Cobra High Speed Sentry (H.I.S.S.) (80s Pulp)

Today we have the iconic Cobra High Speed Sentry (H.I.S.S.) tank. It was quite possibly my favourite vehicle in my youth, it looked super cool and looked futuristic enough to be include in Star Wars adventures too!

The HISS was developed to fulfill two separate needs on the battle field, anti-personnel and heavy armor. The H.I.S.S. tank is the most versatile and deadly tank in Cobra's armada.

Incredibly, this is the first ever 28mm vehicle I've painted in my life.

The model I used is a bit of a story in itself, as I used a small plastic toy which incredibly is the right scale for 28mm! It's sold as novelty for offices or such, complete with Pew Pew sounds and lights! At 13$ CA, it's an unbelievably good deal!

I remove the wheels, primed it while protecting the plastic canopy with masking tape, and then painted it. The original HISS in the cartoon was black, but I painted mine blue, a favourite of mine which came in toy format many years later. I had a bit of a problem with the painting, as I gave it a wash of blue ink. Bad idea! Ink on such a smooth surface looked horrendous, so I painted over it. So basically I gave the model two basecoats! Other than that I'm pleased with the vehicle, especially the edge highlights. Eventually I'll need to try some of the fancy tehniques like rust and weathering.

The stickers included are crap so I did not use them, but I did manage to find Cobra decals from Company B! I learned a lot while painting this, and my 2nd HISS will be better, but I'm still happy how it came out, for my very first try at the bigger scale vehicles.

We don't have enough ammunition to shoot them all in the head. The time to have done that would have been in the beginning. No, we let them overrun us. We are in the minority now, something like 400,000 to one by my calculation.

An entry coming out of left field today, with 6 figures from the original Zombicide board game. Zombicide is the only miniature board or wargame that my girlfriend actually enjoys. I think the cooperative nature of the game appeals to her more than the competition style of traditional wargames. It's also much simple. It's quite funny as she really gets into it and becomes a nervous wreck when the Zombies approach us from all sides! So she's been bugging me to paint the miniatures for the game, and I figured I'd give it a go in between batches of other miniatures. They are really nice figures, it's just that I have so many projects to do! 

Anyways, I painted these during the last Analogue painting challenge, but didn't post them on here.

For board game game pieces they are lovely figures, even though the face details are a bit soft. I'm also not a huge fan of the semi-soft plastic used, but having said that I'm quite pleased with how they came out.

You will notice none of them follow the art from the game. I just don't like being told what colours to use, unless it's historical or accepted canon! 

While obviously their main use is Zombicide, I based them the same as my Pulp project (more on this soon), and I can certainly use some of them, the police officer especially, in my Pulp games.

Now, I just have to paint all the Zombies from the game...next challenge, maybe?

Hail to the King, baby

Alright you Primitive Screwheads, listen up! You see this? This... is my BOOMSTICK! The twelve-gauge double-barreled Remington. S-Mart's top of the line. You can find this in the sporting goods department. That's right, this sweet baby was made in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Retails for about a hundred and nine, ninety five. It's got a walnut stock, cobalt blue steel, and a hair trigger. That's right. Shop smart. Shop S-Mart. You got that?

When I was maybe 11, I saw late at night a horror movie called Evil dead. It terrified me. So of course I watched Evil Dead II not long after and was also terrified, again. The "humour" in the movie escaped me, and the fact the main hero, Ash, spends a good half of the movie alone, tormented by evil demonic forces really made a number on me. But the worst part was the movie's ending, in which our hero gets propelled back in medieval times, not the happy ending you want for your horror movie.

Lady, I'm afraid I'm gonna have to ask you to leave the store.

And who the hell are you?

Name's Ash. [cocks rifle] 

Housewares.

Two years later, I saw a commercial for Army of Darkness, and I realized it was the sequel to Evil Dead! Finally I would knew what happened to Ash! As I was 13, and the movie was PG-13, I went to see it in the theater. I quickly realized that the sequel was much more lighthearted than the original, and while for a moment it disappointed me I rapidly fell for it's humour, and laughed for 90 minutes straight. 

You found me beautiful once...

Honey, you got reeeal ugly!

To this day, Army of Darkness is one of the movies I've seen the most often, and I can recite most of the movie lines by heart. And they're so many classic quotes in that movie! 

It's a trick. Get an axe.

Good. Bad. I'm the guy with the gun.

I got this Hasslefree miniatures a while back, because obviously as a die hard fan of the serie I needed it, and obviously when I saw the last bonus round theme (TV or movie character) I knew what I had to do! At first I wanted to do a diorama, but after painting the figure the wargamer in me whispered to my ear "you'll want to play with him, are you sure a diorama is a good idea?" That combined with lack of time as I've been working really hard on that Pulp duel with Sander made me decide he would be enough. And who am I kidding? Of course, Ash is enough! 

I intend to use him in Pulp games, and also of course Zombicide! It's a great figure, and I'm really happy with my painting.

Sure, I could have stayed in the past. I could have even been king. But in my own way, I *am* king.

Hail to the king, baby.

Chicago Mobsters (West theme entry for the Analogue Challenge)

So I had to improvise a little (a lot) for the West entry, submitted for the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge. I had what I thought was a very good concept for the Challenge (the Wicked Witch of the West), but unfortunately the world's posts and/or Canada customs conspired to ruin my plans! Indeed, the order I made specifically for this bonus theme round apparently got lost in the mail somewhere, and I was left with nothing! I actually waited until yesterday, hoping it might miraculously show up at the last minute but alas it was not meant to be. I woke up this morning a bit frustrated at the whole situation resigned that I would miss this bonus theme round. But then by mid-afternoon I shook myself up, and since I always join the bonus round (terrain excepted), I figured I had to come with something!

So I frantically went digging into my lead pile. Now, I remembered I had a lone Far West Cowboy figure left, but that didn't excite me, as it seemed an easy way out. I figure a few of the entries would be Far West (nothing wrong with that) and I wanted to do something different than a single Cowboy.

And then by pure luck I stumbled unto two Gangsters figures. They were the remnants of a pack of Copplestone Miniatures gangsters I bought many years ago to paint as a gift to Laurie (she's into everything 1930s, especially the cinema and Film Noir). And my brain started working a little and making associations...gangsters, mobsters, 1920s Chicago, Chicago the Midwest city, often referred as the Jewel of the Midwest...ha! Got it! I'm pretty sure no one does Midwest for this theme! 

It was a bit of a hectic day after that; they needed to be cleaned, primed, based and painted by midnight. 

And success!! 

So my entry is Dean O'Banion and Bugs Moran, the famous leaders of the North Side Gang, the Chicago Irish Mobsters and main rivals of Al Capone's Chicago outfit who fought in the 1920s and 1930s in what is now known as “The Bootleg Battle of the Marne.” 

Dean O'Banion and Bugs Moran

I went with classic Mobsters suits colours of Navy blue and "shiny" grey, and really i'm just happy I managed to not only finish them but making them look decent with very limited time. I won't win this challenge but I'm really proud I managed to sneak in this entry! They will be added to Laurie's Gangsters collection as I really have no gaming use for them.

60 extra points for the challenge (10 for the two figures, 50 for the Bonus round entry)

Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge, Part VII

Yes, the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge is back for it's 7th year (I know, time flies). Better and bigger than ever, with 100 participants! While the Fantasy and Sci-Fi side of the Challenge will occupy the vast majority of my time, I do intend on working on a few things for this place.

So what's in store for this blog? Well two small projects, really.

1. Napoleonic skirmishes. I've got the skirmish bug recently, for both Sci-Fi and Fantasy, and I've been thinking of doing something similar for Naps. Really, it's an excuse to paint some of the many great skirmishing Napoleonic figures on the market. One of the things I like about skirmishes is the ability to spend more time on each figures, and it's something I especially never do with Naps. So I got myself Songs of Drums & Shakos, because I love the engine, and would like to create small 10-20 men forces. Eventually maybe I'll be able to use them in bigger skirmish games like Sharpe's Practice, although it is not my goal per se. What do we start with? Well some Poles from Murawski Miniatures, of course! Roger sent me this summer some of the new "Retreat from Moscow" skirmishers and they are really good looking. I'll use them for the 1809 Danube campaign to create a wonderfully ragged bunch. 
2. I'm having a side-duel (well two actually, you can read about the other one on my Marauders and Citadels blog) with Sander Van Straeten, who I met on a Facebook page. The duel is for "80s Military and Sci-Fi Pulp" and consists of a single entry, between 25 and 50 pts worth of infantry, along with one mandatory vehicle piece. Now, you may ask yourself "And what exactly is 80s Military Sci-Fi Pulp?". Well you'll find out! It's not the type of thing usually seen in this blog, but it should be a fun entry. Also, my very first 28mm vehicle. Wish me luck.
3. There's a 3...kinda. I reserve the right to work on anything else I feel like! It might be historical, it might be Pulp...heck it might be Zombies! If it's not strictly Sci-Fi or Fantasy, I'll post it here! 

Of course, the above doesn't include the bonus theme rounds, and my plan is to participate in all of them but one (I don't do terrain).

My goal for this Challenge is to hit 550pts, although I hope for more.