Planetfall Directorate Recon Helix & Infantry Upgrade unboxing

The next unboxing is the Directorate, one of my current favourite forces in Firestorm. This time I'll start with the light infantry upgrade.

Box contents...

opening these yields a LOT of metal!

So there are three main elements - the sweeper teams, Field gun teams and the commanders. Let's start with the Field guns.

This is a nice resin quad rocket-launcher system, with 2 standard infantry - as there are 9 bases, that's 18 of the individual metal infantry...a large proportion of the metal content of this box.

The other major constituent of the metal content of the box are the Sweeper teams - in the Directorate that means hovering razorbots of death! These are immensely cool and really nice both conceptually and in execution. Swarms of these things flying across the battlefield at chest height cutting opponents in half is very Directorate!

There's a lot of metal spoor on these, so they take a while to clean up, but that's to ensure they get fully cast, so I've no real problem with that, they're not that much of a PITA.

The final part of the set are the commanders;

These take the usual form of three commanders and their bodyguards. The commander himself is very swish, and once again I'd love to see these in 28mm;

He'll be great fun to paint up :-)

Over then to the recon helix;

I was excited to see those Heavy Infantry robots....

No surprises in the box, two combat carriers, five of the new light tanks, infantry and Heavy Infantry. Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures of them in detail before I started painting them (hey, I was excited about them, OK?). So the pictures below are after washing, priming and dry-brushing.

The new recon is a lovely little thing, and very Directorate. The combat carrier is the same as previously, but I'll include it here anyway since I don't think I've put up a picture of it before fully made up (though again, mid-painting).

but my favourite models in the set are the sweeper robots. However disappointed I may be that they only have cyberweapons, they still look badass!

So that's all for this time folks, the Directorate releases are really nice and I'm looking forward to finishing them to add to my growing corporate acquisition forces! Let the good times roll!

Planetfall Painting Demonstration

Having had a chat with a few people, I thought I'd try and do a quick(ish) painting demo video for a Planetfall mini - in this case a Dindrenzi Damocles Drop Pod. It was a bit of a learning curve from the editing side, but I think I came up with something reasonable in the end. The quality and resolution aren't what I originally output, because file size and upload speed wouldn't really allow it - so I apologise in advance for that. Anyway, have a look and see what you think....

Planetfall Terran Recon Helix & Infantry Upgrade unboxing

It's back to the turn of the Alliance of Kurak forces for an unboxing blog, so here are the Terrans (boo, hiss etc!).

Now there are some familiar elements here as we've seen the APCs and Hirdmen from the core Helix. The Freya light tanks and Huscarls are new, however, and the exciting part of the set. Let's open it up and see them!

No surprises on opening the box, elements protected in bubble-bags and pieces in a resealable plastic pocket.

Metal elements are the Huscarls, their weapons and the single-piece Hirdmen for the infantry bases.

As I mentioned, we've all seen this bad boy before (and I've blown up a few in my time). They're solid and chunky, having a very Terran feel to them.

Likewise we've seen the infantry bases before, though i don't remember this one (probably just a senior moment and the fact I don't play Terrans myself), but I like it a lot. Has a very dynamic feel to it.

The Huscarl is next, standing about 2/3rds higher than a standard infantryman - room enough for a Terran dude to actually be inside that little cockpit. It's nicely cast with just a couple of casting spure and a little flash between its legs, and has great detail. They should paint up VERY nicely (and there are already several examples of some really nice jobs on these on Facebook etc)

The other new shiny is my personal favourite in the box, the Freya. This is a gorgeous little vehicle, almost Hummer-like, but sexier! She deserves some more pics;

It's a really nice box, and a good addition to Terran forces. I don't know what the Huscarls and Freyas are like stat-wise, but I'd field them just because they look so good!

Next for the spotlight is the Terran infantry Upgrade box.

This disgorges a lot of little Terrans;

The resin elements are grenade launcher toting guys hiding in a cowardly way behind concrete (it's the Terran way!). You get two different styles;

On closer inspection these are cast very nicely in a single piece, and have the same high levels of detail we've come to expect from Spartan.

To add a little more firepower to the gun teams, you get 18 (yes eighteen!) minigun guys;

These are fantastic little figures, they almost make me want to play Terrans! Of course, someone has to lead these oppressors of freedom into battle, so bring on the chain of command...

See what I did there? No? Oh well....anyway, the commander for the Terrans is another really nice model, with a very human pose - you can imagine him in the heat of battle straining to hear his orders through his suit communicator, touching his helmet even though this probably has no effect on the audio quality. Very nice.

You get standard Hirdmen to protect him, but there's nothing stopping you upgrading a base with resin infantry on it to mix up the feel a bit - it's what Oscar has already declared he's going to do.

Overall, these two releases are very nice both in their content and the way they gel with the prior Terran forces and how they expand them - they're a very cohesive set of models for the Terrans, keeping up the "slow grinder", infantry heavy approach for them.

My only other comment is that I'd love to see the Commanders and some of the other figures (like the minigun guy) in 28mm...they'd look GREAT!