ARMORED TROOPER
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1/48 SCALE ACTIC GEAR FIGURES

For our most recent campaign, I made the jump from 1/60 scale figures (a bit too small to go with our 28mm foot solldiers and scenery) to 1/48 scale.  The Takara Tomy Actic Gear toy line costs more than Gashapon figures, but they have amazing detail, articulation, and accessories.   Of course, we modified, customized, repainted and weathered our figures to really make the most of them!

For these larger figures, I didn't want to glue them to bases, so instead, I drilled holes in the bottom of the feet and glued rare earth magnets into them, then made some sheet steel plates that just snap onto the magnets!  This trick also allowed me to put metal plates onto support vehicles and even terrain to make sure the very dynamic (and fiddly) Actic Gear figures could stand up to our dynamic action- literally!


SCOPEDOG, BERSERGA, MARSHYDOG

One of the concerns I had initially with the Actic Gear figures was the size of the Scopedogs.  Compared to other ATs in the series, they seemed... small.   But there were so many variants available, I didn't want to rescale them or try to substitute other figures.  Instead, we embraced the size and gave Scopedogs plenty of speed and agility but not a whole lot of strength or armor.  This made piloting them a lot more risky- er, exciting!  

To weather the ATs, I started with a spray flat coat to take the plastic shine off, then gave them a grungy dark brown wash in all the crevices, and used a Silver Sharpie marker to give the edges a chipped look.
The Pilot figure on the left is a Mantic figure, converted and painted to look like an AT Pilot suit.  The center pilot figure actually came with one of the Actic Gear toys, I just painted him up with some acrylics and an enamel wash.

DIVING BEETLES AND STANDING TORTOISE

The Actic Gear Heavy ATs are more expensive than your average Scopedog, but I justified the purchase by getting sets that included AT Fly helicopters and other units.  They look incredible when weathered up! 

For weapons, the missile launcher (left) is actually from a 1/60 scale Standing Tortoise model kit, it was so big already it looked fine in the hands of an Actic Gear figure.  The Rocket Pod (center) comes with the Standing Tortoise figure, what a great over the top weapon for them to include!  And the Diving Beetles come with a Hand Flamethrower (right), so we have lots of weapon variety for our RPG campaign.


WILD OX,  MACHINE TROOPER


For more unit variety, I wanted to include some older model ATs and even an MT or Machine Trooper- predating even the first AT!      These older units would still be in service for patrol and labor jobs where more advanced ATs weren't needed.  Much as I would love to have a Clever Camel or some other established design, there are precious few models available at this scale for older units.  The Machine Trooper is a modified Dust Tactics KV-47 walker figure, which had just the right amount of clunkiness to pass as an MT.

The ATM-07-ST Wild Ox is my own invention.   To make the figures, I started with the One Coin Series 2 bonus figure, the Rising Tortoise.  I heavily modified the legs, mostly by removing bits, and replaced the head with ones taken from the 1/60 scale Strike Dog kit, with lenses taken from Gashapon Diving Beetle figures.  Then the whole thing got a repaint in dark green, and heavily weathered.  The Wild Ox on the left features a Mining Grinder accessory arm (stolen from a Mechwarrior figure), which was used to great effect by one of our PCs.

ZWERGS

One of these figures originally came with the Actic Gear Rabidlydog figure, which is rather pricey, so I opted to buy this set of 3 that came out later.  Not as articulated as other Actic Gears, they are still sturdy and well detailed figures nonetheless.  They don't normally come with the Sand Roaders by the way...  I took Sand Roaders from the 1/60 scale model kit and stretched them out to be long enough to fit Actic Gears.  I also added metal plates to them, so they would stick right onto the magnetized feet of my Actic Gears.  The front bar on these figures was super fragile, I broke TWO of them, and replaced them with some bent wire instead.

FATTY DT (A type)  AND SPACE FATTY

At some point, Hobbylink Japan had a sale and cleared out a bunch of their Actic Gear backlog.  I missed most of the sale, but my friend and I managed to get a BUNCH of space type Fattys even before I decided to collect Actic Gears.
To make the Space Type useable in our terrestrial games, I fitted two of them with those extended Sand Roaders mentioned for the Zwergs above).   The Ground Type (tan) Fatty figure is quite a lot nicer than the Space Type figure, and comes in two styles, but definitely costs more than the space type.   I managed to pick up both types, which gave me a good variety of weapons to work with.

FATTY DT (B type)  AND  FATTY DT CONVERSIONS

To expand my Balarant ground forces, I made two Ground Type conversions from my Space Type Fatties.   Above, the left and right are conversions, the middle is an original B type DT.


To convert my DTs, I cut the heels off the back of the feet, cut back the lower sides of the legs, and mounted the heel pieces onto the calves to emulate the bulges on the offiical DT.  Then I used wheels off of Machbox trucks  as the rollerdash wheels.  Then I used the spare weapons from the B type, and made custom backpacks from the Rising Tortoise One Coin figures combined with some old Gundam figure packs.  The double missile pods are taken from the 1/60 Standing Tortoise model kit.

BLACK DOGS

I needed some distinct AT figures for my Bandits that were distinctively Gilgamesh designs but not just another scopedog.  These are One Coin Shadowflare figures, made bigger by inserting a spacer in between the upper and lower torso.  This makes them big enough to pass as 1/48 Medium ATs, since the Shadowflare is so big.  The 12 shot missile pod is made from a wire connector.  The Bandit figures are from Games Workshop's Necromunda line.

It's worth noting, there are now really nice Blue Knight 1/48 "Super Mini Pla" model kits available, including one for the Shadowflare.  Had our campaign continued even longer, and had I money I didn't know what to do with, I'm sure I would have bought some.

REDSHOULDER CUSTOM, DASHY DOG, BRUTISHDOG

These figures featured in our Real Battle and Dashball games.  Dashball is, of course, a Rollerball inspired sport played with ATs.  The Dashydog (middle) is a Calamitydog One Coin figure, repainted in green.   The Brutishdog is also a repaint, inspired by one of the really cool color variant Marmit figures.  Marmit Scopedog figures are too small to work at 1/48 scale, but are nice looking  (and have hilarious packaging).


PURPLE BEAR, SCOPEDOG TURBOCUSTOM

Takara Tomy made a limited number of "Actic Gear NEXT" figures, with ludicrous amounts of parts, options, and details, and a hefty price tag to go with.  Only my love for quirky AT variants like the Purple Bear drove me to get one, and I put it together, weathered it, and used it in our Battling Ring games.  The Turbocustom is way nicer than the standard Scopedog, and comes with a TON of weapons accessories.   There are numerous ways to get a Turbo Custom figure, including buying the BIG CARRY truck and the BLOODSUCKER AT set.  Of course I had to get a complete set of 4 of them to recreate the Last Red Shoulder OVA...

LAST RED SHOULDER TURBO CUSTOMS


 FINAL PC ATS FOR OUR CAMPAIGN

For our final games, I equipped the Brutishdog (left) with a Turbocustom weapons system.  The center Turbocustom has a Solid Shooter taken from a Takara Kaiyodo KT figure, because the Actic Gear one is tragically undersized.


BLOODSUCKERS

The Bloodsucker is my all time favorite AT design, and the main reason I committed to the Actic Gear scale of figures for our last campaign!  I wanted enough to make a formidable force of baddies for our final game, so I ended up buying two sets of these (which also supplied me with two more Turbocustoms).  To make each unit distinct, I gave them slightly different weapons.  The Solid Shooter (left) was taken from a Shadowflare onecoin figure, as was the 's 3 shot missile pod (center left) and the Iron Claw (center right).  The Flamethrower (right) was taken from one of the Diving Beetle figures, with a fuel tank on the back (a repurposed Marshydog pontoon).

Below are some closeup shots of the commander unit, showing off the weathering and detail.


Check out our 1/48 Support Vehicles here!

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