Galactic Battalion - A 15mm not-Star Wars Imperial Army

Just like Brigade Models PacFed tanks were yelling not-Star Wars Trade Federation to me, Critical Mass Games Arc Fleet Walkers are begging me to be deployed as not-AT-STs... Although the Extended Universe is bursting with troops and vehicles for this faction, for me , at its core, the imperial army boils down to a couple of things:

Picture from Wookiepedia.

• Stromtroopers: geneticaly engineered uniformly white armor clad elite troopers
• Officers: armoured and armed with just pistols, wearing uniforms in a variety of colours but all of them with WW2-Wermacht-style caps.
• AT-ST: grey towering biped "light tanks"
• AT-AT: matching, even bigger 4-legged "APC"
• Scouts: lighter version of the Stormtroopers armour and insanely fast hovering bikes

As I've stated before, I actually prefer proxy armies to canon ones for the freedom to diverge from canon and to mix and match licences they provide (not to mention the ease of picking a bunch of existing miniatures and calling them a not-XYZ army compared to the pain of comparing, selecting, converting and sometimes downright sculpting from scratch miniatures for the official faction).

So starting with the walkers that inspires this article, let's make up a TO&E for this Galactic Legion of ours...

Organization of Unobtainium Exporting Planets miniatures painted by Micropanzer

They took a while to get there (according to USPS, they went form Brussels (Belgium) to Nashua (NH) to Jamaica (NY) to Opa Locka (FL), back and forth three times between Opa Locka and Miami (FL), then to Kansas City before ending up in Blue Springs  (MO), the entire trip taking just under a month) but Jason at Micropanzer just finished the miniatures I commissioned him to paint for my Organization of Unobtainium Exporting Planets faction!

Units of the Robot Army of Organization of Unobtainum Exporting Planets

The Benthians

The Benthians are one of the two sentient species indegenous to the deep oceans of the New Halifax colony. Benthians are small aquatic humanoids with squid-like faces. They share their home world with the Archipelians, shark-like humanoids living in the shallow waters surrounding New Halifax few islands. Both species evolved and reached sentience independently, their respective biotopes remote from each other. 

Although the Benthians look more like those guys, I
intend their narrative role to be closer to that of the
Mon Cal... Picture from Wookiepedia.

What's in the box? CMG Praesidentia Sentinel Drone & Hawk Wargames Roof Detail Accents

Two boxes showed up in the mail today... CMG Praesidentia Sentinel Drones for my Organization of Unobtainium Exporting Planets robot army and Hawk Wargames (Dropship Commander) Roof Detail Accents. So what's in those boxes?

1cm grid

The drone comes in three different references, each one identical to the others but for its nose weapon: from left to right: phase lance, phase cannon and tri-phase blaster. Each pack is made of three metal drones and three small bases.

What do I think? Nice sculpt, minor flashes at the tip of the wings and weapons, I'm always a fan of having variants of  a given model, they're scale-less and could be used for anything from 6mm or smaller fighters to 28mm or bigger micro drones, the stand is a bit to low for my taste (but that's subjective, I envision them as flyers zooming over the battlefield; but I guess they could just as well be grav lifted "ground" vehicle, hovering just above the ground)...

What's in the box? CMG Praesidentia RAL

Just before I start packing all the Organization of Unobtainium Exporting Planets minis to send them off for painting, a few pictures of what they looked like when they showed up in the mailbox.

CMG Zas and Armies Army Commonwealth
minis for size comparison (left).

The regular infantry comes into 8-bots packs: two packs of regular rifle toting bots and one of heavy weaponed bots. 

I only have one of the rifebots pack (more on order). They come in three different poses. As you can see on the pics, they are somewhat shorter than you're usual 15mm human although their body is similarly proportioned only they have very small heads and no neck to speak of.

CMG VTOLs assembled!

My domestic techmarine completed the assembly of both CMG VTOLs this week-end! He's got close combat training all this week but will hopefully be able to get back at it next week to paint them in their PLA livery. In the mean time I've ordered PLA decals (thank you for the tip, Kobold) on eBay and kanji numerals for the tail numbers at Fighting Pirannha Graphics... Stay tuned!

The Robot Army of the Organization of Unobtainium Exporting Planets

Mini Metal Mayhem logo for their
Interstellar Mining and Extraction
Consortium...

Another army idea for my 15mm setting, blatantly inspired by another trade federation robotic army! The Organization of Unobtainium Exporting Planets (O.U.E.P.) is nominally part of my "alien empire" meta-faction but do show a significant dose of separatist ambitions (we don't want to close any game option)...

The O.U.E.P. has always had a policy of preferring robotic military forces over living ones (something about cost efficiency and no moral dilemma about fighting over natural resources).

The goal here (just like with my not-Tau) is emphatically NOT to model a 15mm Star Wars Droid army, but to use readily available minis to create an army that plays and feels like it without going crazy converting and sculpting stuff (or pestering mini makers to develop my very own fetish line, that just happen to be heavily licensed) to get a perfect scaled down facsimile... I actually like the generic fell better: I don't mind mix-matching not-universes like I would the originals.

People Liberation Army 15th Airborne Corps

Just a few line about my ideas on how to use my brand new CMG Strike Hawk and Galacia VTOLs. I decided to use them as vehicles for a new force of the People Liberation Army Airborne Corps, the WZ-21 and Z-19...

I'm thinking mostly light grey to fit with the rest of my Terran forces, with patches of darker grey and green, optics in red and PLA markings... If I can source suitable decals I'd love to make the tail number kanji too...

Anyone got any idea on where to source PLA decals? The obvious answer is buying a PLA jet model, but I don't want to give out twice the price of the model for the decals...

What's in the box? CMG Ravager & Blackguard Mechas

Last but not least of these ZAS Kickstarter reviews, the two mechas... They were designed by John Bear Ross and sure enough they show plenty of its trademark modularity!

Left: the Blackguard Support Mecha with its 2 rocket laucher backpack, the body
and (metal) shoulders, the legs, a railgun, an energy cannon and two plasma cannons.
Right: the Ravager Assault Mecha, its body and shoulders, jump-pack,  legs, 4 leg
thrusters, a flamer, dual barrel auto cannon, grenade launcher and power claw.

What's in the box? CMG Strike Hawk and Galacia VTOLs

Two of  the strech goals of the ZAS Kickstarter (infantry reviewed here, mechas to follow) were an attack VTOL and its transport conterpart... Obviously I couldn't resist. So there went another £26 (£11 for the small guy, £15 for the big one).

On top, the Galacia Heavy Transport VTOL: the two top row are the engines and their support "blocks", note that the two forward are wider, putting the forward engines more outboard that the aft ones and paying at least lip service at avoinding one engine exhaust feeding the next one; on next row are the 4 skids, the body, a chin gun and a chin sensor (that seems to actually go with the Hawk but fits both).

What's in the box? CMG ZAS Mercs Kickstarter

Unless you've spent the last few months on planet 28mm, you all know Critical Mass Games ran a Kickstarter last March in order to expend one of its Mercs lines, the ZAS. Although they're not my favourite of their Mercs (give me the Astagar or Ygs), I pledged £30 for the Early Bird ZAS Company Commander (and then some more for the stretch goals Mechas and VTOLs, more on those to follow any time soon).

Inventory of the Company Commander Pledge

And I got my package earlier this week (later than some due to the mechas and VTOLs)... So, what's in the box?

What's in the box? CMG Ayame Battlesuits

On 27APR I ordered a bunch of those from Critical Mass Games. They where sent on 08MAY and received on 17MAY. And then I took my sweet time to blog about them...

So what's in... The assortments of plastic bags that came in the box?

• The Protolene Ayame Battlesuit Platoon: 

As you can see, a platoon is made of 3 suits: 3 pairs of legs, 3 torsos (the suits have no heads) and a whooping 18 arms (9 left, 9 right; and 3 different weapons, top to bottom: big energy weapon, hand with claws and 3 barrels guns). All models come with a white plasticard base displayed hereunder. Torsos and legs are resin, everything else is metal.

20K - A 15mm not-Tau battleforce for $55

The initial idea for this post came from an old (july 2011) article on Dropship Horizon about building armies from incomplete lines... 

Tau Battleforce (minus the drones) painted and photographed by Paul at theunrealisticartist.com,
all 15mm equivalent pictures from the manufacturers websites; 3 packs of Ygs, 2 of Meso Nai,
1 of  Gitungi, 1 Battlesuit and 1 Grav APC: $50 (add $5 for a pack of drones)

Near Infinity - Another 15mm Starter Army: Yun Jing

All pictures from the manufacturers websites (Infinity, Khurasan, Peter Pig, Critical Mass Games, Rebel Miniatures) except the Ground Zero Games Japanese Power Armour which come from Dropship Horizon.

Second instalment of my Near Infinity series: a selection of 15mm stand-in for a Yun Jing Infinity Starter Army: