Into the Wasteland: Final Warbands and Scatter Terrain

The building and painting phase of my 32mm Fallout/This Is not a Test project has finally wrapped up with my last warbands and scatter terrain.

While you don't see really see large groups of Vault Dwellers on the surface in Fallout, I really felt something would be missing from my games if I only had the two Vermilion figures I previously painted as guns for hire.  I found offical Modiphius Vault Dweller figures fairly underwhelming and the other Vermilion proxies were lacking in the weaponry to be a viable warband. Luckily I found a seller in Canada with a line of 32mm Bunker Security Agents under the Nuke World banner that fit the bill perfectly.  You can buy them with Vault themed bases, but I opted to use extra post-apocalyptic bases I already had.

Science Officer and Overseer

Security Captain and Riot Trooper

Riot Troopers with firearms

Additional Security Officers

Here is a quick comparison between an official Fallout miniature, a Nuke World miniature, and a Vermilion miniature.  While there is some difference in the base heights, I would say the Fallout and Nuke World figures are almost identical in size (Nuke World may be a fraction taller) and the Vermilion miniatures are a little smaller.  However, they are within standard human differences and stylistically I think they all look fine mixed together. 

My last warband is another set of raiders from Vermilion, the Rust Reavers.  I was unable to figure out if an official Fallout raider group inspired them, but I am going to use them as a cannibal warband.  

The two suits of power armor seemed to be cobbled together from different models with additional bits of scrap welded to them. Fallout 76 introduced excavator power armor for civilian usage, so I decided to paint these as two work suits that were repurposed for combat by my raiders. 

Shotgun wielding Raiders.  The Etsy images of the figures had clips attached to all of the guns, but these were not present on the weapons I received for some reason. 

Raiders with ranged weapons, including a Junk Jet that can fire scavenged debris (as seen in the first season of the TV series).

Melee raiders

I also finished off my remaining scatter terrain. These are 3D printed bits for raider camps, including a Great Khan scarecrow, and some boobytraps made from cymbal monkey toys and dynamite (a freebie from one of my Esty sellers).

Piles of human remains and a spiked body. Perfect for cannibals. 

Some resin mattresses from TT Combat. Not the most appealing for a good night's rest.

I bought a 5 piece set of brick wall bits off Etsy, but unfortunately didn't realize it was a single design just being shown from different angles. I've painted each one slightly differently, but will have to be selective on how I scatter them about.     

Another set of 3D printed walls, and luckily this time 5 of 6 the pieces were unique. Unfortunately the print lines were pronounced, but I was too lazy to try and sand everything.

However, I think they still look ok and are big enough to block line of sight for larger figures.

With that, I think I am now ready to play This is Not A Test.  I'll get some solo test plays in to learn the rules and then see if I can convince someone to give it a go with me.  Fingers crossed!

Into the Wasteland: Aliens and the ‘Burbs

Happy 2026!  I luckily had a short break during the holidays, and was able to knock out a few more items for my Fallout/This Is Not A Test Project.  

First up are some Zetan alien survivors that have wandered down from Area 51 (a frozen Zetan was seen in the most recent episode of the Fallout TV series).  These are 3D print proxies made from Vermilion Miniatures' Space Invaders warband. I've painted mine using the Fallout 76 uniforms for reference.

The standard aliens come with three types of separate heads, so you can mix and match figures as you desire.  The miniatures are thin, so care will be needed when handling them.

The set also incudes two sets of power armor and an attack drone.  Stylistically they look different that what was seen in the game, but I think they look alright when using a similar paint scheme.   

Here's a size comparison to a human figure. While the aliens are  appropriately smaller, the power armor is similar in size to human power armor.

In addition to another warband, I also finished up a new set of buildings for the table.  These are the Derelict Suburbia and Ramshackle Cul-de-Sac MDF sets from TT Combat's City Streets line, which give you two houses and accessories per set.  For paint colors, I used 1950's housepaint advertisements as inspiration. This was then dirtied up using pewter grey drybrushing and watered down brown craft paint.

In terms of detailing levels for MDF kits, particularly the destroyed elements, I would rate these as mid tier out when compared to other manufactures. I considered adding extensive scratch built details to the kits, but in the end I got lazy and just added some grass tufts and a few minor items.

One thing I really do like about this kits is that all the houses break apart to some level. This not only makes it easier to get figures and item inside, but allows you to more widely disperse the building elements over your table.  

The interior of the houses are also spacious for the most part, so there is room for figures and scatter terrain. 

The kits are advertised as being appropriate for 28-35mm miniatures. I previously built the gas station and burger restaurant from this line, and they came out at approximately 1:43 scale based on the doors.  That looked oversized even for 32mm miniatures,  so I was a bit nervous here.  Luckily the door sizes are approximately 1:48 on the houses, so 32mm miniatures look fine and even 28mm aren't too bad.

 I still have three more warbands to paint along with a last bit of scatter terrain, but I think I now how enough ready to run some pilot This Is Not A Test games. 

Into the Wasteland: Mutant Animals, Vehicles and Scatter Terrain

 Work continues on my Fallout New Vegas project for the This Is Not A Test rules. Rather than another warband, I've recently been working on more dangerous creatures and terrain for my tabletop.

Cadazor mutant wasps. These genetically engineered monstrosities are some of the most poisonous creature in the New Vegas area. The Vermilion Miniatures 3D prints are rather delicate and I needed to pin the flying cadazor to its base to keep it from breaking off.  The Esty seller printed the wings in a semi-transparent plastic, so I was able to merely stain them with some colored inks and allow light to still pass through them, giving a nice effect.

Nightstalkers. Another genetic experiment that combined DNA from coyotes and rattlesnakes to produce a venomous predator.  For the snake scales, I tried to mimic coloration seen in the Speckled Rattlesnakes of the Southwest.

 

Geckos. Fallout New Vegas has several strains of geckos in the game with various attributes. I decided to paint mine as Golden Geckos, which live in irradiated areas and inflict radiation damage with their attacks.

Radroaches. Not a significant threat in Fallout, but how can you resist having these disgusting pests on the table.

And here is how they all sized up against a human.

Working vehicles don't play a significant role in both Fallout and This Is Not A Test, but you will find them scattered along the highways around New Vegas. Unfortunately there aren't many 32mm vehicles that are stylistically appropriate for Fallout (most follow a Mad Mex aesthetic), but I did manage to find two.

First up was a retro pickup truck from Kraken Studios. This was a nicely sized vehicle, and you can get it with or without cargo. The print included 2 side mirrors, but they were fragile and kept breaking off, so I finally gave up on trying to reglue them on.

Vermilion Miniatures car with added roof rack from the Kraken truck.  The roof was printed separately, so I was able to paint the interior prior to assembly.  

A fuel/water tank from EC3D Designs and a cart from Vermilion.

Airstream camper trailer from EC3D.  I purchased the 32mm size, but it came much smaller than expected, seemingly more appropriate for 28mm miniatures. To help hide how short it was compared to my figures, I made the decision to put it on a fairly thick base.

A bunker entrance also from EC3D. While this didn't look anything like a Vault-Tec entrance, I thought it could work as a military storage bunker and be a good objective on the table.

That's it for now, but there are still a few more warbands to paint and some buildings to finish.

Baltic Independence Wars: Final Units and Buildings

Construction for my Baltic Independence Wars project has come to a close with the last few units and bits of terrain.

First up are a unit of Astrakhan Cossacks painted as part of Bułak-Bałachowicz's Mounted Partisan Detachment. These were painted using the plate in Osprey's " Armies of the Baltic Independence Wars 1918-20" as reference.  I really like these Copplestone miniatures, but wish more than two horse poses were available.  They are a little larger than my Great War Miniatures German cavalry, but I don't think it looks too egregious on the table.

Next are an Estonian machinegun team and a Latvian medic.  The machinegun team is by Empress and actually comes with four figures. However, all my other machinegun teams for this era have three figures, so I elected to move the fourth figure to my artillery team. The stand for the machinegun was a little challenging to assemble, but I think I was able to hide the worst of my sins in the basing. The medic was assembled from the Wargames Atlantic plastic Great War Russian kit, with the addition of an armband I made from some thin plastic.

Estonian artillery team with spotter. This M1910 Howitzer is by Empress and I've added the standing officer from their machinegun team.   Looking at photos of surviving examples, they have been painted in a variety of greens; not knowing what was period correct, I've gone with just a general drab green.  The observer is another Wargames Atlantic figure.  There are no binoculars in the Russian set, so I used a pair from the WA Germans and created a neck strap from the German gasmask strap.

The final unit is a resin Russian pattern Austin Armored Car from Empress. According to this Russian site, the Latvians received a captured Red Army Austin in 1919 that was renamed "Zemgaleetis."  It went through a few different paint schemes during its service, but I'm hoping I have the correct one for the war. For the logo, I made some decals at home; They aren't the best quality, but still look better than what I could accomplish by hand. The resin casting was pretty good, but the kit arrived with the rear fenders broken. I had to rebuild them from the remaining fragments, some plasticard, and some brass rod for the rivets. The other major challenge with the kit is there are no registration marks for the front fenders and wheels, and the two turrets. I ended up gluing some of the parts into positions that I thought were correct, but didn't fit with the other parts; So had to break them off the kit and rebuild. This resulted in some damage to the car (one of my my turrets is now a little lopsided and I had to remake some of the rivets), but I'm hoping its not too noticeable. 

I also finished up a few more village buildings for the battlefield.  These are MDF kits from Things from the Basement's Russian Village line. Overall, I really like these kits. The MDF for the the main structural elements is thicker than the equivalent Sarissa Precision kits, though I did manage to break a few of the the thinner decorative elements during the building process. My one complaint would be the sizes of the doors on the kits; They come in around 30mm high, so look short with 28mm figures.

The izba log cabins come in a set of two and are very easy to assemble (you can download instructions from the company site).  The only modifications I made to the kits were to add some additional wood strips to the roof peaks in order to hide the gaps.

A dacha cottage house. I added some card strips to the roofline to hide the gaps. No base is included with this kit, so you're limited in how much additional basing detail you can add.

And with that, I just need to talk someone into a game so I can get everything on the table.

 

Baltic Independence Wars: Estonian and Latvian Infantry plus Buildings

There are no dedicated lines of miniatures for Estonian and Latvian troops in the Baltic Independence Wars, so you must use proxies and conversions to represent these soldiers. Looking through the Osprey book, there were a lot of uniform/equipment options depending on the army and timeframe for the war: Russian, German, American, and British kit seemed commonplace. Photos of reenactors from the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Cesis showed them mostly using Russian uniforms with a bit of German equipment mixed in. Based on this, I decided to use Russian figures for my proxies.

My Estonian command was built from Copplestone Casting miniatures.  Two of the figures looked close enough to represent the Estonian M1919 uniform, and I decided to go with the blue dress version rather than the standard grey purely for the aesthetics.  The third figure had a distinctively Russian tunic, but I opted to still give him the dress pants and cap to better match the other officers.    

Creating the Latvian command was a little tricky, as they wore the Balodis cap and a French style tunic as part of their M1919 uniform.  I had one Copplestone figure in a greatcoat hiding his uniform that also had his hatband visible all the way around, so I trimmed his cap back and got a passing approximate. The second figure was created from a Wargames Atlantic Russian officer body. I shaved down the epaulets and tried to make his collar look as French as possible. None of the WA heads were appropriate for conversion, but I found a Warlord WW2 British officer's head in the bits box that I was able to modify into something reasonable. 

The first unit of Estonian infantry was created from the Wargames Atlantic Russian plastic set, with a couple of Empress RCW figures thrown in. When ordering the Empress figures, I didn't notice that this pack had brimless caps, but I don't think the difference will be too obvious on the table. While the WA Germans suffered from bodybuilder proportions in their arms/torsos, WA seemed to have listened to customers' feedback; the Russian are much more naturally proportioned. As such, the thinner Empress figures didn't stand out as much this time.

As with my Germans, I wanted each unit to be slightly different in appearance to help with tracking units on the table.  There again seemed to be a lot of variation in the Russian tunic colors during the conflict, so I embraced that here. I also decided I would use helmets on the veteran units to make their status more obvious. There seemed to be a fair amount of German helmets floating around the Estonian army, so I used leftover heads from my WA Germans, along with some grenades. 

Latvian Infantry. As with the Estonians, these were made from Wargames Atlantic figures with a couple of Empress miniatures thrown in.

Latvian veterans. Based on the Osprey book, M1915 Adrian helmets were very commonly used by this army. The unit was a pretty even mix of WA and Empress figures; the Empress helmets were a bit thinner, but I didn't think it was immediately obvious on the table. 

The last unit represented poorly equipped new recruits and was built from Copplstone Casting's partisans. The mix of figures in the pack was random, but I unfortunately got a poor mix; there were 3 pairs of duplicates and 4 of the figures were built off the same body dolly. I did my best to hide the repetition with the paint schemes, but still wished it had a bit more variation. 

And here you can better see how the figures from the various manufactures sized up. The Wargames Atlantic Russians are thinner in proportions than their Germans (including the heads), and now sit somewhere between Empress and Copplstone. It was also interesting to see a bit of size creep in the Copplestone figures; the Russian officers were a little taller and bulkier than the partisans from the same line. 

Copplestone, Wargames Atlantic, Wargames Atlantic, Empress, Copplestone

I also decided to take a break from painting figures and assembled the first of my new buildings. First up were a couple of Sarissa buildings, with modifications made to their roofing materials. While nice looking, they are actually quite small and at most you'd be able to fit around 2-3 miniatures inside. 

I also decided to try out the offerings from Things from the Basement. This house was much larger in size and could hold quite a few figures.

I still have a few more units to paint and some additional buildings to assemble, but the finish line is in sight and I can't wait for an opportunity to finally get a game in.