Next Wave Of Russian Walkers

Snip, snick went the snippers, snickecty-snack, snick, snick they went some more, and one-by-one the pile of parts did grow. 

And here's a quick work in progress shot of a bunch of Heavy Gear plastic Caprice mecha snipped off their sprues waiting for me to find some time to clean them up and assemble them.  Things are a bit busy at the moment, hence the briefness of this post with a couple of writing deadlines hanging over me.

So I'll catch you all on the bounce next week, when hopefully, I will have made some progress.

Russian Federation Walkers

I like Dream Pod 9s Heavy Gear miniatures. Small giant robot walking tanks, what's not to like? 

However, as is my won't, the chance of me playing in their Terra Nova setting is minimal, not because it's not a great setting, I would go so far to say it's one of the best SF RPG setting books ever published, but because I like to do things my way.

Here's my Meggido-Kadesh-Bashan kitbash: perhaps I should call it a Mekabashan?  Perhaps not.  It is meant to be a command variant, hence all the extra gribbly bits, which I think makes it look interesting.

I'm using the Caprice walkers as a basis for my own near future setting as Russian Federation combat armours:  combat armours being sit-in and drive large power armour suits.  Clearly Russian combat armour is designed to deal with soft ground, from all the snow Russia gets.

The generic name for these in Russian is Pokhodnaya Boyevaya Platforma or PBP, my first conversion of a Caprice Ammon, which I called Object 295, can be see here.

I also made up a couple of Caprice Accos, so I could make my mind up which weapon I preferred?  Still not sure which one I like best.  Again I've added gribbly details bits, in particular the fuel tanks that are signature item on Russian tanks, which for me adds a Russian feel to the models.

My observations on the plastics is that they're OK for what they are: cheap intro models.

The plastic is slightly shiny, and feels like it's some sort of engineering plastic i.e: designed to be slippery.  Some people have had difficulties gluing them with conventional plastic cement.  I use Butanone aka MEK, which welded the plastic together.

Also, I would have also preferred a lighter colour than the very dark grey because it would be easier to see the details when trimming the models off the sprue.

I'm also a bit fussy when it comes to mould parting lines and therefore spent a considerable time filing and fussing over the parts before assembly.  When I took these pictures, I could see that I hadn't paid enough attention to the finish and went over the models with a fibreglass pen to polish the surfaces up.  Also, in my opinion the sprue-gates on the mould did not take into consideration ease of cutting the models off the sprue e.g: on the Accos the sprue attaches to the nose of the legs, which means it is easy to lose detail when trimming the model unless great care is taken.

Still, way better than the Robotech models for ease of assembly.

As for differences between the injected moulded models and the resin originals, I only have the Ammon to compare.

This I can say is going to turn out differently, because the legs are from the Meggido, and do not feature the extra box-like structure on the upper leg that the Ammon has.  As such, it will sit lower and be less imposing.  I will make an Ammon up next and post pictures comparing the plastic to the resin and pewter model in due course.

Catching Up

This last week has been very busy with work and having to deal with changing my internet service provider.  The one bright light amid all the stress this caused was my Heavy Gear KickStarter pledge arriving from Dream Pod 9.

I took some pictures of everything unpacked, kept the rule-book out to read and had a hell of job getting everything back inside the box.  Whoever packed this did an excellent job.  I ordered the Caprice army in addition to the four army starter pack, added a couple of extra Accos, and took advantage of the option to buy some Terra Nova terrain: Badlands Outpost and four stone heads.

As you can see in the above picture I also took up the offer to add a couple of standard models to my order: the new Hoplite and a couple of metal Gears – Hunter and Jaguar for a special conversion.  So Christmas has arrived early at the Paint-it-Pink household.
   

Venasque Medieval Re-Enactors

I'm back from a holiday in Provence, and during my week in the south of France I was taken out for the day to a Medieval Faire in Venasque.

Troops strutting their stuff.

My French wasn't good enough to follow the presenters spiel, but the demonstration was understandable.

The authenticity wasn't always 100% pucker, and there were Orcs in amongst the re-enactors, but all the same people went to a lot of trouble to dress up, which is what counts.

One of the Orcs.

These people we thought were meant to be lepers, but were Cagot, which we read more about in a newspaper about French news written in English.  For those who are interested in reading more Elizabeth Gaskell wrote a book called An Accursed Race, which can be downloaded here.

There were people dressed as lepers with bells on them, which is how we knew they were meant to be lepers, but I failed to snap a picture of them.

And there was archery demonstration, and how could we resist having a go?  Susan shooting, and getting a bruise on her arm for her trouble.

And no I didn't get a bruise on my arm, but there again I shoot modern recurve bare bow, whereas Susan shoots longbow, which requires a different technique.  Late edition update, a picture Susan took of me shooting.

And finally, there was a cute dragon the kids could ride on.

So a fun day.