Dogs are Back in Town

  

Here are four of the Takara F144 Scopedogs from the VOTOMS TV series that I have based and painted olive drab. The model on the far left is the turbo-custom version that Chirico Cuvie pilots in Stage 1: Uoodo City segment (I tend to read Uoodo as Voodoo). While the model at the end on the right is a variant that I shall be using as my command variant from the Armor Hunter Mellowlink spin-off OVA.

The Scopedogs are fielded by the Gilgamesh Confederation in the VOTOMS TV series, and ideally I would like to play games set in the VOTOMS universe with these mechs. 

The background setting to the TV series is the end of a war between the Gilgamesh Confederation and the Balarant Union who are the two main combatants in a war that has been going on for a hundred years. By the end of the TV series fighting has broken out again between them, which let's admit is total hog heaven for a wargamer.

Anyway, these four mechs will make up the first squad of my Heavy Gear army I'm building. On the advice from Heavy Gear forum readers I'm going to using the stats for the Basilisk for my Scopedogs.

The second squad will be made up of a Blood Sucker and three Strikedogs that will use the stats for the Black Mamba and Silverscales that the Gear Garage army list provides. Though I have the Blitz rule-set I've yet to play a game, as I would like to play against someone, rather than roll dice by myself.

I find it's hard to find time and people to play with, which is a bit depressing really. So we shall see how it goes in due course.

Not wishing to do anything to less than total excess, here are another four Scopedogs to provide alternate variants, either for the first squad, or to form an additional third squad. I think that these poses add real character and variation to the figures. 

The plan is to paint all these Scopedogs in the scheme I tried out on the Blood Sucker and Strikedog that I posted here. That will keep me busy for quite sometime too.

Initially I primed these models with white paint, but since I started this project I've gone over to priming using Citadel's Catechan Green Foundation colour instead, as painting the olive drab over white was a pain to try and get a consistent coverage while keeping it smooth and thin.

Finally, these are the models for a fourth squad, providing yet more alternative poses for me to choose from when fielding my army. One can never have too much of a good thing! 

The models on each end of this line-up are the two recent acquisitions I got given by Jon at GZG, and they are both variants I don't have. As you can see these are primered using Catechan Green and are awaiting me to get around to painting the olive drab base coat.

Initially I intend to use my House Steiner infantry to accompany these, as the army I've drafted on Gear Garage has two platoons of APC mounted infantry as the core of the army, with two squads of mechs/gears in support, which seems rather sensible to me.

Needless to say I am also waiting the arrival of the NuCoal Jerboas I ordered from Dream Pod 9, which were posted on the ninth of December. I may be lucky and see these arrive before Xmas, as one never can tell how fast parcels will come, but realistically I suspect that they may not arrive until after Xmas. Then I will be able to do a size comparison, and hopefully they will prove to be compatible? 

My intention being to use them for the OPFOR as stand-ins for Balarant Union Fattys. I've also got some spare weapons coming with them, including a couple of bazookas that I have plans for.