6mm Martian Alliance technocrats complete

At last I have finished my technocrat faction for the Martian Alliance. i used a magnifying glass for the majority of these and this has improved the overall standard of painting, but I will never approach pro levels - i remain a proud amateur. Close observation will show imperfections, but the look of massed units at a distance is good. I can't take better pics at this time, as I am moving on immediately to finishing the Olympian faction and making the terrain board.

This is the whole faction, with skirmish units in the front and aerials to the rear.

focus here on the technocrat riders -  two bases each of bikers and speeders; both from onslaught miniatures

assassins or lurkers or sneakers; five bases of them. Players have also used these bases as heroes.

technocrat knights; really happy with these - painted ages ago without mag glass.

a better shot of the sneakers, but the real focus is a close up of the technocrat beasts; onslaught OTC drones and handlers.

Focus on the technocrat hordes; irregular non daleks with onslaught avian handlers. Very happy with these; I made 17 bases.

not a great shot - my hand in the way - three bases of shooters

another look at the shooters, with spears and hordes as well and giant golem robot behemoths in the background.

close up technocrat blades, with spears in support.

I love this base, which wasn't intended. I ordered 24 German WW1 tanks as extras for the crater dwellers and irregular sent me an armoured car and a staff car as samples. I used them for a technocrat hero. 

The other technocrat (aerial) heroes.

techncrat magicians, with flyers in the background.

I am not sure if this is meant to show the behemoths or the airboats.

Or airboats and behemoths. Kindly note the non dalek escorts as point defence for the behemoths.

The whole faction. Wow! only the Olympians to go. I might actually finish this thing.

Martian alliance crater dwellers completed

Here I post the finally complete crater dwellers faction of my Martian Alliance army. Actually, there are several units, including one airboat in other posts, so I won't show those as well. I am boxing them up for transit, as I intend them to debut at my HOTT club next week, before I have done the terrain board.

above are the remaining five air boats

the air boats again; They took forever and are a combination of uncharted seas my imagination and the fantastically planet of the apes type wildlands alliance from Microworld games.

All the remainder of the crater dwellers. Quite an imposing little force.

close up on the behemoth rising out of the Martian crater sand at the urging of his were elephant leader hero.

Legionary like simians. Sort of weird alternative universe Roman legionaries.

Were elephant warband

The hero and his big follower.

Hordes and tanks here they come.

The crater dweller panzer division, revving up for action.

A better shot of the panzer division. This came about because I had done some dwarf tanks four years ago, using British WW1 tanks. I had also bought four irregular German A7Vs. I did two bases for the crater dwellers, using all four tanks. This is because I like cavalry and the wildlands alliance don't have any. So I made my own. I liked it so much I did another 12 bases and I think they are wonderful. They won't stand close scrutiny, as I am an amateur, but en masse, they look right. What you see there is, I believe, 3.5 times as many tanks as the Germans actually made. Can't wait to get these knights of Mars into action. When Microworld bring out their new apocalypse stuff, I intend doing lots more of these.

Tanks for the air cover chaps.

yeah baby, yeah. Come and get some.

From above.

The lot again. Next up in a few months will be the Martian Alliance technocrats.

Martian Alliance 2nd batch

I post the 2nd batch of the Martian Alliance. This time I include the big ticket beasts for the crater dwellers, their unique and excellent airboat and a home-made cavalry unit for them. I also show the remaining types for the Olympians - dragon, aerial hero, flyers, blades (2 types), behemoths, riders.

These are knights. They are microworld wildland orang-utans riding on irregular ww1 German A7v tanks. I needed a cavalry unit for the crater dwellers and microworld's wildland doesn't offer one. By chance, I still had 4 irregular tanks left from 3 years ago, when I did a dwarf tank unit, using British ww1 tanks - because they fit and the German ones didn't. Anyway, as soon as I did these bases, which I had never planned, I knew I would love them and have ordered enough tanks to make 12 more of these knights.

I love the unfinished, crude look of the German tanks - which is historically accurate - but I didn't even cut off the flash, because, being their first tech unit, the crater dwellers should look crude.

My favourite unit this last week and possibly of all time. It's an uncharted seas balloon, topped off with wildland heroes and other hangers-on. This doesn't show the detail on the underside of the unit, which is exquisite.

Slightly different perspective. I have another five of these to paint. The crater dwellers must not be cannon fodder. This just  looks right.

Crater dweller hordes

more crater hordes.

This is the crater dweller behemoth one - a wildlands great dingonek - fresh from the microworld imagination. I usually like to put escorts and point defence people for the big units.

Crater dweller behemoth two. a wildlands emele Ntouka. Those two big units look great 

The crater dwellers from this week. A great looking little mini-army.

This week's Olympians all together. Another lovely little mini-army. I do love that dragon - in my opinion, the best fantasy dragon I have ever seen.

Olympian beasts (for HOTT), driven on by a fallen. Look closely and you will see that these are Cerberus dogs, with three heads, just as in Classical myth.

Olympian blades type one - microworld blade demons.

Blades type two - cyclops demons.

Riders! Microworld demontaurs. These are brilliantly characterful miniatures. I like cavalry, so I bought lots of these.

As always, I spend time on the back views, since I will see it from my side of the table more often.

Superb miniatures, if not equalled by my amateurish efforts at painting them. These are microworld abyssal crawlers, topped by a basket of flame demons, escorted by abyssal juggernauts (who I conceive as acting like deputies) and escorted by assorted Olympian infantry.

My favourite dragon, in his Martian colours. I have four more of these to do. I cut off the existing dark alliance general and stuck on the alternative general from the Abyssal crawler, who is a sort of flame demon (or energy demon in my theory). 

Olympian aerial hero (it's a pit lord), escorted by imps. I bought only two pit lords, but loads of imps. I am glad, for I am beginning to like the imps.

Flyers - imps, led by a fallen.

from another angle.

Notice the new style of flying base. The one I did last week for the technocrats did not please me. This style is way better, but it was a tricky one to do. It's miliput supported by lolly stick bits and a paper clip.

Finally the fruits of this week's labours. I had planned to finish this army within three weeks from today, but it is clearly going to take longer and I want to give it the time it needs. I would say October is looking more likely (alas! I return to work on September 1st).

Olympians and Technocrats Martian factions

Here's the Technocrat aerial hero, riding on a wave of energy that comes from the Martian surface, especially where it breaks through in rivers and in patches. I plan on doing a terrain board in a couple of weeks. It will feature Olympus mons as the centre of the board and of the energy. The Technocrats all have energy weapons (basically dark, then light blue and a bit of white).

Technocrat magicians - or if you like Onslaught avian shamans.

one of the two Technocrat airboats. I added a couple of avian war chiefs to give more of a crowded feel, and because I bought a pack of them and needed to use them somewhere. The plastic dome is theoretically where the Technocrats live and grow food, protected from the Martian radiation. You can see the model railway lichen inside.

Flyers. Also the only base I am really unhappy with, because it looks wrong. I should have used smaller sections of lolly stick to form the aerial base, rather than a whole base.

Shooters. Looking good.

Technocrat knights. Two bases. They are actually onslaught exo suited (Stygians?). I almost used them as artillery for my HOTT rules, but the guns you can choose to attach aren't quite big enough for artillery in my view. It occurs to me that artillery is needed for this army and I will probably have to invest in some Microworld guns on dinosaurs, which I nearly did this time.

Technocrat knights in profile.

sisterhood speeder bikes, or in my world, Technocrat riders.

A favourite base. That's a behemoth with point defence escort. The giant is a Microworld dwarf golem. The escorts are irregular (non) daleks. If you do a sci-fi army in 6mm, you have to have (non) daleks.

sideways on you can see the dome better.

Paint the rear of your armies, because when you play, you'll spend longer looking from that angle.

Technocrat beasts - I think they are OTC probe robots with a handler. They absolutely work.

I could have used these for lurkers or sneakers, but I already have a bunch of avian serpent warriors set aside for that.

sisterhood spears or Technocrat spears. Lovely, bunched, ranked, ready for trouble.

The afore-mentioned lurkers / sneakers.

Technocrat hordes. I have enough to make about 16 bases of these before the summer's over.

blades or warband - the players can decide which. I think they'll serve as either.

riders / light cavalry - sisterhood bikers.

swerving to avoid running over their house.

The Technocrat faction

The Olympian hordes. Microworld flame demons whipped on by the fallen.

Love those tortured flame demons. Twisted and tortured by the Martian energy.

Abyssal rambeasts - knights of Olympus. Looking a lot like the creature that nearly eats Natalie Portman in attack of the clones.

I don't thimk any of these bases stands up to close inspection. Well, that is ok, since the impression I want is the massed 6mm look in a big HOTT army. I am afraid that I haven't the time or patience to improve on this standard at present.

This is about one quarter of what I hope the finished army will have. I likke to do test paints, to figure colour schemes and such like.

More to come. Next up are some crater dweller creatures and airboat.