writes:As usual, I'm painting things for future projects and campaigns. This time, to figure out the paint scheme for my ONESS British forces, I painted up a tank squadron.
ONESS, you say? In the world of Iron Cow 2103 AD (Wessex Games), one of the power blocs is the Organisation of North European Sovereign States – ONESS – and the British maintain their own armed forces as part of the alliance.
I've been planning a future campaign of ONESS British against Neo-Sovs, and putting paint to metal takes that project one step forward!
Markings
Since this is sci-fi, I'm assuming that vehicle markings are "friendly eyes only" so I can do something easy for players to recognize their units. I've decided this squadron has been given gold as its tactical color, so every vehicle gets a stripe of gold on the rear deck. The position of a black dot then designates 1st, 2nd or 3rd troop. The markings are easily done with markers, though it's hard to make the dots consistent. (I could have done this on the bases, but I like the idea of high-tech markings only your side can see.)
Apollo Tanks
The set comes with 12 Apollo tanks, forming three troops of four vehicles each.
The paint scheme was simple: prime white, basecoat green, wash with green ink, and drybrush with light green (I actually use a discontinued 'Orc flesh' color that is a whitish green). The camo pattern is added in watered-down brown. The skirt is dark gray, highlighted with gray. The machinegun gets a touch of metallic gunmetal.
The rear intakes are a distinctive feature of this vehicle, so I applied a black ink wash there.
Zeus Command Vehicle
The set also provide one Zeus command vehicle, equipped with a small gun, a machinegun mount, and a front-mounted sensor dome.
As I was looking at the close-up photos that I took for this article, I was thinking, "What are all those bumps?"
"And "I don't remember doing that much weathering on these models!"
Seems I got another unusual case of the clearcoat drying in mysterious ways. The good news is that they only look odd up close (real close). Maybe if I spray them again, the problem will go away… (Nope!)