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

Well after that interlude, and Halo Project it was back to Black Suns proper (also needed to clear partiallystsrtrd figures fron hobby table), with the Forgotten ARVN , Heroes/Command, Pulp Figures don’t do ARVN so we had Empress mintures Command teams for this.

Fairly straightforward paint jobs on these  ( see previous)

Having done the Modern force for the game I needed some opponents,  Now I don’t have a lot of fantasy figures , other than a small number I painted for Frostgrave some time ago. So to make the bulk I brought a boxof Oathmark Orks and one of their heavy Orks , to add to the Goblins I picked up form Wargames Atlantic. It did strike me that although these figures are for Forgotten Ruin, I don’t see why they couldn’t also appear as a faction in Black Sun, say for instance  wandering band from other parts of Planet ( I am developing an idea for am expanded Black Suns setting with various possible crossovers)

For the Orks so far complete I used a palette of Speed Paints and GW contrast.

Skin was the now tried and trusted Speedpaints Forest Sprite.

Their clothing was a mix of GW Basilicum Grey , Skeleton Horde, with Speed Paint Pallid Bone and Hardened Leather.

Armour was Speedpaint  Enchanted Steel for the mail , Broadsword Silver for Plate,

All given the now usual diluted Agrax Eartshade Wash.

The Figures were pretty much block painting of the various Contrast shades doing rather work and were a nice relaxing break from all the Cammo.

I still have to paint the Goblins , but did finish the two Bigger monsters I brought via Oathmark.

More will be added later, as I have now ordered British Heavy Wpns and Armour.

Once the wash had dried, I tidied up the paint lines before di g faces, luckily many if the figures had sunglasses on which reduced the number of eyes I had to do.

I did a specialist weapons  with Sniper and Milan. Added were 3 figures from Wargames Atlanic Operator box, in one figure with Marksman Rifle and 2 Command with Berets.

Finally I added a SAS team. Botvof variation on cammo plus kit on there figures.

There I was thinking, finished current HALO Collection so can get back to Black Sun’s Fantasy Nam  when I catch a you tube video on the ideal pairing of Wargames Atlantic Operators with Modifeus’s Forgotten Ruins Rule Book

I had caught the weekender discussion on mixing the new Atlantic Operators , and forthcoming Agents to do an SG team for SG1, one of my favourite shows. I have Jaffa, , and was intrigued on this fantasy world  in could elements be merged into Black Sun. I already thought maybe use Stargate rather than random portals.

Anyway on getting my copy  realised that it was based on a series of books , with the 2st having same name as the Rule set.

Although there was a World Map, and a bestiary   not much background, so I Kindled the 1st book.

Now I can and will play it with my Vietnam figures. But , did like the Idea of Ultra Modern forces in Fantasy World  having watched odd episodes of The Anima ‘The Gate’.

Not that I needed much prompting, so rather than U.S. Rangers , I went for British Para’s,.

Of course I couldn’t just use the figures in Agents Box,, as they only had 4 or 5 SA80′, so I did quick order to Empress Minatures again!

12 British Infanrty and 4 SAS ( I have a unpainted Mortar Team from previous project) later, with a few extras from the operators box, and the ‘good guys’ are sorted.

Now how to paint them, particularly their Cammo uniforms?

I was not going to be able to paint that fine to match it, best would be doing them so they looked approximately right from normal table distance for 28mm figures.

My work on Arnies Predator squad gave me an idea for the base colour,  which is what I gave the figures a base coat( Including boots.) GW Contrast Gutrrippa Flesh, in 2 part paints to one water mix.

Finally to merge it all together, zI coated it in liquid talent  with  a coat of Agrax Earthshade wash., thinned 50/50.

Now I do agree with Geryy that the wash can sometimes darken and detract from original colour shading,  but I  this case it does seem to bring it altogether.

With our 1st Monster and the finishing of Ozzy Heroes, it was only right that I did some Vietnamese Heroes. Again I used a couple of packs of Crucible Crushes Pulp Figures to represent these slightly larger than life characters.

I was able to pick out 4 for the NVA.

I then had 6 Vietcong Heroes

If anyone is wondering why they get more, there are 2 reasons.

1)The Vietcong were often working on  their own away in small cares, which gave more scope for heroics (in theory)

2) (and main reason) there were more figures that looked Viet Kong than NVA.

Ben asked about what would be the likely local monstrosities,  that would face my protagonists and their Armour, So before painting new models I had  look through my Collection.

Firstly I had 2 nicely pre painted Dinosaurs.

In Black Suns there is a long Lost Pre WW2 lost Expedition, so I dug through my old  Incursion figures from Grindhouse games and found.:

So using reverse Engineering and dark science even dead Germans can have their brains preserved and continue to service the Reich.

In addition having seen signs of Giant Apes experiments have been made on various specimens collected before they were trapped on the Black Sun’s World.

One of the M113 had been built and semi painted some time but as with the M41, had been awaiting a crew figure. When I got the ARVN tanker I did a vehicle crew painting session, which helped with the rapid finishing of the bulk of my planned Australian Armour. ( 1x M557 command and M106 mortar carrier to do)

The 2nd Centurion as with the 1st had the 30 cal on commanders hatch replaced with M60, further Vietnamesed with a ‘borrowed armoured Sheild from the ACV M113. I reasoned  need that being cut off from regular re-supply in the  Black Sun World,  they would have reserved the 30 cal ammo for the co ax, and replaced the cupula gun with the more available M60.

Main difference in painting with these units was the Nuln Oil Wash used in the M48/M41, was replace with thinned out Agrax  Eartshade.

Interesting there is a you tube video of one of the Centurions from the Vietnam, war been found preserved, in  Australia and was reunited with its crew:

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/14ToAScrBeT/

The M113’s are of the earlier standard early version with the Gun shielded 50 cal as used at the Battle of Long Tan, later they were converted with the Cadilac Guage Turret, which genrally had 2x 30 cal machine guns or the .50 and 30 cal command version  (which ad John Pointed out in his rev of thr M48, tended to be pulled out of the turret and remove mounted above) but.they are not available yet.

I have a sneaking feeling  I maybe using one vehicle’s troop no, but as it was the only one for that  Troop decided to live with it, Vehicle names for M113’s are from UK Centurions. Decal sheet  I didn’t have any suitable Aussie vehicle names on decal sheet, most of the ones I have seen in period photos had Woman’s names, but the ones picked tended to fit on the whole with Ozzy humour.

Well with the ARVN squad being done I couldn’t forget the North’s Army  so again using Rubicons set for a base did my 1st, 9 man squad of NVA.

Using the thinned out GW Gutrippa Flesh Contrast as the base for their almost Khaki Drill uniforms.

As with the Vietkong Webbing was done in GW Mantis Warrior Green.

The Ak,s had wpns done in Enchanted Steel from Speed Paint range, with stocks and woodwork done in GW Snakebite Leather, Base Flesh tone is Gulliman Flesh with Speed Paint yellow mixed in.