Fallout: NCR Veteran Rangers

Sadly I have been working pretty much non-stop for the whole of December including the entire Christmas period! This high workload coupled with the fact that the nights darken so early in the winter months has severely restricted my hobby time over the last few weeks!

However despite this I have still managed to squeeze in the odd hour here and there on some of my many outstanding projects. My primary project at the moment is my ongoing Fallout vs Rogue Trader campaign and so this is where I have tried to focus my limited hobby time. 

The completed squad of NCR Rangers ready for the table top

If you've read my previous posts on this subject then you'll know that my dedicated girlfriend is keen to support me in this endeavour and as such I have been building her a force of NCR Rangers to battle against my own Brotherhood of Steel and Enclave forces. I have already completed a squad of 'Civilian Rangers' (i.e. Cowboys) as the basis of her force and these guys look great, however they lack the durability and firepower of their power armored foes. In order to redress this balance somewhat I have spent the last few weeks preparing her some 'Veteran Rangers', these guys are the real elite of the NCR's forces and are equipped with the best weapons and armour that the Republic can muster.

The original source material from the cover of Fallout: New Vegas

They are also iconic troops who appear on the box art and all associated merchandise from 2010's Fallout: New Vegas. Unfortunately no supplier offers official models for these troops and so I have had to do some scouting around in order to find suitable proxies to fill the role. There are a few options out there that are sufficiently similar in aesthetics and I briefly considered Games Workshop's 'Armageddon Steel Legion' and Forge World's 'Death Korps of Krieg' ranges in my search for appropriate miniatures. 

These three rangers are armed with basic assault/service rifles...

However after much searching and debating I finally settled on these Kolony Militia models from Pig Iron Productions which are an almost perfect match. These guys are great little figures though I did find a couple of slight issues with castings which required a bit of careful attention before painting,

...whilst this trooper hefts the exceptionally powerful anti-materiel rifle

I extensively researched the Veteran Rangers unique look both through assorted pictures/screenshots from New Vegas and also by a quick trip to the Fallout Wiki, which is a great resource for fans of the franchise. After a few hours of reading this I was ready to go and moved on to the basing stage.

Meanwhile the squad leader is armed with a machine pistol and some form of customised baton

I decided to stick as closely as possible to the source material and so the Rangers were painted with their iconic black armour, helmets and respirators coupled with their signature brown leather dusters and blue denim jeans.  

The paints I used were predominantly from the Foundry range (their three colour system is really good for achieving excellent results quickly) with a few Citadel additions on top.

Each set of Veteran Ranger armour is hand-crafted and numbered ...and to reflect this I have also hand-painted the armour's unique number on each helmet.

I am really happy with how these guys turned out and I have to say that they do look very close to the images from the game. I did order a load more of these models than I needed so I might do a few more Veteran Rangers to bulk out the NCR's forces in the future.

I am really looking forward to seeing how they do on the battlefields of the Wasteland alongside their Civilian Ranger brethren! Hopefully they will be able to give the insidious forces of the Enclave a run for their money.