Just another bughunt
April 11, 2010As you may have noticed, DotL has been very quiet lately. This is mainly due to real life stuff, such as work and doing research for my Master’s thesis (on RPG’s, no less!). This means I’ve not had the time nor the energy to work on new miniatures, so I’m going to show you something a bit older.
Ever since I could whip up the courage to watch them as a pre-teen, I’ve loved the Alien and Predator franchises. With the exception of the rather silly Alien: Resurrection and the god-awful AVP films, they’re all among my favourite scifi movies. In fact, I just recently had a solid dose of Aliens as I watched all of the four films back to back and then went to Tampere a few days later to see a wonderful H.R. Giger exhibition. All this has lead me back to an older miniatures project of mine, namely Aliens vs. Predator.
This project has been once of those that seem to last forever and not really progress a lot. I was actually doing pretty fine on it, but then I really got into zombie miniatures a lot and consequently my little critters have been gathering dust since. Maybe doing a post on these might help things to get going again? One can always hope. I’ve also been thinking about picking up the new limited edition Space Hulk, although I’d probably have to pay an arm and a leg for it. From what I’ve heard, it just might be worth it, though.
That’s enough idle chitchat, on with the minis! Sorry about the inconsistent lighting in the pics, was in a bit of a hurry.
There are different possibilities for Alien miniatures, but I ended up using what I think are hands down the best ones available: HorrorClix Aliens. While they’re now out of production, I picked up a few boxes cheaply off the ‘Nets a year or so back so I have around twenty or so. Like all HC stuff, they come pre-painted and are actually quite usable straight from the box. I wanted them a bit more black and glossy, so played around with washes and drybrushing and painted a gloss varnish over the end result. They came out lovely, I think. I used some glue to simulate the resin-like goo the creatures secrete, and liked that end result as well. The Aliens are a bit on the large side, but then so was the original creature in the first film.
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For Predators I went with Copplestone Castings. While I think they’re the best stuff available at the moment (and back when I bought them), Heresy’s new Hurn is pretty tempting. And while Ainsty’s INAPs are definitely showing their age as sculpts, the idea of clear resin figures is excellent. Also, the name always brings a smile to my face, as INAP=It’s Not A Predator.
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No alien monster would be happy without heavily armed futuristic humans to decapitate, maim and/or impregnate. Again, enter Mark Copplestone and his wonderful scifi troopers available through Copplestone Castings, em4 and Mirliton. I went for a generic urban camo on the regular troopers, while the beret wearing guys in red and black are something like corporate security or special forces. Actually, they remind me for reasons unknown of the Omni Corp troopers from the classic game Laser Squad. Maybe that’s how I always imagined them.
Click for a larger version
Click for a larger version
Actually just writing this post makes me want to finish this project. And maybe buy Space Hulk.
Dawn of the Lead 
I’m totally with you on this one, Mikko. Aliens, predators, marines – what’s not to like? I agree with most of your choices about which are the best figures to use except for the predators. I have the Copplestone predators as well and I do like them, even though I think they should be a tad bigger. My favourites are the Horrorclix predators, although they are slightly too tall. Still, the Heresy Hurn fits in well with them and is a great sculpt. Regarding Space Hulk, all I can say is get it. If you can find a copy going for a reasonable price on E-bay then put in a bid for it. It’s a great game and you could so easily replace the Genestealers and Terminators with your aliens and marines.
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I had a long think about the HorrorClix predators, but in the end decided that they were a bit too large. The predators in the movies are the size of very large humans (220 cm or so) so the Clix stuff just looked too large to me. Which is a shame, since they’re excellent.
And as luck would have it, I just found (and bought) the new Space Hulk on eBay for very very cheap (£25 + postage which should be around £20). Why the cheap price? It comes without the plastic miniatures, which is just absolutely perfect for me since I have no use for a bunch of 40K stuff. It’s just one of these days, in a very very good way.
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Oh, you lucky man! Aye, days like this should be cherished. It sounds like you’ve got yourself a right bargain.
By the way, I forgot to mention that I love your paintjobs on all of the figures you’ve shown. In particular, I like the camo pattern on the first set of marines. The extra work you’ve put into your aliens has really paid off and your predators look spot on. They’re not the easiest of figures to paint but I like how yours have turned out.
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Sincere thanks for your comments Bryan! Once I get the game I’ll be sure to post something about it, maybe even DotL’s first battle report?
I really like the way this project has turned out in terms of painting. While some of the models have been painted years ago (yeah, one of THOSE projects), they still look ok!
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The first squad of the old plastic space marines that I painted in the late eighties had the names of the Colonial Marines painted on their shoulders. “Wierzbowski” was the most troublesome 🙂
I think that a lot of people have an Aliens related miniatures project progressed to some state or another somewhere. Congratulations on getting yours to a playable state. I know that mine is still a WiP, thats for sure.
Space Hulk 3rd Ed (less miniatures) for £20 is money well spent. You will be able to play the game as is with the figures that you have painted without any trouble. I played a lot of 3rd ed when it came out last year. I own and have played all of the editions of Space Hulk and I can happily say that 3rd ed is the definitive version. There are some BatReps on my blog if you are interested.
Vampifan is right, the camo on the first marine squad is great.
Finally, if you are into an Aliens re-theme of Space Hulk then I think that you owe it to yourself to take a look at this…
http://color-crayons.blogspot.com/
Really impressive stuff.
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Thanks for the link, Paul, that was impressive indeed! It appears he hasn’t updated in two months or so. Any info on the Aliens rules or the mission book he mentions?
In all honesty I did end up doubling the price of the game due to harsh postage. Oh well, you can’t get the game here in Finland for less than 100 EUR so it’s still a bargain.
The positive comments on the camo have been something of a surprise, as there are days when I just can’t stand it. Just me, I guess!
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£40 for Space Hulk is still well worth it. You will be hard pressed to find a more entertaining and thematic way to play games with your figures than with Space Hulk.
The Color Crayons blog is only updated sporadically, as you noticed.
His re-theme project is definitely still ongoing (I was in email contact re a technical issue about a month ago), but there isnt a “release” date that I have heard about.
You cant rush art I suppose 😉 I recommend that you post some comments on his site to encourage him…
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[…] miniatures!” and spend an hour or six working on all that stuff on my desk and starting different projects. The next day – or rather the next month – I’ll lose interest. Not […]
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[…] I finally received my copy of Space Hulk, and proceeded to test the rules first by gaming solo and then inviting a few friends over for a game. The result? A very fun night spent blasting Xenomorphs and ripping Colonial Marines apart. The rules were easy and quick to pick up, and we were gaming in no time even with little to no previous Space Hulk experience. While it’s basically a two player affair, the game lent itself well to three-way gaming, as there are quite a few missions with two squads of marines and one player controlling the Genestealers, or Aliens in our case. We played using the Colonial Marines and Aliens detailed a few posts back. […]
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[…] a fairly good rate, but couldn’t bother photographing them since they pretty much look like these ones shown […]
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Don’t know if anyone is interested but check out my projects page-
http://bakercompany.co.uk/projects
would appreciate some (constructive) comments?
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That’s very very nice stuff! Why the odd scale, though? Do an APC in 1/50 or so, and you’ll have miniature gamers eating out of your hand 😉
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