Our current smartphone-addicted society hasn’t escaped comparisons with zombies. Australian mobile operator Boost recently combined these two themes for some delightfully gory and exploitative commercials, which deserve to be seen:
Zombie commercials have been featured on this blog before, you might check those out too while you’re here by clicking this or this. Lovely!
There are several things people tend to associate with the movie Aliens – the pulse rifle, the power loader, the sentry gun, the drop ship…and the armoured personnel carrier, or APC for short. Just in case you don’t remember what I’m talking about, it’s this:
image © Twentieth Century Fox
Since you already have a bunch of Colonial Marines (right?) or other suitable near future military types, you’re going to want to have a sweet ride for them. Originally this review was supposed to be a comparison between various models, but I’ve had some trouble acquiring other APCs. I’ll take this time to offer my apologies to Scotia Grendel for taking a very long time in getting this review out!
With the preamble out of the way, let’s get down to the real beef – the review of Scotia Grendel’s A.T.A.C. APC.
Click for a larger version
Click for a larger version
Click for a larger version
Click for a larger version
Retailing at £17.00 (~20€ at time of writing), the model is very reasonably priced. The kit contains the APC hull itself, seven wheels, a turret and the turret’s mount. There are three additional metal bits too: a minigun for the turret, an antenna (which I didn’t attach) plus a top hatch.
There’s plenty of nice detailing on the model, with jerry cans and baggage stowed and the surfaces lovingly greebled. In addition to the turret mounted minigun, there’s a baby minigun (aww!) in the front of the vehicle.
The resin is heavy and hard, but not too brittle. On some parts – the hull especially – casting quality leaves a lot to be desired. I needed to take a knife blade and a file to the model, and while this wasn’t too much work, on some parts the model has been disfigured by the casting process and would need a lot of work to fix completely. All this said, the casting is mostly very crisp and overall the model looks nice if you’re willing to overlook some dodgy bits. I understand that this is quite an old model, which both makes it more impressive in my view and may contribute somewhat to the quality issues. Also, it could just be that I had the misfortune of simply receiving a subpar casting.
With the parts cleaned, the model was very simple to put together even with no assembly instructions. I pinned the wheels in place, but you could probably just use glue.
Size wise, there has definitely been scale creep throughout the years, so the A.T.A.C. is very much on the small side. In my opinion it’s not too small to be used alongside your average 28mm stuff, and with smaller 28mm ranges such as 1st Corps or Denizen it’s even more fitting. I’ve mentioned before of course, that I’m not particularly picky when it comes to size issues, so I don’t have a problem with it, but I appreciate the fact that for some people it might be more important. I’ve included a size comparison picture with common 28mm ranges to help you make your decision. Note that you could also base the APC to compensate for the minis’ bases.
L to R: Hasslefree, em4, Denizen, Copplestone, Defiance, 1st Corps. Click for a larger version
Of course there’s also the big question of how Aliens-y it is! While it’s clearly a completely different vehicle and there are some APC on the market that are much closer to the movie ride, there’s something about the A.T.A.C. that keeps reminding me of the movie APC. Whether it is the sloping front of the hull or the shape of the turret, I was immediately reminded of the iconic Colonial Marine transport. The fact that it’s not a 1:1 match has actually turned into something of a plus in my book, as it means it’s more readily usable with a wide range of scifi models.
Overall verdict: Apart from some casting and size issues, the A.T.A.C. APC is a very nice find for its price. It’s not perfect as a model or as an Aliens APC proxy, but if you want a little armoured power for your troopers, you could do far worse – especially if your minis collection is more 28mm than 30mm.
You can find the A.T.A.C. APC at the Scotia Grendel webstore.
I promised to do a breakdown of what I bought at Salute, so here it is – a month after Salute due to all sorts of hassles. I’ve also listed my intentions for their use, to show they were perfectly sensible purchases aimed at use in games of Utopia. As photographing them all would’ve been a bit of a chore, I’ve used photos from the manufacturers’ websites.
In no particular order:
Time Lift Security by Crooked Dice
I’ve liked these miniatures since their release, but never got around to buying them. They’ll be painted with a paint scheme more toned down and less retro scifi, and they’ll be used as generic security guards.
Click for a larger version, photo © Crooked Dice
Click for a larger version, photo © Crooked Dice
Get the Time Lift Security here.
Station crew by Ainsty Castings
I’m always on the lookout for good, generic scifi civilians, and these guys fit the bill nicely. They’ll find plenty of use, milling around scientific complexes, battlefields and other places they’re likely to be shot at or otherwise attacked.
Photo © Ainsty Castings
You can find the station crew here.
Eisenkern rifle squad by Dreamforge Games
This is another set I’ve been eyeing for quite some time. These heavily armoured shocktroopers will probably become high class PMCs or Union of Terra special forces. I’m not too keen on the whole space nazi look, so headswaps are probably on the way.
Click for a larger version, photo © Dreamforge Games/Wargames Factory
The rifle squad is available here.
Troopers, officer and inspectors by Heresy Miniatures
Yet more sets of miniatures I’ve had my eye on for a long time (starting to see a pattern here). The troopers are a welcome addition to my pool of generic scifi infantry, the officer was nice enough to warrant a spur of the moment purchase and the inspectors are some of my all time favourite models. In fact, I’ve previously bought one of them, shown painted and converted here. They’ll serve plenty of generic roles, I’m sure.
Photo © Heresy Miniatures
Photo © Heresy Miniatures
Click for a larger version, photo © Heresy Miniatures
You can get all the minis shown from Heresy’s online store.
Resistance fighters by Statuesque Miniatures
I’ve had my eye on…for Utopia..blah blah. Same story as before. These are some of the finest miniatures sculpted in recent years. They’re actually nice enough to go into the “minis I want to buy even if there’s no use for them” category. Luckily they’ll fit my games nicely. I also bought a pack of spare heads, since I need some more female troopers. The sniper will likely be painted in Colonial Marine colours, for when our current sniper croaks.
Photo © Statuesque Miniatures
Click for a larger version, photo © Statuesque Miniatures
Photo © Statuesque Miniatures
Photo © Statuesque Miniatures
All of these lovely ladies can be bought directly from Statuesque Miniatures.
Heavy infantry by Pig Iron Productions
Yet another long time want, I ended up buying a whole lot of these at Salute. Actually, I only bought two packs originally, and then mentioned this to a certain frothery badger.
“Oh, I’ve a box of those I’m looking to unload!” he said.
“I’m running out of cash!” I said.
“No stress mate. It’s a great deal though!” he said.
“I’ll hit the ATM.” I said.
And so I’m now an owner of a sizable force of yet more scifi infantry – it was a great deal though. These fellows will likely serve in Utopia as Terran Union infantry.
Click for a larger version, photo © Pig Iron Productions
Click for a larger version, photo © Pig Iron Productions
Click for a larger version, photo © Pig Iron Productions
Click for a larger version, photo © Pig Iron Productions
Click for a larger version, photo © Pig Iron Productions
Hungry for more? Go check out Pig Iron Productions.
Dog tents by Renedra
With lots and lots of new troopers, I better have a place for them to sleep in. Renedra had these small plastic tents on sale, so I bought a few packs.
Click for a larger version, photo © Renedra Limited
These and more are available in the Renedra webstore.
Tokens by Litko
We frequently tend to run into situations where we need various tokens and counters in games of Utopia. We’ve been using a variety of dice, washers and whatnot, but I’ve been eyeing some groovy plastic ones for a while now. A retailer was stocking these wonderful Litko counters at Salute, so I picked up a few bags – one of overwatch counters and another of casualty markers. The casualty ones have already seen use in games of DnD!
Photo © Litko
Photo © Litko
If those look tasty, take a look at Litko’s site, there’s plenty more!
Phew, if I’m not far wrong, that’s pretty much what I picked up…no, wait, I did pick up a Platformer construction set from Artemis Black, but this post has gone on long enough, so I’ll leave it at that.
Political tension was mounting up between the Union of Terra’s core worlds and its Outer colonies. The Outer colonies were strengthening their mutual alliances and there was more talk about leaving the Union than usually. Plenty of the corporate-owned Outer colonies were seeing an increase in PMCs and corporate security forces. The Union military was on high alert.
Alarming news came through: several high ranking Union military officers had defected to the colonies, chief among them the celebrated war hero and people’s favourite, general Hyun. Hyun had been transported to the planet of Marankov Primus, escorted by a team of operatives from the Redmond Security company and a Weyland-Yutani combat synthetic. The intention was for Hyun to make a rousing call for secession from the Union, that would be broadcast throughout colony worlds. The situation on Marankov Primus was tense, with attacks mounted on Union military and supply targets. The Union military on the planet was still loyal, but Hyun’s speech could very well tip the situation in the rebels’ favour.
Hyun’s speech would have to be stopped. The Union intelligence had tracked the general to a decommisioned military outpost, Tango-1. It was time for UTOPIA squad 16 to do their thing and stop Hyun from broadcasting his message. There was precious little time to do it.
Touching down on Marankov Primus, the 16th made their way through the woods towards the outpost with its thick walls, while Dastevan and Abdul managed to stealth their way inside the compound from the rear. Three of Redmont Security’s guards were guarding the area, one at the perimeter wall, one patrolling the area and a third one up in the guard tower with a light machinegun. DiGlaeser used his radio expertise to jam the rebels’ transmission systems, buying more time for the squad to stop Hyun.
A view through the trees
Sgt. Fender leads from the front
Redmond Security – keeping an eye on your compound
A guard scans the area with his LMG
The troopers hadn’t been spotted yet. Dastevan and Abdul quietly snuck to the back of a large barracks, and peeked in to see a Redmond operative cleaning his weapon. Not wasting a moment, Dastevan ran in and stabbed the man with his bayonet, bringing him down. Abdul mercilessly stomped on his neck to make sure he wouldn’t alert the others.
Meanwhile, the other Redmond troopers obviously weren’t expecting an attack, as they were scanning the treeline, but failed to notice the squad making its way over open ground to the wall and climbing over it. With most of the squad over the wall, the sniper Cohl raised his rifle and put a bullet through the head of a guard standing at the main entrance, finally alerting the PMCs.
A guard burst out from one of the smaller buildings, only to be knocked down by another one of Cohl’s accurate rounds. The former olympic marksman was murderously effective, standing in the shadows of the trees and raining death into the compound. Emboldened by Cohl’s supporting fire, troopers Bruce and Swartz rushed forward, only to be met with a hail of machinegun fire from the guard tower, going down wounded. The two guards still standing were doing their best to protect the traitorous general.
The machinegun in the tower guns down Bruce and Swartz
Abdul ran to finish the guard Cohl had knocked down. He calmly raised the barrel to the man’s face and pulled the trigger, only to find out he had forgotten to load his rifle. The tiny click the empty weapon made was deafening. The grinning Redmond operative fired his own rifle at point blank range…or would’ve fired, if his earlier fall hadn’t jammed dirt into his rifle. The man’s arrogant smile faded, and moments later a hail of bullets cut him down.
Abdul prepares to finish off a fallen guard – drama ensues
The squad was making good progress, but time was running out. Cohl’s rifle roared again, and another guard went down. This finally caused the machinegun wielding guard in the tower to lose his nerve and make his way down. The sixteenth ran towards the building they knew the general was in. Dastevan bought a little more time by opening up on the satellite dish with his rifle. Doing so, he failed to notice the guard with the machinegun, who leveled his weapon, ready to add another member of the squad to his tally. The empty click of the machine gun was even louder than Abdul’s. Being a professional, the guard could see his game was up, so he threw the gun down, raised his hands, got on his knees and was restrained by Dastevan.
Abdul and Lau went to the door and called for the general to come out, to no apparent reaction. The door was locked, too. Dastevan figured the best way was to simply trust blind luck, and fired full auto through the building’s wall. Abdul took a more sensible route, and shot up the lock on the door. Seconds after he’d done it, the combat synthetic stormed out through the door and grabbed Abdul with inhuman strength. In a desperate hurry, Lau attacked the synth from behind, only to be shrugged off. It wasn’t until Sgt. Fender joined the fight that the troopers managed to pull the android to the ground and Abdul rushed into the room. The bodyguard had done his job, however. Time was up, and general Hyun had made his broadcast. The general offered his surrender – the damage had already been done.
Abdul and Lau prepare to breach the door
Sgt. Fender observes the breaching action
Suddenly a wild synthetic appears!
A victorious general Hyun surrenders
As the noise dies down, a lone badger studies the field
A few days later the news broke. Maybe it was the speech, maybe it was one of the countless other incidents happening throughout the Union. Whatever the reason was, war had broken out between the Union and the Outer colonies.
This seventh game concludes the first “season” of Utopia. What this means is that the game’s narrative takes on a new theme – that of civil war. It’s not going to be all that, of course. To be honest, a large part of it is that it provides me with easier inspiration for future scenarios. Also, I think the campaign will benefit from having something akin to a main plot. While monster of the week style play is fun, I don’t think it can keep its appeal forever. I’ve also really wanted to do a bit of storytelling for a while now, and this’ll provide me with a good opportunity to do that. The players have said that they’re happy to stay with the campaign, and we’re busy trying to schedule the next game. It’ll probably happen somewhere around mid-May-ish.
As you may have noticed, I made a lot of cardstock terrain for this board. I’ve never been very good at it, but with all the changing scenarios it’s simply not feasible to try and crank out resin or plastic terrain. I’m slowly getting better at it, too, and destroying far less than I used to. The main components here are the Tango Prime perimeter set (which I named the compound after) by Finger and Toe models, which is an absolute steal at $0.50 and Folding Unit Structures by Genet Models, which weren’t too pricey either at $6.50.
Like a good many bloggers, I too went to Salute, and this is my near-mandatory Salute post.
Of course Salute was a bit special for me, since it was my first one. We don’t have miniatures conventions as such in Finland, and I wasn’t at all expecting the sheer size and scale of the event. For the first hour or so I must’ve been walking around with my eyes wide and mouth open. Salute is HUGE. The large hall at London ExCel was filled with miniatures manufacturers’ stalls and games. Yes, games. More about those in a moment.
I spent four full days in London, and a good amount of that time was spent in the company of Frothers. Despite the FU-UK forums having a reputation for somewhat foul behaviour, all the forum members I met were amazingly hospitable and really made my stay in London something much more than it would’ve been on my own. So to all Frothers possibly reading this, thank you ever so much and see you next year!
Ok, enough of the sappy stuff. Here are some pictures, click for larger versions:
Some call it bare knuckle fighting…
…others call it a gay disco.
The action figure bare knuckle fightfest was a Frothers game, lovingly(?) dubbed the gay disco game. I got a game in, although we had to drop it halfway through, as my opponent had another game to catch. Fun while it lasted!
A zany rendition of the old Snit’s Revenge boardgame
The game deservedly won the “Most innovative game” prize
Another Frothers game, this one was a 3D remake (aren’t these all the rage these days) of a 70′s boardgame, Snit’s Revenge. I took control of a team of Snits trying to bring down a Bolotomus. Unfortunately the Bolotomus’ immune system proved to be too tough for us.
A wonderful Victorian scifi game – definitely not my genre but lovely anyway!
Fog and rooftops, very atmospheric
Salute was filled with wonderful, wonderful game boards. I’ve no idea what they were playing, but I spent a good while gawking.
The Haunted House of Slaughter – “disturbing” doesn’t do it justice
Some of the Haunted House’s cast and crew
While I never got to play the Haunted House of Slaughter, I helped pack it away. I felt like I wanted to wash my hands afterwards. With quicklime. Lovely!
My favourite of the show, Akula’s Planet of the Apes table with humans for scale
Lovely detailing
An abandoned subway train sits under the field
I got to play on the table, here’s my astronaut almost making it out through a storm drain before being captured by damn dirty apes
I had seen the Return to the Planet of the Apes table in pictures before Salute, and was expecting something approximately one third this size. It was mind-blowing. Akula is deservedly known for his mad projects! The game itself was fun too, with astronauts trying to flee to safety while pursued by apes. Good fun!
These are just a small glimpse! For a far more detailed picture coverage, see this blog.
Overall it was an amazing experience, and I can’t wait for next year!
…I’ll just leave out the bit about spending £180 on miniatures.
Wow, this is actually my 250th post. While the blog hasn’t been updated as frequently as before, I ensure you it’s still going strong. As the blog now has a quarter of a thousand posts, I figured I’d give you a look at what’s up.
As you can’t have failed to notice, I’ve been running a near future military scifi campaign for a while now. With seven games played (AAR #7 coming soon!) this is the longest campaign I’ve run in good long while, and both I and the players have really enjoyed it. You can find the associated posts by checking out everything tagged Utopia. The campaign has not only allowed me to use a lot of my miniatures, but also has really inspired me to paint minis and build terrain a lot. Deadlines help too!
Click for a larger version
Anyway, it’s on with the minis in chronological order. First up is a hunting beast for my Predators. The miniature is actually a hellhound by Heresy with the choice of a skeletal head. I really liked the idea of Predators using dog-like hunting creatures as shown in the Predators film. This one’s by no means a full match, but I think it looks fearsome and alien enough. Like practically all of the Heresy multipart minis, I had plenty of work getting the hound to a paintable state. There were some heavy mould lines and the fit of the parts really wasn’t stellar. After I’d all but finished painting it, I found out to my delight that I’d missed a glaring mould line on the hound’s side. As I didn’t want to ruin the paintjob, I painted some scarring over it, which I think turned out nice.
Click for a larger version
Next up is a conversion. While originally painted for Utopia, this fellow hasn’t appeared on the field so far. It’s actually the late-ish Pvt. Jane, who was captured fighting the Terminators. As you can see, he has been subjected to horrible experimentation and has been made into a cyborg. The model is a warbot from Pig Iron Productions with a head from Puppetswar and a minigun from Maxmini. I think the parts work nicely together and combine well to make a really intimidating figure. The paintjob is super simple, with basically just washes and drybrushing on the bulk. I paid more attention to the face, and I think it turned out looking pretty good. That resin head is pretty awesome, and I basically made this conversion just so I could justify buying the head…
L to R: Trill, Cohl, Abdul, Dastevan. Click for a larger version
Up next is a bunch of Utopia troopers – Trill, Cohl, Abdul and Dastevan. Nothing too special here, they were all given my typical trooper treatment. Trill is a Hasslefree mini, Cohl is a SWAT sniper from Foundry and Abdul and Dastevan are both from em4. I think Cohl is a good example of how a paint job can really change the way a model looks.
Click for a larger version
Topping off the post is General Hyun – set to appear in the upcoming Utopia AAR #7. Hyun is a Copplestone Castings miniature and I’m really really happy with him. Somehow those greys just turned out lovely and the uniform looks very crisp. I rarely get the feeling that I really nailed a mini, but with this one I’m patting my own back. Please refrain from posting ego-crushing comments!
Looking to turn your Warhammer 40K Imperial Guard into Colonial Marines? Mad Robot Miniatures has just the thing for you.
Click for a larger version
In other words, the 28mm Colonial Marine review has been updated again with some conversion parts for GW plastics. What’s the verdict? Go check it out!
