New Model Army... News!

After a couple of evenings of cussing and swearing, I have managed to add decals to all of the troops and vehicles for the first of the platoons. Here is the 6th Platoon of the Third regiment of the Grymn Army:

Each of the sections are placed in front of their transport vehicle and for the infantry squads, Charlie fire-team has a white number and Delta fire-team has a black number.

I have changed the marking of the helmets so that the platoon number is on the same side as the section number. It means that the numbers match the vehicles better and also they don't obscure the Regiment symbol.

I still need to paint on the ranks but I have, at least, come up with a range of markings that I can paint on to represent the rank structure that won't be too difficult:

The markings will be on the front of the helmets over to one side. I have only decided on the field ranks...because they are the only ranks I am going to be putting in the army.

Finally, here are a few pix of the Grymn Walker for scale purposes:

The miniatures are a Void Syntha Marine, a Dark Eldar, a Vulkan Battlesuit (Clanker) and a converted Critical Mass Games Arc Walker.

A small group of Grymn ready for fighting!

All these need now is a good coat of matt varnish after adding rank to the NCOs and Officers.

Grymn Walker arrives.

This week I received a very nice surprise from Kev and Sally at Hasslefree Miniatures...I was sent the Grymn Walker along with a seated and standing pilot:

This appears to be the one that was used for the various photos on the Forum of Doom because it arrived in a partially assembled state.

When I took it to pieces (a simple task of breaking the super-glue joints) I had a few minor repairs to carry out but it gave me an overall appreciation of how the kit will assemble when it gets released.

Components:
2x weapon arms
2x identical gun shields
1x pelvis
2x legs
2x feet
2x leg shields
1x body rear
1x body front

Everything has idiot proof joints so it was easy to assemble. both of the weapons can fit either side on the ball joints on the sides of the rear body. The legs are handed (so the right leg will go on the right side and the left on the left side - no mix and match) so there is only a small amount of pose-ability but enough for a little variation in a unit... the ball joints at the hips and ankles will further add to the range of poses. The body can be fitted to the pelvis through quite a range of rotation (only limited by a beam that projects from the rear of the pelvis). The guns are on ball joints as well so they have a huge range of positions.

From a model making perspective it is a lovely little model and would look great painted up by a professional and mounted on a scenic base. As a war-gaming piece there are a couple of things to be aware of:

1 - The leg shields have a very fragile join that will need some form of beefing up. I used some Green Stuff.
2 - The front cover would be awesome if it could open and close but the hinge is not quite large enough to drill a pin into. I have put magnets in the front so that I can remove/fit the front cover instead.
3 - The gun shields are also quite fragile but I fixed that by gluing a small piece of sprue between the shield and the gun to add an additional connection point...now it is solid.

I love the kit (I always knew I would) and will be buying more when it gets released. I doubt if I will be making too many with a pilot on display so the hinged front cover won't matter to me. It is easy to carry out the small additions to beef up the gun-shields and leg shields so I am not worried about that (and I expect a bit of careful gluing would probably work just as well as my ideas).

Hopefully, at some point more weapons will be designed (a missile pod for one) but there is no reason that either of the existing weapons couldn't be converted.

As it stands, I have received a wonderful gift that will sit very well with my Grymn forces... and I look forward to being able to purchase more when they are released.

Thank you Kev and Sally at Hasslefree Miniatures.

Armoured might.

I have been working, feverishly, to finish off the transport vehicles for the 1st platoon and have managed it!:

These just need a gloss varnish, the decals adding and then a matt varnish to finish them.

The next stage is to gloss varnish them and then add decals to the entire platoon, ready for the matt varnish to be applied to the whole platoon as well. It also means that I am very close to the most daunting part of the project...adding decals to everything.

I have all the decals I need (for this platoon) and will have to spend a lot of time trimming them to fit partially obscured helmets. I will also be using some 'decal soft' for the first time so I will have to learn how to use it...interesting times.

With regards to the decals on the tanks, I will have the regiment badge on the front and rear (the roundel), the regiment symbol on the right of the turret and the platoon/section numbers on the left of the turret.

I have decided that this will be the sixth platoon so the numbers on the turret will be: 60 (command) 61, 62, 63 in white lettering. The troops will have the roundel with a white six on the right of their helmet and a 1,2 or 3 on the left (no marking for the command squad).

So... an awful lot of decals. On the bright side, they should look cool once they are marked up though (hopefully). Then all I need to worry about is rank insignia... but I haven't got that far yet (I am thinking that they will be painted on at this stage... but I may change my mind after Salute because I will be able to check out small scale decals there).

With all the focus on the vehicles lately, I will be glad to get back to the troops again.

The production-line continues

I have been busy working on the first platoon's transport this week and after assembly, filling and a spray under-coat on the four armoured vehicles, I began painting them. Unfortunately, life got in the way of as much progress as I would have liked but I managed to get one finished. It also meant that the colour-scheme had chosen itself:

In addition to painting the command transport, I also managed to put together an updated markings picture and an idea of how it would look on the troops:

Now that I have a set idea of what I want to achieve, I will finish off the vehicles and gloss varnish them. After that I'll have a 'decal day' and mark the whole platoon up at once. I have now got all of the decals I need for this job (with more on the way for additional platoons) so there will be no excuse not to finish them.

The slow conversion job on the four recon-bikes continues...

Vehicle assembly line.

I just thought I'd post pix of the assembled vehicles for the first platoon. I still need to tidy them up and fill the joints a bit (if I'd used super-glue there would be no gaps...I just used epoxy and that doesn't compress as nicely). So here are three Glaive APCs and a Slingshot AFV:

They are lovely vehicles that are beautifully cast. Here are a few pix with some miniatures to compare them against:

Over the next couple of days, I hope to get them cleaned, filled and ready for paint at the weekend.

After the troops.

I have now finished gloss varnishing the troops for the first platoon. All they need is decals and a matt varnish and they will be finished but until I get some decals, I will start putting together the transport for the platoon. Here are the four vehicles now that they have been washed:

They are drying nicely as we speak and the picture shows 3 Glaive APCs, a Slingshot AFV and 3 mini turrets to go with the Glaives. The bag has the metal barrels and hatches for the kits in it. The kits are from Old Crow and they are immaculately cast and even came sanded flat so that they fit together nicely. I have put together Old Crow kits before and they really are excellent value for money. Each of the Glaives will hold 8 troops and will house the infantry sections. The Slingshot will hold 4 troops will house the command section. I don't want to add stowage to the vehicles because I prefer clean, uncluttered lines and there is plenty of room inside the vehicles for extra equipment.

Lots to be getting on with.

Fi-Fi-Fo-Fum!

Yes, today I am going to talk about the models and miniatures available for robotic walkers in your Grymn armies. This is not going to be a big debate as to whether they are practical or not...I like the idea of big robots on the battlefield and as a result I feel the need to share a few ideas on the subject.

Starting at the beginning, we have the small, powered-armour style, walkers. The first one I have here is a Grizzly suit from the now extinct range of Starship Troopers miniatures that Mongoose Games used to make:


The miniature is designed to be used as a powered suit for miniatures that would be about 32mm tall so the thought of a Grymn filling the suit in the way it was designed is a bit daft. I would suggest that the Grymn pilot would be sat in a seat in the torso of the suit and would drive it rather than walk around in it. There is plenty of room in the torso for this so it isn't infeasible.

Following on from the Grizzly are my Vulkan battle-suits. They are from another extinct range of miniatures; the Warzone range from Target Games. These would operate in the same way as the Grizzlies with the Grymn pilot sitting in the torso:


Next we have the driven robot style of walker. These are no longer powered armour but armoured vehicles that have a pilot who sits in a cockpit and controls the walker. The walkers below are from the Japanese Anime 'Armoured Trooper Votoms'. The ones pictured are very old 1/60 scale, die-cast toys depicting 'Scopedog'; one of the characters from the show:


In order to make the toy look more Grymn-like, I have shortened the one on the left and started to paint it in a more reasonable scheme.

...and so we progress onto my favourite line of walkers...the Macross range. The following walkers are from the old 1/200 scale Nichimo range of kits. The Nichimo kits were great because each of the boxes contained two kits. It was necessary to convert these quite heavily so that there was conceivably the space to house a Grymn in the cockpit. First are the converted Defenders:



Next we have some converted Tomahawks:


Moving on from the 1/200 scale kits, we progress onto the slightly large 1/100 scale kits. These are from Arai and Bandai and are joined by the smaller walkers to show off their size difference:


Just for a bit more information, the grey and white walkers are Regult pods and the un-painted green and brown ones are Spartans. The bigger walkers are the Tomahawk but with the arms off the Defender:


...and a pair of Defenders with the arms off Tomahawks:



The great thing about the Macross kits is that they tie in together nicely. The following Phalanx walkers use similar legs to the Tomahawks and Defenders so don't look out of place at all. The Phalanx have multiple rocket launchers and would be perfect for long ranged support:



Gundam has a huge range of kits available for the Anime theme. The following kit is a Zaku but unlike the other kits I have shown, this is a 'super-deformed' version. That means that it is designed to be more cartoon-like in style. Fortunately there is plenty of room inside the head to fit a Grymn pilot:


I don't need to say that there are literally thousands of Japanese Anime kits available from all sorts of ranges; Xabungle, Dougram, Robotech, Megaro Zamac, Patlabor...the list goes on and on...so I won't go on about it!

There are also war-games ranges that encompass walkers in their ranks. Games Workshop and Forgeworld are two such companies that have a myriad of walkers in a selection of ranges.

To finish, all I need to say is have a look out there and you will find the perfect walker for your forces...whether it is a toy, a Japanese kit or even a kit from a war-games manufacturer...

...and if anyone questions the use of giant walking death machines...then if all else fails just say..."they look cool".

Paper...I forgot to mention paper!

In both of my previous posts I mentioned all sorts of model making options for providing both air and ground support for your Grymn armies.

I am one of those army collectors who like a bit of solidity to my vehicles and am prepared to pay what I think is fair for that privilege. I am not alone when it comes to liking a bit of weight to my vehicles, HOWEVER...there is another option...paper vehicles.

I may look down my nose at paper models but there is a huge amount of merit to them. First of all, there are loads of sci-fi paper models out there, many covering subjects like available video-game vehicles and the more unusual film vehicles...as well as the standard 'home-made' designs so there is plenty of variety to chose from. Secondly, you don't have to build them with paper or card...you can download the plans and build them with plasticard so that you get the solidity and weight that scratch-building provides without having to come up with your own designs. There is also the matter of price. Once you have spent a small amount of money to download the PDF for the plans, you can print them as many times as you like...that means a one off purchase can provide you with hundreds of vehicles if you wish. You can also change the scale of the plans just by adjusting your printer settings. Many of the paper models also come with a choice of colours in the PDF so that you can have a set of vehicles for all occasions and in different colours. Finally, if you don't like painting...paper models are perfect because they usually come fully painted, weathered and highlighted...so as long as you are neat when you glue them together, they don't need painting.

A few providers of paper models are:

Ebbles Miniatures

World Works Games

I would add a huge list but a quick search on Google will throw up hundreds of links to free downloads rather than the pay-for ones I've linked to above. You will have to just accept that because I am not 'in-to' the whole paper thing, that I don't really know where to start looking.

...HOWEVER, with a tiny amount of search-fu, I have come up with this rather nice link to something worth looking into:

Halo Pelican Dropship

Happy hunting!

Air support...

So, we've covered some of the ground support options in the last post, now lets think about air support.

Air support is as wide and varied as ground support. It can be as simple as a fighter aircraft, flying low and strafing the ground with machine gun fire or as complicated as an orbital drop-ship, capable of descending through the atmosphere with a payload of troops, dropping them off and then hanging around to give weapon support while they advance. Let's start, as we did last time, with what is available from a war-gaming model perspective.

War-gaming air support

Again, we'll start with the obvious choice of Games Workshop plastic injection kits. In the Imperial guard line, there is the Valkyrie; a sci-fi version of a helicopter heavy-lifter. The Tau range has a selection of anti-gravity vehicles ranging from the Devilfish troop carrier, through heavy support Hammerheads and Sky-rays to the lightly equipped, 2 man scout skimmer Piranhas. The Eldar have everything from troop carriers to jet bikes and even the Space Marines have Landspeeders to add some lightly armoured ground support. If you want to continue on the Games Workshop theme, their sister company; Forgeworld, have further fliers to add to the mix but they tend to cost a lot more because they are resin.

Old Crow Models also have a few VTOL support craft in the guise of the Raven, Crow and Splinter. These are resin and are 25mm scale so are small enough for the Grymn to use.

Scotia Grendel has the resin, Corvus drop-ship in their Grendel sci-fi section.

Antenociti's Workshop has a couple of resin fliers including jet-bikes and even a city hopper.

...and to be brutally honest, I can't think of any more! There really are a lack of companies making wargaming fliers for sci-fi...particularly drop-ships.

Modern/Sci-fi model kits

Generally speaking, the 1/48th scale aircraft kit industry has thousands of kits available for conversion. I'm not going to list company names because there are so many out there that produce 1/48th scale models. All it takes is a little imagination and you can convert a Chinook into a VTOl for sci-fi, A Commanche into a ground attack VTOL, A Hercules into a Drop-ship and a host of modern jet aircraft into some form of fighter/ground support aircraft...the sky is the limit. If you look a bit further afield, there are a lot of sci-fi kits available...like the Macross and Mospeada range. They have a great selection of fighters. There are also a host of other sci-fi kits from the 'real space' genre; including rockets and shuttles to use in your conversions. Like I said at the beginning...a small amount of imagination and you can easily construct a decent amount of sci-fi airsupport for your Grymn.

Toys

Thunderbirds, UFO, Space: 1999, Captain Scarlett, Avatar, Aliens, The X-Men...the list of cool toys just goes on and on and many of these ranges have vehicles that would make great air support for your Grymn. Don't worry too much about scale as you can often convert stuff that is completely out of scale for use with the Grymn...here is an example; a Thunderbird-2 toy from the most recent film:


All I did was fill in the windows, trim the tail a little and stick a plastic spoon to the front to act as a cockpit...sorted!

The sky is the limit!

Scratch-building

Again, there are many people who enjoy building their own vehicles and aircraft from scratch...I have tried many times but only ever got so far before giving up...here is an example of ANOTHER failed project:


All I can say is that if you take the scratch-building approach...GOOD LUCK!

Well, that is about it for today and I hope that I have supplied at least a small amount of information that you may find useful when tooling up your Grymn forces with some air-support.

If you have any other options for either ground or air support then please feel free to add comments to any of the posts...an idea shared is a wonderful thing after all!

Support for the lowly infantry.

At the time of writing, there are no vehicles in the Hasslefree Miniatures Grymn miniature line. That means two things...

1. We can wait for them to make some available

OR

2. We can look elsewhere for our vehicular needs

I'll say this straight away...I don't like waiting.

I thought I would try to put a list up of all of the places I have found that sell vehicles, tanks and transports that would be suitable for a Grymn army...so hold on to your hats, this is going to be a bumpy ride!

What is available in the way of tanks and ground based vehicles?

There are a surprising amount of vehicles available on the market. They range from plastic kits, to resin and metal ones. If you are imaginative, you could even go as far as converting die-cast toys for all of your Grymn transport and support needs.

Let's start with war-gaming kits that have been specifically designed for use with 25mm/28mm miniatures.

War-gaming ground-vehicles

The obvious place to start is Games Workshop. They produce a vast amount of plastic-injection kits that are perfect for war-gaming. In amongst them are a few which stand out from a Grymn perspective for me. In the Imperial Guard section, there are various tanks but I think they are a bit big and chunky for Grymn...however, the Sentinel walker is a great little kit that would look great strutting along beside some Grymn. Next up, in the Space Marine section, is the ubiquitous Rhino APC. If you buy the Razorback kit, it costs the same as a Rhino but has an extra turret option with a selection of additional weapons. If you wanted to add a bit more punch, then you could get a Predator tank which is a further upgrade to the Rhino. This would fit in nicely with the other APCs and IFVs. While in the Space Marine section, you could do a lot worse than a Dreadnought walker...not necessarily what you'd expect to find in a Grymn army but it really would add some presence!

Old Crow Models produce a range of 25mm vehicles that are perfect for Grymn use. They are slightly smaller than a lot of kits out there and this suits the diminutive height of the Grymn. The Old Crow kits are made from resin with some details made of metal. They have a vast array of vehicles and a lot of them have three different modes of motivation available; tracked, hover and anti-gravity. There are a selection of wheeled scout vehicles available as well as a host of vehicles made for the Hammer's Slammers game. My particular favourites in the range are the Glaive APC and Gladius tank.

Pig Iron Productions Make a range of miniatures that are supported by a couple of large tracked vehicles. They really look the business but are quite large...so they may not be what a lot of Grymn gamers would be looking for but just because Grymn are small, doesn't mean the vehicles have to be.

West Wind Productions produce a game called Secrets of the Third Reich. It is a Weird World War game that mixes historical forces with fantastic and futuristic equipment. In amongst the vehicle sections, there is a rather nice (resin) British APC and scout vehicle which really looks like it would be Grymn friendly. There are also some walkers in amongst the range that could fit in, depending on your own, personal vision.

Scotia Grendel has quite a wide range of resin/metal vehicles. In the Kryomek range, there are a bunch of armoured vehicles that have a choice of wheels, tracks, hover and anti-gravity drive systems. They are quite chunky but could be of use. In the same range there are a host of walkers and even some large, infantry type robots that could come in handy. If you check out the Grendel sci-fi section there is a range of tracked, wheeled and walker vehicles; including one that looks a pretty good proxy for the Aliens APC. Scotia Grendel doesn't stop there...we haven't got to the Void1.1 section which has various wheeled vehicles (Ronin) and some hover tanks in the Syntha section. Yes, Scotia Grendel really has a wide selection of vehicles!

Antenociti's Workshop has a small range of resin, sci-fi vehicles but the one that really leaps out is the Warthog APC. It is a wheeled vehicle that really looks solid but is quite large. There is also the AW Grav Tank that may appeal to some of you who want sleek, powerful support for your troops.

Eureka Miniatures still holds the Ground Zero Games range of Stargrunt vehicles in their Australian shop. These vehicles are resin and there is a vast array of hover, tracked, wheeled or anti-gravity vehicles in the range. Being 25mm scale, they are smaller than a lot of other ranges and as a result, fit in better with Grymn sized miniatures.

Fenris Games has an E-Bay shop that sells a couple of really nice resin sci-fi vehicles. They also sell a modern Humvee or two so they are well worth a visit.

Other ranges that could be considered are modern war-games vehicles from a host of manufacturers.

Modern Model Kits

Modern model kits are an excellent source of Grymn vehicles. All it takes is a battle-tank and some plasticard and you've got a sci-fi behemoth! You can use kits from 1/72nd scale through to 1/35th scale and beyond but I have found that if you want to keep things roughly to Grymn scale, 1/48th scale kits work the best (if you can get them...1/50th or 1/64th would be even better). Ranges include Revell, Tamiya, Dragon, Airfix...the list goes on and on!

Toys!

Yes, there are plenty of options for using toys in your Grymn forces. Hotwheels, Matchbox, Fast Lane and many other manufacturers produce plenty of die-cast models that are usable in a Grymn force. If you are feeling cheap, you can visit the pound-shop and pick up some real bargains. Using these sort of vehicles could be as simple as a new paint-scheme but with the addition of a few extra bits and pieces, you can create tailor made vehicles.

Starting from Scratch!

I call this...doing it the hard way. I would much rather buy a custom made kit and build that but there are many people out there who would rather build their own vehicles from the ground up. Plasticard, plastic tubes, bits from around the house and from the ubiquitous 'bits-box' are all carefully trimmed and adjusted to make a masterpiece of sci-fi hardware. The only trouble with this process is that it is very hard to build lots of identical vehicles...so it could be one for special occasions but not one for building a battalion!

So there you have it...a few ideas for when you start to tool-up your ground forces.

In the next visit, I'll throw in some options for a bit of air transport and support...

...look to the skies and your prayers will be answered!