From: Brian Burger <yh728@v...>
Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 11:03:10 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Scotia MicroModels minis (longish)
A couple weeks ago I mentioned that I'd ordered a batch of stuff from Scotia MicroModels in the UK, and that I'd do a sort of report on the minis when I got them. Well, the minis got here a couple days ago, and here's the report, for those of you who might be thinking of ordering stuff from Scotia or elsewhere. I'm not connected in any way with Scotia, except as a customer...I don't even live in the same country...so here goes... INFANTRY WALKERS: approx. 13mm tall, so almost double man-height. Reg. units have one gun-arm, one hand-arm. Command units have smaller gun-arm, one hand arm, radio backpack w/ 5mm antenna sticking up overhead. Heavy Wpns have smaller gun-arm, hand-arm, large backpack unit w/ large tube sticking a few mm overhead (Mortar tube? Vertical Launch AT missles? whatever...) Casting is very clean, no flaws in the 12 I have (8 reg., 2 Cmnd, 2 HvyWpns). Units have large forward thrusting helmets, slightly 'hunched' appearance. Paint job: I've painted mine dark green all over, with tan patch on the back, black gun, black visor-slit, and with light green highlights and drybrushing all over and some black shadows to emphasize some parts. The Cmnd. units have black antennas, black backpacks w/ one yellow spot. Hvy Wpns. have black backpcks, black gun-tube thingies, w/ a tan section. Last word: These I'd buy again (and will). They're very cool, quite 'powerful' looking, and the quality is good. POWERED ARMOUR TROOPS: approx. 9mm tall, just slightly taller than man height. Slim design, w/ narrow waist, slightly pointed helmet, one rifle-arm, one hand-arm, small backpack type thing. Of the 54 I got (two packs of 27) just a few (no more that 4/5) were missing the right arm from shoulder to wrist- the shoulder pad was there, the rifle was there, but the bits in between were gone. All were, however, very crisp, free of flash, etc. Paint job: I based these in groups of four, two platoons of six bases plus one four-grp. and one two-base left over. One platoon was painted dark green, with slightly bluish green patches for camo. Second platoon had same dark green base, w/ light green patches and dry brushing. All had black rifles and some black shadow-painting. Last Word: Another canidate for repeat buying...(can you tell by now that I'm enthusiastic about Scotia's stuff?) Just work on that missing-arm problem, guys... Heavy Weapons Troops: A large batch of mixed units, mostly line-inf. type figures, approx. 7mm tall. 10 two-man missle (GMS/L) teams, molded right onto a base together. Some APSW teams (5). Some 'snipers' (guys lying down w/ rifles, 10), and finally two types of standing soldiers (total 20). I used the standing guys to flesh out the APSW and mortar teams (see next) to two-man units as per DS2 rules, gluing them all to styrene plastic rectangles. The 'snipers' and the rest of the standing soldiers I used for a few infantry teams, as militia/line inf. All these castings are pretty clean, no flash, a few irregularities but no major flaws. Paint job: Dark green base coat, then drybrushing only the figures w/ lighter green to give a camo-blotch effect. APSWs, GMS/Ls, some other details in black. Eventually I'll add flocking to the bases, for grass. (Also to the Power Inf. and every other base...) Last word: I'd buy more of these, except that there's so many pieces in this batch I have all the heavy wpn. units I'm going to need for the near future! It's the largest set, by a long way - 40 pieces. SMALL MORTARS: Five little mortars from the Neutral/ww2/modern line in Scotia's catolog. I suppose I could have built my own, but what the heck. Approx. 3-4mm tall. I used some of the standing soldiers from the Heavy Wpn Troops above to man these, two to a mortar, as Infantry (Man-Portable) Mortars. Painted as the Hvy. Wpns guys, dark green plus lighter green drybrushing. In the future I'll scratchbuild my own from wire and stretched sprue, but for those with less scratchbuiling ability or less time, these're cool. HORSE CAVALRY: These aren't from Scotia's SF line, they're from their WW2 microarmour line - the Polish cavalry troopers of tank-charging fame...poor bastards...Anyway, the cav is cool, about 10mm long by 10mm high, and the only 6mm scale cav. I've ever seen. (Apparently Evil Empire has their Rough R*d*rs for E*p*c, but, well, um....) The casting of these isn't as crisp as the others. They're a bit rougher, more 'sketched-in' looking. But no flash, only a few flaws (mostly horses missing part of a rear leg), and they are more complex minis that the rest, really. You get 27 of them in a pack, so I'm going to base mine 4 to a base, each base approx. 1.5" x.5" or so. Paint job: I haven't got these guys finished yet, or really started, but they're going to be tan & green camo soldiers mounted on varied horses - black, white, greys, roan, etc all the horse colors, just for variety. Rifles etc will be black, as usual. Last Word: I bought these mostly to see what they were like, I'm not sure how much they'll get used in actual play. Oh well, I can always get into 6mm fantasy or something...They're nice minis, anyway. Just for interest, before I painted all those I washed them in warm soapy water, let them air-dry, then gave them a white undercoat with a spray can. All the rest of the painting was done with brushes. The paint was all Humbrol model paints, enamel based, thinned for washes with paint thinner/turps. I'm going to coat all the minis with matte spray varnish (Dullcote) before I use them for play, to protect the paint job. The product codes, for those of you who're interested: Powered Armour Troopers: SF1008 Powered Armour Command: SF1009 Powered Arm. Hvy. Wpn: SF10010 Power Infantry: SF1003 Heavy Weapons: SF1004 Mortars: NE1 Cavalry (Polish WW2): PS1003 And the address: