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EDIT: Greetings from the end of the blog! I did it! It took me six months of painfully slow painting, but I finally polished off this fun little warband.

For those who just want to jump straight to the colourful pictures of the end product, scroll to the bottom - it's near the bottom of the first page. However, here's a preview of how it all worked out - enjoy! (Also note that for some reason Dakka makes all my imported pictures really blurry. You can get a clearer picture by clicking on it to view it in the gallery)




Hey there!

First of all, all the cards on the table - a lot of my posts here are gonna be pulled straight from my posts on the Star Breach painting and modelling forum. But, fear not, I'll be pasting it all here. I'm not gonna be the guy who just posts a link and leaves. Nobody likes that guy (and I'm sure I'd be crushed if I found out someone on the internet didn't like me!)

My goal here is to create an Intergalactic Marshals warband using the C3 sprue from Warlord Games, and whatever little bits and pieces I have lying around ( https://us-store.warlordgames.com/products/concord-strike-squad-plastic-box ). As a side-note, I highly recommend subscribing to the Warlord Games newsletter - the sprue sales that they run every now and then are a gold mine for cheap minis to use in this game!

For (the vast majority of you, I suspect) who don't know, Star Breach is a skirmish-level wargame set..... wherever you want! The rules are free, fun, and most importantly, allow you to use any miniatures you want! There are 20 different factions to choose from, so chances are your miniature will fit with one of them. Prior to this point I've been playing as the Galactic Empire against my brother's Tau. Ever wondered whether a Crisis Suit can beat Darth Vader in a duel? Well it can't (but give it some fire support from friendly Tau drones and poor Vader is vaporised!)

Anyway, plug over! If you want to check out the game, it has a website (https://www.starbreach.com) and a fairly active Facebook community.

On to the blog!



My first step was to run names through the galactic police database. I spent long hours browsing endless personnel files, but finally, I have my team. This police strike force will consist of:
- An inspiring leader
- Officers
- Senior Officers (think, SWAT troops)
- Cyborg Specialists (**insert dated robocop reference here**)
- And a Breaching Mech

Lacking the confidence to believe my first mini won't end up as a sacrifice to some twisted god of miniature-disasters, I started from the ground up. Because, it is all about the base, right?



As these guys are policemen (super-special-task-force-strike-team policemen, but policemen all the same), I figured they'd be most at home on the streets.

This base is actually REALLY simple to make. It's just cork on a base. The sidewalk is just another layer of cork. The grate is just a piece of cardboard. The whole thing is painted with drybrushes and washes.

Looking at just the base itself, I like the weathered, cracked street more than the clean one. It's far more visually interesting. But I held off on that decision...... let's paint up an officer and see how they look together.


And so I started at the bottom of the food chain. As the first mini of the warband, he obviously needs a name....... let me introduce you to officer Greg.




I want to go with a shiny, clean look to this warband. These guys are professionals, they're not gonna be caught with scuffed, dirtied armour, no sir! Eliminating the scum of the universe starts with your boots.

I'm fairly happy with the paintjob. I think in future I'll make the visor a little more purple, but otherwise, I think the high-contrast of the armour is sort of cool.

As for the base, I found that such a clean, shiny look really doesn't feel at home on a cracked and weathered base. It just didn't feel right - so a clean base it is! (Having said that, I won't be gluing anyone done yet!)



And so it is, Officer Greg marks the formation of this special taskforce (whose name is yet to be formulated. Any suggestions?).

Next up, I'll be working on some senior officers - gotta find me some SWAT shields..........

Nice vibrant blue on that guy.

Thanks, I hope I'll be able to duplicate it consistently across the unit - it involved a lot of mixing paint and 'gut feeling'. (Not a good approach to batch painting, I know....)

First update - I found some shields, woohoo!


I politely requisitioned some large shields from my brother - they come from the Praetorian Guard command sprue (also from Warlord games - not a sponsored blog, honest!). As you can see, it's not a perfect fit, but pretty good.

I'm starting to get a little worried that my force is going to look a little 'rag-tag', given that I'm assembling it out of whatever bits and pieces I find lying around. Any advice on how I can use paint to bring it all together?




I really want to try these guys out using the plasma shotguns - so I took a stanley knife to my storage boxes and came back with this.

The shotguns are modified imperial rifles taken from Mutant Chronicles. I never played the game, but I grabbed the 'bag of 80 soldiers' deal back when it was available. I only really had to cut back the bayonet and the barrel, and viola! Shotgun!




I do love how Star Breach gives you the freedom to experiment with pretty much anything. Looking at my bits box, there are so many ways I could have built these guys! The problem now is going to be staying on task, and not getting side-tracked by these new, shiny possibilities.........

**insert punchy, relevant, and witty Robocop quote to kick off the post**

Ok, I've never actually seen Robocop (except for the reboot that I fell asleep in), but I've been stalking the conversations of you older geeks to have the general idea.

At first, I was contemplating going the Robocop route for my cyborg specialists - sleek and shiny armour with minimal robotic 'bits'. However, on second-thought, I realised that already describes most of this police force! And furthermore, just look at the stats for the cyborg specialist - this guy is faster, stronger, more armoured, and way more heavily armed! This isn't Robocop, this is a 40k terminator!

My first step was to loot the C3 sprue for anything 'robotic'.
Conveniently, those mini-drones make great robotic arms with zero modification. Bionic arm, check!
The weapon on the right looks like it'll make an awesome flamethrower.
The weapon on the left could be a good rocket launcher - but I'm definitely using those 'prongs' as shoulder straps.




All this gear makes him look a little top-heavy though - no one skips leg day in this force! So I stole the legs from a Heroclix Drax the Destroyer figure I had lying around.

As you can see, I needed to construct a thicker waist to accommodate the new legs, but otherwise, it all lines up pretty well.

The difficult part was fitting the 'prongs' from the drone weapon onto his shoulders. They needed to be bent into shape, which required a lot of repeated bending and soaking in hot water. (This really was a pain - I had to bend the pieces to breaking point over and over again just to get them to the right shape. This is NOT bendy plastic!)




And there we have it, one cyborg down, one to go. For my next cyborg, I think I'll try and convert the other weapon into a rocket launcher.

The question ticking along in the back of my mind though, is should I paint those little 'bulbs' on his shoulders metallic, blue, white, or as flashing red and blue police lights?

I'm back!

And as much as I'd like to say I have a huge amount of hobby progress to post....... I don't. It's been a particularly disruptive month.

However, that hasn't stopped me from finally nailing down my second cyborg model. And this guy has a rocket launcher - criminals beware!

Here are the components that I'm using for this guy. (Luckily, I had one more 'Drax the Destroyer' laying around, waiting to be sliced Phantom-Menace-style!)



I like how the drone looks as a robotic arm, so I'm definitely keeping that.

You'll see that I needed to cut out the hand from one of the guns so that I could complete the shield arm. I did this for all of my SWAT troops too, but forgot to show it.

I also built up the centre of the shield a little to give the glue a little more to stick to.

It went together easily enough now that I know what I'm doing. I'm not super happy with how the rocket launcher turned out - it looks like it's on a bit of a weird angle, but I think it works well enough. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves:










And so the warband starts to come together...... all that's left to assemble is a leader, and an appropriately intimidating war machine....

Slow progress continues slowly.... however, with the exciting launch of Star Breach 2.2, I thought it about time to add a leader to my force.

I used the open-visor head because, of course, the 1st rule of leadership is 'never conceal your entire face'.

I grabbed a shield-with-spear combo from a warlord games roman kit to represent his riot shield and close combat weapon. I had a small gizmo from an old GW kit that I stuck on his belt to represent any miscellaneous items I may decide to give him - or grenades, it could be a grenade too!

I also took a cape from my Victrix greek hoplite sprue and with waaaaay too much effort, hot water, and scolded fingers, managed to bend that thing into a roughly appropriate shape to drape over his shoulder. I'm not 100% pleased with how it sits, but it's the best I could do.

Now, I just need to think of a name for this guy.










Automatically Appended Next Post:
Woohoo - post #2! I must say, this new updated version of Star Breach has me pumped!

With the tweaks to psychic powers, and the new 'psychic block' ability, I feel it's time to get in on this psychic hype-train.

Looking through the list, it looks like the 'Precog' would be a great backfield psychic support unit. I mostly intend to use her to try and block whatever psychic powers the enemy throws at me. However, she could also be useful at pushing other units into position (especially if paired with an officer geared up for assault!)

Plus, if the dice fall in my favour, maybe we could pull off some swap/teleport shenanigans! Fun times ahead!



I just went for a really simple conversion, because I quite like how she looks already (looking forward to painting her up in police-blue!).

Maybe I'll convert a C3 trooper into a 'Psychic Deputy' later on... but I'm quite happy with my little precog for now.

Well, it seems this blog has become more of a testament to how much 'life' gets in the way of my hobby time!

On the upside, I've finally finished assembling the last two models of this warband - the psychic deputy and breaching mech.

For my psychic deputy, I wanted to go for more of a tech-based approach, especially given as the psychic powers he has available are mostly hacking or healing buffs.

So, I stole a suitably-goggled head from a Catwoman heroclix model (now I need to find a use for her beheaded body somewhere...), and used an extra bit I had lying around which looks vaguely like a control panel.



I also stuck together a bag, canteen, and random sci-fi doodad as a sort of medical-suppplies pouch to help explain the healing buff powers.



For my breaching mech, I've just assembled a Ghar Bomber that I got on sale a while back. Style-wise.... it doesn't quite seem to fit with the rest of my force. However, I'm hoping a unifying paint-job of blue and white will bring it all together nicely.

I think I'll try painting up all those tiny orbs as police lights.

Looking good, mind if I share on the Adeptus Arbites group?

Also can you give any insights into painting and modelling in Vietnam? For me when I'm in the 'rest of the world' the biggest challenge is always finding primer and paints.

Hey - totally! Share away!

As for hobbying over here in SE Asia, you're right, the biggest issue is finding supplies.

What I do is order models and specialist supplies (e.g- cork, hobby knives, etc) online. You just have to suck up the postage cost, or wait for a deal somewhere - no way around it. (Staying subscribed to various groups and store mailing lists helps stay on top of who's having a sale)

You'd be surprised what you can improvise though.
Paper towel, sprue-shavings, and super glue is a surprisingly effective gap-filler (I've never bought greenstuff).
Cardboard makes easy straps and armour plates.
Keep sprue! You never know when a plastic bit will come in handy!
Paint brush bristles are perfect shrubs/weeds.
Herbs and spices make pretty cool-looking leaf-cover.
You can do fun stuff with paper mache.
And of course, sand covertly stolen from a nearby building site is universally awesome for basing!

I just use standard matte-black spray paint as my primer which I can buy from pretty much any small hardware store.

I use cheap craft-store acrylic paint sets and brushes for my painting. It's not 'perfect', but my painting skill is not high enough to really be held back by the type of paint I'm using!

But yes, local availability of stuff is an issue. For some reason no one seems to have any white acrylic paint here! I'm gonna have to get it shipped..... **sigh**

Also - I'm not actually in Vietnam. I'm in Cambodia, but for some reason it's decided that Vietnam is better!




As for progress on the models - bases are done. I'm on the road to a painted warband!

**Reporting for duty!**

A solid week of painting, and I've finished the bulk of my force in one swoop.

First, the rank-and-file officers hit the streets. Better behave yourself!






But when the long hand of the law calls for a firmer touch, Intergalactic SWAT is only moments away!






I think this may have been the single most productive week of painting I've had in my life!


(Single shots of the SWAT team for a closer look)

You know, I don't actually know any Robocop lines I can use to introduce this post...... that's a shame.

Here are my two finished Cyborg Specialists. I really like the more heroic pose of my flamethrower specialist - this is a guy who's taking point and kicking butt!



(More angles)



On the other hand.... the missile launcher specialist looks a little off-balance... let's just hope he doesn't knock himself over when he fires!



(More angles)

Introducing the youngest member of the Intergalactic Marshals Taskforce - she's not as big and tough as her fellow officers, but her psychic mastery of time makes her mighty handy to have around!



(More angles)

Not long to go now until the warband is complete, I just need to flesh out the leadership and finish off their heavy support.

So keeping to the 'psy' theme, I've painted up the psychic deputy. I wanted this one to feel more like an engineer/hacker/medic, rather than a mind-bending psychic, and I think I did an alright job pulling it off. (The red glow didn't quite work out how I'd hoped, but the rest seems to have worked fairly well)






And finally, their heroic leader, the Intergalactic Marshall himself! (After painting the inside of this cape, I now understand why so many people hate painting yellow!)

My warband's breaching mech is a Ghar bomber from Warlord games. I've been brainstorming how to paint this one for aaaages, but recently had a flash of inspiration after seeing a picture of a police car..... so that makes this my police ghar!



I'm not so great at glow effects, so I'm content with how the red lights turned out. However, I'm not so happy with the glowing blue - turns out it's quite hard to paint a blue glue against a blue base coat!




With their police ghar ready to ride, the warband is done! It took me six months, but finally, the Intergalactic Marshals Task Force is assembled and ready to distribute justice!