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

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.

Fiends in Jackboots

 

Sorry in advance for the terrible phone pictures!
Fiends in Jackboots is the catchy name I came up with two years ago for an old Weird World War II game the Lunatic R I and began many years ago. Now I know many of my British audience belong to wargaming clubs I belong to essentially a wargames club of two Lunatic R and myself.  Lunatic R is one of those sci-fi/fantasy wargamers who is afraid of historical wargaming but he enjoys pulp so this is the perfect gaming period for him. So He just mentioned he wanted to do this WWW2 so I dug up the Artizan figures I got back in 2010 when we first talked of doing this. Lunatic R likes playing "The Joes" as he calls them so I'm building the insane Nazi death cultists.
I have a bunch of Artizan late war Germans in greatcoats two squads worth for my infantry they are 28mm from foot to eye.

I also bought this Reaper Miniatures Frankenstein from their Classic Monsters line as a failed super soldier experiment. But we've sharpened our www2 concept is to be Hellboy-ish in perpetual winter from an open gate to another dimension. So I don't know if I'll use it.