From DavidB: Friday-Sci Fi feature (335 Points)

Hardy- Jack

These fellows are from the USCR faction of MERCS. Megacon Games crafted a skirmish sci fi game where I really like both the universe and rules. The action is fast, there is synergy and combos with the troops. Troops are hard to kill, but that is entirely fine as the objectives are what really matters. You do not always win by eliminating the opposing force. Victory is achieving the objective. This game also has civilians on the battlefield in many roles including being objectives themselves. Not to many games out there with that in place.

For the Scifi stage, what is better than a world where world governments have ceased to exist. The majority of nations have been absorbed in whole and in part by Megacons (Multi-national Global System Mega-conglomerates) a company store on steroids. Some areas are known as the Lost Margin places where it is too costly to absorb into a Megacon, or too hostile. These places are rife with criminals, FCC (free of corporate control) terrorists, and remnants of former national militaries.

No one group is the good guy and no one group is the bad guy. It risks the bottom line to wage war. The various factions fight in the stock market, the board room , and public opinion. MERCS (military economic reconnaissance counter security) wage war on a smaller scale to avoid costly interference with the corporate police and rival megacons. 

The USCR  has the best armor in the game and are all shock assault troops. They are from the former Russian Nation and some Baltic Nations. They are more like NeoSov with a heavy flavor of communism like the old Soviet Union. They are an industrial powerhouse. Their Mercs use heavy armor suits and ice grenades. The suits are powered by nuclear reactors and the shielding is abysmal for the wearer. They age and die pretty quickly but food and shelter is better for USCR Mercs than the factory workers. The Behemoth is the peak of  USCR armor design and is nasty in close combat and range. Using ice grenades and the sniper's harpoon, The USCR uses board control to narrow paths and funnel the opposition into the behemoth. 

These are also USCR and painted in their normal white armor. I used a texture paint that left  soggy piles of snow on the bases and then flocked the bases with snow. I also used various pigment powders on the bases and feet of the models to represent dirt, ash, brick, etc and firmly anchor the models to the bases. 

These are all plastic and bought used where I had a lot of cleanup work to do on them. I missed some flash and had to repair a couple when I cleaned up the bases. They did not take well to separating from the slotta bases and after a couple botched attempts I left the used models off-center in basing to reduce my stress!

The white models are in the resin plastic material and the green(alt paint scheme) are the classic metal models I managed to find on Ebay. They are less fearsome and heavy looking in res-tic. I like the models better in metal 

The behemoths are both res-tic and okay, but they seem to suffer from wrong body portions...the soldier inside will suffer broken bones from moving on top of the ones broken to stuff him?her inside the armor! The booster model is on the left above. besides the heft and size, I like better the door kicking pose. The sniper in metal looks better anchored and powerful than the one in res-tic

Keizai Waza is the Megacon based in Japan and in control of most of the Pacific including Australia. All factions have a special trick and keizai brings a small nuclear missile with them to the fight( more on that below). This is a mix of the res-tic and metal models too. I was going to paint the res-tic in an urban camouflage with orange spot colors, but took the challenge to get a cohesive orange over the poorly painted used models. I had to use a couple coats of airbrush primer after scrapping away static grass and questionable basing materials from these models and still missed some mold lines. In the end I felt the urban camo would have been too easy to hide the imperfections, so I challenged myself to make them a pretty bright orange in the corporate colors.

The squad leader in metal(left) and res-tic. The metal one is using more of the space and is crisper than the res-tic one but the are very similar. He carriers the Nuclear missile on his back.

The sniper in metal and res-tic. The metal model may be assembled with a helmet or the helmet and cloak. I now have three of these snipers so I used the helmet option for the metal sniper just to have one different from the others

The Heavy(left two are metal). The res-tic wins here just because of assembly. It was impossible to get a support hand under the gun. Contact points are barely present for the arms, but you do have the option of running or firing legs!

The Observer and Pathfinder( metal versions on the left). The observer is a better sculpt and larger in metal while the pathfinder in metal is actually using the peek-a-boo spotting laser. The metal versions win here. The leader, pathfinder, and observer must be alive to fire the nuc. The pathfinder must have LOS to the target and the Observer is the only one who has the launch codes.

The FCC are the outsiders from the megacons. They are further divided into 12 different houses two of which are currently represented in the game. house-4 and house-9. They are scattered in hideouts and bunkers across the lost margin and sometimes in megacon territory.  

House 4 is arguably the good guys. They are based in the northwest area of North America and use former Canadian and American military hardware to make it too costly for a Megacon to take them on. They specialize in ambush and kidnapping. They are generally looking for resources to protect themselves and skilled workers for the same tasks. Of note is most victims of the kidnappings prefer to remain in the territory of House 4 due to their treatment and freedom enjoyed there. 

A housemember, sniper, breacher, heavy, and priest all in metal. I need a squad leader to make these guys legal for use. A merc team is 5 strong and one has to be a leader model, but they do have god on their side, so.....  These only have contrast paint as a glaze everything is painted over a black undercoat with base, mid, and a highlight or 3.

House 9 is more violent and found mainly in the Mediterranean and eastern Europe areas. They are usualy from the slums and war torn regions and are very violent and more terrorist than House 4. I do have metal models but this is actually all the res-tic ones. There are only a max of 6 metal models of each faction in the wild and the res-tic have additional specialists bringing each faction to 10 specialists.

The three new members for house 9 are the shock trooper, the sniper, and the Bedouin.

They were also used and poorly begun. I spent some time removing basing materials and fixing the models. I could not get the paint removed from them and had to carefully scrape them before primering them again...it was a lot of work.

The CCC or Cleveland-Chicago-Cincinnati is based in the Eastern area of the former United States and from as far north as New York and down to Florida. Their Mercs are known as yellow jackets and they are glorious in metal.

I love the poses and details and they are probably my second favorite faction in the game. The are good all rounders with decent synergy. I like them for the detail and poses though. It doesn't hurt that the sniper uses a Barrett 50 cal either. Snipers can only fire every other turn AFTER they set up, but the CCC sniper is very good at removing enemy forces.

Just using the heavies... The CCC mini gunner looks braced as he is ripping off some rounds, The House 4 gunner is clearly shifting a heavy piece of hardware into position, while the CCC flame trooper is absorbing the sudden recoil of rushing flammable gases from her weapon...yes she Kat Silvestri is the Incinerator trooper. The girls in mercs do not sport boob armor. 

The Sefadu has the homebase in Africa. Of this whole group of mercs, they were the most enjoyable to paint. The Sefadu corp specializes in diamonds and laser tech. In MERCS 2.0 they are a dissolved megacon. A conspiracy laid by the FCC stripped them of everything and they were dissolved. The Sefadu wiped Johannesburg off the map with a dirty bomb and utterly destroyed FCC house 6. House 6 is the intelligence arm of the FCC and know wear all the money is, all the bodies are buried. Sefadu is "gone" but most of their mercs and many key leaders are very much alive and looking for vengeance on everybody.

The sniper with a karambit knife. Metal model is to the right and much more lithe and dynamic.

way more detail on him too.

a booster and beserker. 

both metal and nice poses, I may tweak the beserkers blades as they seem washed out in the photo.

a gunner and the leader. The leader has a boomerang spear. 

The carbine armed sefadu can target easily whoever he hits with the spear and the leader can use magnets to retrieve it without being in base contact. The gunner has a shotgun and can't target the model, but he does have access to many different shotgun rounds. Sefadu are fast and nimble and specialize in speed and close combat.

a souvenir from my second Adepticon. You may find some blue in purple on the alien. I painted him in those colors before glazing black templar contrast paint over him. I used the black templar because of it's glossy sheen when dried.

I used an off white for the teeth and weathered everything on the skull and base and even used the technical paint tesseract glow for the alien's drool.

The metal skull went from black to every metalic paint I had to achieve the silver shine on the outer highlights, The skull went from brown to pure white with many colors stippled under....even lavender and pale blue in shadow areas.

Gotta fix that splashed gold paint!

In 2017 I was successful in standing in line in a crowd without getting too nervous and losing my s**t. I still felt better moving on the edges of the room, but wargamers are very social and a few vendors who happened to also be vets drew me further out. I still get a little nervous in the crowds, but knowing it is a trial/challenge for my own-self lets me get out and interact a little more every year. my end goal is to actually participate in one of the many game tournaments there and actually have to interact with total strangers. Some of the tables especially the GW open ones get really crowded, so it will be a true test of how far I have come. But still, 2017 was my first time in a crowd where I didn't have my wife as a shield. I did have my gaming group, but they would't let me hide in the room while they hit the tourneys. Needless to say, I am looking forward to this years convention and seeing how far I can expand my bubble. And if anyone is going to ask, I haven't got a swag bag since 2017! 

So to wrap this LONG post and many photos.....

63 minis for 315 points

20 points for the scifi set

and one special skull!

Friday Minion: Crikey David, you're on a roll here! A canter through SIX factions for a skirmish system that I've never eve heard of, wowsers, so many goodies. The FCC look excellent in their drab guerilla tones and less of the OTT power armour, and those Sendafu are top notch, dynamic sculpts, unusual design and well rendered by your fine brushwork. 

But the best of the lot is that Alien on skill, the work you put into the undertones and contrast layers really paid off, it looks gruesome. Marvelous!

Have an awesome time at Adepticon and I hope you get a long overdue swag bag this year - you clearly need more things to paint :-)