Combine & Pan Euro Laser Towers

A little over two years after Don Hawthorne kindly sent me these, I've finished assembling them, slapped on some paint, and I've now managed to take some pictures as proof of completion.

It's super nice to now have laser towers for both the North American Combine and Pan European Federation.

I still have a number of Ogre miniatures that need painting, but I've managed to acquire a Vulcan Ogre, which is missing some parts, for my Ogre/GEV collection/ plan of world domination to come to fruition.

Catch you all on the bounce. 

Pan European Federation: 7e Brigade Blindée (BB 7)

  
I'm renaming my French Pan European Federation 7th Demi Brigade Légion Etrangère to 7e Brigade Blindée, "Force et Audace" (in English 7th Armoured Division motto Strength & Daring), because a Legion force is primarily infantry that are deployed to former French colonies, and I want to field an armoured formation.  So I've based my organization on the current 7e Brigade Blindée strength, but I added a squadron of Hussars to the command, which means the brigade will be made up from the following regiments:

1er Régiment de Chasseurs (1er RCh)

Doppelsoldner and Fencer from the 1st Battalion.  One more Fencer to be assembled and painted.

A Mark 3 from the 2nd Battalion.  The rest of battalion has yet to be assembled and painted.

The cybertanks will be organized into two Battalions of three Ogres, with each Ogre counting as a Squadron.  The 1st Battalion will have one Doppelsoldner two Fencers, and the latter can be fielded as either the A or B model.  The 2nd Battalion will have one Huscarl Mark 5 variant and two Mark 3s.

4e Régiment de Dragons (4e RD)

Four Squadrons of three Troops: Two squadrons of 12 x Heavy tanks, one squadron of 12 x Light tanks, and one squadron of 6 x Super heavy tanks (one troop from each squadron shown, I have a number of models waiting to be painted).

4e Groupe d'escadrons de hussards (4e GEH)

Four Squadrons of three Troops each consisting of: 12 x GEVs, 3 x GEV-PCs and 3 x infantry platoons (this is one of two squadrons I have painted, with two more waiting to be painted in due course).

35e Régiment d'Infanterie (35e RI)

Four Companies each consisting of: three infantry platoons, two GEV trucks and four LGEVs.

152e Régiment d'Infanterie (152e RI)

Four Companies each consisting of: three infantry platoons, two trucks and three Light tanks.

8e Régiment d'Artillerie (8e RA)

Two Batteries of five Mobile howitzers (the other battery still waiting  to be painted).

 1er Régiment d'Artillerie (1er RA)

Four Batteries of five Missile tanks (only two batteries shown as rest need painting).

54e Régiment d'Artillerie (54e RA)

One Battery of five Howitzers and one Battery of five Cruise Missiles.

Apart from the nominal inclusion of a command post support formations are not needed for most Ogre/GEV scenarios, but I have models to represent logistics support (trucks) and air defense assets (laser turret/towers) that the Ogre/GEV rule set supports for the following formations:

19e Régiment du Génie (19e RG) (engineers and recovery vehicles).
7e Compagnie de Commandement et de Transmissions (7e CCT) (signals).
Batterie de renseignement de brigade (BRB 7) (intelligence).

 Finally, I will put my spare Ogre into a recon regiment.

Escadron d'éclairage et d'investigation de la 7e Brigade blindée (EEI 7) "The eyes of the general"

One Mark 2 Ogre for light recon work.

Notes.
Nomenclature: Troops = Platoon, Squadrons = Companies
   

Shadow of the Ogre

Little Big Ogre.

I snapped this shot while trying out my new camera and while the picture has many flaws I was struck by the shadows that mimic the Ogre artwork by Steve Jackson Games, though theirs is a Mark 5 casting a shadow.
   

Pan European Élan

I've put names on all my Pan European Ogres as a homage to French Army practice.  This is a tease for future posts about my Pan European force, more to come, but I have to paint up stuff to take pictures first.
   

Vis Lardica 2014 TFL Painting Challenge Entry

  

These are the core of my North American Combine conventional force the 2nd Heavy Armor Brigade Combat Team.

Here are a couple of pictures of all the Ogre/GEV miniatures I managed to paint this year, which I submitted to the Vis Lardica painting challenge.  No doubt by the time you check out the link Robert will have posted them up and scored them for me (he has, I got 354 points).

I've been working on the ORBAT of my North American Combine force, which will be based on the contemporary US Army Brigade Combat Team organization.  I plan to post a piece on this once I have the photos of all the units done.  This may take some time.  Still I can enter them in next years painting contest, which will be good.

Some extra howitzers, because what's not to like about howitzers really?

Previously seen on the blog the reinforcements for my French Pan European force.  I'm still left with a shed load of miniatures to paint to finish what I'm now calling the 7ème Brigade Blindée, which again is based on contemporary French Army practice.  I had a lot of fun researching both these and the American ORBAT's and I'm compiling the photos for a blog entry on these too.

Part of my 7ème Brigade Blindée force arrayed in all its glory.

In addition, all the work I've done will go into both an article for Miniature Wargames & Battlegames magazine as supporting material for my Escalation scenario with ideas to make a ladder campaign with force morale rules too.

Finally finished after years of neglect my Mark 2S Ogre, which I originally started sculpting because Steve Jackson Games didn't do a Ninja.

And a before I finished picture for comparison.

  

Blast-Tastic

 

I had meant to do a couple more posts in January, but for various reasons, like it became February for one, I failed to do so.

First off I would like to announce that I shall be taking my Ogre MIB roadshow to Blast-Tastic, which is a new SF wargames show to be held in Bristol in October. You heard it here first.

So, this weekend I was inspired to do some painting, as I would very much like to be able to run an extended Ogre game from using one of the GEV scenarios. Of course to do that I will need more North American Combine models, and a Pan European Ogre.

The top picture shows the first of the now completed Combine models that only need varnishing before I can field them.

The above picture shows the Pan European Fencer with a few friends.

Some new additions being light GEVS and light tanks, with some more heavy and super heavy tanks, standard GEVs and personnel carriers to add depth to my current force.

Once the above have dried over night, I shall start the first of three washes that I use for weathering.

Pan European Infantry: New Pictures Added

I had painted the infantry a basic green, but then I found myself thinking that they looked a bit boring, and I didn't want to go down the route I took with my 10mm House Steiner infantry, as that would be even more boring.

Fortunately, I saw a post on the SJG forums and some really nice paint done on some infantry, which I found quite inspiring, and can be seen here. Scroll down to see the finished infantry. So here are mine ready for the Dragonmeet demo on the 1st of December.

 

Here you see 60 stands of infantry, divided into three battalion's, representing the infantry component of my 7th Demi-Brigade Légion Étrangèr (7DBLÉ). For those of you who are interested, after the French Revolution the use of the word regiment was frowned upon, because the "regi" part of the name come from royal, and anything royal was out of favour, hence demi-brigade.

 Each battalion has eight one shot heavy weapon stands. The game specifies three 18 man platoons per company, with four company's per battalion. Strictly speaking therefore, in game terms, the battalion is six figures short of being a full strength unit, which would be about 36 men in real life.

Close enough for me, and quite in keeping with historical precedence, as very few units run at their full paper strength.

I got this much better result when I re-took the picture. Still learning how to tweak the digital camera's settings to get the results I want.

One gets variant poses, which can also be tweaked a bit to add some more variety.

An extreme close-up of one the three figure squad representing an 18 man platoon, which has made me  go back and re-read my camera manual on various aspects of colour balance and exposure and retake the pictures here.

Two figures on a base for casualty reduction tracking.

 

And the last of the unflattering extreme close-ups on one figure, which is also for casualty tracking. By my calculation these pictures of my figures are at five times their original size.

Thought I would add a picture of the heavy weapon stand too.

So all the infantry are now painted and ready to rock on December the first when I'm helping the MIB run an OGRE demo game at Dragonmeet. See you on the bounce.

7th Demi Brigade Légion Etrangère T&OE

Well now that at long last I have these babies painted it's time to organize them.

Originally I was thinking that all my Pan European Federation models should just be the 7th Demi Brigade Légion Etrangère, but a demi-brigade is just a regiment by another name, and I feel that what I will ultimately be able to field onto the table top is more like a full on brigade.

  

So, my plan is to use my GEV force as the armour core, along with infantry in their Seguro GEV PCs, as the basis of my 7th Demi Brigade Légion Etrangère. I will then add some LGEVs as the recon company attached to them.

All the Tanks, missile tanks and super heavies will form another regimental size force, which may be inspired by a French formations too. I know that the super heavies will be paying homage to the French Char 2c, and be named as such. I shall to research some French tank forces for inspiration.

Here is a picture of the next batch of models for my Pan Euro force, as you can see I have assembled my Fencer OGRE too. Whatever next? Will wonders cease?

Yesterday I received in the post my Warehouse 23 order that has another six GEV Seguro personnel carriers and infantry, six more LGEVS, and 72 Pan Euro infantry with support weapons.

So, I'm going to base up the infantry today, as these are needed for the Dragonmeet convention demo game I'm running on the 1st of December, which sounds like a long way away, but time flies and they need to be done in time. 

As a bit of a side project I've even gotten around to starting work on my Combine force, for those times when I need to support my OGREs, and gasp, shock, horror, probe... I've got my custom sculpt of the OGRE Ninja out to start work on finishing it.

This model has just sat around for years gaining dust, but now its time has come. The maturing phase is ending.

Finally,  it has arrived.

Oh, yes pure Combine Mk4 Ogre goodness. I can see why this was not put into production after the test models, because it's one enormous model, and size wise I can see the logic of not having a Mk4 that is larger than a Mk6. Anyway, I have plans. Muwuhahahaha...

NB: Since posting this I've renamed this force 7ème Brigade Blindée, just in case you're reading this and are confused by the two names.

Pan European Reinforcements

Well for some this next statement will come as no surprise. I actually stripped off all the paint  on both my Pan Euro 7 DBLE and Yellow Peril Combine miniatures. Why I hear you ask (metaphorically that is as I can't actually hear you over the internet)? Well, for three reasons.

First, my understanding of modern camo design and application is much greater than when I first painted the original schemes for both of these units. I now know that current military practice is to use a camo scheme whose design is applied consistently on each unit; so while a GEV might have a different arrangement to a tank, all the GEVs would have the same scheme, and all the tanks would have their own scheme, on each applied identically. 

When I originally painted up these units I was working from knowledge based on WW2 practice, where the Germans in particular, while specifying the colours, left the application to the crews and their commanders. Camoflage has moved on a long way since WW2, and I wanted my forces to reflect modern practice, as I'm not going for a BattleTech retro-future look.

The second reason was that the Yellow Peril scheme looked tired to me, hence my updating the look on the OGREs as I showed with a work-in-progress picture a few posts back. The third reason is that since I will be demostrating OGRE at DragonMeet for the SJG as a  MiB, I kind of thought that my Combine unit should use official Combine miniatures?

My plan is to re-task the old Yellow Peril miniatures to represent a Nihon Empire unit, or some other force, which has no official miniatures, though I understand that Nihon OGREs are planned as a future release from SJG.

And, this is why there have been no updates on my OGREs, as this lot has been on my workbench for the last few days, and it just takes time to paint the camo scheme, and in this case add magnets to all the turreted, or articulated vehicles I was working on.

21 years to 21st Century

To say it has been a while since I painted any OGRE game miniatures would be like saying that dinosaurs ruled the Earth a long time ago. I've been playing OGRE/GEV since the first edition of the bagged micro game.

Back in the early eighties I acquired a Grenadier Models Mark 5, which is still my pride and joy, but I've painted nothing for the game for 10 years. You have seen those here. With the impending release of the Kickstarter edition of Ogre I was moved to dust off a tray of miniatures and start working on them, as you can see above.

And here is them all painted green ready for the camo scheme.

I had a light bulb moment when I realised that I should just re-label my Pan European forces as the 7th Demi Brigade Légion Etrangère, rather than keep calling all my North American Combine vehicles that, especially as I have a whole load of Combine OGREs also on the bench being painted.

Why the title for this piece you may ask yourselves? 

Quite simple really. I bought all these miniatures when they were first released back by Ral-Partha back in 1992, which means that they have been maturing for 21 years.

Pan European 7th Demi Brigade Légion Etrangère

Like most of my stuff, I've had these a long time, having bought the original Pan European vehicle miniatures when they first released in 1992. I bought a shed load, as too many miniatures is not a concept that I readily understand!

Unfortunately, the bad news is that I have not painted all of them yet, the good news is that I still have a shoe box full of blisters of Pan European vehicles to paint in the future. Yay!

A part of me want to go and strip my North American Combine Ogres and paint them in this green camo to match, while repainting my Pan European Ogres in yellow, because then my yellow force would be French Foreign Legion etc, etc. However, life is too short, and quite frankly I don't give that much of a dam about matching in universe concepts with what happens on my gaming table.

After all the main reason for modelling and playing SF games, for me, is that I can use my own imagination and please myself, without being tied down to any manufacturers, or games company universe. If I wanted to do that, I would do historical stuff. Then I had that dumb is clever light bulb moment, why repaint when I can just relabel the units, and hey presto these are now my 7th Demi Brigade Légion Etrangère force. 

NB: Since posting this I've renamed this force 7ème Brigade Blindée, just in case you're reading this and are confused by the two names.

Pan European OGREs

Time for a couple of pictures of my OGRE/GEV Pan European OPFOR. Now back in 1992 when I was actively gaming OGRE/GEV there were no Pan European Ogres to be had, so I made my own, the first you see above. 

Both of these OGREs are home brew conversions I made. Originally, the OGRE above was made as a Mk3, but when Ral-Partha produced the official Mk3, I started using this as a Pan European Ninja. The Ogre below was meant to be a Mk5, but after the official Mk5 became readily available, I imagined this was a Pan European Doppelsoldner.

I like my stuff to be quite battered looking, in an artistic way, and I have developed a system of weathering models that replicates real world process i.e. crud and grime applied, which is then washed, or worn off.

This is all applied to the model after it has been first gloss varnished, and then had a coat of matt varnish.

Now some of you may well realize that varnish is just varnish and wonder why use gloss and matt? Surely two coats of matt would be good enough? You would be right.

However, in my experience it is easier to tell if you have fully coated the model when spraying gloss varnish, because any parts you miss will look matt, and vice-versa. So the alternate coats of varnish assure me that the finish is properly protected.

After the weathering I then use a fibre-glass metal polishing pen, available from good DIY stores that cater for light engineering etc. Search engines are your friend.

Using the fibre-glass pen I gently polish off all the excess weathering. 

If the model starts to look glossy while you are doing this, stop, as it means you've polished off the protective coating. However, even if you do over do it, and remove all the paint, the result will still look okay. In fact it will look like freshly worn metal.

After I have cleaned up the model to my satisfaction I then varnish the model again to seal the finish and protect the model when being handled.