ANZACS and the return of ‘Them’, ( & Cthulu Kong, Goldylocks etc!))

Having done the 1st Milestone of this extended project, in finishing my Moderns, as I said in previous update I knuckled down this week and Finished all the Armour I had for Black Suns.

Way more than I really need  but this project started off as an homage to my long gone 20mm Vietnam project back in the 1980’s.

Now the push to completion was promoted by me watching a review of the Cavalier show in Feb on YouTube. The blogger did a video view of the traders and one ‘Full Metal Minatures’ caught my eye ( found on https://www.fullmetalminiatures.com/) , particularly the model of an Australian Fire Support M113 with the Saladin Turret, so one order later with an additional Sheridan Tank.

Now I had a slight bit of trepidation in how big it would be when compared to my Rubicon M113’S, but can happily confirm it is a perfect match.

So This week was let’s finish all the vehicles that were sitting in various stages of completion.

I have previously shown that I finally completed my NVA armour, So now I quickly built the FSV and the Sheridan, plus I finally got round to building my final  Rubicon M113 ( back in stock) which I did as the ACAV variant.

Initially I concentrated on completing the Australian’s armour, which consisted of the M113 FSV, an M106 Mortar Carrier and an M577 command variant M113.

This was mainly as it would involve less crew figur painting than would later American armour.

Now an a side on the M106, this is a well supplied kit in that you get enough bits and crew to have a vehicle mounted Motar and one dismounted. In theory there is only enough crew for one, but unless you intend to show the Interior  there is only enough room to show one in vehicle,  so the other 2 got based for the deployed Mortar( to be painted later).

All the decals mainly come from the Rubicon M133 sheets which do have Australian sets amongst them, vehicle names are from the Rubicon Centurions which contains a nice selection of names in different styles.

Finally we have for this update the M113 FSV , I have added a ‘borrowed ‘, ACAV M60 with Sheild , photos show a hatch mounted .30 cal, but as with my Centurions,  decided , in Ltd supply in Black Suns they would want to keep the.30 ammo for the co.ax, and use the more numerous M60 ammo for the hatch gun.

Whilst going moderns and the opponent Fantasy Orc Army, my Vietnam vehicle collection was sitting in various stages of completion.  Particularly my little collection of NVA armour, which had two completed, but needed crew figures and one sitting with just a case colour.

So this week I thought lets buckle down and complete all my Vietnam armour, starting with the NVA, who had really been pushed to side recently.

So firstly we have an old T34, a model originally brought for a never started 1946 ww2 project.

Next is a PT76, now for those interested the base colour spray was  Army Paimter Goblin Green, with a Nuln Oil diluted wash.

And finally a T54, both the two latter kis were nice kits to build providing few problems.

I have finally finished the rabbit hole on moderns  and Forgotten ruins that tangented off Black Suns.

I had painted up Spec Minatures Task Force figures, and was going to use them for SAS, then Ben in one of his reviews of their latest releases .mentioned dedicated SAS, so one order later!

Now I was initially undecided whether to paint them for night Ops and all in Black, to avoid doing multi cammo… but wanted a more generic scheme so back to Multi Cammo.

I had done both the British Squaddies and Task Force this way, but felt the base colour was a bit to green, when looking at the cammo on line photos.

Therefore this time my base colour was GW Apothecary Grey  with a dab of Green to give a pale green  base.

I also brought the SAS in mufti Civilian kit, to add one more team to the Empress miniatures team I had. All a relaxing set of base Speedpaints and Contrast  Colours, particularly as I opted for using Speed Paints Grim Black for Tactical vests and kit.

I had decided I needed another vehicle for my Modern British,  and looked around, as didn’t fancy another Warrior. I was considering a FV432, but whilst looking at options on ebay found someone doing a Boxer  and went for that   even though the British Army hasn’t got any yet!

Now I know this gives me a spread of vehicles that in theory shouldn’t be serving together, but I work on theory the British Army has a habit of digging old bits of kit if needed from armouries in times of dire need.

So anyway that is the Moderns Interlude, done so back to the main menu.

A couple of weeks ago On a hunch I managed to find my copy of the original Pulp game rules I wrote for playing the Movie ‘Them’. They were on an old computer so have had to retype them . The Original Ants based game was tried and tested and as I said originally published in Minature Wargames Sci -Fi  special. Strangely enough when reading the article at the time  thought bits didnt make sense so I did a rewrite which only got a couple of tests before lockdown pretty much closed down the regular group.

So here they are very raw at moment, I’ve moved bits around to make more sense and have started to add new beasties etc

I will update it , if anyone wishing to try them out will give me feedback,Suggestions etc so that can be considered for editing .

Now they do run on D6, but it based on multi dice and success on a 6 with move dice being added  or removed for tactical advantages/disadvantges,

Should not be taken serioulsy and are fun ,not to much thought filler game .

Update 16/4/26 file tidied up, and spell checked, new beasts added and an amendment to no of actions a figure can make per turn, Now its is dpendant of igure type and class.

With the Rednecks done, now for something completely different,  in the Form of some Old Bill, some armed police, with a definite British slant ( currently looking for in scale British Police Car).

I used the range of ballistic vest figures both male and female from Wargames Atlantic Agents  with heads from Civilians either baseball capped or hatless. The set gives a nice selection of HK SMG’s and pistols.

I had planned to use Levidian Blue from GW’s Contrast range , but all my tuns seem to have mysteriously disappeared. So I added a bit of Speedpaint Tallasar Blue  to Grim Black for the correct dark shade, and glad I did as it gave a nicer set of shading. Now I may have made a mistake with shirts as I went for thinned out Speedpaints Azure Blue, as I got my Fuzz mixed up, and that would have been more a U.S forces colour, rather than British White, though I have fou d of them wearing Blue so hey hum!

Dirty Larry

Whilst scouring various boxes I already mentioned Ifound long forgotten figures, still.in original bags. One of these was a  certain San Francisco Detective so he had to be added to Pulp collection. Here he is with an able partner from one of WA’s suited Angents, though perhaps he should be wearing a redshirt!

Larry’s jacket was done using two coats of GW’s Apothocary White contrast paint, with his trousers being Grey Seer, I,d like to Claim I had done shade on creases on trousers but it just dried like that.

His Partner was just done in Gunner Caamo Speedpaint which is one of my go to it does it all paints.

And now for an Anti Hero, and it’s Gerrys fault if he hadn’t pointed it out I wouldn’t have noticed. John Wick.

Perhaps the easiest painting exercise of all, His shirt what you can see of it is Basilicum Grey Contrast, with all the rest done in Grim Black. Likewise his plastic Head was so nicely moulded that doing his facial details was a breeze.

Rather than the M4 that Gerry armed his depiction I went for a Star gate P90. As I think it looks cool and have actually fired one.( the optical sight on a range was a pain, can see why they use laser sighting in series)

The release of the various Pulp boxes by Wargames Atlantic  finally allowed me to fill in a much neglected gap in my sets of Pulp movie stalwarts.

Those Good ( depending on your veiws) Good old boys who appear either Spontaneously or at behest of the Local Sheriff  in assorted pickups , usually hanging over the cab, named Jim Bob, Buba, Bo and John Boy, armed with an assortment of Sporting Rifles Shotguns and the odd military Firearm, in order to deal with the monstrous Critters, with varying levels of success. You’ve got it Rednecks.

Although he was the last to be painted we will start with my rendition of the local Sheriff Buford R.E.L Coleraine. The figure is one of tactical vest figures with a tie from the Agents box. Holstered pistol was a spare from my Rubicon Vietnam Anzacs, and a suitable stetson head.

Then it was just a series of builds from the Civilians box with the wons supplied to make up rest of Posse, or lynch mob .

So now I can finally recreate a movie scene( though not from ‘Them’)

The large Ants Models were a buy from a pound Shop in Bilston back in the early 2000’s.

They were part of a set of plastic insects, each set had about 6 of this size ant, one of a bigger ant ( soldiers) and various other insects. The later disappeared,  but these Brave lad are probably my most used figures also cheapest, I brought the whole shops stock for less than tenner.

They are also famous as they previously starred in an article I  the one off sci-fi special of Minature Wargames , when my ‘Them rules were printed.’

The release of Wargames Atlantics Pulp Figures ranges has already allowed me to expand my Insurgents forces, but the Agents and Civilians boxes have allowed me to finally fill in some gaps in my Pulp collection of figures without breaking the Bank.

Firstly in the Form of some usefull scenario additional  objectives in the form of screaming and running Civilians.

They are led by 3 OTT live volunteers ( nobody in particular as I had built the figures with random heads before I thought of idea… and of course the regular staffers would bravely stay and face the threat or, they couldn’t run fast enough !!!)

Nice thing about these figures is they were on the whole very easy to paint with either GW contrast or Army Painter Speedpai td oing all the shading donkey work. Likewise they had really nice expressive heads which made face painting much easier.

Next was the angry mob   ok a little mob, I need another box as I wanted what was left for the next part of project.

The ‘Heroes’s of the various bits of this project , are reasonably catered for  and apart from 15 Orks and a couple of big monsters the bad guys were looking a bit thin on the ground.

So I spent 2 weeks hobby rectifying the situation, painting up various Goblins and Orks, mainly from Oathmark range, but also some more feral Wargames Atlantic.

All were painted with a mixture of Contrast and Spoed paints.

Skin was done as before with Speedpaints Forest Sprite ( I’ve emptied 3 bottles so far) . I varied their clothing shades , as I did them in batchs of 5 figures varying the palette of paints slightly each time to vary a bit what I thought would be dull dyes used on clothing.

Those who have been following this project may have noticed that I have added to the large Monsters to the army, mainly as a counter to some if the modern armour. These were provided from  Dungeons and Dragons range which my local hobby shop Waylands Forge has a great selection.

First up is the tree thing..( no idea what it is so use the Ben naming convention.

The fogure was done as a base colour using GW Contrasts Wyldwood,  which I toned down with a white dry brush. The teeth I felt would be a newer wood look so I went for GW contrast Skelton Horde, with the toadstools being done in Speedpaints Peachy flesh.

The Fire Giant needed to be much brighter.

This figure was done quickly to get it ready for table use, so didn’t spend as much time on face and hands as would have wanted, though I think the fire effect on armour worked OK.

This was a base of one if the Speedpaints Yellow, with thr troughs done on Speedpaints Bright Red.I tried to give it a sparkling effect by dry brushing Gloos varnish after the initial Matt varnish.

I now have the beginning of an Orc/Goblin so wait for next rabbit hole as it means I need some fantasy opposition!