Small Cuts - Project H2

Status:	Finished
Contains:	Figures, demo game

The Crucible: The latest in Slammers gaming.

Project H2 is Hammer's Slammers. I think I was in high school when I first stumbled upon the Slammers stories by David Drake and I have been a fan ever since. Unlike much military science fiction, the Slammers stories were always about the people, not the machines. They also have a very gritty and realistic view of warfare... which is not that surprising given they really started out as Vietnam stories written by a veteran.

Every time I've seen a futuristic tank game, I've thought about doing the Slammers with it. Unfortunately, usually the game systems never really captured the brutal deadliness of Slammers weapons and to top it off, really appropriate models were hard to come by. You might get something to use as hovertanks, but no one really did anything like the combat cars -- and even though Slammers is regarded as quintessential future tank warfare, the stories are actually more often about people in the combat cars.

That all changed a few years back with the publication of the officially approved Slammers rules and the accompanying miniature lines. I bought the rules and after reviewing them I ordered a bunch of Slammers vehicles from Old Crow and some infantry from Ground Zero Games and started Project H2.

So far I only have Slammers but I do plan to get some opposing forces as well. And since Slammers often fought low tech insurgents, I also plan to use my Viet Cong infantry for the games. What goes around...

Assembly and Painting


My Slammers vehicle came in the mail!	These are really nice. They must be the most perfect resin castings I've ever seen.	GZG 15mm Slammers primed. These are very nice figures, but I just hate cleaning 15mm figures. I nearly broke the ankles off one already.

Basing... I'm still not really accustomed to doing multibases, it's about the slowest stage of doing 15mm figures.	Priming the jeeps.	Final basing touches for the tribarrels.

Turrets assembled and drying.	I probably should have just used the accelerator.	Tank hulls.

Turrets magnetized and primed.	Tank hulls primed. I still haven't checked if the blowers fit in the storage trays or not.	Primed blower and hog.

Tank hulls being painted.	Crew for the combat cars. They are nice models but a bit tricky to paint. I had to superglue their feet to these sticks to get a handle on things.	Nearing completion.

The combat cars came with etched top covers. Verrry nice, though I really have no experience working with etched parts.	Tank turrets.	More stuff from Old Crow. Here's Prosperity Rebels and a small contingent of Broglie's Legion.

I suddenly realized Slammers arty detachements are actually three hogs, so I had to get another one. And what is that other stuff? A deadly grudge match in the making?	Loads of stuff in the works.	Hahaa! It's a magic trick!

A pile of assembled tank hulls.	Getting primed.	Prosperity rebels armoured unit assembled!

After waiting a couple of months for my 3mm magnets to arrive, I found they were too small and fiddly after all... and then I drilled these for my trusty standbys, the 8mm magnets instead.	Here are the rebel forces. I still need to scratch a couple of mortar assemblies for the trucks.	Glueing the magnets on.

Primed tank hulls.	More tank bodies.	Tank bodies painted.

These turrets are just about done.	Turrets lined up. I plan to get extra alternate turrets so I can change the configurations.	Before and after: Prepping the turrets for camo job using my airbrush.

Painting the tracks and the wheels.	Basic colors applied. Now it's just detailing and weathering.	Possibly slightly clearer picture of the done turrets.

Tank destroyers baking under the sun. I tried digicamo with them, not entirely successfully.

Slammers Infantry

Slammers infantry travels on personal hoversleds -- they don't use APCs or other transport vehicles. Rather than have separate mounted/unmounted bases, I put one sled on each infantry base to indicate their higher mobility.

Initially I meant to put the same amount of figures on each base, but then I remembered the sorry rebasing episode with my VC and only put three figures on the buzzbomb bases -- that way it is at least somewhat possible to distinguish the two from a distance. That left a couple of extra figures I used to compose a couple of command bases.


Here's my infantry.	These are all GZG 15mm figures, they're pretty nice.	The obligatory overhead view.

I did not feel like switching back and forth with the skimmer bases so I included one skimmer on each base to indicate they are so equipped.	Initially I intended to have the same amount of figures on each base but then I remembered my episode with the VC and put one less on the buzzbomb bases. This left a couple of figures over to do command bases.	These turned out nicer than I thought they would.

Slammers Support Jeeps

When all else fails, try research. When you're too lazy to do research, invent something and rationalize it. That's roughly how I came about to the color scheme for the jeeps. It's clear that the Slammers left the iridium hulls of the armored vehicles unpainted. It is also clear that the jeeps were too small to carry a fusion reactor, operating on batteries, and did not have the same abundance of power as their larger cousins. Consequently, they were not heavily armored. That much is known, then we enter the land of conjecture. I don't recall if it was explicitly mentioned anywhere, but I think there is a good likelihood the jeeps did not have iridium hulls. If they were armored at all, they most likely would have employed some lighter armor materials. Thus I figured the most likely color for the jeeps would be something simple like olive drab or khaki. I went for olive drab, because it offered some contrast to the khaki uniforms.

The downside of this is that the Slammers don't have a uniform color scheme. It would look better with all the vehicles done in dull silver, but it just wouldn't feel right... to me.

If you can cite a primary source about the color of the jeeps, please post in the comments below. I won't make any promises about repaints, though.


Jeeps and weapon teams done.	Transport jeeps with loads.	The infantry are from GZG while the jeeps are Old Crow.

The vehicle id numbers came from a 1/300 Soviet decal sheet -- my Slammers decal sheets are not here yet.	Mortar jeeps.	I'm not quite sure if the Slammers ever used mounted weapons in the books. And if you look closely, these aren't even Slammers figures. They are close, but not really.

Tribarrel jeeps.

Slammers Tanks

This is the one you have been waiting for, right? Here's a full platoon of blowers, a full platoon of combat cars and a trio of hogs. I decided to paint a full hog detachment even though they're generally not supposed to be on the table... I just need to do the support vehicles just in case a Slammers firebase will be under attack...


I've been testing different ISO settings for the camera. Might have worked better if I'd actually kept notes...	Yes, the decals have not arrived yet... but otherwise I'll call these done. Maybe next time I'll add some stowage.	The obligatory overhead shot.

I love the gleam of iridium in the sun...	That's a full troop of blowers, a troop of combat cars and a pair of hogs. Hog batteries really come in fours, but I wanted to save some money and they're really not supposed to be on the table anyway.	I think the command car is actually missing a tribarrel. I'll have to ask if I can buy some spares separately.

Combat cars lined up.	The mesh tops were easier than I thought. Let's see how they hold up.	The turrets are really flush fitting, they may end up scraping the deck paint.

Pair of hogs. Now all I need is a horde of 15mm monkey aliens...	Oh no, the blowers don't fit even in the large tank tray.	Good thing I had some pluck foam lying around...

I decided to model a full arty detachment, so I bought and painted these babies.	The obligatory overhead view.	I actually got the decals. I should take the time to decal up everything.

The command car is growing on me. I should get a few more and paint them up as ambulances or something.

Prosperity Rebels

Prosperity Rebels is the first opposing force I built for the Slammers. For some reason I just love the final battle of Rolling Hot and really want to game it.


Here's the light armored detachment.	There's three platoons of five, each with one support tank.	The support tank is the one with the slightly thicker and stubbier barrel.

The obligatory overhead view.	I chose to use generic red stars as symbols. All the hulls are numbered but the turrets are unmarked so they can be switched around.	I need to get more transfers for the next batch.

The camo is done with an airbrush using blu-tac as stencil. It worked pretty well.	Some of the barrels really wanted to be installed in a high angle position...	Some rear details.

Another view of the tanks. I think this is getting on the high side of what you can stick on a normal table without starting to look stupid.	Here's some trucking power for the Prosperity rebels.	The obligatory overhead view.

I tried to give these the same camo scheme as the tanks, but for some reason the green turned out a bit different.	I have three trucks and they are all slightly different.	Hahaa! I mounted a magnet on the underbelly so I can put turrets on these too!

Broglie's Legion

The Warrior is one of my favorite Slammers stories, so it was a bit of a no-brainer to get the tank destroyers. Though they didn't really come to blows in the book, I guess we could stage something...

The tank destroyers were done in digicamo partly because they are a separate distinct force but mostly just because I wanted to test the stencils.


Ok, here's some tank destroyers for Broglie's Legion.	The obligatory overhead view.	I tried doing digicamo with my new stencils. All told, it was a fair success though the paint is too thick in some places.

Yes, they come with tribarrels. No, I'm not going to do the early versions separately.	I still need to add a few support vehicles to round it out.	Not quite sure what the rear grille is supposed to be besides prime targeting point.

Other Vehicles

This is the collection of other vehicles to fit the general theme. They might be used as opposing forces, allies or auxiliaries. The good thing about Slammers is that their stuff is pretty well defined, so all the equipment that does not fit in the Slammers TO&E must be somebody else's, right?

I will probably do a couple of semi-generic color-themed forces, like the Green Army and the Tan Army... also, I really want to try out my new stencils that should be arriving later this spring.


Ok, these aren't exactly Slammers...	The obligatory overhead view.	Slammers don't actually use Calliopes, so I painted these in generic olive drab.

A couple of cargo cars.	The lineup is looking nice.	Here's a few field mounts with radar dishes.

The obligatory overhead view.	I painted these using the same camo scheme as the tanks and the trucks so I can exchange the turrets between them.	I need to get some more bases and missile turrets for a proper SAM site, though...

Another view of the radar installations.

Comments

They were bigger back in the day	Juha N (guest)	Jan 21, 2014 08:50
When I got introduced to these Hammers Slammes things, they were 28mm, they have lost some weight ,-)? They were nice presented in Salute 94, or am does my memory fail?
All scales are go!	maxxon	Jan 21, 2014 09:59
The Slammers stuff is available (after a little bit of digging) in 28mm, 15mm and 6mm scales. There have been a few iterations and it's actually available from at least three different manufacturers. I made the decision to go for 15mm as it is a reasonable compromise for vehicle heavy games. I might still buy a few singles in 28mm but definitely not complete tank platoons. I wrote about this in my blog last summer.
Slammer scale	Juha N (guest)	Jan 21, 2014 23:20
I see, and I fully understand the smaller (sensible) scale. It would be actually quite silly to run tank battles in 28mm scale, or you should have tennis court for gaming table.