From the painting desk #4
May 30, 2010I’m happy to report that my Colonial Marine project is actually coming along nicely. Here’s my first full five-man (although there’s one female there too) squad for your viewing and commenting pleasure. I’d already forgotten the old WHFB feeling of how nice it is to have a bunch of minis with a coherent paint scheme. The picture also clearly shows the size difference between Copplestone Castings (the mini on the left) and em4 (all the others). Guess the scanner operator just happens to be a big guy.
Click for a larger version
I’m also churning out Aliens at a fairly good rate, but couldn’t bother photographing them since they pretty much look like these ones shown previously.
Up next for this project is a second squad of Marines, as well as some Predators. All of this stuff has been sitting in my cupboard for ages, so it’s about time for it to get painted. That’s the great thing about collecting far too many minis to paint. When you return to something you’ve bought years ago, it’s like Christmas every time!
Dawn of the Lead 
Nice progress Mikko. You should have all of the figures required for 3rd Ed Space Hulk ready very soon, nice one.
I didnt realise that the size difference between the Copplestone and EM4 stuff was that extreme. Its well within normal human human parameters I think but it pays to mix the Copplestones in with some others. That way you dont end up with one squad of huge guys with pituitary problems.
Keep us up to date on your progress please, including a shot of every miniature required for Space Hulk that you have painted for an Aliens 3rd Ed re-theme. I am looking forward to seeing the whole lot, all themed to look like a unified force.
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Will do! The size difference surprised me a bit, too. It doesn’t look bad though, especially once you have the troopers spread out and are looking at them from a player’s point of view.
Lately I’ve been using Predators as the Librarian and the lightning claw armed terminator. They sort of fit in storywise, and explain all the Librarian’s freaky powers as well as the HtH prowess. I’m looking for replacements, though. A chainfist can be easily interpreted as a Marine carrying a blowtorch. A sergeant probably has a side arm (power sword), making him a bit harder in HtH. The thunder hammer is a shotgun. Any ideas on how to make Marine replacements for the two? The lightning claw terminator could be replaced with a Marine operating a powerloader, maybe? What on earth could I do with the Librarian to keep the setting coherent? A synth, plugging into security systems to cause all kinds of trouble to the Aliens?
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Nice job on the marines!
Since the librarian can operate over a big piece of the board, perhaps he could be replaced with a tech dude controlling one (or more) sentry guns. Exactly how this would work out should of course be play-tested. Perhaps out of ammo on snake-eyes or something similar.
The sergeant could have a shotgun as a sidearm, ala “I like to keep this handy for close encounters…” =)
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Thanks for the comment Tobbe! The tech guy is definitely a possibility. I have some sentry guns I’d love to use, but for now I’d like to stick to the basic rules. Bringing in new ones opens up a huge can of worms, and I’m not quite ready to go there yet 😀
I’m actually looking for a loose shotgun to give my sergeant. Hasslefree does one, at least, as well as Heresy. It’s conversion time!
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“sergeant probably has a side arm (power sword)”
The Sarge/Corporal gets a +1 and Parry. Thats fine, whether it is a weapon or simply veteran prowess. Either sits well with me anyway.
“The thunder hammer is a shotgun.”
Thats a good idea. Canonically, it also fits with the +2 bonus that the Thunder Hammer *Sergeant* gets in 3rd Ed (historically Sergeants never had Thunder Hammers in earlier editions. Sergeants get +1 Combat so the +2 that the Thunder Hammer Sarge gets comes from +1 Sarge and +1 Hammer). So that fits well with Hicks, who although he is a Corporal, probably fits the bill for Sergeant in rules terms I think.
It does mean that he the shotgunner is not equipped with a Pulse Rifle, which is a little strange, but live-able with. The Block that the Storm Shield gives is a little counter intuitive too but again, tolerable (it is similar to the Sarge parry).
“lightning claw terminator could be replaced with a Marine operating a powerloader, maybe?”
I like that too. It may not be perfect, but as it keeps within the existing rules it is definitely close enough.
“Librarian’s freaky powers as well as the HtH prowess”
Having watched Alien 4 last night, the idea of a synthetic with with potent, situation based powers like Prescience (some sort of CCTV based thing) and Force Barrier (overriding a blast door or similar) seems fine to me. Psychic Storm might be pushing it a bit but whatever: maybe Bishop/Cole/Ash has overridden the Liquid Nitrogen spraying thing or activated the sprinklers after causing a short or something else just as Deus Ex Machina. I am sold on the idea of the synthetic being the Librarian substitute the more that I think about it actually.
The Librarians close combat prowess is a bit at odds with Bishops performance but not so much with that of Ash (super-strong, but not super-tough). Considering that Bishop is three laws compliant, the idea of the synthetic going to extraordinary lengths to beat up potentially harmful Xenomorphs is ok with me.
(my Starship Troopers retheme has a Carl Jenkins figure lined up as the Librarian (“Its afraid!”) so thats a bit easier than the Aliens re-theme).
1st edition Space Hulk uses more or less exactly the same rules as 3rd Ed. 1st Ed had a rudimentary points system so that players could reverse engineer the points used in the marine force in a scenario and then pick replacements. That system is very helpful when trying to work out rules for thing that do not exist in the system as is.
Also the 1st Ed supplement “Genestealer” had rules for Genestealer/Human Hybrids. They were very fragile and so I plan to use the rules for unarmed Hybrids to represent the Face-huggers and Chest-burster figures that I have put together. All the rules are there already so it will involve almost no rules “fudging”.
Finally, I am almost certain that I have a Necromunda metal shotgun here if you want it. It might be a bit GW chunky, but it would probably be fine 🙂 Email me if you want me to send it to you.
Jesus, that was quite a bit longer than I had originally planned [ EMBARASSED EMOTICON ]
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Thanks for the comment Paul! I’ve been looking at Copplestone Castings’ pack of bareheaded troopers, which has several with shotguns. They’d make for a nice sergeant: http://www.copplestonecastings.co.uk/images/fw14.jpg
I think the librarian might indeed be nicely represented as a synth. The powers he has could be explained by him utilizing the security systems (creating force fields/closing doors, activating sentry guns etc). I don’t know how familiar you are with the Dark Horse Alien comics, but they’re chock full of all kinds of combat synths, so that would explain the HtH. The power axe psi-point expenditure could mean the synth using more and more resources to power up its close combat capabilities. This sound ok?
The hybrid rules sound interesting, will check those out. Have you heard anything from the Colorcrayons project?
I’ll get in touch if I need the shotgun, thanks for the offer!
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Next up, a 3D gaming board?
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Oooh, don’t think I haven’t been thinking about that…:D
Not looking to spend extra time on it just yet, at least. And one of the big advantages of SH is that I can fit it into one small cardboard box. The 3D board would make things a lot more difficult.
…but man, it’d be awesome.
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Your paint jobs are top notch!
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Thanks a lot! I’m doing my best.
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[…] Predators to tackle the same or very similar projects on both Lead Adventure Forum and Frothers. Mikko at Dawn of the Lead has been doing some very solid work too, elements of which I intend to rip off use to inspire […]
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