ARMORED TROOPER
1/48 SCALE ACTIC GEAR FIGURES
For our most recent
campaign, I made the jump from 1/60 scale figures (a bit too small to
go with our 28mm foot solldiers and scenery) to 1/48 scale. The
Takara Tomy Actic Gear toy line costs more than Gashapon figures, but
they have amazing detail, articulation, and accessories. Of
course, we modified, customized, repainted and weathered our figures to
really make the most of them!
For these larger figures, I
didn't want to glue them to bases, so instead, I drilled holes in the
bottom of the feet and glued rare earth magnets into them, then made
some sheet steel plates that just snap onto the magnets! This
trick also allowed me to put metal plates onto support vehicles and
even terrain to make sure the very dynamic (and fiddly) Actic Gear
figures could stand up to our dynamic action- literally!
SCOPEDOG, BERSERGA, MARSHYDOG
One of the concerns I had initially with the Actic Gear figures was the
size of the Scopedogs. Compared to other ATs in the series, they
seemed... small. But there were so many variants available, I didn't
want to rescale them or try to substitute other figures. Instead, we
embraced the size and gave Scopedogs plenty of speed and agility but
not a whole lot of strength or armor. This made piloting them a lot
more risky- er, exciting!
To weather the ATs, I started with a spray flat coat to take the
plastic shine off, then gave them a grungy dark brown wash in all the
crevices, and used a Silver Sharpie marker to give the edges a chipped
look.
The Pilot figure on the left is a Mantic figure, converted and painted
to look like an AT Pilot suit. The center pilot figure actually
came with one of the Actic Gear toys, I just painted him up with some
acrylics and an enamel wash.
DIVING BEETLES AND STANDING TORTOISE
The
Actic Gear Heavy ATs are more expensive than your average Scopedog, but
I justified the purchase by getting sets that included AT Fly
helicopters and other units. They look incredible when weathered
up!
For weapons, the missile launcher (left) is actually from a 1/60 scale
Standing Tortoise model kit, it was so big already it looked fine in
the hands of an Actic Gear figure. The Rocket Pod (center) comes
with the Standing Tortoise figure, what a great over the top weapon for
them to include! And the Diving Beetles come with a Hand
Flamethrower (right), so we have lots of weapon variety for our RPG
campaign.
WILD OX, MACHINE TROOPER
For
more unit variety, I wanted to include some older model ATs and even an
MT or Machine Trooper- predating even the first
AT! These older units would still be in
service for patrol and labor jobs where more advanced ATs weren't
needed. Much as I would love to
have a Clever Camel or some other established design, there are
precious few models available at this scale for older units.
The Machine Trooper is a modified Dust Tactics KV-47 walker figure,
which had just the right amount of clunkiness to pass as an MT.
The ATM-07-ST
Wild Ox is my own invention. To make the figures, I started
with the One Coin Series 2 bonus figure, the Rising Tortoise. I
heavily modified the legs, mostly by removing bits, and replaced the
head with ones taken from the 1/60 scale Strike Dog kit, with lenses
taken from Gashapon Diving Beetle figures. Then the whole thing
got a repaint in dark green, and heavily weathered. The Wild Ox
on the left features a Mining Grinder accessory arm (stolen from a
Mechwarrior figure), which was used to great effect by one of our PCs.
ZWERGS
One of these figures originally came with the Actic Gear Rabidlydog
figure, which is rather pricey, so I opted to buy this set of 3 that
came out later. Not as articulated as other Actic Gears, they are
still sturdy and well detailed figures nonetheless. They don't
normally come with the Sand Roaders by the way... I took Sand
Roaders from the 1/60 scale model kit and stretched them out to be long
enough to fit Actic Gears. I also added metal plates to them, so
they would stick right onto the magnetized feet of my Actic
Gears. The front bar on these figures was super fragile, I broke
TWO of them, and replaced them with some bent wire instead.
FATTY DT (A type) AND SPACE FATTY
At some point, Hobbylink Japan had a sale and cleared out a bunch of
their Actic Gear backlog. I missed most of the sale, but my
friend and I managed to get a BUNCH of space type Fattys even before I
decided to collect Actic Gears.
To make the Space Type useable in our terrestrial games, I fitted two
of them with those extended Sand Roaders mentioned for the Zwergs
above). The
Ground Type (tan) Fatty
figure is quite a lot nicer than the Space Type figure, and comes in
two styles, but definitely costs more than the space type.
I managed to pick up both types, which gave me a good
variety of weapons to work with.
FATTY DT (B type) AND FATTY DT CONVERSIONS
To expand my Balarant
ground forces, I made two Ground Type conversions from my Space Type
Fatties. Above, the left and right are conversions, the middle
is an original B type DT.
To convert my DTs, I cut
the heels off the back of the feet, cut back the lower sides of the
legs, and mounted the heel pieces onto the calves to emulate the bulges
on the offiical DT. Then I used wheels off of Machbox trucks as the
rollerdash wheels. Then I used the spare weapons from the B type, and
made custom backpacks from the Rising Tortoise One Coin figures
combined with some old Gundam figure packs. The double missile pods
are taken from the 1/60 Standing Tortoise model kit.
BLACK DOGS
I needed some distinct AT
figures for my Bandits that were distinctively Gilgamesh designs but
not just another scopedog. These are One Coin Shadowflare
figures, made bigger by inserting a spacer in between the upper and
lower torso. This makes them big enough to pass as 1/48 Medium
ATs, since the Shadowflare is so big. The 12 shot missile pod is
made from a wire connector. The Bandit figures are from Games
Workshop's Necromunda line.
It's worth noting, there are now really nice Blue Knight 1/48 "Super
Mini Pla" model kits available, including one for the
Shadowflare. Had our campaign continued even longer, and had I
money I didn't know what to do with, I'm sure I would have bought some.
REDSHOULDER CUSTOM, DASHY DOG, BRUTISHDOG
These figures featured in
our Real Battle and Dashball games. Dashball is, of course, a
Rollerball inspired sport played with ATs. The Dashydog (middle)
is a Calamitydog One Coin figure, repainted in green. The
Brutishdog is also a repaint, inspired by one of the really cool color
variant Marmit figures. Marmit Scopedog figures are too small to
work at 1/48 scale, but are nice looking (and have hilarious
packaging).
PURPLE BEAR, SCOPEDOG TURBOCUSTOM
Takara Tomy made a
limited number of "Actic Gear NEXT" figures, with ludicrous amounts of
parts, options, and details, and a hefty price tag to go with.
Only my love for quirky AT variants like the Purple Bear drove me to
get one, and I put it together, weathered it, and used it in our
Battling Ring games. The Turbocustom is way nicer than the
standard Scopedog, and comes with a TON of weapons accessories.
There are numerous ways to get a Turbo Custom figure, including buying
the BIG CARRY truck and the BLOODSUCKER AT set. Of course I had
to get a complete set of 4 of them to recreate the Last Red Shoulder
OVA...
LAST RED SHOULDER TURBO CUSTOMS
FINAL PC ATS FOR OUR CAMPAIGN
For our final games, I
equipped the Brutishdog (left) with a Turbocustom weapons system.
The center Turbocustom has a Solid Shooter taken from a Takara Kaiyodo
KT figure, because the Actic Gear one is tragically undersized.
BLOODSUCKERS
The Bloodsucker is my all
time favorite AT design, and the main reason I committed to the Actic
Gear scale of figures for our last campaign! I wanted enough to
make a formidable force of baddies for our final game, so I ended up
buying two sets of these (which also supplied me with two more
Turbocustoms). To make each unit distinct, I gave them slightly
different weapons. The Solid Shooter (left) was taken from a
Shadowflare onecoin figure, as was the 's 3 shot missile pod (center
left) and the Iron Claw (center right). The Flamethrower (right)
was taken from one of the Diving Beetle figures, with a fuel tank on
the back (a repurposed Marshydog pontoon).
Below are some closeup shots of the commander unit, showing off the weathering and detail.
Check out our 1/48 Support Vehicles here!
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