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[Image] "System Troopers" from Pig Iron Productions - 28mm Troops After Sylvian landed huge points bomb in the Challenge late last week (like 400 points of stuff!!!), I felt a bit desperate to get something up on the score board over the weekend. I've been away for over a week, but lucky for me I had some primed figures sitting around which had been waiting in the pending pile for ages - and hammering out figures like that is part of what the Challenge is about, after all, right? So here are 10 "System Troopers" from Pig Iron Productions. These came off the painting table while watching the first round of the NFL playoff (go Chiefs!) (update - stupid Vikings!!!).
[Image] Heavy armoured troops for our sci-fi battles If you follow this blog, or sci-fi gaming generally, you have surely seen the "Kolony Militia" range from Pig Iron on a gaming table somewhere - not least with us. Dallas has an excellent collection of them serving his "FuturKom" forces. That range is, I expect, the best-known one from Pig Iron, but they offer several. Pig Iron is home to some of the nicest, chunkiest, full-of-character 28mm sci-fi stuff out there. The ranges are small, but have some pretty decent overall composition and completion to them (as opposed to others who released three figures and wonder why the sales don't roll in, but I digress). I really enjoy painting the Pig Iron figures - nice, proper, heavy, chunky metal figures, the way wargames figures are supposed to be!
[Image] A view showing the back packs These "System Troopers" are the heaviest of the heavy infantry (in fact, I think I stole that line directly from Pig Iron) - heavily armoured, carrying huge, frigging guns. The sculpts are brilliant - the armour gives a sort of exo-skeleton sense, without being all encompassing/enclosing. These heads are not the standard "System Trooper" heads - they are the "Inner Guard" heads from the "Kolony Militia" - there are many head options to choose from with these figures and I thought these heads looked spookier.
[Image] Red helmets to set the fire team NCOs apart... I had painted a small group of these figures years ago - might have been the first or second Painting Challenge, actually, but before sci-fi figures counted in the race. I had a bunch more primed and ready to go back in that initial 2012 rush, but I moved on to other projects, etc. etc. and these have been sitting there, primed and ready to go, gathering dust in my hobby pile for years, until I got home yesterday, was spooked by Sylvain's huge entry, and broke out the paints!

[Image] Always like the officers to be pointing at something... The chaps in the red helmets are NCOs/section leaders. The rest of the fellows are regular grunts. As a group, I think they can represent all sorts of factions, ranging from ominous mercenaries acting on corporate interests to the heavy infantry of a futuristic science fiction army. And they can certainly line up with Gün Schwarm, that enlightened body of hard-working soldiers...

[Image] Regular troopers - even the "basic" guns look really heavy, working well with the sculpts [Image] Some variety on the backpacks as well There is a large round spot on the back of these helmets, and I painted these lense-style. I think of them as part of the armour's "Decision Making Assistance System". The online DMAS helps the System Troopers stay in touch with HQ, know where to direct their fire, understand that orphanages make great firing positions, and realize that asking questions about the morality of their overall orders will have a negative affect on their own existence...

[Image] Close up showing the "DMAS" on the back of the trooper's helmet...keep focused, now, trooper! [Image] Some more points for my sci-fi duel, but still not enough... There are 10 figures pictured, but one of these pre-dates the Challenge, as he was being used as a model to make sure I matched the colours the best I could, so this gets me 45 points. Even with these points, I'm still eating Sylvain's dust... hopefully I can bear down and go full-Millsy this week to get some more stuff ready for next weekend...but in the event I don't, I'm wondering what kind of figure Sylvain will want me to paint...on the other hand, still a good, long time left in the Challenge, so we'll see what comes next off the painting line.