Aknot! Wot?

Some brutish, alien mercs for today...

These excellent figs are listed simply as "Alien Mercenary Squad" on the GZG site. They certainly fit the bill, but upon a little closer inspection they bear a remarkable resemblance to the Mangalore aliens from the movie the Fifth Element (who happened to also be mercs). I've got to give props to Flounder again for passing these extras along, his efforts alone have kept my "minis bought" number to an astoundingly, preposterously low one!


The GZG site is notorious for not having pics of all of their models up. I know they have a huge catalog, but I don't want to buy something sight unseen, especially when it would be international for me. The other issue is if they do have pics of the models they're usually unpainted, and sometimes too shiny to see clear details.

These mercs were no exception. It wasn't until I primed them that I realized just how cool these sculpts really are. They could easily pass as Space Orks, or other similar, thuggish aliens. They are stocky, but no taller than any other 15mm fig, but still be passed off as 5150's Grath. Looking at them more and more though, I'm pretty sure they were meant as an homage to the Mangalores. There pics below; note the same head shape, the large under bite, the swept back ears, it's more than just coincidence. Then throw in the weapons, though not quite as close a match to Fifth Element's ZF1, but close enough, so I painted accordingly!



I could go on and on about these sculpts. The troops are shirtless, except for their Y-harness webgear which has plenty of pouches. They are all wearing thick gloves with reinforced plating, fatigue pants (which I tried to camo), and clunky combat boots. They've got knee pads, and the heavy gunner has an armor plate on his right shin. The regular troopers wear a medallion (could be dog tags) around their necks, and the heavy gunner is sporting a vest and aviation style cap/goggles. They also all sport a shoulder pad, which is big enough to apply decals or get fancy with a design, even though it's in 15mm. You'll be seeing more of these...