Mechanicus Van Saar - Starting Gang Done

 

The starting gang for my Mechanicus counts as Van Saar gang is done.  One leader, two champions, three gangers and one neotek per my earlier post in January.  No real backstory or history written for them at this point.  Just a group of Mechanicus that I imagine are running a bit of a dual mission of searching for archeotech deep in the underhive while doing their bit to defend the interests of the magos masters.

Neoteks and gangers are stock skitarii models while the champions and leaders are Anvil Industries Burning Rose torsos on GW High Elf warrior legs.  The Skitarii arms fit pretty well onto the torsos with no conversion at all needed for the leader with the plasma gun.  An arc rifle was converted into the grav gun while a radium pistol was turned into a las pistol to pair with the other champions plasma pistol.  The Neotek does have one of the excellent Heresy Miniatures pistols that's starting gang life as a laspistol but is chunky enough that it could pass for other pistols types if an upgrade occurs.  All the models have void power plant backpacks from Anvil Industries.

Neotek on his grav cutter.

Gangers with las rifles.

Plasma gun leader, grav gun champion and dual pistol champion.

I even managed to finish a longer ago started ogryn conversion to serve as their first ogryn servitor and to convert a Reaper Bones spider into a cyber-arachnid for when a champion or the leader adds one to their profile.

All in all I'm really happy that I actually built and painted a starting gang in less than two months given my past track record of mostly buying with a fair bit of building and converting but not much else.  I need to work on the next gang and some terrain so I can then start playing some simple scenarios or even just rules testing.  I'd also like to try using the Pulp Alley rules for some games set in the underhive but I'll need to get their 2nd edition rule book to learn more about how that might work.

Gaming Stranger Things

I'm finally getting around to watching Stranger Things and I've really enjoyed the first two seasons.  Nostalgia overload and the end of innocence all rolled up into one.

Besides the Stranger Things D&D Starter Set it appears no one has licensed official Stranger Things 25 or 28mm models for tabletop skirmish games so any gaming in Hawkins and the Upside Down would need to be done with proxy models for whomever is involved.  This kind of post about 15mm post apocalypse gaming does make me wonder if I should explore the smaller scale since it would mean a more affordable approach that would allow for doing a version of downtown Hawkins or the lab surrounded by woods and the edge of the subdivision on one tabletop.

Kids on Bikes seems to be the obvious rpg set of rules for gaming Stranger Things while I think Pulp Alley would be good if you wanted to play out scenes from the show in a tabletop skirmish approach.  I need to get their 2nd edition rules to see if I can create the main characters.

I've spent several hours Google searching vehicle models and images from the show and hobby company sites trying to find decent proxies.  Models and terrain appear to be the easiest to proxy while scale vehicles of the right make and model will probably prove impossible.  1/48 or 1/56 scale models likely don't exist and I'll have to see how motivated I am to try and track down even something that visually comes close.  I've started a list of links for modeling and I'll add to it as I get time to search and track down more models.

Models:

• Main characters
• Hopper
• Will
• Mike
• Lucas
• Dustin
• Eleven
• Joyce
• Jonathan
• Steve
• Max
• Billy
• Hawkins Police
• Powell
• Callahan
• Florence
• Foundry Street Cops
• Foundry Shotgun Cops
• Hawkins Lab
• Government Agents
• Foundry Lovemore Detective Agency
• Season 1 lab woman - Hasslefree Miniatures Winter Morgan
• Hazmat Suited Troops and staff - Hasslefree Hazmat Suit models
• Scientists
• Monsters
• Demidogs
• Demigorgon

Vehicles:

• 1980 Chevy K5 Blazer
• Hawkins Police car
• Dodge
• Hawkins Power and Light
• Box service vehicle proxy
• Transit van
• Joyce's Pinto
• Jonathan's car

Terrain:

• TTCombat's City Streets range has some buildings that would fit right into Hawkins with none too veiled naming for some of them.
• Sarissa Precision has 28mm Retail, Retro, End of the World and possibly even City Block models that would work well with models for Harper's trailer, the bus in the junk yard and others.
• Crooked Dice has a Secret Base set of terrain along with lots of mdf computer stations, cc tv cameras and other details that could make the lab based scenarios look really good.

There are lots of locales that could be built for scenarios in Hawkins and part of the modeling challenge would be coming up with enough to game in/on without needing a warehouse to store all of the specific tiles, buildings, etc.  It's part of the appeal of brainstorming a modeling project like this and also the main reason why I never get far with them since there is potentially so much to do.  Hobbying in Hawkins could be a good way of taking a break from Necromunda and other modeling projects so it's worth exploring.  Plus, it will support my goal of buying from smaller hobby companies since modern models are not a space dominated by Games Workshop and other larger companies.  I'll have to see where it takes me.

Mechanicus Van Saar Gang Progress

Work on the starting seven for the Van Saar gang has progressed over the course of January.  All seven are now built and primed with base coats down on almost all the models.  I should be able to finish their painting in the next week or so and then move onto modeling some additions to the core gang. I have the one cyber-arachnid done so far.

I managed to paint ten models in January which is pretty good for me.  Eight underhive civilians, an Escher clan chymist and my Khimerix brute counts as for an Escher gang.

Finally, I made some progress on the terrain tile to accompany the propagandist I'm doing for the Yak Comp #37.  Need to finish construction and get to work on painting it.