Review: UFO Squad – Vehicles and Buildings

Rating: 

Crossover Miniatures has just released UFO Squad, a set of skirmish rules for fighting battles of Humans vs Aliens, inspired by the games that we saw in the old X-COM: UFO Defense computer game.

Following on from the rules and the Human and Alien Troops, we also have a range of vehicles, buildings and accessories for the game. Some of these are already available, others are coming.

After speaking to Rusti, he has spent some of the funds raised by the Kickstarter project for UFO Squad on an MDF Laser cutter, in order to create a range of vehicles and buildings. Apparently, MDF sheet is not a material that is readily available in the US, so Rusti had to resort to purchasing quite a few sheets in order to source his model range, which is now sat in his garage…

 So, what is available?
First we have the Huron Dropship, from which the humans deploy. This comes as a rather large bag of MDF pieces, which initially looks a bit intimidating:

There is a downloadable 6-page instruction booklet, and actually construction isn’t that bad. The result should look something like this:

It has the added advantage that you can actually fit a squad of miniatures inside it

And paints up well

It’s a decent enough looking dropship (perhaps a little box-like, which is inevitable), but is perfectly serviceable and won’t break the bank at $25.

Rusti is currently working on a couple of UFO models, but these aren’t quite ready yet.

One iconic feature of the X-COM game was the buildings

…and Rusti has been working to recreate these in MDF. I must admit, I love the idea of being able to fight my miniatures games of XCOM over scenery that looks just like the game used to. (please note, these pictures are of prototypes, and not the final models)

The Farmhouse

The Barn

The outbuildings

Rusti is currently working on the town building (the ones from the Terror Site battles) – no word on price as of yet.

Disclosure: Crossover Games provided a review copy of these miniatures / rules, and I was also involved in the editing process for the UFO Squad rules.