Sunday 9 February 2020

Alien Menace

I'm now ready to play the first scenarios in the Dropfleet/Dropzone Commander Battle for Earth, and it's been a bit of a battle getting here.


These are the Despot Command Walker and Intruder B Transport that I needed to command my forces in the opening scenarios on the game.

They came with the Scourge starter army I bought with a voucher and, with what I've already painted, allow me to get to the 700 points needed.


The Despot brings some close up destructive power to my small army, with short range plasma hoses and razor sharp claws.

The model is really nice, although one of the legs has some fairly rough casting that I'm not used to with Dropzone Commander. I've also had another extended battle with mold release agent - I suspect this is because the Scourge models have lots of lumps and bumps, making it difficult to clean.

I was really unhappy with how the painting was coming along (still not at all convinced by contrast paints) until I did the gold plates on the back and added some visual variety. At some point I may go back and pick out the spinal plates too, but for now I'm happy enough.


The Intruder also has a roughly cast part in that one of the lower connectors has a small bubble in it. This is disappointing, and worrying for when I make future purchases.

In all of my Resistance models (which are all resin) I've not had a single issue with the casting. However, in my first resin purchase since the game was bought by TT Combat, I've had two issues in two models. That doesn't bode well.

I'm glad to have got these two done, even though I've not really enjoyed doing them. Playing some games and getting my alien ass handed to me by Pete's UCM of infinite variety should provide ample motivation to get more units painted.

Two models painted and four models got rid of (I threw away three bizarrely posed PSC Soviets and a damaged Flames of War model) begins to make inroads into my self-created backlog. I'm currently listing a bunch of things on Ebay, so that acquired total should start to come down quickly.

Acquired: 112
Painted: 36

12 comments:

  1. Great stuff Kieron! I think the paint looks really good despite your reservations 🙂

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    1. It's actually more red than the pink it looks like. I think my frustration is that I was expecting contrast paints to be less hassle and have a more noticeable effect.

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  2. I think they're looking great. Space Lobsters for the win!

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  3. I've seen other people complain about poorer quality resin from TT Combat. Hope that's not a sign of things to come!

    Was the contrast paint any quicker? I guess if you weren't doing much more than one coat anyway, it might not be.

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    1. It's more that it doesn't seem to do much more than a base coat, so for people using lots of layers and highlights, it might save them one colour.

      It might also be that I went for a darker colour. Lighter might be more effective.

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  4. Great minis. A very unusual scheme for the scourge, but I like it!

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    1. Cheers. They're actually less pink than they look.

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