Post a Comment On: Fawcett Avenue Conscripts

[Image] The gang's all here.... A few days ago a poster on TMP asked me to post some pictures of my 1/200 Zentreadi stuff for Macross.  This TMP member, "The Black Android" has been doing some pretty cool Robotech/Macross stuff of his own.  Since I was called out, I had to answer - so here are some pictures of my Zentreadi mecha.

[Image] My Zentreadi force includes 10 Tactical Pods (Regult "Soldiers"), 3 Light Artillery Pods (Regult "Light Missile Carriers"), 1 Heavy Artillery Pod (Regult "Heavy Missile Carrier"), 1 Scout Pod and 1 Officer's Pod (known in Macross-ese as a "Glaug").

[Image] Light Artillery Pod fires clouds of "small" missiles. [Image] A Regult "platoon". [Image] Heavy Artillery Pod - launcher with four heavy warheads. The models are 1/200 scale, although as several commentators have noted, notions of scale are really malleable in the Macross universe.  The Zentreadi are really big, bigger than humans, but still small enough to fit into their battle pods, which are also really big, but not that much bigger than the human mecha they fight, which are still bigger than humans too but not as big as the Zentreadi.  Got it?

[Image] Scout pod - unarmed, equipped with all sorts of sensors and other e-warfare goodies. The models are almost all from kits sold under the "Nichimo" brand, but I have also seen them on EBay under other, strange, brand names.  I generally prefer the Nichimo versions, because you get two models in the same box.  They are actually meant to be screwed together (you get the tiny screws) so the legs and (where applicable) arms can move, and somehow mounted on your wall in a plastic bubble (I'm not making this up). 

[Image] The Glaug/Officer Pod is the top fighter on the Zentreadi side in our games. [Image] Back view of the Glaug. [Image] These things are bloody impossible to find on EBay these days...I'm glad to have one. The only non-Nichimo models are two plastic "Gashapon" Tactical Pods that I sprayed back and re-painted.  They look almost identical to the others.

[Image] Size comparison - a Tactical Pod with a GW Kasrkin Imperial Guard figure. I used super-glue instead of screws, filled in the recesses with green stuff, dispensed with the plastic bubble, and mounted them all on 60-mm round bases from GW.

[Image] Size comparison - a Tactical Pod beside an armoured VF-1J battloid (also a Nichimo kit). The models came with decals, but they looked a bit dodgy, so I painted all the markings on by hand.  Since Zentreadi tactical markings are mostly random scrawls of an alien language, it was a good solution.

[Image] Zentreadi review on the painting table. These guys have seen action a few times on the Fawcett Avenue gaming table, and have also seen action for the past couple of years in demonstration games at PrairieCon in Brandon, Manitoba.  I'm a huge fan of Robotech and Macross, and it is always a real treat to haul these out for a game once in a while.

It's great to see other gamers out there on TMP working up their own Macross projects, complete with rules and even new sculpts of their own (!) given how hard it is to find the models these days.  Check out "Mech Dude's Blog" for a really detailed effort.

For my part, I still have a few boxes of these things in my basement, and I even have a couple of assembled and primed battle pods somewhere in the "pending" pile.  I may add more pods at some point, but have found in the games we have played that this force offers plenty to shoot at.