Test Models and Batch Painting - Isorians

I’ve got a number of armies to get through, and even selling off a lot of fantasy and 40k stuff will still leave me with piles of Antares, Bolt Action and other historicals to get through.

Which means batch painting.

So we’ll talk about picking an army colour scheme, doing a test model, and then batch painting.

I recently purchased an Isorian force, and have about 1000 points worth of models to paint, consisting of 2 Phase Trooper Squads, a Command Squad, 2 Tsan Ra squads, a weapons team, a phase sniper, 2 light combat drones and a Targeter shard. This clocks in at 30 models and 13 drones.

So what colour scheme to use? There was a good recent article on the Warlord website with people’s Isorian colour schemes, and I had a good look at it.

I knew I wanted to play up the bio-mechanical aspect and alien-ness of the Isorians, to increase the contrast with the Concord (who are largely a mirror in terms of troops at the moment, though this will hopefully diverge more as more supplements are released).

The immediate thought when it came to bio-mechanical monstrosities in popular fiction was the Borg, who, in Star Trek, were to some extent a metaphor for the dehumanising nature and forced loss of personal identity of modern corporatism. However the only thing I took from that was the idea of having a dark base colour.

I imagine the Isorian phase armour as not something you wear, but something that plugs into you. I wanted to make it inhuman but organic. Shark skin was another thing that came to mind.

I ended up choosing a dark grey base for the armour, and the exposed ‘muscles’ or piping or whatever 

I chose to paint red. In some schemes these parts were treated as being light sources, but I chose not to in order to make the whole thing easier to paint. Given some models have more than 15 of these patches, I didn’t want to spend ages on them.

That left me with weapons, plasma sources and bony protusions. The weapons and bone protusions I painted a bone colour, the plasma sources I painted as a green metallic using the Citadel technical paints.

I did a test model, which was a solid 5 hours of work including listening to podcasts etc.

I was fairly happy with this. I had a basing scheme of ash over volcanic rock, which contrasted a lot with a fairly dark miniature.

I then painted the rest of the squad and the special weapon team in the same scheme. Having done the test model though I came up with a number of shortcuts for doing the full squad.

The scheme I used was:

Undercoat – Black enamel spray from Wilkinsons touched up with Vallejo Black.

Armour:

Mechanicus Grey (GW dark grey) – wet brush (like a dry brush but with more paint).

Mechanicus Grey dry brush

Nuln Oil Gloss wash (to give an oily finish to the armour)

Warpfiend Grey (GW mid grey)

‘Flesh’ panels:

Khorne Red (GW Dark Red with good coverage)

Mephiston Red (GW Mid Red with good coverage)

Blood for the Blood God Technical paint (blood spatter to give a more glistening look).

Bone

Rakarth Flesh (GW Khaki)

Ushtabi Bone (GW bone colour)

50/50 Ushtabi Bone/White mix

Plasma

Silver (Vallejo Air Silver, excellent silver colour)

Waystone Green Technical paint (gives a green metallic finish, is meant to give a gem effect)

I completed the rest of the squad in about 6/7 hours on and off.

 

So that's my Isorian colour scheme nailed down, and a reasonable chunk of the force painted. 

Konflikt 47 - Background thoughts.

So what’s the background and opportunities for conflict in Konflikt 47?

It changes a couple of things in the background. The Battle of Midway is more indecisive, and it was only decisive because an American attack caught the Japanese in the middle of re-arming and refuelling their planes on deck. Stalingrad is more indecisive and the 6^th army escapes. These two events change the balance on the Eastern front and allow the Germans to better consolidate into defensive lines there (and Stalin has a purge of his generals again) and the Pacific, where things bog down into stalemate between the US and Japanese navies.

Then the US test a nuclear weapon, creating a rift in space at Los Alamos. The US don’t really understand or study it that much, concentrating on getting a second device built. The US drop the device on Dresden after Hitler calls the Allies bluff after they threaten to use atomic weapons on Germany.

However the US are then out of nuclear weapons.

The Germans start studying the rift much sooner, and both the US and Germany find signals coming from them with new scientific concepts. As they don’t talk to each other, they don’t work out that they are receiving different messages.

They start developing technology based on these messages. Which leads into the parallel history.

Konflikt 47 kicks off when the war has already gone on two years longer, and Germany and Japan are nowhere near defeat. The worst winter in a century is finally lifting and everyone gets back to it.

There are 4 major theatre’s of conflict.

Western Front – US/Commonwealth vs Germany.

Eastern Front – Germany vs Soviet Union with partisans supported by both sides and the US.

Persian Front – Soviet Union vs UK/Commonwealth vs Axis (which Turkey has joined).

Pacific Theatre – Japan vs US and UK/Commonwealth with Soviets

This takes in pretty much every major theatre of WWII.

But it leaves it open for big changes.

Would countries like Spain and Argentina join the war on the Axis side? Turkey has joined the Axis, there’s plenty of room for more countries to join the Axis.

Spain’s Blue Division fought alongside the Axis on the Russian front, would they join the Axis with the promise of Nazi technology?

With Brazil siding with the Allies would Argentina officially join the Axis? Particularly given how many members of the SS and Nazi regime settled in Argentina after the war.  

There’s a lot of space to expand things or plot hooks to use.

The jungles of South America, with secret Nazi labs plotting to release Nachtjagers into American cities and cause mass panic.

A jungle war in South America between Argentina and Brazil with walkers might be a very interesting route to go down.

Argentina attacks the Falkland Islands as part of joining the Axis.

It would also add conflict to South America.

What about me?

There has been a lot of discussion some places from people with less mainstream armies (Polish, Italians, French, Hungarians etc) asking what they will get. In the interim there is a very simple solution to this.

In the background, who is supplying this nation with tanks?

Hungarians are being supplied by Germany, so add the Spinne light walker to their force list.

Brazil is being armed by the Americans under Lend Lease, so add Coyote and Grizzly walkers to their list.

Communist China is being supplied by the Soviets, so they get Cossacks. 

Konflikt 47 - US Starter Unboxing

Well guess what I got in the post today?

I’ve been quite excited about Konflikt 47 by Warlord Games and Clockwork Goblin, and liked Secrets of the Third Reich (SOTR) and some of the other Weird War stuff done 10 years ago.

However going back and looking at the sculpts now SOTR minis look a bit rough. 10 years of advances in sculpting (including the move to digital sculpting by a lot of companies), means the West Wind figures are showing their age.

In the last year I’ve got into Bolt Action (BA) and Beyond the Gates of Antares (GoA) in a big way, and sci fi WWII where I can use the existing figures I have appeals to me.

I bought the £70 American starter, as I don’t have an American force (though I do have 3 Shermans knocking around because I picked them up on sale). My Bolt Action forces are British Paras and a Last Levy based late war German force. They are of course as yet unpainted, though at least based and cleaned up, and in the case of some of the German units, undercoated. 

So what’s in the box? I’ve actually got my phone out and taken pictures of the stuff so you guys can see it. I hate reviews where you don't see the goods because if I'm thinking of buying the Warlord 'Rangers Lead the Way' set I want to know what the extra bits actually look like rather than having a description of them as 'additional metal pieces'.

The starter contains everything you need to start your army. Which starters should, but we can all name some companies that give you starters full of stuff you wouldn't take in an army if you wanted to stand a chance of winning. 

Dice and Pin Markers (the GoA plastic pins look like being a staple for GoA and BA going forward) and Warlord have got a supply of small dice from somewhere to go in my increasingly cramped dice tin. I have the Pretty Princess bag (£1 from Poundland) so I have an order dice bag (though Warlord sell faction specific bags for BA and GoA).

There is a 208 page rulebook. This contains army lists for the big 4 (USA, Germany, Russia and Great Britain and the Commonwealth), the background for Konflikt 47 and an amended version of the BA 1^st edition rules.

When Konflikt 47 was written there was no set date for the publication of Bolt Action 2^nd edition. 

BA2 has been brought forward (I’m guessing because of the same rumblings from GW about the future of 40k that mean Mantic are trying to get their sci-fi skirmish offerings finished and in stores) to September, so there will be a gap of a month. 

Clockwork Goblin will be producing an FAQ when it comes out, and the changes between the editions are largely small (LMGs in squads getting a fix for example) so a 1-2 page long FAQ to cover those changes seems likely. When the new and much more flexible way of organising forces comes out we'll see the effect on Konflikt, as suddenly squadrons of walkers start taking to the table. 

It's a shame they weren't more bold in the main Konflikt rulebook and switched to a system where you could take a lot more tanks and walkers.

Don’t let edition shenanigans put you off. Konflikt 47 is also compatible with the force and theatre books that currently exist for Bolt Action. You can add walkers to the defense of Berlin, or Operation Market Garden, or D-Day.

Certainly to have walker heavy forces you can just swap them for similar category vehicles in the Tank War supplement organisation structure. 

Then to the meat, the miniatures.

There are 20 US troopers (4 of the US infantry sprue) in the box, with 2 gun sprues. Each sprue has 3 LMGs (2 Thompsons, 1 Grease gun), a BAR, a bazooka, a sniper rifle, 9 rifles (2 with fixed bayonet), 1 pistol hand and 2 pistols, and two M1s.

This means from the box I can create 2 infantry squads, a command team, a bazooka team and a sniper team.

But what about the weird stuff? Well here we go…

US heavy infantry.

Nice clean metal models coming in 4 pieces plus base. They are armed with assault rifles, meaning a squad throws out reasonable firepower. I will delve into the rules significantly more in a separate post.

I like them, they are nicely sculpted, imposing next to standard BA infantry, but they aren’t crazy sci fi. They don’t have colossal shoulder pads and look like something that could actually exist.

The M4A9 Sherman T tank. This is the Warlord plastic Sherman with a resin turret and metal piece  to add to the rear of the turret. I’ll be adding some stowage when I make it as well. The turret is cleanly cast and quite detailed, but isn’t ‘busy’ and again looks like something that could actually exist.

As it is the standard Sherman sprue, you can build the normal turret and switch them, meaning you can use the normal historical Sherman as well. 

Finally the M5A2 Coyote Light Walker. In the rules this replaces a recce unit, and with a HMG and MMG (though it can only fire one in a turn due to having a single crew member) it can do a recce role the same as a light armoured car, with a similar level of threat. However two fists mean it rolls three dice in assaulting another vehicle and can tear apart soft skins or armoured cars quite easily. 

Walkers can also assault infantry, which will certainly be interesting.

The kit itself is a resin body with metal limbs. The resin is cleanly cast, and again the model isn’t too ‘busy’ (covered in unnecessary crap is what I mean). Look at the nice clear front for adding a big allied star or nose art.

I like the set and I would say it is a good buy for anyone looking to get into WWII. In terms of value it’s £20 of plastic US infantry, a £20 tank, and likely £15-20 for the Heavy Infantry and Light Walker, so the dice, pin markers and rulebook are free.

The models are nice, and if you are thinking of getting into Bolt Action or Weird War II then it’s a very good starter set.

As the first question I know I’m going to be asked is about points, I’ll give a breakdown of how I’ll make up the set.

1^st Lieutenant + 1 man (veteran with SMGs) – 103 points

Heavy Infantry Squad (veteran) – 105 points

Infantry squad (Regular, 1 SMG, 1 BAR, +2 men) – 78 points

Infantry squad (Regular, 1 SMG, 1 BAR, +2 men) – 78 points

Bazooka Team (Regular) – 60 points

Sniper Team (Veteran) – 67 points

Sherman M4A9 (Regular) – 210 points

Coyote Light Walker (Regular) – 90 points

Total 791 points. I could add anti-tank grenades, I’ve got two spare SMGs, I could upgrade regular to Veteran squads, etc to get to 1000, but this is 8 units at 800 points.

A firefly squad and a heavy anti tank gun would put that at 1000 points with 10 order dice and give 3 units enemy armour has to worry about (Sherman T, anti-tank gun and the walker getting into combat).

Doubtless I’ll end up with a bunch of extra options anyway, and the prospect of the next theatre book being Pacific and being able to throw Walkers and Marines at Japanese Terror troops is appealing.

400 points of weird stuff and 400 points of normal WWII stuff. By switching the turret on the Sherman you have 600 points of normal stuff. Can you see what Warlord are doing?

The beauty of the range is that:

• 1     It’s a sci fi point of entry into the Bolt Action system, which while BA isn’t particularly groggy makes it easy for players used to having dreadnought style stuff and centre piece units in their army.
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• 2      It’s an easy buy for BA players to yet again expand their forces and give them another way to play. Bolt Action is fully compatible with Konflikt 47, which means you can throw your Italians or Vichy French or Polish against them and you don’t have to buy a new army. It gives a built in player base that games need to be successful. 
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• 3      The starter sets are an excellent buy. I got mine at £10 off because of the Warlord July offer, but full price it still gives you everything you need to play the game.

 Would I recommend this? Yes I would. I'll also actually be painting the set up in the next few weeks.