EM4 Men in Black

And so I come to the last of my three reviews of my collection of Men in Black figures. These five figures are all produced by EM4 Miniatures and if you think they look very similar to my five Copplestone Castings Men in Black that I reviewed last time you'd be right because Mark Copplestone also sculpted these. He made these way back in time when he worked for Grenadier Miniatures. However, when Grenadier went belly up, EM4 acquired their moulds and production rights. When Mark set up Copplestone Castings he  remade a lot of his old Grenadier figures but in slightly modified form so whilst they looked similar, they weren't exact copies. A clever move, in my opinion, as it allows us collectors to own two sets of lovely Copplestone goodness.

First in line is an agent firing his 9mm pistol. I like this pose as he looks very aggressive. Note the headphones and microphone he's wearing.
Next to him is another agent armed with a 9mm pistol. He is taking a cautious approach. Note that neither of the pistol armed agents are wearing sunglasses.

The next three figures are all armed with 9mm sub-machine guns. The figure in the centre of the group appears to be the leader from his pose. He is also equipped with a radio headset.
To his left is a very muscular looking African/American agent. With his bald head and surly expression, he looks to be one tough dude.
The last agent in line holds his sub-machine gun in a two-handed grip as he makes a threat assessment. He's on the alert for any danger.
As with the five Copplestone Castings Men in Black that I reviewed last time, these are a very nice group of figures, not excessively armed, and all nicely posed and sculpted. You can find these figures on the EM4 website under the Unpainted Metal Future Skirmish Suits range.They are listed as Ref 054 to 058 and they cost £1.50 each.

Copplestone Castings Men in Black

Continuing on from my last post here are some more Men in Black figures. These five 28mmm scale figures are from Copplestone Castings Future Wars range and are set FW24 Men in Black.

At the far left  is an agent preparing to fire his pistol, which looks to be some sort of 9mm type. He is the most animated of all the figures in this set.
The agent standing next to him is also holding a pistol, but his is of a design I do not recognise. Perhaps it is some form of advanced ray gun with the ability to disintegrate, freeze or shrink. Who knows with these guys? And what's this? Uh-oh - fashion alert! He has his hair tied back in a ponytail! The shame of it!!!!

Next in line are two agents holding pump action shotguns. The agent with the black hair and glasses is walking, whilst his colleague (who unusually, is not wearing dark glasses) is just standing still.
Finally, is an agent armed with a 9mm sub-machine gun, that looks like an Uzi but isn't.
These five figures retail for £8.50 from Copplestone's webstore. Mark Copplestone is a really great sculptor and I like this set a lot. Whilst none of the figures are particularly outstanding, collectively, they make a nice addition to my pool of Men in Black.

Assorted Men in Black

Today I present the first of three posts looking at the mysterious Men in Black. To some they are a force of good, defending earth from alien threats (see the popular Men in Black films), whilst to others they are a sinister and evil organisation (see White Wolf's Mage: the Ascension role-playing game). One thing that is not in doubt is that they belong to a highly secretive organisation and that they wield considerable power. They can arrest people with impunity and most worryingly of all, make people just disappear, never to be seen again.

At the far left of my two photos is the commander of my force of Men in Black and he was produced by Wizkids as part of their OOP Horrorclix range, where he was known simply as Man in Black. Like a lot of Horrorclix figures, he is over-scale when compared with most ranges of 28mm scale figures. However, in his case, I don't think that matters too much. He appears to be unarmed but who can tell? I think he is quite a sinister-looking figure, which has a lot to do with his skull-like face. One other feature makes him stand out from the rest of my Men in Black figures and that is he is the only one wearing a hat. I would not want to cross his path!
Next in line is a standard field agent. He is another OOP figure and he was originally made by RAFM. He is slim but well proportioned and he holds a 9mm pistol in a two-handed grip. In addition to his trademark black suit, white shirt and black tie he also wears a pair of regulation black-lensed sunglasses. 

The next two figures are also OOP and they were made by Target Games as part of their Mutant Chronicles range. Although they are 28mm scale they are very chunky and bulky. Their weapons do have a sci-fi feel to them, although in ATZ terms I'd class them as a Big Ass Pistol and a Big Ass Machine Pistol. The figure third in line has blotted his copybook, in my opinion, by wearing his hair in a ponytail. I have nothing against woman who wear their hair like this but on men it just looks silly!
The figure at the far right of the group is a Vampifan sculpt. I made him over twenty years ago for my White Wolf Vampire: the Masquerade role-playing game campaign. He was part of a covert vampire hunting organisation. He is armed with a 5.56mm Colt M16A1 Assault Rifle which came from my spare parts box.
These figures can be used in a variety of ways. Yes, as Men in Black, that is the obvious choice. But they will work just as well as US Secret Service agents or as corporate security agents. They can be good guys or bad guys. Indeed you could ask the question - are they even human? They could be aliens or robots. Anything is possible.

Recreational Conflict Biohazard Troopers 02

These six figures belong to the Recreational Conflict Biohazard set III and are very different to their first set. The most noticeable difference is that they are much more chunkier. I like their bulky protective clothing. With the current Ebola crisis in Africa featuring prominently in the news I thought this was a good time to get these figures painted. They have been waiting to get painted for more than a year now - shame on me!

The first decision I had to make was to decide on their colour scheme. Watching recent news footage, white seemed to be the most obvious choice and so I went with that. At the far left of my photos is the leader of the group, waving his men on to follow him. He holds a 9mm pistol in his right hand. The first thing you'll notice about this group is that they are well armed. Only one out of the six is not carrying a weapon and he is second in line from the left. He holds a box and a probe, most likely a Geiger counter as he tests for radiation levels.
Next in line is the flame thrower operator. Or he could possibly be a chemical sprayer. Readers of Mira Grant's excellent Feed trilogy will be well aware of how often the heroes had to endure chemical showers to ensure they didn't spread the zombie plague. Note he has three tank cylinders on his back - one oxygen tank and two for his flame thrower or chemical sprayer.

The next two troopers in line are armed with 5.56mm M4 Assault Carbines. Note that all troopers are fitted with yellow oxygen tanks.
Last in line is a kneeling trooper, firing his 9mm pistol in a two-handed grip.
It is obvious these are not humanitarian aid workers but some sort of military or paramilitary group. The obvious use for them is for clearing out pockets of zombies in a zombie apocalypse game. They are radically different to Recreational Conflict's first set of Biohazard troopers, which would suggest that these guys work for a different organisation.
These figures were sculpted by Alan Maguire and can be found in the Lead Bones 28mm Modern Horror section of Recreational Conflict's webstore. All six figures can be bought for $15.00, which is very reasonable for a metal figure these days.

Stoelzel's Structures Barn

I've just finished making a Stoelzel's Structures 28mm scale Barn. This was one of the first models that Carl produced and it was designed with the beginner in mind. However, as is usual with me, I have gone the extra mile on this model to show just what can be done if you put your mind to it.

I begin with a photo showing the front of the Barn and one side. My figure of Vampifan is included to give you some idea of the size of the model. It is 7" (18cm) wide, by 9" (23cm) long and 7" (18cm) tall. That is quite big. Note on the very top of the roof there is a row of tiles slightly darker than the others. When I made the roof there was a small but unsightly gap between the two halves. I covered this up with a strip of thick cartridge paper folded in half and then painted. It is hardly noticeable in my photos but I just wanted to point out that it was there and that it is not part of the set that Carl offers.

Here is Vampifan at the back of the Barn. You will notice that the front and back are identical and the two sides are slightly different. So how do I know which is the front and back? Simple. I keep the front doors open and the back doors closed. All of my doors are hinged and can open and close.

Here is the front of the Barn with all of the doors opened. Note on the upper door there is a grey bar at the top of the opening. That is part of the roof support beams. It is just as well I made the doors open outwards otherwise that would be a design flaw. Although if you took the roof off, it wouldn't matter.

This view shows one side of the Barn. Note the big hole in the wall. I actually cut that out for extra realism. You don't have to but I wanted to. As I said at the start, I like to go the extra mile.

Here is the back of the Barn. When Carl originally produced this model the big front and back doors were missing. This was not a good idea in my opinion. Carl had done a similar thing with his Warehouse model  and when I was making that I asked him to include doors with the model. He very kindly did and because the opening of the Warehouse was the same size as the openings in the Barn he added the same doors to the Barn set. Good move, Carl!

This the other side of the Barn and once again I cut the big hole in the wall. This was much more fiddly to cut than the other wall due to the small openings above and below the two wooden beams.

This photo shows the underside of the roof. Carl suggested printing out the roof tiles twice for the two outer halves of the roof but I printed them out four times to make inner and outer tiles. I also added four of the support beams that came with the set. These help to keep the roof in its distinctive shape.

Here is an overhead view of the interior of the Barn. I want to talk to you about the floor. You should note that the Barn does not come with a floor. I wanted my Barn to have a floor. Sadly, Carl had nothing suitable (or so I thought) and so I used some WWG tiles from their Deadfall Streets of Blood Wilderness tiles. The colour and texture was just what I was looking for. Shortly after I had finished making the Barn I bought and downloaded Carl's Wild West set - Fatal Frontier. In this set there are three options for making barns. One of them has the same footprint as this Barn and does come with a floor tile. Oh, if only I had known beforehand. I could have used that tile instead. Carl, if you're reading this how about adding that tile as an option for the contemporary Barn?

Let's take a closer look at the interior. Normally, for my interior photos I show front, back and side views but for this model I thought it best to shoot diagonally to show the four corners. I'll start by telling you about the ladders, The Barn comes with two ladders, which take up very little space on an A4 sheet of paper. Carl, you might think about adding more than two ladders. For sure, you only need two ladders for this model but I ended up making six because they are so versatile and I can see me using the spare ladders in other model buildings. The way I made them was as follows. First, print them out. Then cut them out, making sure you cut out both halves. You do not want the two halves folding. Next cut out all the black spaces between the rungs. Because you are only cutting paper this is easily done. It is a bit time consuming, especially, if like me, you're making six ladders. Next I cut out two long thin strips of mounting board for the sides of the ladders. My strips were 3mm wide. Glue these to the back of all the ladders you've printed - four separate ladders if you're only making two. Next, cut out lots of thinner strips of mounting board for the rungs. Mine were 2mm wide. Glue these in between the two long strips on the back of the rungs. When dry glue two ladders back to back. This will give you a very sturdy ladder. Finish off by painting the edges.

The Barn comes with a page of six hay-bales and three pages of crates of various sizes. I did not want to include any crates in my barn but I did want lots of hay bales. So I printed out five pages to give me a total of 30 hay bales. I used two pieces of foam-board stuck back to back and cut to size to reinforce my hay bales. The hay bales were cut out with their tabs removed and glued around the boxes formed by my foam-board. Once the glue had dried I painted the edges. In the corner shown, on the ground is my biggest stack of hay bales. I kind of cheated by using three foam-board boxes that did not have a print out glued to them for the hay bales hidden under this stack. So in actual fact, there are 33 hay bales in this Barn.

The two platforms are 2" (5cm) wide, giving you plenty of room for placing figures on them. Access to them is by the ladders, which you can place anywhere. There is plenty of space between the two platforms for placing figures on the floor.

I wanted to place hay bales all over my Barn - on the floor and on the platform. They add a lot to the ambience of the building.
My final thoughts on this model are that it will indeed be an excellent model for newbies to start on. You do not have to go to the lengths that I went to with my model. You can make the barn with or without the big doors. I would recommend adding them. Whether you want them to open and close is entirely up to you. Also, you can build this model with or without the props (ladders, hay bales or crates). Once I built this model it occurred to me that this would work just as well in a Wild West setting as in a contemporary setting. Indeed, it is such a generic design that it is almost timeless. I have always had a hankering for playing Wild West skirmish games in 28mm scale so I decided to download Carl's Wild West set of model buildings - Final Frontier. There are three barns in this set, including one that is quite similar to this one. They are well worth checking out.