"New Hammer's Slammers 15mm painting project" Topic

I'm painting up some new 15mm vehicles for Hammer's Slammers, the Crucible.

I wanted to do some less 'experienced' troops – ie trained and even untrained units (as opposed to the Veteran or even Elite units I usually field) – as you get more stuff.

Trouble is I have to then paint more stuff!

I've put some shots up on the Slammers website as a work in progress. They are simply undercoated so far but I will take further shots as work progresses.

more shots here link

There are 5 detachments of Solace Army Regulars, Militia and thugs. These forces use GZG Gauntlets – including the new turreted MICV version done especially for this force – and APCs, command vehicles and Mortar carriers for the regulars. In addition there are Old Crow support vehicles for the Militia and thugs with GZG and Old Crow flying platforms (G Sleds and Mules) with GZG towed/deployable weapons as calliopes. I have a couple of dozen infantry stands also in the wings for the regular guys – also new GZG offereings – and more GZG armed town types for the 'thugs' over 100 of them on 15 stands…

This force could also be built in a larger scale using GZG (now Daemonscape) 28mm vehicles (especially the Gauntlets) and the direct Old Crow equivalents in the same scale.

The 2 detachments of the Sincanmo Federation are using Old Crow vehicles (Goanna, Gecko and Trojan) and Rebel Miniatures figures. Again they could have been built in 28mm (indeed I have built some of them in 28mm) using direct upscale Old Crow vehicles.

All of the toys (including two ebay finds of some Matchbox SRN6 hovercraft that will be 15mm versions of these items: )

have been undercoated in Army Painter primers: For the Solace there is Desert Sand (both versions – they changed colurs on me when I bought a new can…), and blue plus some Tamiya Silver for the more civilain vehicles. For the Sincanmo more Desrt Sand and Barbarian Flesh (the latter to do desert 'pinky' type camo).

All vehicles will have camo sprayed over them (probably with an airbrush) and then all vehicles and infantry will be dry brushed, have Army Painter dip applied, followed by a wash of Future/Ink and then matt varnished (using testors I expect.

I will post more pics as the work progresses – we are aiming for a monster game at Salute 2013, if we can

John T

Fun!

That's a lot of painting to do John!

Can't wait till Salute to see that big table :)

Cheers Matt

That looks like a mammoth project you are about to embark on John, i am really looking forward to seeing a few progress reports as you wade through this mass of vehicles, will Mr Dalimore be assisting you at any point?

This MICV version of Gauntlet is excellent! it is the first hovercraft I want to buy. I hope it will be put in GZG shop ASAP.

Looks and sounds like quite a project.

Certainly a good one for the airbrush, assuming you have enough paint to pump through it to help speed up the job.

Thanks guys. I have to admit I'm full of trepidation: it does seem a lot of vehicles (and even more infantry – I haven't even shown you those…)

Agreed Umpapa: The turreted Gauntlet is nice and I'm glad Jon did it. I'd designed the vehicle on paper for the force in 28mm via photos of a 28mm version of the Gauntlet I had to hand plus a bit "photoshoppery" for the turret. I spoke to Mr Tuffley about it and he said "do you know, I had a mind to do a turreted version of the Gauntlet in 15mm…" so… sort of serendipidous, which is nice.

But when I look at all them Gauntlets layed out and count them (21: jeeez) I'm a bit taken aback at even my own sillyness.

Anyway, yes Avamango, I have had a 'volunteer' from Mr Dallimore to run his airbrush over the vehicles (which is, as ever, very nice of him).

I figure three different stipe camos for the three different detachments of the Solace Regulars (green, brown and black stripes over the sand kind of thing) just so that I can identify them on the table with a similar attempt for the Sincanmo with one detachment in brown stripes over the sand and the pink guys with blue stripes air brushed over them (very British Destert Rats kind of thing).

As for the other vehicles, the Solace Militia and thugs are going to have panels in white on the blue vehicles (sort of a police look) and red panels on the sliver vans (the latter quite crudely done – they are meant to be an untrained bunch of thugs after all…) but I'll do those by hand.

Then it's decals (already had from the Bad Idea man – many thanks John L) and stowage and highlighting, shading and dirt.

Should keep me going for a while!

Comstar – I have asked for a big table and my mates intend to take all of the scenery we had at Sheffield Triples over two days, build even more scenery to add to that and have it all on the one table.

Let's hope it comes off!

John T

Can't wait :)

I have had a 'volunteer' from Mr Dallimore to run his airbrush over the vehicles (which is, as ever, very nice of him).

I'm so jealous i would love him to paint up one of my big dropships or a unit of tanks.

I have asked for a big table and my mates intend to take all of the scenery we had at Sheffield Triples over two days, build even more scenery to add to that and have it all on the one table.

Let's hope it comes off!

That's going to be an impressive sight, even worth thinking about going to Salute for next year…

That's going to be an impressive sight, even worth thinking about going to Salute for next year…

You should (if you can!)

My plan is to put just about every 15mm detachment we have on the table as an enormous battle with the thing being driven around a few players by some sort of automated system I haven't invented yet with just some Slammers available for those few people/members of the public to play 'properly' as a participation (what with them being the heroes of the stories etc).

Plus I'd like room to do a small display of the 28mm stuff, just to show what you can do in other scales

John T

Clean the damn mold lines.

El Wombato

You're definately right. My only excuse (and it's a poor one) is that with 50 plus vehicles I may well have missed some. Check out the rest of the pictures – far less mould lines on those ones…

But you're right: Maybe I shouldn't have taken such a close up before I finished 'em!

John T

PS – I've come up with an excuse for mould lines on a cast hull:

Just look at the mould (weld?) lines on that cast turret!

yeah I know I'm grasping at straws…

John T

More progress: camo paint has been applied with an air brush

link

John T

@El Wombato – we were on the same wavelength… 8^)

More progress

Nothing finished yet but army painter dip and/or Future with black ink washes have gon on.

link

John T

Wow… those look great! Where are those blue vehicles from?

Looks like it is coming along nicely!!

The blue ones all look to be Jezs stuff from Old Crow.

The Blue ones are a mix of GZG and Old Crow – mosty the latter. Numbering is Letraset rub downs.

I added a few more picks on another (4th) page:

On most of them I've still got details to paint on 'em all (and matt varnish and decals on some). And paint the windows in and so forth.

Then I have the infantry to do… :(

John T

More progress.

The Sincanmo Federation are finished completely (both infantry and vehicles):

link

The Solace Regulars have had their vehicles finished but no infantry as yet:

link

Similarly, the Solace Militia have had their vehicles finished but no infantry of towed weaponry yet:

link

John Treadaway
hammers-slammers.com

looks amazing!

That's great John :) Keep them coming :)

I love how the vehicles seem to have individual character and little things that are different from model to model.

-Eli

Hey, I know that scene!

Poor saps don't have a clue what's going to happen to them, do they?

@Eli

Thanks – that's something I was dead keen to try and do. With the thugs' vehicles (the silver ones) it was the grafitti approach. With the Sincanmo desert buggies it was stowage (though they absorbed an awful lot of stowage!*) and two slightly different paint schemes for the two different detachments (just to make my life easier on the tabletop and because – when I was drawing up the original artwork in the rules – I made the vehicles' colour schemes quite varied to reflect the sort of organisation (or lack of it) they had.

Lastly with the GZG hover vehicles for the Solace Regulars, I tried stowage and – again – different camo schemes (again for table top identification). One detachment is sand base and green stripes, one is sand with brown stripes and one is sand with panzer grey 'leopard' spots. I also bought different coloured decals for the numbers** – standard 'regular' trained troops in white and 'veteran' trained troops in red.

The Sincanmo desert types had random numbers from various decal sheets and hand painted flags just because I wanted them to look a little more 'rough and ready'.

@Lion in the Stars: Nope they don't. In the story in the book 'Paying the Piper' that the Solace are taken from, the Slammers go through them like you know what through a you know what…

John T

* The rule being, buy as much as you think you need. Then at least double it… Some stuff I also made with greenstuff putty.

** on those GZG Gauntlets the decals are actually 1/48th scale US aircraft tail numbers – the "twelve inch" ones on the hulls and the "8 inch ones" on the turret rear. In scale, that works out well in 1/100 (ie 15mm) with the hull numbers about 6mm tall and the smaller ones about 4mm. Unit insignia for the Solace chaps are custom ones for The Crucible by Bad Idea games decals

Okay, I know nothing so what happend to the Solace Militia's 5 and 6? I know seven ate nine :)

Looks awesome!!! When will we get a group shot?

Next up is the infantry, Malleman. I've got about 130 to paint (the thungs have a lot of fairly innefectual louts standing around throwing things…) so that's going to take me a little while.

I'm hoping by early August, latest

John T

Awesome stuff, makes me want to dig out all my old slammers novels

You should monkeychild! Solace regulars and militia are from Paying the Piper and the Sincanmo Federation are one of the Slammers employers in The Warrior – both excellent stories.

John T

Awesome – I've just been reading Paying the Piper so these figures are very evocative.

Unlike a lot of authors that have been my serious favorites of SF in the past (Harry Harrison and Joe Halderman spring to mind) Drake's Slammers stories get better the more he writes (in my opinion) and Paying the Piper (on the basis of it being the most recent full novel) is – IMHO – one of the best.

John T

I thought I'd better do a couple of desert buildings to go with the new forces:

Built from a desk draw tidy and suitable other plastic tat with GZG doors.

John T

Oh my,

That is quite the effective piece of scifi terrain. All those odd angles, really makes it seem "futuristic".

Is that sprue framing the windows?

What are you doing to get that nice texture on the surface?

-Eli

Ah, Eli – that was a quick and nasty job so I'm glad you liked it. Mostly weathered with chalks, Mig fluid and some dry brushing.

The texture is some stuff I bought as spray on texture for 'non-slip' steps and walking surfaces. I had previously bought GW's 'Ruff Coat' (or wehatever it was called) but this stuff seems to do much the same job (and, er, cheaper). It's, essentially, an aerosol can full of spray on grit. I masked out the GZG doors and some other items and then just gave everything else a liberal squirt.

The windows I drew in my drawing programme of choice (Xara, as it happens) and then printed out a page of them, cut them out, ran them through my laminator achieving a sheet often or so strips. Then I cut those out again, leaving enough plastic around the edges to make sure that they didn't delaminate and painted black acrylic around the edges quite liberally (which added a little thickness – ie the thickness of a thick coat of paint).

I then stuck them onto the model with some Black superglue from 'Filla Glu' (good glue, nice guys awful name ), gave the doors a wash with some future with black ink in it and spray mat varnished the whole shebang with Testors.

Lastly, I painted some Blue Tamiya lacquer into the round windows on the GZG doors and over the occasional printed/laminated window as, obviously, the matt varnish had dulled them down (and I wanted the odd one to look like it had caught the sun).

Some of the building detail was added with Renedra square plastic bases…

and – indeed – the sprue they came on (waste not want not!). Well spotted

John T

The stuff that has been put out for terrain for Hammer's Slammers games has always been stellar. I really think there is a book in that alone.

GW did it, why not a good, generic book on building scifi terrain? Even if it was just a PDF publication. I'd print it out and keep it in a notebook in the garage where I do my work.

Heck, I'm already doing this with independent articles.

-Eli

Thankyou very much Eli

Obviously – over the years – I did some bits on the web site:

link
link
PDF link

That last item came out as an article in Miniature Wargames as well. As ever, it was all done with a view to making stuff 'on the cheap'

But the only place I've ever done anything in a book proper on this subject was in Kevin Sallimore's second painting book where I did an arfticle on making more buildings out of CD boxes and so forth. Can't give you a link to that, obviously!*

But thanks again for the compliments Eli.

John T

* I'd get shot!

Shot eh?

Sounds pretty extreme.

-Eli

He's a hard man…

John T

that desk tidy came out great! now I have to steal that idea for a shadowrun research lab!

We had an office move at work and I just failed to snag another (differently shaped) desk tidy but I'm please enough that I'm keeping certainly my eyes open for another.

John T

"PS – I've come up with an excuse for mould lines on a cast hull: [inset – photo of a T-34 tank]".

Sounds like a perfect example to me!

Thanks Mako – I had over 20 of the GZG Gaunlets plus 40 other vehicles to do at the same time, plus I've just started on the next tranche of infantry – almost 200 GZG and Rebel Minis.

I'm probably gonna miss the odd mould line but I really want to get them on the table rather than them sitting as a lead (and resin) pile in my garage

It's all a trade off, I guess.

And if it's good enough for the 1st Guards Army I can probably live with it!

John T

Now for some mass infantry:

This is just one detachment of Solace Freedom Fighters. Being as they're untrained (ie thugs and street fighters for the most part) there are 30 TUs in a detachment. That's 5 vehicles, 5 double sized TUs (the chaps at the back with molotovs and placards) and lots (ie 20 bases) of others with basic weapons, shot guns, pistols and assault rifles – a real rag-tag bunch.

The pictures aren't up on the Slammers site in the usual fashion – I've had a hard drive failure – but they are here to look at: link

Almost all figures are GZG with some selected Rebel Miniatures amongst them plus the odd old Traveller figure from my collection who took the 'kings shilling' and were pressganged into service . After all, I had nearly 120 to paint so I could (and did) take any help I could get: there's a bunch of slick looking Rebel Minis ladies painted by Kevin Dallimore whose 'quick' painting technique still vastly overshadows my own – different versions of 'quick' I guess (and different levels of both skill and patience).

My technique was to prime them in different colours using Army painter sprays and other primers (so green, desert yellow, grey, brown, red brown and blue) and then over paint them with colours, leaving sprayed areas wherever possible to minimise the 'real' painting work. Then mix them all up and Army painter dip them. Then Future dip to seal them. Then Testors Dullcote and paint on the shiney bits (metal and glass). Then sand and grass clumps for the bases (2p pieces and larger MDF round bases, as appropriate). In case you are wondering why there is a preponderance of red, it's not because I had any red Army painter primer (nooo – that would have required too much prior planning and forethought!). It's because – lacking any real uniform – the Freedom Fighters are described as favouring a red item of clothing or arm band to show their allegiance.

Even so, that number of infantry is a fairly back breaking task (for me anyway). And as they are 'Untrained' and therefore only hit on a 6, there'd better be a lot of them 'cause they're not gonna be very effective except en masse!

John Treadaway
hammers-slammers.com

they look great! I've been looking forward to seeing your infantry…

Kind words Mr Harold. I mostly view them as a necessary chore! But when you've got a force that's (pretty much) just infantry… well a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do…

Whilst some of the figures are a little cartoony there's no doubt they're the best sort for picking up the Army Painter Dip.

I have to say that – as a confirmed black undercoat man for the last 35 years – the Army Painter dip (and occasionally black ink in Future dip [like the silver vehicles behind them]) has made me a convert. Not because I think it gets you better results – it doesn't*.

But as a method of reducing lead piles and/or just getting stuff on the table**, it's fairly unbeatable.

The corollary of the "I've been doing it with a black undercoat for 35 years" line is that it does worry me that I only have so many painting (and indeed gaming) years left and I'm determined to get as much stuff on the table as possible (as long as it's painted to an acceptable standard.

And – since I've already done most of the Slammer's stuff I would ever want in 28mm, spending too much time doing it again in 15mm is beyond my patience!

Anyway – long speech over: thanks again for the appreciation MrHarold. Your own work is excellent, I have to say.

John T

* Although – as a starting position, with lots of work over the top – it can be the path to some very well painted miniatures

** since I will never play with unpainted miniatures and I don't do printed out pdf 'miniatures'

Looking forward to the next Salute already John, unfortunately never seen Slammers on the table so i am determined not to miss out next time! Also made me think about my own 15mm camo schemes. I like the solace spots and tan schemes.

I have a target to do (a measley by your standards) 8 vehicles by the end of the year. I have only made up an unpainted GZG Paladin so far (got to buy some vehilces!)but i have painted some Khurasan Felids at least.

And a very inspiring thread if i may say so!

Many thanks.

Thankyou commanderroj – more power to your elbow and let's see those vehicles of yours on the table!!

Looking forward to the next Salute already John, unfortunately never seen Slammers on the table so i am determined not to miss out next time!

One of my co-conspirators Roger has sketched up a 20ft by 20ft table (with a hole in the middle for access!). He's a great scenery builder so it'll be interesting to see what he can come up with (with a little help from me, though – not that he needs much!). My only question is "will the table be big enough…"

Also made me think about my own 15mm camo schemes. I like the solace spots and tan schemes.

Glad you liked them – it's a hard one, I find, doing three similar camos – close enough to show they're all in the same force, and yet dissimilar enough (when you have over 20 of them split between 3 detachments) so that you can easily see what detachment they're meant to be in.

John T

John,

I freely admit that I am just going to steal your paint jobs for the irregulars.

Damn nice work.

Thanks,

Pat

You're very welcome Pat – a man after my own heart!

John T