Wednesday 13 April 2011

Copplestone Castings Bio Chem Squad

This is going to be the first of a series of reviews looking at Bio Chem, Hazmat, NBC troopers or whatever you want to call them from a variety of figure companies. I'm labelling them collectively as Biohazard Troopers but I will use the name given to them by their figure companies for individual reviews. These reviews will cover figures from Copplestone Castings, eM4, Hasslefree, Horrorclix and Recreational Conflict. I've listed them alphabetically and that is the order in which I shall review them.
These five figures come from Copplestone's 28mm scale Future Wars range and are set FW16 Bio Chem Squad. My colour scheme, white suits, is based on that found on the Copplestone website, although I have given my squad white boots instead of black. White suits are not the easiest things to paint. I started off by painting these Citadel Space Wolves Grey. I drybrushed this with a mixture of Space Wolves Grey and Skull White, adding more Skull White to the mix until the final highlight was pure Skull White. The deep creases are painted with Citadel Adeptus Battlegrey. I used a 1/1 mix of Chaos Black and Adeptus Battlegrey for my "blacklining" of the figures.
At the far left of my two photos is the squad leader, pointing at something, whilst holding his assault rifle at rest. I've painted the underslung barrel of his rifle as a torch but I suppose it could just as easily be a grenade launcher. The rifles bear a close resemblance to the assault rifles used by the Colonial Marines in the film Aliens. Even so, they still work well in a contemporary setting. All of the troopers wear gasmasks underneath their hoods.
Next up is a trooper armed with a flame thrower with a fitted fuel bottle. Again, the design is based on that used in the film Aliens by both Ripley and the Marines. A trooper with a flame thrower is a great choice for clearing out nests of zombies, vampires or almost anything else.
In the centre of the group is a trooper armed with an automatic shotgun. It's another useful weapon to have for close-in work, even if it is prone to attracting lots of zombies. Note how the trooper has his legs braced to absorb the recoil of firing the shotgun.
Fourth in line is a trooper with the same assault rifle as used by the squad leader. This guy is firing his weapon from the hip. Once again, I painted the underslung barrel as a torch to aid his sight in darkened rooms or corridors.
The fifth trooper is identically armed to the fourth and is in a very similar pose, although he is leaning further forward.
These are rather chunky figures but are well sculpted by Mark Copplestone. If you are only going to buy one set of Biohazard Troopers then these are well worth considering. They fit in well with other 28mm scale figures and are fairly reasonably priced at £8.50 for the set of five figures.

24 comments:

  1. Those are really good and you've got that white looking good and were under consideration until the hasslefree ones came out, it's a bit of a coincidence as I am putting my hasslefree ones up tomorrow.

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  2. Thanks, Fran. I agree that the Hasslefree ones are probably the best available. My review of them will be posted a week today. I look forward to seeing your paint jobs and what you have to say about them.

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  3. These are great. Good job on the white too!

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  4. Really nice job. I like the tiger stripes on the flamethrower.

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  5. @Adam. As I said in my review, white can be a difficult colour to paint effectively but I'm very pleased with how these guys turned out.

    @Meghan. I'd love to claim that the black and yellow stripes on the flamethrower was my idea but to tell the truth I just copied it from Copplestone's website. Whoever had painted his figures for him had added bits of yellow and black striping to all of their weapons. To me, it looked wrong, apart from the flamethrower. For some reason it works very well on that weapon.

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  6. Good work on the white. Always a bugger to get right!!!!

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  7. Very nice looking figures, you've done a great job on a figure that doesn't have a lot of detail to paint, I once painted a French AWI unit that had a white coat, collar, cuffs, breeches and leggings, it was a nightmare to paint and nearly finished me off!!
    I haven't seen Fran's figures yet,(cough), but I know deep down in my heart and soul that his are gonna be crap and your will knock spots off of the ginger one's figures!!

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  8. @Lord Siwoc. Thanks, Johnny. Your comment sure was spot on!

    @Ray. I was laughing out loud at your comments about Fran's figures. He is so going to kill you if he reads this!

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  9. Those are excellent, Vampi. That white paint job came out perfect. The shading and blacklining is just right.

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  10. Why thank you, Luckyjoe, that's kind of you to say so.

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  11. Bryan, thats some of the best white painting I have ever seen and I have been fighting it for 14 years and it never looks even close to what you did. I agree with white boots, the suit is always the same color.

    Congrats they are awesome!

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  12. BTW where are the Hasslefree bio suits?

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  13. I like them, but I have to agree, the HF Hazmat Team are the best Bio Chem Squad minis.
    Good job on painting the white Hazmat suits. Painting white is always a bit difficult.

    Whiteface / Oliver

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  14. Good work Vampifan, these look the Biz, every zombie miniature set must have a Bio team that looks like this.

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  15. So many compliments - wow! Thank you, one and all. On Sunday I'll be reviewing the eM4 Bio Hazard Troopers. Next Wednesday is when I'll review the Hasslefree Hazmat Troopers. And yes, I think they are the best as well. Be patient, my trusty followers, you won't have too long to wait.

    @Roger. I know what a great painter you are, so your comments on my painting of these figures was particularly gratifying. Many thanks, indeed.

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  16. Nicely done VtG! Looking forward to the other reviews - I haven't got any chem suited figures yet and have been wondering which to get, so this series will be helpful

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  17. @Lemmiwinks. Thanks.

    @Colin. If you are desperate for Bio Hazard troopers then check out the Hasslefree Hazmat Squad. They are the best sculpted in my opinion. If you wait a couple weeks, you'll be able to compare all of my reviews, plus I plan on doing a size comparison photo of them, which should help even further in deciding which one(s) to go for.

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  18. I don't think I've ever seen Copplestone minis that I don't like.
    Fantastic job on the paint. White is so bloody hard to get right. At least for me.

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  19. Willy, white is a difficult colour for many people to get right! And you're right about Copplestone's figures - they are all top quality sculpts.

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  20. I just scored me a set of these along with some Copplestone Castings Zombie Troopers (Smarties?). Over on the Ebbles forum Mel (Ebbles) is doing a closet cleaning sale and has a bunch of different minis that he is getting rid of and I sent him a message requesting one of the packs of Copplestone Bio-Chem suit guys and one pack of the Zombie troopers (he said make an offer and if he likes it he will accept it, I said $15 per set and he accepted, will be getting the money to him this Friday when I get paid). Now all I have to do is place an order for the Hasslefree and Recreational Conflict Hazmat figures.

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