The Crew of the Ace of Spades in Space Suits

Do you remember this scene from my Raid on Sterling scenario? In it, Celeste, Gwendoline and Katja are searching the Wallerian, a "ghost ship" drifting in space. Gwendoline and Katja are wearing space suits. I used these two old Grenadier 28mm figures to represent Gwendoline and Katja. I have very few figures of people in space suits and even less of females in space suits. These were the only two I had that were appropriate for my player characters and is the reason why only two humans made the journey over to the Wallerian.
This got me thinking. I really needed space suited versions for all of my crew members of The Ace of Spades, apart from Celeste, who as an android doesn't need a space suit. So began my search. These past few months I couldn't find anything remotely suitable for my needs. Crooked Dice Games seemed my best hope but their female astronaut types didn't grab me very well. As luck would have it, when I was searching for pictures of the crew members that I showed in my previous two posts, Google Images offered a picture of three 28mm scale figures of females in space suits from the Black Hat Miniatures range of Cobalt sci-fi figures. One look at them was enough for me. They were perfect! Even though there were only three different figures in this set, I knew that I could easily convert them to make all 12 characters that I needed. They are listed as COBM25 - Female Troopers in Spacesuits and they cost £6.00 for the three figures. Here's the link for them - https://www.blackhat.co.uk/product/cobm25-female-troopers-in-spacesuits/

I ordered five sets, just to give me more choice of who to choose for each character, and I'm pleased I did, as I ended up using five of the one at the right, four of the one at the left and three of the one in the middle of the photo above. Here they all are alongside their normal looking figures.

From left to right are Kimberley Wells the captain, nurse Gwendoline Papillion and engineer Kyran Calaveri. All three space-suited figures were converted. In the case of Kimberley, this was simply repositioning her arms ever so slightly, and filing the sides of her phaser pistol to make it look slimmer to better match her 12mm Slugger Pistol.

For the new figure of Gwendoline, I snipped off her pistol from her right hand and replaced it with a phaser rifle from my spare parts box. Note that I have painted the phaser rifles of both figures white so that they match the colour scheme of the phaser rifle shown in the N.E.W. rulebook.
With the new figure for Kyran, I slightly bent her left arm so that she was pointing her phaser pistol forward. I also repositioned her right arm, moving it closer into her body and I added a wrench to her right hand. Yet again, this was taken from my spare parts box.

Next up, we have from left to right, bounty hunter Julia Frostorm, pilot Storm Galloway and gunner Jeanette Grey. The space-suited version of Julia was holding a short-barrelled rifle. I filed the end of it flat and drilled a hole into it so that I could extend its barrel by inserting a piece of copper rod. Now it looks much more like Julia's sniper rifle. Whilst I was on with this conversion, I also replaced the rifle on the normal figure of Julia. Originally, she had a heavy rifle that I'd converted from her two-handed sword into a Ripper Gun ( a weapon I had designed for my GURPS Space campaign). When I began my N.E.W. campaign, I changed this to a Microwave Sniper Rifle. The rifle the figure now has is a huge sniper rifle from the Warlord Games Judge Dredd Long Arms Weapons set and is a very close match to the gun shown in the N.E.W. rulebook that she uses. Note that it is as long as she is tall! I also added a holster made out of Milliput to her right thigh.

For the space suited version of Storm, I simply bent her slightly forward at her ankles to show she is running. This was the easiest of all my conversions.
I used a similar technique used on Julia for the new figure of Jeanette, to make her rifle look longer, only this time I inserted a short length of paper clip into the rifle to extend the barrel. She uses a laser sniper rifle, which is not as long or as powerful as Julia's microwave sniper rifle. She also had a holster added to her right thigh.

Moving on, we have from left to right, Doctor Judith Kramer, research scientist Lynda Pelligrosso, Smiley the Servobot (she'll be introduced in the next scenario) and computer hacker Sharuna Randall. Judith never uses guns so I cut off her pistol from her right hand. I added a medical scanner to her right thigh, made out of Milliput.
Smiley the Servobot was made by me, out of four balls of Milliput and three short pieces of plastic rod. She is a wheeled, non-sentient robot, designed by Lynda, with a bit of help from Jeanette, Kyran and Sharuna, to aid in reconnaissance missions as an advanced scout. 

I tried to match the space suited versions of the characters as close as possible to their normal versions. So for Lynda, I removed the pistol from her right hand, and repositioned her right arm so that it is resting on her science scanner, which I made out of Milliput and added to her right thigh. I also added a holster to the left side of her belt.
Sharuna is another crew member who won't use firearms, so her her pistol had to be cut from her left hand. I made her computer deck out of mounting card and glued it in place on her right side. I repositioned her right arm so that it was holding the computer in a similar manner to her normal figure. Finally, I added the red cable from her computer to her head with a thin strip of Milliput.

The final three crew members are from left to right, Venetian scout Danica, human scout Katja Sondquist and cat burglar Rebecca Ellington. For the space suited version of Danica, I added a long sword from my spare parts box to her right hand and a holster made out of Milliput to her left thigh. The longsword is not an exact match, but it's close enough and I'm happy with it.

With Katja's disruptor rifle, it was the perfect length for the one the normal figure was carrying. All I did to it was add a power-cell clip to its underside in between her hands. I added a holster to the right side of her belt and a laser sword (unactivated, obviously) to the left side of her belt. Both were made out of Milliput.
Finally, with Rebecca, I cut her left arm at the elbow and glued it back in a new position so she was touching her helmet with her hand. I filled in the gap at her elbow with Milliput. I also bent her right arm at the elbow so she is lowering her pistol.
All of the conversions were very simple but worth the time and effort as they make the new figures much closer matches to the usual player character figures I use. You can see from the photos that many of the space suited figures are taller than their counterparts. That can't be helped and it certainly does not make me like them any less. Personally, I think they are superb figures. There is no escaping the fact that they are females in spacesuits.
One thing I haven't discussed so far is their colour schemes. To be honest, it didn't take me too long to settle on this metallic purple colour scheme. I thought it would like striking and would be so different to what you might normally expect. Also, it is a close match to Celeste's metallic purple armour and Gwendoline's body armour. Note that I have painted the initials of each character on the back of their helmets as a quick and handy aid to identify who's who.
You'll be seeing some of these new figures in action very soon, when I post my next scenario of the campaign, Alien Base. Hopefully, this will start next week as I'm all set to go.