Evil Bear British Powered Suit

Way back when (Colours 2015) I bought two British ultramodern troopers in powered armour. It has taken a while to get one of them near to finished.

Armed with a GPMG and a backpack mounted ammunition supply, it can lay down heavy firepower. The armour and the shield on the left arm provide them with protection from small arms fire.

The ammunition feed requires a lot of manipulation to get it in the right shape. I added some additional support where the belt goes into the gun.

Not completely convinced that it will fit in the Foxhound (another Evil Bear product).

 Comparison with Empress British SAS.

Evil Bear Combat Support Drone

Evil Bear brought out their Combat Support Drones a while back, I bought a wheeled version I think at Salute.

The kit comprised a hull, two sets of wheels and a remote controlled GPMG. The weapon mount is identical to the resin GPMG supplied with the Panther kit (together with an HMG) which will allow weapon swaps.

The hull has four front mounted sensors plus four sensors on the four corners.

Shown here providing fire support for advancing SAS operators.

Equipped with extensive day and night vision system, the drone can advance with troops or proceed in advance of troops. The stabilisation system allows it to fire while moving.

The four scanning sensors allow a degree of autonomy in movement.

 There is a winch on the rear of the hull, though I might consider it control cables as an alternative.

 This particular variant uses wheeled locomotion, Evil Bear have a tracked version armed with a heavy machine gun in the remote mount. There is space in the turret space to add magnets without having to make any changes to the model.

Evil Bear Foxhound Protected Mobility Vehicle

The Evil Bear Foxhound was undercoated with PSC British Tank Green spray. The windows have been painted with Vallejo Game Colour Night Blue. The camera lenses on the sides and above the rear door. The lights also need to be painted.

William Killian for scale.

Most examples have a 20 litre jerry can to the right of the door. It would need the triangular feature beneath side box on the right removed,

 Front view showing the towing bar.

Here are some photographs of the vehicle in action.

A four man SAS team use their Foxhound for cover.

Evil Bear Foxhound Protected Mobility Vehicle

This is Evil Bear's resin and metal kit of the British Army Foxhound Protected Mobility Vehicle.

The Foxhound provides a protected patrol capability in an environment where the threat is high. Various protection and mitigation techniques have been built in to protect the occupants, such as the V-shaped hull and separation of chassis and crew compartment.

The kit comes in a small box, with the parts wrapped in bubble wrap.

 The kit comes with a two part hull, basically the chassis and the crew compartment. The parts are cleanly cast with only minor gates to be trimmed/filed from the resin parts. The only minor problem identified during construction was the axle to wheel contact surfaces. Unlike on the Evil Bear Panther, the axle and wheel only have a very small contact surface. The Panther wheel and axle plugged together. The joints on the Foxhound were drilled and pinned.

As you can see, it is a very large vehicle, especially at 1/50 scale. The wheels and axles have been pinned and glued together, but the axles are still separate to the hull. This will allow the hull to be spray painted British Tank Green.

There is a tow bar at the front, together with two countermeasure pods on the bonnet. The two top crew hatches would need modifications to be put in the open position. There are steps under the front doors and a mud guard over the rear wheels. Two viewing devices are on either side of the roof together with a roof pod with a rear view camera.

The Foxhound is designed as a patrol vehicle rather than a long range recce vehicle so it does not have additional gear added. It should probably have a NATO 20 litre jerry can to the right of the rear door, but that would have required additional carving of the body.

Vehicle comparisons

Two comparison shots of the Evil Bear Panther CLV and the Crooked Dice Transit van (with an Empress Miniatures Technical).

As is traditional, William Killen for scale.

Evil Bear Panther

Evil Bear produce a range of 1/50 resin and white metal vehicles and 28mm figures (powered armour mainly) suitable for modern and ultramodern gaming.

The first one I am putting together is the British Army Panther Command and Control vehicle.

The kit went together easily (I have not added the front wheel arch armour as it interferes with the front wheels for painting etc.). It is as good as an Empress kit, and to the same scale (i.e. actually too large for 28mm scale which is 1/56).

Initially I was going to paint it with PSC British Tank spray, but due to a fortuitous accident I used PSC Field Grey. As I am going to use it for transport for Time Lift Security, the different colour looks good, not sure about what I am going to use for decals.

Colours 2015

After resting in 2014, Colours was back in 2015, if only one day but in the same place, Newbury Racecourse.

I bought a four new rule sets at the show: Terminator Genisys, Frostgrave, Skirmish Outbreak and Otherworld.

Terminator Genisys is mainly set in the future and the set contains clip together terminators and human soldiers.

A new manufacturer to me was Evil Bear. Their show supplier had new power armoured troopers, supplied in a metal tin.

Skirmish Outbreak is Radio Dish Dash (of Skirmish Sangin fame) version of the Zombie Apocalypse. Building on their previous rules, it is a comprehensive set of rules, though a lot more complicated than rules such as 7ombieTV. It certainly looks interesting.

Frostgrave is Osprey Games new fantasy skirmish rules, complete with a set of white metal characters and plastic supporting cast. They have packaged up the Mantic undead plastics for the rules.

Otherworld is based on the Action:Engine rules from Crooked Dice. Allowing skirmish games using classic dungeon dwellers and is designed for Otherworld miniatures but not directly tied in to the range.

Warbases had a number of interesting items, but in the end I picked up one of their 15mm Stalingrad buildings.

I picked up a large number of Crossover miniatures figures from Minibits, which should keep me busy painting Superhero figures. I also bought two MDF buildings, one of the Tech Buildings (for use as a shop) and a missile silo (for use as a missile silo).

Crooked Dice had the prototypes of their villains and soldier figures due shortly, and I bought their resin Weed (no nodding in the sunshine…). I also got Otherworld from them.

The Dice Bag lady had some Stunty Henchman and some Statuesque Miniature figures.

Overall it was an enjoyable show, thanks to all I talked to.

Now back to the painting.