Why
Miniatures from the companies Brigade Models and Ground Zero Games were the first 6mm sci-fi miniatures that I have found out. It took some time and after many hours of browsing on their sites, I decided to actually place an order to buy some miniatures. Again, it took a lot, especially for the Ground Zero Games, since on their site many of the miniatures do not have images. You buy blindly, if you do not take time before to search for info and images about their miniatures., but the effort was quite well rewarded when miniatures arrived. And for me, but also for the community of 6mm sci-fi painters and collectors I have decided to start collecting, painting and photographing the miniatures of Ground Zero Games. I then assembled a blog, this blog, also for other reasons regarding the painting hobby as a whole (painting in different scales and measures, trying different techniques, trying to keep up with painting challenges - errors, time concerns and so on, but most of all relaxing and enjoying everything I do). Ground Zero Games (GZG) has many ranges of miniatures, but I decided to focus on 6mm, Dirtside and Future Wars (bought some time ago by GZG from CMD), Germy's Micro Minis and 15mm ranges of miniatures, the last two of them with some of the miniatures that work well with 6mm miniatures. Now, truth be told, I wanted to collect only DirtSide, but the miniatures captivated me and little by little I was discovering the whole range of minis.
It took some years to collect and paint the Ground Zero Games, but here there are. So, humble I present you: Ground Zero Games Images Gallery of Miniatures and a Review based on my experience with preparing and painting them.
How
The miniatures come unpainted and require some preparation (removing
little flesh, washing) and assemble (easy with superglue and if something does not stick fast or well, use first a little green stuff to make the ”cunning” pieces hold like wished). Black primer
from Vallejo was applied and some coats of paints followed. I have used many Vallejo colors during this period of collecting these miniatures, many painting schemes, camo and other effects, as this same period is one in which I have learned to actually paint miniatures, especially 6mm miniatures, error by error, success by success. And ”success” here is at least according to my tastes of the time, as I have improved a lot and fast, but still I have a long, long way to something good.
Results
Under each photo, that can be enlarged so you can observe the details
more easily, there is the name of the painted
miniature and a
link that leads you to further images if you are more interested in a
respective miniatures. For each miniature I have taken
photos from different angles. You can
you use the search function to
find out more easily something in particular.
Another note regarding painting, complementing those from the ”How” section: sometimes, I did not have a lot of time, but still I decided to paint the miniatures with the ”solemn” promise that I will revisit them, which for most of them I did, for others, I did not, as they are part of me and my road to learn to paint and I can live with what I have achieved. I want to buy some of the same miniatures and to do a better paint job on the new ones. Still, there is a lot to paint and a lot painted.
I did not count them one by one, but for sure there are more than 100 painted miniatures from the 4 covered ranges.
Another note regarding painting, complementing those from the ”How” section: sometimes, I did not have a lot of time, but still I decided to paint the miniatures with the ”solemn” promise that I will revisit them, which for most of them I did, for others, I did not, as they are part of me and my road to learn to paint and I can live with what I have achieved. I want to buy some of the same miniatures and to do a better paint job on the new ones. Still, there is a lot to paint and a lot painted.
I did not count them one by one, but for sure there are more than 100 painted miniatures from the 4 covered ranges.
Review
Most of the miniatures painted come from Future Wars (70+), Dirtside, and a few from Germy's and 15mm. I would also try to buy new miniatures from the latter two ranges in the near future. There are many vehicles (armoured personnel carriers and other transport vehicles, armoured fighting vehicles, engineering vehicles, civilian vehicles, cycles, walker, drones, robots, skimmers), powered by different capabilities (grav, gev, wheels, track, hover), but also drop ship, aircraft, pods and VTOL, sea vehicles, infantry and power armor, weapons to modify vehicles and so on. Some modifications were done to some vehicles like Gladiator, Virnazh or Light Hover Jeep for which a nut was glued at the bottom so in this way I achieved the representation of hover/grav effect. Weapons they carry are also very diversified, from machine guns, guns, assault guns, artillery, anti-aircraft guns to laser, plasma or other alien tech types, and accordingly so are the miniatures'roles on the wargame battlefield.
There are many factions/civilizations that are represented with these miniatures, taken from the universes of Future Wars and Dirtside. There are the human and alien civilizations.
Human civilizations/factions are: NAC, NSL, FSE, Islamic Federation, UNSC, Israeli, ESU, Japanese.
The aliens are comprised of: Phalon, Sa'Vasku, Kra'Vak, Xenomorphs (aka Alien), Bounty Hunter (aka Predator). More on the sci-fi background and about these factions/civilizations can be found out on the rules section of the GZG's site.
Did I mentioned the rules are very good? Yes, yes they are. In fact, so good that they are among the preferences of many wargamers even nowadays, close to 30 years later (1993 is the year of DirtSide 2 game). DirtSide is fully compatible with StarGrunt (for minis 20-25mm, more detailed level of wargame, if DirtSide is a wargame especially for vehicles combat, StarGrunt is more focused on infantry combat) and Full Thrust (the wargame of spaceships, and a proud forefather to many of the today wargames - I'm looking at you X-Wing!). The rules for GZG's games are available for free. This is another good thing about GZG. In these rules (Full Thrust, DirtSide, StarGrunt) you can find more info about the universe that inspired the miniatures. And did I mentioned that these free rules are some of the best wargames rules on the market? No? Ask the community on the net or check yourself! GZG is not the only one to actually do this, Scotia Grendel does it too.
There are many factions/civilizations that are represented with these miniatures, taken from the universes of Future Wars and Dirtside. There are the human and alien civilizations.
Human civilizations/factions are: NAC, NSL, FSE, Islamic Federation, UNSC, Israeli, ESU, Japanese.
The aliens are comprised of: Phalon, Sa'Vasku, Kra'Vak, Xenomorphs (aka Alien), Bounty Hunter (aka Predator). More on the sci-fi background and about these factions/civilizations can be found out on the rules section of the GZG's site.
Did I mentioned the rules are very good? Yes, yes they are. In fact, so good that they are among the preferences of many wargamers even nowadays, close to 30 years later (1993 is the year of DirtSide 2 game). DirtSide is fully compatible with StarGrunt (for minis 20-25mm, more detailed level of wargame, if DirtSide is a wargame especially for vehicles combat, StarGrunt is more focused on infantry combat) and Full Thrust (the wargame of spaceships, and a proud forefather to many of the today wargames - I'm looking at you X-Wing!). The rules for GZG's games are available for free. This is another good thing about GZG. In these rules (Full Thrust, DirtSide, StarGrunt) you can find more info about the universe that inspired the miniatures. And did I mentioned that these free rules are some of the best wargames rules on the market? No? Ask the community on the net or check yourself! GZG is not the only one to actually do this, Scotia Grendel does it too.
Many miniatures are stars on their own, meaning they are so well designed, or the idea of making them is so good, that for sure you will remember them and from where you got them (big plus for GZG). Examples are required: the shocking 12-wheels Mammoth, the iconic Boxcar VTOL, Ultra Heavy Tank Talos, Heavy Bridgelayer on Talos tracked chassis or the Hemtt Heavy Articulated Transporter. It is hard to stop this enumeration (what about tactical interface transport? Or Paladin? Or Phalon vehicles? but you were warned...
The miniatures representing infantry are some of the best on the market. Fast to paint (little cleaning needed) and they can be painted with very good results. No matter, you still need steel nerves, with these 6mm little fellas, but at least you can come up with interesting results.
As for cleaning mentioned earlier, some of the miniatures required a little bit more work like the Heavy Bridgelayer, VTOLs, Phalanx (wheels fixing), some vehicles need a careful gun fixing (they stay bent down when placed on the chassis - I did not did a good job on some minis). Many of the miniatures can be modified, even GZG has options in this regard, when they offer you different weapons and engineering tools (I have modified some miniatures even with bits and pieces from other producers).
VTOL miniatures are another strong point of the miniatures from GZG, as there are 12 types of miniatures you can choose from, even alien VTOL (Ko'Iv and Ko'Ta).
Many miniatures are part of a chassis type (Mamba, Wolf, Nova, Puma, Deimos and so on and so forth). When compared to other miniatures, we can found that most of miniatures from GZG are true to 6mm, if this true can be really achievable, but let us just say, they are in scale/measure (6mm is not a scale is a measure, but 1:285 or 1:300 is) with other miniatures from other producers and also with other miniatures from GZG's (when you have 100+ miniatures, this is an achievement on its own).
Also, the existence of some types of miniatures, depending on the role they have on the battlefield or on their type in themselves (civilian vehicles), are another plus to GZG: riverine boats, many different VTOL - at GZG there is the best diversity I have seen, many vehicles for different factions, but here there are also many improvements that can be made. Related to this latter aspect, I do not know if any of the 6mm ranges are still in the focus for GZG development, as 15mm range of miniatures is now the queen for them. The 6mm ranges need to be developed a little more, as there is always room for improvements (more aliens needed, and minis for each civilization from the rules). Still, what we have is enough to keep you and me occupied for years.
A big problem of the GZG webshop is that it does not have all photos for the miniatures, let alone a painted example for each of them. Sometimes you buy something which you can only guess from the title and money it is priced for. But this changes now. Also, the miniatures that I have painted are, this is self-understood, just simple examples (I will remake some of the paintings, do not judge the miniatures by my painting skills, but at least we now have a clear image (pun intended) of miniatures available), not original or GZG ”approved”, and is in no way, as no review on this blog, a paid review.
The miniatures representing infantry are some of the best on the market. Fast to paint (little cleaning needed) and they can be painted with very good results. No matter, you still need steel nerves, with these 6mm little fellas, but at least you can come up with interesting results.
As for cleaning mentioned earlier, some of the miniatures required a little bit more work like the Heavy Bridgelayer, VTOLs, Phalanx (wheels fixing), some vehicles need a careful gun fixing (they stay bent down when placed on the chassis - I did not did a good job on some minis). Many of the miniatures can be modified, even GZG has options in this regard, when they offer you different weapons and engineering tools (I have modified some miniatures even with bits and pieces from other producers).
VTOL miniatures are another strong point of the miniatures from GZG, as there are 12 types of miniatures you can choose from, even alien VTOL (Ko'Iv and Ko'Ta).
Many miniatures are part of a chassis type (Mamba, Wolf, Nova, Puma, Deimos and so on and so forth). When compared to other miniatures, we can found that most of miniatures from GZG are true to 6mm, if this true can be really achievable, but let us just say, they are in scale/measure (6mm is not a scale is a measure, but 1:285 or 1:300 is) with other miniatures from other producers and also with other miniatures from GZG's (when you have 100+ miniatures, this is an achievement on its own).
Also, the existence of some types of miniatures, depending on the role they have on the battlefield or on their type in themselves (civilian vehicles), are another plus to GZG: riverine boats, many different VTOL - at GZG there is the best diversity I have seen, many vehicles for different factions, but here there are also many improvements that can be made. Related to this latter aspect, I do not know if any of the 6mm ranges are still in the focus for GZG development, as 15mm range of miniatures is now the queen for them. The 6mm ranges need to be developed a little more, as there is always room for improvements (more aliens needed, and minis for each civilization from the rules). Still, what we have is enough to keep you and me occupied for years.
A big problem of the GZG webshop is that it does not have all photos for the miniatures, let alone a painted example for each of them. Sometimes you buy something which you can only guess from the title and money it is priced for. But this changes now. Also, the miniatures that I have painted are, this is self-understood, just simple examples (I will remake some of the paintings, do not judge the miniatures by my painting skills, but at least we now have a clear image (pun intended) of miniatures available), not original or GZG ”approved”, and is in no way, as no review on this blog, a paid review.
Bottom line, Ground Zero Games has some of the most incredible 6mm sci-fi miniatures on the market. It took me years to collect and paint their miniatures, but I am happy that I have succeeded. Good services (thank you Jon and your team!) at GZG and good miniatures.
And now we have the following gallery, made for me and you, the community of hobbysts, granting access to images of GZG's miniatures, and yeah, we can now unleash our creative skills having all the info needed!
And now we have the following gallery, made for me and you, the community of hobbysts, granting access to images of GZG's miniatures, and yeah, we can now unleash our creative skills having all the info needed!
Feedback
Hope you like it, hope you share it with many friends and leave a comment or two!
Click on the links to access the galleries of the ranges of miniatures, totalling 100+ miniatures and hundreds of corresponding images.
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Thanks for doing this, I have a ton of GZG too but they're still unpainted! It was definitely a leap to buy a lot of them sight unseen or using on a photo of their table from a convention as a guide.
ReplyDeleteGlad you like it and yes, I know the feeling!
ReplyDeleteTremendously useful! I used the spider drones and flying drones as a 6mm AI army. I agree that the GZG stuff is awesome, many of the older sculpts still hold their own today
ReplyDeleteThanks, grumbeast! Totally agree, GZG's miniatures are still sci-fi even after decades since they were made. You just gave me an idea and I will also muster some of my AI troops from different manufacturers to play a nice wargame scenario.
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