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More Troopers

I had asked Doug over at EM4 if there were any if the metal arms for the plastic troopers. Sadly there were none and were not likely to be going to be any either. But a little while ago he emailed me to apologise that his other company Moonraker Miniatures had some left. I thought this was jolly decent of him as I wouldn’t be spending hundreds of pounds on a couple of packets of arms.

So the order arrived today.

I have built one set up using the command sprue arm set and the Ganger heavy weapons set. The later are for gangers as the name implies and not really for the troopers. A couple fitted so these became heavy weapons and the rest became a medic, an officer and a comms trooper.

Not knowing really what I was getting in this set, I also ordered some metal miniatures

From left to right, heavy weapons, sniper/scout, comms and an obvious officer type. My initial idea is that in the RPG as the players specialise then they can choose a new miniature if they want.

I will attempt to get these painted up sometime soon.

As I was driving to pick up some horse feed I drove past some more of Lerwick’s defences….

The photos taken of the bunkers etc were on the skyline. The original road block is about 60m in front of my car.

If the weather is good this weekend I will mosey along to the battery and get some photos.

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Washes, Highlights and Another Big Bug

This sounds like a hairdressers advert, well apart from the big bug, unless that is some form of bouffant hairstyle.

Tonight I managed some highlights on the robots…

As with most things they look a lot better in real life. I spent ages highlighting edges and flat panels, not that you can tell, there is now a huge contrast between the dark recesses and the raised areas.

I also bunged a light wash on the elves, yeah I am back on with them…

Trooper Ted is keeping an eye on them 🙄

And finally the big bug, where does that fit in… my latest purchase, all the way from Virginia Beach in Virginia in the USA.

It’s a Tanker bug, complete with shooty bits. Press the button on its back and the spring loaded mechanism fires the ‘plasma’ out of its mouth.

So why all the way from the states and why a toy from the ’90s… simple reason really. I got this chappy for a fiver with £12 postage. Compare that to the £35 used and £60 in box you can see why. And the States, it was the only place I could find one at the time. Typically once the purchase had been made then a few popped up in the Uk on EBay. I did do a bit of research and as the cost was below £30 then I would pay no import duty… looks like it was right.

Although the bug itself was funky, along with bubble wrap was a bit of a newspaper, which was just as interesting as I have never seen a newspaper from the states before… the one weird thing (to me that is) is it is really long and thin.

Compare it to the mighty tome that is…The Shetland Times …a mighty paper of editorial prowess and cutting edge reporting….

As you can see, starlings can destroy your car… secondary pupils at the New Anderson High school need road safety lessons and as our brand (shiny) new high school appeared about 100th out of 339 schools in some league table everyone threw a wobbly about how the rankings are flawed. It is really funny how rankings are flawed when they show a poor result, I have yet to see anyone, anywhere go ‘huzzah we are top, but there again the rankings are totally flawed so we reckon we should be nearer the middle!’

To be fair we don’t have official league tables in Scotland and it was a single performance indicator that was used to gain the data.

Ohh yeah, some schools are getting about 9 weeks off this year due to building work taking place…

Ohh yeah and someone was appalled that the paper had printed the ‘f’ word in full in this parochial family newspaper… on that note, I had better f*** off and get some things done before bed… tomorrow is Friday… I might still be able to find something that is forgotten… probably more 10mm elves….

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Mobile Infantry III

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…

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Mobile Infantry II

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…

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Mobile Infantry….Sort Of!

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.

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BUUUGGGSSSS

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.

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Forlorn Elves…

They were sitting there, staring at me and making me feel guilty so I painted some more cloaks…

nearly lost the will to live but pushed through the barriers of whatever was stopping me getting on with them.

The printer has returned to the shed as the temperature has warmed up enough, it’s funny not hearing it working away. Before it moved out there I printed a couple more bits and bobs.

These are upscaled from 18mm ones. I was after some more proxy bits for Starship Troopers. The big one is a proxy for an M-4A1 Grizzly Exo suit and the smaller one is CHAS (Cybernetic Humanoid Assault System)… these appear in the Roughneck series and not in the films. The CHAS needs to be a bit bigger, but will do as a starter. Both of these were from Ill Gotten Games.

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In My Grey Phase

I decided to eventually get some paint onto the mausoleum and the Mech.

My son wanted his mech to be grey so who am I to argue. From what I remember he wants the cockpit glass to be blue and the rockets red.

My intention for the mausoleum is to give it a black wash once this grey is dry and then get it dry brushed up to a lighter grey. I keep thinking some kind of metallic colour for the doors but I haven’t quite decided that far ahead.

I really do like it and reckon it will come up a treat once it is finished.

I managed sod all else tonight apart from reducing the bug down to 75% size to see how it looks. It is merrily printing away as I type this. I was going to watch one of the films tonight to get a scale of the things but I couldn’t be arsed to do that.

And it looks this big….

Stick it on it’s very long legs and I think it will look fine… I will print the arms and legs tomorrow and see what I think.

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BUUUUGG!!!

Technically it should be BUUUGGGS…

but I only made one!

This thing is bloody massive. I reckon I need to drop it down to about 25% smaller at least and see how it looks. If you were wondering…the white stuff is baking powder. It causes a reaction with the superglue and sets instantly.

I had some de-lamination problems with the legs especially at the ball joints. Therefore I quasi posed it and then glued everything rigid. I printed the arms on a raft and had no problems with them so that might be the way forward if I do decide to do another one.

The one thing I forgot to mention and that is that this is a poseable bug (well it would be f I hadn’t superglued everything in place). It was designed by JOOXOE31 and again downloaded from Thingiverse.

I didn’t get any painting done this evening because of building this beastie, and various family related shenanigans… (including a stint of Ghost recon with my son. Who hasn’t quite grasped the tactical disadvantage of standing on a roof in full view of his father armed with a sniper rifle.) I also had a go at my hunting game and met the worlds first bullet proof Elk! Tracked him for 4 kilometres before I managed to bag him in the end.

Off playing Vikings in a school tomorrow so not too stressful a day 😁.

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No Painting Tonight☹️

Sat on a boat midway between Shetland and Orkney…

Well okay if truth be known I am nearer Orkney, having left Shetland five and a half hours ago, with twenty minutes to go before getting into harbour. I eventually arrive in Aberdeen at 07.00 tomorrow.

In one of my earlier blog posts I rambled on about never being able to find the stuff I want. Luckily my eagle eyed mate spotted a Starship Troopers game, complete with maps and stand up card figures….

Huzzah!

I haven’t a clue what the rules are like, but I want it for its parts. Success! Plus you can’t really complain when you get it for £15 posted.

And as a coincidence…tonight’s onboard entertainment.

So once my mate has finished running his Star Trek RPG we will be joining SICON as the mobile infantry to protect the United Citizens’ Federation.

The campaigns of Pluto await!

I managed to amass all of the available DVD’s relating to Starship Troopers including the original Roughnecks series. Which I liked more than I thought I would.

I am considering getting the graphic novels, but with the DVD collection mentioned above, I reckon I have a fair bit of source material, after I finish with all of the missions and campaigns in the various books.

Tomorrow, I have about one hour to charge around Aberdeen after my meetings before heading back home on the boat again. It seemed like a really good idea at the time to go by boat. Twenty four hours travelling for six hours of meetings. It takes one hour by plane!

Anyway what follows is a a picture of kirkwall in the dark!