"Re-based Horrorclix AVP Aliens" Topic

Let me know what you think.

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This was the toughest one to re-base:

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IF I end up using them (I'm still not too convinced about using pre-painted plastics), they are going to go through corridors with plastic canvas flooring, so I might as well use the same material on the bases, right?

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CC

CC, They look surprisingly good with the EM-4 trooper. You've now given me some food for thought… again!

MBR

Why wouldn't you use those figures? They look just fine to me. And look good with the Grenadier figure, to boot.

They look great, your basing looks good too.

Good job, CC. Did you do any repainting on them, or is that the way they look out of the pack?

Straight out of the pack and then re-based. Nothing else done to them (so far).

CC

They look really good… hmmm i've got a couple of packs in the office…. you've given me ideas :)

Oh, baby, you give me evil ideas.

Seriously, CC, that's some good stuff, and well suited for Space Hulk or any number of games I can think of. Makes me want to dig out my old Aliens boardgame.

At the risk of hijacking your thread, though, I LIKE plastic figures; they're cheap, plentiful, and easy to modify. And, re: your other thread, I've been dinking with them for more than a decade now, and they continue to show remarkable durability when treated the same as you'd treat your metals.

Admittedly, if you make a habit of toting them around in a shoebox, storing them in the sun or in a hot attic, and generally not managing them very well, I cannot guarantee anything. My bitz box is kept perennially full by little kids who will sell me their shoeboxes full of broken figures for a buck or two.

I wish I had picked up the ones I saw at Gen Con Uk on the bring and buy now.

Tony
occultwars.com

"Seriously, CC, that's some good stuff, and well suited for Space Hulk or any number of games I can think of. Makes me want to dig out my old Aliens boardgame."

How is this comparison photo of the old Leading Edge Games metal figure, an EM-4/Grenadier trooper and a Horrorclix AVP Alien?

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CC

I can't wait to get started on my plastic canvas flooring corridors now:

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CC

I like metal… I really do… but the WizKids Aliens are just sweet. They really are. And now, I need to go buy another box, and it's YOUR fault, durn you!

LOL.

I bought my 5 on ebay as singles from the same seller. Now (and it's YOUR fault, durn you!) I am considering getting the full set at some point :)

I just need to see what they look like after repainting before making that final leap.

Thanks.

CC

CC:

The WizKids Aliens outshine the older metal one.

The problem with the WizKids ones is that there are just so many bad poses. I guess it was licensing or something but I wish they'd done them without pillars or flooring or any of that. If the sets were just five Aliens in various attack poses without extra furnishings/furniture, I have snapped up a few sets.

BTW, I think it will be VERY hard to get the Alien sheen with the repainting. Good luck.

Mysterioso

I am inclined to agree with Senor Mysterioso. However, CC seems to have hit on the solution: rebasing.

Reposing isn't difficult, either. Durnit, I need to finish that dratted article -- I'm slapping something together for the Workshop on that topic right now (stripping, reposing, and rebasing old WizKids minis.) Maybe I ought to do some Aliens? Then again, CC's beat me to that… but then again, he gave me some ideas, too…

…and what's hard about the sheen? Repaint, then use gloss coat. Presto!

Mysterioso,

I have 5 out of the 7 (?) poses in the boxed set. I think the only ones I don't have are the one with the net grid/scar on its head and the one about to strike at the human victim.

From the photos I've seen of those two last poses, it doesn't seem like they would be impossible to rebase.

I'd love to see someone try rebasing those two.

CC

I can appreciate Mysterioso's point; the boxed set includes this one incredibly clunky mini that features a pillar, a guy hiding behind the pillar, and an alien ATOP the pillar.

Solution? Saw the pillar off just below the alien. Rebase. Voila! And the victim guy? Bits box, or perhaps some slight reworking into a zombie (or zombie fighter)for one of my other games. No problem!

"Just use gloss coat" After having a set of SST warrior bugs go dull (not foggy, dull) from gloss coat I am rather skeptical of gloss coat finisher.

As for repositioning, etc. there is no question it can be done. My issue is that the Predator box has pretty much usable figures without doing much more than cutting at the feet and popping on a better base. The Aliens box, not so.

Really? One of the things I didn't much like about the Predator box was the necessity of reposing; most of the Preds are in static poses.

As for gloss coat: what were you using? I use Krylon spray for gloss coat, and when I'm careful about the humidity, it's never let me down. It can play weird tricks if you try using it in really humid weather, though.

Mysterioso, just use an artist grade gloss; like Windsor Newton. It will hold its sheen. Also, you can achieve some great results with interference paints…

Is this better now, with the stone base completely removed?

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Plus, when I re-re-based this figure, I made the plastic canvas (grating) a bid wider, to cover most of the base.

What do you think?

CC

Oh, and a round 25mm GW base (what I am going to use on the troopers) uses a piece of plastic canvas (grating) that is 5 squares by 5 squares (minus corners).

A round 40mm GW base (what I have already used on the Aliens) uses a piece of canvas that is 8 squares by 8 squares (minus corners).

You can add grating to dozens and dozens of bases with a single 70 cent sheet of that plastic canvas (comes in sheets of 11 x 17 inches).

Enjoy!

CC

Canvas? Is that what it is? Where do you get the stuff? Brand name? I've used "screen patches" for screen doors to similar effect, but I'm always open to expanding my repertoire…

Doc,

Here is the stuff (available in many colors, at Michael's, Hobby Lobby and other craft stores, in the cross-stitch section):

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CC

Ahhh, EMBROIDERY canvas.

It is good.

My Mom has an old Spanish saying: "hierro afila hierro"
(iron sharpens iron).

Thanks for the exchanges, Doc.

CC

I've been re-basing and using Alien figures (metal and plastic) for quite a while. They Wizkids ones are terrific and finally have the scale correct.

tinyurl.com/3xdglp

The Queen set is quite good too; although I much prefer the Alien Queen from Konami for use with the Aliens. It is more detailed than the Wizkids' Queen and the scale looks better.

The canvas works really well for sci-fi stuff and integrates well with the plastic Platformer sets:

tinyurl.com/37smvj

OOoo. I like what you did with the plastic "embroidery" canvas!

Nice.

CC

I've decided that, for now, I will not be re-painting the figures themselves. However, I applied a thin wash of PVA to the bases, followed by the following paints: black, gun metal and silver (these last two as a dry-brush).

How do they look? (Apologies for the bad lighting in the hotel room)

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CC

CC, those look real nice. I wish these Alien figures would have been around a few years back when I had a huge collection of Copplestone and Future Wars figures.

I used to use a thinner auto/fiberglass repair mesh material for my sci-fi bases that looks good too. Unfortunately, it is not as cheap as the plastic canvas.

I would do that to mine, but the problem is that in Heroscape, the figures can climb ladders and the base has to be the right thickness to fit into the ladders so you can tell at what height they are, etc.

The plastic canvas is really useful and it is nice to see how so many people have come across it and made great use of it.

Lookin' good, CC.

I forgot how nice this "Aliens" trailer was:

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CC

Those rock CC! I used a similar basing technique for my Evil Cosmonaut Horroclix conversions.

This is what I want my troopers to look like (when I finally paint them):

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CC

NIce work. Personally I would try to make the gratings run the edge of the base all round, and I would use hexagonal bases rather than round (just my preference.)

What is the kind of plastic used for Heroclix?

Where did your "colonial trooper" come from?

Kilkrazy,

Not sure what the plastic type is called. However, the troopers are these:

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Hope this helps.

CC

Kilkrazy,

You'll enjoy this review:

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CC

Nice. We are truly spoilt for 28mm SF figures these days.

The EM4 stuff looks like it would be very compatible with Copplestone and Hasslefree.

Regarding the plastic, does it melt when you use liquid poly cement or do you have to use Araldite or hot glue to fix it? I'm thinking of how to modify the figures. (I could just buy a box and start hacking away…)

The plastic cement works well for setting the figures to their bases, but I think it does "melt" the plastic a bit in the process somehow (where the two surfaces join), though it might be the plastic from the base and not the actual figure.

CC

It sounds like the base is polystyrene and the figures are dense polyethylene. I will look up my big book of plastics to check for the best gluing method.

Looking for an "Aliens" army list:

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CC

I miss my rebased Aliens. Sold them a while back. :(

Hope the buyer has had some fun with them.

Anyway, I'm really thinking of getting a bunch more to replace them (and I will rebase them the same)!

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What do you guys think?

Should I give it another go?

CC
PS. Remember my huevos?
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Just got a boxed set of the Aliens for under $20 USD (including postage) from ebay!!!

Those 7, plus 2 that I got from another source in the last couple of days, gives me 9 Aliens to terrorize all my other figures.

I guess I'm "back in the game".

CC

CC never sell your minis (unless it is to me) :) I always thought your figs were cool. The bases were well thought out and executed. I was amazed when you let them go. I'm glad you were able to replace them. Cool Alien minis are difficult to find.

Here are pics of my Aliens figures, and by figures I mean action.

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Holy smokes, Thieses!

Those look awesome.

By the way, what sort of flooring is that?

CC

CC Thanks.

the floor is made of 12"X12" industrial floor tiles. These are the type of interlocking squares that you put down in a factory floor to keep cutting oil off of your feet. I just sprayed them flat black and dry-brushed them. I bought them many years ago at a surplus store. They are hard plastic and not rubber so they took paint well.

I have enough to make a 4'X10' table. I have much better pics, these are just taken with my crapy camera from home. I will post the rest as soon as I resize them.

How tall are these Denizen Mid-Techs???

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How would the EM-4 troopers look alongside them?

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Thanks.

CC

CC, Denizen Mid-Techs are petite but perfectly formed. They measure between 27-29mm from sole to top of the helmet.

I base all my EM-4 figures on pennies, and if you were to glue the solid based Denizens to pennies as well, then the height difference isn't too bad. It's just that Copplestone's EM-4s are bigger boned.

I have all the Mid-Techs plus most of the space suited soldiers. I display them alongside the die-cast Aoshima 1/72 dropship, and they look fine. The scale of the dropship was the reason I went for Denizen. I love them as models, really fine sculpts by Chub.

To my eye they don't mix with EM-4, but could fight Horrorclix Aliens just as well, since they're meant to be massive (about 8 foot tall?)

Denizen figures are a perfect match for GZG in scale, but GZG can't touch them when it comes to quality of sculpt (apart from the GZG astonauts).

Matt

I love what Dentatus did here:

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CC