• Registered: 2005-03-28
  • Posts: 416

Topic: Standing in

Ok, I've been sitting on my (sweet) a** for long enough as it is, and in the light of these news I think the time for a bit of a discussion on what minis to use to stand in for the "official" D:VG forces and units is now rather than later (hopefully, Dan won't mind the inevitable mentions of "competing products").

I'll have to recheck the plans I've drawn once I get to the bottom of the mountain of boxes and crates currently overrunning my new house (I'm finally going to make finish moving there this coming weekend and hopefully will be able to settle down for a few years, although I higly doubt I'll spend the rest of my days on a hill overlooking a small village in central Finland), but meanwhile, feel free to present your own opinions on what existing miniatures to use for Human Confederacy, Vobian, Meraxilla and even Altai troops (should you be able to come up with the latter).

  • Registered: 2005-03-28
  • Posts: 416

Re: Standing in

Despite still having not managed to unearth my outline sheet for "replacement" miniatures for official Defiance universe troops, and the fact that (contrary to the doom-and-gloom link above) the Assault Troops do seem to be coming out after all (three cheers for mr. Drage!), I might as well start gettin' this show on the road...

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Namely, was perusing Mongoose Publishing's site and noticed that there are some new releases with Defiance potential on the horizon. Namely, Skinnie Raiders, Skinnie Soldiers and Cliff Mites.

The two former ones are IMHO pretty good for true Vobian troops (Specters and Phatoms, respectively), while the latter would go well for Vobian Phase Spiders. All are reasonably priced sets and, I believe, plastic so they are fairly easy to work with -- as some work will be required. EDIT: while I haven't verified this, it does appear as if the Soldiers are in fact single-pose metal miniatures, which does throw a bit more grit into the gears, but shouldn't produce insurmountable problems.

Cliff Mites need some weapons, preferably biomechanical looking ones mounted on their carapaces. Unfortunately the availability of such weapons is rather limited. Excelsior Entertainment may have had a few in their Warzone extra weapon sets but they've probably stopped trading after loosing the Warzone licence earlier this year (haven't contacted them lately tho, so could well be wrong). The best bet might be Tyranid biomorphs sprue from GW, it's listed as £4.00 per and has 3 "laser rifles" and 6 "laser pistols", plus a few left over gribblies an enterprising person whips up a "ghost ward" or two from in no time (I'm sure).

Skinnies, especially at 30mm scale, are quite too tall to be really good Vobians (one might be better served by using some 25mm scale minis with 28mm ones). They are sufficiently oddly proportioned to appear not-quite-human tho.

Aside of the size, which can't be remedied easily, the most glaring discrepancy is the head. This is a problem with Raiders, as they appear to have open helmets only; the Soldiers seem to have the closed helmet option. I suggest replacing the heads with Pathfinder helmets from the Mobile Infantry range, these are $0.15 a piece so that shouldn't kill ya. The original Skinnie helmet can be used to decorate the Pathfinder helmet, or as a backpack as the Raiders appear to have none.

As to the weapons, Constrictor Rifle will go for the standard Laser Rifle quite nicely, and the Raiders have pistols that can be used for Laser Pistols, but the rest of the weapons will be a little more problematic. The Constrictor Cannon should be fairly easily to convert to Gatling Laser and the Neural Beamer would make for a Ghost Gun (although you'll have to get both Raiders and Soldiers so you can mix and match the weapon options). The AT and AV Launcher are less easy, but Dark Reaper launchers, again from GW and not too badly priced (£1.50 each), might do the trick nicely enough.

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All of the above said, I blithely used GW Eldar troops as Vobian Specters and Phantoms when playtesting, and am still alive (if only barely)...

  • Registered: 2005-03-28
  • Posts: 416

Re: Standing in

Since I got out of bed on a Vobian foot, so to speak, I might as well continue with them...

Now, CITF Troopers could reasonably be considered (lacking artwork as we are) to be roughly the same as Specters, with a little extra for the backpack to represent greater energy expenditure for added speed and better field save. A different paint job might be prudent as well, of course. The worst hurdle here would be their weapons (if you go with the options listed above).

The easiest one to convert would be the Kunstler Assault Rifle, despite being described as "elegant" (which makes just mangling it a little iffy prospect); I'm reasonably sure you can manage it by using one Zykhee ranged weapons tip or another from Iron Wind Metal's Vor range ($0.50 a piece).

Whilst on the subject of IWM, the Battlectech line might help you with the Grav Mortar as well. Some options that come to mind are Loki/Madcat, Tempest, Thor or even Yu Huang arms (note: the pix are linked from Ral Partha Europe but IWM should have what they have and then some); the prices vary obviously (but remember you don't have to invest in the whole mech, you can just buy the arms/weapons).

Getting a few extra Neural Beamers Skinnie Soldiers from Mongoose, ridding them of their NBs to make more Ghost Guns and giving them a Dark Reaper Launcher in return should sort out the lack of GGs for the CITFs.

  • Registered: 2005-03-28
  • Posts: 416

Re: Standing in

One more before I'll lay off for the weekend (that's a promise wink)...

Now, Cyber Hunters. I've been using the original VOID Tactical Araktons as CHs, but sadly you can't get them any longer, only the "chaos spawney" new versions. Plus they have the drawback of having too human-like heads.

Not so with Kryomek Shrikeen which, despite being clearly humanoid, don't look overtly like humans. They aren't probably en par with Araktons as sculpts, but based on what Kryomek models I have they'll look better in the flesh than in the pix (would be difficult to have it the other way around, actually...).

The Shrikeen have a nice selection of four different weapons, although you probably end up with an overabundance of pistol armed ones should you want to get a reasonable number of all weapon options. My choices would be to use Assault Rifles as Laser Rifles, Plasma Rifles as Laser Rifle XRs, (sawn off) Bio-Acid Jets as Kunstler Assault Rifles and finally, obviously enough, Machine Pistols as Ghost Wards. You might want to vary this based on what weapons you want to have the mostest of (I tend to go for the cheapest Primary being the easiest to obtain).

  • Registered: 2005-03-28
  • Posts: 416

Re: Standing in

A preview of the assembled, unpainted Skinnie Raiders can be found here. Apparently, they do come with a face plate so you don't have to swap heads after all, only paint over the said part (and if you ask me, for some odd reason, the Skinnie face is silly even if you are not trying to pass one off as a Vobian, so it's actually an improvement on the minis if it's obscured).

  • Registered: 2005-03-28
  • Posts: 416

Re: Standing in

As it turned out, this "project" fell to the wayside for a lot longer than a single weekend... No news there, you should know me by now.

But, to get back on the track a bit, I'd like to propose a couple of revisions to the above list of suggestions.

Firstly, you may want to know that the Mongoose Cliff Mites aren't as good a bargain as it appeared at the time of writing. They are only 5 for $10, not 10 for $10. The former price listed was unfortunate in that it may yet garner Mongoose much flak, but isn't IMHO much of a problem for the intented use. You probably won't need to get dozens upon dozens of PSs for your Vobian force...

Secondly, as the Skinnie Soldiers are metal and probably (here's to hoping I'm wrong) single piece castings, you might like to have an option to make the Ghost Guns for the Specters with less hackin' and sawin' than suggested for Neutral Beamers above. Olley's armies comes to the resque with the alien weapon pack: for only £1.99 you get two "biomechanical" weapons that don't look all too organic, some nice tubing for power lines plus a number of extra 'urty bitz you can try to fit in somehweres. The weapons themselves would seem to fit reasonably well in the hands of the Skinnies aestheticly, and even though they are little different in details the general shape is close enough so that you can expect your opponent to be able to recognize them as the same weapon.

Next week, Spondylocrits, Boxcar Beasts and Poltergeist... Promise :wink:

  • Registered: 2005-03-28
  • Posts: 416

Re: Standing in

So. Since it's a short week I'd better get on with the Spondylocrits.

I should think it's prudent to go the easy route with them since you might need a couple (of dozen) to make them really pay off on the field. So, I'm promoting the obvious solution: Tyranid Gaunts box(es) from GW.

They are fairly small and sort of spiky after all, so there.

And, for a rather low price of £18 you get 16 plastic figs. Granted, there's only 8 "standard Spondylocrits with Laser Pistol" or Termagants with Fleshborer, but there is at least 1 Biomorph sprue included (could well be more than that, maybe as many as 4). This, as we recall, gives you 3 "Laser Rifles" and 3 "Ghost wards" you can blithely glue on the Hormagaunt bodies to get some support troops and focal points.

If you are left with any unarmed bodies or otherwise are concerned with the lack of "Grav Mortars", your best bed might be to get some Classic Tyranid weapons: Spinefist, Devourer and perhaps best of all, Barbed Strangler would all fit the bill, after appropriate conversion work. At £1.50, they aren't the cheapest bitz in the catalog but you can't put that many of them in a single squad anyway so it's still doable.

And if you want to go really the really easy route, there are also the snap-fit Termagants. At £6 per box of 5 they are (oddly enough) just a little more expensive per model than the regular Gaunts and you don't get any weapon options (just the pistols).

  • Registered: 2005-03-28
  • Posts: 480

Re: Standing in

If, like me, you only buy GW products when ABSOLUTELY unavoidable, Kryomek Hellions might be a good option, but they don't come with lasers...

Oh, this miniature says "boxcar beast" to me, even if it's not really the right size: http://www.reapermini.com/gallery/reptusu/14139_G

  • Registered: 2005-03-28
  • Posts: 416

Re: Standing in

Well, I respect the principles of people who don't want to give some company or another any of their hard earned cash. I have a relationship like that with the local games store chain, in fact. But the unfortunate fact is that there are very few companies doing bitz service, which makes the choice of from where to buy those extra griblies very narrow. Which means that sometimes in wild projects like this I've found I have to fall back on GW even if even I dont' actually shell tons of money on them normally (having pretty much lost interest in their before the 3rd edition Wh40k came out).

Anyhow.

I don't have any Kryomek Hellions myself, but in the pics some of them at least look a bit like they have some sort of tracheal weapon (see the rightmost one at the above link). You could presumably describe the different strains of Hellions as "counts as armed with" models, eg. "Gamma strains have tracheal Laser Rifles". Not quite as WYSIWYG as my suggestion, but if the opponent agrees and you don't get confused yourself then there's nary a reason for not doing it.

That Reaper Krungbeast is pretty impressive. Can't really tell how big it is from the pic, myself, and feel it wants for a less human-bovine hybrid type of head, but I suppose the latter might be arranged. Unfortunately, I don't seem to be able to find it in the store, is it an upcoming release?

You could do a passable BCB in a somewhat similar style from some of smaller dinosaur models as well (example: Monoclonius from IWM). I'd prefer something a little more alien tho.

Which brings us to my suggestion for the BCB...

I started to write a description of how I planned to do it and the thing got really convoluted. Then I figured that if I can't properly describe how I plan on doing it, it's probably going to be too complex to execute for most people. So I'm going to rethink this a bit over the holidays. And amids this struggle I didn't have time to write up on the Poltergeist either, so that'll going have to wait until next week too.

But hey, I got the Spondylocrit suggestion done :wink:

  • Registered: 2005-03-28
  • Posts: 480

Re: Standing in

Krungbeast should be under "reptus" faction.


http://www.dragonforge.com/    this guy does scifi power conduit pipe thingies which could be handy.


http://www.hasslefreeminiatures.co.uk/   hasselfree do "Bits" of several kinds.



http://www.alphaforgegames.com/spareparts.html  alpha forge do a small number of spare parts.


http://www.heresyminiatures.com/ heresy do some parts, notably sci-fi weapons.

  • Registered: 2005-03-28
  • Posts: 416

Re: Standing in

Warming up this thread for new suggestions, and also to notify y'all that there be a new "grey alien" minis line in the works:
http://3d-miniature.blogspot.com/

They are to be 28mm scale white metal minis (which I don't think is at all obvious from the site above, but that's the word from Mr. Sim) and IMHO look to be shaping into rather promising an alternative to using Mongoose Skinnies for Vobians. Not only are the Skinnies rather overarmoured for the most part, they are also very tall which AFAIK is not what Vobians are famous for.

Skinnes however still have many more troops types (at which I'll be taking a look in the context of providing stand-ins within a week... well, a month... ok, make it a year or two) that we are given a glimpse at with 3D Miniature "Greys", Mongoose's going to come up with prepainted plastic Skinnies next year and I'm of course not certain how tall these new figs will really be.

Still, something to keep at least half an eye on, I'd say...

  • Registered: 2005-03-28
  • Posts: 416

Re: Standing in

And now for something completely different... In other words, another potboiler but this time for those of the Meraxillan persuation. Namely, the very-recently-out-for-preview Infinity the Game Charontid seems to me the best PI Meraxilla stand-in to date (see the rightmost mini in the pic) -- the helmet especially seems rather promising, especially if filed down slightly at the neck:
http://www.infinitythegame.com/eng/rtdo2.asp?IDNOTICIA=200&

(as an "interesting" side note, ItG suppression fire mechanism bears a fair resemblance to the Defiance one as well...)

  • Registered: 2005-03-28
  • Posts: 416

Re: Standing in

Again, something not really related to the discussion (well, monoloque mostly) above... A thingy from Rackham's newfangled AT-43 game, apparently for a yet-to-released force of aliens:
http://tanath.altervista.org/_altervista_ht/DSC00030.JPG

Notice the tripod structure. Might make a reasonable conversion base for an Altai Mausoleum... Let's hope the aliens themselves don't turn up tripedal cyclopses with tenctacles for arms tongue