Star Wars Legion - A Wargame Far, Far Away...

I've been working on a long commission of Star Wars Legion figures and vehicles over the last year. They're an interesting range of 28mm figures and vehicles. Let's start with a look at some of the vehicles I've completed. 

This line of miniatures is moulded in hard PVC rather than the more common HIPS styrene or polyurethane resin most wargamers are used to. 

PVC does have considerable advantages as a material for miniatures, particularly in regard to its resiliency and flexibility. However, it does have a pesky habit of warping as it cools and hardens out of the mould, leaving thin parts such as gun barrels and polearms distinctly bendy. It also dictates the use of steel moulds, which won't tolerate undercuts, so there has to be compromises in detail along the seams of the mould halves. 

This used to be a major stumbling block to the popularity of PVC for 'proper' wargaming figures. Of course, having said that, anyone who's a member of the 'Airfix Generation' might beg to differ, for many of us began our descent into the hobby with boxes of PVC 20mm WW2 or Napoleonic soldiers. Mind you, that was primarily because those were all we could get our hands on from the local toy store! 

As fond as my memories of those cream or grey soldiers who refought Waterloo for me might be, I'm rather glad that modern technology has greatly improved the ability of sculptors to cut up complex figures into easier to mould parts. I'm impressed by how well most of the Star Wars Legion minis fit together, and the quality of the poses are excellent. The detail and accuracy is certainly enough to please this original 'Wars fan. I'm sure six year old Martin would approve! 

PVC does, however, have a reputation for taking some paints with a certain reluctance. A good undercoat is essential with these miniatures. I like to use Gunze Sangyo's Mr Surfacer (the 1000 grade is perfectly good for this scale), but I'd warn you to be careful to ensure complete coverage; Raw PVC is a lousy surface for acrylics. 

On to the models!

The secret to Star Wars vehicles, in my opinion, is weathering. Neat, clean machines have no place on the battlefields of Hoth or Endor! 

Much of the work you see here is done with airbrush, either though adding layers on top of hair spray as a chipping medium, or by fading the colours towards the centres of panels successively to suggest fading under the glare of the sun (or suns). 

An Imperial AT-ST stomps through the forest floor on Endor

As the AT-ST above illustrates, a lot of original trilogy vehicles can be a bit lacking in colour. Many are simply white or grey, which no doubt helped enormously with controlling the tone and exposure of the film models on set back in the '70s and '80s. This also made it easier for a fighter or AT-AT to beat the 'squint test' — a simple means to measure the distinctiveness of a sci-fi machine. If you can still distinguish it from another machine by its shape viewed through half-closed eyes, it passes. 

So, the trick to making an interesting model of a monotone finish is to modulate the tonal range. Subtle warming or cooling of the base grey helps to break up the monotony. 

I'm not sure the brick-like Occupier tank beats the squint test...

Tamiya panel lining fluid and Weathering Master Sets (eyeblush for modellers!) add the finishing touches. I used black and brown lining fluids on the Occupier tank to suggest dust and grime settling into hatch seams and filter grilles. 

"Over there! I think I see the guy who designed the stupid gun mounts on this thing!"

If you're unfamiliar with these materials, let me recommend you at least pick up the Black Panel Lining Fluid, and one or two of the Master Sets, and experiment with an old kit. 

All you need to remember is to gloss coat the model before applying the lining fluid, and matt varnish before having a go with a Weathering Master Set. Never the other way around!

Rebel vehicles offer a little more liberty than their Imperial counterparts, but I aimed to be as authentic to the screen models as possible. So, plain white Snowspeeder it is!

Would you feel you could take on the whole Empire yourself in this?

Mind you, I didn't say plain white means clean white... Lots of chipping for this speeder. Flying in a frozen, arctic-like environment I didn't want to use mud or dust to indicate wear and tear. 

The cockpit does not have transparent parts or interior detail. (Boo!) I just airbrushed the graduations onto the masked windows, and added tiny feathered highlights in the opposite corners. 

I did enjoy painting this Landspeeder you see below; it's a very characterful model, and nicely sums up the innovativeness and desperation of the Rebels. Anything that moves can be drafted into the fight for freedom, even if it doesn't come with seatbelts, apparently...

Risking broken necks and increased insurance premiums to liberate the galaxy

The figures are particularly nice; the poses of the two rebels perched on the back are convincing, though I doubt their aim will impress Stormtroopers. (Then again, Stormtroopers must be impressed by anyone who can aim...)

The exposed starboard engine is a nice touch

I added a bullet (blast?) hole to the windshield, and dirtied it up with Reaper Sepia Wash, sponged on and then off, being careful to not let it pool or run. Careful scraping with a wooden skewer marks the deflection of pebbles / bugs / womp rats caught in the slipstream. 

The figures are very nice, but the PVC's softness betrays the definition of their weapons

All told, I am enjoying painting these. I don't collect much in 28mm nowadays, so it's a welcome diversion from 6mm or smaller scales. (My eyes particularly appreciate the larger size!)

There's some Imperial speeder bikes next in the queue, plus the first character figure. So, I will have more to show soon. Stay tuned!

Battle of Britain Day, 2020

The why of remembering 'The Few' is more important than ever

Today is Sept. 15th - Battle of Britain Day.

In an era in which we seem to stand eternally on the precipice of danger - threatened by egomaniacal tyrants, global climactic disaster, and the invisible terror of the Covid 19 virus - I ask you with great urgency to recollect the sacrifices made in the skies over Britain in 1940. Of the triumph of hope over the tide of despair that threatened to drown the free world.

If we do not forget that such victories were possible then — we shall know that ours can yet come to pass. 

This is the true value of "Less We Forget"; the recollection of those who stood together before the greatest dangers and won. Their great legacy is not the world we inherited from them, but the inspiration to likewise stand up, and fight.

High Flight

by John Gillespie Magee, Jr.

Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth

And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;

Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth

Of sun-split clouds...and done a hundred things

You have not dreamed of...wheeled and soared and swung

High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,

I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung

My eager craft through footless halls of air.

Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue

I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace

Where never lark, or even eagle flew.

And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod

The high untrespassed sanctity of space

Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

Welcome to Martin's Models!

 

REVIEW: Vanguard Miniatures' Hurk Bomber / Gunship

 

Make it Hurk So Good

An (admittedly biased) review of Vanguard Miniatures' new Hurk 

Aircraft — any and all aircraft — hold a particular fascination for me. I am enchanted by the story of Humanity's struggle to do what the majority of the bird kingdom manages without much thought. But when the means of taking to the skies consists of a huge, lumbering monster, the likes of which would convince the Wright brothers they should have stuck to fixing bicycles, well that's all the more fascinating!

Imagine my delight, then, at being invited by Vanguard Miniatures to sculpt a few flying machines for their range of 6mm sci-fi forces. In this case, guided into the air by the green, ham-sized hands of the Skinners; a species dedicated to violence and mayhem, who nevertheless possess a certain, rudimentary technical know-how, and thus create amazing machines and weapons that reflect that dedication. (To the dismay of the rest of the galaxy!)

Behold, therefore — The Hurk!

Can I get a "WAAAAAGH!" ??

I'm sure the fellow aviation buffs among you can determine the real-world inspiration for this beast; It was of course the C130 Hercules which has been a mainstay, heavy cargo aircraft in many airforces for the past 60 years. The resemblance is quite deliberate because the Skinners maintain a certain race-memory of the machines of Earth's past, and their creations are an unconscious echo of that distant world... 

The Hurk became a reality after many months of work with the very patient and knowledgeable John Fielding of Vanguard. We went through several iterations of the Hurk over many months, adding some details, changing others, always with an eye to making it a brutal, erm, brute of an aircraft. 

Nice, smooth Hurk...

Here on the right is an early render of the Hurk from the middle of 2019. 

It still looks quite aerodynamically respectable at this stage! 

But things would change in due course, as we added more panels, more guns, more hatches, more guns again, and more rivets. 

So. Many. Rivets. 

I lost count sometime in December, so don't ask! 

Festooned with gribbliness!

Along with the riveting there were panels to open, revealing the 'gubbins' within, glyph plates to bolt on, hinges to screw to flight surfaces, engines that needed plumbing... honestly, it sometimes felt like I was building a real aircraft. 

But in the end, our hard work paid off. The Hurk flew off my computer and into the moulds, and now it is time to look at the real thing, instead of all these 'vaporware' renders!

The Aircraft now Waaaaghing at Gate Four...

It was less than two days before I wrote these words that two samples of the Hurk landed in my mail. When I opened the parcel from Vanguard Miniatures, I beheld some of the sharpest, cleanest castings I've seen in 30+ years of modelling and wargaming. 

The Hurk comes in 20 resin parts with 17 metal parts for the smaller details, such as guns and bomb bay doors. The parts in my examples were virtually flash-free, with only minor seam lines that cleaned up in mere minutes. Part fit is tight and just about perfect. 

I did say 'just about' — Perhaps its the result of shrinkage, or maybe the inexperience of the digital sculptor(!) but there is no gap between the inner engine cowlings and the breeches of the fuselage-mounted big guns:

Juuuuust a smidge tight...

I managed to squeeze them into place, but would recommend shaving off a little of the cowlings' inward sides to make alignment easier. 

Another minor flaw is the centreline seam where the wings join together. You can see it in the photo below; This is not too much trouble to clean up with putty and some judicious sanding. Still, I wish I'd sculpted a recessed panel line here, to disguise the seam. 

The Hurk has some strategically placed, 5mm diameter holes and matching 'dowels' to ensure alignment of major fuselage parts. These also allow you to magnetise these parts if you wish them to be interchangeable. I chose to do this with the Bomber section and the Gunship section that attach to the underside of the Hurk.

And yes, that's a standard Aeronautica Imperialis flight stand you see there; each rear section has a hole to take the ball-ended flightpeg. You might need to scrape just a teeny amount of the rim of the hole to get a nice, tight fit. You're welcome. 

Here's an underside shot of the Hurk in gunship mode, showing where the peg connects. I think that's enough dakka its got there... 

So, all in all, I am really happy with (and not a little proud of), the Hurk. The model has been reproduced stunningly by John and the Vanguard crew, and the real credit for bringing this cumbersome corsair of the clouds to life all goes to them. 

Next time, I'll throw some paint at the Hurks, and share some beauty (?) shots of them in formation with the rest of my A.I. Air Waaagh. 

But I can't go without one last shot of the most impressive part of the Hurk; that's the tiny, lever-pulling bombardier sculpted by the far-more-talented-than-I Ben Skinner!

"Bombz away, Boss!"

See you all next time!

Dominion of the Daleks - an Introduction

 Originally published Monday, June 8th, 2020

After much too long, I'm decided to pull the sucker arm out of my sixth panel and finish the articles about my Dalek miniatures, and the game I created for them: Dominion of the Daleks. It's been a dream of mine for some time now: An easy to play game set in the universe of Doctor Who, the BBC's long-running science-fiction drama. Now, there are a number of unofficial Doctor Who wargames rules to be found already, and still more adaptations of established rules sets - so, why not just use one of those? Why, raw, insatiable ego, of course!

After years of flipping through rulebooks, any wargamer worth their dice collection contemplates writing their own rules, or, at least, modifying an existing set. Me, I've always wanted to have a go at writing a sci-fi game that reflects what I regard as the most essential quality of any game - does it give the players the sense that the troops they are commanding reflect the way the 'real' things would behave?

And of course, if we're dealing with the Doctor Who universe, things is a very apt choice of word... 

So, here is a collection of articles, cataloguing the experiences I had creating Dominion of the Daleks - a 'grand skirmish' style of multi-player wargame, that blends elements of many of my favourite rules with some innovations, to create a game anyone can play, but few can master - myself included, it seems! 

Over the next few weeks, I'll be revealing details on modelling and painting miniatures and scenery for Dominion of the Daleks as well as the design of the game itself. There will also be rules, cards, and templates to download for free. 

Fairly obviously, the inspiration for Dominion of the Daleks draws heavily on one particular race of evil-doers in the Doctor's universe - so, let's start with them… 

Click here for EXTERMINATE! Part One