A generous Gent & the Captain

A generous gentleman gifted me a Zerboz Captain America. Zerboz is I believe a now discontinued Marvel toy series of pre-painted rubber 1" inch Marvel superheroes.

He is very close to the classic Captain America look.

Her is the Zerboz next to a Revell 1/72nd scale US paratrooper for size comparison. He's a little large but then the Captain's a big guy. Please not the Zerboz are made of rubber so I used Milliput to help affix him to the magnetic base.

Temporary Interruption

My landlord is painting my apartment so I was unable to get any work done as all my wargaming shelves are shoved into a corner in the kitchen. I'll take a moment to mention the Allied Heroes I'll be using in my 20mm Weird World War 2 project, first I have a 20mm plastic figure with a trench coat and two pistols I'm converting into the Torch of Justice  the Hellboy version (pictured above) not the later version with Radio Girl the figure from a Twilight Creations board game. Next a kind soul has donated a Zebroz Heroes Captain America to this project they are 1" tall and will fit in with the 1/72nd figures.

I don't know who the Nazi villains will be yet.

Tale of Two Scales

Early test figure from 6 years ago?

My first ever entry into wargaming was with my collection of 1/72nd scale Arifix figures and model vehicles, yes dear readers I played ww2 in 20mm with some high school friends Command Decision I think it was. 20mm has remained to this day, due entirely to the plethora of plastic 1/72 kits, the best scale to play ww2 games in. Now I'm but a poor city apartment dweller so the largest playing field I can muster is 4'x4' perfect for skirmish games, but not good for larger 28mm games. I want to do some www2 games with a number of vehicles impracticable in 28mm but possible with a 4'x4' board in 20mm. So I will be dividing my weird ww2 antics into 2 different scales, 28mm for small Hellboy skirmishes with the Artizan, heroclix & Dust Tactics figures; larger battles with 1/72nd scale plastic figures & kits.
Can I really do Weird WW2 in 20mm you ask? Here is a my 20mm Kriegaffe again by Monsterpocalypse. Looks like the right size to me.

I can use my DC android toy for both scales.

The infantry are mounted on 20mm magnetic square bases they give a nice weight to the plastic figures. Now I'm notorious for storing my miniatures haphazardly but this time I decided to make some do-it-yourself storage boxes for the infantry. Cheap plastic fishing tackle boxes form K-mart with metal washers glued on. The infantry will be very snug in these.

Axis Robot

This is a toy I bought back in the late 1990's in a comic shop it has DC 1998 make in China stamped on the bottom of it. If I remember correctly it's a robot created to fight Superman, I just thought it looked cool and was a good size for gaming. Here is both the front and back next to Fritz the Artizan German 28mm figure. The robot is 63mm from foot to visor (eye). It has an irregular shaped base which is slightly larger than 40mm. I'm going to try to shpe the base into a 40mm circle.

Rasputin

This is the Heroclix Rasputin he is 32mm foot to eye.

This is Rasputin next to an Artizan German trooper.

Kriegaffe

 

 Image copy write Darkhorse Comis & Mike Mignola

As you may recall I mention that this weird world war 2 project Fiends in Jackboots would contain elements of Mike Mignola's Hellboy. The main Mignola characters in my Nazi group will be the The Kriegaffe a series of mentally and physically enhanced apes created by Nazi scientist Herman von Klempt an old school chum of Karl Ruprecht Kroenen the clockwork assassin in the first Hellboy movie. The Kriegaffe are employed by the Nazi to sow terror late in the war.

This figure is my Kriegaffe he is painting up very nicely but all Kriegaffe have mechanical hands. I cut away the sculpted fur from the figure's hands & wrist now I need to use putty to give the hands a more mechanical look. Of course this means I'll have to create a figure of Herman von Klempt too.

 Image copy write Darkhorse Comis & Mike Mignola

Snowy Forest Progress

All day yesterday into early this morning is snowed again! On the first day of spring no less! But today the temp rose to mid 40's F so I've opened the windows to spray paint the terrain pieces. Earlier this week I smoothed them out a bit with several layers of PVA (Elmer's Wood Glue) this not only gave the surface a smoother frozen look it gives the pieces some durability.

Note the tan cast caused by the wood glue. Next step was to mask of the trees so I could spray paint the pieces white.

Now they are a uniform white. Next will be to paint up the cast rocks on the pieces. I'm also considering a light grey wash to give then some depth.

I remembered Belgium and much of Germany are Catholic countries so I grabbed this resign Crux for $1.49 at the dollar store.

I still have some cheap railroad trees left and some Sage brush for barren trees to make more forest pieces. And as you can see I need a lot more to fill a 4'x4' table. The biggest problem will be creating the burnt out vehicles as purchasing kits for that will get expensive right quick.

Help Wanted

The funny thing about starting a new period or project is digging up all the bits & bobs you squirreled away. I got this Corgi 2003 special Starkbucks Christmas toy for $1 at a garage sale a couple of years ago. It's 1/56th scale and perfect for 28mm its also a 1940's style truck. I have one big problem there are 7 wheels (including the spare) but I have only 2 of the rubber tires. I need to get a hold of at least 4 more rubber tires to get this truck back in commission does anyone have any idea where I could get some?

Forest Pieces Progress

Here are the 3 forest terrain pieces I started this week, the hill bit is missing its trees they are not glued on yet. I covered over the foam and cork with sculptamold a craft material used in children's art classes. I remember using it in art class when I was a kid which might be the reason why I bought a bag of this stuff years ago. I was looking for a tub of plastic wood to coat the pieces and found this bag instead.

Many bloggers are dealing with their lead pile in this new year I have one of those but I have a different issue I have all sorts of materials for terrain making literally boxes of the stuff I haven't used. So I'm trying to turn this stockpile of art supplies and just plain junk into terrain. Everything used in the above pieces, the cork, railroad trees, blue foam and the sculptamold have been collecting dust in my flat for at least 4 years!

Oh I mixed more sculptamold then I need so I made this with the excess.

I Got the Itch

I got the itch to build some down & dirty terrain for my Fiends in Jackboots Weird WW2 project. Now the Lunatic and I have a couple of concepts for our game which need to be reflected in any terrain pieces I make. First the world is a sort of nuclear winter due to Rasputin opening a gate to another world, second the war seesaws across the Ardennes for months turning the forest into a sort of post-apocalyptic landscape.So I did a quick internet search for some reference photos you can see them above. So I scrounged up some materials, I have a lot of terrain making materials squirreled away here. I though I had some hardboard around which is my preferred terrain basing material but it turns out I did not but I found a piece of cork board it will have to do as I have the itch. When I get the itch I tend to collect pieces and fit them together like a 3d puzzle I think of them as as 3d sketches. You can see my first piece above has cast rocks left over from an old project and cheap railroad bottle brush trees I got of of ebay many years ago. It will need Spackle of course but the build part is now done.

I'll be regularly posting on this blog every Wednesday and Saturday.

More Snow... But Some Progress

Yup that's the view out my apartment window right now yes another snow storm! We've had so many in the month of February is been ridiculous. But the temp reached 40F for a very short time Monday so I primed a few miniatures in a rush. And yesterday I began to paint.

The Monsterpocalypse figure was made of some sort of vinyl so the conversion work I did on his hands with a hobby knife will need some milliput.

No Priming Today

 Outside my apartment.

Its snowing again today so no priming I'm sorry to say. I so wanted to get started on my giant ape today but no luck. So I put my snow boots on and trekked over to the Lunatic's to see what was up with him. He just got an order of Heroclix figures in he feels superheroes are an important part of Weird WW2 gaming. I took some hasy pic with my phone while he was unpacking them.

War time Captain America with German Luger. 

Lobster Johnson of Hellboy fame.

Classic Red Skull

Movie Red Skull

The Lunatic is using Dust Tactics figures to create his "Joes" army the great thing about that is the Heroclix figures are 32mm just like the dust tactics figures as you can see from the following image.

 Lobster Johnson ready to lead US armored troopers.

And what do you know he got a few for me too. A villain from the Danger Girl comic which I've never read call Major Maxim and Hellboy's nemesis Rasputin!

Rasputin 

Major Maxim 

Ain't he a pistol? And he's very large as you can see next to this Dust trooper. Now I have a Nazi robot character sweet!

Oh I've managed to suck another follower into the madness here at Fiends in Waistcoats please welcome Jimmy Fernandes of the very fine blog Middle Earth Minis. I've been following his journey painting all the GW LOTR releases for some time now.

Nazi Terror Weapon

 Sorry for the poor phone picture
The Nazis employed weapons designed to terrorize their enemies during the war so what could possibly be more terrifying than a raging gigantic ape? This is the Quantum King Kondo figure from the collectible board game called Monsterpocalypse he's 65mm foot to eye and is mounted on a 40mm round base. Since we are using the NUTS! WAR WITHOUT END supplement as our rules he will be a walker sized robot in rules terms. That means I'll have to get a handler figure for him.

Nazis in the Work Bench

Here is the whole ungainly mess all my assorted Germans stuck down on Galeforce 9 magnetic 25mm round bases. This is 4 packs of Artizan Designs late war German infantry in great coats, 1 pack of Renegade German infantry in great coats and a Westwind SOTR Nazi vampire. Apart form Frankie and a giant ape (gotta have a giant ape) this is all I'm working on for my evil Nazi faction.

I'm loving these late war Germans by Artizan.

I've never seen a Renegade figure before and they ended up being very chunky. But they have a certain charm they'll paint up easy. I'll just use them as fat American's who joined the Nazi party or some such thing.

Obligatory SOTR miniature.