In the years that followed, mankind rebuilt a new world order. Cynical minds had always suspected that the cultural cleaning of a nuclear holocaust might have been beneficial. Here, men found that they could have that and not suffer the horrible consequences of a wrecked world in the process. To be sure, the infrastructure of the planet was devestated. But if there was one facet of mankind where the invaders had underestimated their quarry, it was his determination not only to survive, but to dominate his world, his universe.
In rebuilding, men, women and children everywhere looked up frequently, and watched the sky anxiously. It was an intolerable situation. 17 years later, mankind launched its own fleet towards the red planet, leaded by the three war machine carriers WELLS, BRADBURY and ROBINSON. It was time to return the favor...
The military of the United Earth has adapted the tripodal mech technology and their energetic shielding to take on the martians at even ground. The Robofighters, as the pilots were called, were all driven by one single, ancient emotion: Revenge! So in the endless, red deserts of Mars it came to the CLASH OF THE TITANS...
The scene shown here is typical for the early period of the human invasion of the red planet: A martian warmachine facing its much more bulky equivalent from Earth, both firing their heatrays into the shields of the enemy. The scientists of the blue planet had discovered that the martian shielding technology has one weak point: It can deflect either energy or matter - but not both at the same time! So the usual strike against a martian tripod is an attack with the shoulder or chest-mounted heatray weapons to dazzle their sensors when the energy is captured in the shield, followed by the launch of short range missiles while the heatray gun is still firing. It doesn`t matter how the martian warrior decide to set his shield for: One of the weapons systems will break through! The only chance for the martians is to come close enough to be able to use their tentacles to fight - usually, a duel will not last that long...
The Model:
I used two mech-models for that diorama. One is an „Ideon Dog-Mack“ purchased a few weeks ago from Ebay, the other one is nameless since I own this one since the 1980ties and can`t remember how it was called. I took it completely apart and totally rebuild and repainted it, added some additional bits and repaired the evil scratched canopy with Future floor wax. I painted it with a dark „Navy grey“ as the basecolor with details in various shades of grey and black. Finally I added some paint chips, scratches and small damaged areas so that it looks like it has been built in hurry - earth needed many of them as fast as possible to be able to attack the Red Planet before the martians were going to start a second try!
For the „Dog-Mack“, which looked very Martian to me, I used only metallic colors: Copper, bronze and „tin biz“ mainly, all from Citadel / Games Workshop. Details are done with chainmail, silver and black. I altered the bottom of that model while adding a heatray canon on a tentacle instead of the huge thruster nozzle that comes with the kit. Very subtle weathering and aging has been done with light grey and silver.
I wanted to show real fighting action going on with that diorama, so I tried something I never did before (and I never saw before on other models): Making an invisible shield partially visible when being hit! So the „heatrays“ are done with acrylic rods, painted with clear colors from Revell. I`ve done this a bit thick and irregular so that they look like beams of flickering energy instead like clean and sharp lasers. The areas in which the energy is deflected by shields are made from „water effect“, a jelly like stuff that is normally used for model railroads, a bit drybrushed with the same color like the hitting ray. For that purpose I sculpted the shields in thin layers on an acrylic sphere, pulling them off at the end, glueing them onto the rods of the beams with clear epoxy glue. The use of three beams for the martian ray weapon is a tribute to the weight of the attached „shield“, I planned to use only two beams, but that way the gravity sag has been much too strong.
The contrails from the launched missiles are made from cotton wool, wraped around acrylic rods with one millimeter diameter. The tips of those rods are sticking out a bit, sanded in shape and painted with Bolt Gun Metal to represent the warheads.
The base is wooden, partially covered with a few „rocks“ and red sand. That stuff, glued upon a slightly sculpted surface made from putty, is real red desert sand from a nearby petshop, usually needed for small lizards. I pressed the mechs into the still wet sand / glue mix to create some footprints of their walking path. At the end I formed small bulwarks out of a mix from sand and white glue around the feet of the two mechs so that it looks like they sink a bit into the dusty ground because of their tremendous size and weight. Finally the feet has been dusted with red pastel chalk to simulate the effect of producing dustclouds while walking, leaving red marks on the lower areas of the war machines.
The selfmade nameplate, created from cardboard and clear adhesive film, shows Mars clutched by a clawlike human hand and the term „War of the Worlds II: Clash of the Titans“.
Martians, beware of mankind!
Image: Groundpounder's view
Image: Martian
Image: Terran
Image: Closeups
