for £85.00. Two full platoons of troops, four Infantry Fighting Vehicles, three tanks, and more. The many stretch goals that were met added heavy weapons, tripod mounted guns, and more. I did the math, and for £85 I got £120 worth of minis, based on the CMG website prices.

Below are pics of the “new” stuff. Some of the minis that are part of the Kickstarter, like the tanks and IFVs, are existing CMG products. The pics below are for the new minis made for the Kickstarter.

The quality of the minis is very good. There’s some flash, and some minor mold lines, but that’s to be expected, and it’s better than most minis I’ve bought. The detail is good, and I like the sculpts a lot. The pics below are right out of the box – no cleanup at all.

My wife texted me when I was at work that I had a package from the UK.

Here’s everything.

This is a single squad. Six troops, six different sculpts. Gotta love that. I got eight squads like this one.

The heavy weapons squad. I got one of these.

Two command groups (medic, radio man, commander), two drones, and one company commander. The drones have 2 different guns, so you can choose which to use.

Rocket assisted mortar. Three teams like this one.

Energy cannon. Three teams like this one.

Gatling gun. Three teams like this one.

Besides the tanks and IFVs, there are 2 shipping containers, 2 objective markers and a command turret that will fit an IFV or a tank. As I mentioned earlier, they are previously existing CMG products, so I’ve not pictured them here.

I’m totally stoked about these minis. This doubles my force. When I finally get these painted, I’ll have two full companies of troops. I can finally play Quadrant 13!

Mall Cops

I finished my Rebel Minis 15mm Mall Cops tonight. Rebel also has “US Policemen”, but the Mall Cops have these awesome mustaches, and I just couldn’t resist. I intend to use them for the Monster Hunter International RPG, but cop figures have a wide range of uses.

The base coat is done, and they are ready for a wash.

After the wash and some minor highlights.

After basing.

A select few. The guy on the left is the only figure of the 8 that has no mustache. I imagine the rest of the squad give him crap about it all the time. “Nice job, Frank, for a guy with no mustache”. “You would do better with the ladies if you had a sweet ‘stache like mine.” etc… 🙂

What’s on my Table – June 2013 Edition.

I’m taking a break from painting Dreadball to work on some 15mm stuff I got from Rebel Minis. I’ve got a Monster Hunter International RPG campaign starting next month, and I want to get some monster minis ready for it. To that end, I ordered a bunch of werewolves, zombies, cops, FBI agents and more from Rebel Minis and Khurasan.

This first batch is from Rebel Minis, since they arrived first. In fact, I ordered on a Sunday night and they arrived on Thursday. Now that’s quick service!

There’s a some shipping containers, some sci-fi troops to round out my Earth Force, some “mall cops”, who all have awesome mustaches, werewolves, and government agents.

Here they are after cleaning.

Here they are primed and ready for paint. In the back are some minis that have been hanging around my work table waiting for paint for a while now – 2 from GZG and 1 from Khurasan.

The finished shipping containers.

The finished werewolves. They are kinda boring, I think. Brown on brown. I tried to get some red on the eyes, but they are too small – I just made a mess that I had to go back and fix. Same for the teeth. Anyway, you can tell what they are.

In the back of those last two pics, you can kinda see a special order I just got from Khurasan. More on them and the rest of what’s on my table in a future post.

Happy gaming!

GZG’s Spider Drones

Over the last 2 weeks I’ve been working on 12 of GZG’s Spider Drones – 2 packs each of the standard and rotary canon. I paused in the middle and painted some other stuff, then my bases finally arrived from Litko, so I finished them up this weekend.

I painted them all the same, except for the top, which I painted in a similar style as I did the Grav Drones a while back. Then I based them using Green Stuff.

Cleaned and assembled. There’s a bit of flash around the leg joints that I just left – it was going to be very time consuming to clean, and leaving just added to the “spider legs” effect, I think.

Primed.

Various stages. Here’s was my process:

Do the bottom parts of all of them with a rough coat of metallic silver.
One at a time, do the metallic brass parts, then the black guns, the red lens, and highlights
Wash the bottom in heavy black
Paint the top

Here’s the bases in various stages. Litko 0.8mm thick wooden bases, 30mm in diameter, with a Litko heavy duty magnet bottom under it. Then I pre-cut the bits for the top of the base. That’s some metal mesh from the hardware store – I also use it to make chain link fences – and some square plastic mesh I got at the craft store in the knitting section.

Here’s with the Green Stuff – ready for primer.

There’s the Green Stuff, rolled flat. I put the base on it and use the razor blade to cut it to fit. The copper pipe fitting I use to make the circular indent. I have a smaller one, also. The mesh I just press gently into it, and it sticks. No glue needed.

All primed.

All painted.

A coat of shiny varnish, and then I glued the drone on to it.

Making the bases was fun, but I don’t think they look as good on the Spiders as they did on the Grav Drones. It’s too busy and dark. Lesson learned.

Barbed Wire Barriers

I made some barbed wire barriers, and it was pretty easy.

I used:

toothpicks – from my local grocery store
steel wire – from my local hardware store
rectangular wooden bases – from my local craft store
super glue / paint / basing material – the usual stuff

Take a 3 foot long piece of wire, and fold it in half around a pen or pencil. Hold both parts of the wire and spin the pen in such a way that one strand wraps around the other strand. So one stays straight while the other wraps around it. When this is done, cut the loose ends off, and wrap the whole thing around the pen to make the spiral shape shown above.

Cut 3 sections of toothpick. I cut the tapered ends off and kept the middle part. Wire cutters work fine for this. Take 3 sections and glue them to make the “tank trap” shape show in the picture above.

Glue 2 of the tank traps to each base. Prime and paint the base and tank traps. Put your basing material on the base.

Once the whole thing is painted and based, glue on the barbed wire. Paint some rust / blood on it.

There ya go. Cheap and easy. Fairly quick, too.

I use these to play Gruntz, and I make them impassable to vehicles, and infantry has to stop, and take an extra action to cross them.

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Miniatures and the games that use them.