+ inload: Operation Gauntlet and Gates of Antares +

+ Operation Gauntlet +

There are roughly two weeks left to get involved with the #FalsePrimarchGauntlet challenge/event. You can read about the rules and deadline here [+noospherciinloadlink embedded+]. I've been given a sneaky peek at some fantastic entries already , so I'm excited to share those with you over the Christmas break. +

 

+ For my part, I'm building and painting Riverhead of the Kapihe. The Kapihe is (or appears to be) the False Primarch's way of contacting and directing the war effort. Mostly – but not exclusively – Silver Stars, it includes officers and talented individuals who act as liaisons with the other Partisan forces, whether they are Astartes, Guard, Mechanicus, Ecclesiarchy or any of the other branches of the Imperium that have joined his cause. + 

+ Riverhead – whether this is a personal name or some form of codename is unclear – will reveal a little more of the mysterious Pseudolegion's structure and size, so I'd better get tidying that up. +

+ Oh, and painting him! +

+++

+ It's not all darkness +

+ The Grim Darkness of the Far Future is likely a common thread for most readers, but sometimes it's nice to dip into a different sci-fi setting. A lot of the PCRC are into Star Wars or Dune or similar, for example. One such setting that's intrigued me for years is Warlord Games' Gates of Antares, a less space opera, more hard sci-fi universes – that still allows for skirmish-level personal combat for fun 28mm gaming, of course!. +

+ You can read more about the various factions, along with a slightly intimidating(!) amount of material in the Nexus here: [+noosphericexloadlink embedded+]. Careful, it's a rabbit hole! +

+ Back in 2019 I mentioned, as part of my 'Painting an army of your own' series of articles [+noosphericinloadlink embedded+], that I picked up a couple of sprues of the Panhuman Concord Combined Command (C3) soldiers while Warlord had a sale on. +

+ I've been working on an Iron Warriors commission recently [+noospherinloadlink embedded+]. I'm waiting for one last backpack to be delivered before I can finish it, so thought I'd have a chilled-out evening and put together some models. Digging through the Cupboard of Opportunity, I stumbled upon the C3 troops. It's not a great picture of the sprue, I confess, but then, you can go and look at it on Warlord's store. +

+ Theoretical +

+ Converting figures is slightly addictive – you get into the habit of doing it, and eventually you find you can't bear to put familiar models together without modifying them in some way. If for no other reason, I always find it a treat to put together something unfamiliar like this: it lets you off the hook a bit! I apologise in advance for the constant comparisons with GW and 40k, but it seems the best way to explain things. +

+ The sprues are good quality, the material immediately familiar to anyone who's put together a GW sprue – similar in texture, colour and hardness. The details are slightly less crisp than I'm used to from GW's more modern kits; and in this they're more akin to slightly older kits, like the previous iteration of Ork boyz, or Space Marine Tactical Squads. The sprues have a similar amount of used space to these, too – slightly more gappy than a typical modern GW kit, though with not as much empty space as GW's oldest kits like Eldar Guardians or Cadian Guardsmen. I hasten to add. however, that the details are still clear; I don't want to damn the kit with faint praise. +

+ I like the aesthetic – the clean, smooth lines still have some interesting detailing; recesses and visual interest without being 'over-greebled'. They reminded me more of a Star Wars Stormtrooper, the more recent Dune adaptation (or given the large all-in-one yoke design, perhaps Toy Story's Buzz Lightyear) than anything baroque or gothic, so quite a nice change of pace for me. The guns struck me as straight out of the later Star Trek films or Halo; convincingly polished future sci-fi. +

+++

+ Practical +

+ A squad (Fireteam? Cell? Unit?) of C3 soldiers. The alternative weapon is visible on the right of the image, and I couldn't quite resist the urge to make some tiny conversions by repositioning a couple of legs and arms. +

+ The sprue includes parts to build five human (well, panhuman) soldiers and one large drone, all being secured with polystyrene cement. It includes enough standard weapons and heads for you to build a uniformly-armed squad, along with options for one soldier to carry a specialist weapon of some sort, an alternative pose with the standard kit, and an unvisored helmet (that is, the helm's still on, but you can see the figure's face. The drone (which I have not yet built) also has a second kit option – I assume another weapon type, but perhaps one is some sort of scanner? +

+ As you can see above, the figures are quite slight. There's a certain amount of hero-scaling, but the look is very much more realistic than GW's. That's either going to float your boat or not, but it strikes me that it does open up conversion possibilities with Warlord's WWII and Ancients kits. Not having any to hand, I can't guarantee that – but given the ease with which plastic can be cut and stuck, things like hands and heads would be a nice way to add a bit of variety. Here, the more realistic scaling and lack of exaggeration on hands works in the kit's favour: at tabletop distance with the right paintjob, you're not going to notice the lack of a glove or gauntlet. +

+ The design is fairly familiar – each figure typically coming in six parts: left arm and weapon (including the right hand on the grip), a handless right arm, a two-part torso, set of legs, and a head. They go together fairly painlessly. The torso in particular is neatly designed to hide the join, and fits snugly onto the legs. You can invisibly open up a little more space to turn the waist by trimming the back of the stomach armour. +

+ The arms were the only slightly frustrating bit. The 'shoulder' connection point is not quite flat but not really a ball-and-socket fitting either, so I found the arms 'swum about' a bit as I glued them, or drooped if I left them to dry unsupported. Nothing disastrous, but with such a tiny connection at the wrist, it's easy for them to drift. Everything else was very quick and clean. +

+ Beyond the options listed above, there are no additional bits and bobs, which I thought was a bit of a shame. Having said above that I like the clean aesthetic, it would still have been nice to have a few more alternative heads, arm poses or kit. I'm not talking bags and webbing, as that wouldn't jive with what I understand of the setting, but something like whatever the Concord equivalent of a map and compass is would have been nice – or perhaps a communications device. In fairness, perhaps that's specific to this faction, and they don't need (or want) to carry additional kit? +

+ One thing I would definitely have liked is some bits to allow slightly more varied and dynamic combat poses. It's slightly difficult to put my finger on, but much as GW's figures were once infamous for their 'combat squat', so these figures are all quite upright; in a fairly restrained 'advancing' posture. A kneeling set of legs would add a little variety, as would a set of more braced, widely-spaced legs. Likewise the arms nearly all carry the rifles in a fairly similar way, allowing for postures like firing from the hip. I would have liked a set held up to the eye, as in this detail from official artwork by Thomas Elliot [+noosphericexloadlink embedded+] +

+ Secondly, having the sprue line run across the front of the heads is a bugbear of mine. Perhaps there's some production reason for it, but even the most minor bit of flash or slippage can ruin the focal point of a model – particularly where, as here, there are straight horizontal lines running across the piece. +

+ Those are, however, minor criticisms of what's a nice solid sprue design and production. With the game seemingly in some form of limbo – either quietly fading or perhaps awaiting a second edition (as the shots of the awesomely creepy-looking new Isorian promise to herald) – it's unlikely we'll see a revised plastic sprue for the Concord. Indeed, if Warlord are intending to revisit Beyond the Gates of Antares at some point, I'd much rather they used their plastic budget (or however they decide to work things) to expand the forces available than revise a not just serviceable but quality kit. +

+ Brave C3 soldiers storm an alternative future timeline' neatly showing a size and aesthetic comparison with a GW Intercessor. +