Robots – Sentry Guns and Drones

My first post after an extended hiatus is a new project area, Robots, and series of three different sentry guns and robot sentry drones.  I decided to create a new project area due to the range of different robot miniatures I have in my collection, both generic and specific to other project areas.  This post covers the automated sentry guns from James Cameron’s excellent movie Aliens (1986), a pair of heavy sentry guns from the miniatures game Trinity: Battleground from White Wolf, and a trio of generic robot sentry drones from Black Cat Bases. Lets start with the iconic sentry gun from Aliens.  These miniatures were produced by Leading Edge Games (LEG) under their licensed Aliens movie line in 1989.  Unfortunately, Leading Edge Games is no longer in business, and these miniatures can be difficult to find.  All of the sentry guns on this post have the same basic paint scheme.  Military style OD Green with black rubble/asphalt style basing.  That way I could use them for any near future, future, or post apocalyptic gaming.  Nothing fancy here.

Here we have a pair in close up to illustrate the detail, or lack there of.

For comparison, below is a snap from the movie Aliens.  As cool and forward leaning these sentry guns were, the scenes that featured them were ultimately cut from the theatrical release of the movie.

For fun, here is a cool image of the weapons system as featured on t-shirts available from 8Ball.co.uk.

,,, and of course a comparison shot with my 28mm vault hunter miniature.

The next pair of heavy sentry guns comes from the Trinity: Battleground miniatures game from White Wolf.  These miniatures were produced in 1997.  These miniatures are also unfortunately no longer in production.  Used in conjunction with the sentry guns above, these could be heavy plasma or laser weapons.  Something more fitting with their bulk and size.

… a comparison shot for scale in 28mm.

Last up is the trio of sentry gun drones from Black Cat Bases under their Robots miniatures line.  Unlike the previous miniatures, these wonderful bots are currently in production and can be purchased as Tracked Robots.  I decided to stick with the theme of armed bots and avoided the tracked robot without guns.

The obligatory size caparison shot.

… and one more with all three sentry gun types side by side.

Thank you for looking, and if all goes well more posts will follow on a semi-regular basis.  Cheers.

Please Stand By

My apologies for the delay. I am experiencing technical difficulties.

More Posts Coming Soon.

Zombies – Left 4 Dead Miniatures – Survivors

Following up on my last post on infected zombies from the Left 4 Dead (L4D) video game series.  This time around I am adding several survivors including the complete cast from the first L4D game and a few guest stars.  To recap, the basics of the L4D series are here, here, and here.  In short L4D is a four on four player co-op games that has players acting as both survivors and special infected zombies.

The survivors from the first game are an unlikely group named Francis, Bill, Louis and Zoey.  Francis is a biker, Bill is a grizzled military veteran, Louis is an office account manager, and Zoey is a university student.  Below are pictures of the characters from the game and in miniature form.

These guys will hopefully see a lot of action battling the massive hoards of undead.  Here is a comparison shot with the survivors and an infected tank (a clay golem from Reaper).

Next up are two of the four survivors from Left 4 Dead 2 (Rochelle and Ellis), as well as two guest stars from the movie Zombieland (Tallahassee and Columbus).  I am still looking for appropriate proxy miniatures for the other two L4D2 characters Nick and Coach.

Here is a group shot of the six L4D characters, just for fun.

… plus an extra shot of Tallahassee and Columbus from Zombieland.

Enjoy.

Zombies – Left 4 Dead Miniatures – Infected

After a short hiatus I am back with an update to my Zombie project.  This time around I have a new batch of special infected (aka boss zombies) from the Left 4 Dead video game series.  This combines three of my favorite things together in one place: miniatures games, video games and zombies.  Oh my.  If you aren’t familiar with the Left 4 Dead (L4D) series you can get the basics here, here, and here.  In short L4D is a four on four player co-op games that has players acting as both survivors and special infected zombies.  This post with cover the special infected while a later post will cover the survivors.

In L4D, and the sequel L4D2, there are a total of eight different types of special infected zombies.  The Tank, Boomer, Smoker, Hunter, and Witch are from L4D with L4D2 adding the Charger, Spitter and Jockey.  Each type has a special ability, either ranged attacks, area of effect attacks, extra speed, etc.  I currently have  four types represented, the Hunter, Charger, Tank and Witch.  Here are their respective descriptions from Wikipedia.

The Hunter is an agile foe that can jump and pounce on a survivor, and then tear at his victim until he is knocked off, kills his prey or is killed. A hunter emits animal like screeches or light roars when close by, and a snarling growl can be heard when in close proximity. The Hunter is signaled by a startling high pitched piano cue.

The Charger is an male Infected with an enormous right arm,and can charge into the Survivors and separate one Survivor from the others whilst pummeling them into the ground, rendering the Survivor helpless until one of their teammates helps them.

The Tank is a gigantic muscular infected that has the ability to swipe at survivors, knocking them off their feet and incapacitating them; it can also throw rocks and knock cars and other debris into the survivors. The Tank is the most durable of all the special infected, and requires the full support of all of the survivors in order to be killed. The Tank is accompanied by a booming orchestral score to signal his appearance.

The Witch is a female infected with long claws that stays crying in one spot. Survivors can often avoid the Witch but if they disturb her with light, loud noises or gunfire, she will become aggressive and charge at the one who “startled” her. Along with crying, an eerie choir tune plays when she is near. The Witch has the strongest attack of the infected in the game; able to kill a survivor outright with one blow on the hardest difficulty. As such she is not playable by human players in Versus mode.

Above is a group shot all eight special infected from L4D in left to right order: Charger, Hunter, Spitter, Jockey, Tank, Witch, Boomer, and Smoker.

Below is a group shot of the four special infect I have so far: Hunter, Charger, three Tanks, Witch and two Hunters.  These are a mix of miniatures from different manufacturers that I will cover later.

Here are a few close-up shots with the survivor Louis (more on him later) for scale.  First up are the Hunters.  These three nasty zombies are Ghouls from Black Cat Bases.

Next are the Charger and Witch.  Both or from Hasslefree Miniatures Undead and Mutant line.  The Charger is Mutant Grant and the Witch is Zombie Suzi.  For those of you who are familiar with L4D, Louis is closing in for the Cr0wnd Achievement.  Good Luck Louis.  For the curious a complete list of achievements can be found here for L4D and L4D2.

Last but not least are the Tanks.  The Tank in the middle is a Clay Golem from Reaper Miniatures.  The two other Tanks were limited releases from Frothers Unite UK.

That’s all for now.  Next time I hope to have the survivors from Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2.  Until then, cheers.

Doctor Who – iDaleks and the Ultimate Monster Collection

For those of you who don’t know, Doctor Who Adventures is a weekly magazine published by BBC Magazines. Each issue contains stories, comics and articles related to the current season of Doctor Who. Each issue also features some kind of prize or give-away. Issue 262 of DWA featured an extra special treat for miniatures enthusiasts in that it contained a collection of Doctor Who themed monsters and aliens in approximately 25mm-30mm in size.

The “Ultimate Monster Collection!” was especially nice for me because it featured in addition to the variety of aliens, it included a set of multi colored Daleks from the episode “Victory of the Daleks” (aka iDaleks).

I acquired three of this particular issues and the miniatures that came with them. The collection includes Daleks, Weeping Angels, Judoon, Cyberman, Silurian, Sontaran, Silent, Ood, Minotaur and Handbot.  I have taken multiple pictures of the miniatures and included them below for reference and scale using the Tweedy Mattison miniature from Crooked Dice Game Design Studio as reference.  First up,  is the Ood and Silence.  Both are soft rubbery plastic with moderate detail and range in at over 30mm.

Next up is the Judoon and Minotaur.  These are a slightly more rigid plastic but softer in detail.  The scale for these two seems more in proportion with 28mm.

The Handbot and Silurian are next.  These are also slightly rigid plastic with soft detail.  They also seem a bit on the tall side.

Close to last are probably the worst of the lot, the Sontaran and Cyberman.  The Sontaran is rubbery plastic, and the cyberman is more rigid.  Both are really bad as far as detail goes, but the scale seems reasonable.

I saved the best two for last.  The Weeping Angels and Daleks.  The Angels have really nice details and seem good for scale too.  The only downside is they are very rubbery plastic, similar to an eraser in texture.

… and the best of the lot, in my opinion anyway, are the Daleks.  These are a hard plastic with nice detail.  They seem a bit large at first when compared to Tweedy and a Black Tree Design Dalek.  However, if you look at BBC photos from the episode Victory of the Daleks they seem quite reasonable.  See for yourself.

Doctor Who – Seventh Doctor, Ace, K9 and more Baddies

I have several random new additions to my Doctor Who miniatures collection.  Mostly odds and ends with one large force of aliens.  I will start with the Seventh Doctor (Slyvester McCoy) and Ace (Sophie Aldred).  At this stage the only Doctor I don’t have is the Sixth Doctor played by Colin Baker.  The production quality of the Doctor Who episodes at this stage was pretty low, but some of the stories and acting was great.  I am especially fond of Remembrance of the Daleks and Ghost Light.  Below are Ace and two versions of the Sixth Doctor from Black Tree Design.  The Sixth Doctor on the right carries a Dalek Jammer, used in Remembrance of the Daleks.

Next up are two classics from the era of the Fourth Doctor (Tom Baker), the fantastic companion K9 and the first adversary of that era Robot.  K-9 made his first appearance in the episode The Invisible Enemy.  I happen to have two of these painted up for no apparent reason.  Shrug.  The Robot was the very first adversary to cross paths with the Fourth Doctor in the episode aptly named Robot.  The Robot in question actually grows to roughly 30 feet in size, but unfortunately I don’t have a miniature to represent that… yet.  Give me time. ; )

Next up is the infamous and self serving Professor Kellman from Revenge of the Cybermen.  Kellman was a nasty piece of work, willing to sell out his species.  This is a nifty miniature to me because even though he is human he is unique in his posture and pose.  Kellman is pictured below with a Cyberman and a Vogan from the same episode.

Also, included in this update are a hoard of Wirrn, from The Ark in Space.  In this episode the Wirrn has infested an aged space station hosting humans in hibernation.  The Wirrn attempt to take over to recolonized the Earth but are defeated by the Doctor.  Here are the Wirrn, first as a unit and then as seen in the episode.

Last up is the gestalt creature the Fendahl, from Image of the Fendahl.  This episode was written by Chris Boucher, who also wrote Robots of Death.  The Fendahl makes an appearance in the final episode of the Kaldor City audio drama (titled Checkmate), by Magic Bullet Productions. A bizarre creature of formidable power.  Again two pictures, one of the miniature, and the second from the episode.

Cheers.

Borderlands – CL4P-TP Claptrap Robots and Vending Machines

I really enjoyed playing Borderlands, from 2K Games and Gearbox Software, and I am really looking forward to playing Borderlands 2 when it is released later this month.  I don’t have a specific project that revolves around this game, but I did pick up several miniatures that were related.  I will most likely use them as part of my post apocalyptic or science fiction games.  Lets start with the robots CL4P-Tp or better known as Claptrap.  I pick up these little guys from Black Cat Bases from their Robots miniatures line.  In Borderlands the main Claptrap is yellow, and even becomes the main adversary in one of the Borderlands DLC missions.  Here he is from the introduction…

… and here is his intro as a new adversary.

With a few rare exception, the Claptrap robots don’t do much more than offer mission opportunities and in game updates.  Still, they are pretty cool.  Here is a selection of my Claptrap robots in 28mm miniature scale in a range of colors.

In addition to the robots, I also have a set of vending machines painted up to represent the in game methods for acquiring Weapons, Ammunition and Medical Supplies.  I have posted picture of these previously so i won’t go into any further detail.  Enjoy.

City of Heroes – Save Paragon City

I am posting this one for a friend.  It looks like the MMORPG City of Heroes is slated for cancellation.  Bummer.

FANS OF ALL THINGS SUPER!

You may know about City of Heroes (CoH), the comic book superheroes and villains MMO from Paragon Studios.

What you may not know is that NCsoft, the parent corporation, has announced it will shut down CoH by the end of November.

Folks, a lot of people love this game, and we are all just gaming geeks like you. We could really use your help in supporting the efforts to get NCsoft to change its mind keep CoH alive.

That said, please take a minute to check out the Titans Network, which is coordinating all the different movements being organized to save CoH. You can find them here:

http://www.cohtitan.com/forum/index.php?topic=4886.0

Please consider making any or every effort you can to save our game!

Even if you can only spare a moment to sign the petitions, that would be a great help!

Thanks in advance, and if the time ever comes around to save YOUR favorite game, hopefully the Heroes (and Villains!) of CoH will be there to return the favor!

Doctor Who – Robot – Episode 075

After a slight hiatus, it looks like I will be on a roll with Doctor Who miniatures for the near future.  First up is the first full episode of Doctor Who to feature Tom Baker as the Doctor.  Episode 075 Robot.  This a favorite of mine, not because it is particularly good, but because it is the very first Doctor Who I ever watched.  Thanks to PBS it was featured on Sunday afternoon while I was at home with nothing to do.  It has held a special place in my heart ever since.

Once I started collecting Doctor Who miniatures in the hopes of some day actually playing a game, I have had the idea of trying to recreate specific episodes.  Robot is one of them.  I picked up the Robot miniature in 28mm from Black Tree Design some time back, but I recently found a nice addition that adds to the fun.  Thanks to the Doctor Who action figures Classic Series Wave 1, and ebay, I was able to acquire a complete K1 Robot that stands approximately 6″ tall.  The first wave required you to purchased all eight action figures, each of whoich came with a part of the K1 Robot.  Once you had all eight, you had a Robot figure.  Nifty.  Thanks to ebay, I was able to acquire the Robot complete, without needing to pick up all eight figures.

Why is this important?  Well toward the end of the Robot series, the K1 Robot is shot by a disintegrator weapon that instead of destroying the robot, makes it grow very large.  Yeah, weird I know.  But, now I have both a “normal” size robot and large robot.  Nifty.  Take a look and see.  I have a FASA Fourth Doctor and Sarah Jane, as well as a Black Tree Design Robot and Brigadier.

The K1 Robot looks a little big compared to screencaps from the episode, but iti is close enough for me.

Granted, the large version of the Robot is only on screen for a few minutes, but who cares.  Cheers.

Zombies – Zombie Dogs and Rad Hounds

The newest additions to my zombie hoards are two vicious packs of dogs.  One pack of six zombie dogs and one pack of four rad hounds.  These nasty beasts are a nice inclusion in that they open several scenario options to include secret research labs focused on reanimation.  First up are the zombie dogs.  I found these nasty beasts at Mississinewa Miniatures, which unfortunaltey appears to have gone out of business.  Pictors Studio did a fantastic job painting them modeled after the zombie dogs from the first Resident Evil movie.

Pretty cool, eh?

Next up are the Rad Hounds.  These nasty beasts were originally part of the FASA Vor miniatures line, but are now available from Iron Wind Metals.  They can currently be found them under the Vor, Neo-Soviets line.

The canisters of green goo plugged into their shoulders contain the reanimator formula that keeps them active and feral.  More later.  Cheers.