Insurgent Technicals

I reprocessed all the pictures I took last week, because I wasn't happy with the colour balance. I usually take one picture with a white card, as my reference in the camera when taking a series of pictures, but forgot too last time.

However,  I went back with the same lighting set-up (which was quick and dirty) and took a couple of reference pictures. Using them as a baseline, I reprocessed all the originals pictures.

So, above is my crew-cab conversion of Peter Pig's Toyota.

And above is a group shot of all my PeterPig Toyota's. I still have a couple more different Toyata's technicals to assemble from Khurasan. I'm glad I bought them back before all the faff over tariffs came into force. I shall assemble them for my insurgent force in due course.

That's all for now, catch you on the bounce.

Insurgents Technicals

Three insurgent Technicals surge forth. Again, I painted these a while back, but hadn't gotten around to doing a glamour shot.

I still have the white one I converted into a command crew cab to finish, delayed because it made its bitch while I was painting it white.

Still, not all is lost as I can say, check out these civilian commercial robots.

And a final glamour shot of MAPCOMs Alpha Echo Romeo Tango Two team portrait. This is the team that walked in circles and went back through the pillars and were lost.

 

They may of course return to haunt MAPCOM in a later story. Who knows? Not I. I just write down what the voices tell me.

Gunstriders & Attack Robot

After losing track of taking some glamour shots of previously finished models. All can I say is I'm easily distracted, but I finally got around to taking some pictures.

And the insurgent improvised attack robot too.

 Here are a couple of pictures of the Gunstriders next to a Peter Pig Technical for size comparison.

And with a different Technical.

Proof of Life

Work in progress of the two Ape suits, glossed and ready to have decals applied in due course. Next to a Dog with decals and matt varnished for comparison.

I may be some time.

And after much faffing, a quick touch up of the paint that turned into the nightmare of effectively becoming a repaint, I've finally varnished my 15mm insurgents.

And in breaking news, I sat down with Jay Arnold of The Veteran Podcast to talk about all thing giant stompy robot. I'll post links as and when he puts the podcast up.

More Insurgents

I've been spending a lot of time at my workbench with only this handful of finished miniatures to show for it. I can only conclude I'm as slow as snail snot. Or some thing?! I'm pretty sure that when I was young I could paint whole armies in a week (30 plus figures). 

Now, it seems to take me forever to do this third section to complete my insurgent platoon and some support units. 

But here they are. The three Toyota Technicals below having had their gunners repainted to match my new standard paint job.

The green truck is new. I based the camo scheme on a half-remembered photo I saw, which funnily enough I found again.

To no ones surprise, my interpretation of said scheme is different to the original. Mostly down to the fact that I was painting my model to look nice, whereas the rebels just sprayed some blotches on their battered old truck.

I also worked on the red trucks highlights and shadow, and yes that was probably unnecessary, but I did it anyway. The yellow truck I mucked up whist doing so, and guess what?

Yep. You got it. 

I ended stripping and repainting it, but I think I did a better job on the tiger stripes. You can compare the previous paint job here.

And finally, two Nakamura Robotics Oshiguruma SDR (Search and Delivery Robots), converted for the insurgents as Highly Improvised Combat Armor aka Gunstriders.

Of course, I now need to varnish them. I've run out of Testors Dullcote and no one has any, and it may no longer be being made too. In further bad news, my other preferred matt varnish from Windsor & Newton is also out of stock.

Cést la vie.

Insurgents: First Batch

My intention was just to re-base these AK47 Peter Pig miniatures to my preferred basing style. I originally painted them back in 2010. My, how time flies. You can see here the old post here. Above is a shot showing the assorted wounded and dead counters.

However, after re-basing them I looked at the paint job and thought I can tart these up a bit.

And lo and behold, I took them to the next level. So here are some close-ups of the first two sections of my insurgent militia platoon.

Still need to varnish them, and afterwards I shall apply some grass tufts to their bases, but otherwise I'm calling these done. Now to start painting the mortar squad and the gunstriders.

Back in 2010, one of the reasons that I got stuck and never completed my AK47 Republic armies was the basing, which is one of those topics that requires a post all of its own, which I will no doubt come back to later when I talk more about the rules I'm working on.

Toyota Technicals

Where ever there are Somali fighters they inevitably have Toyota Technicals in support.

It's not Toyota unless it says Toyota on the back. I wonder if Toyota have a military sales division? Both models are inspired by pictures on the web of what is an ubiquitous field expedient modification of local transport assets.

Somali Regulars

I've been meaning to post something more about my progress with creating my first AK47 Republic rules army. It has just taken me a whole lot longer to get anything painted to my satisfaction, and I've not yet played anyone, because I don't have enough figures, even using proxy figures, to run a game.

Okay, perhaps I have enough proxy figures if I use all my Traveller and Dalek figures, but that doesn't quite float my boat. Call me a pedant!

Cruel enlargement.

The AK47R rule-set has some interesting mechanisms, including the use of reserves, which you don't often see in games.

What you might not at first notice is that the basing is not the standard AK47R base size. When I was going through the rules and the base sizes, I thought that the abstraction inherent within the basing assumptions were too extreme for what I wanted from a miniature wargame. So I experimented a bit with the frontage and decided that five figures on 40mm wide by 30mm deep looked good.

I also imagined that rather than representing a platoon, the base in my game would represent squads, or section. I imagine YMMV on this, especially if you are an ardent Peter Pig fan, or the writer of the rules?

Cruel enlargement.

Their are some differences between the two platoons that the picture doesn't show. The first platoon jackets are painted brown, while the second are painted khaki. It was by the way of an experiment to test whether or not one can tell the difference, and which one looked best.

The answer is they both look good and the difference is very minor. I'm now working on the militia platoons, which will be shown in due course, so Martin B, you can rest assured knowing that I have been working towards getting enough together to invite you down for a game.