Infantry Company; the Vākāṭakans 432nd

Here is my finished 15mm sci-fi company. Unfortunately I don't have any vehicles so it's pure infantry. Some APC's would be nice, but if and when I opt to mechanize them that would be a huge project in its own right. I would need at least a dozen APC's, a command vehicle, and three drop-pod like devices. Yeah, it'd be expensive and that would be a lot of painting and assembly. The good news about 15mm though, it should paint up faster and be a fraction the cost of its 28mm big brother.

I've had these painted up for some time, with just a small amount of squads to finish somewhat recently. The figs all come from Ground Zero Games. They're great sculpts, don't get me wrong, but frankly when this project was started there just wasn't the huge outlet of 15mm sci-fi selection and variety that we have now, GZG was about the only option out there. I had a specific TO&E in mind when I put all of this together and I tried to keep the platoons separate but still let them have a bit of their own versatility and personality.

I also had a specific fiction in mind, something along the lines of Earth in the next hundred years or so. Constant conflict, global ecological changes, a few loose nukes, and what-not have created a perpetual war-zone mostly centered in Africa, the Middle East, and southern Asia. Colonization efforts are underway off-world, near FTL travel has been invented, and contact has been made amongst the stars with sentient aliens of comparable technology levels. Of course there's bigger, better stuff out there in the cosmos, we just haven't stumbled across it yet. My army here represents an Indian force.


The 432nd is a multi-role company that is made up of a variety of different types of platoons. Mixed companies such as the 432nd have the most flexibility in mission-adaptable operations and are ready for a wide number of battlefield roles.

The 432nd consists of four platoons and a headquarters squad. Three platoons consist of three squads each led by a dedicated command squad, all squads have eight troopers each. The fourth platoon consists of three power armored squads with six troopers each. Finally you have an eight trooper strong HQ squad.


The 432nd's Shudran platoon consists of troopers of the lowest overall quality. Their dependable equipment and basic training does give them something of an edge over comparable enemy units. They are found as the backbone of police forces assigned to colony ship departures. Sometimes an entire Shudran company is formed specifically to accompany a colony caravan, becoming PDF forces upon arrival. For most of these troopers service is the only means they have to leave Earth.


The Vaishyan platoon consists of the most plentiful of troopers in the overall army. The largest number of dedicated companies are ones that comprise of nothing but these troopers. Vaishyan troopers are the enlisted men and women that see the widest range of action across the most number of battlefields. These career soldiers have the better equipment in the field compared to enemy units of similar strengths and continually train when not on campaign. Special forces draw the most number of recruits from the Vaishyan ranks as well.


The 432nd counts itself extremely lucky in that it has a full platoon of Satrians, alien commandos unparalleled in fighting. Most companies are able to temporary requisition a single squad at best, and only for specific parameters. Their equipment comes from off-world, as do their strategies and tactics. It's as if every facet of Satrian warfare is a mirror of human warfare, only exemplified.

When this space-borne race was encountered it was quickly (and astonishingly) realized that the Satrians' religious doctrine was almost identical to Hinduism. The Satrians considered themselves lost pilgrims trying to find their way back to what has been loosely translated as the Indus Valley. For this reason the alliance between the Satrians and India has been fully realized and seamlessly enacted. Other nations might employ alien mercenaries, but none come close to the assimilation between these two entities.


Rounding out the platoons of the 432nd are the Kshatriyans, fearsome power armored troopers. Being chosen as a power armor trooper is a great honor and only the most distinguished soldiers make the final cut. Because of their elite training, power armored units are autonomous and do not utilize and attached command squad.

Power armor is the pinnacle of infantry battlefield technology. Thanks to knowledge shared from Satrian scientists, Indian power armored units got a leg up in design innovation and power plant efficiency. The bottom line is that these suits can last longer in the field and take up less room that comparable power armored suits.

Shown here as well is the company headquarters squad composed of top military leaders and strategists. They are equipped accordingly with high tech arms and armor and although the squad is rarely in the thick of the fighting, they are more than capable if need be.


There you have it, I hope you enjoyed reading the fluff as much as I enjoyed writing it. Looking back over this post I realize I'd like to go a little further and finish this army out. I said in the beginning it'd be a long, arduous journey, but I think this army deserves the full treatment. Namely transports, but other things like a support platoon of tanks, some aircraft or whatever, maybe some walkers even. Too many choices, a blank canvas is as much a curse as a boon.

As for rules, bah, whatever goes really. This is a large army as it stands (over a hundred models) so I don't imagine I'll ever field it all at once. Lots of candidates out there to use too, it's just a matter of getting them on the table and sticking to it.

Alien Mercenary Platoon

Let me start off by saying how much I love 15mm! I was able to crank out quite a number of figs over this last weekend. When I say "quite a number", I mean personally for me; 32 single-based figs in just three days? Forget about it! Above I've got my merc platoon, it consists of Ground Zero Games' Kra'Vak and Japanese. The Japanese figs are the bulk of the platoon, and the Kra'Vak figures act as the HQ squadron of the platoon.


The HQ Squad

I'm not adhering to the GZG background, so these Kra'Vak aren't really Kra'Vak per se. Instead, they're just some kind of cool alien, kind of a cross between the Predator and a Klingon with the technology kit of the troops out of Halo thrown in for good measure.


Closeup of some of the aliens, I especially like the SAW gunner

This platoon is part of a much larger overall army, and although I wanted a little unity in color scheme overall, I wanted to differentiate these guys a tad. To this end I went a little outside of the box and opted for a orange/yellow/tan/brown color scheme. They also have dreadlocks it looks like, so I added extra color in the form of beads in their dreads.


The rest of the platoon

The remaining three squads of the platoon are comprised of the Japanese Corporate figs. I felt these were unique enough to pass as alien. Plus with the larger helmets, I can say they're the same race as what the Kra'Vak represent and are keeping all those dreads tucked up under there. These 24 are pretty much all the same fig, so I'm not going to bore you with repetitive pics. I will say, as with the Kra'Vak above, I like the SAW gunners quite a bit, and am a bit underwhelmed with the missile launchers. I've got color stripes on the shoulder pads to keep the three squads separate, and color plates on the sergeants' helmets to match.


Some closeups of the troops

Although they're different sculpts, I still went with the same color scheme to unify them. I must say I'm happy with how it turned out too. I like the armor here with the segmented plates in the front as well as the shoulder and forearm plates. Overall fun stuff.


x120 troopers later...

Best of all, this last platoon completes my 'army box' once and for all. I'll do up a big company post soon to show off everyone at one time. I've got three platoons of three squads and a command squad each, three power armored squads, and a single CiC HQ squad. They were built originally for Star Grunt II, but I can see them getting some play in Future War commander as well. According to my queue, I guess it's time for pulp or HotT now?

Terminator Toys for Tabletop Gaming

It's kind of funny that they're doing a direct toy tie-in to the new Terminator movie. It's been done before, but it just seems that the genre itself really isn't child friendly. Or at least, it shouldn't be child friendly. Nonetheless, Playmates is doing the new lineup and there are definite gems to be found here, not as toys, but for tabletop gaming.

The above Hunter Killer costs about twenty bucks and is eight inches long. You can pretty much ignore the T-700 it comes with (or cut him up for terrain), but the ship is just great. For it's size you almost proxy it as a Valkyrie, or keeping it in the 25mm range it could easily be a gunship, VTOL, or some type of fighter craft along those lines.

Now if you depart from the 25mm range the possibilities open up even more. If you're duking it out in 15mm (which I should do more often given my large Star Grunt II army) this ship could easily be a dropship that could feasibly hold a platoon worth of troops; maybe three squads of men plus their command squad. As I write this I'm daydreaming of painting three of these up in a desert scheme and using them in said SGII army.



Another view of the HK in the box


The T-1

This last piece is a good one too, the T-1, it costs between twelve and fourteen bucks. It comes packaged like an action figure, and judging from the size will be about 5"-6" inches tall. Absolutely perfect for 25mm troops. I missed out on picking up the ED-209 from Robocop a while back, but this actually looks cooler. One or two of these could give a full squad of troops a real headache. It almost looks like you wouldn't need to paint it up either, it's good to go as is. Given its size, I think you wouldn't need more than two.

New Toopers Hit Dirtside

After what seemed like forever, I finally finished up the last of my 'core' Star Grunt II army. I've gone with a variant on the Islamic Federation overall, but I picked the best looking units from Ground Zero Games to round it out. I am using Islamic Federation troopers however for one of my rank and file platoons, troopers in helmets led by a command squad wearing keffiyehs. The last of three helmeted trooper squads are shown above.


In SGII, Power Armor is the last word in infantry units. They are the elite of the elite, and on the battlefield they truly deserve the fear they spread. MY PA platoon is smaller than regular infantry ones, as it should be, and these guys form the last of three total squads. Islamic Federation troops don't have Power Armor figs in the GZG catalog, so I went with NSL Power Armor, 'cause it looks killer. The entire army, now well over a hundred figs, shares the same color scheme, so there's an overall Islamic Federation feel, even if I did mix and match units. I'll get around to taking some large army pics, and maybe post a nifty TO&E as well. It's not completely done, remember that line of silver through the middle of my box? It's done for a while at least...

Projects, projects, projects...

Okay, I don't have as deep a queue as some, but for me, it stills seems like a lot. Here's some stuff in the works right now, some of it in the forefront, some of it on the backburner, some of it even still in the deep hole, so to speak. Up top here's what we've got on the top row: Top left, in this bag we have ten 40mm Native Americans, next to them is a Reaper "Eldritch Daemon" also known as good ole' Cthulhu, hopefully mine will end up looking at least half as good as Andy's, next up are a couple of packs of Traveler Vagr, those cool dog / wolf sci-fi soldiers, finally is a bag full of Quar, which looked too good to pass up, very alien and classic military to boot. Finally, on the bottom row; to the left are a couple o' Privateer Press Merc items, a Rockram heavy 'jack, and the Warcaster Durgen Madhammer, I may try to whip these out quick in a desert scheme, on the right is the Tau XV15 leader I've already posted. Here's some more stuff:

I mentioned we were kickin' around some 40k battles? Well, this Tyranid horde belongs to my good buddy Oz. When he showed up with them they were tossed into a cardboard box with nary any protection. They've been mothballed for some time, and when they came out, well, some came out in pieces. This army is a good example of 'tabletop' quality, and in force, they look great, they could use a little tweaking though, and I volunteered to help Oz get them back in shape. Here's the horde in all it's glory. I have been able to get a hold of sixteen of his 'Gaunts so far. Basically I whitened whites, picked out their armor plates with a brighter red, and gave a few key washed here and there to add some distinctive color. Oh, and I cleaned up and painted their bases, I'll go back when I'm done and give them all a dirt coat too. I hope I didn't bite off more than I can chew, heh. In the end, I think this'll turn out fairly well.














It's kind of funny these guys are still a work in progress. I've got a couple squads here of 15mm Star Grunt II figs, from the excellent folks at Ground Zero Games. The troops on the left are basically done, they just need to be dipped and based. The power armor troops on the right just need a little more drybrushing, and a couple of spots picked out, then dip and basing.







Speaking of Star Grunt II, there's a glaring line of silver down the middle of my otherwise complete army. These guys paint up fairly quick, I have no excuses. The other two empty spots are from the above two squads of partially finished units.











As you know, we've been playing a lot of Warhammer Quest lately, so I thought I'd spruce up the player characters a bit. I had this idea a while back, but never got around to implementing it, well, no time like the present. Basically I'm trying to find the best looking figs out there to represent the pc's, they don't have to be GW, just whoever has the 'good stuff'. Mostly, I keep going back to Rackham, their stuff rocks, and when it comes to fantasy, their stuff will fit quite well. There's some great characters in WHQ, and so far I think I've got some good models for a few; the Dwarf, a Wizard (also a Dwarf), a Pit Fighter, the Barbarian, and a Trollslayer. There's another Dwarf in there too, I don't know what to do with him, but he's a killer fig.





Here's some of that deep hole stuff I mentioned. Beyond backburner, these are still items that need to be completed nonetheless, even if they're low priority. I'll get around to them 'someday', sure, but part of the reason for doing this blog in the first place was to hold myself more accountable for the geekery. First up are a few figs from the old Warzone game, which was a pretty good minis game in hindsight. It's a couple of Praetorian Stalkers and Mistress of the Void Whats-her-name, all three from the Dark Legion faction. Anyway, I thought they'd be cool as 'boss monsters' or something in a game of 5150 or the like. Next up is a Wood Elf Dragon from GW. He's seen better days, he's been like this since, umm, the last move...five years ago. He'll get put back together, next time with pins, eventually. Finally, if you open one of the drawers to the painting desk, you'll find a ton of bits and pieces, you'll also find two unfinished SuperSystem teams. One will be a 'woodsy' team with a mix of GW and Mage Knight figs, the other is a basic bad guy team, made up of 'official' Superfigs. Mixed in there with them are some giant mushrooms I was going to do as some type of alien terrain. Mind you, terrain in general is my Achilles heal, so it's gonna be a LONG time before those see the light of day, lol!