Fast and dirty crowds.

Pete S/ SP

On a whim I bought some railway modellers’ pre painted OO scale civilians from ebay; they were very cheap and I’d seen someone use the O scale ones well on Lead Adventure forum. When I got them they were worse than I expected if I’m being trueful but decided to base up a few any way and see how they looked.

DSCN1468

Firstly I textured some ply hex bases with homemade textured paint. I glued the figures on, gave them a heavy all over wash of Army Painter, drybrushed the base and then hit them with some matt varnish.

If you look at an individual stand you can tell how awful they are.

DSCN1470

That said I think the mass effect works and they should be useful for some modern city based games. When the rest of the packet of a hundred are done it should make quite a crows.. The same ebay seller has civilians in arab dress so I may pick up a packet of those too.

DSCN1469

Cheers,

Pete.

20mm, pics

Sep 27, 2018 8:31 PM

justneedsvarnish

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September 27, 2018

Good idea using these! Look good enough masse. Sadly, some have got way better dress sense than me!

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1. Pete S/ SP
  
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  September 28, 2018
  
  Thanks. I did think of repainting some to get rid of the more ‘unusual’ colour combinations but I decided the effort wouldn’t be worth it.
  
  Cheers,
  
  Pete.
  
  Reply
brtrain

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September 27, 2018

These look better than the cheap ones I found in a strange store I wandered into in Seattle once. They were badly cast in a weird flesh coloured plastic but had better poses, since they were called “Disaster People”: small children running hand-in-hand from an unseen threat, a Granny raising her cane, a confused policeman with drawn pistol, a woman standing with her head in her hands… unfortunately only a dozen were available so it’s a small but frightened crowd.

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1. Pete S/ SP
  
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  September 28, 2018
  
  Sounds like apromising set- I’d have probably cleraned out the store of them only get home and then struggle as to how to work them into a game.
  
  Cheers,
  
  Pete.
  
  Reply
Mark A. Morin

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September 27, 2018

People as terrain! Works for me. I do like the basing and as NPC types would work fine. I like the thinking out of the box!

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1. Pete S/ SP
  
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  September 28, 2018
  
  Thanks Mark. I’ve got a set of riot rules that I want to try them out with soon.
  
  Cheers,
  
  Pete.
  
  Reply
Colonel Mustard

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September 28, 2018

Nice job Pete. I bought some unpainted ones like this for pennies for a Northern Ireland cold war project I have never got round to yet. In a big group I reckon it does the job! I even thought about giving them an abstract single colour and use different colours to depict different crowd states ie red for aggressive, green for passive etc etc. That would save me trying to paint individuals…….

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1. Pete S/ SP
  
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  September 28, 2018
  
  Thanks Col. Mustard. I too plan a NI game but haven’t got round to it yet. The colour codes crowds are a great idea, quick to do and clear as to what they are on the table.
  
  Cheers,
  
  Pete.
  
  Reply
theimperfectmodeller

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September 28, 2018

Agree with the others Pete, enmasse I think they work pretty well.

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1. Pete S/ SP
  
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  October 1, 2018
  
  Thanks for that. Will do a few more bases as I have the figures spare.
  
  Cheers,
  
  Pete.
  
  Reply
Stephen Renwick

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September 28, 2018

They work well together, and to be honest they are much better than the base with the word crowd on it 👍

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1. Pete S/ SP
  
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  October 1, 2018
  
  Thanks Stephen- I’m all in favour of clear counters though, they have their place.
  
  Cheers,
  
  Pete.
  
  Reply
greysteelknight

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September 30, 2018

Hi my friend Great Idea:) I used those same guys but z scale for Battle tech crowds I also got some Nscale guys as WW2 Refugees they had some nice ones with Suitcases etc… made a few Carts for N scale 10- 12mm WW2 I did repaint most of them sadly they looked right crazy But the OScale don’t look to bad:) I’m going to try them for my sons Zombie game. Take care my friend.
Dave in USA

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1. Pete S/ SP
  
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  October 1, 2018
  
  He Dave- thanks. They’d have looked great with the mechs towering over them. I like to throw civilians into modern games to give players something to think about.
  
  Cheers,
  
  Pete.
  
  Reply
Faust

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October 11, 2018

Look pretty nice to me. Would go really well on a sidewalk sort of base, as they look sort of like an urban crowd to me.

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1. Pete S/ SP
  
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  October 11, 2018
  
  Yeah I think you are right with that. I’ve some textured plasticard that I’ll use for the next lot I think.
  
  Cheers,
  
  Pete.
  
  Reply
imperialrebelork

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October 14, 2018

Haha they’re cool! Sorry I’ve missed some of your posts mate. Catching up now.

Reply
1. Pete S/ SP
  
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  October 16, 2018
  
  Thanks. They are great table fillers.
  
  Cheers,
  
  Pete.
  
  Reply