Incursion – Weird War II
/
Board Games – Wolfenstein 3D was a big deal when I was a kid, as I’m sure it was for anyone reading this. The first real First Person Shooter it was pretty amazing at the time. Of course then came Doom and Quake and the plethora of of FPS games and now you have millions of people screaming at each other online about some kid sniping them. Ok so maybe I want to rethink that nostalgia train.
The other thing Wolfenstein did that is introduce Weird War II as a genre to a new generation. The History Channel tells us that it’s very possible that if a few things went a little differently we could be living in a very different world and that the Nazis were in fact delving into the supernatural.
A recent kickstarter for a cooperative board game set in the Wolfenstein universe sent me down a rabbit hole. (It looks like you can still late pledge for this as well.) First up, I tracked down a cheap used copy of Wolfenstein II for the Nintendo Switch. I haven’t got very far as I was never really good at these type of game but I’m getting a little better. I can squeeze in maybe 30 minutes at a time after everyone goes to bed so it’ll probably take me forever to get through the game.
While I was organizing my cabinet I found all the metal models for Incursion. This was a really cool Space Hulk-esque game featuring Diesel-powered Marines and Nazi Zombies. The game has a great back-story, good mechanics and a nice range of models. I guess there was a kickstarter several years ago to publish a new version of the game with plastic models. Although it sounds like the final product was great it’s nearly impossible to find as the trials and tribulations of completing the project seem to have driven the creator out of the business. Which is a real shame because they have a great property that should have been a gold-mine for them.
Anyway several years ago Grindhouse Games had a special sale to clear out some stock and I was able to pick up the game for $12 or something like that. The deal was so great that they sold out immediately and triggered some grouchy forum trolls. I got my copy and played through several of the missions using the standees. They were fun enough that I eventually tracked down the metal models. Shortly after I acquired the metal models a Kickstarter campaign for a new version dropped, which was unfortunately, right about the time I lost interest in kickstarter. Massive delays from almost every project I backed and several companies delivering not-so-good products, cashing in on the crowd funding trend; scared me away from back anything. After assembling half the models I had, something else must have caught my interest because these were shelved without having any paint applied.
In an effort to scratch my Weird War II itch, I took a break from my current load of commissions to paint these guys up. These models are really characterful and fun to paint. This type of metal model has a chunkiness that you don’t get with many of the modern plastics. I used milliput to sculpt a base for each model to match up with the concrete tiles on the game board. This took me back as I can’t remember the last time I actually did sculpting on bases. Granted it’s really basic and I probably could have done a better job flattening the tiles, but the effect is slightly cartoony and matches the look of the board.
Painting the Germans was pretty fun, I started with a really dark gray base color which I washed with Corelia Greenshade, the resulting effect seems really close to that weird green/black that is used in German uniforms. The zombies are relatively fresh based on the lore in the game book so I stuck with a flesh tone washed with Crimson and highlighted with a pale flesh color. This tone really makes the gore effects pop and makes them look pretty scary.
The American APE suits are essentially diesel-powered terminators. (You have to remember when this game came out Space Hulk was OOP and WWII games were on the rise, combining the two was a stroke of genius.) I painted these in the standard olive drab army colors. Castellan Green with a Camoshade wash with some highlights, I’ve used this same recipe on the Raptors Space Marines I painted up earlier this year.
