Possible Command & Conquer Project

[Hat Guy]

One of my friends did something very foolish the other day; he loaned me the Soundtrack to the original Command & Conquer (later retconed to be Tiberium Dawn).



Well that brought back some memories. One of which was that I always wanted to do a C&C gaming project. Back in high school, when I was hardcore into WH40K, I still looked at doing up some experimental Tiberium Sun figures. They were pretty pants, badly painted Stargrunt 25s if I recall. The thing is, this project concept has been nagging at me for years now, so I figure I'd better take a look at it before it causes a stroke.

First problem; scale. Not so much what size minis (we'll get to that later), but what size games? For many, the C&C franchise is about massive base construction with defensive towers and the like, but what really captured my imagination when I was young was the story. So, taking the story  of a third world war in 1995 between an armed branch of the UN (the Global Defense Initiative) and an ancient messianic cult (the Brotherhood of Nod) over a new resource that is driving a new world economy (Tiberium). I'd like to focus mainly on vehicle and infantry combat, with the ability for both to interact reasonably without the game being weighted too far in one direction. I'd ideally even like to include the support units like Engineers and the really long range vehicles like the MRLS and Nod Artillery. Something like 3rd Ed 40K I guess, but less... 40K if that makes any sense.

As for minis, I'd need a scale and range that provides 1980/90s Modern figures and vehicles as well as near future vehicles like the Mammoth Tank and Stealth Tank. I remember I originally planned to make this project in 1/72 as, at the time, it provided the best range of Modern minis and vehicles, however, I'm not so sure anymore. All my armies (except for Micro Armour WWII Spearhead) are in 28mm, so it seems a little silly to start a brand new scale, that said, too many vehicles in 28mm would get pretty costly pretty quickly. I'd ideally prefer to keep to single-based figures to make use of the Commando and engineer units.

So yeah, thinking out loud and all that, any input?

[Elbows]

Sounds like 28mm would be fine.  There are a boatload of semi-near-future models out there.  And plenty of excellent modern day figures, depending on what you're looking for.

I never got into the C&C story (I think most computer games have awful stories, but perhaps I'm just really a picky bastard).  I'd like to see what you come up with though. 

[Major_Gilbear]

As it happens, I used to mod the earlier C&C games (particularly TS and RA2, although I did mod TD and RA1 as well)!

The units in C&CTD and RA1 were largely based on real-world units, mostly taken from the cold war to modern areas. If you want to get the feel of the skirmish games and massed combat around "player bases", I'd suggest 6mm or perhaps 15mm scales. For commando missions, and more Renegade-styled games (that game... shudder), I think 28mm would work best.

The units were:


GDI (Global Defence Initiative)

Infantry
Commando (A commando-type figure with a beret and a Franchi SPAS-12 shotgun)
Minigunner (Chappies in fatigues with M16 rifles)
Grenadier (Chappies in fatigues with big bags of grenades)
Rocket Trooper (Chappies in fatigues with M72 LAWs)
Engineer (Chappies in boiler suits, yellow hard-hats and yellow toolboxes)

Vehicles
Humvee (M1025 HMMWV)
APC (M113 APC)
Medium Tank (M1A1 Abrams)
Mammoth Tank (Made-up!)
MRLS (M270 MRLS)
Harvester (Made-up!)
MCV (Made-up!)

Aircraft
ORCA Assault Craft (Made-up!)
A10 (A10 Thunderbolt II "Warthog")

Single Player Mission-only Assets
C130 Hercules (C130 Hercules)
Chinook (CH-47 Chinook)
Hovercraft (LCAC(L))
Gunboat (Asheville-class gunboat is close, but the CnC community eventually concluded that it was made-up)


Nod (Brotherhood of Nod)

Infantry
Commando (A commando-type figure with a beret and a Franchi SPAS-12 shotgun)
Minigunner (Chappies in fatigues with M16 rifles)
Flamethrower infantry (Chappies in fatigues with flamers and white backpack fuel tanks)
Chemical Warrior (Chappies in fatigues with flamers and green backpack fuel tanks)
Rocket Trooper (Chappies in fatigues with M72 LAWs)
Engineer (Chappies in boiler suits, yellow hard-hats and yellow toolboxes)

Vehicles
Recon Bike (Based on Shotaro Kaneda's bike from the Manga film "Akira")
Buggy (Chenowth Racing Products Desert Patrol Vehicle (DPV))
APC (M113 APC)
Light Tank (M2 Bradley)
Devil's Tongue Flame Tank (Made-up!)
Artillery (M110 Self-Propelled Howitzer)
SSM Launcher (M727 Hawk Guided Missile Carrier)
Ezekiel's Wheel Stealth Tank (Made-up!)
Harvester (Made-up!)
MCV (Made-up!)

Aircraft
Apache (AH64A Apache)
C130 Hercules (C130 Hercules)

Single Player Mission-only Assets
Chinook (CH-47 Chinook)




Keep in mind that very often the game manual descriptions were of incorrect armaments or made-up weapons for the vehicles.

Also, the real-world tanks were used for the artists to copy and give the game a near-future modernist feel, but in-game often perform quite differently to their real-world counterparts (in some cases they do completely different things!).

Sometimes, the renders that were used to generate the in-game units were redone so that they were simpler and more distinguishable, but the cutscenes, unit icons and game manual pictures kept the renders that were closer to the real-world units.

If you fancy playing it again, all the RTS games in the C&C franchise up to and including Tiberian Sun are available for free on the official site.

For suitable model manufacturers, there are many, and it depends on the scale you want and the money you are prepared to pay! If you let us know your preferences, we can give you a further steer perhaps.

[Cherno]

If you want base construction and tiberium harvesting, a boardgame would be a batter framework. If you just want battles with a few defense structures or buildings as scenery, I'd say 10mm/1:144 would be ideal.

[Hat Guy]

Thanks for the fast replies guys; I think for the sake of my sanity, I'll be avoiding the "player base" aspects in favor of more actual units fighting it out, though I may build the occasional piece of themed terrain  . I already have something planned for doing tiberium patches as terrain pieces (objectives/hazards).

Considering the terrain I already have at hand (a 4 pack of C&C guard towers), I'm still leaning towards 28mm for consistency. That said, I'd love to see some of my options in 15mm as well as 28mm.

With the whole "minigun" thing, I think I may fudge that for the sake of ease and go with some kind of assault rifle, as that's how they seemed to function anyway, doing short bursts of fire.
With aircraft, I may leave that until last, even though I love the Orcas, my school books used to be covered with drawings of my crazy variation ideas.

Come to think of it, I have a platoon's worth of the old Eureaka 25mm Australians with 90s equipment stashed somewhere. The problem then is finding  opponents for them that don't look too tall.

[Major_Gilbear]

With the whole "minigun" thing, I think I may fudge that for the sake of ease and go with some kind of assault rifle, as that's how they seemed to function anyway, doing short bursts of fire.

That's along the lines of what I meant at the bottom of my earlier post; the game manual says they have a minigun, in-game it behaves more like a light machinegun that fires in bursts, and finally the unit render/icon/picture shows a trooper with an M16 assault rifle!

I'll be avoiding the "player base" aspects in favor of more actual units fighting it out, though I may build the occasional piece of themed terrain  .

Yeah, I was thinking that the models of base-buildings would be thematic, not that they would have in-game rules or mechanics, etc.

That said, having a couple of rules for some terrain could be fun - like vehicles being able to repair some damage if they park on the Repair Facility for a turn, or squads being topped up if they sit within range of a Barracks/Hand of Nod for a turn... I'd probably keep these for specific scenarios, but they could add a lot of atmosphere and fun to the games.

I already have something planned for doing tiberium patches as terrain pieces (objectives/hazards)

This sounds great! Look forward to seeing the Tiberium patches (maybe with a harvester rolling over one? )

[Hat Guy]

Thanks for the help Major G, any chance of a link to the Free C&C, my google-fu was too weak?

Given my proximity too Eureka Miniatures and my friendship with Nic, I think I'll be looking at their modern range to start with. The 1980s Yanks et al have almost the right look, I just have to figure out the conversions for special units.

http://eurekamin.com.au/product_info.php?cPath=87_150&products_id=11724 Possible GDI?

http://eurekamin.com.au/product_info.php?cPath=87_150&products_id=11315 Or maybe something like this?

The GDI is supposed to be tied to the UN, so I'm thinking some kind of mix of NATO figures for infantry.

[Major_Gilbear]

GDI replaced NATO and eventually replaced all member nations' individual militaries too (IIRC).

As fort the game downloads... Linky. Note that these were previously available for free from the EA website, but have since migrated to lots of download sites - the game is free, and is available legally (so you won't get into trouble!).

As for figures... I was actually thinking 72mm scale hobby kits could be a practical and economical way of doing this project. I say this as, looking over that list I posted above, I'm 100% certain that nearly everything "real-world" has been made a kit in that scale by the likes of Tamiya, Revell, Italeri, GSC, etc. That includes troops with rifles and such as well.

[Hauptgefreiter]

Concerning vehicles, you might want to know that there are paper models available, which might be helpful for your project. Check here

For the Orca, I'm aware of two possibilities:
- Pardulon Dragonfly
- Antenociti Firefly

[commissarmoody]

I would also toss my hat into the 1'72 or 20mm ranges if your not to biased. Check out some of the RH models(liberation miniatures) Or maby even ELHIEM figures.

http://www.rhmodels.com/

http://www.elhiemfigures.com/

If your still set on 28mm check out
Empress models modern range.

http://www.empressminiatures.com/page10.htm

[Commander Vyper]

15mm: hell of a lot of military vehicles with a future wars edge to them?

Loved the games.... must resist! 

[Major_Gilbear]

must resist! 

 

Sir... Your reputation precedes you! 

[Gibby]

I've thought about doing this so many times but fell down at the mini-sourcing range. I love C&C!

Shall be watching this closely! I would vote 15mm as some of the vehicles in C&C are meant to be rather massive.

For the Brotherhood of NOD!

[Major_Gilbear]

some of the vehicles in C&C are meant to be rather massive.

Mainly non-coms though (namely the MCV and Harvester ). The only "big" vehicle is the Mammoth tank, and I think a suitable toy would work well for that.

Also, at skirmish level, I'd suggest something in the region of 30-50 models and 3-4 vehicles a side at most. Anything more than that and I'd drop down to 15 or (better IMO) 6mm.

Why is 6mm better IMO for the project? Because it helps to give the game that "top-down-view" feel of the computer game of course!  

For the Brotherhood of NOD!

Peace Through Power!

[Hat Guy]

After discussing this idea with a couple of club members that may be interested, I'm definitely leaning towards 20mm for cost and availability. The vehicles are easy for the most part, but now it's infantry that I'll be focusing on, as if I can't get them right, I'll not be keen to do the rest.

In the game, infantry were tiny little sprites with not a lot of detail, also the baseline Minigunner acted more like it was armed with an assault rifle.

According to the background, the GDI is the armed branch of the UN, so I want them to look like 1980s/90s NATO, probably with M16s (or whatever the model was at that time). That said, I'm not terribly keen to just paint up just Yanks, so maybe I can do a mix of figures?

Also, the Brotherhood of Nod (boo, hiss!) is an odd combination of Organized Religion, Private Industry, Terrorist Cell and Military force, as such, I imagine them as being slightly "irregular" on the battle field. Not to the point of 1980s Afghan Guerrillas, but I feel they should look a bit less "regular army" than the GDI, otherwise the forces will feel and look too much the same.