15mm Zhodani Lift Infantry Platoon - GZG

After nearly 30 years of gaming, I've decided it's time to update my 15mm Zhodani Lift Infantry.

Originally, I had started with early resin Ground Zero Games vehicle mini's back in the 90's, with a combination of Martian Metals and Laserburn 15mm for the infantry. The rules were the original Striker and occasional Ashanti High Lightning for GDW.

Times and tastes have changed, and inspired as I am to do some Fifth Frontier War scenarios using StarGrunt II, I've returned to GZG for the vehicles (and Denizen/Darkstar Ventaurans for the infantry).

Reinforcements Have Arrived - Models by Ground Zero Games

For a Consular Guard Lift Platoon, I used 3 x GZG V15-56A, 1 x V15-58A and 1 x V15-57A for point defense. In retrospect, since I had to heavily modify the 57A, I could have used another 56A and saved the gun for future use. Live and learn.

GZG V15-57A

For the point defense sled, the 57A hull was used, and a new deck was created from bits of styrene sheet, with a turret from Combat Wombat.

New Deck and Turret (Turrest from Combat Wombat)

Combat Wombat turrets are nicely shaped, but suffer from a near-future look with too much reactive armour cast onto the turret, so I had to dremel the beggar to far-future standards. Then added some GZG greebles.

Miniatures included for scale: Citadel Traveller Zhodani (OOP), GZG NAC, Laserburn Ships Crew.

I plan on putting together another platoon, plus company assets (CP, EW, FDC, MRL and PD sleds), for either a large convention game or a Dirtside II game.

I suppose this means I also have to update my 15mm Imperial Marines...hmmm - I should have better thought this through....Ω

Traveller - Sharushid Type 42 Fire Direction Centre

Sharushid Type 42b ACV/FDC

These second-line vehicles are converted from obsolescent Imperial TL 10 Type 41 APCs.

Miniature by Laserburn/15mm UK - bits from GZG and Grendel

Nicknamed “The Pig” (V. ishalap) by both Confederation and Vilani troops alike, the design dates from the Pacification Wars, and the Type 41 lags a tech level behind its Type 52 replacement.

Tens of thousands of Type 41’s have been manufactured. The Vilani deplore waste, and as a result many of the mothballed T-41’s were sent to the Frontier Legions.  Others were pressed into service as support vehicles.

In conformance with standard Imperial doctrine, the Type 41 was designed without weaponry or firing ports. Frontier Legion motor pools often modify the design by adding firing ports and support weapon mounts. It is known that some Gisadia line artillery batteries on extended active service will add anti-personnel mines to the exterior.  These mines are detonated remotely as a last-ditch defense measure.

The T-42c is the hover version, and coordinates the artillery battery fire missions. In Striker II terms, it acts as a Staff Satellite Uplink Stand for artillery units.

This vehicle was something of a lark for me, in that I can only foresee one or two scenarios where this miniature will appear, but I had the extra miniature and wanted to see it painted. It could also be used as a communications vehicle or as an objective.

The model is an old Laserburn Hover APC, soon to be available in resin from 15mm UK, with GZG and Grendel bits added. I'm only partially finished with painting it, but I wanted to get at least one post up for January...Ω

Amera 15mm Plastic Buildings

The continued quest for good “sci-fi” buildings is a never-ending one. Like many 15mm sci-fi gamers, I have boxes of clear plastic electronic packaging in interesting shapes, packed away in boxes, awaiting conversion. This is often time consuming, so when a manufacturer offers a pre-made kit, I'm quick to investigate.

M205 Small Houses

These Amera 15mm North African buildings  (#M206 Medium House and M205 Small House) were purchased on a lark to see if they could be converted to serve as a futuristic Vilani mining settlement. Mine were ordered through my Friendly Local Gaming Store. Dressing them up with the Ground Zero Games doors and windows from Jon’s “Building Fittings” line produced a result with which I am well pleased. These buildings are lighter than resin and stronger than paper. Once finished, they are heavy enough not to be blown about by random puffs of air.

M206 Medium House

Attaching the building fittings was simply done using epoxy, with some white glue to fill any gaps.  I had some gaps form around the doors, as I was simply gluing the GZG doors over the ones cast onto the model.  There was less of this problem with the windows.

I recommend filling the polystyrene shells with fine/light household insulation foam to prevent bending/bowing/warping.  Priming the interior is necessary to insure the foam doesn’t melt the polystyrene.  I used Testors gray primer as a base prime, inside and out, followed by Citadel white, inside and out.  The Citadel was necessary to provide something for my water-thinned acrylic paint to grip to.

Before filling with foam, I recommend testing the foam on some of the off-cut bits that come with the buildings.  The home insulating kit in the hand-held can from my local Do-It-Yourself franchise worked well for me.  Foam tends to expand outward as it dries, so I left the models base-up for the foam to set.  In the process, some of the curing foam did rise above the lip of the base; this was removed with a hobby knife and a spoon.

Once the fittings were in place, after priming, I spray painted the outsides of the houses with Testors Sand Yellow.  Oops!…so much for using the Citadel primer. The acrylic paints had some trouble covering the Testors, though nothing an extra coat or two couldn’t cure.

Size Comparison

After painting various door and window colours, the models were dry brushed with Hobbycraft Light Chocolate. This gave a yummy cocoa colour result - rather a pale Martian dust - to the model; which I quite like.

The end result was a Middle-Eastern Pre-Fabricated Futuristic look, rather like one would expect from a Vilani Mining franchise. Ethnic AND Utilitarian.  These are the sort of dichotomies which give depth to the scenario and which make sci-fi gaming so enjoyable. Ω

Work in Progress - 15mm Grav-Copters

Normally I don’t like to display non-finished work; these have been sitting on my workbench since last November. If the topic hadn’t come up on The Miniatures Page, it would never occur to me to put up these pictures.

I've modified two Laserburn 15mm Scythe Jet Copters (available from 15mm UK) to take the wings of Force XXI’s Wraith VTOL Gunship. I realize that a grav frame mightn’t need to look like a ‘copter, however I wanted something that vaguely evokes the MH-6 “Little Bird” for a sci-fi version of “Black Hawk Down” scenario. That’s been under development since last October (I work slow, guys…)

The chin-mounted chaingun is from Stan Johansen’s 15mm/25mm accessories line. 4” clear plexi stands are from Litko.

I had thought to trim off the wing-mounted railguns, since the model is intended as a light support VTOL, but decided that the wings look better as Mel at Force XXI designed them.

Aesthetics are everything.Ω