A little delay on writing this one, but I finished off painting up the release of Spectre’s Delta Force guys from earlier this year. The first major release of 2021, these guys were definitely packed full of cool details and gear to paint and I had a pretty good time getting into them. While also learning how to paint camo again in a little bit of a death march.
If you want details on what the range consists of, I covered it in a previous post, so this will be more focused on what they were like as models and getting them painted up.
Assembly
As you may expect, they arrive in the traditional Spectre boxes with the foam interiors. The specialists come individually while the standard assaulters are in the squad pack.
Unlike the previous Spectre guys, however, these are now multipart. This is probably on the more extreme end, having two separate pieces to assemble, but shows off that these figures are now designed in multiple parts. Overall I found the fit reasonably good. There was definitely some that needed a touch of liquid green stuff in the gaps to fill them in.
Now that said, these new arrangements aren’t perfect, although this might be more of an issue with the inspiration. SIG MCXs have a very thin folding stock on and unfortunately on a few of them, the stock failed to appear in place when moulded (rather than having any signs of damage or debris in the box).
Luckily while 3D printing you generate a literal pile of resin tubes and so was quickly able to find a replacement. This isn’t perfect but with the right paint job should be much easier. On the other hand, the number of barrels I had to bend back into place was much much slimmer than a usual shipment of Spectre products. I think this change is definitely a positive, although I’m interested to see what other figures in this style look like.
Painting
Painting up these guys was a throwback to my traditional method of painting Ultramodern Special forces – aka, it’s time for a crapload of MultiCam painting with some tan webbing. However, there are a few little tweaks based on the models and their details. The first is that several models have softshell tops rather than the usual Crye Precision battle dress. For this, I decided to go with a mix of colours to make it a little more visually interest, mostly going for tans and greens.
There are two exceptions for these basic colours – the Delta Commander and the Scout. For the Commander, the basic t-shirt look is always cool. There is maybe a little look of “Captain America” to him with the blue, which would definitely make him stand out a little among a rebel force that he’s assisting. For the Scout, I originally wanted to do tigerstripe. However, I then realised I had 0 of the paints I wanted to use for it. So I shifted to try Desert NVG camo which I attempted… but then failed during the attempt. Instead, it ended up as a bit of blurry green which is distinct enough from the MultiCam to make him look like something special and unique (for the camo butterfly in the squad).
I also did some work with a few little details, just to make the operators stand out a bit. Little things like the Mechanix gloves or colouring in the glow sticks in Moot Green. The guns were also a new take on my usual setup – rather than the gunmetal grey, I instead used Leadbelcher with a thin layer of Contrast Black over the top. I’m actually really impressed with the final result, and I’ll definitely be doing it more.
Finally, the bases. These are the first modern guys I’ve finished using the Gaming Scenics Arid Grassland basing material. Like the others, I’m really impressed with just how good the mixes work out and are definitely an improvement over the pure sand I’ve done in the past.
Final Thoughts
So what do I think of this release now I’d finished them? I’m a big fan. These are definitely one of my favourite sets that Spectre has produced, with a good mix of poses and a great set of weapons. I think also the range is a pretty good starting point for anyone wanting to get into Ultramodern gaming, giving you a full squad of operators with a mix of gear ready for a variety of missions.
A few people asked about the sizing of the models. I do agree they are a little bulkier than most of the rest of the other operators, but nothing outside the realms of human variations. They just look like some boys who have been to the gym a lot.
