Pulpy Retro-Sci Fi - War Rocket

War Rocket is a quick and simple retro-sci fi space battle game, by Hydra Miniatures,  This is a tie-in
with the existing line of 28mm retro-sci fi miniatures, and soon to be a game, Retro-Raygun.

There are currently five factions to the game.  Each are distinguished in the game by the movement style of their ships and visually by the era they are inspired from.

The Galacteers, the good guys, are inspired by 50s era jet airplanes and fly around accordingly.  They boast some of the fastest rockets in the game.  In fact their strength is their Class I War Rocket.  Their weakness is that, most of their weapons are in their forward arc.  All but the largest of the Galacteer rockets have any weapons covering their rears.

The Imperials are inspired from the 30s era Flash Gordon series.  They are similar in game performance as the Galacteers, but slower, less maneuverable but are some of the best armored ships in the game.

I find the Imperial Class II War Rocket one of their best rockets, especially with the extra forward gun upgrade.  The Class IV War Rocket packs a wallop, but is incredibly slow.  Best if one buys the Atomic Engine upgrades.

The Class I Imperial War Rockets are tough but very hard to maneuver and only seem to work well in large numbers.  In small numbers they find themselves outmaneuvered by most every other rocket out there.

The Valkeeri appear to be inspired by 40s era pulp magazine spaceships and have a unique movement type called Pulse Movement.  I describe it best as movement similar to your rocket in the old video game Asteroids.  Where Valkeeri rockets can change their facing along a straight line movement.  Valkeeri ships are almost as tough as Imperial and their larger rockets often pack more of a punch than the Imperials.  Their speed is roughly just behind the Galacteers.

The mysterious Zenethians are inspired from 50s era flying saucers and their Saucer Movement pretty much allows them to have most if not all of their weapons always on target.  Their weakness is their paper thin defense.  Best to buy force fields on the larger craft.

Inspired by the War Rocket collection, I picked up this really cool old re-issue of a space station model kit from Lindbergh models. 











It makes a nice centerpiece and objective for playing War Rocket. Also the two shuttles on the landing pad snap on and off easily and could be mounted on a standard flight stand. They are about the size of a Class I rocket.









The newest faction is the Space Pirates.  These sleek and fast rockets have wide weapon arcs and a unique movement style.  Sticking with the pirate theme, I kept in mind the Jolly Roger flag and went with white and black, or the metallic alternative.  I used Reaper Adamantium Black as the base and gave them several coats of P3 Armor Wash, thinned with acrylic floor wax.   Then used Reaper True Silver and Polished Silver for highlights.  They look quite dark and stealthy, yet pulpy, under normal lighting and very shiny under a flash.



 
















Another project I had been working on is a Mother Ship for the Pirates.  I found this re-issue of an old AMT model kit.  It makes a nice 'static' target for the relatively faster and more maneuverable War Rockets.  However, my idea for this was to use the mother ship rules in the War Rocket rulebook, but to allow this ship to move forward one hex at the beginning of every turn (essentially all models on the table move back one hex) to simulate it's slow speed.  The other nice thing is the shuttle included can be mounted on a flight stand and used as a Class I or II rocket.

The newer releases come with some cool battle damaged and pirate decals.  It's molded in glow-in-the-dark plastic, but I primed mine grey, thinking I'm going to paint mine to match my Space Pirates.

Weird War II - Dust - The Axis, Part 2

Along with my Allies powered armor, I was working on my Axis powered armor for Dust.  For the Heavy Grenadiers I painted all the armor plates Vallejo German Grey.  The flexible undergarment was painted Vallejo German Camouflage Beige. 

Then for the winter camouflage, I thinned out some more Camouflage Beige with acrylic floor wax and dabbed it on the armor plates.  Then I used Vallejo German Splinter Camouflage White and did the same thing, however using varying degrees of paint/floor wax mix to give some spots a heavier white area and other spots a thin 'see-through' white area.  The splotches would go on over the beige and white splotches in overlapping layers.

 

Other details like rubber treads on the boots and pipes routed under the armor plates were done with P3 Coal Black.  Ammo pouches were done with Splinter Camouflage White, with Pure White highlights.  Weapons like the Fliegerfausts were painted Vallejo German Reflective Green.  Ammo belts on the Heavy Recon Grenadiers was done with Reaper Tarnished Brass and Blackened Steel, followed by a coat of P3 Armor Wash.

 

After finishing all details on the models.  I then applied decals from some Flames of War decal sets.  German balkencruze on the right shoulder pad of each of the PA suits and a red cross on the left shoulder pad of the medic in the command squad.  From the decals I got from Dust Models, I applied a small skull decal under the left shoulder pad for each squad leader.  After the decals were applied, also using Microsol to make sure the decals fit the shape of the surface, I sealed them with a coat of Dullcote.  Next I went about weathering the armor with some dabs of black, grey, and Blackened Steel along the edges of the armor on the high wear areas.  Then finished off with a black ink wash and another coat of Dullcote.

 

For the schwer lasers with the Laser Grenadiers, I painted the inside of the barrel black.  Then put a small dot of Reaper Polished Silver in the center and then filled the open end of the barrel with Tamiya Clear Red.  Under a flash this appears very well as a red laser dot.

 

 

 

 

I also picked up some more Grenadiers, including some of the command squads that are necessary to play Dust Warfare.  Also some specialists like the Sniper / Observer Teams and some Heroes. 

I painted these in the same manner I painted my other Axis Grenadiers. 

 

Now the bases that all of these Dust models come on, are hard plastic 30mm stylized bases unique to Dust Models.  They have a neat diamond plate texture on the base and some bolt heads around the periphery.  As a means of unifying my whole collection, I paint them all the same colors (Axis, Allies and SSU).  This way they all look like they're fighting on the same terrain.  These bases can be obtained separately from Dust Models and also come in a variety of textures.

 

I start with painting the base with Vallejo German Grey.  Then I will dry brush some black and Reaper Blackened Steel over some of the diamond weave surface and along the edges of the base and over the bolt heads.  Then along these blackened areas I will dry brush some rust over these worn areas, to make it look like the paint has scratched off and the metal below has rusted.  For the rust colors, I'm using Life Color Dust & Rust weathering set.  I start with using Rust, Light Shadow over the area, including outside of the darkened area.  Then I use a lighter application of Rust Base Color over the central area, and include some run lines along the vertical surfaces.  Then a very light application of Rust, Dark Shadow over the very tops of the surfaces.

 

After the black ink wash of the whole model and allowing the ink to dry for about a day.  I'd then mix up some white PVA glue with water and apply dabs of that along the base.  I'd sprinkle on some Woodland Scenics White Stone Ballast and Snow on the base.  After all the figures are done, I'd blow off the loose particles and then seal the rest with the final coat of Dullcote.

 

 For the heroes, Stephan here was painted much the same way as the other Grenadiers.  He's essentially the flamethrower specialist in the Sturmpioneer Squad body with another head.

 

For The Totenmeister, I painted her coat Reaper Pure Black with P3 Coal Black highlights followed by several thick black ink washes.  The harness was Vallejo Green Grey.  The Blutzkruz was simply Reaper Blackened Steel over black with some Fluorescent Blue over white for the glowy bitz.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Angela the Axis Assassin posed a bit of a problem.  As skinny as she is, she was a poor choice for this soft plastic material these Dust models are made of.  She was all bent up and contorted.  The whole figure seemed to be a compromise.  The original green and concept art of her simply was armed with an automatic pistol.  However she got upgraded to a 20mm Solothurn Sniper Rifle.  The rifle seems a bit awkwardly posed and the long skinny barrel was all bent to hell like her legs.  Furthermore, she had some sort of material build up on her left shoulder that looked like a flaw in the mold.  Also the features on her face seemed a bit shallow, more so on one side.  Overall, I wasn't too pleased with this model.  I'm glad I didn't spend the full $45 on the Dust Tactics Operation Cerebus.  However the modular building pieces that come in the set are a pretty good deal.

 

I was able to fix the bendy legs issue by applying a thin coat of cyano acrylate glue along the upper parts of her boots.  While holding the figure in the upright pose that I needed her to I sprayed accelerant on the glue, now freezing her legs straight and stiff.  I did the same with the gun barrel.  The material on the shoulder was removed with an X-acto Knife using a brand new blade.  However I had to be careful enough to carve it in such a way that there was some definition between her T-Shirt and shoulder. 

Painting her, I started by painting the whole figure with Reaper Pale Flesh Shadow, followed by Pale Flesh and Pale Flesh Highlight.  Then finishing off with P3 Flesh Wash thinned with Acrylic Floor Wax.  The T-Shirt was Reaper Pure White.  However to give it a shear look, I started by painting the tops of the folds, where the shirt was furthest away from the skin with Pure White right out of the bottle.  Then I'd gradually add floor wax to the mix and work down from the folds until I'm applying a translucent white over most the t-shirt. 

 

I went with white stockings rather than black, I thought the contrast was better than the black stockings in the concept art.  I used Vallejo White Glaze and thinned it with floor wax again.  Next I painted the skirt, boots and gloves Reaper Pure Black.  Dry brushing some German Grey over the highlights and then applying Citadel Baadab Black Glaze.  Belt was done with Testors Gloss Black with Reaper True Silver for the buckle.  The Solothurn was simply Reaper Blackened Steel with P3 Armor Wash.  I finished her off with a decal from one of my Flames of War decal sheets.  I didn't have any iron eagle like on the concept art, instead I used some SS Panzer division insignia.  It looked close enough.  This required lots of Microsol, to get the decal to conform to the shape of her shirt.  Then I sealed it with Dullcote and finished off the rest of the model.

 

Despite the shallow and uneven features molded into the face, I was able to paint the eyes in and still get a decent look out of her.  The hair was done with Reaper Golden Blond with Citadel Gryphonne Sepia Glaze.  Overall I was much more pleased with the end results of this model then I was when I got her out of the box.

 

 

 

Now Grenadier X is an Ubertotenmensch, or sentient thinking zombie, who can lead squads of Axis Zombies.  Armed with a power saw, he's pretty nasty in close combat.  I painted him using my usual zombie painting techniques, however I cut back on the gore and stuck with more pale flesh colors as he's not really been recently chewed up or anything.  He's painted using Vallejo Fieldgrau for his jumpsuit with a Green Grey harness.  The fuel tank for the saw is German Reflective Green and the hose is P3 Coal Black.  The saw is Citadel Sunlight Yellow with Reaper Honed Steel for the blade.  Now no zombie would be complete without gore, so I added lots of blood to the saw blade and make sure it got splattered all over the shield, jumpsuit and around the base.

 

So now I'm pretty much caught up with my Dust infantry models.  Next is to start working on the vehicles.

 

 

 

 

 

Weird War II Pacific Theater, Part III

Most of this material has been intended for AE-WWII's upcoming Pacific Theater expansion.  As most of this has not been released yet, I won't go into too much detail but Matt Hope of Blackball Games (the new owner of AE-WWII) has given me the OK to post up some of my conversion work based on new units that will be featured.  I can't go into too much detail, but consider these a sneak preview for what's to come for AE-WWII.

Imperial Japanese Navy
I finally got about finishing up the rest of my Japanese army.  I had purchased a second boxed set of Bolt Action Imperial Japanese Army from Warlord Games, but this time painted them as Navy Troops.  I wanted them to look different from my existing IJA army.  They essentially wear the same uniform and use the same gear, except that instead of a star on their uniform they have an anchor.  Doing some Bing-Foo, I found that in most cases the uniform colors were about the same, but I did find some examples of this blue-grey that I decided to go with.  Unfortunately, I can't tell you the colors I used to get the blue grey because I, well, forgot.  The rest of the colors for the helmets and webbing were the same colors I used for the IJA force I did.

When assembling them, I made sure to mount different heads on the bodies than what I used for the IJA figures.  Also the set comes with a standard for Imperial Japan, the IJA and the IJN.

Imperial Japanese Army
I was able to get some more models that met the IJA army lists that had been released in the Over the Wire #17.   I couldn't find any models that were specifically Giretsu Airborne Commandos, but I was able to find some nice models armed with Type 100 Submachine Guns from The Assault Group that fit in well as commandos.  The Assault Group also provides weapons sold loosely, which come in handy for conversions.  I was able to order a bunch of Type 100 SMGs for some more conversions.













For the IJA Sniper, Jungle Fighters and the Takasago Raiders, I used these Jungle Fighters & Snipers from Old Glory, which are also from West Wind's Berlin or Bust line. 




















For the IJA Combat Engineers, which are essentially another heavy weapon team, I was able to find some models with flame throwers from The Assault Group, but so far nobody with a Type 97 Anti-Tank Rifle.  Although they are sold in a set, which is more flame throwers than I need, I found that the excess can be used for some of the weirder stuff that will be available for the IJA and IJN forces.

This officer set from The Assault Group gave me some opportunities to make some other individual units and hero types.

Field Ninjas
You just can't have Weird War II Japanese without ninjas.  So far the Over the Wire article featured a host of Field Ninjas available to the IJA.  Actually they will be part of a Japanese occult sub-faction called The Black Dragon Society.  While looking for material to field my IJA forces, I came across this set of ninjas on eBay.  However I cannot determine who made them (yes, even I have been stumped).  So if you recognize these guys, chime in.



The Field Ninja Specialists listed in the OTW#17 were Assassin, Battlefield Terror, and Saboteur.  Based on the descriptions of the first two, they could easily be represented by many of the thousands of ninja models out there.  However the Saboteur is armed with one of those hard to find Type 100 SMGs, Grenades and a Ninja-To sword.  Fortunately The Assault Group sells loose weapons in packs of 10 and I was able to get some for conversion work.  Originally I had intended to use some of the ninjas I purchased recently.  However I found their poses just weren't what I was looking for and cutting them up and reposing them was probably going to be more problems then it was worth. 







Then I dug through my Heroclix bitz bin and found a number of The Hand Ninjas.  Being that soft plastic, they were easy to cut up and repose to put representative weapons in their hands.  Unfortunately these ninjas are a bit big compared to most other 28mm figures.  That's one of the problems with using Heroclix is that their scale is all over the map.  I started with this ninja for my Japanese Saboteur.  He was armed with a pair of nunchaku.  Removing those and making some slight arm repositioning.  Then I put a Type 100 SMG in one hand and the other, which still had part of the nunchaku between his fingers (now reduced to a small cylinder) I fashioned into a hand grenade by attaching a small diameter piece of plastic to the top to represent the stem of a hand grenade.  For the ninja-to, I added a trophy sword from some of the loose custom bitz that came with my Bolt Action US Marines set I did several months back.  Using some green stuff to patch up the joints for my repostioning of the arms I then sculpted a strap to hold the sword on and an ammo pouch for the SMG.

I painted this ninja using obviously black, but with Reaper Nightmare Blue highlights and a heavy black inkwash.  The combat webbing and gear was Reaper Khaki Shadow with Delvan Mud glaze.
Now, not only do the Japanese get ninjas but so do the Americans!  Knowing some of the guys at Darkson Designs, the idea of a  Weird War II version of Snake Eyes vs. Stormshadow was going through their minds was probably not far off.  Anyways, the American Nesei Ninjas are very similar to the Japanese, except for the Saboteur.  He's armed with a M1A1 Thompson submachine gun.  I used this other Hand Ninja crouching down with a sword for my Nesei Ninja Saboteur.  I ended up using a West Wind Secrets of the Third Reich submachine gun as it was a bit bigger than the loose M1A1s and just looked more natural in the hands of this somewhat oversized ninja figure.  Removing the sword and reposing the arms.  Then I hand to do some work with the hands to make the left one hold the submachine gun.  Then I added a loose backpack from the spare bitz that came with the Bolt Action Marines.  Like the other ninja I used green stuff to fill in all the gaps after reposing the arms and molded an ammo pouch.  I took the sword and remade it into a scabbard and glued it to the side belt.  I painted this ninja with the usual black base coat then using P3 Coal Black highlights and a dark black inkwash.  The backpack, pouches and leggings were done with Vallejo Green-Grey with a Gryphon Sepia glaze.

Kappa
Kappa were are some monsters found in the Black Dragon Society list.  These are based on some Japanese folklore.  I found some models that fit the description perfectly, and the right number of models too.  These are some old Ral Partha Bushido miniatures.  I'm pretty sure they are OOP, as they do not show up in the Iron Wind Metals catalog.

Ghosts and Demons
Well The Black Dragon Society has a number of other supernatural units to add to the Japanese list.  This includes some ghosts and some Oni Demons.  Oni demons are actually quite common in 28mm scale and can be found by many manufacturers.  In fact I really didn't even have to buy anything new, I simply had to dig through my existing collection to find a number of them suitable.  In fact some were already slated to become proxies for the Chinese Ogre unit for Deadlands: The Great Rail Wars.  This one is an old Grenadier model that's been OOP for some time now.

Ghosts, particularly asian style ghosts appeared to be a bit more difficult to find.  Then as I was looking through the Malfaux lineup from Wyrd Games, for some Deadlands proxies, I found this beaut of a model called Ikiryo.  And there's quite a few suitable models in the Ressurectionists faction for Malfaux. 

I painted this one starting with a black basecoat.  I did the flesh with using Reaper Golden Skin Highlight, and highlighting it by mixing more white into the Golden Skin Highlight, and painting not only the flesh areas but along the tops of the sleeves and shoulder and torso areas.  Then ink with a very thin flesh wash using P3 Flesh Wash and a lot of acryllic floorwax.  Then adding a white glaze over it, by thinning Vallejo White Glaze with a lot of floorwax.  Using Citadel Fenrisian Grey, I painted from the bottom of the base on up and from the bottom of the sleeves on up.  Gradually I'd mix in Reaper Ghost White and thin down the mixture as I got closer to the flesh colored areas.  The hair was painted black with some Ghost Grey highlights.  At first I wanted to do something ornate with the mask, however most of the searches I found on Japanese ghosts seemed to show a simple white mask.

Now the American Office of Occult Research and Defense was able to summon up these Ghosts of Bataan for the American foreces in the Pacific.  From the description, it's simply an animated skeleton of a soldier who died as a prisoner to the Japanese and is armed with a Ghost Rifle, very similar to the SS Draugr.

Most skeletons I had were fantasy figures and I really didn't want to do another zombie, as it just didn't fit the description.  I remembered I had a skeleton in some tattered contemporary clothes, a biker jacket and jeans actually, in my Heroclix bitz box.  It's actually from the Horrorclix game.  By reposing the arms and doing some careful cut and re-glue of the fingers on the left hand I was able to install a 28mm metal M1 Garand rifle from The Assault Group.  For the helmet, I took an extra head from my Bolt Action Marines and trimmed the head out from under the helmet.  Then after trimming the top of the Skeleton's head off, I then glued the helmet down.

Starting with base-coating this figure black, I then painted the bones using Reaper Bone Shadow with highlights of Yellowed Bone and gradually added some white to the mix as I highlighted lighter areas.  I simply painted the blue jeans and leather jacket in the colors I painted my Marines.  However I gave them a lot more fading and highlights.  Then using some black and red washes I stained areas around the bullet holes in the back and around some torn edges.  Also some random splotches of Delvan mud to add some stains to the tattered uniform.