Friday, 7 February 2014

1:300/6mm Mecha - Brigade, GZG and Iron Wind Metals

I did my usual prevarication over whether or not to invest in "Heavy Gear" and as usual concluded they are ridiculously overpriced. So instead I resorted to 6mm to get my mecha fix.

Iron Wind Metals are a great source of 6mm mecha. Their "Battle armour" for their 10mm Battletech line are a perfect fit.  Just look in their Online Exclusives section.  The range is huge and has more options than pretty much all the 6mm manufacturers combined.

Left to Right: Brigade tank, GZG Fatboy, Brigade infantry, IWM Asura, Sei'irim, Nephilim and Shedu battle armours. The small power armour suits are Brigade.

I found the prices (50c-$1ea) good, but postage to Australia was steep - $17+ $9 packing fee meant that the postage added 50% to the cost of the mechs.  As you can see the 10mm "battle armour" make perfect 6mm mecha.
The GZG "Fatboys" have a definite VOTOMS vibe. If you haven't watched it already, VOTOMS is a very "realistic" and gritty military mecha series from the 1980s.

These are all Demon series battle armours from the Word of Blake "Shadow Division" from Battletech lore.

Another comparison shot that shows how well the IWM battle armour matches up. This time a GZG "Hound Dog" is shown in comparison.



More Hound Dogs as part of the OpFor.

I also really like the Brigade power armour. It has a real MaK vibe.

The infantry is also quite good, and is well-priced. 

A decent-sized 1:300 force will cost around $30 - 20-30 vehicles for about the cost of 2-3 10mm Heavy Gear models or Battletech mechs.

The buildings are also Brigade models. They are also quite well-priced.

Even a small 4x4ft table leaves plenty of room to maneuver in 1:300 scale....

I'm also working on a way to abstract the zillions of hitboxes in Battletech using the bell-curve percentages of 2d6 (the possibilities are quite interesting - I might do a separate post on this). I've tried the new Battletech fast-play rules "Alpha Strike" and found it too simplistic.  I still want to know if individual arms and legs are blown off - but I don't want to have to "scrub off" say all 40 hitboxes of leg armour before I can actually damage the mech's legs. It's kinda silly really - in reality shots either penetrate armour or they don't - they don't have to remove every last bit of armour before they can start to do internal damage.  I'm also experimenting with using the Fistful of TOWs modern rules system (it has vehicle design rules that I can stretch to cover mecha).
Stay tuned for more mech action...
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6 comments:

  1. DeanM8 February 2014 at 08:04

    Amazing work on these - I've never painted anything smaller than 1/72nd and can't believe the details you've worked on these 6mm figs. I am also impressed to see them based as singles! Best, Dean

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  2. evilleMonkeigh8 February 2014 at 15:04

    Only the tiny infantry are true 6mm - the mechs are actually 15mm. They're actually super easy to paint - much, much faster than 28mm etc.

    #1. Use much lighter colours than usual (small minis look dark for some reason)
    #2. Use a dark wash, then a much brighter drybrush to emphasize the tiny details
    #3. Pick 1-2 strongly contrasting colours to make them "pop" but don't overdo them

    The entire army would have taken maybe 2 hours from start to finish - much more rewarding than 28mm I reckon...

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  3. Ken10 February 2014 at 08:48

    Thanks for posting the pics! I've always wondered how the Battle Armor stacks up with 6mm infantry/vehicles/etc. It looks like they would do very well as 6mm mechs. So, how tall do they actually measure?

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    Replies
    1. evilleMonkeigh10 February 2014 at 13:01

      15mm. Obviously they vary a little, but they tend to be the same as a 15mm soldier. My next project is using 15mm robots and power armour as 6mm mecha.

      6mm mecha - 10mm power armour - 15mm infantry = all interchangable.

      Obviously, being larger or smaller isn't an issue - they're mecha, not historicals - if its bigger it doesn't look "out of scale" - its just a heavier class of mecha.

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    2. Ken10 February 2014 at 13:15

      Thanks for the quick reply. I had looked at them before on the IWM site, but never know how the would look with 6mm (or 15mm) minis. Now, I do. I need to place an order for some soon.

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    3. evilleMonkeigh11 February 2014 at 00:36

      I'm ordering some 15mm robots from Critical Mass Games - when I get them I'll post up a comparison.

      If you live in the USA the Mechwarrior Dark Age clix (plastic pre painted minis) are cheap and look good if repainted and rebased. Have a look on ebay. In Australia, postage is the killer.

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