More Ion Age Beotan Werewolves

I made an order from Alternative Armies a few months ago and realised that I still had my old "Ion Age" points saved up.  I really liked the Beotan werewolves I got last year, so I used the points to add a few more.

More werewolves!

2 of the wolves were duplicates (1st & 3rd from left above), but the other 3 were new poses.  All were painted in the same colour scheme as the original 5.  To start with, I added a further heavy weapon trooper.  I particularly liked this pose, it reminds me of my favourite Space Marine heavy weapon trooper from the 1989 Citadel catalogue.  

Heavy weapon support.

Rear view.

When I was at University in Nottingham in the late 1990's I paid a visit to GW to get a few figures specially cast and this HW trooper was one of them.  He got equipped with a Heavy Bolter as part of my devastator squad.

Favourite heavy weapon marine.

Another Maia machine pistol adds to the rank and file troops.  He's a suitable aggressive looking beast.

Fierce creature.

*Snaaaarl!*

 The commander has a nifty visor and a nice cloak to matk out his importance to enemy snipers.  I thought that a blue cloak would contrast well with the paler, earthier colours of the fur and harness.

Commander.

Given the rough appearance of the cloak, rather than keeping it crisp and clean, I used a bit of earthy colour around the bottom edge.

Nice cloak!

This gives me a pack of 10 werewolves, a wider choice for Rogue Stars but also enough for a pack of ferals in 5 Parsecs from home.  They'll also be useful as extra tough troops for Tomorrow's War.

10 werewolves.

Robots!

One of the 3D printed models I really like is this little 15mm service robot by the talented Mr Dutchmogul.  I've ended up with a few of them painted to match various different settings.  The first few received a basic metallic finish, they'll act as loading robots in a space station hangar or something similar.

Basic metal finish.

 Something that I've quickly discovered is that I need to change my painting style slightly for these 3D printed models.  Previously, a base coat, shading wash and highlight produced a fairly good result quickly and easily.  This tends to emphasise the print lines though, so hand painting a base layer, shading and highlights produces a better result, and doesn't take much longer.

One droid has a colour scheme to tie in with my Rogue Stars crew.

I wanted a robot to add to my Rogue Stars crew and one of these fits in nicely when painted in the pale khaki/bone colour scheme to match the others.  As you can see, the size is just right as designed, though it would be easy to scale it up or down if desired.

Rear view of the Rogue Stars robot.

Of the final pair of robots I've finished so far, one is a bit grubby and battered, with chipped paintwork and various stains.  The other is inspired by the green/tan/red colour scheme on a protocol droid in the Star Wars Rebels TV series.  This last one could have been a bit tidier but it's table-ready at least.

A rather battered robot, plus one inspired by Rebels.

Inspired by Star Wars Rebels protocol droid

Inspired by Star Wars Rebels protocol droid

I do have one or two more of these robots awaiting finishing touches, plus some other larger robots too.

The Great Rationalisation of '21: Shuttle (or Thunderbird 4)

The new Thunderbids are Go TV series is absolutely fantastic and Number 1 son and I (and Mummy too) really enjoyed it.  Before he had even started watching it I grabbed a Thunderbird 2 from Argos at only £11 which was something like 60% or more off the normal price.  It comes (as do almost all Thunderbird 2s) with a Thunderbird 4 submarine which I thought would make an ideal shuttlecraft.

Fear not, I did not swipe my child's Thunderbird 4, no, instead we found another T2 cheap on eBay ffom which we could use the pod for his pod vehicles set, the main craft as a wrecked dropship, and the T4 as my shuttle.

Thunderbird 4 with GZG tech for scale.

 I'll be printing s boarding ramp and some legs for it at some point and it'll make a nice little bit of scenery

The Great Rationalisation of '21: 15mm scenery from Hirst Arts blocks

One box of scenery in the loft included some of the 15mm buildings I constructed from Hirst Arts blocks.  Although designed for 28mm figures, I found that turned sideways, the blocks worked very well with 15mm figures.  All were glued with PVA to MDF bases.  I need to build a roof for this power/machinery room but the inside looks pretty good I think.

Power/machinery building

There is a small control room at one end of the building.  Now I have some 3d printed furniture I'll have to use it for a photoshoot with some figures.

Control room

The base is MDF with some fabric embroidery mesh glued down as industrial mesh flooring.

Power/machinery room

I also build a generator, not quite up to Echo Base standards but it gets the job done.

Generator

I originally planned to build a series of interconnecting rooms, some of which would be raised on supports.  One would have been a control centre for the complex.

View into the raised room

There would have been spave for small vehicles to park underneath.

Raised room

Support for the raised room

I built another generator which was painted in a more rusty colour scheme - obviously less well-cared for than the bigger generator.

Small generator

It's small enough to fit inside some of the buildings.

Small generator inside building

I was very pleased with the workshop/store building.  As well as the main room, there is a small office and an airlock style smaller entrance to the side.

Workshop/storage building

The top of each doorway lifts off so you can decide whether you want the doorway open or closed.

Door detail

Long-time readers of this blog may recognise the building from some of my older posts...

The Great Rationalisation of '21: Lots of aeroplanes.

One small and rather heavy box from the loft contains my collection of Matchbox aircraft that will be repainted for use as airfield set dressing for some of my 1980's set Action Force games.

Vought Corsairs - A7D?

My collection of Corsairs is a little battered, a few have rather bent wings and most are missong cockpit canopies.

"Subsonic Interceptor"

The Subsonic Interceptor will be a top secret prototype that needs to be photographed/stolen/destroyed in a black ops type mission.

Little Cessnas I think?

These little 'planes will be handy set dressing on a small airfield in a South American dictatorship...

F104 Starfighters

F-104s feature in the Z-Force story "Desert Strike".

A4 Skyhawks

Skyhawks would be useful if I wanted to do a Falklands style game.

Mirage F1s

Mirages also feature in the Z Force Desert Strike story.

MiG 21s

A few MiGs will be useful for any game involving USSR supported governments.

Alphajets

Not sure how the Alphajets will fit in but I'm sure I'll find a use.

F4 Phantoms

Phantoms appear in an SAS Force story.  You can see that I started repainting one but when I masked off the wings to spray the white panels, something went wrong and it'll need to be repainted from scratch.

The Great Rationalisation of '21: Ramjack APCs

My Epic Imperial Guard had only 3 Chimera APCs for transport, woefully inaquate for 300+ people.  I had looked at Chimeras on eBay but they were prohibitively expensive, usually working out £3-4 per vehicle from those I failed to win.  Enter the Ramjack APC from Dark Realm, these looked like they'd make suitable stand-ins, presumably pressed into service from a local source.

The Ramjack is an 8-wheeled APC armed with what looks like a cupola mounted heavy bolter, so more lightly armed than a Chimera.  I modified all the vehicles by adding litle bits of stowage in the form of plasticard scraps (becoming stowage boxes, applique armour etc) and Milliput (bedding rolls, tarpaulins etc).

 These turned out nicely and I have a total of 12 which will enable me to transport a sizeable part of my force.  Now that I have a 3d printer, I can produce my own Chimeras but these filled the gap very nicely and are wonderful little sculpts.  The 8 wheeled chassis comes separate from the hull which allows for a nice amount of detail on the model but they're very easy to put together.  They currently seem to be out of production but hopefully they might appear again some time.