“It Takes More Than A Sceptre To Rule, Xur...”

“…Even on Rylos.”

This 28mm scale metal miniature of an alien invader is produced by “Tangent Miniatures” as code TN23 The Enemy Commander from their Space Warriors range, and consists of a single cast figure. The model makes an excellent proxy for the evil Lord Kril from Nick Castle’s 1984 American space opera film “The Last Starfighter”.

The Kodan was primed using a double-helping of “Vallejo” Heavy Red, shaded using some “Citadel” Carroburg Crimson and dry-brushed with (more) “Vallejo” Heavy Red. I then picked out the extra-terrestrial’s boots, helmet, belt and the front of his officer’s tunic with “Citadel” Abaddon Black. To be honest, I wasn’t too sure about the footwear being non-red, but went with the colour as it made the Armada’s leader stand out a bit more, and matched the colours used on the movie’s never released line of action figures.

The Germans and Americans battle across a stretch of water and an area of woodland

For Lord Kril’s final steps I applied a combination of “Vallejo” Gunmetal” and “Citadel” Nuln Oil to his somewhat elaborate-looking belt buckles, as a little “Vallejo” Heavy Sienna to the alien commander’s lower face. This area was later treated to a splash of Strong Tone Quickshade by “The Army Painter”. Lastly, I went back and re-pigmented the veteran warrior’s retinal tactical screen with a bit more “Vallejo” Heavy Red and “Citadel” Carroburg Crimson.

Stepping away from painting, I have managed to get a couple of ‘quick’ games of “Flames Of War” in recently, simply to see just how the World War Two rule-set by “Battlefront Miniatures” works for infantry. We only used the “Hit The Beach” Starter Set Quick Start Core Rules, and ignored any formation rules to allow us to pitch several 15mm teams (stands) of German Panzergrenadiers against an American Parachute Rifle platoon.

Despite some fierce hand-to-hand fighting by the Panzergrenadiers, the Americans win the day

The first game was set up across some un-traversable water, a small piece of rough terrain and an area of woodland, and was designed for us to try out the different effective ranges of our various weapons. Needless to say, I was rather pleased with the high number of dice potentially rolled by my MG34 teams, especially when they hadn’t moved. However, that didn’t save my Germans from eventually failing their motivation roll and fleeing the battlefield following a series of poor saving throws.

Disappointingly, my Panzergrenadiers continued to perform poorly under fire throughout our second skirmish, albeit we did manage to work through the rule-set’s very bloody Assault phase with a few units. Of particular note was a scrap just outside some woods, which almost resulted in a German win when a Panzerschreck anti-tank team successfully defensively fired into the face of some oncoming American paratroopers. However, the damn Yanks dodged the formidable discharge and somewhat shortly afterwards victoriously forced my forces from the field again.