More Invaders!

Having got my Martian cylinder finished, and thus a location from which my Squid army can start its invasion of 19th Century Earth, I’ve also managed to add some more Squid invaders!

The new items are the three drones in the middle of the picture, with a Squid at each end. These are spindle drones from the Blackstone Fortress game and I first saw them over at Alex’s Leadballoony.com blog. Having seen Alex’s painted minis I thought they must be a lot bigger than they are since he’s done such a cracking job of painting them! To me, though, the models do have quite a War of the Worlds look to them, so I thought I’d try and get some. Ebay came to the rescue and I managed to get two sprues on their own, totalling four drones.

I decided to go for the same look as my small tripods (one of which is shown above, painted more than a few years ago). A coat of Vallejo Model Color Bronze, a wash with a thinned enamel black/brown mix, drybrushed bronze, some extra shading added with German Camouflage Black Brown and then the lens painted in red over Burnt Cadmium Red with a white spot highlight.

I really like them and will probably get some more! They are near enough the same size as Squid infantry so fit in well. I’m not sure how I’ll use them in a game yet though. I’ve based them on 25mm bases and will use them in units of three, functioning as intelligent drones/robots I think. I’d toyed with the idea of putting them on 20mm bases and allocating single drones to Squid infantry units, but I’ve decided they’ll operate in their own units. I’m tempted to use them as fast, mobile units that can quickly close with an enemy unit and engage them at short range!