ANZACS and the return of ‘Them’, ( & Cthulu Kong, Goldylocks etc!))

I wanted some well equipped additions either as mercs or just hired help so went for Spectre minatures Heavy Criminal element, well equipped figures with heavy body armour.

With their face masks these were a nice relaxing paint that filled in time whilst I did another Batch of Britih Infantry ( I’d found the Spec Minatures new range).

This was pretty much block painting using some of my Favourite Speed and contrast paints.

Overalls we’re done in Speedpaints Gunner Cammo, as I need a bit of German Field Grey for contrast with all the cammo.

Armour and kit was done I  my new find Speedpaints Absolution Green. Boots were done in 2 coats of Contrast Skeleton Horde, and the masks were done in Peachy flesh.

These paints give really nice shading and for once I didn’t need to put on the Agrax Earthshade wash   though a nuln oil wash was put just in the wpns and odd bits of metallic .

For basing I went for a the wasteland look again, starting with a charcoal rubble scatter  then putting a summer grass in missed patchs.

The above were quickly done , generally I  the bits whilst waiting for stages on the following Spec Minatures British Squad to dry. Which I again in did in two batchs of 4.

With a fair selection of Insurgents/Terrorists completed I needed to paint up some Special Forces so painted up 3 of Spectre Minatures teams . The starter set gives you the CQB element   to which I added the Fire Support and Assault Elements. They are ment to be Generic Special Forces , and at time I ordered them hadn’t spotted the SAS teams on their site ( thanks Ben) , they will be eventually rounded our with SAS additions.

I had considered making life easy and went for all black night gear, but went for Multi Cammo in end.

Main difference this time was I limited myself to 4 figures at a time, so I could be  a bit more careful with each layer or the cammo, as I noticed as I progressed with the British Infantry specially the hvy fire teams that it was getting bit blobby.

In addition I changed the final dark shade from Speedpaints Forest Sprite to Absolution Green for a darker shade to it which seemed to work.

I have quite a bit of updates for both this and Terrain project, which will be added over next couple of days . Now I had been thinking about my 1st set of scenarios for Spec Ops and Forgotten Ruins, but don’t want to do much resetting of my Table that I played out fir Actung Panzer ( Specially as we intend to do a 2nd game).

So I have to play around with the Ardennes (Normandy buildings) which have a lot of French sighs) layout . So how do I get Orcs etc, plus insurgents and  Modern British Army on my table layout.

Luckily I remembered the Anime series ‘The Gate’ so I moved it’s initial layout from Japan to …….

Guernsey,  a place that often has French Signs, could have Terrorists and would be a limited setting for a magical incursion.  So:

The Black Suns World would have had its dial address locked out of the Strargate program after initial contact if not for an incident on a Island off the Coast of Great Britain which led to British Forces returning .

It had caused the UK’s Met office some consternation when a set of unusual weather had completely disrupted their weather predictions for the Island of Guernsey,  particularly the Snow and Wintery weather for Guernsey in July. This was compounded by the complete communication blackout that followed its arrival.

The last few Flights from the island before the blackout spoke of some sort of riot/emergency at the Sout West of the Island,around Pienmount  with local news saying that the Island constabulary had been dispatched to investigate. 

Unable to break through the Blackout, recin aircraft were dispatched to investigate. Contact with the aircraft was lost as they approached the Island with the worst being feared until they re-appeared on their return. 

They reported burning buildings all over the South West of the Island, , particularly around Guernsey Airport.and signs of bands of people roving all round the island and what looked like mass crowding at the harbour of St Peters Port with large numbers of boats moving out of the harbour.

This was followed by reports from the thex1st Refugees escaping the Island to Jersey , who  described  people being attacked and killed by monsters akin to Lord of the Rings.

The MOD at the Home Office request began to prepare Britain Rapid Reaction Force, and sent a recon force of Special Forces to access the situation. 

As I have mentioned in my Terrainfest project :

Bob’s Black Suns Terrainfest

I had fallen down yet another Rabbit hole. Earlier I’d displayed the Ops Survivor figures I’d painted for Forgotten Ruins, this had introduced me to the Specte Minatures range, and having dipped my finger I had to plunge in, buying both the Spec Ops starter box and Cosmic Horror.

As its print order I had to wait a couple of weeks for them to turn up so in meantime decided to carry on with my Wargames Atlantic builds to build various terrorists and Insurgents.

I Initially decided to a batch of more trained insurgents using figures mainly from Operators box using the balaclava type face mask heads, armed with a mix of western SMGs and old Soviet heavy wpns.

So 7 figures later:

These were a nice easy virtually 2 colour scheme as I has decided no cammo, as I had enough painting multi cammo on British!

So I gave them a more generic boiler suit base colour using GW’  Striking Scorpion Green for no other reason than I hadn’t tried it yet and wondered how it would work.

The rest of kits was done in Speedpaints Absolution Green giving a much darker contrast.

Bases were textured using a summer grass and a charcoal rubble scatter as felt this fitted in with the using old warehouses , vacant lots as hideouts.

When the Spec Minatures arrived I beefed up the wpns mix with half of the figures in Starter box insurgents.

Now I had also added from both Civilians and Agents box mixed with wpns from Operators to produce a set of more Civilian attired Insurgents..

Painted with a more varied color pallette, mainly blacks, greys and blue.

Unfortunately a couple of the arms slipped without me noticing  till undercoating hence the occasional gaps at shoulders.

As with the rained Insurgents the 2nd half of the Spec Ops starter set insurgents were added.

All figures kept with the hoods, particularly as it meant very little face painting.

With above to get you in mood, as with SG1 I played around with Wargames Atlantics , Agents and Civilians,  beginning with 3 Agents ‘borrowed’ from a famous TV show and bring you Agents Dog Scolder and  Ima Bully with their boss  Waldo Scalper.

Fairly simple paint jobs using Various greys from both Speedpaints and Contrast ranges, Scolder was Speedpaints Grim Black and Scalpers was Gunner Cammo. Did need a bit of a grey then white Drybrush with Scalder to get him right.

With Ima decided to Give her a more varied look, using a lighter grey for jacket and adding a bit of colour with a light Blue Blouse.

All figures were put on old Star Wars premier Sci fi bases, for the I  the secret base look.

Having done the Agents , thought lets add some Conspiracy nuts/Hackers in the Form of the Solo Gunslingers , Starting with

Don Seller, who is perhaps the closest figure to the character in the show, He also gave me a 3Rd Man in Black for an alternative.

The MIB idea got me to Arm him with P90 rather than the Double Barrel Shotgun I thought of originally.

Dick Longley was the closest I could  get to the cast member with Avail heads  , I forgot he had glasses as I did with his partner, I could have used the sets of glasses on the Sprue, but had already painted heads when I remembered them, and wasn’t going to cover up the eyes I spent time painting.

Meam Dohickie the final member of team is the figure that least resemble cast member, as 1 he is too tall and I forgot glasses again.

Both were armed with weapons more in keeping with their civilian status ( well any were  but America) with hunting Rifle and revolver. I could have gone for bats and clubs but decided to stay with Firearms.

This gives me a start to my Civilians figure painting,  which will eventually include hostages and unarmed Civilians for a range of  games particularly in view of next part of project.

As Gerry mentioned in the Community Awards , I had mentioned that something in the fuure I had planned to do SG13.

How far in future rather depended on Wargames Atlantic release of the Agents which had the requesit P90’s . As it happened I managed to get a set just before xmas.

Now I had been in a painting/hobby pre Xmas rut, and decided to get myself out of it, decided to play around with Wargames Atlantic  Operators/Agents and Civilians ( (I stiil.have to get the female Civilians) and see what I could make from Various frames.

Anyway I built 5 members of SG13 , why 13 other than I’m playing with the Dice God’s?

Although 13 had appeared occasionally  in a couple of episodes , I chose it that in when it featured front on the 2 part episodes Heroes, the episodes were Dr Janet Fraser was killed, and at the time was led by Col David Dixon, played by one of my Favourite actors Adam Baldwin.

So I used this as the basis for my fictional team.

At the time of the episode it consisted of :

1. Col David Dixon
2. Dr Cameron Balinsky
3. Senior Airman Jake Bosworth
4. Senior Airman Simon Wells.

For plot device/ available actors etc , team personnel changed , so I added a 5th Female figure ( nice add in  WA Agents box set  , allowing for the addition of the female  Lt Jennifer Hailey .

The figures didn’t prove too much of a problem using bits from all 3 kits I produced 3 figures with P90’s, one with a SAW, and one with Shotgun ( unfortunately not a SPAS 12)

Painting was fairly easy, as the airforce SG teams generally didn’t wear cammo, so for the base uniform I went for my tried and Trusted Army Painter Speedpaint Forest Sprite., Boots were done in  GW contrast Wyldwood. There Flak vests I  the show are not far of Black, so went for a mix of Speed Paints Absolution Green and Grim Black. Wpns were done with GW Basilicum Grey for the plastic and Speedpai t Enchanted Steel for the Metallics

All was then given the usual thinned out Agrax Earthshade wash.

Now you maybe wondering g how I’m planning g to semi integrate Black Sun and Forgotten Ruins together. The Former is an Alien World, and u it’s stumble across interdimensional Rifts and in the latter a temporal gate is opened from our own World a few years hence to one 10,000 years in future( not intentionally of Course).

My link and change involves Stargates, so that I can also include one of my Favourite TV shows.

So;

As in Black Suns, two races inhabited earth 100,000 years ago the Lemurians a non human Dinosaur evolved race, and the 1st Human evolved race the Atlanteans  , better known now  as the Ancients  although originally called Alterians, from the original Galaxy were they evolved.

The Ancients were refugees escaping the religious zealots who had come to dominate their  civilisation back in their home Galaxy , re-settling  on Earth,  existing peacefully with the Lemurians , who allowed them to set up their own city and civilisation away from rigid practices parent race.

Both races had interstellar travel but used different technology and methods  to achieve it. The Lemurians preferred temporary interdimensional Rifts and the Ancients used their more permanent Stargates  System having  seeded much of the habital.plamets in the Galaxy using  their huge automated  seeding ships.

Both races had found the Black Suns world , the Lemurians initially , where they had found the huge Jungle/Equatorial rain Forest which covered 1/3rd of the world’s Land surface . Although aware of the rest of the planet, they had confined themselves to this area to avoid the various hostile primitive races they had discovered in the northern hemisphere, using their advance technology  to look like magic to frighten and awe away t races from entering their colony.

It was sometime later that the Ancients explored the planet when their seedship left a gate in  the more temperate northern hemispheres.  No attempt was made to.leave a colony , partly due to the Lemurians presence but also to not interfere in the development of what they found to be numerous primitive hostile races. These initial contacts were so violent that it left a lasting g effect  on  the Anciient pyche that they became part of  their myth and legend .

10,000 years ago  thecl ancients re located their civilisation to the Pegasus Galaxy to escape the galactic plague effecting humanoid life  as as with thrvthe tales of Vampires derived from their contact with the wraith  this mythology became part of stories when they integrated with the newer 2nd Human civilisations back in the Milky Way .

Unfortunately when they returned they found little evidence to explain the fate of their sister civilisation the Lumarians , barely remembering them over the thousands of years they were away.

Throughout the 20th century various Incursions from Earth via the accidental openings of the Lemurian Potrals, led to the belief during the 40′ to the 60’s that the world was totally Jungle , particularly as most of the crossovers were Ltd to survival in what was ongoing wars.

The northern hemispheres more temperate zone were only discovered when the Americans using the Giza and Antarctic Stargates , via there Cheyanne mountain complex during the 1990,’s and later by the British in the 2010, when a 3rd gate was discovered under Glastonbury,  by a helper to UNIT only known as the Doctor.

That should cover  it allowing me to develop a narrative li king both games but also allowing for other things to pop up( says he with around 50 to 60 Dale’s models of the Kids magazine which are Aldi type Daleks)

I also have a 3rd Doctor and Brigadier somewhere painted.

A couple of weeks ago on the Weekender, Ben and Co highlighted a new set of figures from Spectre Minatures, in the Form of Task Force Survivors.

Task Force Survivors

And I thought, these look like they are carrying everything including kitchen sink , and to me looked like a modern take on your Dungeon exploring troop, particularly the guy with the Auto Shotgun . I did try a vary the cammo patterns amongst them, but not sure anyone will notice.