Infinity Haqqislam: The Daylami

N2/3 Daylami

I've been working my way through a new Infinity army, the Hassassin Bahram. These are a subfaction of Haqqislam consisting largely though not solely of specialists of various sorts. 

Current Daylami

Daylami, pictured here, are experts at being cheap, disposable and dangerous. Their role is to hide and present something dangerous, then pop put and fire an antitank missile at an approaching baddie. 

Five Parsecs from Home Turn 5 - Psychos Part 2

All figures Corvus Belli 

Crazy Starcrew pilots!

Some more starcrew

Kangal Gesurat
Figure: "Bran do Castro", Corvus Belli 

One of the big corporate players on this world, Wapcaplett, Vendetta and Prang has contracted the crew to flush out some more Psychonauts from their hideout outside of the city. Ulf raises an eyebrow at this. "Seems like there's a lot of that warp sickness going around," he muses. 

The crew take a short break before embarking on their next mission. Hob manages to trade some bits of scrap he salvaged from somewhere. Mireille finds a trainer. Ulf gets into a nice chat with an old sea dog, swapping stories of adventure and woe, some of them true. Sally is approached by a corporate headhunter claiming to represent Gottlieb & Loh, but she takes his card without making a commitment, knowing that they are already engaged with a competitor. 

Anja comes back with a new friend: Kangal Gesurat. An ex-Ganger from an industrial world, Kangal learned young how to be swift with fists and feet. Mireille offered him a job on the spot, which he gladly accepted. 

Yodel comes back with a wistful look in her eye. Has she met someone? 

The Job: 

Wapcaplett, Vendetta and Prang send the crew the coordinates of the hideout. There's a time limit: word has leaked of the op, and some nosy Journos are on the way! WVP want to avoid bad press and so the crew have to 'neutralize' the targets before the cameras show up (5 turns). Also, no area of effect weapons can be used. 

The crew land outside of sensor range and make their way in on foot. 

Once again, Mireille's sensor bot spots the Psychos before they are spotted in return, and so they are able to move up into good ambush positions. Sally starts the engagement by taking aim at the Psycho specialist with the MG - but misses! 

The Psychos spring into action! Neither the machine gunner nor the wild fire from the other Psychos' pistols find their mark. The crew are in a better position, though, and down two of the onrushing Psychos. 

Undeterred, the remaining Psychos close into close combat! Yodel jumps down from an outbuilding to snap a shot at one of the charging maniacs, and fells her just before she is able to reach Ulf. The other, however, meets Anja at the edge of the woods, and slips a blade under her guard. In her haste to parry, Anja goes flying back! Sally's shots start to connect, but the machine gunner stands her ground. She misses her target, however. Mireille starts closing the distance to the specialist to help Sally. 

Unwilling to let her boss take fire for her, Sally drills the specialist and finally finishes her off. Meanwhile Hob runs up and blasts the remaining Psycho in the back, as she turns to face Kangal. 

The battlefield falls silent. 

Mireille finds a stim-pack in the cluttered mess of the habitat module, as well as an encrypted data chip. 

The crew rush to Anja's aid, and patch up a deep gash in her left leg. Despite the severity of the wound, it doesn't look anything that a medkit can't heal, with time (2 turns, in fact). 

The Wapcaplett, Vendetta and Prang rep transfers 4 credits to the Zouave's account, but a short sharp visit by local officials claws back three of those in fees and taxes! 

Kangal asks to talk to Mireille in private, and shares with her his misgivings about the brutality of the recent operation. Mireille sympathizes and agrees with his request to sit the next mission out. 

 

Five Parsecs from Home Turn 2: Isolationists!

Grateful for the prompt intervention, the starport pays out six credits! As the crew celebrate their first successful contract, word gets around, and Mireille is contacted by a regional administrator who needs some quiet, outside help. 

It seems that a small group of anti-Unity Isolationists, led by an ex-naval officer, have occupied a government environmental support center as a sign of their determination. The administrator wants the crew of the Zouave to move in, assess the extent of the Isolationists' defenses, and if possible drive them away. 

Unit9 stls, except far right: Authorized Bounty Hunter, Corvus Belli

Mireille accepts gladly, and sends the crew off to explore the shanties around the launch pads, while she logs some time in with an expert AI. 

A few hours later, the crew return, buzzing with stories to tell: 

-Hob managed to trade some scrap for a Med Patch, just in case; 

-Yodel found a Swift pub, hoping to find rumors of her former gang, but just ended up having a good time; 

-Anja, also carousing, started talking to a bartender who eventually asked her to deliver a package to a friend. She figured that Mireille would get a kick out of using the old Type S Scout/Courier for its intended purpose. 

-Ulf found himself at a boxing gym, where he got in a vigorous session of Krav Maga with a local expert. 

Sally, however, was nowhere to be found, until starport security called. She had gotten mixed up with some chavs - possibly friends of the ones the crew had tangled with earlier - and had gotten injured and robbed (2 turns Sick Bay, lose Colony Rifle with Assault Blade attachment). After a brief commiseration, Mireille sends Sally up to the sick bay to recover, while the team prepares for their assault. 

Terrain: Hlokk Scenery Pack, Corvus Belli 

Sending Ulf alone to check out the small outbuilding, the rest of the team prepare to investigate the two larger ones. Ulf checks windows, determining that the building is empty, but sees a team of three militia approaching! Taking up a firing position at the base of the stairs, he blasts away with his Plasma gun - but misses. 

The militia trooper returns fire inexpertly - and a round connects, sending Ulf tumbling down the stairs! Meanwhile, on the right, autogun fire erupts, as a specialist opens fire on Anja, missing. Hob returns the favor with his own auto rifle, and scores a lucky shot, downing the hapless gunner. 

Yodel, hearing the exchange of fire to her left, repositions, finding a narrow firing lane from cover. Taking careful aim she shoots - and drops the trooper who shot Ulf. 

A third trooper, seeing his friend felled right in front of him, turns and runs. 

The leader, a seasoned navy vet, is not so easily deterred, however. She moves up under cover to try and get enfilade shots on the team. Repositioning, Yodel fires again - and again her shot hits, punching a neat hole under the leader's left eye. 

The remaining pair of Isolationists back off and hunker down, back to back, giving the crew time to catch them in a pincer. Anja closes and blasts away with her shotgun, driving one from cover; Yodel fires at her but her shot fails to injure the militia woman. 

Finally, Hob appears, and the weight of numbers bring down the remaining Isolationists. 

Mireille, closest to Ulf, runs to check on him. Miraculously, he is completely unhurt! (00 injury roll - the first in this game!). Yodel, despite her battlefield success, seems troubled by the lives she has taken, and is overcome by a deep feeling of melancholy. 

Meanwhile, a quick rifle through the bodies finds a few Dazzle grenades, and also a comlink on a particularly well-equipped Isolationist, who turns out to be a Bounty Hunter, with some very interesting data on his person... 

The Administrator pays the crew 5 credits, under the table. 

Five Parsecs from Home: The Crew of the Zouave

 

"Miranda Ashcroft, Authorized Bounty Hunter",
Corvus Belli, OOP
"Drone", Neon Street 3k, Loot Studios, STL

Mireille Asheville came from a family of wealthy colonial administrators, but had big dreams beyond even her considerable means. Imagine her delight when she won the Megacredit lottery! She immediately purchased a decommissioned S-class scout ship and some gear, then posted on the planetary ad boards looking for an experienced pilot and first mate. A rugged man named Ulf responded, and fit the bill, so she immediately hired him!

"Ulf", Raiders of Ymir, Unit9, STL 

Hired by Mireille as executive officer and pilot, Roarke "Ulf" Taylor found the rest of the crew in local bars or just hanging out at the starport, and just pocketed the rest of the bonus cash. He wants everyone to think that he is a Special Forces Military Veteran, but he was really just running the security department of a local tug that also acted as a customs cutter. The closest he came to combat was when his ship was occasionally dispatched to catalog contraband. However, despite his equivocations, he is trained, and can shoot straight as well as pilot a ship.

Sally Pantro 314UPLSL1PT. A lab-grown chimpanzee raised to sentience by Elexa Labs' Uplift Division, 'Sally' and her cohort were bred to provide heavy labor for a high-G mining colony. She was freed by one of Elexa's scientists who had had a coup de conscience, and makes a living as an itinerant ship engineer. As such she is the only person besides Roarke who actually knows how to operate a starship.

"Cyberpanzee", Neon Street 3k, 
Loot Studios, STL

Robert "Hob" Hobart, petty thief, pickpocket and card sharp, is as likely to grab the kitty and run as he is to stash a cold deck up his sleeve. Hob never stays in one place for long, since the private games that he typically targets are usually hunting for his head soon after he makes his move. Mireille's ship is as good a place as any to dodge his marks even as it piques his curiosity.

 

"Hob, Survivalist Hipster", 
Undercity Exiles, Loot Studios, STL

Anja Tretiak is a human hybrid bred for survival in the blasted wastes of her home planet. Desperate and tired of eking out a bare sustenance as a nomadic scavenger, Anja stowed away on board a merchant ship, and survived by doing odd jobs whenever the opportunity arose. She was the bouncer working the door when Roarke started hiring "ships crew", and leapt at the opportunity.

"Tretiak Anyat", Dire Foes 1: Train Rescue
Corvus Belli, OOP

Yodel, whose real name is untranslatable and untransliteratable, was part of a criminal gang on her homeworld. As punishment for an infraction, she was 'sold' to a long-haul colonization mission as security/cannon fodder, her brain implanted with behavior inhibitors. Befriending the colony's medic, she managed to disable the lock on her personality and has since made her way back to civilization, bent on exacting revenge from the gang that tried to dispose of her.

"Jackal Ranged Vulture Veteran",
One Page Rules, STL 

Stuff to Hide Behind: A Frankenstein Box

A few months ago I made a nice order with Warmill, a British terrain company specializing in 25mm sci-fi MDF kits. Warmill's stuff is unusually characterful, in a field of generally serviceable MDF terrain providers. Their kits tend to come complete with wry humor and detail that's pretty welcome, in sharp contrast to the grim dark future most folks seem to want to portray.

I needed some more mid-sized terrain for my Infinity table project, Bachs Freiberg, so I grabbed a fast food restaurant ('Southern Fried Watersnake') and a couple of bio-vending machines ('ORBs'). The latter are largish vending machines that a user can employ to give themselves various cybernetic upgrades, at low cost but apparently some risk.

The kits arrived across the pond quickly enough, and nicely packaged in slim, sturdy boxes, with a pretty picture on the front! Cracking one open, I found three frames and a baggie with lots of clear plastic bits for signage:

Also included were fully-illustrated assembly instructions, Ikea-style. I couldn't wait to get these puppies together!

4"x5" Clever Booth assembled, with Hellcat for reference

The kits friction-fit nicely together, perhaps just a little too loose not to require gluing, but at least I didn't have the tab-snapping frustration that I did with some of the Micro Arts Studios kits I've put together. The material is lightweight but looks sturdy and did not fray or split when I punched them out of their frames. Everything came together very nicely; I would rate the kits as somewhat complicated but the instructions are clear and it's pretty hard to put bits in the wrong way, although you have to pay attention to which side the detail is etched onto (as I found out to my chagrin at one point). 

Unfortunately in order to paint the damn thing, I had to take it nearly completely apart again. The front tray is designed to slide back and forth, and must be painted separately. This is not a design flaw, but a personal picadillo - I just don't enjoy painting subassemblies. Despite my neurosis, however, painting and reassembly wasn't a problem, and I'm satisfied with the final result. 

I have been experimenting with dry pigments and since I don't have an airbrush, I figured this would be the medium to test things on. I like the pastel finish a lot and think that this technique will provide a nice backdrop to the more saturated tones of the figures themselves. As you can see there is a detachable waste bin on the back (in case something goes terribly wrong with the bio-upgrades!) which makes for some useful additional scatter terrain. The sliding tray in the front is also fully articulated although I had to wiggle it around for a couple of days as the paint dried ;) 

So that's Warmill's ORB 2.0 Clever Booth. I'm currently engaged in the finishing up the rest of my haul, but I'm looking forward to adding their new releases to my collection - I still have room on my table for a Surgery Shack! 

Stuff to Hide Behind

Clockwise from top left: Telecom booths, Municipal Pollution Scrubber, Advertising Boards, Front Stoops, Advertising Boards (again) 

Last month I made a nice order from Antenociti's Workshop for some of their modern and sci-fi terrain. I've had the booths for awhile, and wanted much more clutter on the table, and these kits looked just the thing. I'm working on several more, including some customized Micro Art Studios buildings, but here's what I've finished so far.

I mounted these pieces on platicard in the case of the front stoops. The other bits are based on either 6cm round GW bases or 2" steel washers, faced with textured polystyrene sheeting in either case. I prefer the wider diameter of the GW bases, since it's easier for a 25mm-based figure to nestle up to the terrain piece, but I was cowed by the $2 price tag. The extra weight of the steel washer adds ballast to the pieces despite their smaller diameter.

I didn't pay a whole lot of attention to detailing these pieces. I want to get the job done, not have it be totally perfect, and I'm hoping that having a tabletop full of stuff like this will be appealing in aggregate.

Duelin' Spitfires 2: Wildcat

Hector Hernandez

Look, the press eats up the stories the other 'cats tell, and I don't blame them. The Hellcats get all the glory, all jumping into hot zones and saving the Princess stuff. And if you want a working-class hero, it's always a Tomcat that tells the tale: skilled professional nerds with flinty gazes and nerves of steel, the lot of them. Or so they say.

But you wanna know who does the real work around here? It's us Wildcats. Every time they need a VIP protected, and not just rescued, who do they call? The Wildcats. Need a drop zone cleared and held for a MASH chopper? That's our bailiwick. Need to prosecute a real fight instead of a snatch and grab and who gets fingered? Yeah that's right.

So next time you hear about some kitty-jumper leaping from the sky to snatch some hostage out from under the noses of the bad guys, just remember that the hostage in question is more likely to be some rich lady's pooch, and the real work happened at ground level.

Duelin' Spitfires 1: Aswang

My second Aswang started as a conversion using the very similar arms from a Boarding Shotgun Gwailo. At the time there was no Shasvastii Spitfire model so he began life as a simple Boarding Shotgun wielder - my first Aswang is a Combi Rifle conversion so I lacked that loadout. When I saw the Spitfire in my Corax blister I knew what had to be done, and hacked this guy apart five minutes after I got home from the store! Though he shares the same body pose as my other Aswang, I think that the radically different arm and weapon positions give this figure a unique appeal.

There seems to be some consensus that the Spitfire Aswang isn't worth the point upgrade over the regular dude, perhaps compared to the Noctifer and perhaps because he loses some synergy with his abilities and the standard-loadout ADHL. However I've found that another 1 SWC heavy weapon, especially one with Combat Camo, is extremely useful to hold down or delay a flank, and anyway my attempts to use Protheion have been costly and lackluster.

Malignos Sniper

Invisible

The dark pool edged closer to his nose, seeping languidly into the sand like a summer tide.

Odd that I’d finally get poetic, so close to the end. Sgt. Wayne suppressed a wry chuckle at the thought, then fought hard against the wracking pain that followed that first effort.

It wasn’t that he was so much fascinated by his life-blood darkening the dirt around him. He literally couldn’t look away; the last time he glanced around, watching his rescuers cut down by the unseen sniper, he took a second round to the leg. For good measure, it seems.

He’d been thoroughly briefed, of course. That’s what got him into this mess. A veteran soldier, he’d never ask of any man what he wouldn’t do himself, and especially not the Ariadna-fresh recruits that had been assigned to him. This patrol through ‘sanitized’ territory was meant to be more training than practical, but of course there was no safe ground against a literally invisible enemy.

So he took point, and so he was the first to be cut down. A canny human sniper would have let the point man go past, to get at the meat of the patrol. A canny Shasvaasti sniper thought differently, perhaps believing that humans shared their alien psychology and going for the first available target, surgically wounding him. Expecting that racial preservation instincts would override good sense and that rescuers would inevitably present themselves as targets.

The alien was wrong about the motivation, but not about the results. They’d tried to get to him twice, and lost four in the attempts. At the edge of his field of vision Wayne could just barely see the still-steaming pile of meat that was once an eager 18-year old kid. He wished he could look away. Wayne hadn’t survived the ambush by chance; the sniper was keeping him alive. As bait. Thank god his men had gotten the hint after the second futile attempt, and left him for dead. If he played possum maybe they’d lose all hope and just go away.

And so they waited; he and the sniper, separated by race, distance and purpose, united by circumstances in this deadly game. All he had to do was wait a little while longer. The sun hung low and red in the sky, dripping languorously ever lower, beating on his face, baking the sand and dust onto his parched lips. Soon it would be dark, and then maybe he could risk putting a hand to the wounds on his leg. It itched so badly.

His gaze was fixed on the dark, expanding pool beneath him. Wayne suddenly realized that the sound of crashing waves was his own pulse - blood rushing past his ears in the near total silence - and he laughed at the absurdity of it all. The chuckle turned to a cough, blowing dust softly into a tiny column, at once affirming and betraying his existence.

Nomad SAR: Valeria, HMG Hellcat

Here's the start of a new project I've had in the works for over a year now.

Why do we have such hi-vis uniforms? We get that question a lot, actually. If we're supposed to be this high-tech, elite commando unit, why does Nomad SAR wear uniforms that make us look like traffic cones?

One reason is that in today's tactical environment, camo is pretty useless. Between thermosensors, satloc, heartbeat locators and all manner of detection equipment I can't even talk about, squiggly brown lines on your pants aren't going to matter very much. So we wear what we want to wear. And these duds look pretty flash.

Of course, there's a few tactical reasons for blaze orange, too. First of all, we want everyone to see us coming. If we're on a rescue op, the guns are security, and we're hoping that the vics are looking for us as hard as we're looking for them. If we're on an opposed retrieval, sometimes the bad guys see us coming and suddenly reconsider their decision not to negotiate. The smart bad guys, anyway.

And also, when we do need to do a hot jump, we want to be able to see each other quickly. Our uniforms pop in our peripheral vision, so in the chaos and madness of a lightning op, we know where everyone is at all times.

But honestly? We wear orange and red because it doesn't matter if we're spotted. By the time you see us, you're dead already.

Haqqislam WIP

Normally I don't like to post 'Work In Progress' shots but I offered to assemble a friend's Haqqislam force to help kickstart him into the game, and he agreed. Here they are!

I threw them over bases textured with some gridded plasticard I had kicking around.

As usual, they're pretty nice figures. I love the Muyibs; their helmets remind me of Zhodani from the old GDW Traveller role-playing game. And the Feuerbach dude's armor is really nicely detailed, with lots of overlapping plates and ventilation details. But I like them all, and hope to one day add a few to my own collection.

Egg Drop

“Hey Sarge! What are we doing out here anyway?”

“Keep it down,” Sgt. Rasmussen admonished, without a backwards glance at the greenhorn behind him. He scanned the rubble around him, his gaze lingering on a wall which still, improbably, stood. Satisfied that they were alone, he licked his chapped lips before answering. “Sentries reported a ‘meteor shower’ in this sector last night. The Leftenant thinks that’s how the bugs are being resupplied - ‘orbital weapons cache insertion’, he called it. That’s what we’re doing out here, Ade. And keep it down!” That last in a hushed rasp. The veteran sergeant hoped that his tone didn’t betray his own insecurity. It wasn’t safe to leave the laager at any time, let alone during the light of day. But the El Tee had claimed that they couldn’t wait for the presumed safety of nightfall.

An unusual... something... caught the man’s eye, just beyond the corner of the lone standing wall. An egg, thought the veteran. Must be. “Come over here,” Rasmussen waved to his ward. “Looks like we’ve found something.”

The something was a round cocoon, wedged against the bottom of the wall’s lee side. It glistened even as it collected breeze-borne wind and grime. Well-camouflaged otherwise, the mucous gave it away in the angle of the morning sun.

Rasmussen crouched nearby, barely an arms’ length away. “You see the little beastie growing inside?” He asked, tracing the embryo’s outline in the air with a finger. “By nightfall that little thing will have grown into a seed-soldier, and will be shooting at us in our bunks. But we found it first, didn’t we?” The Sergeant’s grin faded fast as a flicker of movement caught his attention. He reached out and put his palm over the barrel of the younger man’s gun. “Careful, son. No noise, remember?”

Rifle butts and boots made quick, if messy, work of the alien pod. “Remember, we’re looking for a weapons cache. Some kind of drop pod, maybe”. Adewayan nodded absent-mindedly, and wandered off, looking for a way to find something to wipe the goo and grime from his rifle.

“Hey Sarge, look! I found a bigger one!”

A sixth sense, some survival instinct borne of countless patrols and engagements, made the Sargeant whirl, a warning half-caught in his throat. The young recruit had raised the butt of his rifle to smash his new discovery, an alien cocoon wedged in the trunk of a burned-out car. As he brought it down, the front of the egg detonated in an explosive spray of shrapnel, vaporizing the boy from neck to waist.

Rasumussen had time to flinch, as the razor fragments blew into his body armor. More calcified pellets sliced into his unprotected throat and face, felling him instantly as he staggered backwards, gurgling his last breath.

Behind the translucent flesh wall of the cocoon, misted red with the alien blood of its enemies, the Cadmus stirred. It was nearly time to wake.

Rebirth

She awoke on something hard and cold.

Reaching back behind her with one claw, she felt the nubbed surface, otherwise smooth metal. Industrial, the thought came to her unbidden. maybe a hangar, or an assembly yard. She craned her neck to see beyond the lip of the recess that sheltered her small form, nictating membranes flicking dust wetly from her eyes. The wan, dust-choked air still admitted enough light for her to be able to see the tangled wreckage of machines around her. Yes. Definitely industrial. 

Random pictures, words, sentences flooded her mind. Images of a past life, dreamlike in quality. She was a soldier, and she'd died. The men had overrun their position, armored shapes moving swiftly and violently through the half-built, half-destroyed vehicles littering the factory floor. They'd fought to the end, been overwhelmed, and been massacred for their trouble.

The men had not been thorough, though, and the seeds of her people were left to grow, gaining sustenance from the corpses of their mothers. The night after the battle, she was awake again. And angry.

The fight had moved on beyond the industrial park, but flashes in the twilight sky and the constant dim rumble of thunder told her there was a battle raging within walking distance. She gathered herself up and stood, young muscles and ligaments singing with the exultant pain of new effort. She knew, with the certainty of instinct, that others were being born around her, that a cache of weapons was nearby. There was always a cache nearby.

She reached behind her once more, into the moist fragments of the cocoon that birthed her, retrieving a long, wicked bone blade. Blade of my own flesh, she thought. It would taste man before the dawn rose.

Combined Army: Speculo Killer

I spent my spare time this weekend daubing paint on my version of the terrifying Speculo Killer! (She's in ur base killin ur mans). The figure is just screaming for some object-source lighting from the monofilament sword, but I'm afraid to screw it up so I'll just put this here instead.

Oddly enough I found the base to be a real chore. I didn't have any sense of what I wanted it to look like, so I just googled pictures of refuse and recycling mounds until I had some ideas. Now I wonder why the girl is standing proudly in the midst of a garbage dump...

Infinity: Simple Conversions

Converting Infinity Miniatures 

Arm swaps are useful for those who wish to play WYSIWYG (What You See is What You Get). Simple arm swaps are easier than other conversions, anyway most figures have separate heads;  torso and leg conversions may affect the balance of small, dynamically-posed figures. 

You will need the following Tools and Supplies: 

-Craft knife 

-Half round file 

-Hobby saw 

-Pin vise with 2 bits* 

-Superglue 

-Brass Wire 

-Wood Filler 

*The first bit should be as small as possible, to facilitate creating a guide hole for the larger bit. The second bit should be the same size or a little larger than the diameter of the brass wire. 

I'm assuming that anyone attempting these conversions is already familiar with basic assembly: cleaning the figure, basing etc. 

1. Select the figures for conversion 

I will be using the Malignos from the Combined Army starter set and the Shrouded with Combi-Rifle. I'd like more and cheaper infantry but I don't want duplicate figures in my army, so this is one way to add diversity. I’d like to get my hands on a second Malignos, so I can have both ‘canon’ versions and an arm-swap version, but they aren’t available in a separate blister and I can’t really think of an occasion where I will have three Malignos’ in one list anyway. Since I need the knife on the Malignos I do have, he'll have to go under the knife! 

Picture: Cleaned Shrouded and Malignos in pieces 

2. Plan the conversion 

It's a good idea to try to visualize the project from start to finish before you begin altering the figures. (These guys are kind of expensive to experiment on!) My first thought was to swap the weapon arms but after looking carefully at the components, I realized that wasn't going to be possible. The Shrouded and Malignos right arms totally different (the Malignos arm is clothed, and the shoulder armor is different, Furthermore, the Shrouded rifle stock is tucked up under the arm, so it would be very difficult to get the gun clean from the arm. 

Instead, I decided to swap the free left arms of both miniatures. Fortunately the Shrouded's left arm is complete (many figures in two-handed weapon poses have the left hand attached to the gun's forestock) so this will be a very simple surgery. Because the right arm of the Shrouded is designed to meet the left arm in front of the torso, I will also cut the right arm just below the shoulder pad so that I can reposition the arm down and away from the body, leaving a little room for the knife that he will be holding. This will affect the figure’s balance point but as it is otherwise vertical it shouldn’t be too much of a problem. Also while this shift in arm position will have some anatomical implications, I’m hoping that armor plating and alien physiology will mask any odd-looking musculature. Since this will be my only Combi-Rifle Malignos, I’ll probably just go with the left hand swap and leave it at that. 

3. Separate the pieces 

I like to work in stages; I'll do all the cutting, then all the pinning, then all the gluing. That way I'm not wasting any time searching for the right tool, or forgetting a step. Doing conversions this way requires a clean work space and a little bit of organization - you don't want to lose a tiny 1/56 scale hand in the carpet! 

Note that even with a very thin-bladed hobby saw, you will lose some material on the wrist. The width of this cut is called the kerf, and it's one reason why you will want to pin the pieces on assembly. By leaving a space between the two parts, you can make up for this lost material by filling the gap with putty of some sort (I am lazy and so I use wood filler). 

Since the objects to be separated are round, you can carefully cut around 360 degrees with the saw, ensuring a clean separation, as well as a true cut that doesn't obscure any detail. Check after each couple of strokes to see how close the pieces are to separating, to avoid a surprise - these are tiny pieces and easy to lose. I cut over a white paper towel both to catch loose debris and the pieces themselves. Finally, be careful to use short, straight strokes, to avoid warping and potentially breaking your saw blade. 

4. Pinning and Assembly

Assemble the pieces according to your plan. Don't worry if things aren't working out exactly as originally intended; this is an art not a science! When I first assembled my Shrouded I discovered that the arms were still too close together, and I had to reposition his right arm farther away from his body to make room for the knife.  

Picture: Pinning Left Hand 

Even the smallest pieces can be pinned if necessary. Here I am using a pin vise with a .028 bit to start a hole in the Shrouded arm. 

5. The finished product

Here are the final results. On the right is the original Shrouded model, modified slightly (with pliers) to have his foot on a box. 

Note that even a minor conversion can have a startling effect on the final appearance of the figure! The provenance of the Shrouded model is obvious when placed next to the original, but I don't think anyone will mistake one for the other on the tabletop. 

Shasvastii Tuesday Twofer

Another couple of Seed-Spawn in the can: A Shasvastii Seed-Soldier with a light grenade launcher, and a few more shots of my Shrouded, now that the base is finished. In my haste to finish, I've clearly cut corners, but I like the way they've turned out and the team is starting to come together quite nicely! I should put up a family photo a little later.