Mini No. 20

I have been waiting for this one, the soldiers, because I wanted to paint them in the traditional N7 armor. Score! XCOM comes with 4 different types of soldiers Snipers, Heavy, Assault and Support.

They are this gray, flexible plastic. Some of the minis came broken, but I immediately contacted the company and they just mailed me some more for free. I started off with priming them all in black first, since the armor is black anyways and it saves me a set. There are 12 soldiers in total, three of each type. Disclaimer, I will be jumping back and forth between different types of soldiers here and there are some are better examples than others.

I tried some light highlighting on the minis, but black is so difficult to work with that it was either going to take for ever and be super subtle, or I could try a little rough dry brushing on them and have that be it. I opted the dry brushing route.

Then the fun part! The classing N7 Stripe down the side of the arm! This look a steady hand but was actually quite easy. First I added the wider white stripe and then a narrow red stripe in the centre.

Next I added a medium dark silver to all the weapons to make them pop out from the figures more. A black wash and a bright silver highlight gave them a bunch more dimension too!

Then it was time to add skin and hair. I wanted to try really hard to have three different skin tones and three different hair colours represented here. I mixed them up between the models and types.

Lastly, for the game play of XCOM it is important to be able to quickly discern the types of minis from each other quickly. So it was important to me to have each type of soldier on a unique base and colour.

Snipers are on very grassy bases. Their bases are blue.

Heavy soldiers were on rocky terrain with dried brush and grass. Their bases are red.

Assault is on a gravel path with grass at either side. Their bases are yellow.

Finally, Support soldiers are on dirt with green bushes. Their bases are green.

Finally, the game is all painted up and I can enjoy playing my favorite board game with my favorite video game theme!

Its so beautiful!

XCOM Cerberus UFOs – HERE

XCOM Normandy Interceptors – HERE