Co-Mil Scout Cars

These are some colonial militia scout cars I finished up a little while ago. They represent a two‑seater field car, basically the same as the colony civilians drive; unarmored, ultra‑compact, and, in typical colonist fashion, loaded down with all kinds of gear. They are atmo‑sealed and have air reserves, so if a storm comes along they can provide a safe haven, but they have no air‑lock, so you better have your respo gear, if you plan on unbuttoning these babies.

In keeping with the militia’s emphasis on technical support to the republic colonists and maintaining the long term terraforming facilities, over offensive military capability, the cars don’t have any weapons mounted to fire directly from the vehicle. They can carry deployable equipment that they drop off around the table, remote missile packs, comm transmitters, or even ammo reloads for the battle mechs. And of course, they are tied in to the battle‑net, so they can spot for indirect fire and paint targets for missiles. All of which will hopefully require some thoughtful tactics to use the cars effectively.

They are kit‑bashed from a toy called ‘nano-speed’, the kind of car you pull back and let it zip across the floor. I carefully picked out the biggest models they had and they are still right at the bottom edge of being too small. Some would say they are over the edge, but what, me worry?

The stowage consists of capacitors, resistors and diodes harvested from circuit boards, a technique I am very happy to have discovered as it solves all my sci‑fi barrel and box requirements, and which you will be seeing a lot more of in the future. I spent about a month of hobby time taking apart every circuit board I could get my hands on, and now I have what I’m calling a lifetime supply of stowage and supply containers, of course I always want more.

I had a problem with some wash that I tried out on these guys. I’m always looking for an easier faster way to paint, but this one didn’t turn out too well. I probably didn’t use it right, but for the life of me I couldn’t find any guides online that show how it should be done. I basically drenched the model in the wash and let it go. I put it on over a dull coat, as opposed to gloss, which may have contributed to the trouble. But as you can see the dark tones of the wash migrated up to the raised areas, where you want your highlights, rather than settle into the crevices like a good dog –er wash, a good wash. If you have any advice regarding this product please share it, because otherwise this stuff is going on the shelf. I opted out of the pizza camo for the re-paint.

Here's a Colonial Militia task force with  a C-Def mech in support. The Civilian Defense League is an ally of the CoMil... usually.

And just for fun, Here's my full Colonial Militia Force so far. They have some kit bashed blower tanks in the pipeline, but otherwise they are done for the foreseeable future.

Thanks for looking,
Tom Kelley

Radical Reinforcements

I just finished a batch of 15mm Sci‑Fi radicals, armed to the teeth with RPG’s, SAW’s, and assault rifles. These Oddzial Osmy (O8) miniatures are awesome and I love each and every sculpt. I’ll be using them to represent a variety of factions; anarchists, eco‑terrorists, and union heavies to name a few.

As you can see, the sculpts are really imaginative, a solid line of low‑tech sci‑fi. They have a ton of variety, and this batch represents only about half of the sculpts available now. Each model has a lot of character, and the group as a whole comes off as a little bit punk, a little bit rock‑n‑roll. They would fit right in in Mega‑City 1, duking it out with the law.

These are probably the last miniatures that I’ll prime with black. I’ve been trying to lighten up my painting with various techniques, and I pulled out all the techniques I could think of for these guys except the white primer. Partly I wanted to see if the primer color really mattered (I think it might just a little) and partly I already had them primed in black, so there you go.

The pewter that they are cast with is a very hard, brittle material; more so than the usual white metal. I made the mistake of trying to bend one of my colonial militia (NVL) guys at the legs. Well he now slogs into battle on a pair of prosthetics. But having learned that lesson, I now really like the properties of the metal. I have confidence these guys will be very robust on the table top, no bent gun barrels and the like.

These guys are beautifully sculpted, like all O8 models that I’ve seen. The level of detail is quite fine. All the faces are clean and well balanced. The folds, pouches, and other details are crisp and smooth; a real joy to paint. I would like to see some NVL equipment make it into more rebel hands in the future, if there are any more codes planned, but these guys are well worth putting some time into and giving some care to the paint work, very rewarding. O8 are easily my favorite 15mm Sci‑Fi infantry models.

 

 

Thanks for checking these out,
Tom Kelley