'Childhood' from DavidB: Youth in SciFi

Many moons ago we had a decent snowstorm that stretched all the way to southern states where people were mostly "Why izit so cold, Coy? What in tarnation is this white stuff?"

It was 1978 and that November I received a snowsuit as 4X4 fever had swept the land and I was always either having 10 year old adventures in the woods of Northern Indiana, with my dad and his lifted Jeep Cherokee, or both. Unfortunately, The massive snow fall made drifts way too big for a small 10 year old boy. The only adventures I had was getting in trouble for jumping out of 2nd story windows into snowdrifts and tunnelling back to house via a side door. Apparently being told to stay in the house meant not only not going outside, but definitely not doing cannonballs into nearly 20ft drifts. Said snow and drifts would probably be greeted with an "AH, Tis Tuesday" by the Snowlord.

Christmas was very memorable as I got an electric train set, a massive set of dominoes, and 5 boxes of matchbox WW2 figures. The troops were HO/OO scale much like the Napoleonics I liberated briefly back from my son for the above picture.

I spent the bad cold days with GIs and Tommies defending that diesel train from best of the Wehrmact and Afrika Korps. The dominoes were forts and ruins and many a battle swept across the train and lumber yards with snipers duelling for the prestige spot on the water tower.

Now, I use rulers and dice to move troops. They fight over tables with cardstock, resin, and plastic terrain. (not the stool though as the battles would be too quick even in 15mm!)

I didn't get much for this Christmas, but I did have a couple of Matchbox vehicles left in my stocking. This Sahara racer is repainted and is the first vehicle and unit for my low tech horde army in 15mm.

The driver was in the same box as the pirate, Miracle Max, and his Witch, er Wife!

It is a Dark Future driver who after many years finally has his own whip!

This MATV pickup was also made by Matchbox and has lost it's factory brick red paint for a more traditional black and white. The 15mm police force I painted several challenges back now has their very own support vehicle with respectful armor, lot's of lights and even a winch.

This particular truck has no weapon systems, but it does have a pair of fuzzy missiles which can be launched at criminals from the back.

This APC is from Khurasan Miniatures. The 28mm model was in the challenge a year or two past, but this is the original 15mm one.

I think it goes without saying what movie inspired it!

I had only painted this a few tones of grey and it sat for a few years till I found it beneath some ork models. I decided I'd paint it up in Polish Armor camouflage and gave it a polish flag near the right bumper till I find some proper decals.

This is a ten man squad of Hi-tech infantry also from Khurasan Miniatures. I was going to paint them as Scottish scifi infantry with tartan plaid, but i thought that would be too difficult. Polish pea-dot in 15mm would be a breeze!

I'm not quite convinced, but there is yellow, orange, and green blotches over a chocolate base. A heavy wash of sepia helped blend it in and away from eyesore realms.

I gave them all a polish flag on the right shoulder to finish them up.

The Khurasan Miniatures Hi-tech battlesuits were done in the more pleasing(and easy) Polish armor scheme. These fellows are walking tanks anyways.

These are very nice models with lots of detail and i did have to glue them together. they were a little fiddly but not to difficult. They had weapon options, but I just gave them the biggest guns in the pack.

There is a bit of a lumbering look to them which I like, and they outclass the footslogger with the squad support weapon.

This is a Rebel Miniature VTOL, but it looks more like a drop craft with Hind characteristics. It'll serve as transport for the battlesuit squad.

It has a chin mounted cannon and twin linked machine guns on either side of the cockpit. It also has four underwing missile pods. it came with six missile pods with a weapon mount on top the wings, but I didn't like the look when dry fitting ...four missile pods it is!

a little chunky in comparison to khurasan, but i do like it's silhouette

I gave it a polish flag as well and it'll wait for some polish aviation decals.

I'm thinking of using them as the beginning of a NATO in space force. The polish troops will be the elite SpecOps of the group. 15mm is very sparse in my area, but I've also been looking at the Neo-Sov stuff available on the Internet, so the Poles may be operating solo for awhile.

Maybe a long while as 15mm is out of my comfort zone.