Only managed a smidge of hobby time tonight…
The light in the kitchen is now dire since I moved things around in here.
Luckily I moved one if the lights around just now and providing I kneel on the floor then I can take some photos in light…
Teddy bear Trooper is getting there as are my CHAS proxies
Hopefully I will get these three finished tomorrow and get on with my elves, my poor forgotten (again) elves!
I managed to get my elves sprayed tonight, I decided on a different spray colour as I am doing a different colour of cloaks etc.
I also managed to get some paint onto the missing cultist…
The purple paint is pretty naff and will require about 30 coats I reckon. The pigment, for whatever reason, is not mixing in.
And finally the crashed dropship, some pillock forgot to change the print quality so this looks a whole lot worse than the full one.
I still reckon it will make a good objective for the games…
regarding the game, I am considering starting them on the invasion of Klendathu (yeah the bit where everyone pretty much dies… casualties in the first hour were 300 000.
My plan is that they have survived and need to make their way away from the landing zones to await rescue. A short campaign on Klendathu and then (if they survive) move them onto actual mobile infantry from the books and Roughnecks series.
Well I got a bit more done on these little chaps…
It was mainly highlighting on the grey uniforms – not that you can tell from the photo…
The other bit of news is…
They now have a way to get down to a planet 😁
This took a very long time to print, but I got there in the end!
I have also had a mess around with 3D Builder and have made an extended 16 seater. According to Cura it will take 18 + hours to print. I added all the bits together in one ship apart from the roof and the rear hatch.
I also had a mess around making a lighter recon craft using the two engine pods and the nose cone. If I remember tomorrow I will get some shots of the STL files.
Back to work tomorrow…
I managed a bit more on these chaps today…
Still a fair way to go but getting there.
I also carried on printing their ride:
This is in various bits that are glued together. The sides will have panels, the left hand side being printed now. Something went wrong with the interior bit, it separated. It could be a printer glitch or a slicer glitch. The nose didn’t have the same problem so I am in the dark.
This is the interior of the craft. You can see the flaw line on the right hand side. It is just about noticeable on the left hand side.
This is more work by Terrain4Print, again from Thingiverse, so cost at zero to purchase it. I will see what his Patreon costs are as I think he deserves something for his hard work.
I haven’t downloaded it yet, but there is a crashed version of this too. Once this is built I may do a second one and use 3D builder to splice on some weapon pods.
Happy with the way it is going so far. I am running out of this spool, hopefully I will have enough to get the wings and rear hatch done.
Tomorrow I am off gallivanting again. This time to have a look at the WW2 defences of Lerwick. We have some of the best preserved outside of France. This includes a bunker design that is only ever found in France…
I will endeavour to take photographs…
Well believe it or not my order from EM4 arrived today, which for the isles is very speedy indeed. Ordered on Monday night at 21.45..dispatched on Tuesday and with me by Thursday… So well done EM4
So what did I get for my money….
The boxes came flat packed which is a nice touch, I never even considered getting any boxes at all. The back shows what you get..
Now bear in mind that these cost me £10.20 plus VAT and postage so they are really good for the money. There is a mould line but to be honest most plastic stuff does anyway, some worse than others.
I made a one up as a test subject:
20 seconds had him built. He isn’t glued yet but that can wait. He is a shiny grey plastic that is quite hard . I will get him prepped and sprayed and see how he paints up.
Compared to a bug….
He is quite small but bugs are meant to be scary so he will do. I ordered 4 boxes of these to allow me to have a whole squad with the long arms, and some fleet types with pistols. I might raid my Catachan Troopers box to see if there is anything useful in there, but as these are smaller then I doubt it.
So what do I think…
Are they Mobile Infantry… nope – they are proxies and for the money I paid for them then to be honest I don’t really care. This lot plus postage and VAT is cheaper than some of the postage alone on EBay.
If I get some actual MI miniatures will I still use these, yes I probably will as they will be ideal as security guards or non Federation Forces.
Were they worth the money… yes indeed, I challenge anyone to find a set of brand new 25mm miniatures cheaper. There might indeed be somewhere out there but I certainly haven’t found them yet.
These will be painted up as the ‘light’ mobile infantry on the films rather than the CAP troopers from the animated series or indeed the newer CGI films.
I also downloaded a ‘suitable’ drop ship on Thingiverse for these to land in, not to mention sci fi buildings, bunkers and various vehicles and scatter pieces.
Yep I am back into Starship trooper mode!
Today the postman brought me a very nice parcel…
I managed to get a good deal on EBay … sixteen miniatures for £48 with free postage. Yeah that is a lot of money for plastic, but the Starship Troopers miniatures are like rocking horse droppings. I though £3 a mini wasn’t too bad, having a look at other things up for sale I could get six for £45 or one for £11. So all in all not a bad price.
They are a whole lot smaller than the ones I printed… even my 60% sized one is big…
These two were pre assembled, the rest were still on the sprue. I need some flying ones and at least a Tanker bug, but once again these are going for silly money.
I would like some ST mobile infantry, there are less of them than there are bugs it would seem. There are more in the states than over here, £20 postage on top of £30 plus for the actual miniatures is putting me off – that and a poor track record of getting stuff actually to my house from the states.
So to proxy the troopers I ordered some EM4 plastic troopers five miniatures for £2.55…
https://em4miniatures.com/collections/science-fiction-near-future-miniatures/products/troopers
For that price you really can’t go wrong…
I got four sets so have a fair amount to play with. Sadly the command conversion and in fact most of the conversion bits were sold out which was a bit of a bummer to say the least. I will give him a shout to see if they are going to be restocked at any point. These have been sold out for ages so I really don’t see that they will be… but as they say …Shy Bairns get nowt. At the very least I might get a contact for who made them.
So off I go back to EBay to see if anything ST is going cheap… I have more chance of spotting a flying pig!
I have found a proxy drop ship on Thingiverse that I can print myself, as well as terrain and ground vehicles so that should keep me busy for a while.
This post is to answer a comment that Ann made after me showing my Reaper Bones ghosty.
And to quote…
now this got me thinking. So I nipped out into the shed to find a couple of the bigger ones and set them out on the adventuring rock….
They do indeed have a bit of a sheen.. so for comparison I hoiked out a couple of GW plastic things I cobbled together.
I would say that the troll at least has a definite shine to it there does also seem to be on bits of the ogre. Because of the strong sunlight my test was not the best…
So I came inside to take another photo…
The two big ones do definitely have a sheen to them that isn’t present in the two hard plastic miniatures.
The interesting thing is that the ghost and the ogre had a lot of dry brushing added to them whereas the troll was base coated and painted up in washes.
But having a real close look at the ogre the sheen is there too.
So in answer to Ann, nope you are not the only one it happens to… it happened to me too 👍
I am now of to play on a very expensive digger. I need to get a high speed broadband cable in by Monday. Wish me luck that I don’t find any power cables or phone cables. I know I won’t find a gas main as we don’t have mains gas on Shetland.
This triple F is one with a bit of a difference. Normally I have a mooch about in the shed to see what has been languishing in boxes for the last few years. This is different in that these were in the house and errrr different in that I forgot I had bought them.
So sitting on the shelf by my bedroom door was this box…
Hmm says I, whatever is in this box,? So I opened it….
That’s a bit weird says I, let’s get everything out…..
And in the bubble wrap was the following…
These arrived somewhere around 20th January and I actually took 2 out to act as models to show the size of things I was printing.
The models are the Elite light infantry of the emperor Mordred. As can be seen, they are a basic paint job, and by that comment I mean no disrespect to the painter. I was there once too when I sold mine…. but for £11.40 I am not going to complain.
I have just had a really weird thought. Wouldn’t it be funny if these were mine that I sold in a bring and buy around 20 years ago 😱.
I will have a mess about to add some shading and highlighting to see what I can do to improve them. I will also fling some base ready flock onto the bases too. The white looks quite shiny so I am hoping they aren’t painted in enamels…
The question is though, what should I do with them?
I bought them on a whim as they had a low starting bid, I had checked with friends and associates to see whether they were bidding on them too. It wouldn’t be the first time we have bid against each other 🤣. I put on a low bid on as most Flintloque stuff goes mad or doesn’t sell at all. It turns out there were only two of us bidding on them and they gave up before me.
Foolishly I have just gone and had a look… there are a pile of boxed sets up that I used to own and really liked…oh woe is me… But I shall be strong and will resist.
They are on for £17 buy now… but with 9 days to go….luckily my new laptop is with me and I have some nice statues to print off. That may divert my attention long enough!
Here are the two models, before they were reunited with their platoon…
Well that is this lot all done,.
First up the Heresy Miniatures Inspectors.
These were painted up for my mate and to be honest I am rather pleased with them. They are for his secret project so I can’t say much more about it 😉.
Next up are the cultists…
I decided on a blue and red robe for this lot, my original idea was to have a dark red robe, but as I was severely lacking in dark red so I went blue instead. These still need varnishing but the ground cover has been sealed (something I often forget to do).
Finally for this month is my weird hand monster. There are only 4 needed for the game but at some point I might add some more, that is if I can remember what colour I used for the skin! 🙄
Again, like the cultists these need varnishing to protect them a bit.
I still have a few figures to paint to complete the full game. I need a couple of heroes finishing as well as the winged beastie then the game is ready to play.
One thing on a totally different track altogether was to start thinking about the desert village, I am getting a laptop back tomorrow the other was destroyed, well it was £120 to fix it or get an upgrade for £200. So more houses can be printed.
This is a sketch plan for one of the villages I am considering…
As you can tell, drawing plans is not my forte…
The houses in the foreground are two joined together by a courtyard. My plan is to have 6 to 9 houses in three villages. These will also have palm groves and the like to add further cover.
Regarding tanks I am going to go for some mkII’s as well as some Marder 2 and some Italian tanks too, then More British tanks including some M3’s.
A quick speedy paint of a ghost…
This is a Reaper Bones one, very soft flexible plastic but these things seem to take paint well.
Is it a male or female ghost, who can tell. It goes woooh wooh and scares people. I will need it for next week’s RPG session where the players will meet a shade from Angmar.
I will probably put it onto a larger base to help with stability, but the bases are in the bottom shed and I am in the kitchen.
Rather than the usual basing material of base ready I go for, this time I went for a less rocky flock. This is the flock myself and my daughter made. It is running out so small bases like this are handy.
Bogenwald 