Ground Zero Games makes a well fleshed out 15mm line of Colonial Defense Force troops including heavy weapons and both helmeted and soft capped versions of most sculpts. Lightly armored and armed with basic weapons these will fill the role of backwater or reserve troops fantastically.
The line includes the standard packs of riflemen, SAWs, snipers and shoulder fired rockets, command and coms, and several heavy weapons with generic crews that could be swapped into any of the other heavy weapons GZG makes. There are also figures with smaller assault weapons and shotguns, suitable for close quarters combat, horse mounted scouts, and a motorcycle mounted trooper.
While organizing my 15mm figures I came across my Rebel Minis Earth Forces Homeguard figures. Aside from the bases needing to be finished it seems I never painted up any NCOs or officers. Thankfully I had several packs of figures still sealed up so I got to painting! These figures are part of the Earth Force range which consists of the Homeguard in open helmets and the Marines in closed helmets but fairly identical kits and weapons. The marines have a tripod mounted gun and crew that with a head swap could serve with the homeguard.
This was a rough week. Storms, power outages, sick family, construction at our apartment. I got done as much as I thought I was going to and then some, but it was more like mechanical movements than an escape and meditation. This coming week isn’t looking much better, but I want to play around with video and YouTube a little more so I’m keeping the painting expectations down.
I’ve been on a 6mm kick for some reason. I’ve rarely played any 6mm but they’re quick to knock out and cheap to buy so in the scheme of things it’s cheaper than a movie…
With my solo campaign centering around the invasion of a newly colonized planet I wanted to have some believable militia/national guard. Thankfully GZG has a great line that fits in with my existing 25mm collection.
The Colonial Milita could easily double as corporate security if you leave out the old veterans and crazy hair.
I picked up a bunch of Ground Zero Games’ 25mm armed civilians from their lines to supplement the Stargrunt Colonial Militia. I’m slowly working my way through them as I batch paint several armies. The first set that I finished are the Partisans, a set of three armed civilians that I’ve done up as two riflemen and one squad support weapon.
I’ve had a small UNSC for since I started playing around 2005 or so, maybe a couple of years before that. During a move they all got packed up and put into an attic never to be seen again until the next move. When I moved in with my now-wife I came across the case and it’s been on my mind for a couple years until this pandemic hit and I started painting more and pulled the case out wanting to paint something different in between batches of 25mm and 15mm figures.
As with most of my minis from that era the needed to be stripped, reassembled and re-painted. This did give me a chance to give them a unified paint scheme, and to fill out the fleet of course. Thankfully right at that moment Jon at GZG was running a pandemic special on the Full Thrust ranges so I stuck while the iron was hot!
I set out this past week to finish off two forces, and start two more. I had the last of my ESU naval troops to finish up in their urban camo, and the last six destroyers for my Kra’Vak fleet that I accidentally washed off the red ink from. I also wanted to start my 15mm GZG Colonial Militia troops and the 15mm murder robots from The Scene that I had to strip the poor paint jobs off of and rebase.
I wanted to paint the robots a metallic red. After seeing a couple of videos on YouTube out maxing your own metallic pants I gave it a try. Unfortunately the robots turned out a pink Pepto-Bismol-ish color that I was most definitely not pleased with. So I took this as an opportunity to test a couple things out since I couldn’t find a metallic red paint I was satisfied with. We’ll see how it turns out and I’ll strip them again and use the best method.
I finished up a small fleet of GZG Neu Swabian League old sculpt ships this past week. For the NSL I prefer the old sculpts. They just scream ‘flying brick’, tough ships winning battles through brute force. I got my hands on a couple of small fleets through Ebay and Facebook groups an assembled a couple of the SDN carriers and an escort cruiser. I grabbed a couple of smaller escort ships and started a test paint job.
These casts were of mixed quality. Jon at GZG mentioned the molds wearing out on the larger NSL ships which prompted him to retire them and make the new sculpts. The two Der Theuerdank dreadnought/carrier models I got my hands on first definitely showed signs of miscasting. It didn’t help that the previous owner assembled them poorly and roughed them up pretty bad. If I had noticed the damage I probably wouldn’t have bought them. I got a third cast, a Von Teggetthoff Dreadnought identical to the carrier minus one added piece, and the cast is crisp and the pieces fit pretty well together. The smaller ships were well cast with the exception of some minor damage on the escort cruiser’s bridge section that made me use some putty to help it attach to the hull.
Once the carrier was assembled again and painted up the damage is far less noticeable, and I’m going to add some greebles to the second one to hide some of it.
I wanted a pretty simple paint job reminiscent of WWII German vehicles, both real and Hollywood. I decided to go with a ‘German Grey’ base coat with darker grey and Field Grau accents. I picked out some details in a very light grey to show them off against the darker mini.
This past week wraps up a very productive month of June, I’ve been tracking my progress throughout the year on my painting log page here.
I’ve been working on my Full Thrust fleets and one of the fleets I’ve picked up in trade and on Ebay is a fairly large Kra’Vak fleet. Being an alien warrior race I wanted to emphasize their zeal and lust for battle with some garish paint jobs. I’ve been contemplating using inks through my airbrush for awhile now and I just got my hands on a Badger Renegade Krome .21mm airbrush so it was the perfect time. I chose a lime green and bright red paint scheme, with the red being airbrushed ink over a white ink base. I was satisfied with my first attempts and continued onto the wash. Well that is when I discovered that the ink will just reactivate and run unless you seal it before washing. Thankfully I only had to strip six destroyers and redo them. Seven other capital ships got finished this week.
