Interesting 10mm – 35mm scale mech

A little while ago I spotted a little blog store, Zandris IV Miniatures, selling a couple of 28mm scale mechs. Because I’m far more interested in gaming below 15mm I’m often unaware of mechs from larger scales that could actually work just fine as towering engines of destruction. The most important thing is they don’t have any features that clearly reveal their intended scale and these mechs certainly fit that criteria.

I went for one of the Type-45(D) ‘Satria’ Battlesuits, figuring I’d most likely use it as a ‘gearstrider’ or large one man mech in 12mm (1/144) scale. Having assembled it and fitted magnets to give it a variety of hardpoints, here are some pictures after the jump!

Warlord Games’ Ghar Walker, a scale agnostic treat

Just a quick post to throw up some photos of the Ghar Walker from Warlord Games I just assembled. Warlord are having a summer stock clearance and I bought six sprues of Ghar Walker and a couple of other bits (including a couple if interesting board games I might post about later) for very, very cheap. Only a pound each and they really are excellent quality – more importantly they are very much scale agnostic. Although they are designed for the Beyond the Gates of Antares 28mm scale combat game, as you’ll see they happily fit in anything from 6mm up really.

An Assembled Ghar Assault Walker next to a 15mm, 12mm, 10mm, and 6mm troop

Next to a standard Jager trooper gear from Heavy Gear Blitz (1/144 or 12mm scale)

 

Next to a Spitting Cobra heavy fire support gear from Heavy Gear Blitz. As you can see, the Ghar Walker would be a pretty heavy duty vehicle at 12mm scale, which is where I intend to use it

 

Each Walker comes with a choice of three heads, which is cool. They’re quite like the ‘squids’ in the Matrix films, among other aesthetic influences. They certainly look quite alien

 

 

 

Gladiators and Gripping Beasts

A nice little parcel arrived yesterday containing three miniatures from the awesomely titled Gripping Beast Jugula range. A Scissor, a Retiarius, and a Hoplomachus.

I’ve always been quite fascinated by gladiators but so far the only miniatures I’ve had have been the ones from the Spartacus board game by Gale Force Nine. Those were somewhere between 28 and 32mm and were very much truescale, having pretty much correctly proportioned bodies/heads/weapons.

These new miniatures are much less realistically proportioned, in the ‘heroic’ style. In fact they’re quite chunky but I rather like that aesthetic. In terms of scale they look to be more like 35mm.

I assembled the Scissor and gave him a quick black wash to better show the details. There was little cleanup needed and the model slotted together well, but I wish they didn’t have the integrated bases (in sort of green army man style). I’ve actually removed the metal integral base from this one but it was a lot of work snipping and filing.

Here he is on the left, with the smaller miniature from the Spartacus game as a comparison. He’s such a chunky boy!

A view from the rear. Overally the mini has a lot of charm and I’m very happy with it. I appreciate that the hands and head came separately and were quite posable.

Rising Sun boardgame – Komainu painted

Hello all

A long while ago my duck brother and I backed the Cool Mini or Not Rising Sun Kickstarter and a not so long time ago all the lovely minis etc arrived. Until now I’d been holding off on painting anything, but my bro inspired me to get cracking so I picked the Komainu, which is pretty much the same as the Chinese Shishi, a sight I was rather fond of when I lived in Shijiazhuang.

Here he is, pictures taken in my newly bought lightbox:

In game he’s a fairly cheap Monster, but can act as a priest to help gain favour from the Kami, so he’s versatile and useful throughout the game.

28mm – Confrontation Age of Rag’Narok stuff

I’ve had some time to go through the loot I picked up from Ludik Bazar’s clearance sale and overall I’m very happy with my Wolfen – they were ridiculously cheap per model (somewhere around 25p or so) and while the mass produced paintjobs aren’t great, they look surprisingly OK from a distance. At least those from the unit boxes do. The models from the army box are much, much worse – effectively they’ve only been primed, albeit in a couple of colours.

I plan on painting up a couple of models in the future to see how I like them, but I mainly got these guys so I’d have a mass of 28mm fantasy miniatures if I ever felt like playing something in that scale/setting – probably a skirmish level game since the scale is much larger than I’m used to.

Pics after the jump!

Loot!

I made an order on French site Ludik Bazar a little while ago for a whole load of Rackham Confrontation stuff on clearance – deep, deep discounts. It arrived today in a huge box, along with a Heavy Gear Blitz (tactical era) Mammoth Strider.

This is one of the largest parcels I’ve ever received and I’m excited about my loot so I thought I’d share!

28mm – Spartacus Board Game: Hammer Gladiator

I have recently purchased the board game Spartacus: A Game of Blood and Treachery and its two expansions; The Serpents and the Wolf and The Shadow of Death.

The games come with some fairly nice 28mm (I think) scale gladiators made of what appears to be some sort of PVC mix. I decided to paint them – I have had absolutely no prior experience painting human fleshtones or historical figures, but I was relatively confident I could get them up to an OK standard for a boardgame.

Because I’m new to this I didn’t want to start with one of my favourite models, so I picked the chap with a hammer from the Serpents and the Wolf expansion. I reckon he turned out pretty good for a first effort!