Warzone Eternal and Sci-fi WW1 Photodump

I found out recently that there will be a new version of Warzone called Warzone Eternal that will be launching on kickstarter soon. While I am not looking for a new set of rules, it seems like the figures will be released in small, five-figures packs, which sounds like a good way of supplementing my forces.

I joined their facebook group to keep track of the project, and thought I might as well lay my collection out on my new mat and contribute a few photos to the group, so here they are: 

WWG Barbed Wire Defensive Positions

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I wanted to get some wire obstacle sections for my Trench Hammer games. After some searching, I decided to get some World War Gaming resin pieces from an eBay store. These are made of a really nice resin, and come with barbed wire in the concertina form, which I though looked too modern for a sci-fi WW1 aesthetic. Instead, I chose to use the Army Painter razor wire and deploy them in a low entanglement fashion.

The paintjob was simple: I spray the pieces with a brown primer, then with beige. The posts were painted in brown - the woodgrain you see are actually from the brush strokes. 

I got a total of nine pieces, which I hope will be sufficient for my needs. Here you can see the height of the wire relative to a 28mm figure.

Scratch-built Machine Gun Emplacement

While I already have several sci-fi/post-apocalyptic rubble-barricades in my collection, all the sections are too high compared to the height of the heavy machine guns I have painted, so I decided to scratch-build a machine gun emplacement.

For the base I used 1mm PVC foam board. I cut our a C-shaped section sized to the bases of the machine gun teams. For the main component of the barricade I used cork sheets. I lay down a first layer using hot glue, and then glued some bits from various plastic kits I have left over to represent the debris the soldiers would have used to reinforce the strcture. I put the longer pieces in the centre of the piece, on the basis that this was probably the first part of the emplacement the soldier laid down, and they would want to define this part first.

I then built up the sides with more pieces of cork.

Then I covered the base with my usual mix of sand and gravel.

To seal everything in place, and more importantly to give a non-porous surface to the cork pieces, I covered everything with Modge Podge.

Once the Modge Podge has dried completely, it was a simple matter of painting the whole thing black, then grey, and then picking out the various debris items and painting them in their colours. Next, I did some rust effect and weathering on the debris. I then applied a black wash, followed by a brown wash, before finally applying some weathering powder.

I think I managed to match the colour and weathering to the pieces I bought off ebay.

Machination Studio Maxim Gun Galloper with Imperium Immortalis crew

I got the Machination Studio Maxim Gun Galloper a couple of years ago with the intent of using it for my Warzone figures. As I have already painted a Tehnolog T-Rex for the Imperial faction, I wanted to paint the Galloper for the Bauhaus faction.

The original model is 1/35 in scale, so I had to do some work on the 'cockpit'. I cut away the Maxim Gun mount, and added a platform made from Tehnolog bits, and added a ladder made from some plastic mesh I had.

The torso of the crew is from an Imperium Immortalis heavy weapon crew figure, but I decided to give it the head of a cavalry trooper on the account that the walker would probably be under the cavalry arm of the army rather than the artillery arm. The arms come from a trimmed down Mad Robot Miniature crew figure, and the weapon is the Grenade Launcher from Imperium Immortalis, which happens to fit right into the slot in the gun-shield.

I bought some Army Painter barbed wire from a store earlier this week, and so I decided to add some scenic element to the base and depict the walker stepping on and neutralising some wire obstacle.

The gun-shield has a large surface area, but thankfully there was already some texture on the piece. I did some chipping work on the gun-shield and other surfaces, but at this scale they are not really visible at tabletop distance and to my aging eyes.

I did heavier weathering on the muffler, and applied weathering powder to the 'hooves'.

The legs on the walker are not really square, as you can see from this rear view, but somehow the crew platform is level.

While I was assembling the model I wondered how the driver was supposed to see where is is going and what he was shooting at, and when I was painting the weapon I found the answer: he had some sort of a viewscreen which gave him readings taken from a camera/sensor on the front of the weapon, which you can see in the front view of the walker. I imagine the role of the walker as a trench-buster: the elevated position of the weapon allowed it to lob grenades into the trenches in a sort of semi-indirect fire.

This will likely be the last model I paint for the whole project; next up will be some wire entanglement sections.

Imperium Immortalis Infantry

I managed to paint up a few more of the Imperium Immortalis figures from the kickstarter. As with the cavalry, these are beautiful figures, but they are difficult to assemble - I have probably more than two dozen foot figures from the kickstarter, but I decided to only assemble and paint up the minimum number I need to play Trench Hammer.

The figures below are the engineer from the kickstarter; the body of the HMG gunner is actually from Mad Robot Miniatures, and identical to the one I used for their opposing army - the body of the HMG gunner and the tripod from the kickstarter looked so difficult to assemble, I gave up without even trying. The gun itself is also from the kickstarter, although the tripod is from another maker (I forget which), and the pintle is just a bit of a plastic sprue, while the ammunition and ammunition box are from Anvil Industries. I also decided against assembling and painting a gunner's assistant, and instead will use the engineer figure as the assistant, or a Forward Observer if needed.

The engineer figure is probably my favourite foot figure from the lot, as it exudes attitude and character.

The next three figures are specialist figures, which I plan to use to designate a squad as a specialist squad, being the grenade-launcher squad, the flamethrower squad, and the assault squad respectively.

The assault specialist is actually just a standard trooper from the set. I chose th one which I thought was easiest to assemble, and added pauldrons to him.

The makers of these figures did their research, and the equipment of these figures resemble those of the German Infantry in WW1. The same is true of the flamethrower. I added the regiment number of the assault trooper to the pauldron, as I did with the Warzone figures.

Finally, we have the officer figure and the sniper. The officer is obviously overdressed for the battlefield, but he was a fun figure to paint. The sniper is a nice figure too, and I wasn't quite sure what colour to paint his cloak, but I decided on a plain sand colour in the end.

The rear view of these figures showed my use of the Kromlech weathering powder.

 Now that these figures are done, I hope to use them in a game of Trench Hammer tomorrow.

Shieldwolf Miniature Imperium Immortalis Cavalry

I finally got around to assembling and painting the first of the figures I received from the kickstarter several months ago. These are lancers riding on the same kind of mounts that the Death Korps of Krieg cavalry use, but they have the pickelhaube instead of the Death Korps style helmet.

They are beautiful figures, with amazing animation on the mounts, but they were difficult to assemble. Instead of the usual configuration of a head-and-neck and two halves of the torso, all the mounts came with the head-and-neck, the torso with 2 or 3 limbs, plus at least one limb as a separate piece, and a few had legs that had to be joined at the knee. Being thin and made of resin instead of plastic, this made gluing the parts together difficult.

There was some gap-filling to be done on the horses, as well as the joint between the riders' torsos and their waists, which are sculpted onto the mounts. As I said they are beautiful, but I do wish they were easier to assemble.

The animation on these models can be better appreciated in the side view.

They will be facing the British-inspired cavalry from Mad Robot Miniatures in a future game, once I manage to get the heavy weapon teams painted.

More Mad Robot Miniatures figures

While I await the delivery of the Imperium Immortalis kickstarter, I worked on increasing the types of troops I can field with my Warzone Imperial figures under the Trench Hammer rules.

The Trench Hammer rules recommend six figures to a squad, but based on what I have, I decided that I will field five-figure squads. The photo above shows the dismounted version of the cavalry squad I put together. 

The second photos show three "specialist" figures. Now under Trench Hammer, infantry squads come in different flavours, such as MG squad, Assault squad, Rifle-grenade squad, and Flamer squad. Since Trench Hammer does not use figure removal to mark casualty, I realised I could indicate which type a squad is by having four "standard" figures, plus one "specialist" figure. The three figures will therefore mark a squad as either a Flamer squad, an Assault squad, or a Rifle-grenade squad.

Warzone Bauhaus Ducal Militia

I got the Warzone 2nd Edition box set more than three years ago, painted up the Imperial half of the figures, and then left the Bauhaus figures in the box. Then two months ago, I backed the Imperium Immortalis kickstarter, more or less purely on the fact that they were sci-fi figures in pickelhauben, and decided that it was time to get the Bauhaus figures painted.

Easier said than done though.

Two months ago we were still in lockdown, so even getting paints were an issue. When lockdown lifted, FG and I made a trip to the local art supplies store to get the paints I needed, and Martin helped me to get the Tamiya spray paint that I needed for the base coat.

As I did with the Imperials, I chose to stick to the original WW1 colour scheme, except that I did not use brown for the pickelhauben.

Once assembled and sprayed in their base coat, it took me three evenings to finish painting 40 figures, and then as many to apply the number decals to their shoulder pads.

The uniform looks pretty drab, even with the gold buttons I gave them. Fortunately, the Germans used red numerals for the regimental numbers, which gives a bit of a highlight to the figures. It was a chore cutting and applying 80 numerals to the shoulder pads - in addition, I applied several coats of Citadel Lamian Medium to dull the shine of the decals afterwards - but I think the result was worth it.

The Imperium Immortalis kickstarter is scheduled to deliver in December 2020, so it will be months before I receive them. As a precaution I have taken a photo of the paints I used for these figures to make sure that I can remember the exact colours I used.

In the meantime, I have ordered a few more figures from Mad Robot Miniatures to supplement the Imperial side, so look out for them in the coming weeks!

Trench Hammer Test Game

Remember how I bought a Warzone 2nd edition boxed set, painted up the 40 Imperial Regulars figures, bought more stuff to round out the army, and then wondered what I should do with the remaining 40 Bauhaus Militia figures?

Well, I came across this kickstarter, thought about getting myself a unit of cavalry and maybe a support weapon with crew... but ended up backing it at the Starter Army level, which will give me a unit of cavalry, a unit of infantry, several specialist figures, and 6 ogryns. Add to these the 40 Bauhaus Militia figures, and I will have a force that matches my Imperial force.

I started looking at WW1 rules - because why use a sci-fi set of rules for WW1-themed sci-fi troops if you can use WW1 rules, right? - and came across Trench Hammer by Nordic Weasel Games. I have bought a few of their rules before and have enjoyed them, and there are a few websites with detailed reviews of the game, as well as fan-made QRS and unit cards.

I got the rules, read them, and liked them enough to also buy the Expansion booklet. I made my own QRS, some unit cards, and played a small solo test game using my Warzone Imperial figures against my Space Marines.

I set up two opposing lines of cover just over 24" apart, with the Imperials holding a position on top of a low rise (in which I placed the heavy machine gun), and two positions at the bottom of the rise.

The Space Marines are the attackers, and start off from cover too.

My initial plan was to silence the MG on the rise, suppress one of the other positions, and then charge it with the Assault Squad. As it turned out, both sides soon shot each other to bits.

I reset the game, and this time I classed all the covers as trenches. This time, I had the opposite problem: shooting was rather ineffective, with the troops simply hunkering down to recover each time they sustained too many hits - in Trench Hammer hits are not permanent, but are more like "shock", which can be recovered; a unit is only removed if it accumulates 7 or more hits.

Eventually the Space Marines rolled well enough to eliminate the machine gun, and the Assault Marines charged out of their trenches... to be cut down before they could make contact.

I decided that what I really needed, just like the combatants in WW1, was some indirect fire.

I switched the positions for both sides, this time deploying two squads of Marines on the side with the low rise, and attacked them with two squads of Imperials, a mortar, and a squad of cavalry kept out of the line of fire.

The mortar was not as effective as I had hoped though, and eventually I decided to take a risk and launch my cavalry against the first trench. Despite the bonus for shooting at troops moving in the open, both Marines units failed to score enough hits to stop the cavalry. On the next turn the Imperials won the initiative, and I rolled 6 on the bonus movement, allowing the cavalry to assault the trench... and drive the Marines back. It was a Light Horsemen moment.

From the short test games, I think I learned some things about the rules.

As with all games, scenario design and terrain placement is very important. Without enough cover, units will be destroyed before they have a chance to come into assault range. On the other hand, with too much cover, troops will just hunker down and not move or attack, so the scenario must force the units to move out of cover, and/or have a time limit.

With just 2 to 4 units per side, one almost always has enough command points to activate all the units; I believe the game will be more interesting if there are 6 or more units per side, which will force the players to prioritise which units they wish to activate or rally.

I enjoyed the rules enough to want to try them in a larger game, so as soon as the art supplies store opens again, I am going to get myself some Feldgrau paint...