Lately with life I've not had much of a spur to paint much. As a result my Fallout stuff's been sitting idle for the past week or so. However I wound up tinkering a bit one night and that had me on track for working on another post-apocalyptic setting. At first I was considering Metro 2033, but well screw building a subway table. As a result plan B came into force (actually plan C, originally I wanted to make some Skyrim stuff), which will be altogether more practical. Yup, we're leaving the US and heading over to the wonderful holiday destination of Chernobyl for this thread.
Of course threat not, the Fallout stuff's still ongoing, I just need something a wee bit different. There's some mostly finished stuff sitting there to be posted whenever I can be arsed with it.
Well where to start? I guess first off here's my favorite model of the bunch I've managed (partly because he involved more work than the others here on the sculpting front). A Stalker part of the Loner faction, though for ease he'll probably be bunged in with Freedom (got to colour coordinate). He's partly based off of some concept art from the cancelled sequel.
Spoiler:
Trundling along after him are some Freedom guys. These along with the Mercenaries posted later are based on Empress Modern Americans. Despite being American models naturally I've painted them up in suedo British Forest camo ...because ...screw that fancy digital stuff (its not like Stalkers are wearing the most up to date gear anyway).
Along with those come a smattering of Mercenaries as well. As Freedom's supposed to be (unofficially) backed by the West (with Duty being on the Russian government's payroll, but the whole thing's rather muddy) and the Mercenaries (in the original fluff) were US Special Forces, I think I can get away with using guys kitted out in NATO gear for them. Rest assured though that I will be throwing in some more minis from the Empress line as well as some of my own later on (Stalkers source their kit from wherever they can find it, but yeah, totally expect to see some Empress Modern Russians as part of Duty. Their just on holiday, honest).
Besides that stuff I do have some WIP shots of what's also being worked on at the moment. First is the original Loner posted here along with your everyday old guy in a hoodie. Following those is a veteran Stalker and what looks like a bandit, but really with this stuff the differentiation's a bit more difficult. I'll hopefully be making models based on more on what's in the actual game, but the concept art had a lot more variety going on. As ever these are based on Wargames Factory WWII models with a bit of greenstuff chucked on. The gas masks are from the Secrets of the Third Reich line and the guns are mostly from an old Ral Partha sprue (which I really wish they still sold as its great for post-apocalyptic games with all those Cold War weapons).
Besides little soldiers I've also had a hankering for terrain. Now I sort of misjudged how much balsa wood I'd need for this (partly because this is all the shop had in stock), so this is only about halfway finished. Its based partly on a house from the area, just with less windows, and I'm considering adding on an extension for the entrance to make it more of an "L" shape. Hopefully this won't be too crazy (no tentacles or glowing spheres in the middle of the room) so it'll do for more down to earth style games. It'll still be a right gak hole though.
Spoiler:
What else is there? Well besides those WIP Stalkers that I showed but haven't finished painting I have a few more things sitting about. As far as the Empress Americans go I think there's three more left to paint, two serving as Duty veterans, and another as a Monolith Stalker. I'll be adding Red Star Chechen War Russians in soon, and giving Empress a trawl for some more stuff as well (mostly their Russians, with maybe some Brits and perhaps even PLA - who turned up in the sequel novel. Hey it isn't just NATA who want some of that Zone goodness, the Chinese sent in their bloody army into Afghanistan). I'm trying not to over extend myself too much, but I will say I kind of sort of did buy a Hind Gunship too for a piece of terrain. ...That's more work than just building a balsa wood house though so its not been touched as of yet (the thing is massive though, and damn I keep forgetting how cheap these things are in comparison to GW-who'd charge something £60 for the same kit). Ah crap, and this is me forgetting the gak ton of Eastern European vehicles that I bought (I mean like fifty of the things) to serve as a scrapyard style barrier for a town. I have three of those being painted right now, with some more probably following them.
But I'm blethering on long enough here. Well there's all that. Hopefully this will perk up my enthusiasm a bit, and well if this is a short lived project then at least I'll have a set of minis that'll work for Fallout and the modern setting (hey why just play sci fi games set in Ukraine when I can use the same models for the actual real life conflict there). I'll see about working on the house more (building's a lot easier than painting for me...) and whatever else I can work on. This is me on exam leave now which means I have time to properly work on stuff. ...My backlog of Fallout stuff presumably being a part of that before I start taking on other crap like this. But whatever, here's my opening into the setting, let's see how much I can procrastinate an not get anything done with this crap.
Oi, saying that after I'd only posted the damn thing three minutes before? Hmph, didn't even read my spiel did ya? Eugh...
Ah I still haven't bought any more balsa wood through being a lazy git and oversleeping. ...I'll endeavor to buy some tomorrow. As part of making the crashed Hind I've used up what milliput I have as well so I really need to make a supply run in order to work on that as well (I want the underside to be buried in the ground, which involved either cutting the bottom of the thing off, or building up the ground). So I'll see what I can do in that regard tomorrow. The day after that hopefully I'll be picking up some Cold War Russians as well, which aught to work as Bandits or Loners with a wee bit of work (extra equipment, armour, head swaps etc).
Besides that grumbling I've decided to try out the latest version of the Misery mod for Call of Pripyat as ah ...research. Its definitely given me ideas in regards on where to go with the outfits. Military surplus is fine, but it seems that a lot of Stalkers, at least in the Loner faction, tend to be kitted out in your average outdoor clothing. Even the guys with more militarized gear are still laden with bags and pouches which means I'll be adding more of that crap to my minis than I already have (the Empress moderns have plenty of kit on them, and I added a bit too, but that's not on the "I'm living off my back for a few months" look that the Stalkers in the game seem to have). So yeah, just saying that and totally not making excuses for not painting anything (like I said, "researching"...).
I'll see about posting up WIPs of the terrain tomorrow then along with maybe some more painted stuff depending on my distraction levels. ...No new thread title yet obviously. =P
This thread has a title now. Guess how I came up with that? Feth you Misery. =P
Eugh, I was going to go and buy some things today, but I slept in and managed to avoid the paramedics that were swarming the area outside the train I would have been on. Yeah, bit of an incident that I missed because I overslept today (courtesy of my neighbors banging about at 6AM). Oh well. =/
Well I had a go at a Ghillie suited Stalker. Probably a Freedomer just because their forest camo look (Freedom may well wind up being the Faction that can put together a squad first at this rate. ...I like their camo). Might be worth making another in more of an urban coloring for Duty or something. This one's based on what I think is an The Assault Group Taliban fighter covered in a load of greenstuff, ah, just because I had the guy there and not much of a use for him. Yeah the AKM's totally a practical weapon for a Ghillie (...maybe there's a scope hidden away under all that grass).
Let's hope he doesn't hang about near any Pyrogeists...
As far as Duty goes I don't really know how to approach all that black they wear. I'm erring towards painting at some of their number in a scheme similar to the one below, just with more browns/greys instead of the white. I'd like to have a mix of camo types within each of the groups, so me painting up a few guys this way doesn't necessarily mean the rest of the faction won't look like as they do in the games (certainly once I start making models based on the actual in game outfits they'll be painted to represent those as best I can. These random Empress models not so much). I'd be damned if I can think of a practical use for this scheme though, but well perhaps someone's made a scheme to suit the Red Forest.
Anyway...
Hmn, Bloodsuckers? I think I have a tentacle mouthed head somewhere for that. Just stick it on a naked zombie body. Hmn... Then again I hate those bloody things, in so much that I dislike Cazadors too, but that isn't stopping me from buying a few of those soon.
Tsk, anyway you have a high opinion of me if you expect me to actually move my butt much on this stuff. ...OK I may actually put the effort in, though that's perhaps dependent on how people respond at my club (maybe the modern look will be more appealing than Power Armour and guys wearing buckets on their head). Meh, we'll see.
...Ah, and as far as Metro 2033 goes. Hmph, if anyone happens to have a subway system going then maybe. That was my original intention, but I could make a load of minis for that, though they wouldn't anything without the iconic tunnels (that said I could get away with some snow covered streets ...that would certainly please a guy at my club who's been wanting me to make just such a board for a while now). Perhaps in the future then considering that, and well the Chernobyl stuff would certainly do for Metro (at least in the case of the sequel where things have thawed out a little).
Still a wee bit early in the day, but here's a WIP of another Stalker. By the look of him I'd say he's a Bandit, but that's still up in the air. =P
Automatically Appended Next Post: Oh, on the subject of Bloodsuckers, Lead Adventure seem to have made one as part of their *not S.T.A.L.K.E.R. line. Its not amazing (I find that range to be a bit chunky), but well there's that. Yeah I'd rather make my own from scratch obviously. =P
I found a hand full of would be stalkers that'll go in the "to do" pile with not too much work. One particular West Wind sniper, whilst being a bit sci-fi (even though they make weird WWII models), to me looks like he'd make a good Duty counterpart to a Ghillie suited Freedom sniper. Meh, the guy who I was supposed to buy the Red Star models off of tonight didn't show, so at least those will make up for those.
Hmn, as far as rules go I'm still up in the air. Skirmish Sangin seems like it'd do for the Stalker on Stalker fights, but I'm not sure how it'd accommodate for mutants. There's interest in using it for modern games, so it'd be nice to have it for multiple genres. However with mutants I think those'd really screw up the morale rules (guys crap themselves from bullets hitting the ground miles away, seeing some gribbly mutants presumably would have more of an adverse effect)...
K, I've been procrastinating as ever, so nae pictures (for want of me actually bothering to take any of the stuff I've finished. Hey I've been having tea parties and crap like an adult...). Nah, I'd like to mention something that I came across when trawling about online. Apparently there was an actual boardgame with 28mm models in the works for the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series. It was released at the end of 2012, but only to the Russian market unfortunately. I think I've actually found retailers of it, but I'm hesitant to place an order given the sanctions on the country. I remember at the start of the Ukraine conflict placing an order with Brother Vinni (who was still located in the Federation) and my parcel going through a hell of a lot more checks than usual. I've posted a thread in the Swap Shop regarding the boardgame, but I'm pessimistic about the outcome (though hell I'd be willing to ditch everything bar the models from the box if its just down to shipping fees).
Ack, anyway here's some links regarding it. The models are hardly perfect, but they're clearly based on the games (definately given me an idea of how to approach making my own ones too at that). I have a hankering to know what the mechanics are as well. Tsk, probably aught to look into this more ...ah, bothering to tighten up my Russian first would help however. =P
I did note there was much complaining about the price. Evidently the Russians aren't too happy about spending £35 on what, a dozen Stalkers and that again in mutants, plus the actual boardgame.
Well here's some Loners/Bandits. Either or really with these chaps I think. They're Wargames Factory WWII soldiers with a bit of greenstuff and a few added bits. Heads are mostly from Secrets of the Third Reich, as I've probably already said. Given there was more clay involved, hopefully these guys look like more of a hodge podge of kit compared to the Empress ones I've posted previously. Its more my preference for this kind of look than something uniform. =P
Definitely maybe bandits in the later's case given their impractical clothing decisions (red Converse and a pair of Nike jeans? How about the mix of US desert, Rhodesian bush and Ukrainian Berkut camo on the other one?).
Hmn, then two snipers; one from Duty, the other Freedom. I think the Duty guy's from Secrets of the Third Reich, but don't quote me on that (pretty much as he came as well, bar adding a gas mask that's obscured by his rifle). The Ghillie Freedomer's a TAG Taliban figure with some grass sculpted over him.
That Dutyer's definitely not a fellow that'll be pulled out regularly. A jumpsuit covered in red cables (one of them's snaking out between his legs, but his rear's littered with the things) and carrying an anti-material rifle's sort of a bit overkill considering his companion just has an AKM. He'll do for big game hunting I guess,.
I managed to pick up some more balsa wood and tear through it. This is the house as it stands now. The roof's hardly caved in, but its still not in great nick. Looking at it I think I may extend the interior wall so it intersects the whole middle of the building rather than having that gap. ...If I have any balsa left.
Furniture wise things will be sparse for gaming purposes. Let's assume that everything's either been stolen or used for firewood. Maybe I'll add a few wee paintings and bits of tat about the floor. To keep the place warm I'm considering making a stove out of an oil drum as opposed your regular stone fireplace as it seems like a neat idea. =P
So, following that lot I think it'll be Duty and Mercenary guys next judging by what models I've managed to scrounge. The cottage'll be based and painted at some point (probably with a green/grey scheme), before I get back to the Hind (which isn't the most intuitive of kits, least because I'm not bothering with half the pieces given that its going to be a wreck). Hmn, I might even be able to run a game of this using 7Tv or something by the new year at this rate (a half dozen models a side constitutes a fair enough squad I'd think. If not then they can all spend their time hiding in the backs of vans and under rocks through me having an emission happen for half the game). I'd still prefer using another ruleset though, as 7Tv hardly lends itself to a military setting much. Anyway, damn I forgot the cars, eugh whatever, till next time.
I'm short on paint so I haven't managed to finish the cottage quite yet, but its getting there. Instead here's a shot of a WIP female Stalker. Her head looks huge in this image for some reason. Meh, I like the pose anyhow, SA80 sitting by her side as she holds an artifact out (...for whatever reason).
There she is. Hopefully she'll turn up tomorrow along with the cottage and maybe some vehicles in a painted state, ah, that is if I can make it into the city center to buy crap first. =P
Well here's the Stalker from yesterday in Loner colours. The pose may not be quite so actiony as the others, but it has more character. I think that's just about the only SA80 I've ever painted...
And my attempt at an Exoskeleton suited up Stalker. I haven't decided the faction yet, but I know that it'd be a bit unbalanced to have just one of these guys (I haven't many Dutyers so probably those guys'll have him). No LMG or anything, just a plain old AK variant.
Tsk, now back to uni tomorrow, woo. ...That does mean I can buy balsa and paint though, so ...woo? ...Ah, yeah, sure, right, anyhow toodles.
Well I died this month, but luckily they dug me out of the ground a few weeks later and I got back to playing with my dollies. Yeah, January was all exams for me unfortunately, so nout was done. =P
So here's a smattering of what I was able to do, or well at least what's presentable. There's plenty of stuff which I've started on, but not made headway with unfortunately, but well that'll tide me over for a couple of more weeks yet at least.
First here's a cop out, a pair of guys in Hazmat suits which I posted here a while ago (a year according to the gallery), but felt that they needed a bit of a touch up. They'll be Ecologists in the Stalker setting, though I do have plenty of other guys (some armed) which would suit generic Stalkers who just happen to be wearing environmental suits (obviously sitting unpainted as ever).
This I like, sort of because I've been looking at the vehicles used in the current war in Ukraine and wanting to have a go at some. The base model for this is a 1/43rd UAZ van which I've tatted up with some ad-hoc armour (yeah there really is one of those crappy vans under there. I think my dad used to drive one actually come to think of it).
That van's somewhat based on this one. When I originally made the model it looked a bit more like that, but I thought it looked it too plain thus the added mesh and crap. I've seen at least two vans with this fashion of armour, so its either a common style or someone's been repainting the same van (which ah, yeah is something which has happened given equipment changing sides).
Besides that there's a Gaz-69 Jeep too, but its still being painted unfortunately. I may have a go at more like these as I do have a decent number of spare vehicles handy and well you can only make so many of them into wrecks.
There's what I can post at the moment, but yeah the rest is in various states. It'd help if I didn't start on so many things at once probably. Ack anyway, I'll see what can be stirred up tonight and what not. Toodles. =P
Eugh, you've seen what I've been spending lately and are just egging me to start trying to match last year's total. Git. Heh, I haven't thrown much money Vinni's way in a while, thanks for the head's up.
Ah, and on the subject of this blog and where its at, well crap's been done, but I've had my head in the clouds somewhat lately so I haven't really bothered posting much. Hmn, but I'll see about posting something later in the week as well you poor things feel neglected now and we can't have that. I'm sitting on a train right now unfortunately, so nae pictures (I'm not like that guy who painted an entire Blood Angels chapter during his train rides, but that is an idea...), but I'll say that just before I hopped on this thing I was having a go at some Blind Dogs, planning out Pseudodogs (which'll have to wait till their heads turn up on the post), and well yeah I started a Bloodsucker, though I'm not entirely sure on where that's going yet. Ah, so crap's being worked on, but as ever its a dozen things at once so nothing ever winds up being finished.
Ack, so I'll see what I can chalk up soonish, even if it is just that one crappy Land Rover which I painted and whatever WIPs I can find which haven't got paint on them. Laters. =P
Wyrmalla wrote: I'm short on paint so I haven't managed to finish the cottage quite yet, but its getting there. Instead here's a shot of a WIP female Stalker. Her head looks huge in this image for some reason. Meh, I like the pose anyhow, SA80 sitting by her side as she holds an artifact out (...for whatever reason).
There she is. Hopefully she'll turn up tomorrow along with the cottage and maybe some vehicles in a painted state, ah, that is if I can make it into the city center to buy crap first. =P
Hold on -- I know it's your choice to make your stalker wear whatever you like, but it'd be a really stupid idea to go sleeveless in potentially irradiated areas. Exposed skins increase their risk of getting acute radiation sickness, and possibly death via overdose -- for bubble's sack most stalkers don't even have jellyfish!
The design which I had in mind for her actually had sleeves, but well most of the zombie arms I have are without them (actually the original outfit also had a load of talismans around her neck too, but I left them off). She's not even carrying a radiation reducing artifact either, its a Flash I think. Chalk it up to her personal choice I suppose, though its not as if concept art for Stalkers had them all being practically dressed either. Heh, the second female Stalker I have doesn't have sleeves either, though she's a Freedomer, so in her case the flippant attitude is probably the reason for her dress sense. Hey at least they're better dressed than the models which I based them on.
If you haven't already, I recommend you get your hands on a copy of Roadside Picnic and read it. It's a quick read but it's what inspired the game S.T.A.L.K.E.R.
Yeah, there's Roadside Picnic along with a related story (which I can't remember the name of, but it expands the setting) written by the same writers. Personally I prefer that setting and the one of the film over the games, but well I guess people wouldn't find it quite so fun to play a skirmish game where you just stand about looking at a phone for twenty minutes. =P
Ah right and there's also a game based on Roadside Picnic itself too called Stalker (which is why the FPS games were titled S.T.A.L.K.E.R. btw), though ah, its a little weird, it being a strange Russian game from the 80s/90s.
I've been painting and what not, but yeah, CBA posting anything at the moment. I started painting a Bloodsucker, Controller and a few Blind Dogs, so I'll see how long it takes for those to work out. Before those it'll have to be a few Stalkers first, as they really have been sitting about on my desk for too long now. The cottage has been worked on a little too. Its really done actually, though I feel like adding more plants to it, plus the furniture's not been touched yet unfortunately. Its sort of tying itself in with swamp terrain a little, so maybe in future I'll make a few loose marshes.
Anyway, more whinging there. Least things are coming along, even if they're being as slow as they like doing it.
I said that I'd post crap, and well belatedly here it is.
Things have come along a little, or rather I've started a load of things and only finished a few. First at least here's the Duty Stalker wearing an exoskeleton. He's mostly greenstuff with a Statuesque Miniature's gun and a Dust Tactics American head. Hmn, I probably aught to paint some non-specialist Duty troops as they're behind a little. I'll say I problem with the duty uniform is that there's too much black for me. I'll mix up the camo on the regular guys, but with this one I didn't want to mess with the look too much quite yet (ah, bar having a different gas mask from the in game one, just because when I was testing heads I thought it looked decent enough that I didn't have to make one which looked like the original, and well I've been wanting to use this head for a while actually).
This one's made out of one of Copplestone's scantily clad lasses. She's since bought a new outfit and had her hair done. Another Freedomer, because well forest camo's easy to paint.
Plus a pair of generic stalkers based on a few Cold War Soviets that I picked up (I don't know their source however). Greenstuff everywhere with these guys as ever.
And a messy looking Land Rover. Its another 1/43rd die case from the pound shop (I nabbed a few from a load my dad bought years ago). I suppose jeeps would suit the Zone, up until they take a few bullets. Saying that I have an armoured one to remedy that problem (in which case it just has to worry about anomalies and tractor sized boars ramming it).
That'll be about it for the moment till I finish the other crap sitting here. I suppose I'm almost through what I currently have to work through, so maybe I can make a start on what else I have planned soonish. At the moment its the mutants (Blind Dogs, a Bloodsucker and a Controller), a couple of vehicles (armoured Land Rover and an armoured soviet jeep) and the shack that need to be finished. After that then what comes to mind to do is the ever present crashed Hind, a pair of Soviet monuments (however they aren't high on my list given they're aimed more at an urban setting), a few Pseudodogs (which I need to wait for their heads to turn up in the post to start) and of course a need for more Stalkers (some Dutyers would be nice, as would converting up the remaining Cold War Soviets be an idea). There's your few wee crumbs for the moment. Nibble them up, ah, but they'll have to do you over for the long winter till I next have crap in a state to post.
This is what I came up with for the Bloodsucker. It and the Controller below are based on Wagrames Factory zombies for the most part. I'll admit that the hands and feet aren't as large as they aught to be, as is the face a little off, but it'll do.
The Controller.I could actually lop off the torso and use it as a Poltergeist by the looks of it.
And Blind Dogs based on the Games Workshop Farmer Maggot's ones. I just cut off their ears and collars. Not much, but they'll do.
I'm not entirely sure if I'm keen on how they turned out, but I assume that people can tell what they are right? I started on a Poltergeist and a Tark yesterday as well. What's a Tark? Ah, well it wasn't only farm animals like pigs that mutated. =P
Light on the pictures (as in feather weight) as I'm running a bit late with other things, but I'll see what I can do tomorrow. Ah, so this is rather me checking in with an update on where things are at. Should I do one of those lists. Yeah, everyone just loves lists...
The cottage thing is as ever nearly done, but sits at the back of my table most of the time. If I arrange a game any time soon I'll bang through it quick enough.
On the mutant front stand pretty much as I've said already, a Poltergeist (not invisible of course), Tark, and three Pseudodogs. A Snork turned up yesterday too, made from, as ever, a Wargames Factory zombie. ...Quite the hacked up one, but yeah, quite the use I get out of those kits.
The Armoured Land Rover's had some paint added too it, but I didn't have the time yesterday to do much more than a base coat. There's another armoured jeep as well, though that's been sitting almost finished for a few weeks now. Ah right, and sitting beside those is a little quadbike that I'd thought would suit the setting, however it not far on at all because it winds up getting lost in all the crap on my table. =P
There's a few Duty Stalkers and a Mercenary on the way as well. These are mostly painted, but I didn't have the time yesterday to finish them. I'm trying to use what Empress models I have, with two of the four models being DEVGRU (or whatever its called, quit changing your name shadowing US unit) and the other pair just Copplestone SWAT (...I think. They have Balaclavas).
As I felt like piling on more crap to do, and well as I've mostly run through all the human models that I had sitting to do (those Empress models were the last of them, bar a Monolith guy), I started on some more Stalkers (there's about six of them). These are more based on those Cold War Soviets, and mostly looking like they'll turn up as bandits. I'll probably work through those first before I go and pull out another armature to make a guy who's based on an outfit from the game more.
...And probably other stuff that I'm forgetting. Hmn. Oh the Hind and ship haven't seen anything done to them yet unfortunately. They're a bit showier than the other stuff I'm making, so I think I can leave off of them for the moment till I've finished a few more guys. I'd love for that Hind to be done for an eventual game though, maybe not the first one, but it'd look pretty cool on a table. As far as terrain goes its not a major concern at this point. I'd like to have some Chernobyl specific stuff, but at the moment I think that I'll get by with using my club's bits. I don't have much terrain for this at the moment though, and so the smallest carrying box I have would still have space in it, so I think I'll need to find an excuse to fill it in with something.
But anyway, things are moving along. ...Trundling like a squeaky cart perhaps, though you shouldn't be expecting more than that from this thread.
Some Dutyers made from Empress DEVGRU, just with head swaps. As ever I have no idea what purpose that red camouflage would serve, but hell maybe in the zone it might find a function with all that weird terrain (or perhaps there's an over abundance of red clay?). ...Ah, yeah, sure here's the minis. Head's are from Secrets of the Third Reich and Dust Tactics.
Yes Duty camo is typically black with red highlights, and I'll probably do that with most of their guys, but this red stuff adds a bit of variety. Tsk, and black is such an ever so full colour. ...Ah, I won't be giving them any Ali G pink camo though, keep that for the bandits.
Spoiler:
Along with them there's another Dutyer and a Mercenary, both based on what I think to be Copplestone Castings SWAT. The guns would be all right for Fallout, but I dislike using fake ones given the less sci-fi Stalker setting. Meh, I'll make do. =P
In other news I'm still working on more mutants. These are major WIPs (literally just frameworks with some), but I thought I'd show something. Poltergeist (it'll be floating when its done), Snork (he's blurry, but it'll be painted soon), Pseudodog and a Tark.
These need to be moved off my table, so here's some derelict vehicles. They're 1/43rd scale, but they'll do as wrecks. That Empress figure looks titchy in comparison. =/
Ah right, and I put together a few more sets of fencing. Just a low mesh one and some wire ones. I think there's eight of each type, with about half of each being torn up a little. No use in showing them all though, so here's an example of each. =P
So where am I headed? Well at the moment I've base coated a few of those Cold War Soviets who'll probably wind up being bandits. The Snork's having a coat of paint too. There's still two jeeps to finish, but they keep being pushed to the side for other things unfortunately. Oh and I've started on two Monolithians. Besides the general clear out of what I have at the moment, I've kind of sort of been eyeing up some more Empress stuff. This time its they're Russians (to act as Duty or Military), Australians and Chinese (in there case Monolithians. I don't think I'll start a Chinese force like the one from the book).
I managed to pick up something like fifty of the things from Poundland!
I think I've probably discussed them before in my Fallout thread, but there's a thread on them here too. A Russian Distributor carries them still, as can you find them easily enough on Ebay by searching "Russian Diecast" (the 1/43rd scale bits helpful too), but certainly at prices nowhere near as cheap as what I paid for them. Given the scale they'd suit 40k quite well if that's what you're looking to use them for. Hell I have enough of these things lying about that I may just have a go at turning one of that white car at the front into an Imperial one if I have the time.
Hey I've ordered some Humvees. ...The less I talk about the hell I've gone through to finally buy some of these things the better. Anyway, three Humvees which I've sort of planned out there use for already.
The first one will be one of those enclosed Ukrainian military variants. I'll have to order the machine gun from another source (Eureka Miniatures have a team carrying one, but its like £9 and has to be shipped from Australia). I found some plans to make the armour out of so hopefully it won't be too tough. If everything works out I'll certainly have a pretty cool vehicle (and perhaps the only guy in the world to have one in 28mm, the only ones I've seen are 1/35th).
The second will be kept for the most as is in its pickup configuration. With this one I intend to add the odd bit of hillbilly armour, though I'm not entirely sure I could use it as a technical as the diecasts are 1/43rd so it would be difficult to mount a gun on the backbed which doesn't look awkward. Anyway, here's another of these from Ukraine.
And the third and last one is a softop. However I don't really like how it looks right now (half its parts have been swapped out for canvas for some reason) so its my plan right now to take away all that and have a humvee which has its doors exposed and a flat canvas roof.
Those ideas are all subject to change obviously (well the third one may, I'm definitely going to try the armoured one). Heh, anyhow just showing up to tell you about the latest plans and what not. Till I actually have something painted to post, see ya.
Huh, has it? Ack well, don't dare to question the quality of my filler posts!
That work? Honestly just search Humvee Ukraine and its the first picture which turns up. Funny that they're using the same Humvees that they did in the Middle East, but though they were apparently fine to use in their regular state over there, now they feel the need to add improvised armour to them. ...I guess there's less paperwork though in the current war.
Walking about Rivet City in Fallout 3 to this tune has to be one of my most memorable moments from that game. I've never been able to find a DvD of that film here unfortunately (yeah I could totally just buy it off of Amazon, but screw that its fun to scry shops), but meh its right next to Tarkovsky's other films and stuff like Burnt by the Sun and Siberiade on Youtube.
@ shasolenzabi
Eugh, for a game system which rarely uses vehicles and a video game which barely shows working ones I think I'm probably going overboard with my vehicle pool. Meh, they're fun to make and I haven't been able to touch modern stuff that much with my Fallout minis. Oh, penned in for the current set are: a Gaz-69 jeep, a Land Rover Defender (both of those are armoured), two quadbikes, the three humvees and a BMP-1. The jeeps and one of the quadbikes are being painted right now so my next post'll just be them. The Snork's having some love too, though I'll probably stick to just the vehicles for a bit of consistency or whatever. =P
I was considering Skirmish Sangin actually, but I'm not sure about all those d100 roles. Force on Force might work too, but for the moment I'll use 7Tv till I can work something out.
Here's the Snork. Its made from a Wargames Factory zombie which I cut up and reposed. The gas mask's greenstuff with some wire for the tube. Its mounted on a 30mm round base because of its splayed pose (which also meant that taking a picture of this was hellish, you can just see the burst open spine).
Yeah I'll probably make another one of these at some point. One in the in game outfit rather than the blue and white vest (which I took from a cosplayer as it seemed like a cool idea given that's what Russian soldiers at least wear under their uniforms, though I can't speak for Ukrainian ones).
An odd choice of cosplay at that as well. I doubt many con goers could even know what he was, rather than just some creep with a gas mask over his eyes. =P
But back on track. I've managed to throw together these vehicles in a state to post. I probably already have more of these things that I'll ever use, but hey they're fun to make. Anyhow.
First is an armoured Gaz-69 jeep. Its based another of those 1/43rd diecasts, this time with armour bolted onto every surface to turn it into some Frankenstein's Monster version of itself.
And the original in case there's any Gaz-69 enthusiasts who want to cry.
Then a Hillbilly Armoured up Land Rover Defender. Again there's an image of the original beneath for reference. I tore off the roof and rear cab to turn it into a sort of technical, even if due to the scale I'm hesitant to mount a gun on it (the gunner would have to stand on their tip toes to see over the roof). Any passengers are advised to wear protective suits as all that ventilation's doing nothing to stop airborne contaminants.
And last is an Airfix 1/48th British Military quadbike which I painted up in civilian colours. Eugh, that company's kits are a chore to make at times. Its like playing Tetris. This'll probably serve better as a terrain piece than an actual drivable vehicle due to the lack of armour, but I suppose it could have its uses.
And that's that for the current vehicles. Those Humvees turned up yesterday, but I'll probably leave off them till I've finished some other stuff. I've started on some more Stalkers, this time mostly bandits, but there's a pair of Monolithians and a Duty guy as well. The cabin's coming along too. All that's really left to be done with that is to paint up the furniture, so expect to see that turn up in my next post likely. Here's what I have at the moment, hopefully it hasn't made anyone want to bolt rusty steel plates to their hatchback.
Now what’s on the plate today? Something which sticks in your teeth probably. Hmn, and has a kind of clammy after tastes. Eww.
…
…Right, sorry thinking about what I had for lunch there. Today’s serving then. I managed to finish the cabin off to a reasonable level this morning. Yes I’ve had this for a while, but now that space its been taking up on my table can finally be used for some other crap that’s going to take up space for months.
This thing’s almost all balsa wood bar the corrugated plasticard roof and the bits of tat (…some of which are made from balsa).
There’s my first largish terrain piece for the setting complete then. Following this up I suppose will have to the Hind, which I was finishing the building stage of last night. I’d rather work on the more useful stuff first, so the monuments and signs will have to wait for a bit yet (namely I can still use these outside of an urban setting, such as in a village instead, but well I need to actually have the village first). Anyway, ploughing ahead expect to see some more Stalkers following this, though I think I have a game planned next week so it’ll really be down to working out what I need for that (and if that thing is running it’ll be the first game of the setting I’ve run, so that’ll be interesting).
I guess the Ukrainian military didn't just lose a few of their fancy Stingrays flying over the Zone. =P
So the Hind's finally painted. I went for Ukrainian military colours on it, but obviously a rather dingy variant. The Hind itself is an older variant (note the missile pods) made by Revell and yes the Ukrainians are using more modern versions currently, however saying that I was surprised to see these flying about on the news still. The ones in the games are the older variant IIRC, so this'll do fine.
It may have crashed, but I didn't want to make it look like the crew died as to not limit its use a bit. See I had thought about adding graves about it or the odd bit of blood on the windscreen, but instead it looks like the crew just up and left. ...That or there was no sign of the crew (having vanished under mysterious circumstances) and someone just came by and looted it.
Anyway its a cool piece to have and I'm pretty happy about it. ...Ok the paintjob could be better, but I'm just chuffed that it'll be turning up on a table some time. Heh, I'm getting flashbacks to DayZ just looking at this thing.
So what else have I been up to? Hmn, stuff not quite as interesting as the Hind obviously. I'm finishing off more of those fences that I had shown, though I could always do with more (...I'd bore myself to death with them before that ever happened however). I set aside the Stalkers I was working for this, as did some Eureka ones turn up in the post yesterday. I'll prioritise them based on what I need for a game I'll be running, even if I still haven't decided what I'll be fielding in that. Scenario wise I'm thinking something like a Stalker heading home with an artefact only to be ambushed by some bandits. Meanwhile a Freedom Patrol happens by who the Stalker's friendly with, que skirmish (I spent all night planning that).
Ah, anyway there's your fill for the moment. Off with ye. Git!
Nice work on the Hind. Shame to see a crashed one, but good job.
I prefer the Hind-D (due to the 3-barrelled chin turret) over the Hind-C (with the side mounted gun, as on that UN one). Neither of which we can see on your crashed example, and so it could be either to me (I don't know if there are any other differences, I can't spot them on the one on the shelf behind me).
The one I have has the chin mounted turret. Its just that it crashed front first so its buried in the ground and probably torn off.
Tsk, its late so sorry I won't be taking any pictures right now. I'm just back from playing a game using these models however. Though I forgot my damn camera (facepalm) the guy I was playing did have his phone, so I'll see about putting up some dodgy pics later once he's sent them to me. I did learn some things however and I'll see about integrating them into later games. Ack maybe I should give a proper run down of events once I have images, but meh not much really went on.
The scenario for the game was as follows. A Loner returning from an artifact hunt was set up to be ambushed by some bandits. It was her objective to make it from one side of the board to the other. At the opposite side of the table from where she deployed a squad of Freedomers were set up, representing a group of guys who just happened to be in the area. They see a Stalker running at them with an artifact and some bandits eyeing her up and step in (a cut of the artifact's profits go a long way too). The bandits set up on one of the long table edges in the middle, and in the table's center I put down some blind dogs which were attracted to gunfire or someone moving loudly.
I, playing the Bandits, wound up prioritizing the Freedomers rather than the Loner dumbly as they had a much better firing position on me. The Loner ran up the middle of the board, ran into a cabin, and instead of doing an epic leap through a window spent too turns trying to bash it open with her rifle (I mentioned later that the Freedomer who was standing outside the cabin was shouting at her telling her to undo the damn latch). She made it to the Freedom guys vehicles and they made it off the table with minimal losses. The Bandits however... Three of them died when running across open ground to cover. One spent two turns being mauled by a pair of dogs. One ran full pelt at a SAW LMG with predictable results and the remaining survivor drove off in the Land Rover leaving his companion to bleed out. ...No honor among thieves obviously. Did I also mention that nearly every one of the bandit's guns jammed at one point or another?
The Freedom's Veteran did however manage to miss a Blind Dog their Ghillie sniper was fighting and riddle the poor guy with bullets. The Bandits thought he was a bush the whole game based on their inability to see the damn guy (he had a special rule which meant that unless you're close enough you have to make a test to actually see him).
Fun and it was good to see my terrain together, what little I have (heh, sorry then for not having any pictures at the moment, I'll try and remember next time). I mentioned wanting to drift away from straight military fire fights (if a guy wearing Nike jeans could be called military) and wanting to include the more supernatural elements and there was uptake on that, so I'll probably see about including more mutants in my next game. As I wasn't GMing this one I didn't have the focus to sit there and control mutants much (the Blind Dogs just ran at things), but I'll see about next time. =P
What else have I been up to? I started on a few swamp bits there. One of them is finished and I used it in my game tonight. I'll wait till the others are done though before posting them. I also started on a Deer Stand (taken from DayZ) and my first anomaly. The anomaly at the moment looks like a load of floor boards from a house which have been twisted up oddly, where in the middle will sit some sort of gravitational artifact (I don't know if I want to include the actual artifact or leave a space where I can put a round base with the artifact sat on top of it so it can be removed and carried about). The way the artifact tonight was handled was to have it as an item on the Stalker's profile. I like that (or having it as a card), particularly as if I were to run a campaign I'd have it so Stalkers could collect and trade numerous artifacts and have them as a sort of wargear (only ones with artifact containers could use them obviously, ie only characters). Meh, people seemed positive about the game, so I'll look into what rules I can come up with to differentiate it from Fallout (particularly, as I noted tonight when it was brought up, in Stalker you won't be scavenging gear. Your Stalkers are already kitted out. When the player attempted to scavenge the cabin he found a picture of Stalin and some Russian dolls.
How rare is the Russian Stalker boardgame? I'm super tempted to pick it up or maybe get a friend from Russia to grab a copy for me.
Have you read Roadside Picnic? It's what inspired the games and I think you would have some good ideas from it, small touches like the silver cob webs (they use them in CoP but differently) would cement the terrain as Stalker terrain and not just random society block looking.
Its still on sale in Russia (check out the thread I made asking if anyone had a copy for a link to a site selling it iIRC), or at least if it isn't being made any more there's still copies about. The only reason I don't have a copy is because the last order I made to Russia was stuck in customs for ages, and that was before the embargo. =/
This is my avatar over on another forum.
Yeah I have a copy of the book and need to pick up the sequel to it some time. Unfortunately my Cyrillic's horrible and I doubt an English copy would be easy to come by apart from in collected works of the authors.
As far as taking nods from the book and such, I prefer its setting over the game's, but well that would be an entirely different skirmish game. But yes, I'm starting off making terrain which I can use not just for the setting as I don't have all the time in the world, so what I do have needs to be versatile (I could have added silver webs to that cabin I posted, but then it'd only be usable for this one thing. Don't worry I'll make a screwed up one later. Even weirder to have just the one cabin which is all messed up to hell, but all the others are fine looking). Like I mentioned in my last post however I'm currently making my first anomaly (I'm trying to find an image of something similar, but its literally a load of floor boards which are twisting up into the air away from a central point) and I'll see about making more, though they're not strictly as easy to make as more grounded scenery (ie a gravi one is just a twisting in the air, difficult to reproduce on a model and have it usable). But yeah, whilst it couldn't be said that anomalies aren't common in the games, most of the scenery is stuff that you could see in the real world, so I'd rather have a load of that first whilst supplementing it with the stranger stuff.
And yeah, if I wanted to take more ques from the book then I'd have to move the setting over to Canada.
...Yes I will be painting up some of my Ecologists to match the book's description. However I'd also note that a company has recently (accidentally) bought rights to make a video game of the book. I doubt they'll use the licence, but it would be cool if they did.
Heh, and hey did you sign up here just for little old me? Damn I'm wondering how you found this thread now. ...Hmn, I knew the Kremlin was after me!
Still nae game pics (I wouldn't hold out on the quality anyway), but here's what's currently sitting on my table.
The deer stand's based off of the ones in DayZ (or rather ARMA II), though its a little larger just for ease of model placement. I'll add in a few crates before I paint it probably. The other thing's my first anomaly, which is meant to look like the artifact's twisted up the floor boards. Ah, the artifact's currently represented by a round base as it will be removable if the Stalker interacting with it has an artifact detector/container with slots, otherwise its just a hazard.
So that's what currently is being worked on as far as terrain goes. There's swamps too, but the one I have painted is sitting at the bottom of the box I was using yesterday, so I'll leave off posting those till they're all finished. Besides those I have something like thirty Stalkers to paint, though yeah obviously I won't be doing that all in one go. I'm interested in expanding what I have that would suit a village, so I may start work on another house. That or the general store from DayZ (though I'm not sure about the size, its a little large looking).
Thats a nice gravity! As a bit of a stalker fan (film, book, 3 games) I am very happy to see someone making stalker minis and especially terrain, the HinD is amazing.
Have you thought about representing a whirligig? a spread eagled corpse floating in the air.
Ooh, a Whirligig would be manageable. To the Wargames Factory pile!
I have this image in front of me right now...
So far I've made a Meat Chunk looking thing (it was meant to be a gravi, but I don't think the shape's right). I'll probably have a go at a handful of those. All I did was stick a lump of greenstuff on a bit of wire floating above a round base.
I иo sigи up for you. I иot KGB spy or aиything of sort komrade, you иo worry yes? Silly maи. иo spy here, only frieиds.
I saw your post and it looked cool, was near the top of the blogs section when I was taking a wander.
I didn't know Roadside picnic had a sequel, is it out in English? Might be able to find a digital copy of it at least, lots of books have fan translations these days. They also made some Stalker books but the writing style bothered me too much to read them.
Get some frosted/etched plastic like they put in windows for the anomalies. If you heat it up carefully you should be able to mold it into spheres and cut it into discs.
I read that they wrote a sequel which explored the concepts more, but it was vague on anything else. Search the writer's publication list and it'll turn up, but I suspect it would be part of a collected works (like A Roadside Picnic typically is, though my own copy's a book all on its own). Oh, and talking about that novel, there also happens to be a game based on it as well. Not the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series, rather the reason S.T.A.L.K.E.R. had to call itself that rather than just Stalker. ...Ok it doesn't have much to do with the book, but yeah, just something I'd note. I found a youtube video of it once, but I'm having trouble turning it up again. =/
Ah, and in regards to the books based on the game, yeah I can agree they're hit or miss. The Metro series is similar, shilling itself out to anyone who wants to use the setting. Its nice that the video game and main novels referenced the spin off books at least with Metro, and perhaps S.T.A.L.K.E.R. could have done that by asking people about rumors.
I'm just using bits of clay for my artifacts. I'd considered beads, but these are good enough. At the moment I've managed a Meat Chunk (I think, still deciding how to paint it), Compass and Mama's beads. I have a load more stands so I'll have a go at some more. ...Even if it is just sticking a ball of clay on the end of some wire and calling it a Flash.
As long as it's not the movie, that thing did my head in. 3 hours of nothing happening then they all just go home and in the "post credits" scene something interesting happens and then it's over.. Couldn't we have followed the interesting person and not 3 men walking through a field for hours with no editing?
I don't like the Metro games, I read the first book and then played the game, it felt like a Will Smith book to movie adaptation, it had none of the feel of the book. I didn't want GRAB THE SHOTGUN BLAST THE MUTANTS! I wanted a slow burn horror game, more Silent Hill than Call of Duty. I understand why people might like the Metro game, but it's not for me.
Aren't the most iconic anomalies all ethereal looking? You need something more than a blown out crater to represent them unless you're going CoP style in which case just build a massive diorama and ruin the entire anomaly concept
Tsk, its for the art! Damn that one scene in Solaris where the astronaut's talking about what he saw on the planet. Phew, no way in hell the remake captured how great that was.
Oh go on, what about the bit with the telephone?
As a side note I have a Land Rover coming in the post which I'm going to do up just like the one from that film.
Metro read like it was written. Well by that I mean the guy published it chapter by chapter then collected them. Its rather episodic and at times there's certain chapters which have absolutely no relation to the plot. OK interesting bits of world building, but yeah, that one bit where he meets the Christians after escaping the Communists is just filler. The first book was all right, the sequel felt rather rushed. Again good world building, but the writing was fairly amateurish in parts. At the time I was reading it alongside the latest Night Watch novel, and I felt that was similarly rushed writing (and sliding further towards the random extreme nationalism thing I've noticed in Russian books), so maybe I was just feeling a bit of a downer.
Though the game itself played all right. Yes its similar to S.T.A.L.K.E.R., the novel its based on doesn't have the main character blasting away half the population, he's just some guy. I mean he does some Mary Sue crap at times, but still. I would have like to have seen the worm cult and the Spartans doing their rescue with riot shields, but that whole section of the book was a bit strange (followed up by the Kremlin slime). I'd note that both series were made by the same developers, so I guess they had their style down.
That's no crater, its a regular flat set of floor boards which are all twisted up to hell from a gravity anomaly. Yeah it'll look better once its painted and I have a more artsy shot with an artifact in the middle. To date the artifacts that I've put together tonight are: Firefly, Battery, Meat Chunk, Mama's Beads, Eye, Compass and a Soul, which will turn up when that anomaly's painted. I'm trying to come up with workable ideas for anomalies. A heat haze is a common way of representing them in game, so is smoke, but ah you try and represent that on a model. Heh, I could go into photoshop and add that to my images for the full effect, but what are the anomalies without all the visual effects? Cracked soil, pools of liquid, twisted limbs of trees, and well other crap along those lines usually (bar the ones which are a bit more out there, ie floating pools of water). The one I have right now is actually based on something I saw in one of the games, or actually it might be the online version, where a set of train tracks have been burst up from an artifact. Ah, so I have a few ideas of things to make, its just working out how the hell I'll manage it (a tree that's been split halfway up its trunk around an artifact, but kept own ground at a ninety degree angle comes to mind. Milliput for that probably).
I think I posted a WIP of a Poltergeist a while back in this thread. Its still an early sculpt, but yeah I'll be having one. For the practical purposes it isn't invisible, though I'll represent that instead by using similar rules to the ghillie suited Freedomer, ie Stalkers need to be within a certain distance of it and roll an intelligence test. Its not an immediate priority for me to finish it as, much like in the games, I think I'll introduce mutants slowly into my games as an unknown element to players. Each game another new one will appear, rather than having them all turn up at once (which would be hellish for me as they'd all have their own special rules). So I've ran a game with the Blind Dogs, but I still have the Bloodsucker, Controller, Snork and Pseudo Dogs turn up before the Poltergeist and Tark do.
Time for more terrain. I finished up the balsa monstrosities in a lovingly grey fashion. Fallout was orange, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.'s grey evidently. =P
First then is the gravity anomaly, where the floor boards and piping of a built (the rest of which is absent) have been peeled back around a central point. I can just see the boards breaking off during a game...
I'm not sure if they're very obvious, but there's little bolts about the base.
Should a Stalker approaching this happen to have an artefact detector then they might find some treasure (it still won't help them with the anomaly's hazards however).
...Ok I kind of sort of plunked the wrong artefact in that anomaly. Meat Chunks come from chemical ones, whereas Souls suit gravity anomalies (specifically Whirligigs, which yes I'll have a go at making). Ack, till I have more of these things though they'll be spawning in the same place.
And yes speaking of artefacts I made a few. These aren't comprehensive obviously, but they represent a general spectrum of anomaly types. From front left to back right: Eye, COmpass, Firefly, Meat Chunk, Battery, Soul and Mama's Beads.
Those are just greenstuff stuck on some wire. Again more bolts dotting the odd base.
Besides the supernatural crap I also managed the deer stand. I must have used up most of my static grass on these two pieces, but hopefully they look like they suit the climate well enough. Yes I do have Mosin Nagants, but I also have plenty of K-98ks which I never use. =P
That'll be it for the day then. What comes to mind next for me to work on is a set of swamp tiles and more Stalkers (sitting on my table's two Monolithians, two Bandits and a Military type). Besides that I have more ideas for terrain, though I may have to put those aside till I've thrown together more generic looking stuff (I'm talking about a set of Soviet Monuments, which wouldn't really suit sitting alone on a table without a town to surround them. ...Though the decapitated bust of Lenin I'm considering could crop in the arse end of nowhere in a forest).
What's cropped up on my table this week? Ah, well I'm working through things...
I've managed some more Stalkers. Just a hit here and there. This first pair are based on more of those Cold War Soviets, just with head swaps and a bit of green stuff. I'm short on bandits, so following these I have some Empress Insurgents being painted to bulk out their numbers.
Two Monolithians. One's an Empress Seal with a Secrets of the Third Reich headswap, the other's another Copplestone SWAT (which I'm not entirely keen on, but I need to use these somewhere). Again I have Empress models sitting on the sidelines to add to this faction, though I doubt I'll be painting them soon.
And last is a Military Stalker. ...Or maybe just a guy with some of their gear. He's a bit sub par anyway, but put it down to taking what he was given from under funded supply depots. Another Cold War Soviet.
Lastly three Veteran Ecologists. These are Crooked Dice Astronauts with arm swap and a load of crap loaded up on them. Perhaps not the most practical outfits for combat, rather they'd suit for anomalous areas more I'd suppose. I'll paint them up in red and send them off to find some Empties.
And well there's that. Time to move the swamps off my table I suppose. Expect those and some bandits next time. I like the Ecologists and their faction isn't well represented at the moment (put that down to them using mercenaries mostly), so I'll probably wind up painting those too sooner rather than later.
Not too sure about the "hoses" on the last chaps, they look like they'll get in the way, especially on the middle one. Could you make them hang down more than stick out?
Yup, totally impractical, but more function over form in that they're made to suit anomalous areas over being combat suits I think. ...Ah, but yes they are a bit overdone, I've made them sag a bit more where I could (as I just found out they break in half really easily).
It's not a bad concept. It's just that the middle chap isn't going to be shooting anyone quickly with his hands inside the hoses. The one on the right with his hand resting on the hose is fine.
This BTR-80 began as a 1/50th scale toy. All I really did was add the grills (which admittedly look like shipping pallets) and some stowage. Something for the military to deploy from, or to tat up one of their locations I think. Its not in the best of nick, but put that down to budget cuts.
No the scheme's not directly based any particular real vehicle. I nabbed it from a few photos I've seen, but its hardly like the actual forces in Ukraine are using any sort of unified scheme any more (white/yellow is Ukrainian-yellow being the neo-nazis-, red for the Russians by my guess ...except when it isn't and then things are just a free for all. Throw on as many stripes as you like and don't care about what units they originally designated).
And the Veteran Ecologists, painted up in a colour scheme just as impractical for combat use as the rest of their outfits. I did my best with the hoses, but they're pernickity things. The guns originally had polymer parts, but having them all black wasn't very interesting looking so I changed them to be wooden instead (yup, rich scientists are using thirty year old guns... One of them even has a FN-FAL).
Hopefully they won't be mixed up with Duty with all that red... I don't know if I'll make many more armed Ecologists given they're usage of third parties for that kind of thing. However that said they don't have to be necessarily scientists, rather protective suits are all over the place in the Zone, ones which look like this just happen to be on the upper end of the anomaly protection scale.
As I'm being tardy paint up the rest of these, here's the first swamp tile. It got a little dinged up appeared in that game a few weeks ago on account of a toddle unfortunately, but meh nothing too major was broken that couldn't be fixed.
Yes I can't wait for the summer gaming shows to start as I've bankrupted myself on static grass. I may come back to this then and add more, but that's if I even remember.
That's where things are at then. What's on my table next? There's four bandits (which I started before the Ecologists, but they aren't as cool) that aught to be done to give that faction a bit more of a backbone (two have Aks, one's a leader with an SA80 and there's an AS VAL). Beyond that I haven't really decided, but its not as if I don't have a couple of dozen models that are set aside for this setting sitting waiting to be played with still. I've started on another Fallout terrain piece, so at least for the moment expect that to be being worked through as well. Ah well, toodles. =P
Fallout sort of took over there for a while, and as I didn't run any more games in the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. setting there wasn't much of an incentive to make much more things as what I already had wasn't shown off. For some reason though I felt like getting back into this again however (even if Fallout 4's due for its announcement soon. ...Please).
So what I have done with this crap since I posted last? Ah, not much. Those load of Empress Russians that I picked up are still unpainted. The mutants are still half built. However in the past few days I have bothered to make some new things.
First though, with something that's been sitting about for months, an incomplete decapitated bust.
That I made for reasons...
Remember that one scene in the James Bond movie GoldenEye where James encounters the rogue Sean Bean in that dumping ground for Soviet era relics? ...Oh come on, that wasn't that bad a movie! "James you can't go across the world screwing every woman you meet, the Cold War's over!". No? ...Ah, whatever. Having a fallen statue's head sitting on its side overgrown with moss and surrounded by hammers and picks is an emotive image for me, and seems like an interesting piece of terrain that'll tie into the region nicely.
What else? Well I started this a couple of days ago. Its another one of those cottages (again I'm not sure if I'm making these too large) that'll hopefully build into a small village. This one's based off something from ARMA II/DayZ that caught my eye.
Like with the last one though I quickly ran out of balsa wood to finish it however. So that's where it'll be until I can buy some more of that unfortunately. I'll be going for something similar to the above reference image, but the top floor won't be the same. Rather instead I'll have it mostly exposed, with the roofing having been blown away, similar to a lot of buildings in the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games (so that'll be two pieces, a floor bit, and a separate frame for the roof, in case anyone does happen to go up there players can actually access their models. ...May work or not, we'll see).
Lastly, and something that I hope to paint tonight, is another Stalker. She's based on the Wargames Factory Female Survivors set that I picked up recently and have been doing my best to churn out some models with (the legs are horrible though. Seriously 9/10 are man spreading).
Yes a Mac-10 is totally practical for the Zone. ...Oi she could be clearing rooms or down in the tunnels and basements of the labs and industrial complexes where a compact gun like that would be useful. Ah, in other words she originally was in a different pose and had a AKMS, but I thought the machine pistol would look cooler. She'll probably be painted with jeans and a red hoodie.
I'm running a game of this tomorrow, which means the priorities on finishing the above Stalker so I can use her for that. I still haven't used any of those swamps, the anomaly, deer stand, or hell most of the Stalkers, so there's not much pressure to finish off much else though. Ack, so back to the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. setting again, at least for the short term. This project originally came about to be a bit of a holiday from the Fallout stuff, so I guess that's what its going to stay as for now (having more Fallout stuff than Stalker's not that bad either anyway, as people seem to find the former a lot more recognisable anyway).
Two Stalkers, one that I posted as a WIP yesterday, the other's been sitting basecoated for months.
The first's based on a Wargames Factory Female Survivor that I hacked up (she uses the legs from one model and the torso off of another), the shoved a load of clay onto. Presumably she's a Bandit or a Loner given the lack of loads of black or green camouflage
. This is a Empress Modern Russian soldier with a Crooked Dice British gasm mask head. He's probably a loner too as I painted him wearing a Gorka (a waterproof suit worn by Easter European hillwalkers/hunters/etc ...that I'm kind of sort of considering buying myself) rather than a uniform. I have like twenty more of those guys though, so at least some of them will be painted up in more standard looking outfits.
There's a guy carrying a Contamination Meter as well (no clue how well it'd do given that its from the 70s IIRC). He;s a Eureka Cold War Soviet soldier in an NBC Suit, all I did was paint him up. I'm not sure if the colours are totally appropriate, but he looks good enough to my eye (and its not as if I'm posting this in an exact historical board).
I was up late last night writing up some rules for Artifacts in preparation for a game that I'm running. They a work in progress (the dice rolls needed to spawn them are a bit iffy), and don't cover Anomalies bar for effects like burning or electric shocks. I'll see how they work out in any case. What's covered right now are rules for Radiation, Artifact Containers, finding Artifacts, etc, plus twenty five Artifacts.
These are for the 7Tv Action Engine system right now. I'm actually looking for another system to use with the Stalker setting however, as I don't think it matches the FPS style enough, so I'll probably have to rewrite these rules later (beyond playtesting them).
Link to the file anyway just in case anyone might find them useful:
Now off I go to write up the rest of the rules for the game I'll be running tonight. In light of bothering to be inventive it'll involve two groups of Stalkers (with the exact same profiles and weapons as each other) going out to search for Artifacts. The group that comes away with the most at the end of the game wins.
Oh and the number of mutants on the table will increase every time an Artifact's picked up. I tried something like that in the last game of Fallout that I ran and it seemed like an interesting enough mechanic, especially given the players somehow killed the mutants quicker than the other wastelanders (a 3 Wound Wanamingo went down quick enough, but IIRC someone ran a truck into it...).
Humvees are something that I've gone about before in this thread. Actually I bought some to use for this setting, but never got around to it. Well I've made one for the Fallout setting and found that that wasn't too difficult. So to that end I thought I'd try my hand at a Ukrainian one for the Military faction in S.T.A.L.K.E.R.
Obviously I haven't spent much time on this thing so far, but the distinctive bodywork's been blocked out. I'll probably leave this fairly unmodified from the real world model, bar adding on some stowage. I would say that the armament will be different though as I couldn't get a hold of the particular gun those Humvees are armed with. Instead I'm going for a DShK instead, which I guess could be a logical mount given that those are used on other vehicles.
Anyhow, the stuff that comes up because I can't be arsed to finish painting other crap.
The book sets up the premise of the world, the artifacts, etc. From the film they took the atmosphere and setting (changed from Canada to Eastern Europe). However, they used both as a starting point, but took it their own way. See the plot of the book is that aliens have visited the Earth and left a load of artifacts behind. Scavengers (and latter scientists once everything's regulated) go in and pick up these artifacts to sell on the black market. There's no mutants (well there is, but not monstrous ones) or fighting. The film has it being a weird place too, cordoned off by the military. Two men seek to enter the heart of the Zone to meet the Wish Granter (which was also in the book) and are taken there by a Stalker. Again it only really focuses on those characters and by and large the Zone is an empty place.
The game was originally a generic sci-fi shooter. A couple of years on someone must have came along and slapped the Roadside Picnic setting on it and over time it developed into that. The game opens up the Zone, with more scavengers being there and as a result a lot more fighting happening. They change the Zones creation to having been because of scientists, rather than aliens, and makes the whole place seem rather malevolent (it is in the source material, but it comes across more that humans just don't know how to interact with it properly. When people die its because they acted wrong, not because the Zone actively wanted to kill them). Why was Chernobyl specifically chosen? Well bar it being a great setting and already being an odd place in people's minds, it has to do with the film. See the film was set in an unspecified place. It was however filmed in Chernobyl soon after the leak there (the original film was destroyed during filming resulting in a lot of scenes needing to be redone. As a result of this the crew were there a lot longer than they should have been, leading notably to the director's death years later). The devs being Ukrainian took that as an excuse to move the setting there, though it should be said that the games would later adopt the book's plot of there being more than one Zone (the Canadian one is just where the Wish Granter is), with the unofficial sequel taking place in Afghanistan.
It should also be pointed out that the title came about because there was another Stalker game too. It was released in the 90s and was a side scroller based on the book. Though "based" is in the vaguest of terms.
You can pick read the book online for free IIRC (there was a short story sequel too, but I've never seen it crop up and doubt its in English), you could probably find the film pretty easily too there. If you like the games then I'd say give the film a gander, as even though it is rather more about the atmosphere and so slower than the games, its still a great watch.
* context for that scene is that the three characters are argueing over who should go to the Wish Granter first (which means one must go through the Meat Mincer which kills them, but opens up the room). A phone rings, and one answers it normally. ...Its the Zone. The phones haven't been connected there for decades.
Ack, and as I'm making a sort of information dump here, there was a S.T.A.L.K.E.R. miniature's game too. However I'm using my own rules.
I posted this building a while back in a less complete state. This isn't a marked improvement on what I posted last time as I ran out of balsa unfortunately, but its coming along.
With that here's two military types too. They're from Empress' new modern Russian miniatures line.
The one on the left, who'll probably be part of the Mercenaries or Military faction, is based on the clothing of these Blackwater Mercenaries (or whatever they're calling themselves).
The guy on the right's based on a Russian uniform seen early on in the war over there. Its an odd looking one as the majority of Russian soldiers fighting there have the typical speckled green uniforms, so I guess these guys had been given that uniform for a reason (...possibly just because its what what available seeing as the Russians were calling up troops from all over, especially the crap hole bases out in the sticks).
The Humvee's not advanced much since I last posted it. Meh, I'm working on too much at once. I've started on a floating Stalker for an anomaly too, but well I've started on a lot of things so that isn't saying much.
The base building is pretty much complete at this point. Now I need to work on sorting out the furniture. I won't add too much for ease of placing models, though I do dislike how in video games you'll find so many buildings with empty rooms (apparently when the world went to gak people stole everything that wasn't nailed down).
Next on the list, because I just love having too many projects on the go, a set of lockups from DayZ.
They're being made out of foam. Currently the planned measurements (as I've only just started the things as I type this) are to have it 11 by 7 inches, with a height of 3 inches sloping down to 2 at the back. Each garage will be about 3 across. They should be a lot simpler to make than the house, but aye, don't expect them to turn up finished for years ...decades, whatever.
And yeah, as I think I've said before, I'm making this for the Stalker setting, but the terrain and models will probably wind up being used for others such as modern games and certain Eastern European zombie games.
I was up till like four this morning paint this crap as I couldn't sleep. 17 degrees man, I can't deal with that sort of heat. =P
Here's some Bandits made from Empress Miniature's Insurgents. How can you tell that they're bandits? Well the Nike jeans, mis-matched camo and head scarves of course. Seriously you can buy a Vintorez sniper rifle yet can't afford a damn gas mask and matching camo?
For a bit of variety here's a Clear Sky member and a Military Stalker too. These are both Empress modern Russian soldiers with head swaps and some added armour.
As I want to bore the hell out of you; the Clear Sky guy's wearing Uruguayan navy camo. The other one's kitted out to look like a Russian spetnaz soldier (I can't remember the name of the particular unit), with the characteristic ballistic mask. He aught to be armed with an AS Val (a scopeless Vintorez), but meh its the Zone. He's probably going to be either Military or Duty, though he's probably better off with Duty seeing as I don't think that the Ukrainians use those masks (though in the Stalker world I'd imagine that the Ukrainians had closer ties with Russia than the real world). The bandits are wearing Soviet and British camo as in the current war in Ukraine those are the most common styles worn by the non-government forces (its surprising how often you see British stuff being worn there actually, though there is tons of it floating about in shops here too I guess).
Aye and I painted the AKs to have wood furnishing and bakelite magazines as originally they were polymer, but there wasn't enough contrast. I guess these guys are carrying some old Soviet guns that have gone on the free market, as its not as if there isn't thousands of AKs just floating about the world right now. =P
In other news I'm now painting those garages. As they're half painted I'll wait to finish them to post anything, but that shouldn't take forever due to them mostly being the same colour of concrete. I'll find some graffiti or something to mix up the colour a bit I guess.
I'm not sure about the tower, but the raised section looks like an old station, further emphasized by what appears to be a rail-trail. along side. I'n which case it might be a signal tower or something?
To the right is the remains of the docks and industrial estates. To the left are rows of tenements which housed the dock workers. Aye that's what remains of the railway which supplied the docks, now tarmacked over and used as a cycle path. The whole length of that old railway track from one end of the city to the other (that shot's near the edge of the city, I live five minutes away btw) covered in those things.
See in the US people keep their pigeons on their roofs in cages. Can't really do that in Scotland. Well you can keep them inside the loft (thus the term Pigeon Loft), but unless you happen to be the type who has a baseball bat behind the door and a dog trained to bite at the sign of a stab proof vest, you'll be too wary of the local council finding out that you're misusing their property (being the pigeons are classed as vermin). So when the wife tells you to get those flying rats out of her house (I seriously know one guy who keeps them in a cupboard in his kitchen...) where else do you go? Why out of work at the docks and up the hill to the station.
Aye those are doocots (...I've only heard them pronounced dooket though). Specifically they're for if you want to let your pigeons (doo) out to lure in the guy down the cycle path's pigeons to your doocut and catch them. The inside's hollow with the two area filled with cages for the birds and a trapdoor to let them in and out (with a sort of airlock system made from mesh). Serious business, which is why I mention guys with baseball bats and attack dogs... One hen can go for £20+, so given that inside one of these you could have dozens of those alone, well...
Most of them are either being taken down by the local council or being burned down by idiot teenagers with nothing better to do however. ...Not that the guy down the track from you who you just caught their best bird is usually too happy with you either (some of these things are booby trapped to hell in case of breakins, which is why if people want to get at someone they just burn them down, birds and all...).
Heh, so do you feel informed now? Have I waffled on enough? ...My dad's been into the things all his life, so its fun nowadays when non-locals or kids don't know what they are. They're not exclusive to Glasgow though, so generally anywhere there's a working class you'll find someone flying birds, its just the manner in which they're kept is more of a European thing.
Some WIPs which turned up while waiting between rounds of an online game. ...I fething hate online games. ¬¬
The lady on the left'll probably be painted in Duty colours, whilst the other guy'll be in Monolith camo. She started as a Dominatrix (with a LMG), though a headswap and some more clothes fixed that. He's a cowboy model with an added gas mask and ballistic vest.
Somehow even whilst wearing a garish red camouflage jacket she's still more practical than the original model. The camo's based on a Russian military firefighter one with some white added to it for added contrast. She's a veteran of the faction so clearly's wearing what the hell she pleases. ...Because a suedo-fetish outfit and a LMG really match.
The Shotgunner's received some paint too.
Now he's a Monolith Stalker in a one piece jumpsuit with a cheap looking ballistics vest over it. The camo here's just white with random speckled colours over it as opposed to an attempt at a real one. As long as I'm using a load of different patterns in the same faction, but the over dominant colours are the same they'll still look unified I guess. ...The issue however is that I'm attempting to have Freedom wear European forest pattern greens, whilst the Military wear more plain colours and Eastern European digital sets with modern gear instead of surplus. ...Though with the military I'd rather go for something more like the actual current Ukrainian uniforms which can be truly Stalker looking in the more informal units. =P
Speaking of modern Ukrainians, here's a Russian soldier too.
What a terrible picture. Meh, I'll be paint more of these guys so another one or two will be along eventually. He's pretty much just your average Russian soldier. I swapped the Empress Miniature's head out for a Warlord Games beanie one and sculpted on a face mask and hood to the back, That's about it. I guess I could keep around enough normal looking Russians to use for modern games, then have the rest of the dozen Empress figures that I have done up a bit weirder looking (though at least some of the other ones that I've painted before are in Russian colours, just not that standard digital pattern seem most often, and I suppose actual units could have a few schemes in use based on supplies, personal taste and command's enforcement).
...Anyway I'm blabbing. There's some more crap shifted from my table. Now its either picking one of my unfinished projects up where I left off or starting something new. =P
Before I go out and buy some paint, here's a quick pair of zombies that I made this morning.
They're, you guessed it, Wargames Factory zombies with a bit of greenstuff on the top. Useful as random enemies, for the aftermath of Blowouts, or to stick in along with the Monolith faction. I'll probably make some more of these when I can find some more spare zombies about. Hmn, maybe an Izlom too if I feel like it.
...Though I truly hate the sounds those things make in the game. ¬¬
The cabin's being painted now too as I'd like to have it done for a game on Tuesday. I'm going for a blue and white paintjob with that, though quickly ran out of paint as that balsa just sucks that stuff up.
One of the models which I made this morning that I've managed to paint.
He started as an armed zombie, but I wound up plunking on some heavy armour and turning him into a bandit looking guy. The armour's based on some really impractical looking plate rig that I saw once, with a bit of Metro 2034 thrown in so it doesn't look quite so standardised.
Base model's a mix of Wargames Factory parts with a bit of greenstuff on top.
Powering through what I made yesterday, here's the last of that S.T.A.L.K.E.R. stuff.
Two zombified Stalkers, one a bandit in a trenchcoat, the other a Loner in the common Sunrise Suit (...which for some reason I haven't sculpted so far, despite it appearing so often in the games).
They'll appear as either random enemies, cannon fodder alongside the Monolith faction or in the event of a Blowout where anyone out in the open's brain's turned to mush. Which yes if you aren't aware of the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series these aren't your traditional zombies (though those appear too in the form of prisoners experimented upon by the scientists who created the Zone), rather they are created through the mentioned Blowouts, mutant Controllers taking over the Stalker or those Stalkers who attempted to reach the heart of the Zone through the direct route (i.e. a wall of energy known as the "Brain Scorcher / Meat Mincer").
...So the guys who were dumb enough to try and reach the heart of the Zone, but not good enough to draw the Wish Granter's attention. The Monolith faction are those veteran Stalkers who are the opposite, i.e. who didn't get turned into zombies, but were still brain washed to worship the Zone.
Anyway...
The Izlom which I mentioned too.
This is similar to the regular zombies in that it was obviously once a prisoner. Instead though it has long arms and legs ...because ...random. They don't appear in the games, rather they were cut, but do turn up in a few mods rarely. I'd have this as a generic mutant, though they could be seen in scenarios involving the testing laboratories.
All of those are Wargames Factory zombies with some greenstuff bunked on. =P
And another two Zombiefied Stalkers that I slapped together this morning.
I tried one with a gun, but it just looked weird. Guess I'll stick with the unarmed ones till I can work out how to have one looking right (dragging the gun behind itself rather than holding it in two hands may be the solution).
Oh right, its the 100 post extravaganza. Well in the theme of what I posted for the one year anniversary update for my Fallout thread, here, have ...nothing.
I was out in the countryside yesterday picking strawberries. Suffice to say though I oggled enough of the scenery for ideas.
Here's the second of my cottages now painted up.
Painted to a point. I need to fill it with furniture which I'll hopefully pick up at the end of a month at a gaming show.
Making this has taught me a bit about where to go forward when making more buildings. Particularly to add more doors and windows (which are a paint to add unfortunately). Meh, I'll cope.
Que two paragraph spiel about the complex process of making some scatter terrain...
I made those thinks in like an hour. I was rushing them so much that I was using a lamp to dry the paint. At one point I held the plastic to the light for so long that it started to warp pretty badly. I gazed at my open window and considered that yeah, that was probably enough ventilation and I wouldn't be dead soon...
On a side note though, I tried my hand at making some bushes. They're just cut up bits of paperclips twisted about a bit and glued together with clumps of that flocky stuff glued on the ends. They look decent enough, but will break easily if under pressure unfortunately. =/
As for the game... Hmn, will following suite from previous ones I spend so much time talking during them that I can't take pictures. However here's the pre-battle shots of the table at least.
We ran the scenario twice actually, with both players swapping sides. Both times the Duty squad won out over the Bandits and stole away the artifact, though the second time was much closer than the first. The main issue was the placement of the artifact however (...which I pointed out, but couldn't change it), so you could technically have ran up the board and off the table by turn three easily.
Somehow we made it to turn eight in the second game though. What did that mean? Well zombies appeared on the table on turn six and moved towards the Stalkers. By turn eight a blowout hit and killed the remaining Stalkers. By that point Duty were down to two guys and the remaining five Bandits were encroaching on the Duty escape vehicle. The Bandit leader made for the van and engaged in melee with the sniper standing beside it. Meanwhile the Duty leader, with the artifact, dived into the vehicle. As the zombies moved in on one side and the bandits on the other (with his comrade fighting just outside the door) he gunned the engine and made it away. Moments later all the other Stalkers were turned to paste by the Blowout.
...He could have slammed the door into the bandit boss and allowed his comrade to leap in. He didn't though.
Heh, and the game only lasted so long as the Duty player thought he just needed to make it off the board edge, not to the vehicle. My response when he tried that? "What, you going to just walk back home?"
So aye, points from that night's discussion? OK relevent points? Hmn, might have a go at a DayZ style general store (as posted earlier in this thread). I think one more cottage will be enough for a village table. Hell if you add another building into the current setup it'd be full. Having more than I'd need for one game allows for things to be mixed and matched however (I didn't use the Hind or swamps this week for instance and instead had something which resembled a village much more).
In S.T.A.L.K.E.R. no nukes went off. Instead some scientists messing about in laboratories secretly built in Chernobyl during the Soviet days conducted an experiment which went awry and created a place where the laws of science aren't always in agreement with each other. What spawned from this even leads to treasure hunters entering the area in search of objects they can sell to the highest bidder outside of the "Zone". As the rest of the world develops new medicines and technology, guys in Nike tracksuits and beat up Kalashnikovs risk their lives in that hazardous environment and kill each other.
But yes, what was that quote from Deus Ex? "Its not the end of the world, but you can see it from here". The world's adapted to the Zone, life carries on, albeit down a different route. Most just care about the money and advances that the Zone offers, and overlook its dangers. Blowouts occur now daily in the Zone, causing the birds to fall from the sky and anyone outside of cover to die. With every Blowout the Zone increases its size. Mutants have been ranging outside of the traditional cordon around the area, and the military, underfunded and stretched thin as it is, can't contain them all. The governments of the world are fine to let Ukraine become a back water as they fight proxy wars over the Zone (the two major factions, Duty and Freedom, are largely backed by the Russians and Nato conversely if you read between the lines). ...And that's not to mention the appearance of Russian spetnaz units, a large presence of American soldiers under the guise of "mercenaries" or most recently the Chinese.
Its an interesting setting if you're into the post-apocalyptic genre with a bit of a twist. The Zone looks post-apocalyptic, but the rest of the world carries on as usual. Men drive around in Mad Max style vehicles and fight mutants, as women in New York walk about in mink style coats made from the skins of the deadlier creatures. Sadly the developers went under, though they did resurface and make the Metro 2033 series (which has similar themes, but is straight post-apocalyptic). I think Bethesda bought the rights to the series however, whether or not they do anything with them is yet to be seen, though if they do then hopefully they'll maintain their feeling and gameplay style (this thread's titled "lost to the Zone" because they're about the most common words you'll read in that game ...being that they pop up every time you die).
Shall I waffle on some more? Heh, nah. I'm painting a Ukrainian military BTR-2 right now. Just deciding if I want it to look like one in service right now or from before the Russian invasion (the current ones have different identifiers and typically more graffiti given there's a lot of militia units fighting). I have a thing for adding non-standard markings so I'll probably add a few, but not go too overboard.
Because I chose the most opportune times to post crap here, here have some pictures at one o'clock in the morning.
Another piece of armour for the military patrolling the wilds of the Zone. A Ukrainian BMP-2.
This one's fairly out of the box.All I did to this was all the flag coming out of the back. Its a 1/56 (I think) resin kit from an unknown manufacturer. My friend picked it, a Warrior and like 40 troops up at a show for £30, and I nabbed the Russians off of him. I went for a fictional camo scheme with it and the odd ad-hoc piece of insignia to it.
Were I to find another of these then I'd cover it in stowage and bother with the little details like smoke launchers. With these I just wanted to paint the thing as I've had it for months now just sitting there. I guess this is something that's been pulled out the mothballs, given a new lick of paint by whatever mechanic was on hand and been sent out on patrol (the military certainly loses a lot of soldiers during the course of the game, and its not as if they were well funded to begin with anyhow).
Pictured with it is another of those Eureka Miniatures Soviet soldiers in an NBC suit.
He'll be with the Loners. I doubt that the military's that hard up that its still issuing thirty year old suits. Uh, though I could google if current Eastern European countries are in fact still using these somehow...
I was up to other crap today, but knocked this one out pretty quickly to keep up appearances.
Another of those Crooked Dice Daredevil miniatures (I used one to make a mercenary for Fallout). This one's a hunter, out in the Zone hunting some dangerous game. I can certainly imagine people going to the Zone to hunt its mutants. Hell people get off on having a deer mounted on the wall, try plugging a Chimera. ...Or a Snork, Burer or Zombie. Ah, if that's your thing. The guards at the Cordon allow a lot to be smuggled out, they may turn their noses up, but enough cash in their pockets and they'd look the other way at certain "trophies"...
She's probably good as is. I was going for your stereotypical British hunter type, but I'll paint her up to have a bit of camo on her to keep in with the modern setting.
Brown camo trousers with an outfit which is mostly brown besides those. Wee bits of green to keep it from being samey. =P
She has a gasmask now too. I'm painting two bandits in trenchcoats as well, but have had too much stuff to do these past few days to manage anything. The Humvee's about ready to be painted as well.
Today, at the behest of justifying buying a Russian Gaz Tigr jeep and realizing that I still had this thing to paint, I thought I'd have a go at finishing it.
So, for the Stalker setting, here's the Humvee variant currently in most common use by the Ukrainian military (they operate a few different types however. That is to say that they were using their own versions years before the Americans gave them a load for free, though the media seems to think otherwise...). Its painted up and using the decals in a manner seen early on in the war with Russia, but since then I think they've moved onto using a blank green colour scheme with the white stripes which denote loyalist vehicles (though its not as if the other side are using Humvees...).
I'll use this alongside the military faction as a patrol vehicle, as opposed to the APCs which I currently have. Its not really elaborated on in the games (though I can't speak for the semi-canon books as they aren't in English) whether Ukraine was aligned with NATO or Russia, or anywhere in between. I'd imagine still though that they would operate gear similar to how they do in the real world, with a mix of upgraded Cold War Soviet stuff alongside foreign kit (such as these modified Humvees). Though speaking of that I have a Russian Gaz Tigr jeep (their version of the Humvee) coming, so they just might be using these two vehicles together, a rather odd sight indeed considering the state of the real world right now...
The model's a 1/43rd scale Victoria diecast. I removed the cab and made a new one out of plasticard (as seen in the WIP which I posted ages ago). I added new bumpers along with a few other details that people familiar with the vehicles will probably notice. Notably however this is armed with a DShK machine gun (which is weird to see given these are usually armed with Western guns), which isn't what the real world ones are armed with, but you try and find a loose Russian LMG in 28mm (saying that I have seen one of these with a turret mounting twin DHsKs, so the Ukrainians at least have them in their armoury). 1/43rd isn't my preferred scale for 28mm, hell its about as large as you can get and still work with, but its about all I could find that isn't a big hunk of resin that I can't do anything with conversion wise (unless I want to spend all day chipping away at it).
There that is then. I'm happy to have it as its a rather unusual looking vehicle. Besides that it was fun to have a go at scratch building it, along with the other Humvee that I have destined to use with my Brotherhood of Steel. I have one more Humvee left over and I'm sort of pondering turning that into another Ukrainian one, though this time being another of their variants (particularly one of their more recent ones which looks like they originated as supply vehicles, but have been reworked a bit and pushed into front line service). We'll see. Till next time at least.
Two Ukrainian soldiers made from Wargames Factory WWII soldiers. The heads are by Crooked Dice.
I'm thinking that I use these for Ukrainians over the models that I currently have. I'll still use those, but these guys are more your professional soldiers than ones wearing obsolete or patch together gear (well in the context of the look I'm going for, in the games soldiers wear armour above and beyond these guys). As a bonus they'll do for modern games too (which I have plenty of militia units for, not so much full timers).
And a female Stalker of undetermined faction (probably Duty, red camo hoodie, black Nike jeans).
She's one of Wargames Factory's Female Survivors, in what best I could to fix their weird "man spreading" poses. She's has an AKSU hanging behind that RPG as well (for some reason people give their support troopers just the big gun, but ah, what're they supposed to do when not firing that...). The gas mask's unintentionally styled after one from the Borderlands games.
And now with some of the WIPs that I've posted here painted.
Two bandits in trench coats. These are similar to the other models in trench coats that I have, being made from some Soviets in summer dress with a bit of greenstuff on them.
The two soldiers are now painted too. I went for British DPM camo and desert vests. They're a bit more modern looking than the ones which appear in the games (well, the standard guys, not the Spetsnaz), though the cancelled sequel seemed to have less of a sci-fi look, as would I also like to be able to use these for modern games as well at some point possibly. Wargames Factory WWII soldiers with reposing and sculpted on armour as usual. =P
And as I had this handy I thought I'd paint up an Alsatian. IIRC its a North Star husky that I removed the harness from.
Yeah, but in 28mm the differences between the guns are hardly noticeable unless you look real close (the different muzzles and hand guards being the most noticeable). Not that at a glance you could probably tell which gun was which in real life either if they both were polymer and used the same magazines.
I do hate though how pop-culture calls every AK an AK-47, or even includes AK-47s (or rather AKMs) over the AK-74. Whilst the AK-47 was encountered in Asia in the 50s-60s, it was phased out for the AKM pretty quickly. The AKM's the gun that saw plenty of use by militias and the like, but then even those were supplanted by AK-74s. ...Its just a gripe of mine how the 47 appears so often. Hell the 74 was supposed to have been thrown to the third world rebels by the truck loads years ago, but the Russians were too cheap to replace the thing (instead they give what was supposed to be their service rifle to their special forces...). Though the same thing could be said of the US still using ARs, and well if you're giving a gun to some conscript from the sticks there's not much less complex than an AK. =P
*rant over.
I was looking for a T-72 tank there to give to my military to finish off their armoured element. After finding some initial kits (by Academy) it hit me that I may as well have just bought kid's toys because the detail was that lousy. The next ones up from those though were £28, and well, if I want to spend that much I may as well just buy resin casts. There's a show on the 1st of next month coming up, so I'll maybe have a look out there for one. Frankly any of the T series tanks would probably do if I bothered to modernise them (Ukraine, which before the current war had one of its major industries being recycling old Soviet tanks, uses a startling array of modernised Soviet gear. Que images of T-34 and IS tanks in service in 2015...). The issue is though that every time that I look at a T-55 I want to turn it into an Achzarit, and well that'd be a slippery slope into starting an IDF project (...there's so many 1/48th scale Merkava kits out there).
Well, 1/48 vehicles are a growing area of model kits, partly to save space, and they do fit closer to 28mm scale as opposed to the 1/35 scale modern tanks that are monsters in scale to the miniature scene
And yet if you want anything other than WWII German stuff, you're screwed in 1/48th scale. =P
Talking about 28mm though, I was surprised to see this turn up this morning ...without a gak ton of "searched by customs for bombs/drugs/illegal immigrants" stickers.
Aye that Gaz Tigr which I ordered has appeared. I think that I said I'd do a side by side shot of it with a Humvee, so there you go. Its a bit unfair to compare the two vehicles though as the Russian vehicle's current generation, whereas the Americans are replacing their Humvees (the Tigr dwarfs the Humvee a bit, but put it alongside a Cougar and its the other way around).
This'll probably be for my Empress Russians as opposed to being painted with Ukrainian markings as I already have a few vehicles for them. So I can still use it for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. (either used by the actual Russians, or supplied to one of the factions. God damn it. Now I have to buy another of these and paint it with Duty markings!), though it'll also do for modern games as well. To that end I'll still be looking for other Eastern European military vehicles as well in case I play a modern game and need something to oppose the Ukrainian armour which I currently have (which is easier said than done seeing as how difficult it is to find modern stuff in 28mm...).
Non update of sorts, Empress have come out with a post-apocalyptic range out of nowhere (well at least to me. ...Probably because I don't really keep on Empress news). Loving this line as they're modern / suedo sci-fi looking, fitting in with my existing Empress S.T.A.L.K.E.R. stuff. I can see myself picking up a few packs of these. ...That is if I really have the time to work on three different blogs at once, especially with Fallout coming out next month (may have just pre-ordered that...).
Anyway, thoughts? They're ticking the right boxes for me. Could do with some with AKs rather than American/ European weapons, but they're right up the street of Veteran Stalkers / foreign militaries / Monolith.
I *may* buy a set whenever I buy some more Empress stuff. However the quality is a step down from everything else they sell. The proportions and scale's all over the place. Not only that, but yes it may be relevant to the game system, but ah, I'm not sure how useful having a random Doom Soldier looking guy with a chainsaw would be.
Wait, there's always a use for a Doom Guy with a chainsaw.
This started out as me wanting to make the shell of a house, but wound up turning into a full cottage. I'll have some proper ruins built eventually I guess.
Those Eastern European corrugated roofs are hellish to make. ¬¬
I have a game on this Saturday coming, but luckily have Friday off, so hopefully I can have this painted by then.
Pics and shiz. I have a game tomorrow, so this is what I manged to rush out this week.
Realistically that ruin would have half its roof collapsed into it and a ton more loose logs. ...Try and position models on that mess though.
Yes this thing is a bit large for 28mm, but its like that because of people with hands like shovels. ...Or because I'm crap at measuring things.
Its missing its furniture because this turned up today and I needed it painted ASAP.
See the guy who I'm playing against tomorrow said he was bringing a tank when we spoke on Tuesday. ...I don't have any actual tanks for this setting, just APCs and jeeps. So onto Ebay I went and bought whatever Cold War era tank would ship before Saturday. Its a Academy T-72 with reactive armour made from balsa wood and bits of Tamiya stowage. Besides that its pretty much out of the box. I would have turned it into one of those modernized versions the Ukrainians came out with, but didn't have the time and the model itself has fairly shoddy details (which is why I covered it in armour and stowage).
Oh, and its a bit of a beast. I'd hate to see this in 1/32nd scale instead of 1/48. 0.0
Last up, this lot were found on Ebay on the cheap. They were advertised as being 1/48th scale, but only the middle engineering vehicle looks like it really is. The right one may be, but I don't know enough about Soviet vehicles to know.
The plan's to use the middle one along with the Military as terrain for their bases or in scenarios involving wrecked tanks or something. The other two would be wrecks ...though I may need to cover them up in vines or something so the scale doesn't look so off.
Anyhow, game tomorrow. Maybe I'll manage pictures, though those green boards are horrific for providing contrast. :(
And another WIP. ...Yeah I should probably paint these. This one's a veteran Stalker using an artifact. No idea which faction to chose with him, probably Lones.
Well, what I have for this setting in a postable state. Morrowind's been the thing for me lately, but I'll see what I can throw up.
A portacabin, one of four, as part of a construction site terrain set.
The interior's a bit bare, but I have existing office furniture somewhere to throw in.
A jeep acting as a barricade for a settlement. IIRC I posted this as a WIP a year ago. :(
And two Russian Spetsnaz. The guy on the right was the first one which I made. Unfortunately the one on the left looks a bit fat, so I'll have to take that into account with any more I make.
The plans for this setting's to have more construction site stuff finished. That's more portacabins, a tin shed, perhaps a water tower and random pipes. There's also the beached ship which is now being painted, though there's no ETA when I can bother my arse to finish that.
Stalker is my favourite computer game of all time, especially the "Misery" mod for Call of Pripyat. It's so atmospheric and awesome, I love it!
I am looking to put a Stalker kind of spin on my Ariadna forces for Infinity, and since they've changed the scale of their miniatures I've been looking elsewhere to find miniatures to fit. Thank you so much for bringing to light the fact that a STALKER miniatures game was made! I have contacted the manufacturer of the game to see if they sell overseas, and then will try ordering a set for myself. I'll let you know how I do. Otherwise I will try to order from Hobbygames.ru and see if I can get it from there. Hoping they are 28-32mm in scale, but what I have seen of their bases I think they are. We'll see I guess.
If you're looking for alternate suppliers for miniatures, I can recommend BlackBall Games' Weird WWII miniatures (the Soviet ones especially), Infinity for their Ariadna miniatures, and Statuesque Miniatures for their Resistance Fighters line of female miniatures, plus the guns they have there.
I am also going to take a look at Tamiya's 1/48 Panzer Grenadiers because I think the smocks/coats and pants worn by those guys would work easily as bandits from the game, you just have to paint them wearing jeans and with grey-ish hoodies/coats. For more modern troopers you could always go for Airfix's 1/48 modern British soldiers, and just do a weapon swap.
And then I don't reply because I barely check my active threads... Sorry mate.
Updates. Sorry, I've been sick lately, so've been real slow with painting. :/
Modern Russian Spetsnaz. Ukrainian ones in the Skat-9 Military Bodysuit from the games are planned (though generic modern models have more use for me right now).
FYI, the one on the left is bulkier than the other deliberately. Looking at it the more realistically proportioned one wins out, as I had expected.
A Loner in a SEVA suit (sans ridiculous tubes at the back as I couldn't find my bag of those). I was going to give her an M4, but the F2000 looking thing I think suits the SEVA better.
A replacement for the Academy T-72M which I have.
I bought the Academy tank as I was in a rush for whatever would ship in time for a game. That model's just rubbish. Its too long and tall to match the real tank and the detail's toss. The T-80U above's by Kitech, and whilst the details still aren't great, it doesn't look as much like a toy.
Its to do for modern games, so I left off any Zone specific elements like razor wire to stop mutants from climbing on, or massive searchlights. On that subject though, I'd note that oddly enough rarely are T-80Us seen with slat armour. However when I say that, that may have more to do with Ukraine having more of the older tanks than they do T-80Us.
The graffiti reads - "Kong" on the slats (with little Donkey Kong heads about the front mud guards) and "Happy Holidays" on the front armour slope, for the benefit of all the "tourists" that're in country right now (the same'd go for Stalkers in the Zone).
And a random shed.
The concern I have with this is the lack of windows or a second door. As it stands right now its more of a brick on the table. Though saying that people seem to rarely use buildings in my games as it is. Its not been finished as I need to make up some bits and bobs to fill it up with (which are easy enough to source, though as there's gaming shows coming up in a few months I'm putting off any major buys till then rather than going online).
Besides that there's the beached boat I mentioned months ago, though as it has a basecoat on it already I'd rather wait till its finished before posting it (i.e. in about five months...). There's a shop too, but haven't had traction on that as finding corrugated plasticard for the roof's been a bother. Till then as far as the setting goes the short term aim's either too finish one of those buildings, or to work on one of the other tanks I have (possibly making a wreck, as terrain's always more useful than actual vehicle seeing as I'm playing a Skirmish game).
It says 1/48th on the box, but as its a toy that may not be accurate. By the same token all of the tanks in the below image claim to be 1/48th. (T-55, James Bond T-55, Academy T-72).
Your best option for a 28mm T-series tank is to go to HLBS or Empress, but those are resin, and you can't beat the £3 I paid for that Kitech one.
I've no idea why that James Bond movie stuck ERA on a T-55 when T-64s are widely available. Unless some Chechen or Ukrainian militia unit happened to have an excess of ERA I've never seen a T-55 with that stuff on it (hell T-55s are rare in Europe as it is, even in the Middle East and Africa they've gone the way of the dodo)
Oh T-55s are updated with ERA in many nations, including East Urope, and even Russia sells the upgraded T-55s with ERA and 125mm guns replacing the old 100mmj cannons
I have a load of crap which is either too early to post, or too late on that I may as well finish it before I post it. In other words nothing to show, and seeing as I haven't played a game in ages (been playing zombie games a lot), no push to finish any of it.
Here's some WIP barricades I thread together in an afternoon though.
Hmn, I'm not sure I should start posting the modern Israeli stuff here as well, leave that to another thread, or just save it from this forum as it may not fit people's tastes. This thread's more of a modern/ Stalker thread, but that goes for Eastern European stuff. Hmn, I'll see what happens, but I'm erring towards just posting it on the dedicated modern board I visit just to save having to update so many places. Meh, we'll see.
There are many kinds of "Upgraded" T-55 models out there, they even added a 6th roadwheel on a stretched one gave it the modernization that they could, including a 125mm cannon
Automatically Appended Next Post: And it was Ukraine's Kharkiv Machine Design Bureau that made this upgrade, so there would be likely some to have
Automatically Appended Next Post: Yes, that is actually a very modernized T-55
A "stretch" T-55 seems a bit ...weird. After the T-64 they increased the tank's size due to the larger turret ring required for the bigger gun. If you're stuck with a load of T-55s then sure, do what you can, but the thing's obsolete as a MBT compared to what modern armies are using.
...Luckily the conflicts involving T-55s don't really include modern tanks.
The Israelis still have some Tirans chucking about which they didn't convert into Achzarit (I guess because they eventually had a surplus of Merkava chassis, so went back to their original plan to just use the Namer for their APC). It looks like a couple of countries which have the funds for modern tanks are going the same route as using them as APCs. Though practically, countries using T-55s are only doing so because they're too strapped for cash to do any better (queue the Israelis throwing their export only modernization kits at them).
I was going to buy a T-55 or two there, but typically they've dried up on Ebay (a month ago there was hundreds of the same kit). Now its just the ERA covered James Bond one, which has doubled in price. Hmn, I guess I already have an excess of tanks, but a T-55'd always be nice.
In other news the Achzarit's about to be painted, and I've started on a Merkava III. Hmn, but I'm not sure how relevant those are to this thread as this is about Ukraine. (And in the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. verse, with Afghanistan being nuked, they've got enough of a mess to deal with locally)
Yeah though still in use by many nations to day, and due to costs and other concerns, that is why the "modernization" and "upgrade" projects. Newer engines and transmissions, the armor plate add ons, the ERA packages, anti-missile systems, the stretched T-55AMV6 has the 125mm gun package and the extra space may be for the use of missiles, or the controls of the APS,
Mostly these things are done for nations which are poor in Europe like the T-85 in Romania, but more for sale to the African and South American nations
The T-55AMV6 I think is for sale to Ecuador or other nations. Low intensity, lower tech war fare for defense just in case.
The selling point for these older, and sometimes up-gunned tanks is their ease of maintenance and simple learning curve.
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