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general musings on the range as a whole

  • timbus the thirteenth

    Friends, romans, countrymen/women/otherwise. lend me your ears, for I am on a plane ride and have nothing better to do than yap on an esoteric wargaming forum about things few sane people care about. It is the new (gregorian) year, and thus an excellent time for reflection. in particular, reflection on the death fields range, the strengths it has so far, and what might be in store for the future.

    To start with the existing kits, I've gotten my dirty little paws on many of the existing kits, and so I've noticed some general trends I'd like to talk about, and ask if others have had similar experiences. firstly, holy shit I need to start with the pricing. dear lord, a decent spaceman army will quite literally murder your model if you go for gw, and every other option has only one aesthetic or is 3d printed. maybe it's just me, but I feel like the general accessibility, price point, and variance of death fields kits have genuinely revolutionized space army guy models. even a couple years ago, every forum showing off their army would be Guardsmen. guardsmen in tanks, guardsmen with weird guns, guardsmen with silly hats. now? any sane person building an army for OPR, space weirdos, etc will build it with good ol' grognards and cannon fodder. guard players are happy, general wargamers are happy, and most importantly, IM happy, and does anything else really matter? you can build just about any kid of base space trooper with historicals and wga kits alone. I feel that aesthetics are a separate conversation, but it certainly doesn't hurt that wga kits have awesome designs. it's become much more possible to knock out a unit or two in an afternoon, since the kits are nicely paintable while still having great detail. I also greatly appreciate the model count: spacearmyguys tend to come in units of 5-10, so having 20+4 extra lets you have some corpses, commanders, etc without leaving a whole nine guys to rot.

    however, with such extensive praise, I'd like to talk a bit about some general problems. firstly, age. many of the kits are quite early in wgas lifespan, and I think it shows. einhajar, for example, have pretty bad flash problems, and raumjager are starting to look pretty stumpy. there's somewhat of a divide between the "haves" and the "have-nots", sprue wise, leading to some kits having a massive selection of bits and detail (ooh rah), and others feeling pretty lacking (grognards having one pointing arm). this is more of a nitpick, but a lot of kits have their body weight shifting super heavily to the right, meaning you're stuck with these kind of awkward shoulder bash pose. could just be me, though. honestly though, I am known for being somewhat pose-picky, and maybe this is historically accurate recoil control or something. MOVING ON!

    the last thing I'd like to discuss is forming a full army out of the range, and how it might be possible to expand the range to make that easier. you are spoiled for choice when it comes to elite/crummy infantry. I've been using grognards for the former and cannon fodder for the latter, and it's worked out great! heavy weapons only exist for les groggies, which is fine, since really anyone can man a gun. however, I still want to see more options. command is in a similar position, where I feel like they're easy enough to kitbash out of grunts. the main problems I've had are with vehicles and larger units. cool sci fi tanks are core to any classic spaceman army, and right now the options kind of suck ass. there's mantic games for sleeker halo-style models, 3d printing for Slightly Toxic and Fragile models, and gw if you hate yourself. this leaves kitbashing historical kits, which I'm currently attempting and kind of sucks. I imagine some kind of sci fi turret & sponson upgrade kit could help people out until we get full models, much like the existing infantry sprue. there's also the matter of Big Guns, which I love dearly despite their tendency to either be really dog water in games or completely shatter the balance. we're getting those with the damned, which is great! yippee! but those are very damned-adjacent and come with crew, making them tough to use if you don't want a post-apocalyptic army. I don't, meaning I need to make them out of trash, which is fun but also kind of a pain. then there the groups of units I like to call "weirdos": ogres, cavalry, and hounds. I don't think hounds are that tough to kitbash, but ogres and cav are. also, there's a secondary weird metric of "who would actually look good on a horse/Very Large?" (cannon fodder on a horse would be 🔥🔥🔥🔥). these aren't really questions I can answers, since I'm not WGA, but I would love to hear some thoughts.

    also, as a brief aside, there are some really interesting and cool models on the digital side that kinda suck for us plastic-only shmucks. for crying out loud, the ooh rah heavy troops look better than the originals! I'd love to see somewhat of a push to bring the cooler kits to plastic (GIVE ME MY WHITE DEATH!!).

    alright, I'm reaching 1000 words so I'm gonna wrap it up here. if you got this far, thank you for listening to this local woman screaming into the void, and please let me know your thoughts. I haven't been buying wga for very long, so Im double curious what some of the older members of the forum think on the range thus far. peace, love and happy 2026, timbus the thirteenth.

  • P

    Been eyeing the einherjar and the raumjäger, but don't have anything to use them on so haven't yet bit the bullet. Probably gonna get some whenever I next order (when's Classic Fantasy Battles coming out again?). Definitely good value, cheap enough I can justify getting them just for the joy of getting and painting them.

    Think you might be onto something with the kits. I wonder if one couldn't use some historic tank kits as base, just produce turrets and stuff that happens to fit something else? Konflikt '47 does their tanks like this, and it looks scifi-goody with the weird turrets.

  • timbus the thirteenth

    K47 was exactly was I was thinking about, turrets-wise. I actually just got a handful of ww2 tanks that I'm turning into sci fi tanks using the grognard heavy weapons sprue. They look great so far, but theres a lot of weird bits that I want to slap onto literally every tank. For example, sponsons are really common in sci fi games, but there's no sponsons on most ww2 tanks. That wouldn't be hard to make overall.

    Einhajar, by the way, I just picked up and I highly recommend. I had some weird flash/missing chunks on mine, but nothing so egregious that it took away from the joys of having space dwarves with grenade launchers! My only recommendation is to think about doing some kind of headswap, since there's not a great head selection in the box. I just used cannon fodder hazmat helmets and they look great. 

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  • P

    Sponsons could definitely be built as add-on kits. Modular ones, fitting more than one specific kit, would be hard / require work from the assembler, but I reckon something like that could be done too. Not sure how well they'd fit on most historic or modern tanks with the tracks, but then again I guess the sponsons on the Leman Russ are in the middle of the track section too.

    I think I might want to replace those short submachine gun looking guns on the einherjar, personally. Happen to know if the raumjäger weapons fit? Their guns look more rifle-y, which is preffered.

  • timbus the thirteenth

    sadly I don't own any raumjager arms, but I will say most of the smg isn't attached to anything. so if you wanted to extend the barrel or add a larger magazine, that wouldn't be hard at all.

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  • Yronimos Whateley

    Historic tank kits are absolutely an option.  If you're lucky enough to have easy, affordable access to any of the 28mm kits - generally WWII - made for the Bolt Action game, those are certainly an option.  With some creative modeling, you should be able to give these a "sci-fi upgrade" to match the general Death Fields aesthetic.

    I've generally gone for plastic scale model kits for kitbashing into sci-fi/fantasy/horror vehicles, and the projects have been fun for me.  1/48 would generally be the closest common scale for these kits to 28mm, but there aren't many kits available in that scale.  1/72 and 1/35 are plentiful and divrse in subject matter, but can run "a bit" too small for one, and a "a bit" too large for the other - you can still "sci-fi them up" with some creativity, keeping the difference in scale in mind:  you'll probably want to disguise the source model as much as possible, and modify things like doors, hatches, driver's seats, guns, and stowage to match something a little closer to 28mm scale.

    Toy vehicles are another option, though you might have to spend quite a bit of time wandering toy aisles and toy stores looking for just the right sort of thing for your purpose.

    Scratch-built vehicles are also an option, if you're really inclined toward that sort of arts-and-crafts thing; Crayola "Model Magic" modeling compound might be a useful medium to work with, and Evergreen polystyrene sheets and rods are an excellent source of material to add details to such a project.  You can get a lot of mileage from bits looted from cheap 1/72 scale tank models, and 1/35 or other larger car and truck models for such scratch-built projects, especially things like tank tracks/treads, wheels, guns, and the like.

    Wargames Atlantic has begun dabbling in vehicles recently - "The Damned" faction will include a versatile sci-fi troop transport/cargo vehicle, and there are a few nice-looking Digital vehicles including WWI tanks and modern/post-apocalyptic "technicals".  Newer kits from the Wargames Atlantic "Quar" product line also include some charming mini-tanks that can surely be just as useful for Death Fields usage.

     

    I think that a "bolt-on bits" kit for scratch-built and kitbashed vehicles would be pretty useful, if Wargames Atlantic is willing to make one - include two or three 28mm off-road wheels/tires, a jerry-can and some other stowage, a matching set of doors/hatches, a sci-fi pintle guns, a few technical-looking but vague "greeblies" for periscope sites and headlights or whatever, a bucket seat, and other bits on a sprue, and sell two sprues to a box, and one box would be the minimum needed to flesh out a scratch-built vehicle chassis, for example.  Squeeze in a third frame with a tank turret, a pair of tank treads, and some additonal stowage, hatches, and so on, and you'll also have enough bits to flesh out a tank.  (In my vehicle scratch-building experience, these sorts of bits are the hardest to scratch-build convincingly!  The chassis and body are usually easier to manage.  These are usually also the bits that are the most trouble to work around when kitbashing scale model vehicles from a noticeably different scale....)

     

    As for the infantry figures, the "Death Fields Accessory Sprue" seemed to me to be on the right track, if a bit uneven in execution:  it's a great source of alternate bits for your Death Fields figures, which includes some bits that make great alternate rifles or SMGs, some bayonets, a couple pistols, and some gas-mask heads in a WWI German spiked helmet style.  The guns generally match the Cannon Fodder in style, the heads are best suited for historical figures, and together, they're a weird mashup to add onto any WGA historical kit, and also suitable for adding a little variety to any of the older WGA kits.  You really can't go wrong with plundering either of the Cannon Fodder kits for their weapons to add a little variety to any other Death Fields set - there are some heavy weapons, backpacks, rifles, and other gear in there that will work with pretty much any project, and the jumpsuited bodies could certainly be combined with any arms and heads to add some "mook" conscripts to any Death Fields faction.

    Wargames Atlantic's implementation of 'Iron Core' figures supplies a LOT of great sci-fi weaponry, with the guns separate from the arms/hands, which can be "bashed" onto Death Fields figures, or built into weapons racks on vehicles or whatever.  This is a great source of bits, and the figures will work as a Death Fields faction, too.  This is a great source of "20 minutes into the future" style sci-fi heavy weapon bits like grenade launchers, rocket launchers, sniper rifles, squad machine guns, and that sort of thing.

     

    You might also try grabbing a couple boxes of Stargrave figures - their crewmen, mercenary, and soldier boxes will supply a LOT of weapons/arms and heads that will generally work fine with Death Fields figures.  Stargrave's sculpting tends toward a shorter, stockier, softer "heroic" style proportion than most Wargames Atlantic figures, so these bits might not be a perfect fit for EVERY kitbashing project, but they're probably close enough to work when combined with e.g. the Grognards, Raumjager, or Einherjar, and probably the Cannon Fodder, Bulldogs, Damned, and Ooh-Rah too.

    A couple other things that you might want to check on would be the recently-released Wargames Atlantic Operators, Agents, and Survivors:  you won't find many heavy weapons there, but these kits are LOADED with great modern bits, such as SMGs, assault rifles, and handguns, which ought to work fine with Death Fields as well, especially if you soup them up a bit with some "greeblies" (like the scopes or bayonets from the Death Fields kits and/or Accessory Sprue, for example).  And, maybe the Reptilian Overlords "Spacenam" set, which seems to specialize in over-the-top heavy weapons.

     

    I wouldn't mind seeing some of WGA's older kits getting "modernized" some day with a wider variety of bitz, if WGA can do it economically enough to profit from.  Otherwise, I've always been a fan of that Death Fields Accessory Sprue, and wouldn't mind seeing more of those, focused on supplying amore well-rounded selection of matching bits for those older kits, such as a Grognards Accessory Sprue or whatever.

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  • timbus the thirteenth

    Oh believe me, my army's being kitbashed to truly absurd levels. I made this post less to talk about what's available widely, and more just to get people's thoughts on death fields specifically, since I've been thinking about it a lot lately. My current tanks are m3 grants from bolt action, which I strongly recommend for anyone else looking for kinda shitty dieselpunk tanks. However, since I feel like the infantry range is pretty fleshed out so far, I hope the range starts to expand more into both real weirdo options (like aliens) and expanded options for existing infantry kits.

    I'm aware of the new damned truck, but I'm quite frankly not a fan. Fortunately there's a bluesky preview for a heavy tank that I'm much more fond of.

    Also @Yronimos Whateley, since you seem to know a lot about different weird options, are there any kits out there with those kinds of round muzzle-style gas masks like in the picture below? I have a couple from marine kits but those are too big, and I want to make some chem-dogs using stargrave scavengers.

    Savlar Chem-Dogs | Warhammer 40k | FANDOM powered by Wikia
  • BV

    @timbus the thirteenth The issue with doing vehicales merely as conversion parts like turrets is you actually need tank kits that work with them and there isn't really any standarization in model tank kit land unlike gunpla (it would actually be an easier sell to make torso cockpit parts to convert gundam and gundam knockoff kits to heroic 28mm mechs😆).   Also historical scale kits tend to look a little off with heroics without lots of work just saying.

    As to chemdog masks, I would wait till the Damned Heavy Trooper sets are out, plenty of heads your wanting should be making the rounds at that point.

  • Yronimos Whateley

    The turrets probably aren't THAT big a problem:  I've transplanted turrets between tank kits lots of times, even mounting 1/72 scale turrets on 1/35 scale tank bodies and that sort of thing.  It's pretty easy to do, and I'm blind, cheap, clumsy, sloppy, and lazy.  I'd rate it an easy conversion to make from scratch-built materials - it would take me less than a half-hour with a mechanical pencil, an Xacto knife, a pin-vise, and some Evergreen styrene "plasticard", with most of my time spent watching TV, monitoring my work email, or listening to talk radio instead of actually crafting/modeling it.  Someone with an ounce of talent could do it much faster and neater, with better attention to detail.

    On a scale of 1 to 10 for conversion/kitbashing projects I've worked on, I'd rate it maybe a 2, maybe a 3 at the most difficult.

    A conversion kit that includes a square-ish panel with an appropriate opening to fit the turret into would cut most of that time and effort, and spare the military modeling hobby the destruction of a nice modeling kit.

    @timbus the thirteenth - I can't think of anything EXACTLY like that, but there might be a few options that run into similar territory in Stargrave kits - maybe the Scavengers and to a lesser extent the Automatons.  Between them, you'd find a lot of alien and zombie style head options that would loosely match that mutant-looking character somewhat, in various sorts of gas masks, goggles, bandages, hoods, and so on.  Weapon optons are vaguely similar to "space Kalashnikovs", with a sort of near-future/post-apocalyptic look to them.  The scavenger bodies tend toward long cloaks or coats.  The basic Stargrave concept is more old-school Star Wars (think Jawas, Tusken Raiders, bounty hunters, etc.) than post-apocalypse "S.T.A.L.K.E.R." territory, and would be "broad strokes" territory, and the sculpting is a little pudgy and cartoonish compared to WGA's, but they'd be close enough for my tastes - of course, YMMV.  


    "Scavengers II" (females)

    "Scavengers [I]" (males)


    "Automatons" - these are a sort of "zombie" kit, comparable to Star Trek "Borg" cyborg zombies, and generally distant from your reference art, but you might still be able to work with some of the head bits.

     

    The Wargames Atlantic "The Damned" faction for Death Fields isn't very far off in general concept either, and might be worth checking out whenever they finally release in the online shops (any time now?) - the gas mask style is not at all similar, but the concept is pretty post-apocalyptic, and would likely mix well with the Stargrave Scavengers.


    "The Damned", (male) infantry

     

    Those are the closest options I know of in hard plastic kits, with Stargrave and Wargames Atlantic being some of your stronger options.

    You might actually find something similar in some of WGA's WWI kits, believe it or not, though you might need to trim some hoses off, do a little work with a file, and kitbash home-made filter/rebreather bits into place.  The'd be helmets and goggles to go with the masks, so they wouldn't be very close at all to the reference art in that respect, but maybe that would be a feature instead of a bug for your project.  The WGA WWI Russians and Germans might be your best candidates, in that case.  The German-style heads from the WGA "Death Fields Accessory Sprue" might be another option of this sort:  I've trimmed the hoses off those, filed them down a bit, and attached slices of styrene rod for "puck" filters where the hoses would have fit, for "The Last War" and other weird world war use.  Thinner styrene rod bits might be used for hoses insead.

    I'm not a fan of Games Workshop, but they might have something somewhere in their catalogue that matches what you're looking for closer than anything else; could be some space/chaos cult sort of thing would be right on target?  Mantic could be a "dark horse" source of what you're looking for, but what I've seen of their sci-fi kits don't look especially gritty and post-apocalyptic/used-future; you might take a look through their "Deadzone" or "Firefight" products to see if there's anything there that might be roughted up and given a post-apocalyptic makeover with some clever mutant-style painting techniques.

    And you might find something MUCH closer in 3D-printed, metal, or other such options, but I'd be the wrong person to ask about those!

     

    Oh, one thing I forgot about is Archon Studios, whose "Dungeons & Lasers" and "Rampart" products have some interesting sci-fi bits and models to work with.  See their Rampart "City Defenders" set for some unique hard plastic sci-fi figures, and some "big gun" style weaponry, and the "Sci-fi Customization Bits" set that might include a few "sentry guns" and the like, along with some other general sci-fi props and bits for terrain use.

    "Rampart City Defenders" big guns.  (Note that the soldier figures are in a fixed pose, the head and arm bits generally not compatible with anything else, and the soldier figures do not lend themselves easily to kitbashing.  They look great alongside Wargames Atlantic figures, though, and these heavy weapons are great little models for sci-fi gaming!)

     

    I woulnd't mind seeing WGA flesh out the Death Fields line a little more with cavalry, heavy weapons, and command/support (among other) figures - thanks to a complicated (and apparently difficult) crowdfunding campaign, "The Damned" is so far the most thoroughly fleshed-out faction, with vechicles, artillary, heavy weapons, both light and heavy infantry, a command/support set, cavalry, ogre "brutes", and even some beast-men mutants - only the Grognards and Cannon Fodder come close to this, and they're distant seconds (I think the Rebel Yell faction might have a couple options in digital only, but still in distant second/third territory!)  I expect the variety seen for "The Damned" is what WGA would like to do for all the factions if they can, though they don't seem enthusiastic about trying the crowd-funding route again soon! 

    I'll add that horse and other animal cavalry is the obvious choice for cavalry options, but motorcyles and other small vechicles would also fit this niche, and there are a few factions where such vehicles would be a great fit.  And I'd be fine with packs of generic heavy weapons that aren't specific to any particular faction - the Grognard heavy weapons would surely be useful as "big guns" for a variety of factions - only the crew figures really mark it as a Grognard kit!

  • BV

    @Yronimos Whateley Given comments I think Hudson/Tony is burned out crowdfunds forever with good reason. 

    Honestly I think they should do things like bikes, cavalry, specalists, vehicals ,etc. as Free Agents from here on out as far as actual plastics go.

    Also I think you need to be enlightend that the hobby skills you have honed over the decades are well above average since no the turrets can be that big a problem if you don't know what your doing and I am pretty sure on the manufacturing side having an exact kit in mind for conversion would make this more viable, and while I have seen it done elsewhere most of it has been in resin or metal either for kits the manufacturer themselves made or with GW kits in mind normally as far as wargame ones go and for scale model parts same deal except the 3rd party parts are from very small garage manufacturers for very specific kits likeTamiya's Sherman. The big  exception to this is Gunpla kits which are almost like legos when it comes to the basic body parts and they have a number. standardized parts across kits.

    Edit: Oh, and the Damned heavy troopers once they are out really should have a near match headswap to the chemdog gasmask look.

  • M

    I don't think that a conversion kit for non-WGA vehicle models would sell all that well. That said, you could easily do a WGA vehicle kit that includes two or more ways of building a tank.. one with with turret and one without. (Think like the italeri kit for bolt action which can do both the turreted carro armato 13/40 and the turret less Semovente 75/18, depending on which upper hull you use) Or which has a choice of turret options (like you'd get for an M3 Lee/Grant kit, or in the Rubicom Amtank kit which has turrets for both the turret off the M3 stuart and the howitzer turret off the M8 Scott's), thus letting you use the extra for conversions.

  • timbus the thirteenth

    @Yronimos Whateley yeah, as it turns out the damned heavy infantry have the exact head i'm looking for! with the scavvies as a base, i should be set. thanks for the help.

    generally i agree that generic vehicle upgrades probably wouldn't work out great, but spare turrets and the like would be great. the mauler that's coming with the damned is a lovely looking kits, and it has both a covered and uncovered version. stuff like that goes a long way towards building up a good bits box.

    generally i'm glad they're not doing crowdfunding anymore, since it's gonna be weird when a whole army just drops at once. some of the kits have been ready for a while now, and i feel like it's screwing up the release schedule!

  • BV

    @Mithril2098 Most of the WW2 model vehical kits out there have 2+ ways of building them, that is probably the way things will work.

     

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