DWAN Corporation Troopers - An alien menace

[Daeothar]

I bought these guys on a whim last year, here in the LAF Bazaar. I've never been into Warzone; it was carried by the LFGS, but even in the store's club, there was nobody who played the game. To be honest, I always considered it a poor man's 40K, as it obviously was intended as a direct competitor.

But these minis, Capitol Sea Lions and Capitol Heavy Infantry I later learned, (for the longest time I thought they were Free Marines) spoke to me on some level, and I thought they would be great as some generic opfor in one of our RPG campaigns.

So two weeks ago I dug them out of the leadpile and went to work on them; stripping them, removing more mouldlines (but not all I noticed only when it was too late ) and basing them.

And as they can't go into battle unsupported, I added a combat droid to the squad, and some heavy support in the form of an AT43 UNA Firetoad mech. I took the oversized weapons off of that, and added a couple of 40K parts to spice it up. A 1/35 gun mount I got in a bits buy was just a perfect fit for the autocannon on top.

I wanted them as generic as possible, but obviously the biggest baddies in any dystopian future are corporations, so these should be corporate goons, or mercenaries. But I did not want to use the usual suspects, such as Weyland-Yutani, Oscorp, Tyrell, OCP, Blue Sun or Umbrella, so I decided to come up with my own.

Introducing the DWAN corporation; supplier of nefarious plans, rogue military contractors and biotech experiments gone wrong all across know space.

So I made my own logo's, and printed decals from them. Which is the small icon on all left shoulderpads. I had a ridiculously hard time finding the right RGB values to match the green of the paintjobs. Through a laborious process of trial and error, I was able to find the right one for use under artificial lighting. Only to find that under natural light, it did NOT match at all.

In the end I went with the artificial light version. But then found that printing on decal paper creates different results than on standard paper. The result was way too brown, but at that point I just left it at that; it's way too red/brown, but it's close enough not to bother me (anymore... ).

I enjoyed painting these guys so much, I am looking to expand this squad to a full platoon. I went with a quick and easy result, so each colour has one shade (usually a wash) and one highlight. I started with the skin, and I was going faster and easier than I did later on, so that's the weakest area on these guys, but like I said; I enjoyed this type of (speed?)painting; it's a good balance between quantity and quality.

The mech still needs to be finished, obviously. I have printed a piece of nose art for it, which should be fun.

I will be adding more units and other bits and bobs to these over time, but also enemies to fight (most likely some of  mcfonz's bugs, since I like them so much).

So for now, here they are; DWAN Corporation troopers, or Spaceship Troops, or Colonist Mariners...

[majorsmith]

Nice job! I really like some of the warzone stuff, it's got a nice chunky feel to it

[mcfonz]

I'm not the biggest fan of the old Warzone minis but that said, I love what you have done with these. Sometimes some models only appeal after you see them with a decent modern style paint job and I think this is such a case. Brilliantly done and tied together. Especially with the heavy support of the fire toad on the way. If anything should be salvaged from the old AT-43 lines it should be the vehicles, they were always the best thing about that range IMHO. Anything from the battle-suits up.

I really like the combat droid, where is it from?

[Daeothar]

Cheers guys...

I'm not the biggest fan of the old Warzone minis...

I had exactly the same sentiments, but after spending several nights over two weeks with these guys, I must admit to having been won over by them.

These pictures don't show it too well (blame my abysmal lighting and phone-photography skills), but the minis really have a ton of character. A very nineties sort of character, in all the best ways And it's as majorsmith said; they just have a nice chunky feel to them.

I really like the combat droid, where is it from?

Your guess is as good as mine! Actually I was hoping somebody would recognise it and tell me; I either got it out of the sprue exchange box (maybe you've heard of it? ), or I bought it in the Bazaar as well (several years ago).

It came with an integrated base (which I cut off); flat, oval shaped, and rather thick, without any markings at all.

As I'm hoping to expand on this first squad, I obviously would need some more, preferably in other poses of course...

So: have you seen this bot? 

[robh]

Actually I was hoping somebody would recognise it and tell me;..........So: have you seen this bot?

It is one of the OOP (and very rare) official Mekton figures. They varied between 1/200 and 1/300 scale. Lovely figures, they had all the mechs from the game, but each in only one pose, This pose was used for a couple of different models.

Probably good you did not know what it was before taking the scalpel to it.......

[Daeothar]

Oops?  

Also; it was a pair of GW sprue cutters... 

+++EDIT+++ Found him. it's a Vigilr: EMA-105, indeed from the Mekton range. Thanks Rob!

[mcfonz]

Cool, means I need to be looking at stuff like reapers CAV or the Battletech for something similar.

[Grimmnar]

I bought these guys on a whim last year, here in the LAF Bazaar. I've never been into Warzone; it was carried by the LFGS, but even in the store's club, there was nobody who played the game. To be honest, I always considered it a poor man's 40K, as it obviously was intended as a direct competitor.

But these minis, Capitol Sea Lions and Capitol Heavy Infantry I later learned, (for the longest time I thought they were Free Marines) spoke to me on some level, and I thought they would be great as some generic opfor in one of our RPG campaign.

These look fantab.
These first gen figs or recent gen figs?

I took the oversized weapons off of that, and added a couple of 40K parts to spice it up.

For some reason this made me giggle. :-)

Grimm

[Daeothar]

Cheers Grimm 

These are the 1st or 2nd edition minis, and not the newer Prodos versions.

For some reason this made me giggle. :-)

  Yeah; the irony didn't escape me either!

[tomrommel1]

nice indeed

[Westfalia Chris]

These are the 1st or 2nd edition minis, and not the newer Prodos versions.

Second Edition figures, sculpted by Kev White if I am not mistaken.

Great work on those. I'm drifting back as well to using 1st and 2nd Edition figures for my catch-all 2000AD thing, for their endearing comic-book stylings.

[Keeper Nilbog]

The mech looks like a modified AT43 Unan Firetoad walker. The additional bits are mainly weaponry (the main gun, flamer parts and the smoke launchers (40K bits)).

sorry, just noted you weren't talking about the Mech 

[Daeothar]

You forgot the searchlight

But yeah; spot on. The ammo drum on the cannon was missing, so I scratchbuilt one with a piece of plastic tubing and some Gundam circular gubbinz for the front and back. I used one of those for the second hardpoint on the nose as well (opposite the flamer) to close off the hole for the original gunpod.

Clearer pictures will follow once I get to finishing it.

Now to source more Firetoads; they're becoming rarer and thus more expensive. A couple of years ago, they were cheap as chips, but that's all in the past I fear... 

[Daeothar]

As posted here, in my abandoned WIP thread, I finally (after 4 years) finished the mech; Toady IV.



I'm pretty happy with how he came out, and now I have two more to go...

[hubbabubba]

Cool, it's a pleasure to see this thread pop up again