"UAAF: new Khurasan force in Hammer's Slammers" Topic

I've finished a new force.

We want to ensure that people using other forces in 15mm could still get some ‘Slammers' action using Hammer's Slammers: The Crucible.

Kevin Dallimore had carried out some painting for Khurasan and was offered some miniatures which, in the end, he just did not have the time to paint (in the run upto Salute) so – after some discussion about what technique to use – I offered to help him out with that.

The miniatures were from Khurasan's Federal range and fitted in well with the Antargran Regular Army – the progenitors of the Thunderbolt Division (a mercenary company that split from their erstwhile Antargran commanders following a civil war).

What remained post war was the UAAF: the Unified Antargran Armed Forces are not as well trained as the Thunderbolts but they do have good, solid kit so the Khurasan material fitted it very well.

I've now produced a blow by blow for my painting of both vehicles and figures using a variety of methods. link

I've also produced a new force introduction to the Antargrans link

Lastly there is a new Big Detachment Sheet for them – they can be used in conjuction with the Thunderbolt Division or as a stand alone force. PDF link

Needless to say, bearing in mind the manufacturer, the Big Detachment Sheet is available only as 15mm item.

My plan is to use them on the day at the Salute 2013 Route 66 game. TMP link

Have fun!

John Treadaway
hammers-slammers.com

Note – there seems to be a temporary server glitch on the Slammers site. You might have to give it half an hour…

John T

Pictures and links aren't working for me John (and I so want to see them!). The recent post with a pic of Khurasan's super-heavy is what inspired me to finish mine.

It's working now – I was switching to a faster server but it obviously dropped its dinner temporarily!

John T

I hate you John… :)

worth waiting for!

Like I needed a reason to buy more Silers, but now I do have a good reason to buy more Silers.

Stunning I love Hammer Slammers!

Very nice!

Many thanks for the positive feedback, people.

John T

I like them !!!! Reminds me of M1s and M2s !

L4 – bet you wish they did them in 6mm….

John T

LOL !!!

John, that insignia you used… they're Danish, John…. that means the opposing force is pretty much doomed…

Excellent paint job BTW; love the spotted critter camouflage on the turret front and gun barrel…

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express
metal-express.net

Interesting… Danish? Well, they are meant to be vaguely Nordic so that's good. The decals are actually Flames of War French roundels with the optional blue centre just not used.

The camo is done with my ‘spray though a mesh' approach that I've used elsewhere: The mesh is a piece of an old nylon camo scarf pulled tightly over the model with either another pair of hands if there's any around or – if there isn't – taped to one side to the work bench and then pulled tight with the model underneath it and then sprayed through – I use a rattle can (I think I was Army Painter Beast Brown or whatever it's called).

I've used the same trick on 28mm vehicles

and on other 15mm vehicles


though – on the latter two – I did have access to an air brush.

John T

Where did you get the subway cars from? I really like the effect your minis have…

The overhead tram things were purchased on Amazon (UK)

link

and – at £5.00 GBP each – I thought they were well worth it. Sure they are a little small for 15mm but – with dirty windows (that you can't see very well through…) and doors that the users are just going to have to stoop to get in and out of – they work well enough: what was something that has double seats each side of an isle probably has one seat either side ("it's the cuts…")

This thread TMP link covered some of the build

John T

Looking good!

John just out of curiosity what Military factions and Mercenary contingents still need to be built and painted for The Crucible in the Hammer Slammers universe? Zac

@Avamango – I'm doing another reread at the moment: every time I think I have spotted them all I find something else!

I'm currently trying to work on various forces (and have eyeballs some manufacturers kit that would do the jobs well including GZG, Armies Army, Combat Wombat and Brigade Models).

Currently I'm trying to construct forces for a Terran Star Marines update, a Compaigne Dr Barthe the update, rework the Division Legere, add the Sulwesi regulars and militia and the religious nutcases (on both sides) in Forlorn Hope.

@ Stepman3 – oh, just thought I'd mention, mention the tram cars were weathered using Modelmates spray: great stuff!

John T

Oh, and thanks Jon (Khurasan) – thye were a lot of fun to paint :)

John T

More great looking stuff !! x 2 !

With the TAS, your rulebook fluff mentions them using wheeled vehicles so here's hoping you can squeeze those in. GZG has a great range, but for sheer "kewlness" the Antenoceti's Workshop kabardins or hunchbacks are top shelf.

Or better still the Khurasan Caiman, now that's a wheeled beast and maybe more fitting with the TAS' tech edge over everyone else. Painting up twelve TAS tanks at the moment, and the Old Crow models are an absolute joy to work on, but it is getting a bit same same in terms of vehicle options.

Legere was my first attempt at putting together a HS force, and found it very difficult. I ended up buying Brigade kit which looks great, but is all in their older scale so the vehicles look rather small in comparison to say a blower tank. For me personally I found it hard to find one model that worked for me as Legere, though plenty of converson fodder across several ranges.

McWong – my plan is for the TAS is ctually to upgrade the wheeled stuff to fall in line with the heavier Grav/Hover vehicles: my approach is that – by the time they have to deal with the likes of the uprated Slammers (in the shape of the FDF post Alois becoming President) the last thing they need is something as low tech as wheels… So watch this space!

The great thing is that – as Dave Drake has agreed a timeline for the stories – we can legitimately build in this sort of 'force creep' into some of the existing Mercs

Jon at GZG is putting finishing touches to some tank destroyers for the Division Legere as we speak and my use of the Brigade kit willbe the newer, more detailed (and bigger) stuff, as it comes on line.

My plan is to use the Euro stuff from Brigade to do an update of the Compaigne de Barthe.

I'd be very happy to see shots of your finished stuff, by the way!

John T

WIP, I'm going to do a write up on these and the Blowers once the project is completed.

Another quick q, with the Flaming Swords the data card says they use a GD800 series tank destroyer, with a front arc only weapon system. In the HS galleries the Swords gallery shows an Old Crow Halberd hover tank destroyer, but I realised over the weekend that the GD800 series is based off the Old Crow Slingshot. The Slingshot can fit the tank destroyer turret from Old Crow, but it's a turret and not a hull mounted weapon. Bit annoyed that I've got eight Halberds for the Flaming Swords that aren't strictly canonical (hello Alaudae), but what do you advise in regards to models for the GD800 tnank destroyer?

And for the Alaudae, the Halberd doesn't come with a barrel that looks like a 25cm gun, got any advice on sorting that one out?

McWong – can you drop me an email? That'd be easier. Do it from the Slammers site.

John T
hammers-slammers.com

might impresive

and many thanks for the painting guide! I have to say you make it sound so simple and make it look easy! I know it isnt!
However I will be copying you….fact :)

@Armies Army

You are more than welcome. I know that people will want to spend lots of time on 15mm stuff – especially figures – and there are some nice sculpts out there that really benefit from a fine paint job.

But for me, with figures and vehicles in 15mm, I have to rationalise. As I know I've said before, I've done most of this stuff in 28mm once already and – to do it all again in 15mm with the same attention to detail… well, the chances are I probably won't live long enough :)

So, for me, anything I can do to get a fast result goes right to the top of my queue! I've been lucky enough to know Kevin Dallimore for the past quarter of a century and we regularly brainstorm on painting techniques and while 'fast and nasty' doesn't enter his vocabulary, what I can do is run stuff past him and swap ideas about what gets to 'acceptable' trade offs (time versus quality).

After a life-time of painting 28mm in black undercoat and working my colours up from that (as I have), the various coloured primer and dip options have, for me, been a time-saving god-send. But they need decent models to begin with and the amount of detail certainly skews what option I chose. The Khurasan stuff (the vehicles, anyway) certainly responds well to the thinner Future/ink ‘homebrew' dip, compared to the thicker Army Painter ‘varnish' dip so I think – in this case – it was a good choice.

But anything I can do to help people getting decent looking kit on the table I will do: we are, as I said on another thread recently, living in a golden age for gaming and in no area is this more apparent than SF 15mm sized stuff. As gamers we are awash with options and I like to do my encouragement bit!

I figure the more stuff people can paint nicely but quickly, the more stuff they'll buy from manufacturers and sculptors, so the more stuff will be sculpted and made and… well, you an see where I'm going with this…

@ McWong – that's a nice piece of painting: I really want to see them completed and would love to feature them on the Slammers site

John T

all appreciated

thanks

Keith

Awesome & inspiring work everyone. @ John – love the Slammer's site and impressed with the way you were able to integrate the Tomy/Kato/N-Scale Japanese buildings and road system into the layout. How did you weather the Tomy roads? Inquiring minds would love to know…
Cheers!

Thanks H Hank.

The roads were given a spray of three things from rattle cans: matt black (probably car stuff or black primer, I don't remember), matt dark earth (Humbrol cans [which are soooo much better than they used to be]) and then a complete can of testors DullCote to take the nasty shine off of them!

I would have used something cheaper than the latter if I'd had something to hand but I didn't!

The former two colours were just misted on in light passes to just break up the uniformity of the roads. The matt varnish went over every thing.

John T

Thank you John!

Is there a PDF that can be bought of the slammers game?

Crimelord

The rules themselves are not available as a PDF – to buy or by any other method – as the publisher hasn't exlored that publishing model (as yet).

To see what they look like, however, there's a dozen or more pages as a sample here PDF link

On the positive, PDF orientated side, though, all of the support material for the game system – supplements, play sheets, model buying guides and so forth – are all available for a free download from the web site: hammers-slammers.com

That's around 350 pages of free PDFs and – even if you only play one scale (say if 15mm is your weapon of choice) – that's still around 200 pages that are in your chosen scale or which are scale independent (like the supplements, FAQs etc etc which cover any scale).

My plan is that – with the one copy of the rules – that's all you'll ever need to buy.

Except lots of resin and lead, obviously…!!!

John T