Post a Comment On: Fawcett Avenue Conscripts

Over the Christmas and New Year's holidays I had hoped to get a few more Vanguard Samaritans done up, and then get a start on the pile of Strain that I had organized. However, like a lot of folks in Winnipeg, Jen and I were laid low by the flu. Suffice to say, we didn't do a lot for over a week, other than consume copious amounts of liquids and various antibiotics, and watch Netflix.

Last weekend I did manage to work on a second female Samaritan Grenadier, using a beautiful resin figure from Studio McVey. It was a very clean casting, requiring very little prep other than a couple of wire pins for the left wrist and right foot. This resin figure had no moulding flattening or misalignment, almost no flash, and had crisper details than the "restic" figures from the Sedition Wars basic game box. The downside is that it cost maybe 8 times as much as the restic version. I used one of Studio McVey's resin bases, which are also very detailed.

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Did the usual zenithal highlighting: primed with Black P3 spray, airbrushed white highlights using Vallejo White Surface Primer. Multiple thin glazes of Games Workshop Thraka Green gave shape to the armour. Since it was such a nice casting, I picked out some edges and other highlights with Titanium White oil paint. The visor was under-painted in GW Golden Yellow, Blood Red, and Red Gore, then detailed and blended with Cadmium-Barium Yellow Medium, Cadmium Scarlet, and Titanium White oils. I used Gryphon Sepia washes for the grenade launcher, punched up with Titanium White. The little bombs in the launcher's open magazine were washed in Baal Red, under-painted in GW Golden Yellow, Blood Red, and Red Gore, then detailed and blended with Cadmium-Barium Yellow Medium, Cadmium Scarlet, and Thio Violet oils.

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Pushing some of the hot spots to pure white (on the helmet, gorget, shoulders, calves, rear end, etc) added greater contrast and helped pick out some of the fine details of the resin figure. The etched brass ID on the base came from Hasslefree. The base was completed with washes of Badab Black and Vallejo Rust.

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In the game, the Grenadiers are elite troopers that can utilize up to two Tactics counters, can fire indirectly, and are able to use three types of ammunition (incendiary, radiation, and gravity implosion, though the latter two types are are limited to only one or two shots each, depending upon the scenario). The Grenadiers are my favourite of the special weapon troopers. The lance and the SAW are cool, but the grenade launcher is the most flexible of the three weapon types.

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Speaking of bases, I have decided to use larger than specified bases for the Quasimodos in my Strain force. The Quasimodo is a Phase 2 Exo-form, an evolved monster merged with a bio-matter gun that shoots a corrosive or infectious blast. The figure is a large, bulky one; if it stood erect it would be well over 40mm tall. In the game it's supposed to fit on a 25mm base. That just looks wrong, since its feet both stick off the surface. Because of the way this single-piece fig is sculpted, crouched down leaning on one arm, there's no easy way to re-pose it either. Since I intend to use these figs for tabletop play anyway, I purchased some 40mm resin bases from Studio McVey, from their Firebrand faction range. I think they will look much better on the larger bases.

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This is also the first time I used my Foldio lighting kit. It came from a well run Kickstarter campaign, and now is available for retail sale from the Orangemonkie website. It's a foldable plastic lighting box that sets up in seconds, due to the magnets that hold it open. Several colours of foam backdrops are available. (The 40mm diameter black resin plinth is from Rick Taylor.)

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I have installed one 9-volt powered LED strip, but I may install the second that came with it for increased lighting.

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Orangemonkie have offered an even larger sized kit in a recent Kickstarter campaign.