Ravenstar Studios 15mm Landcore Grav Armor

 

Cleaning up 15mm stuff from years ago, in this case a pair of Ravenstar Studio's resin grav vehicles.

The turreted one is a Mercury fast grav tank.  Three piece model, sells for $16.

It's smaller cousin is the older original sculpt of the Passer grav APC.  Single piece, and the very similar newer version sells for $13 each, or $30 for a set of three.

Main difference between the old and new Passer sculpts are the rear, where the newer one takes off the steps down from the hatch and replaces it with a kind of air scoop.

Good sized vehicles, particularly the APC which looks big enough to comfortably carry a squad in power armor.

These figs can be found on the Landcore store page at Ravenstar Studios.

King Kong & Pals: A Monster Movie Figure Set

Another old project from 2013 using a mix of Old Glory 15mm tribesmen and a Reaper giant gorilla figure to do a King Kong/Skull Island-themed figure set.

 

 

The Old Glory minis come in the usual nice variety of sculpts, and this is just one of many styles ("tribes") they make, many of them a bit "Hollywood" feeling. 

 

You can find the whole range here:

 

https://www.oldglory25s.com/index.php?page=1&cat_id=1068

 

They come with shields in a variety of types, but I went without for these guys to keep the costume and prop budget down.

 

The big guy is a 28mm scale Reaper fig from the days before Bones came along.

 

Think I paid $25-ish for him in metal when he first came out, a bargain for the weight.

 

That was up to $45 the last time I looked, which means next time I need a giant primate it's the toy store for me.

 

Nicely detailed, as you'd expect from a Jason Wiebe sculpt.

 

Admittedly a bit small compared to the original movie monster (and a runt compared to the Tojo or Kaijuverse versions) but still good sized.

 

Perhaps it's a juvenile Kong, or an Exceptionally Mighty Joe Not-So-Young instead?

Combat Wombat 15mm Scifi Vehicles

Combat Wombat has been out of business for years now, and his old range languishes in limbo over at Skullduggery Press, but several people were wishing for images of the models for posterity's sake.  Some digging around in old photos (over a decade now, in some cases) turned up a few, at least.  No idea what these were called in the original catalog, but at least they're photos.

 

Some light grav tanks, most converted with a Rebel Miniatures Grey in the commander's hatch and added flight bases.

 

 

The turrets were drilled and pinned to let them rotate, and the bases were left unglued for ease of transport.

 

Some heavy hover tanks and a mobile artillery blower to go with them.  Think they shared some components, and the gun barrels are the signature turned-aluminum ones CW was so generous with.

 

I was definitely thinking Hammer's Slammers when I gave them all names.  Artillery hogs are apparently my spirit animal.

 

These were IFVs, and shared design features with a small family of models, including an APC and a smaller version as some kind of recon scout IIRC.

 

Probably some minor conversions to the turrets, but I can't swear to it.

Rebel Minis 15mm Scifi Alien Worms Showcase

Looking back to 2014 today to show off some more models from Rebel Miniatures.

You can find these models unpainted on their web store here:

http://www.rebelminis.com/sandwurm.html

http://www.rebelminis.com/riwoofse4.html

The worm-holes were handmade out of some putty on a 1" washer base, although Rebel sells something very similar in resin along with some terror-mites here:

http://www.rebelminis.com/temiwbugho.html

The sand worm here was formerly a Starship Troopers figure, but has been redone as a three pieces miniature, with two resin body halves and a metal mouth section. 

The smaller ripper worms make nice companions models for the big boy, either as larva forms or just a related species from the same alien ecology.

As you can see, they're still pretty big in 15mm.

All of them could scale jump to 28mm without a problem, and they could work in scifi, fantasy, or horror settings as well.  Nice, versatile, inexpensive figs.  Hard not to like.

Rebel Miniatures Brog 15mm Scifi Showcase

Today we're looking back into 2013 again and taking a look at some more 15mm scifi figures.

These are Rebel Miniatures alien Brog infantry, which you can buy unpainted at his web store:

http://www.rebelminis.com/alandve.html

The paint jobs are a bit dated, the photography more so, but I think they show off the sculpts adequately.

For some reason I don't see a ton of Rebel stuff online, which seems strange to me.

His prices are quite good, he's got a nice range of sculpts within each of many factions, and he's in the US, which is a big plus in terms of shipping costs these days - well, if you live here, anyway.

Admittedly, his alien races are almost all humanoid rather than freakier looking stuff like GZG's Xar or Ixx, but they have consistent styles of weaponry, which is a plus.

Their gear looks just different enough to obviously be from different armies across the various races, while still looking like they share similar technology bases.

I'm particularly fond of the little orbs on many figs' backs, which I've summarily decided are combination power packs and personal shield generators.

15mm Fantasy/Historicals Old Glory Gaul Barbarians

Digging way back into the past today with a big batch of figs painted in 2010.

 

 

These are Old Glory Gauls, and boy, are there a lot of sculpts of these guys.

 

They were painted in a pseudo-historical scheme, since they were done for a fantasy game we were getting set to play.

 

Unfortunately that project wound up falling through, and they wound up getting sold off a couple of years later.

 

While they're ten years old, they aren't absolutely awful.

 

I can see a lot of things I'd do differently these days.

 

More washes, more highlighting, bit more careful work on the shield patterns.

 

 

But not hopeless, they're a decent tabletop standard job.

 

Good example of how my painting has changed over the years anyway.

 

The shields are separate pieces, the rest of the models are single part castings.

 

Bit chunky for 15mm scale, but not bad sculpts and tremendously varied even before you start with shield variance.

 

They do raise a question I'd like to ask the 15mm fantasy gamers among my readership. 

 

When it comes to buying figures ready-painted, what kind of basing do you prefer?

 

There's no obvious One True Rule set for the genre, and individual rule sets vary a lot.

 

 

Some use single-based models on pennies, or small washers.

 

Others use element bases with several figs on each stand.

 

And multi-figure stands vary in size and number of figs from game to game as well.

 

So, is it better to do what you see here, where the models are stuck on popsicle sticks to be painted?

 

That way the buyer can base them to suit their preferred game system rather than re-basing.

 

Is that the way to go?  Let me know in the comments below.