Empire of Men – Building the Stahlratte!

I recently received my pledge rewards from the Empire of Men Kickstarter campaign by Archon Studio.  The campaign was to fund production of a range of resin miniatures and vehicles, that although rules agnostic were clearly aimed at players of ‘grim dark’ games of the far future.

I was particularly attracted to this for the Weird World War look of some of the figures and vehicles.  The background fluff for the setting is based around a Great War that never ended, and many of the vehicles on offer have a distinctly German feel to them.

Without a particular game system in mind and due to limited funds I went for a small selection of troops and a few vehicles; figuring that I would enjoy the modelling and also falling back on my usual approach of ‘it’ll probably work for 7TV‘ (a ‘Moon Reich’ perhaps?)

So what did I get?  In addition to a handful of ‘stormtrooper’ troops I picked up the follow:

• Reaper – a Horton style flying wing aircraft
• Stalhratte Mk.1 – a super heavy tank that seems to draw it’s influences from the prototype World War II German Maus
• Wolverine – a transport / medium tank option (probably the most 40k like of the lot)

Male Stormtroopers

Reaper Fighter

Wolverine Carrier

Stahlratte Mk.1

First impressions on receiving delivery was that the casts were quite clean (particularly on the figures).  The grey resin is lightweight and looked easy to work with.  It looks and feels more like plastic, is soft (but not too soft) and not at all brittle.

The part count for the vehicles is quite low, meaning in particular for the Stahlratte there are some quite chunky pieces of resin.  Once unboxed and gave the parts a good wash in hot soapy water to remove casting residue and make then easier to assemble.

Vehicle parts washed

Two Stormtrooper squads ready for assembly

So, I really couldn’t resist assembling the big fella first.  All the parts seemed to come with peg joints and inserts, so theoretically it should be possible to do a dry fit before assembly.  After an initial clean up primarily around the joints and edges to remove casting vents I attempted to ‘clip’ the Stahlratte together.  It immediately became apparent that some of the parts were warped to some degree, so of course (as always when working with resin) having to boiling water to hand to soften and reshape was a must.  Many of the issues were with the small peg joints so I found imersing these in water to make more malleable and ‘clipping’ together while still soft was the way to go.  At this point I also decided to glue pieces in place as I got a good fit (using superglue and activator).

Top and bottom hull – note connector pegs

Soaking connector pegs

Tracks, turret and hull

Turret – two piece assembly

Top hull

Part assembly

At this point things were beginning to take shape, but it was becoming apparent that a LOT of work would be needed to fill the gaps.

Gaps prior to filling

A generous application of green stuff and voila an almost completed Stahlratte Mk.1

Greenstuff

More Greenstuff

Smoothing the turrent join

Filling a hole

Even more Greenstuff!

All that remained was tho straighten up some of the gun barrels and attached to the turret.  I’ve decided to keep the turret and hull seperate for painting, so the pictures show one just delicately balanced on the other for the time being.

Main guns

Hull and turret assembly

The Stahlratte

Front view

All in all I really enjoyed putting this together.  It was more work than I originally expected when opening the box, but I think that is to be expected when working with resin (especially considering the budget price point).  If anything I found the gap filling quite cathartic!

Next time – The Wolverine and Reaper!

7TV Apocalypse – Modding Die Cast Vehicles Part 1

Continuing my forays into the post apocalypse!

I’ve build up a fairly sizeable collection of 1/43 to 1/48 scale diecast toy cars to mod up.  Using various bits and pieces including some very useful Tamiya plastic sand bags and some really old Gorkamorka sprues alongside the new range of resin bits from Crooked Dice.

The vehicles were sourced mainly from discount stores (Poundworld Plus, The Works etc.), but also from China via Ali-Express.

The first one on the production line is intended for my cast/warband of PA militia.  The base toy here is a Teamsterz Mobile Police HQ truck (approx. 1/43 scale).

Relatively simple conversion, although I had to remove the ventilation fans and hatchway (now added to the bits box) from the roof before adding some resin stowage bits from Crooked Dice.  The turrent and gunner are also from the new 7TV Apocalypse range by CD.

Road Warriors and Freeway Fighters

Post Apocalypse (PA) is all the rage nowadays. However the overarching theme and context no longer tends to be the aftermath of global conflict or nuclear armageddon, but the encroachment of the walking dead or the dystopian future nightmares of settings first originated by the likes of Orwell and entrenched in popular culture by the likes of The Handmaids Tale.

This kind of speculative fiction tends to be reflective of current social and geo-political conditions. From a tabletop gaming perspective while many of these themes and settings are future based, you can easily identify the time period in which they originated and were written. However trends have a way of coming back.

Recently we have seen an upturn in the emergence of the traditional post-nuclear PA settings, particularly that wasteland populated by road warriors and freeway fighters inspired by a certain style of movies from the early eighties and starting of course with Mad Max. Part of this can be explained by the cycle of nostalgia that appears to work on 30 year intervals. Recent games and rulesets like Gaslands, Devils Run Route 666 and the upcoming 7TV Apocalypse capture this feel. If you want to roll back to the steps leading up to armageddon there is a renewed interest in Cold War Gone Hot and World War III with the likes of Team Yankee and the upcoming Battlegroup NORTHAG.

My current favourite set of rules are 7TV by Crooked Dice Game Design Studio. A great and most importantly fun game that effectively allows your to recreate TV shows (and films) on your tabletop with tongue usually firmly in cheek. In fact the game is effectively a game about making a TV series. You dont have armies or warbands, you put together a cast containing stars, co-stars and extras. You spend ‘plot points’ to take actions, the card driven event mechanic allows things such as continuity mistakes, special effects mistakes and issues with difficult stars to affect gameplay. Now in its second edition the game is primarily focussed on the spy-fy genre (think Bond, Gerry Anderson, the ITC action series of the 60s), is figure agnostic but is supported by a great range of 28mm scale miniatures available directly from Crooked Dice.

7TV is branching out soon into the Post Apocalypse, with a standalone game that takes the core mechanics of second edition and tweaks the flavour and setting. Most notably the existing vehicle rules have been expanded to accomodate those Road Warrior type scenarios. The full game is due to hit Kickstarter this Autumn, but I had the opportunity back in July to attend a play test / campaign day to try out these rules.

One of the coolest things about this sort of thing from a hobbyists point of view is the creativity that it allows for things like conversions and sourcing figures. For the play test day I had to put together a cast and include a suitably post-apocalypsed up vehicle. I went for a ‘big rig’ approach and with a nod to 7TVs cult tv background a cast based around Garth Knight and his Goliath truck from Knightrider (imaging after the fall of society Garthe would be a magnet for scavengers and marauders).

Since then I’ve been bitten hard by the bug and have spent more time sourcing vehicles, bits, conversion parts and miniatures. This blog series will cover this project in detail as I prepare, strap on my survivalist gear, rev up the V8, scavenge the gasoline and face the white line nightmare of the wastelands.