Aliens: We're in the pipe, five by five

I painted the figures from We're in the pipe, five by five, the expansion for Aliens: Another glorious day in the Corps. It is not a snappily-named series. After the above photo, I went back and added more details to their patches and her glasses.

Spunkmeyer & Ferro

GF9 Badlands

Gale Force 9 does a lovely collection of Badlands hoodoos, which I have picked up over the years. It is pre-painted, scale agnostic, well sculpted, interesting, affordable, and durable.The more recent pieces I've picked up, however, have been a considerably darker tone. And some of them had a bit of a sheen, and the bases didn't really match my Cigar Box mat.

Bases don't blend with mat

Discrepancies in tone

So I pulled out the craft paints and big brushes:

Not perfect, but better than they were. I could add some tufts- maybe another day. Now you go do the hoodoo that you do so well!

Firefly

I got a copy of Firefly Adventures: Brigands and Browncoats. I painted it rapidly using mostly Contrast paints and by lowering my standards appropriately. I'm very happy with the outcome. The game comes with cardboard boxes that can double as terrain- even the box base is a big hangar/ warehouse.

Each crew figure comes in a 'Casual' and 'Heroic' pose that have different actions available to them. The 'Heroic' abilities will tend to attract the attention of the baddies!

Serenity crew- Heroic

Serenity crew- Casual

Cowboys

Thugs

Dr Simon Tam

Shepherd Book

Captain Mal

Kaylee

River

Inara

Zoe

Jayne

Wash

These were pretty quick to paint. The female face sculpts lack a lot of definition. The Cowboys and Thugs would be great for Stargrave.

I haven't had time to play it yet...

Aliens: Finding Newt battle report

I decided to jump straight into learning how to play Aliens: Another glorious day in the Corps by starting with the full campaign. Ripley, Gorman, Vasquez, Hudson, Hicks and Frost land on LV-426. They have to search the compound for Newt, the sole surviving colonist, and escape.

The Marines disembark from the dropship and advance to the compound.

Hudson runs a bypass to open the door...

A lone alien is easily gunned down.

The Marines advance deep into the compound.

Frost finds Newt.

Ripley tries to calm her down by waving a pulse rifle at her.

... but then aliens drop from the ceiling and kill Ripley.

Simultaneously, aliens pour from everywhere and destroy the Marine squad.

So, I was making reasonable progress (somewhat burdened by Ripley suffering a 'Blinding Rage' ongoing event) when I drew a very nasty card that erupted aliens in my face. I have decided to scrap this campaign and restart... Next time I'll get better, less cinematic lighting!

The board and figures are lovely. The gameplay is a little fiddly compared to the simplicity of Space Hulk, but leans into the movie details. Replaying this, I would make better use of the motion tracking tools that allow you to preempt upcoming dangerous swarm events. I wouldn't tool up with as much body armour or helmets either.

I got some friends together later and we played a 'Bug Hunt' mission, a non-canonical gun crawl. We barely advanced 20 metres into the atmosphere processor before we got absolutely swarmed, but were able to make a fighting withdrawal to a choke point where we mercilessly exterminated the hive.

Somehow, we survived this.

Aliens- Colonial Marines

I really flamed out on painting these. Ripley et al. were painted in March, but the thought of painting two types of camouflage and trying to interpret all the kit they’re wearing, without great reference material, was quite intimidating. Plus, the Analogue Challenge does tend to leave me a little drained for a few weeks afterwards. There are, nevertheless, only ten marines- so I knuckled down and got them done. They do look like a coherent unit now.

Colonial Marines

Gorman’s big Stars and Stripes on his left shoulder was painted with a pink and blue rectangle. The pink replicates the effect quite well. I first came across this trick from someone doing 15mm US paratroopers.

Lt Gorman

I think Gunny Apone has a stogie in his mouth.

GySgt Apone

Hicks has his shotgun- for close encounters.

Cpl Hicks

I painted some blips on Hudson’s motion tracker.

PFC Hudson

I opted out of painting the graffiti on the various characters’ armour. I did put spots on Vasquez’ bandanna though.

PFC Vasquez

PFC Drake

Cpl Dietrich

PFC Crowe

I always thought they were shouting, "Where's Bowski?"

PFC Wierzbowski

PFC Frost

The figures have names sculpted on the bases- which is good, because I’m not going to pretend I can tell the difference between a lot of the redshirts!

There are two Sentry Guns.

UA 571-C Automated Sentry Guns

And some crates and terminals.

That's this project completed!

Aliens- Ripley and friends

Our Lady of Survival, Ripley has three flavours: Vanilla, Spicy, and Hot Orange. The Alien Stomper Reeboks were a small challenge to paint.

Ripley

She can pick up Newt and enter Beast Mode as 'Enraged Ripley', but I think 'Maternal' or 'Mother bear' is more apt.

'Enraged Ripley'

P-5000 PWL Powered Work Loader

I really enjoyed painting the Power Loader. Some warm orange-brown shades give definition to the iconic machine. The base is a little bland.

I 3D printed a resin cat and base because I could.

Jonesy

The perfect organism, and a facehugger

Newt

Bishop

I flicked white paint onto Bishop.

Burke

I'm afraid I don't know the sources of these wonderful artworks.