Matchbox Skyhawk WIP.

Seen here with some other aircraft. all are around 1/120ish scale, so close enough for me.

I am finally starting to do some more work on my Matchbox A-4 Skyhawk. It is a rather play worn diecast from the Matchbox Sky Buster range, that had seen a great deal of of use and abuse in my childhood. Curiously enough , the diecast is meant to be a A-4F, but lacks the distinctive fuselage hump of that variant. This works out well as Argentina used A-4Bs and A-4Cs.

The presumably "Sargent Fletcher" droptanks . 

I used my Dremel to cut the wheels off the diecast. Once this is done to a Sky Buster it starts to look less toy like. I had previously replaced the missing clear canopy with some green Stuff. The next step is to use a wire brush attachment on the Dremel to remove the old paint work prior to giving it a new paint job. (Click here for information on paint schemes)

The wire brush removes the paint quite nicely.

So once this is done, and I buy some more grey spraypaint, I will begin painting it and working on building up some more 1/144 scale kits.

Ancient Refurbishments.

Since I have had a degree of success in refurbishing Napoleonic, AWI, and WW2 figures, I decided to give refurbishing ancient figures a go. After all, brown wash is timeless!

One of many boxes of figures.

I obtained from Glenn a vast number of painted 1/72 scale figures - the vast bulk of them from various HaT sets. They were all based on sections of polystyrene. I have wondered if this was to either to protect the figures during gaming, or to make it easier for a child to use?

Figures were removed from the bases and sorted into groups. These are Hat Greek Mercenaries.

A mix of Persian Bow from Hat and Italeri.

I decided to base the figures using the same size stands I use for Volley and Bayonet. This is because I like the way numbers of 20mm figures look on stands of those size.

HaT Thracians, touched up and washed.

Refurbished Zvezda Greeks.

I've put two ranks of figures on a stand.  A Greek phalanx was commonly eight ranks deep.

Of course once I have sorted out these painted figures, I still have vast amounts of unpainted ancients figures to deal with.

HaT Macedonian Phalangites..
 I put this on the bigger base in order to get a better visual effect, and because they were generally sixteen ranks deep.

So far I have been viewing the basing of the figures as being experimental, while I figure out how to get the best visual effect from these figures. The idea is that I will also be able to use these as a teaching aid when teaching Classics. I am still toying with the idea of creating up some formations on a one to one scale.

Hat  Punic Elephants.

And finally some War Elephants. This doubles my holdings of War Elephants, and may spur me towards finishing painting up these ones that have been neglected in favour of other projects. Of course I may yet get more elephants in the meantime.

Two Dozen Reinforcements.

Recently I purchased online a quantity of cheap plastic tanks of the type often found in sets of plastic toy soldiers.

I purchased six bags like this. 

 Based on the pictures I thought these might be knock offs of the plastic knockoffs of Matchbox Battle Kings. While the Chieftain turret is extremely similar, the hull is quite different. My belief is that these are inspired by the knockoffs, rather than copies of them.

12 Chieftain like tanks, and 12 M-47/48 like tanks.

 Still, these are very useful, although they will require some work to bring them up to standard.

Sorted by colour and markings

Another view.

 Of course having this many means that I can think seriously about making some specialist conversions using some of their hulls. The turrets could then be used for other purposes.

Moving down the line.

Time for some heavy metal scenarios.....

18th Century Teeth and Tail Round Up!

I'm been painting up some more bits and pieces for my AWI Volley and Bayonet forces - a project which is probably going to morph into something much larger no doubt - and have been attempting to finish items that are sitting on my work bench.

Some field works from an Italeri set.

An Airfix Hessian Jager Amusette - a view of the business end.

And the view from behind.

Currently these Jagers are amongst the very few stands of AWI Airfix that I have painted from bare plastic. (Click here for the previous post on these)So far I have been able to produce stands by refurbishing figures painted by others. On that note I would like to thank Geoff (via Glenn) for providing the figures for the below stand. All I needed to do was touch up the very nice existing paint job, wash them, and then base them. Easy!

Another stand of Airfix AWI for V&B!

The same stand, but from behind.

So that's the teeth part of the round up done, now on for the tail! First up I have a canoe from Nexus reissue of the Atlantic "Davy Crockett" set. (As always here is the link for the review from PSR). The set contains a number of very useful items for making up logistic and transport stands for both 18th and 19th century North American games.

A trapper in a small canoe.  I have another to paint up.

Another view of the canoe. This will be dwarfed by the big canoes from BUM.

 And of course I have more wagons. First up are an Airfix wagon that I got from Glenn. I replaced the team of small horses with two from the Revell Thirty Years War Artillery set. The second is a rather cart like wagon from one of the ranches in the Bum Wild West Town range. It has gained a driver from the Airfix Wagon set, and a horse from the French Artillery set.

Wagons? Or a wagon and a cart?

 I am also trying to make up my stockpile of Conestoga wagons before I start on my other wagons. The reason being that they are the most 18th century American wagon I have, and I figure I should make them up before I start on the others. So I finished the one I had started on here - and this time I managed to put the driver/rider in the correct place!

Another completed Conestoga Wagon., and the one I made previously....

Two more Conestoga await construction..... 

 And naturally, I have started another project before I have finished any of the others, but I have managed to have a cull of surplus items (look here for such items) - or use the shiney new tab at the top!

New stuff via Glenn - Alexander and some friends...

The Big Red Brick Factory - a manufactorium themed BUA for Volley and Bayonet

As promised in the last post, this one will feature an industrial themed BUA. The original plan was for this BUA to represent a nice red brick church, but having been playing a little bit of Total War: Empire lately, I decided to go with something else, something more industrial.

A stand of Airfix French troops  stand guard.

I also thought that having a nice cannon foundry on the table top would be a nice homage to RTS computer games that I have played over the years that have players stick factories down on the virtual battlefield.

The view from above - I was very tempted to add smoke coming out of the stack using pillow stuffing.

The rear view.

I did some basic research on what 18th century factories and foundries looked like, and on the processes used to create cannon. Given the constraints of the 4 inch by 6 inch BUA template, and my desire to have a 3 inch by 3 inch lift off section, I tried to create something that gave the suggestion of a 18th century foundry, rather than a detailed model of one.

The front yard, complete with conical furnace.

The cone also makes a convenient handle.

I still have a number of BUAs to finish for V&B, but I have also been working on making various teeth and tail elements for my 18th century forces. Hopefully I should have enough finished soon to be able to make a posting about them.

The Old Red Barn - a rural BUA for AWI Volley & Bayonet

Recently I finished work on another BUA for use in AWI Volley and Bayonet games. I decided to build one with a barn for the major building and put a drying shed (or corn crib) and some fencing on the rest of the base.

Some Airfix AWI French mill around the barn.

Two regiments of French garrison the BUA.

I went with a traditional red colour for the barn as when researching the colour of AWI gun carriages it had been suggested that red was a very common colour  available due to its use on barns. The other factor was than I wanted a structure that looked used and well maintained, rather than rundown and abandoned.

The drying shed and a broken fence. I dropped the building just prior to taking the photos.

The rear view. I cunningly replaced the rear part of the barn with flat matchsticks.

I used as the basis of my construction a Plasticville HO scale barn that I purchased second hand when I was in PA last year. I also managed to pick up a boxed set that I will probably make up straight from the box for use in ACW games.

The box showing how the barn should be made.

Defended BUA and lift out section with drying shed.

Next up is the V&B 18 Century Industrial BUA.

Dodgy Armoured Car

A while back I decided that I needed a Panhard AML 90 (click here for details on on vehicle), and that I didn't want to track down a plastic kit or resin model of one. Rather I wanted to see if I could produce a suitable proxy from my bits bin.

Picture sourced from E-bay of a much nicer toy than I used as the basis for conversion.

I started with a rather play worn Corgi Daimler Dingo armoured car, which I roughly cut the sides down on.

Corgi Dingo sans sides and crew.

I added an Airfix Sheridan turret, and added the barrel from a Roco Tiger II. I then added a figure from a Hawesaga kit to act as the vehicle commander.

The proxy takes form.

The paint scheme is loosely based on a vehicle on display at Bovington (click here to see pictures)

And now painted and washed!

The business end.

This should serve as a suitable proxy until I decide to replace it with an actual model of an AML 90. Should I do that then this proxy model will be used in Harad games.

Side view.

The view from the other side.

 Given the way Command Decision treats vehicles (one model represents 3-5 actual vehicles) I shouldn't need more than one AML-90 for the Falklands, as their battlefield use was quite limited.

A view from above.

On an unrelated note I am currently looking for a rules system similar in approach to Megablitz, but for modern (read 1970s-1980s) forces. I had an idea that I could use such a system to fight the larger actions of Harad's civil war, and use CD for fighting the smaller ones.Should anyone have any suggestions, please leave them in the comments. Of course it may well be that Megablitz is perfect for what I want, in which case I then have to track a copy down!