Canadians in Space -- The U.N.E.

   Ready to face the horrors of the Machine, these Canadian troopers of the United Nations of Earth marine corps stand ready!

U.N.E. Troopers

   These guys are the second half of my Legions of Steel project. The 'Good Guys', if you will. I selected a blue colour scheme because I felt it resonated with the background that these are soldiers of the future United Nations. Also blue makes a good contrast to the gold of their antagonists.

The U.N.E. Behemoth RXS

   These models are also re-based, so as to make them more compatible with my other 28mm sci-fi figures. This comes in handy when I'm in need of figures for games like Gamma World, or Judge Dredd.

U.N.E. Commando squad

   One of the things that attracted me to Legions of Steel was that the game was dedicated to the women and men of the U.N. Peacekeepers. I've been honoured to know just a couple of people who have served in those ranks, and as a small tribute to them I made these troopers Canadian.

Thanks as always for visiting my little corner of the interweb!

-Andrew

Legions of Steel, Legion of Gold

   When you've been in the miniature hobby as long as I have you end up with a lot of little toy soldiers.

   A lot.

   It's just a function of the hobby. You can buy minis much faster than you can paint them.

   And with that lot comes boxes and boxes of unpainted models, many of which sit in a closet for... well... decades.

   As such it is with some sense of accomplishment that I present my (finally!) painted copy of the 1992 Global Games miniature game Legions of Steel.

   Legions of Steel was a Canadian-made game featuring power armoured United Nations troopers fighting killer machines in the future. If it sounds similar to Space Hulk that's understandable, as Games Workshop's success with Space Hulk in large part inspired this game.

   I first played it back in '92 when it was released. Later I bought the game but never painted the figures. In around '97 I traded the old version of the game in for a newer one, which came with a wider variety of miniatures. Still the game sat in my closet, unpainted and unloved...

   ...then three years ago I began playing the latest edition of Gamma World. The final stage of the Gamma World campaign features a mighty robotic enemy known as the Legion of Gold. When the time came for these bad guys to appear I knew just where to go to get the models I needed.

   Now the time has come. And so, after twenty years, I have finally put paint to model. The Legion arises!

The machine enemy!

   The Machine army is made up of robotic warriors called Nightmares. These ubiquitous troopers make up the bulk of every Machine force.

G1 Nightmares with deadbolt launchers.

G1A Nightmares with scatterguns.

   Supporting the Nightmares are small scout units known as Gremlins, and heavier armed and armoured Predators.

G4 Gremlins with deadbolt carbines.

G3 Predators with ice rifles.

   Commanding the Machine forces are the cunning Succubot, and the massive and terrifying Assault Fiends!

C1 Succubot with deadbolt carbine.

MkI Assault Fiend with flame weapon.

MkII Assault Fiend with power halberd.

   Like the Copplestone Castings Terminator Robots from my previous post, all these models have been rebased and treated with a base coat of Tamiya gold spray and Army Painter Dark Shade.

   Just for fun I re-painted some old conversions I had made up for my Warhammer 40,000 2nd Edition Necron army. Back then the Necrons had a pretty small selection of models to chose from, so I whipped up some dreadnought-sized machines using ideas from an article in White Dwarf. These  have a similar look to the Legions of Steel models, so they are now oversized horrors for my Machine army.

Floating and striding mega-machines!

   So there you have it! The United Nations troopers from the game are also finished... Stay tuned for more!

-Andrew

You can't take the sky from me.....

   Christmas was very good to me this year. I got a big pile of games form my good friends Scott and Stephanie, including the crazy-fun Pirates vs. Dinosaurs, and the new Firefly game (from Gale Force Nine). Firefly comes with little spaceships so, of course, I couldn't resist!

   Included in the game are four Firefly ships, an Alliance cruiser, and a terrifying Reaver cutter. For the Fireflys I tried to make each of the models look like the original from the show, but also gave each one a distinct colour-coded marking so it could be easily distinguished from the others during a game.

There are 30,000+ Firefly-class ships flying the 'verse.

   The Alliance cruiser is designed to look like a block of office towers, to symbolise the cold bureaucracy of the Alliance. As such I tried to capture the look as best I could. Lots and lots of little windows.

Space cops.

   The Reavers' ships are decaying, blood-smeared horrors of weapons, blades, and leaking radiation. All round just bad news.

If you're lucky they've just eaten.

    For those who are interested I recommend this game. It plays very smoothly, and does a good job of capturing the flavour and spirit of the show. Everything from fist-fights to fancy flying, and con-jobs to contraband are wrapped up in this fun little game.

Thanks again for visiting my little corner of the 'verse!
-Andrew

Gamma Goons!

   The Paint-A-Matron 3000 has been working hard over the last week here at S.M.H.I.T., and it's time to share a few of the new additions, along with some other recent figures I've painted for my ongoing Gamma World campaign.

   To begin we have some fine figures from Copplestone Castings, appearing in a soon-to-come Gamma World adventure titled The Legion of Gold. The leader of the Legion is a nifty little robot in a tuxedo, from the News Team and Minders pack from Copplestone's Future Wars range.  

The enigmatic master of the Legion of Gold

   This group of legionnaires (and, believe me, there are more!), is made up of Terminator Robots from the same Future Wars collection. Tamiya gold spray and Army Painter Dark Tone created a fast, striking gold effect on these guys.
 

Just a handful of the dread Legion of Gold

   More goodness from the Future Wars range -- These blue-grey fellows are from the Grey Aliens pack.

Take us to your tailor!

   ...and this massive beast is their bodyguard, the Bio-Mech Alien.

Say, that's a big blade you have there.

   Recently I converted up a batch of figures for Gamma World, specifically chickenoidz and the famous (and silly) vegepygmies. For the mutant chickens I used GorkaMorka orks and Kroot plastic bits to get the right look of birdlike but hulking.

Choppy chikenoidz.

Shooty chikenoidz.

   For the leader I went with a straight-up Kroot shaper, and for the massive super-chikenoid I used the body of a Heroclix Hulk!

Hulk Sma... Um... Err.. Bwak!!

   For the vegepygmies I scrounged some plastic demon figures from a (truly dreadful) boardgame I knew I would never play again.With a liberal application of flock I turned them into instant killer plants.

Killer bushes from space!

   Supporting the vegepygmies in their reign of leafy terror are massive plant creatures called thornies. Digging around in my closet I found three fen beasts I'd been saving for a rainy decade. Turns out they make great thornies!

I knew I had these models for some reason.

   Finally I just wanted to show off a little guy who has another key role in my Gamma World game. He's an old figure from Ral Partha's ancient Shadowrun miniature line. If I remember correctly he came with a dragon, but the dragon is long gone.

Zeeg's papa.

   Robots and chikenz and plants! Oh, my!

Thanks again for stopping by!
-Andrew