Carden Me?

Having a sort through the lead mountain is always a joy, forgotten pieces are revealled with all the excitement from buying them in the first place. This Carden Loyd universal carrier is made by Reiver Miniatures and I picked it up at Salute 2011 while having a natter with Red Rich who’d put on that year’s VBCW game.

It’s a crisp solid metal casting and surprisingly solid for such a small model.  It’s few pieces, the chassis, the lid, two tracks and a Vickers HMG. The chassis has a couple of notches so you physically can’t put the tracks on the wrong way around, a smart touch. The Vickers doesn’t have an ammo box, but it’s simple enough to add one and yes it really does go on at that jaunty angle. Not so with the tripod which usually goes on the driver’s side of the “bonnet”.  It would be a folded one and I don’t have any of those in my scraps box so I left it off.

I’d rather not base vehicles like this but I did think it’d get whalloped in game so a base was a must.  I used the ever wonderful milliput for the ground so I could press the models tracks into it and have trackmarks, if you’re doing this it’s best to do it with the bare metal piece, but if you only think of it after painting you need to get both pieces damp to avoid problems.

I wanted to put a few pieces in the stowage bins, so I used various pieces from the Warlord Games plastic British sprues plus a white metal petrol can.  I’m pleased with it, should I do another one I’d do it with the lid propped up and a full crew.

Driller Killer

This beast of a machine was bought over a year ago as a secret weapon for VBCW, so wishing to keep it a well guarded secret I undercoated it and tucked it behind something on a shelf so no one would know about it until it appeared on the gaming table. During a inreasingly rare fit of tidying I recently found it and set about doing it justice, half from shamefully having forgotten about it and three-quarters from it being an impressive model.

This is a Ramshackle Games piece, who on their website rather unenthusiastically call this a Boring Machine. It has a distinctive VSF feel to it, rather than looking practical it suggests it would drill into the earth up to the hull and then briefly halt before the sharp ends locks solid and the body spins furiously around shaking the passengers to death. This makes it perfect for Very British Civil War.

I’m reasonably happy with the paintjob, although I do think it now needs a red band around it with a large “DANGER” decal. The secret is out now of course, so the idea of the ground trembling during a game is likely to bring forth realistic expectations, but at least it means it’s about to hit the table and no longer sit on a shelf.

 

In the Navy

Recently I traded with the cosmopolitan  Akula for the remnants of his naval forces from his VBCW project. Some of you might recall how he built an eight foot long aircraft carrier, thankfully that wasn’t part of the deal. I originally thought it was just a few figures, but it turned out to be an entire navy plus a couple of Torpedo Boats by PMC games.

A few pieces have been added, namely a splash of brown paint to bring the decking to the fore, a ships wheel, decal numbers, a lifebelt, a cleat on the bow, and to gun them up a little with a rack of three depth charges. I did look into getting a couple more PMC nautical pieces but it proved fruitless.

Of course two boats do not a navy make, so I’ve started on a midget two man submarine, which can be seen in it’s current state below. I’m still sourcing torpedos for it but expect to see a post about it once finished. The base structure is a toy submarine, Micro Machines perhaps, with the main conning tower hacked off. The fore structure had enough room to cut a window in so expect a face to be peering out of it.

I’m also going to scratchbuild a Clyde Puffer having finally tracked down some basic plans which were free. All will be kept clean of flags and nation marks so they can be used in a variety of game not least both VBCW and WW2. Full steam ahead!

Not a Tankless Task

A great weight has been lifted off the shoulders of the workers at Slug Industries seeing as we’ve finally got our latest, and hopefully greatest, model finished. Not a simple one this, with around forty hours on the build alone, seperate moulds for components, and the hot weather mucking up the paintjob on the first cast, but only after full highlighting. In other words a bit of a pain.

Here’s the first paintjob shortly before a lot of the surfaces simply started to crack. A few attempts at repair later and other cracks and flakes appeared. Casting another and painting that proved to be quicker.

The rear door which shows the riveting quite well.

The armoured radiator, which looks flat although it’s made of semi circular tubing, and the Dambuster style headlights. The idea being that they’re adjustable, so you could set a rang to them and when the merged lights lit up a target it’s at the predeterminde range. Probably worth a +1 on any dice roll – if it’s at night.

The first wheel layout. Ending up putting two extra pairs in after Orkdung over at VBCF quite rightly pointed out how it looked under powered. Figure gives a sense of scale.

 

Boiler Tank

I’ve had an eye on the Tobsen77 models for a while now, thinking how a good few pieces were well suited to VBCW, but wary of the postal involved. Luckily I’ve been doing some casting for Tobi and managed to wrangle the One Man Army model above. Knowing I was using it for VBCW and being a bit of an engel he not only supplied it with the futuristic gun which is part of the kit he also made me a more suitable gun out of plasti-tube.

.I left the small spotlight off, and added the vintage car bumper, but the best part was how fast it was to do. Assembled and painted in a leaf pattern over one single short evening.  I really like how it looks as if it could have been a conversion of a water boiler.

A cracking little kit and great fun to work on. I’m tempted to have a few more as they work well as a Wooster Dalek declaring “What Ho!” and “I Say!” at the enemy.

Crouchie’s Workbench

En route to Dover model shop  the other day I pooped in to see Uncle Crouchie to deliver some resin cats to him and got the chance to see what everyone’s gaming Uncle had on his workbench, well his dining table.

First off this delightful light tank whose name I’ve forgotten. He did tell me but my knowledge isn’t as broad as his especially when it comes to the obscure which he builds a lot of to our delight.

Hopefully this is due for production, but we’ll have to wait and see.

This charmer is an early WW2 Belgian motor trike. Crouchie tracked down a couple of photos during an exhaustive search and from those he started this. The motorcycle is an adaption of his combination for the Belgians.

The bad news is how this isn’t for production, it’s just for his own use. A shame not least beacuse I imagine the VBCW crowd would snap this up.

Tanks for Everything

Biased I am, due to having cast these up,  but I think this is a lovely little tankette perfectly suited for VBCW even though it’s a yet to be released model for Akula’s Armies so meant for WW1 Fantasy.

It’s a seven piece resin kit inspired by French FT light tanks and built by Uncle Crouchie who was the man behind BEF miniatures.

I enjoyed both casting building and painting it but I’m not sure how many might be available so if you’d like one I’d suggest chasing Akula via the link above.

I’m going to have to scrounge another off him myself as I’d like one for my Anarchist band.

 

Bob’s your Uncle

Actually he’s my father-in-law and he’s got a taste for painting a few of our wargaming bits which started after he saw the quality of the casting of an Imprint Models Warrior AFV and then bought himself a T-72. This time he’s done a couple of Warlord Games pieces and I think he’s done a good job. He’s already a scale modeller so it’s interesting to see him bring both his skill and his encyclopedic knowedge of military history to such models. Enough said – the photos can speak for themselves.

What me Warrior?

This perfectly scaled beauty is the Imprint Models “Warrior” which I hastened to finish after my dad-in-law got this tank done very quickly. This model comes with the extra armour which is standard now, but if you wanted an older version you just leave it off. There’s also a pair of draped camo nets supplied which I choose not to fit.

Again the quality is top notch making the entire experience enjoyable. Even thing fits together well with only a little bit of extra effort to fit the armour up kit.  Unlike the T72-M1 all the hatches are seperate, so you can fit crew if thats preferred over the buttoned-up version.

I’ve used Brookes Miniatures WMIK crews from Old Glory UK – they’re well priced and can be hacked to suit. I’ve painted the driver as Johnson Beharry prior to his Victoria Cross.

Effectively it’s the last vehicle for the regiment and it fits in well as a father figure to the smaller vehicles.

 

 

T-72M1 for Two

I’m so sorely tempted to start this post with “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, etc” purely because this is a Tale of Two Bobs. One being my father-in-law who’s been a keen kit modeller ever since there was such a thing. Typically he specialises in aircraft being an ex-brylcreem boy. The other Bob is Bob Winward the man behind Imprint Models and who, as such, we’re about to pour compliments on.

A few weeks ago I bought an Imprint Warrior from via Empress Miniatures. Being just before Salute 2012 they muddled the order and sent me an LAV instead, but the quality of it was stunning. Then my Warrior turned up which was stunning too but more so because it’s a British vehicle (Hurrah!).

As usual I showed it to Bob as my latest project on the bench and he was stunned. Mainly it was the quality which he’d though was the domain of kits, finally casting had caught up, but also the price (£22) which is a fraction of what he’d pay for an equivalent kit.

Always a man to put his money where his mouth is, Bob had me bring up the Imprint web site, saw the model he wanted and gave me the cash there and then to get it for him. It came very quickly and Bob was onto it straight away and he’s done a great job too. You can see for yourself from the pictures.

I do feel our shared enthusiasm may have spilleth over. I’ve emailed Bob Windward a few times to express how happy I am, and my father-in-law being old school wrote him a letter of gratitude. I do hope he doesn’t think we’re Jehovah’s Modellers trying to drag him into our sinister cult. We can’t recommend them enough, in case you hadn’t seen the sub-text, and expect to see the Warrior up here soon.