These Are The Droids You’re Looking For!

Another post in the series “More Steam, Sir?” that I couldn’t resist giving a different title to (see also the yeti post here).

Shown above is an Iron Men unit for my Victorian Science Fiction project. OK, these are robots/droids/mechanical men but I’m calling them Iron Men since I can’t think what the Victorians might call them and they are sold as “Iron Men” by Black Pyramid Gaming. I think they’re meant to be 28mm VSF power armour troops but for me they make good oversized robots for my 20mm forces. The pack of figures come as four different Iron Men, but the guys at Black Pyramid were good enough to let me buy an extra amount of the figure with the Gatling gun.

The figures were painted in Vallejo London Grey, Bronze and Gunmetal, with Roman numerals done freehand in white, and then given an enamel black-brown wash. I then re-painted over some areas to brighten them back up and highlighted the armour in light grey. Looking at the numbers it seems unlikely that I’ll ever have Iron Men numbers VII or VIII in my unit (or 88, Heaven forbid)!

I plan on using Iron Men in one of two ways, either individual figures attached to infantry units and controlled by that unit’s commander being in close proximity, or by having dedicated command units that control units of three Iron Men by wireless. This unit took me longer to get done because I wanted to have a mobile command unit and didn’t know how to best approach that. I decided that I’d probably make a variety of command units that would let the Iron Men be used by most of my 19th Century armies and those shown here are just the start.

The picture above shows a British Iron Men Command unit, intended for service in such far flung locations as India, China and Mars! As such it needed to be small, mobile and light, relying on being able to hide for protection while the command crew took up position and directed the Iron Men from cover. The figures (slightly out of focus) at the front are plastic 1:72 figures from the HaT Zulu War Gatling Gun set. They come as a soldier operating a heliograph and on officer observing through a telescope but I thought they looked spot on for a command team. I painted them in colours representative of uniforms at the time of the Second Afghan War so that I could also use them historically.

The small tractor is a resin Polish C2P tractor from 1939 by Frontline Wargaming, but with a Newline Designs Zulu War British artillery driver added, the uniform colours matching the other figures. The C2P comes with a windscreen that I was going to add after painting the driver but I thought it maybe looked better without it. The trailer carrying two seats for the command team and a large equipment container was made from a French trailer for the UE infantry carrier by Butler’s Printed Models, with the container, seats and handrails coming from the spares box!

I’d normally try and make generic units first before moving on to those for specific armies, but the above models seemed to be best suited to a British Empire force. I wasn’t sure about what vehicles I might use for other command units and spent quite a while looking around for something suitable (shown below).

This represents a generic Iron Men mobile command and control centre, with a small armoured tractor towing an armoured command trailer. The latter can be left in a location where the crew can observe and direct the Iron Men in action and this can be done from the trailer or by dismounting the control equipment and using it form a nearby location. The models are 3D prints from Paint & Glue Models, a Polish 1939 TK tankette and a French armoured crew trailer for the Lorraine 38L armoured personnel carrier. These are painted in Humbrol 140 Grey and I’ve got a couple more of each to keep for future units. The TK tankette and C2P tractor shown in the previous picture shared common chassis components.

Since I’ve made good progress with my French VSF troops it made sense to also get a French Foreign Legion Iron Men unit done (shown above). The only minis painted specifically for this unit are the seated controller in the red trousers and the wireless unit to the right of him. These are Early War Miniatures 1940 French Army minis. The standing figure at the right is an EWM French WW1 tank crewman painted ages ago and the command vehicle is a WW1 Renault TSF command tank converted from a HaT 1:72 Renault FT gun tank (the upper superstructure is plasticard), also painted ages ago. The Renault TSF was a radio tank designed to accompany Renault FT tanks in WW1 so it seemed to be an ideal choice as an Iron Men command vehicle. I had intended painting a new TSF model for this unit but the camouflaged TSF in the picture doesn’t really look out of place so I might just keep using it.

The picture above shows the French Iron Men unit alongside some of the Foreign Legion automatic rifle and rocket troops I painted last year, hopefully showing how uniforms have common colours linking them. The French Foreign Legion seems to be the unit making the most of the technology needed to propel them into the 20th Century!

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