tikitang's The Last War: the Thing from the Fog

[tikitang]

At the start of 2023 I was working on collecting and painting miniatures for Forbidden Psalm. By the end of the first quarter I'd lost interest and switched out to something else. Now, in the dying months of the year (having abandoned the prior project as well), I'm back to Forbidden Psalm again, but this time I'm going to try out the "Weird War One"-themed standalone expansion entitled The Last War.

First things first: one doesn't start a campaign of The Last War without having a THING FROM THE FOG to hand! A Thing from the Fog is essentially a Martian 'fighting machine' from H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds. There's a 1-in-8 chance that, each time you play TLW, one of these monstrosities will come striding over No-Man's Land to ruin everyone's day.

I scoured the internet for options and found my favourite by far was this Martian Tripod by Ironclad Miniatures. I ordered it last week and finished assembling it yesterday. It's a beautiful model as well as being more-or-less book-faithful!



I'll probably start painting it next week, but an important question I have to answer is how to deal with basing. The model is approx. 200mm in height and would fit on a 160mm round base. Going for that is my first instinct, for maximum stability, though it would restrict its movement options on the table, especially if it was cluttered with terrain. Another option is to mount each foot to a 40mm base, which would offer some stability but also allow it to be placed over small scenic items. The only disadvantage to this is that it might look a bit odd. Another option is not to base it at all and just let it stand on its own three feet, as it were, but this would be the least stable option, and not something I'm very keen to do.

I've ordered a 160mm base and I'm going to see how it looks on the table with that (before gluing it) and take it from there.

[Gunbird]

.Looks lovely, looking forward to seeing it painted

What about a Y shaped base? Makes it balanced and easier to put in between scenery perhaps?

[punkrabbitt]

Looking good! My buddy Kurt and I faced The Thing From The Fog in our first campaign game. One of his guys got vaporized, while all of mine fled the board with whatever loot we had.

[fred]

Cool model.

What about a Y shaped base? Makes it balanced and easier to put in between scenery perhaps?

This is a good idea, will add some strength to the legs too. The legs don’t really look strong enough to be unbased or on small individual bases.

[Gunbird]

Cool model.

This is a good idea, will add some strength to the legs too. The legs don’t really look strong enough to be unbased or on small individual bases.

It's a pity the ball joints are tiny, else you could have replaced the legs with knitting needles. They tend tyo be very strong, very lightweight and very cheap at the Goodwill (well, here at least). Which now gives me ideas for my Thing

[tikitang]

When I was a child my dad was obsessed with Jeff Wayne's musical adaptation of The War of the Worlds. We would listen to it over and over again every weekend. It moved me to read the original novel, and I remember being very disappointed with how WRONG the artists were at depicting H.G. Wells' descriptions of the Martian fighting machines.

Despite that, to my mind, the illustrations from the musical remained the 'iconic' cultural depictions of the titanic tripods (pre-Spielberg), even if they were awfully misguided.

It wasn't until opening up The Last War for the first time, last month, that I discovered the artwork of Henrique Alvim Corrêa (which has been used in the rulebook to depict the 'Thing from the Fog'), dating from 1906, which apparently H.G. Wells himself approved of. These were, I have since discovered, the iconic images of the Martian walkers for most of the 20th century.

When I discovered how similar the Ironclad Miniatures tripod was to Corrêa's design (clearly inspired by it), I decided I wanted to take it a step further toward the Brazilian artist's concept. With a few bits and pieces from Zinge Industries and CP Models, I now have a fully assembled Thing from the Fog I'm happy with!



As you can see, I mounted it on a circular 160mm base in the end, which I've decided is the best course of action after all (despite the fact its tabletop movement flexibility will be somewhat impaired -- but is that really a big problem when you have a heat-ray?)

[Gunbird]

Looks gorgeous to me. Can't wait to see it painted!

[fred]

Those new arms / tentacles are great, so much more imposing than the original skinny ones

[Ultravanillasmurf]

Very nice.

[tikitang]

This took me a little longer than I wanted, but here it is at last, my attempt to turn Ironclad Miniatures' 'Martian Tripod' into an Henrique Alvim Corrêa illustration, with the aid of CP Models and Zinge Industries bits:





I thought I'd vary the colour of the metals a bit because H.G. Wells himself describes the Martian 'handling machines' (the building machines they use to construct their fighting machines) mass-producing piles of 'white aluminium' bars (which I assume are the legs of the fighting machines) and he also describes the 'hood' or 'cowl' at the top of the fighting machines as 'brazen'.

The glow from the lens of the heat-ray generator is green because, in the book, every mention of heat-based energy emissions (such as smoke or fire) that the Martians produce is green in colour. The beam of the heat-ray itself, though, is barely visible: 'the ghost of a beam of light'.

[Gibby]

Absolutely fantastic work! 

[Hobgoblin]

Tremendous - that looks perfect!

[zeppelfahrt]

 It is satisfying to see that I am not alone in my Wellesian interests.  Very nice work tikitang! 

[tikitang]

Thanks, all!

That's a nice model, zeppelfahrt: looks like a hybrid of Warwick Goble's and Henrique Alvim Corrêa's illustrations! Goble's head and tentacles combined with Corrêa's legs!

[Mad Lord Snapcase]

That tripod is brilliant!