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.

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.