Lead Poisoning

I've put together the four man squad of veteran Manchester infantry.

I think it's fair to say that I have mixed feelings about these figures. I originally bought them off Xander (in fact I think I'm responsible for a significant proportion of his sales). They're apparently Westwind neo-soviets (apart from the 40k Corbec, obviously) and they have issues. From a structural standpoint I had to put brass rods in their feet to get them to stand up. Aesthetically, none of them are holding their weapons by the grips, preferring to hold them by the butt. The guns themselves look ridiculous, like PPSh-41's with delusions of being assault rifles. I clipped the ridiculous bayonets off two of them. All in all they look almost as derpy as that one Across the Dead Earth figure who is in the process of dropping his rifle.

Head wise, I went mostly with the hooded heads that came in the same baggie - I don't know if they're from the same miniatures. It's certainly given them an otherworldly look. Unfortunately that look is "cultist" or "elf ranger" rather than "post apocalyptic SAS". But no matter, they'll do the trick. The third figure got one of the aggressively ugly heads from the Warlord Commandos box. I'm currently sourcing a range of helmets as I think equipping the Manchester regulars exclusively with broddie helmets might make the look a bit Dad's Army.

The only real conversion work (apart from swapping out Corbecs instantly recognisable Lasrifle for a G36) was slinging an AT4 (Mammoth hunting, for the purpose of) on this guys back.

And finally, I cut off the faintly alien (they are steampunk Martians afterall) spherical respirator on the Highland Spring Leader and replaced with with a cylindrical one.

These may seem like tiny alterations, but for me, it's ground breaking.

I've also managed to put 6 of my line infantry together, using up all the ACW torsos I got. They are taking several hours each, but I think the end result is worth it. These guys are definitely looking like they could be produced by a PA city.  But more on them when I have the whole unit finished.