June 2020 – Addicted to Lead

Neu Swabian League Starship test paintjobs

I finished up a small fleet of GZG Neu Swabian League old sculpt ships this past week. For the NSL I prefer the old sculpts. They just scream ‘flying brick’, tough ships winning battles through brute force. I got my hands on a couple of small fleets through Ebay and Facebook groups an assembled a couple of the SDN carriers and an escort cruiser. I grabbed a couple of smaller escort ships and started a test paint job.

These casts were of mixed quality. Jon at GZG mentioned the molds wearing out on the larger NSL ships which prompted him to retire them and make the new sculpts. The two Der Theuerdank dreadnought/carrier models I got my hands on first definitely showed signs of miscasting. It didn’t help that the previous owner assembled them poorly and roughed them up pretty bad. If I had noticed the damage I probably wouldn’t have bought them. I got a third cast, a Von Teggetthoff Dreadnought identical to the carrier minus one added piece, and the cast is crisp and the pieces fit pretty well together. The smaller ships were well cast with the exception of some minor damage on the escort cruiser’s bridge section that made me use some putty to help it attach to the hull.

Once the carrier was assembled again and painted up the damage is far less noticeable, and I’m going to add some greebles to the second one to hide some of it.

I wanted a pretty simple paint job reminiscent of WWII German vehicles, both real and Hollywood. I decided to go with a ‘German Grey’ base coat with darker grey and Field Grau accents. I picked out some details in a very light grey to show them off against the darker mini.

base coated with the airbrush, highlighted by hand.

June 21st, a week of new techniques and mistakes…

This past week wraps up a very productive month of June, I’ve been tracking my progress throughout the year on my painting log page here.

I’ve been working on my Full Thrust fleets and one of the fleets I’ve picked up in trade and on Ebay is a fairly large Kra’Vak fleet. Being an alien warrior race I wanted to emphasize their zeal and lust for battle with some garish paint jobs. I’ve been contemplating using inks through my airbrush for awhile now and I just got my hands on a Badger Renegade Krome .21mm airbrush so it was the perfect time. I chose a lime green and bright red paint scheme, with the red being airbrushed ink over a white ink base. I was satisfied with my first attempts and continued onto the wash. Well that is when I discovered that the ink will just reactivate and run unless you seal it before washing. Thankfully I only had to strip six destroyers and redo them. Seven other capital ships got finished this week.

An aging Kra’Vak battlecruiser task force.

Cranking up production in the shipyard!

I’ve been on a Full Thrust kick lately despite not having played in probably 20 years! I’ve picked up a number of collections from Ebay and facebook groups and I’m filling out some areas with orders from Jon at GZG.

So far I have four-ish factions laying around. I have a sizable UNSC fleet almost all built and a I’m testing out a paint scheme, I have an NSL fleet that needs more assembly, A Crusty fleet that needs assembly, and an old school Kr’Vak fleet assembled and on the work bench now plus a new Kra-Vak fleet that is partially assembled and needs more models to flesh it out. I also have a pirate ‘fleet’ but it’s so few ships that I finished half the fleet just working out the paint scheme on four test-ships so its hard to count that as a full fleet.

June 14th, a week full of prepping.

This week was mostly prepping Full Thrust and 25mm Stargrunt minis, although I did knock off 10 more colonial militia figures.

The big project for this week was two old school Ground Zero Games Neu Swabian League Der Theuerdank carriers. These humongous pieces of lead were a huge pain in the ass. I got them off of Ebay and they were poorly assembled and filled with putty that didn’t want to come off even in he ultrasonic cleaner. So after several weeks in the ultrasonic cleaner and a couple of times grinding away with a Dremel they were finally ready to be assembled. Unfortunately I think these were some of the last model out of the molds before they were retired, because they’re full of casting flaws and do not fit well together. I have a third one of these that I will be turning into a dreadnought that is infinitely better cast and looks like it will be pretty straight forward to assemble, although to the weight it will still be getting a couple of pins and some putty

I got 10 more Colonial Militia done as I mentioned, including some NCOs which I mistakenly didn’t get painted in the last batch. All three are characters, fitting for militia. One has an orange Mohawk, one is an old man smoking a pipe, and the third is a pot bellied cigar smoking guy. Better photos will follow once I set up my photo tent again.

I prepped a bunch more Stargrunt figs, putting them on bases, evening the tabs out with putty, putting on my basing paste. Doesn’t make for great photos but it’s the dirty work that has to get done.

There’s ten more each of the Colonial Militia (including three primed but not painted), nine more ESU troopers, and twenty one OUDF troops who will be used as a mercenary company in my solo games.

I’ve also been working on figuring out how to mount my Full Thrust ships, preferably on removable stands. I think I’ve finally got something figured out that will work using brass rod and jewelry barrel clasps.

I’m hoping to finish up the colonists and get some work done on my Kravak fleet for Full thrust this coming week.

Peoples Liberation Army. First Glory War solo campaign.

The First Glory War commences as the Peoples Republic of China lands troops on Glory in a bid to cement their claim on the newly settled garden world. A company worth of light mechanized troops, plus logistical support, lands near what will eventually become the Republic of Arden. The forces were hastily assembled from the 11th Stellar Intervention Division which had just stood down from a seven year long suppression of a rebellion on their colony world Zhuang. Although the war on Glory was short and only included a handfull of major actions it did see the first use of Armored Fighting Suits in the last days of the war.

Progress for the week of June 7th.

Well this is really about a months worth of progress it seems. The ‘Rona caught up and some other family crisis’s slowed me down for a couple weeks. I was making some slow progress but I didn’t finish anything until this past week where I made some good progress.

I finished off ten more of Rebel Miniatures Earth Force Home Guard troops, leaving only about 15 more before I’m finished with that particular lead pile and move on to the Rebel Minis Titan Marines.

First Contact, The defense of Foix. The First Glory War solo campaign.

After a failed legal bid before the Organization of Progressive States to claim discovery of the garden planet Glory, the People’s Republic of China launches a “Liberation Fleet” and starts the first extra-solar system military action in human history. Titan Interplanetary corporate employees and the newly settled colonists leasing land in what will eventually become The Republic of Arden brace themselves for combat. The spark of war ignites as a platoon of PLA troops pushes through Bois de l’écart Foix, a logging encampment set in the Foix Gap. The settlers construct a hasty defense and prepare to repel the PLA troops.

GZG 25mm ESU figures for Tomorrows War

Part of the collection of Ground Zero Games Stargrunt figures I picked up included a platoon of Eurasian Solar Union ‘Naval’ figures. These come in two uniforms, one with helmets and hard chest armor and a smaller selection with the same uniforms and added ‘cold weather capes’. I’ve decided to use these as my Democratic Peoples Republic of Glory regular troops and the cold weather capes as stealth camo capes acquired through the backing of China late in the Second Glory War.

The sculpts were done by Kev White and hold up very well for their age. I ordered some extras from Ground Zero Games recently and the casts are just as clean as the 20 year old ones I have. They are full of sharp details and are consistent in size with the rest of the Stargrunt line and with the WEG Star Wars figures I have.