Westwind Productions 28mm SHS Seperate Head System (2)

A closer look at some heads from the SHS range of Westwind Productions. Westwind offers a large selection of heads for the Secrets of the Reich figures they are producing.

SOTR is a Weird World War Two 28mm tabletop game, this link gives you a very good descripton of the game, even when it is only available in German language. The google translation into English is here.

This time let us take a closer look at the two other SHS sets which I ordered. My first look at them can be found in this post.

On the left handside you see the contents of SHS-SOTR6 "Zombie Heads B" which contains 20 Zombie heads and on the other side you see the contents of SHS-SOTR15 6 "Soviet Zombie Heads B" which also contains 20 Zombie heads.

Since I do not have approciate heads for a comparison, I gave some heads a rough coat of color and a wash to highlight the details. The upper sprue belongs to SHS-SOTR6, the sprue below came from SHS-SOTR15.

The casting quality is as good as the details are, there are some small remains from the casting process but not much more to clean. The overall look of the heads is better than from the two other sets I own. The mm grid of the cutting mat may give you an impression of their size.
But as you may have seen, the heads are more 28mm truescale, even when the heads from SHS-SOTR6 may be slightly bigger.

I temporarily mounted some of the heads to some Warlord Games and Wargames Factory German infantry figures just to get an impression how they will look when attached to a body. I just had them in range, be sure they will be glued to more aquedate figures.

All in all, the heads are nice, the sculpting and the casting is good. I just copied my resumee from my first post about the SHS heads:
[...] even when I thought at the first look that the heads were two small, I think the the heads fit very well. Especially when you use less heroic scaled miniatures [...]

I just came just work, added these lines and am happy that I prepared most of this text yesterday. After some chilling I will continue my work on a Amera ruin, what I will capture for a future post.
And maybe I will start to build some minis from the "Siberian Veterans" box, either as soldiers or as zombies.

More Bitsrecycling With The 3D printer

Building a matching tank for Mariya Oktyabrskaya in 28mm is a little pain in the ass. If you are orienting on the picture in this post, the choices of 28mm/1:56 tanks are limited.

I made my decision for the Rubicon model kit of the T34/76, but even when there are two different turrets to use, the turret from the picture I mentioned before was not included.

Since I like the Mickey Mouse-ish look of the hatches I had no other option then to get  my hands on the Rubicon T34/85 kit because the matching turret is included as a bonus in the kit.

And guess what I did...

First let me say, both kids are great. No sinkholes, no flash, and clear instructions. The builts went without any problems. And the finished tanks are looking great. At the moment they are primed with AK Interactive Russian primer, I like this stuff, but it needs some time to dry/harden.

I am still unsure which color I may use, but maybe the 85 model will get a camouflage pattern.

But now the struggle began, I had not only two completed tanks, but a big bunch of bits. Two unused turrets and a almost complete pair of tracks had to disappear in the bitsbox.

As you may know from earlier posts, for me this fact is totally annoying. So I browsed through the files at Thingiverse, trying to find a T34 hull to use with the leftover bits.

And I found this T34 and printed it. At the first try I messed up the scaling, the first print was way too small. On the picture below you see the result of the second print. This hull took 9 hours to print, the fitting parts took two hours to print. The hull is 5mm longer than the Rubicon hull but I do not care about this, it is still looking fine.

Sorry to say that I forgot to make more pictures, I just tried to do, but my camera is out of batteries, and the pics made with my mobile kind of suck.

That is why I split this post in two parts, in the next days the second part will follow with some pictures, to show how I will attach the tracks and the turret to the new hull.

But let me finish this first part with the gained knowledge from this "campaign", maybe I should have gone for a 1:48 kit of the T34 since the Mariya Oktyabrskaya looks a little oversized on a 1:56 tank.

Rügen'46: Stoppt die Eindringlinge !!

Another Rügen'46 post? 

This time it is Reaper Bones' Sister Maria and a companion.

Since not only the remains of world's governments strife through the ruins of the devastated city of Sassnitz, the forces of the Vatican may be seen in various raiding parties.

The mini got painted in a very simple way, I even did not use white on the collar, it is still the color of the material. The main color is black with no shadings or highlighting. Depending on the source and angle of light, I like the look of natural shading on this figure.

Next is Indiana Jones' unemployed cousin from the South a.k.a. Frank Buck. Adventurers from all over the world are joining the opposing forces for great reward, just as this guy, but are they trustworthy?

He was painted in various beige and brown tones followed by a Army Painter soft tone wash. Then I painted the hat and the face/hair.

The nun and the adventure rare made by Reaper miniatures who offers with it's Bones sortiment a big range of miniatures for a low prices. The reason for this is, that the miniatures are made from some kind of PVC. They are pretty soft and the details are very soft. 

I hope the paint will stay on these figures since they will be in heavy use in some weeks. I am concerned about the soft material, some paint may split off.

One miniature from the British Snipers set of Warlord Games' Bolt Action range. Human ressources got rare since the incident, highly trained marksmen from overseas can be seen in any of the conflicting groups which are the remaining since the collapse of the civilisation.

I like the look of his ghillie suit, and the paintjob of it went pretty uncomplicated. I used green as basecoat, then I used two more green tones to paint some of the patches of the suit. After that I only added a wash with Army Painter soft tone before I went on the rest of the figure.

Last but not least a picture of two minis from a previous post. I planned to rearm them and since I got the excellent weapon sprue from the Warlord Games Siberian veterans, I got some matching handguns.

The female miniature got a new revolver and the male figure got a complete new hand with gun. I cut away the old parts and glued the new arnament to the mini.

Since I am pretty wasted at the moment, since Mr. Burnz got his birthday today. I am happy that I made this post some days ago, don't think this would work well at the moment. There is still one more post (almost) ready, which will be online tomorrow, but in the meantime I made some more weird stuff, enough material for some future posts.

If there are heavier mistakes in ma bad English than usual, please excuse this rare circumstance I will fix it as soon as possible. But now in this moment.

Rügen'46: Механизированная пехота обезьян (and some 3D printed stuff)

Since the Rügen Incident, things went bad in Europe. Findings from various artefacts did not solve the question what happened on the island and it is still unclear what hides beneath the ruins of Sassnitz.

But what was found pushed scientific progress beyond known borders....

Mechanised Ape Infantry (M.A.I.) which is one of the results from cruel experiments in the bunkers of Stalingrad, also known as "Ape-X" from Reaper Miniatures' Bones range.

Reaper offers with it's Bones sortiment a big range of miniatures for a low prices. The reason for this is, that the miniatures are made from some kind of PVC. The material is pretty soft and the details are soft.

On both minis I modified one arm. I cut and reposed the arm, then the resulting gap was filled with Greenstuff, in which I sculpted a fur pattern with my hobbyknife (called cuttermesser only by professionals). If I would not know, I could not say which arms were changed.

Also both miniatures got a new 3D printed 50mm roundbase, since I did not like the look of the bases attached to them. The bases were printed with the same setting than the stuff below, and took 50 minutes to print for each of them.

I finished the miniatures with a simple but effective paintjob. When these creatures will be used for future games they will count as light tanks.

While I painted the miniatures, the 3D printer printed some movement trays from Thingiverse. They will be a nice addition for games or maybe even figure storage.

By the way, I think I never mentioned that we are using PLA as printing material.

The movement trays were printed with 100% infill at 195 degree celsius, with a print and movement speed of 50mm/sec. Printing one of these things took about an hour, after that I added some sand and my standard base colorset to make them match with the bases of the minis on it.

And as you can see, the new movement trays look decent and match perfect with the bases.

Warlord Games 28mm Siberian Veterans for Bolt Action

 

 

A closer look at the 28 mm "Siberian Veterans" made by Warlord Games for their game "Bolt Action". The box contains enough plastic and metal parts to build 34 figures.

By the way, at the moment I am not interested in Bolt Action, but I always can use some more Russian soldiers for future projects.

First a look at the plastic parts, if you want a "real" review, you may stop reading now and search something better on google, here I only take a closer look at a pretty random piece from my collection to give other potential buyers and collectors  pictures and some basic informations.

The plastic parts are the same sprues as in the "Soviet Infantry" box from Warlord Games. There are four identical sprues for the figures, from each frame you can build 8 figures. There is a variety of heads and equipment as you can see on the picture.

Then there are 3 identical sprues with Soviet weapons. They offer a great selection of pistols, rifles and automatic guns, this will not only be useful for equipping Soviet soldiers.

Also there are a sprue with 25 bases, six single bases and the instructions leaflet. When you build all figures from the box, there will be some bases left for the bitsbox.

But I mainly did not buy this box for the plastic parts, so let us take a look at the more interesting parts that came with this box:

First of all there are two metal miniatures, a Soviet comissar using a megaphone to motivate the troops, and a soldier pulling a Maxim machine gun.

The new heads for the veterans. There are two different versions, you get two of each what makes 24 heads. This is not enough for the 33(34) minis from the box , but maybe the rest of the plastic Soviets will get zombified.

Not only I ordered the heads from the last post, there are still two boxes of SHS heads I want to show you in a future post.

A sprue with five backpacks and the first three pairs of arms, the first equipped with a carbine with bayonet attached, the second pair holds a German MP38 or MP40, the last pair of arms is holding a carbine with a rifle grenade. This is a nice addition

The last two items on the picture are an arm with an ammo box for the Maxim machine gun, and an arm holding a knife.

The final picture shows the sprue with the rest of the arms. This sprue contains four pairs of arms, two with carbines and two with the PPSH machine pistol. Just as all the other parts they are a bit of heroic scale but they do not look like boybuilders.

The plastic parts are the usual great quality as all plastic minis Warlord Games offers for their Bolt Action range.

All metal parts will need some cleanup to remove some minimal mould lines and the residue from the casting process, but  the metal figures are nicely modelled and casted without any flaws, just as the rest of the metal parts. The faces of the heads may look a little cartoon-like but I like that.

All in all, this box offers a great value for its price. When you build all miniatures, you will have plenty of bits for other projects, especially the weapons sprues are very useful for every Eastern Front project. This shall not be a review but thumbs up for this box, I can only recommendate this box.

The Friesian Summer is still ongoing, my arm is better now, and tomorrow is Sunday, which means I will spend my time on some models. I still don not know what I will build or paint, but the Sunday is reserved for it.

Westwind Productions 28mm SHS Seperate Head System (1)

A closer look at some heads from the SHS range of Westwind Productions. Westwind offers a large selection of heads for the Secrets of the Reich figures they are producing.

SOTR is a Weird World War Two 28mm tabletop game, this link gives you a very good descripton of the game, even when it is only available in German language. The google translation into English is here.

On the left handside you see the contents of SHS-SOTR1 "German gas mask heads" which contains the upper sprue two times and the piece below three times, which makes 20 heads. They are nice modelled and the casting looks almost good if there was not the distinctive casting line and some recess which will need some serious cleanup.

On the right handside you see the contents of SHS-SOTR8 "Soviet gas mask heads in helmets". This package contains also 20 heads, the same sprue five times. The modelling is nice but the heads will need some cleanup as mentioned before.

 

Comparison with some matching heads, the first two heads come from Warlord Games' German infantry, the next three heads come from Westwind (German, German, Soviet), and the last head is taken from a box of Wargames Factory German Infantry which is less heroic scale in contrast of the WLG Germans.

I do not want to rate them, but I think they are fine and will do very well for my special purposes. Compared with the plastic heads, the actual heads are clearly smaller but the helmets are at least equal sized as their plastic companions what makes them fitting well.

I already had some headless Germans, a mix of Warlord Games and Wargames Factory Germans. All I had to do was to drill a hole for the headpin and then I pushed the heads in. Since I have to clean them up, they are not glued.

On the first look at the new heads I was a little sceptical because of their size, I could not imagine that this would look well, but I does look very well and the unified size of the new head will hide the small size differences of the two different manufacturers' figures.

The last figure in the row comes from the old Void tabletop, but I can not say of which faction. They were included in a Void starterbox I got from the bay some years ago and I never knew what's to do with them.

A new head, a MP39 with the matching ammo pouch, and this mini can be used in any www2 game as armoured infantry at least this is what I want to use them for.

I can not wait to see this guys roaming through the streets of Sassnitz, on the search for artifacts, but as you sure may know, so many models, so little time.

 

A Soviet gas mask helmet attached to a Plastic Soldier Company 28mm Soviet infantry man. This will be the next project, along with a matching vehicle for Mariya Oktyabrskaya.
I painted a handfull of Soviets from PSC some time ago, now they are on the workbench again, waiting for new heads. They match perfect, the conversion above was done in two minutes and I think it looks fine.

Even when I thought at the first look that the heads were two small, I think the the heads fit very well. Especially when you use less heroic scaled miniatures like I did with the PCS figure on the picture above.

Since I had a small accident at work, which gave me a mighty bruise on my arm, some things are a litte more complicated at the moment, but as soons as possible some heads will role...

By the way,
I updated the post about the part-selfprinted Sd.Kfz.139 with a small video to documentate the printing process.

Rügen'46: Achtung, Spione!

A group of allied commando forces accompanied by their trusty drone. In my Rügen'46 background settings, the allied commands decided after devastating losses of men and material to withdraw all their troops from the continent while the plague is spreading

Allied specialists can join any faction as so-called military advisors, but since the plague spread over the oceans, their armies are needed to defend the homeland.

Two minis from the Warm Acres boardgame "Hour of Glory". Due to the game mechanics you get the same character in a sneaking and in a fighting pose.
I replaced the left miniature's knife with a bad looking pistol which will be replaced when I get a new one. The other figure got not only a pretty weird view but also a cigarette.

Again two miniatures from "Hour of Glory" and again the same character in a sneaking and in a fighting pose. I did not do any changes to the figures but if I get a nice looking revolver the actual revolver of the left mini will be replaced.
The overall quality of these "Hour of Glory" figures could be a lot better.

Today I finished this Mr. Gutsy inspired robot figure made by Brother Vinni. Made from very soft resin, the 8 parts went together very well. It was the first time I used UHU Hart glue for resin and like the actual result. For the paintjob I used the same colors that I use for my 15mm US tanks.

A specialist armed with a revolver and a sharpened wooden peg by East Riding Miniatures. The other mini came in a blister with the vampire miniature from this post.

These miniatures were mainly painted with Revell Aquacolor Khakibraun and an unlabeled olive green. The main wash I used was thinned down GW Agrax Earthshade. For the bases I used the materials which can be seen in the background of the first picture.

28mm Mariya Oktyabrskaya By Stoessis Heroes

 

A closer look at the 28mm Mariya Oktyabrskaya miniature(s) produced by Stoessis Heroes. I bought this blister directly from him at the Hamburg Tactica this year. (If you read this, please make a Rodger Young miniature)

It contains 2 metal miniatures, one standing and one sitting pose. Also included is a small text on the back of the insert about the historical person on which the minis are based.

As you can see on the picture above one hand of the figure on the left side needs to be glued to the body, for the picture below I used whiteglue for a temporal connection.

The quality of the models and the casting are very good, like all other miniatures from Stoessi. If you want some nice additions for your 28mm ww2 armies, I recommend his shop.

The last pictures shows that the miniatures are true 28mm. At the moment I do not have any suitable miniatures for comparison, but in my opinion their measurements would make them fit in any Soviet Bolt Action army. And the left model seems to be ready to smash some heads.

I am waiting for a box of Warlord Games plastic Soviet figures, when they arrived I will make some comparison pictures with some other miniatures.

If you want to know more about Mariya Oktyabrskaya you can read the Wikipedia article about her. The English translated Russian entry contains not only more informations than the English one, it even has a picture of one of her "Боевая подруга" (Fighting Girlfriend) T34 tanks.

You can see Mariya Oktyabrskaya on the right side of the picture, looking into the camera. To build this tank it seems I need both Rubicon T34 kits to to get the matching hull and tower.

I always wanted to keep any advertising out of this blog but sometimes there are some shops worth to be mentioned. I do not receive any bonus for this.

Unboxing The Undead Part 2/2

 Continuing the unboxing of the undead. In this post I will show all heroes and special infantrists of my undead army.

A vampire count and his undead minions. The vampire was unarmed and got a warhammer and a shield from the bitsbox. These metal figures were made by West Wind Productions.

The first figure may be an elf or somthing like that but I liked its look that's why I painted it as a vampire. The originial sword was replaced to make it matching with my revenant unit also equipped with twohanded swords.

The figure in the center is an old Citadel figure if I remember correctly. He got equipped with a sword and a standart pole.

On the right side you see a classic Games Workshop vampire count which is the only figure of the whole undead army I did not paint by myself.

Two ghosts and a banshee. I have no idea who made the ghosts but at least I know the banshee was made by Games Workshop. I had to choose from three different banshees which one to paint and I preferred this pose.

Two variations of a Necrarch vampire made by Games Workshop. The undead Pegasus may come from Grenadier Miniatures but I am unsure about that. There are some more unpainted Necrarch somewhere in my stash that need to get painted one day.

Two metal sorceresses from unknown manufacturers. The figure in the center is from the "Bones" range of Reaper Miniatures. This were the only necromancers I painted, even when there are some more in my stash.

This picture shows a Strigoi vampire and an old Necrarch vampire, both made by Games Workshop. The Necrarch had no right hand when I got it, I took a sabre from an old goblin figure to compensate this.

First a Games Workshop Dragontemplar vampire followed by the Red Duke (?) also made by Games Workshop. The figure on the right is a conversion of a Claymore Saga knight, his horse got a metal head from the bitsbox.

This last picture shown my stash of unpainted undead miniatures. As you can see, there are lot of figures to paint but at the moment I am not in the mood for painting fantasy miniatures.

Unboxing The Undead Part 1/2

This weekend I took some time to take pictures of my undead army. It started with this small army and got bigger. The figures were painted 5 to 6 years ago and then stored in a box and never got touched since then.

 

The box and its content, there was almost no dust and only a couple of miniatures needed some glue to fix broken parts.

This are so many minis that it seems like I have to split this post into two parts. In this posts only the regiments and groups will be shown, hero and character models will get their seperate post which may come today.

 

 

Old Games Workshop second generation plastic skeletons. Then we have some metal bats and ghosts with no big modifications. The dead dwarf on the third picture is from a Mantic dwarf set.

 

 

A regiment of Ghouls made by Mantic with an old GW ghoul in the front row. Followed by two units of zombies who are are mix ox Mantic zombies and ghouls, Zvezda zombies and some other minis, there is even a nazizombie. Some Renedra gravestones and a scenic base frome Basex Of War are used as fillers.

The last picture shows three undead balefire catapults from Mantic with some Mantic and a couple of old Citadel (?) figures.

 

 

 

More miniatures from Mantic. First a regiment of  undead revenants.

Next is another unit of  undead revenants with modifications. I removed the old arms and built new arms using skeleton parts from the bits box and the swords of GW Imperial troops, followed by a small unit of crossbows. The figures in the center and left of it are built from spareparts, the other three are made of metal.

On the last picture you see a undead cavallery unit by Russian producer Zvezda's "Ring of Rule" range. These figures have Roman style armours. They got new lances and some of them got new heads.

 

More minis by Games Workshop. This time a group of undead wolves, some are Claymore Saga (?) wolves with undead wolves metal heads.

Next is a regiment of undead spearmen. These are a mix of first and second generation plastic skeletons mixed with other minis, some of them metal. The giant in the regiment is a metal figure, too.

Then comes the undead black coach. I changed the skeleton horses for undead wolves to give it a more dynamic look. The coffin is unpainted and stored in the spare box.

I have another of these black coaches that will get painted in a different style when I am in the mood for it. Seems like I could make a second extrapost in which I could show the unpainted undead troops that are waiting for painting.

 

I have no idea which manufactures´these flying units come from. They are made from metal and their bases were removed. Then they got new flying bases.
On the first of the two pictures there are also some Mantic skeleton dogs.

Last but not least comes my favorite regiment of undead swordmen. These minis are made by Mantic except for the champion in the center. Some of them got katanas instead of their normal swords, I think I will do this with the rest of them too.

In the next post I will give you a look at the champions and characters of this army.