GZG Mercenaries

 I've been busy painting some of GZG's mercenary range recently.  The following come from packs SG15-M01-6  which includes Merc rifles A, B & C; support pack with LMG and SAW; RPGs and LAWs; snipers.  I also have a couple of figures from SG15-P24 Pan African Union special forces squad B.

Not everything is painted yet, the prone figures are awaiting basing as weapon teams for Tomorrow's War and I just threw together a batch to try out some colour schemes.  My mercs won't have a "uniform" as such but I've tried to stick with the same few colours throughout, with the odd camouflage effect thrown in for variety.  I did use 5 or 6 different greens but after shading you couldn't tell the difference between some of them so it will be reduced to about 3 greens in the next batch plus a sandy yellow and a couple of browns.  All had a wash of sepia or black ink for shading followed by a drybrush of the base colour on top.  Future floor polish should add a bit of protection and the final step was some Vallejo matte varnish to kill the shine.  The last stage hasn't completely worked and it's left a pale deposit in some of the deep creases, but more on that another day!

First the support weapons.  The female figures' heads seem slightly small and dainty compared to the male figure and the bandanna is quite chunky.  Otherwise they're fine, the male figure has a spare drum magazine in the small of his back and they all have a nice assortment of pouches etc.

LAW, RPGs plus the machine gunner from the PAU special forces squad.  Nice poses but no-one seems to be carrying any reloads for the anti-tank weapons so they'd better hit with the first shots!

Close up of the LAW and the PAU gunner.  Unlike the mercenaries, the PAU figures all come with webbing and field packs.

I particularly like the LAW gunner, great pose and a very focused expression on his face!

Snipers.  I like the crouching and kneeling poses, these could easily be used on a multi-figure base as a sniper team or individually as marksmen within a squad.  The kneeling figure with the blue cap has very good facial features.

Rifles.  Given the wide range of different weapons in use, ammunition supply must be a nightmare...

More rifles plus the second PAU figure, again with additional webbing and backpack. I've painted the boots of the chap on the right with green gaiters and he has a green vest over a grey jacket.  Detail on the boots and jackets gives you the choice of painting all in one colour or splitting with different colours to suggest different types of garment.

Detail of a couple of the figures.  The PAU trooper has superb detail, especially his face.

The female merc has slightly soft features but is otherwise a great figure, good for a line trooper but could also be painted to stand out as an officer if desired.

More rifles. Chap in the centre has brown gaiters over his boots.

More detail of the faces.  I think the mercenaries are probably the best I've come across in all the GZG ranges for variety of heads and there are some excellent expressions amongst them.

All in all I'm very pleased with these.  They'll add some extra firepower to my armed civilians and colonists and the range of poses is excellent.  The next batch I work on will probably include a few head swaps and I might go back to the female machine-gunners to replace at least one of their heads too.