Mechanoids

Some of you may be old enough (like me) to remember these from their first airing on Dr Who a reminder of the Mechanoids  and a clip from The Chase.

I've been playing Future War Commander and as my teleporting Terminators were winning every battle for me, my opponent was not  impressed. I play a Marine Corp army, essential 'Epic Space Marines' whilst I believe he plays an [FWC] Cybernetic Species X31 Army, using Dalek models.
He feels the Terminators with their teleport ability are under rated, a game changer and winner and he's probably right so I was considering another army

My wife is a quilter, this hobby takes up as much time and maybe more cash than wargaming, her stash may be larger than mine and I've lost a number of really useful boxes over the year but there are benefits there is rarely criticism of spending.

This year I was in Hobbycraft, whilst my wife was looking at buying a Sizzix machine, there was nothing currently that I wanted there for me but the Sizzix demo was still ongoing.

Mind empty waiting for release I waited for the pitch to end as I walked through the store then I passed by the bead counter, loose beads all sizes and types. Enter Wargaming Mode, the hexagon beads looked just like Mechanoids.

The Pitch over my wife didn't actually buy the Sizzix at that time but found me poring over and selecting beads. £7 ish for a large pot of mixed beads which she kindly offerred to buy for me as I'd waited so patiently.

We went back the following week when she bought it and I got in some more beads.

Once home I threaded them on to wire then sprayed them black.

Then I lined them up to see what I had whilst consulting FWC for the right army list, I decided it had to be Droids.

The Mechanoids of yore had a small black disc sticking out from the top, I figured a panel pin would do that trick

I decided the largest bead would be Battle Robots and also field as Psycoborgs be the Tanks/guns. You will note I attached small canons to them ssing the gold beads above.

The medium sized ones could be the polymorph assault droids.

The the smaller size would be the standard Mechanoid being both Cyborgs and Korbach, the difference in the two was the range so I painted the pins in the Korbach red and also the guns for the Pyscoborg (Mark 1) as they both had 60 CM range, would make it easier on the battle field.

I'd given the Psycoborg (Mark 2) a Cryonic device, and whilst that was only effective at 60 cm I painted the guns ice blue. Tru they also have a primary weapon with a 80 cm range, but it made the unit stand out.

So painted up, unusually I based them before painting, figured it would be easier.



I'd been painting the bases a Burnt Umber (see below left) but it was way too dark, so I added white to get a milk to dark chocolate colour as opposed to the very Dark chocolate/black colour it had been.

Added more white and dry brushed added even more white and dry brushed a second time.

Then flocked using a bright flock rather than my usual scorched grass

I did this as I had discovered my standard 28 mm basing was making my 6 mm models too dark they became just board pieces.

I think the lighter colour work and bring out the best.

No idea what the command pole/trees are meant to represent, I just like the beads, sad ...

Hope you like it. 

Army list at the bottom.

Really useful boxes and commission-figurines

How do you pack your models away?                                                                                                   

My soloution

So many options out there, none really worked for me.
I want relative low cost, study, stackable, portable & flexible  use.
I have 6 mm Hail Caesar with some bases up to 80 x 50 mm deep.
6 mm Black Powder 60 x 30 mm deep  
10 mm Warmaster 3 bases of 40 x 20mm
Height varies depending standards, cavalry (Kontos), fantastic beasts or flyers.

As a club we started using 9 &4 litre really useful boxes, sturdy
easy to stack and carry.

4 litre 2 tray insert
9  litre 4 tray insets
Extra large 9 litre 5 trays
Not that we used this often.


We bought these with hobby trays that have 15 sections we can get 30 of  our 60 x 30 mm bases.

The models are quite snug and tend not to move about. Each 35 mm tray allows for 32 mm height.


You can cut up magnetic sheets 60 x 60 mm to fit the squares, not glued and metallic paper to the model, the paired bases can't flip.

However BKC2 10 mm needing 40 x 20 mm, not as snug and vehicles that used one spot only and our 20 mm RF models, vehicles don't fit and individual based models were falling over they're top heavy compared to 6 & 10 mm multi based models. We looked for alternates home made tray inserts.

A solution for me was the 11 litre and 21 litre boxes into which I placed foam trays. 2 in 11 litre, 4-5 in 21 litre, 6 in Extended 21 litre box.



This 21 litre box contains 4 trays as the dragon model is so high there is no space for a full 5th tray though I could use half a tray. Without that model there is space for 5 trays = 200 of 40 x 20 mm bases, sturdy stackable.



But as you know many GW models extend beyond the foam and banners and weapons can be bent or broken off.

Not just the Wyvern!






Finally a friend mentioned the problem to Walter Anstiss of commission-figurines and at last we had a solution. [See note below]

These trays are self assembly when ordering choose to have one or two central bars as shown above, the difference suits different basing systems.

For my 6 mm Hail Caesar I have one divider and get 2 x 20 mm trays and 2 x 30 m  and 1 x 40. Total possible is 140.

This has allowed me to get a Dacian, Sarmatian with Kontos and Roman armies plus extras in.






As for my Warmaster the Undead horde that filled a 21 ltr box (5 foam trays) now all fits in one 9 ltr box, easier to store, but just as heavy!










These models are 10 mm and because of the banners I chose to use 3 x40 mm and 1 x 20 mm at the top for archer and bone throwers. I also cut the bottom out of half the top 20 mm tray so I had a full 60mm clearance for the dragon and other models that needed 40+ mm.


I use blank bases to fill the gaps to stop the units sliding.





Although wood bases on wood trays has a lot of friction for the larger or loose models I use Stopp from IKEA (for lining kitchen draws its stops the models sliding about.

It's relatively thin so wont waste height, low cost too.


Hope the above helps.
Storage boxes and trays, the next phase.

___________________________________________________________________________________

NOTE:

Commission Figuerines web site is a link to their PDF catalogue with the following instructions.

Ordering

e-mail us at commission@btinternet.com

Let us know what you want from the catalogue

We’ll let you know how much the postage will be

You let us know if you wish to proceed

We send you a Paypal invoice (which includes an option to pay by card)

Trees - Cedar of Lebanon 28 mm

Nothing quite like trees for getting us all going. For some of us the search to get the right good looking trees that fit, comes second only to that of getting the perfect rule set.

I've made a few over the years as I have failed to see how some of the offerings we used to get were at all compatible with 28 mm figures.
After all trees aren't two or three times bigger, they soar above us and nothings looks dafter than four inch trees (100 mm) alongside twelve inch  buildings (300 mm).
So much so that in 28 mm you will rarely see trees and building on the same table.







I was playing around with the idea of doing something different rather than a bristle brush offering and came up with this.

Two 28 mm LOTR figures are on the base and you can see the size. However I'm still not happy as I feel the trunk should be twice the size, so the model can hide behind it, but it's close.

In the second photo the same tree, revamped this year, some 8 years later and it begins to look like my objective. This is from a

Frostgrave shot with a Reaper mini and an even older LOTR figure Boromir, hate to think how old that is.

The trunk is still too narrow as I revamped the foliage rather than the trunk.



For those interested in construction.

Get some lengths of wire and twist them together.
I believe I started with six, twisting them from about two inches, using a vice and pliers. Where I wanted the first branch I separated out one piece of wire and twisted the remaining five strands, repeat for second and third, e.t.c., until you have two strands left. Normally you cut all the strands off at the point you want a branch to stop especially if you are doing a dead tree.(longer at the bottom, shorter at the top),
This time I made a giant loop of each strand.

The base of the wire strands were then splayed out to allow the tree to stand, whilst I left them at about two to three inches you can leave them longer and twist them to look like roots. I decided to 'glue' this to an old CD, windows 95 OS I believe, maybe I should have used an old 'Evergreens' cd.

I glued it using the same brown mastic that you might use on dark brown hardwood as it would save me painting it later. When set I then applied additional mastic to the trunk of the tree and branches smoothing up and down the trunk and along the branches to get a bark effect.
[NOTE, keep a small pot of water nearby and wet your fingers as you 'sculpt' the mastic this will stop it sticking to your fingers, also ensure you have tissues to wipe your fingers on after you are done in order to keep your partner happy.]

You can thicken the mastic up as mush as you want, either by wrapping string around the trunk first or by applying more mastic when the first is dry. A happy side effect is that when dry you can bend the branches or trunk to any shape you want as demonstrated by these two photos.

I then got some wire wool and partially threaded the loop through this gluing it in place and roughly positioning the branches horizontally. Lots more glue was the sprayed over the wire wool both on top and below the branches and then I drenched it with flock.

When I revisited the project I added more, better quality flock to top and underneath of branches, let it dry and sprayed and flocked again.
I then applied a sand/pva paste to the CD and when dry, dry brushed before flocking.
[Today I'd use brown wood filler].

I think the tree looks right with the buildings.





Of course today you can get excellent trees from 4ground, but at £24 for three trees?

So DIY still appeals to me as I can get the height I want too..

But 4grounds offerings are stunning.



If you want to see my take on a Si-Fi then look here Alien Trees 28 mm.

Desert town

This month I went to the Joy of Six  a small show, which may be appropriate as it is all 6 mm figures/scenery, but all the human participants were 1:1.

I purchased some Desert Domes from Brigade Models for my games of Future War Commander.

Made from resin they are solid and attractive and I thought to paint them up for jungle terrain as Alien Domes.

Funny how your brush and paints take over. I tried a few colour schemes and ended up with desert terrain, ah well, will now need to purchase more 6 mm Desert stuff.  - Once again a project escalates, at least this time it is out of the packet, assembled mounted and painted before the next purchase rather than just adding to the resin/metal/plastic mountains.

They were very well cast, odd small holes that were ignorable, as they added character if you could spot them and a couple of small flecks that needed fettling, nothing serious and unusually for me I washed them before using.

I had to now choose between creating a dynamic scene or individually mount them. It's always a problem, you want the models to look good on the table, but you want to move the troops through the built up area the building are supposed to represent. I decided to go down the route I use for trees; felt cloth represents the woods' boundaries and trees scattered on the cloth make the point.

For game simplicity my towns have straight edges, none of this medieval mishmash of town planning, no a fresh planet with organised town planning from the beginning! I will place the terrain piece on the table, replacing them with grey felt if troops move in to that area.

Designing the layout

I originally thought to mount them on 2-3 mm MDF board that I'd cut into 100 mm (4") squares, they looked wrong and casting about for inspiration I saw the 6 mm  La Haye Saint model based 100 mm x 125 mm (4" x 6" almost), the rectangle looked better and when I realised I got four out of the strip instead of 4 + wastage I was sold.


The cleaned models were first assembled on to the 'cut' bases. This allowed me to think about setup. As usual I had no plan and was allowing the pieces etc to make the decisions for me.

Mixing the basing materials

Copydex and PVA backup

In the past I used to glue the models to the base with PVA and then spread around it a mix of paint, sand and glue, this was time consuming and messy. However I was recently shown another system used by a fellow gamer Chris McGill.

He uses a proprietary wood filler from Wilko, in this instance I used a brown one, you can get white. You can add colour to the filler I have a tube of Burnt Umber acrylic paint I use, although I soon saw the 'out of the tub' colour was what I was after anyway.

The paint or in my case a little water softens the mix up so you can spread it on with a knife, running a wet finger over the top will give you a smooth 'paved stone' finish you can draw lines in, in this case a dry finger roughened it up a bit as I wanted natural terrain, soil with all its lumps and bumps.


Once you have sculpted the surface you then attach the models with Copydex, ( I know weird), this then takes the best part of 12 - 24 hours to set.

Based and drying out/setting

The fact is that a later application of water to the terrain 'melts' the adhesive and the models can be removed and washed clean and reused elsewhere. In the case of 6 mm men no damage is done to a single model.

In my opinion this far outweighs any perceived disadvantage of waiting for it to set. However the odd piece will take longer to dry or be too heavy, then I use PVA glue, if the building breaks away from it's base, an application of flock hides the repair.

Once assembled I used a coffee stirrer to make paths from building to building, all leading to a central point I planned to put a 35 mm base there, a teleport/landing pad, we'll see.

I added some white some chips I'd rescued from a path some time ago.

Painted and the different densities of Ink show up nicely

The following day I started painting one base and after trial and error came up with the 'concept' I liked and finished it all off.

The buildings were first undercoated with and then painted in 'Sand' then I picked out the windows in blue (Caledor Sky), recessed lines in Golden Yellow and some patches of Jade Green, over painting the reds I'd started with, as always the scenery tells you what colour it wants to be Doors and window frames were painted with Mithril Silver.

I then washed it all over with Peat Brown, applying it straight on and watering it down in place so I got variety.

When dry I put more wash on the window's slats and doors to bring out the detail. You can't do this at the same time as the ink spreads out to other wet areas.

I dry brushed the ground with the same cheap acrylic, sand colour and was then was going to apply sand in patches but it looked wrong so I flocked over it and added flock elsewhere. Using a brown dessert grasses flock I bought years ago; GW I think.

Finished All pictures here

I had intended to ink the stone in interesting Alien colours, tried it out on a test stone, nope, so they stay as nature intended.

I like to think of the stone circles as part of the mechanics of the teleportation device/receiver, maybe on Earth that's what all the stone circles are copies off, mimicking the 'Sky Gods' bases.