From time to time we see armies at events that have particularly unusual and wonderful tweaks or conversions, or which have some feature that is particularly striking. Ian Ackerman’s Isorians are one such army, combining an impressive paint scheme with different head variants and a novel variation on shield drones. We’ll let Ian explain…
Ian: My personal reasons for choosing Isorians were basically because I liked the organic look of the figures. It took me ages to figure out what kind of a paint scheme I was going to use, and I eventually settled on a scheme that I thought mimicked the look of bone or carapace… and was fairly easy to paint using drybrushing and washes.
An A1 note: The shield in place of shield drones were a bit of a cheat really, I had some Litko SF spaceship shield markers lying around from a previous project. I was running out of actual Isorian probes, so I decided to use the Litko shields to represent shield drones. It was only after making them up did I realise that in the official background a shield drone was a physical drone that got in the way of the incoming shots. Not wanting to waste my shield drones I came up with the idea that they were experimental clouds of nanite drones that functioned in the same way… but looked completely different.
The paint theme for my Isorians was loosely based on The Alien Legion comic and the Dirty Dozen film. Using this premise I could get away with some slight modifications to the figures… as I find I can’t stop myself doing minor conversions to make my troops more unique. No matter what models I’m painting I usually have to modify a few to make them stand out.
Ian also painted up the Tograh transport and gives us a step-by-step guide.
Background to the 66th Division, the ‘Nomads’
The IMTel has a purpose for everyone, even those with genetic throwbacks giving them antisocial and rebellious characteristics or violent tendencies. As they would struggle with the normal, regimented life in the Isorian military, the approach of the combined shards of the Ayal salient is to encourage those individuals to join unique units in the Senatex’ armed forces. These individuals, dubbed Paragraph 66 Exceptions, are banded into a single force, the 66th Division.
The 66th Division are not assigned standard duties. Nicknamed the ‘Nomads’, because they travel from hot spot to hot spot, they are sent to warzones which are considered too hazardous or extreme for regular forces, or to those where recklessness is a desirable attribute. In such situations, and to match their exceptional natures, personal clothing idiosyncrasies are tolerated and even encouraged as an expression of their rebellious nature. As part of this mobile role, the Nomads are in ideal situations to give extensive field trials on experimental or prototype equipment in the field; one such item is the nanite cloud variation on shield drones.
Antares Nexus 
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