Here’s the main antagonists of my little Roswell ’98 setting, the aliens that have come back 50 years after the ’48 “weather balloon” incident. A lot of angles I had bouncing around in my head to use “cult” style minis from two great 20mm lines solidified in this detachment.
Leading this detachment is the main brain itself flanked by two human bodyguards. The cloaked cultists are from the Citadel Dark Future line and the taller martian is a 28mm Reaper Alien Overlord. Mixing scales here works for me as it gives the martian an otherworldly creepiness. This idea originally struck me with my punk gang (the sixth, and last detachment. ETA unknown) and I liked the idea so much there I thought it could work even better here. I think it does. This model also gives me a unit to play with the Psychic rules in games of XR. Is he controlling the humans? Are they toads wanting stature in his New World?
- The Martian (RMU) 6pts – Heavy Infantry w/ Force Field Class I and Psychic Beta-Class
The Greys here are another scale too. 15mm Alien Greys from Rebel Minis. I couldn’t find suitable Greys at 20mm and even though little green martians would better match The Martian, being a setting in the 90s, they _had_ to be Greys. I mean…Alien Autopsy! Like the cultists I use the cloaks on the leaders here to tie the color into The Martian. Going with Force Field here due to either technology or their smaller size.
- The Greys (x2) 3pts – Recon Infantry w/ Force Field Class 1
Here come the excellent Northstar Gaslands Wasteland Warrior models. These acolytes are a bit lower ranked than the Dark Future robed cultists, so they don’t get the honor of Martian robes yet, but paint themselves in the color of The Greys. Here we have a unit led by some of those robed leaders. I was thrilled to get these two lines in sync here. The female cultist with two pistols is from the Dark Alliance Survivors line. Hair scraped off to appear bald.
- Human Cultists 6pts – Heavy Infantry w/ Assault Doctrine and Increased Squad Size
The vehicle here has been showcased in a previous post as part of the Cultists gang for Gaslands. It’s a 1941 Military Half Ton Truck from Greenlight with Northstar Wasteland Warriors drivers dropped in.
- Half Ton Truck 6pts – Soft-Skinned Vehicle w/ All-Terrain, Improvised Armour, and Technical
Above is the whole detachment on display. A motley group of models at various scales unified in their vision for the conquest of earth.
The Martian and The Survivors detachments let me play with new Copplestone sculpts and the wonderful 20mm Perry figs I’ve adored over the decades. The robed cultists and highway patrol models are about 35 years old. Finally… a chance to use them! Thanks, Xenos Rampant! 😉
This detachment also fills my “weird odds n ends” Really Useful Box (RUB) for all flavors of post-apoc gaming. It contains creatures, NPCs, objective markers, etc. I try to keep my minis collection structured and intentional, so restricting my models to specific RUBs help prevent me from wasted purchases and piles of unpainted models. This setting does still have that Punk detachment incoming, but I might move over to another project or two first. I’ve got five XR detachments to play with now so that should be good to get me going for a little while.
Wyrd Stones and Tackle Zones 
Nice job and you really can’t go wrong with green and purple (so says the Hulk!). I hadn’t ever noticed the acronym for Really Useful Boxes was RUB before, haha! I forgot how you’re magnetizing your minis. Do you have washers or magnets under the bases? I think I’ve tried those magnetic sheets before and used washers under my minis, but the magnetic sheet wasn’t very strong. I’m using some pretty thick magnetic strips. I can flip my box upside down with no worries, though it’s so strong I’ve nearly snapped minis off their base trying to pull them off the magnetic strip! ;P
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The minis for this project are all on washers. My Blood Bowl minis have magnets in the bases. I wouldn’t say the magnetic sheet glued in the bin is super strong. If the RUB falls off a shelf minis will go everywhere. Casual, civilized moving of the plastic bin though and the minis stay in place fine and they don’t stick so hard as to break or bend minis pulling them out.
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I also liked how your magnetic sheet fills the entire box so that you can arrange minis as you see fit. The bottom of mine is magnetic strips with gaps inbetween. So all the minis are arranged in rows, but that’s not the most efficient use of space. Although I’ve those gaps help as I can get my finger under the base to pull the minis out without damaging them now. Definitely multiple ways to tackle the storage problem!! 😀
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yeah, I struggled with mini storage for years. Every time I had a foam solution sorted, I’d end up selling minis or getting new ones that wouldn’t fit the shape of the notches I created. Frustrating. This is so much easier, though not as resilient if they take a big fall.
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We had foam trays and they were so annoying. Especially when running a game and digging through the various foam beds to find a mini. We ended up ditching them and throwing them all in one box. Magnetic storage is definitely where it’s at though!
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I agree. Magnetic storage has been a godsend. It’s so much better than the other alternative: https://www.reddit.com/r/bloodbowl/comments/13ju2ak/love_my_bb_storage_solution/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=1&utm_term=1
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Funny enough, my brother threw all his minis in a cigar box. They held up pretty well though.
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Those are some really minis. I like how you used scale to set minis apart. I mostly game historical, so it wont work for me, but in the limited fantasy I do, it is something i will definitely look into. well painted, and super cool. I need to pick a copy of XR to and to Lion and Dragon Rampant rules i already have.
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Thanks! for sci-fi and fantasy sometimes a mix of scales works out. It definitely opens up the options.Thankfully, being 20mm, the choices start off a bit more restricted so I’m not overwhelmed. In the end though, it’s been fun to “treasure hunt” as it were models across various lines that would work at this scale. I’m looking forward to playing Xenos Rampant as I’m a big fan of the Rampant series since playing DR last summer.
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