Forge Father Steel Warriors/Militia

New Year, new project or in this case a very old project that has been long left at the wayside.  The creative urge to finally put some paint on these original Forge Father miniatures finally grabbed me and I've had a blast putting some paint on them.

They're only painting to tabletop standard as I have more than a few of these blighters to get through but they look decent when grouped together and they're in a paint scheme I've not done before with some basing I picked up thinking it would come in handy at some point.  It all works out in the end.

I originally picked these up on their initial release at one of the first Mantic open days and over the years picked up the metal conversion pieces they released to make them a touch more sci-fi (though I made up five as the original plastics).

These minis are the original Steel Warriors however with the release of the newer hard plastic kits they have now shifted to being the Militia but either way I still like their aesthetic and I'm looking forward to diving into more of them.

Below are some W.I.P. shots from box to finished.

The finished Steel Warriors/Milita

Sedition Wars: Kara and Akosha

Keeping on with the Sedition Wars minis and with our first game of Starfall  on the horizon (www.starfalltt.com/)  I needed to get some character models painted up.

The obvious first port of call would be Captain Kara Black who will be able to lead the Vanguard through games of Sedition Wars, Starfall ,Deadzone and Warpath.  Did I mention how flexible these miniatures are?  Next up on the table was the sniper Akosha who I wanted to paint up due to her anime style and how useful a sniper will be for your upcoming game (I'm planning to get here high in order to dominate the battlefield).

When I started to paint Kara I decided to put my all into these and give them the best paint job I could and I think it's really paid off as they are easily some of the best I've done (unfortunately my photography skills haven't caught up but I thinking of buying a light box to see if that will help but I am limited by the fact I'm using my phone to take the pictures).

Next up will be Barker Zosa who add a nice bit of heavy fire power to the force.

Old Crow Vehicles: The Vanguard get mobile!

I've had these vehicles base coated for a couple of years now but after I had finished painted up the Vanguard for Sedition Wars and then the three other tanks from Old Crow (see my very first blog post for images of those) I was sick of painting blue so put these to one side for something else and there they have stayed, until now.

As I had finally finished off the Vanguard troops I thought it would make sense to get these last vehicles done as well as once I've painted up some character models (being worked on now) I'll have a fully functioning force for Deadzone/Warpath/Starfall and even 40k at a push.

Before we get to the pictures I just want to re-iterate how lovely the Old Crow vehicles are, beautifully cast and the aesthetic matches right in with the Vanguard, I'm glad I picked these up when I did.

Sedition Wars: Vangaurd

To carry on my current sci-fi binge I again went back into my unfinished projects and fished out the remaining Vanguard soldiers from Sedition Wars.  There was a lot of moaning going on when people received these miniatures as I believe they are some of the first produced in the 'restic' material which meant they needed some relatively careful cleaning work (compared to hard plastic) however I have never had an issue with them and they are in fact some of my favourite sci-fi soldiers.  They are so flexible that they'll see action in not only Sedition Wars but Warpath/Deadzone, 40k, 7TV and Starfall (more on this later) to name but a few.

I wanted to give these minis a different paint job to my original batch to denote them as an elite unit however still have them look like they looked belonged to the same army so I used the same colour palette that I used before but only used the darker tones instead of going to a light blue and the coloured should pad was just something that felt right while the weaponry was painted the same.

For reference here is an old picture of the original paint job for the other Vanguard (you can see more of them in the very first post on this blog):

I'm going to keep going with these and paint up three Old Crow vehicles I didn't finish up for the Vanguard the first time round (three buggies), they'll match the vehicles in the picture above, then I'll paint up the four character models which make perfect heroes and give me a decent sized force to play with (though I have more Vanguard in the wings waiting to be started on).

Deadzone/Warpath: Enforcers

After finishing up the Marauders and re-basing the Plague I wanted to keep going on the sci-fi stuff as I've really been enjoying it so I unearthed the Enforcers I built and base coated before the house move (two and a half years ago now) and finally got some paint on them.

I had written my colour recipe down for these, as I always do now, so started to follow this however a colour was no longer in production so tried to use an alternative however I really didn't like the outcome so gave them a watered down black coat and then started again and matched up the colours by eyeballing it.  As it turns out these look better than my original Enforcers but still match in with them (though the originals will need their bases re-painting to match) and together will form the core from which I expand into a Warpath army.

Peacekeepers; Defenders, Sgt, Trooper and Specialist

Peacekeeper Captain

Energy effect on his gun 

Defenders 

Medic 

Engineer and turrets 

Specialists and Trooper 

Captain and Assault Enforcer 

 Sniper

 Pathfinder and Drone

Sergeant Howlett - I tried my first real bit of OSL on his fist which has worked quite well

With these finished I've started on the next little project, sticking to the sci-fi theme I've gone even further back and started painting the remaining Vanguard from Sedition Wars (great to use as a Corp for Deadzone/Warpath but for pretty much any other sci-fi game out there at the moment).