Unwelcome Visitors

Jones thought he heard something down in the storage bays. Being a cautious bunch, the crew grabbed their weapons and went to investigate. An eerie purple glow emanated from one of the hatchways, but as they approached...



I've had these models for over 15 years. They were bought at a games show in Plymouth, and I just never got around to painting them. I was rummaging in my old tool/paint box the other day and came across them, and thought they'd make ideal 15mm monstrous aliens.



They are small Citadel Miniatures Tyranids, which later became known as hunter-killers, then as termagants. They show the characteristic early Tyranid shape: large head with 2 main eyes, plus an additional pair of eyes on small stalks partway along the head, and the holes in the neck are the ear canals. They follow the usual centauroid Tyranid pattern (as seen in Zoats and Genestealers), with a pair of arms, followed by webbed claws (aids moving around in the microgravity environment of a hive ship), with hooves at the rear.

The figures had their slottabase tabs snipped off and were araldited (epoxy resin) onto 1p pieces. To add a little variety, the second one had the tail curved upwards and the rear hoof lifted into a running pose.

After a grey primer spray undercoat, they had a base coat of GW/Citadel "Rotting Flesh". The weapon hoses are GW "Worm Purple", and the guns are GW "Woodland Green". The backpacks are Humbrol matt 29 dark earth. The whole model was given a wash of watered down Humbrol 33 matt black, with undiluted black painted into the deepest shadows. Highlighting generally involved a drybrush of the base colours, followed by lighter drybrushing with a little white added. Teeth were finished off with GW "Mithril Silver".

"Raaaargh!"

Gruntz playtest

Having just received a copy of the Gruntz rules for playtesting, I decided to try them out at the local games club, the Old Buckenham Bone Crushers.

Crusties have invaded a small colony world, and those colonists that survived the assault have been gathered together in a ruined building in order to further the Crusties nefarious plans. Are they to be a food source for Crusty larvae, or will they be hostages for ransom - who knows? Several Crusties remain on guard in the building to make sure that they do not escape.

A small force of Marines has been landed nearby. Their mission: rescue the colonists! Their APC slips past the industrial 'mech in the foreground, while the Marine commander directs operations from the cover of a storage container in the distance.

One of the Marine squads moves round the right flank, taking cover behind some piles of stores. A SAW gunner and his companion climb into the back of a truck for a better vantage point.

Uh-oh - looks like the Crusties have moved into the ruined building nearby, blocking the Marines' route of advance. The Marines fall back to reconsider their options...

On the other flank, the APC makes a double move and the infantry debus and open fire on the closest squad of Crusties, killing over half the unit. Being tough and fearsome, the Crusties shrug off the casualties and pass their morale test with ease.

The Crustie commander uses his once-per-game "spawn a prawn" ability and regenerates the squad to full strength. The squad instantly assault the Marines, slaughtering over half the squad! This is too much for the Marines, who break and try to flee. As they run, the crusties strike down two more, leaving only a single survivor.

The sound of heavy gunfire and explosions booms through the woods - the Marines' heavy grav tank has destroyed one of the Crusties' defending tanks. Worried, the Crusty commander pulls back all his squads to the ruined building, ready to defend it to the last...

The Marines' missile tank comes gliding forward and attempts to overrun the Crusties' position. Sadly for the Marines, the driver miscalculates the height, and the tank crunches into the rubble instead. 23 Crusties fire on the tank with their rifles, but all to no avail - it takes no damage!

The remaining Marine squad has moved round to the left flank, rejoined the commander, and is preparing to follow the tank in.

In a daring move, the Crusties' remaining tank makes its move - first it ploughs through the Marine squad, killing several before slewing to a halt. The survivors stagger into the APC and move towards the Crustie stronghold. The Crusties start to feel hemmed in as armoured vehicles surround them...

The Crusty tank makes its presence felt once more, destroying the APC with a well-placed shot through the rear doors. Only the Marine commander survives the explosion.

The Marine's missile tank resorts to brute force, ploughing through the walls of the building, squashing Crusty and colonist alike into a single giant gooey smear. If they can't rescue the colonists, they can at least end their suffering quickly!

Meanwhile, the Crusty commander and several of his faithful minions beat the Marine commander into a bloody pulp.

Victory to the Crusties? Sadly, no colonists survived, but as the Marines were all eventually killed, the Crusties have lived to kidnap colonists another day...

Models:

Old Crow Gladius medium grav tank with missile turret

Old Crow Sabre heavy grav tank (out of sight in the woods)

Old Crow Glaive grav APC

GZG Crusties

QRF Skullhunter (used as an easily recognisable commander for the Crusties)

GZG NAC marines

GZG New Israeli (used as officer for Marines so he could easily be identified)
GZG Civilians/colonists

Plus numerous toy cars painted as burnt out wrecks, Mechwarrior construction 'Mech etc.

Conversions and head swaps

A couple of recent conversions...


The elderly gentleman on the left started off as a GZG civilan/colonist, the one on the right is a GZG armed civilian/colonist with a ZG gasmask conversion head.


I decided that the population of my colony are in need of a patriarch of some sort. I started with a GZG colonist, added a beard sculpted from epoxy plumber's putty and a walking stick from a guitar string.


I also wanted to use some more of the GZG conversion heads which I've had for a while. A couple of my armed colonists have lost their heads and received replacements. The middle figure's head was carefully sliced off (may re-use it elsewhere), the figure on the right had his head removed with a pair of cutters as it was too difficult to do with a knife. Both had holes drilled with a pin-vice, and the heads (with about 4mm of stalk still attached) araldited into place.


The elderly gent out for a stroll with a fellow colonist - possibly a son judging by the familial resemblance!


Before & after - an armed colonist and his rather sinister gas mask wearing friend.

A rear view of the elderly gent and the masked gunman.

Zombies!

I've had some Rebel Minis zombies for ages, and at last I have the first batch cleaned up, undercoated and based.

They have been based in threes, twos and individually. The individuals use an M6 washer, 1p pieces for the pairs, and 2p pieces for the threes.

So far they've all had their flesh done, though I shall be drybrushing with greyish skin tones on some of the more aged and damaged zombies.

My favourite so far is the smart corporate zombie...

Ongoing projects no.3 - Fuel Dump

A photograph of the fuel dump part way through painting. I'll take a few more detailed photographs once it's completed.

Ongoing projects no.2 - Workshop

I've been building this workshop over the last few days. The basic structure is made from corrugated plastic cut from mushroom punnets. The roof is corrugated craft card. The 5mm high foundation wall is thin cork floor tile. There are holes all around the edge of the base, these will have cocktail sticks glued in as fence-posts once I've finished working on the buildings.

The workshop's roller-shutter door comes from a Miele vacuum cleaner bag. My wife had emptied the bag into the compost bin before I cut this piece off, so luckily there was no danger of my spilling dust all over the kitchen floor!

The roof is removable, as is the door.

You can see how the walls were reinforced with L-section offcuts from the edges of the mushroom punnet. Although the plastic is pretty thin & flimsy, it forms a surprisingly rigid box when it's all glued together. I used cyanoacrylate superglue to stick all the bits together, and then sprayed the whole thing with £1 shop grey car primer.

Ongoing Projects no.1 - Eagle

Work continues on my Dinky Eagle re-paint. The basic grey has been well drybrushed with white to bring out the detail. I've started adding some of the markings now, such as the black anti-glare panels on the command module beak.



I still need to paint the RCS nozzles and re-attach them.