Yet More Chieftains

Continuing on with my refurbishment of old Battle Kings, I have recently finished the refurbishment of another two tanks - this time with much better photos!

Trackless diecast meets plastic strapping.

 I describe the process of retracking one of the tanks in an earlier post here.

Headless tank commander meets pin and new head.

Close up of tracks.

The tank on the left is the one with the replacement parts.

Two more tanks ready to enter the fray.

Battle Kings K-116 Artillery Truck

Matchbox Battle Kings have been one of my favourite things since childhood, and I will admit that I enjoy having been able to refurbish some of my childhood toys for use in my current games. The process is quite simple, drill out rivets, replace missing heads on commanders and gunners, prime, repaint, reassemble, and wash.

Two Battle Kings Artillery Trucks.

 One of the things I have enjoyed about the refurbishment process is discovering what real world vehicles and weapon systems the Battle Kings with generic titles were based on (Such as in this post about the Battle King K-107 155mm SPG click here for details)

Haradian Artillery Prime Mover or Heavy Transport Truck?

I had thought that the Artillery truck was without any basis in the real world until I saw these pictures of International ACCO trucks (click here and here to see them). I was inspired to look for them after seeing a painting of similar trucks towing 5.5inch guns. While the grill of the Battle King is quite different from the ACCO trucks, it is very similar to a grill on a 1970s International Harvester concept vehicle (click here for the picture)  So was the Battle King Artillery Truck based on a concept truck?

Repainted and washed. Now waiting for a name, stats and purpose.

In CD terms in is at least a class IV vehicle, possibly even a class V, but I will leave the stating out the vehicle for another day.

Reworked and original model.

 The photos for this post were taken on my phone, so are even worse quality than usual, but I have used Paul's (From over at Plastic Warriors - If you haven't checked his stuff out already, you really should) trick of cropping them in paint to try and bring the models in as the centre of attention to the photo.

The current collection: 1 to keep, 1 repainted, 1 in process of being repainted.

The plan is to add two of these big behemoths to the Haradi motorpool and as I rather like the look of them, and the nice thing about an imagination is that large possible concept vehicles can occasionally find their way on to the tabletop:)

Deagostini T-72s

Recently I started to  repaint  and ink wash some of the Deagostini T-72s I got as part of the Combat Tanks Collection partwork. I wanted get some of my diecasts looking a little sharper by just giving them a wash of GW Agrax Earthshade, but  Andy  suggested that I could paint over the awful white snow camouflage with sand to create a nicer paint scheme.

The magazine is NZ$20 and comes with a rather nice tank.

 Like many of Andy's suggestions, this idea proved to be a winner! As a result the three winter camoed T-72s were changed to a more useful scheme that better matched the fourth T-72, and the BTR-80s.

Paint job in progress. The tank on the right is another Combat Tank Collection model, a T-72  in an Iraqi paint scheme.

 After the paint job, I then gave the diecasts a liberal dousing of brown wash, which I think worked out quite nicely. I have started giving the diecasts a wash in warm soapy water, followed by a rinse in warm water, and then leaving to dry, before applying  the wash. Previous to this, I had found that the wash adhered unevenly. After following this method results have improved greatly.

Four nicely washed T-72s.

Of course, now I have four T-72s finished, I want to do some more! But I should probably finish off some of the other WARPAC equipment I have first!

Hornby Power Pylons

Recently I started to do some work on items of terrain, so I could start to either finish off older projects, repair damaged projects, and figure out what the priority is for new items. It has been quite interesting to see what items I have stashed away - such as half a dozen power pylons.

Power pylons: A nice piece of infrastructure.

 In the repair  damaged items category falls these Hornby power pylons that got quite munted through both earthquakes and moving. I figured the easiest thing to do would be to base them, and to glue them back together where they had broken apart.

Same Pylons, now with a Matchbox Battle King for scale - which I also just recently refurbished.

The basing was very simple, glue plyon onto mdf coaster, brush on artists medium, paint, wash with GW brown wash. I think the result is quite pleasing.

I also did a quick wash and touch up paint job on some diecast BTR-80s, and assembled two S-Models 9P148 BDRM-2s.

BTR-80s and 9P148 BDRM-2s. I got side tracked from working on terrain by Warsaw Pact goodness.

I'm quite impressed with the S-Model kit and will be getting more. The 9P148 sprue contains the turret for the regular BDRM-2 , so I have made them up for use with another project. The sprue seems to be the same for both the 9P148 and the regular BDRM-2, but with key components snipped out. In this case the missing piece is the upper deck with the turret ring.

More BTR-80 goodness!

I have yet to make up any additional S-Model kits, but I can see that they will be something I will be buying more of in the future, as based on the two models I have made, and the online reviews of others, they seem to be quite detailed and accurate kits.

A Miniature Freud

A co-worker is a big fan of Dr Freud, and when they saw some models I brought into work, asked if I could make them a 1/72 Scale Freud.

A collection of Freudabilla.

Since they are a valued co-worker I said yes, and did a paint conversion of a Nexus Lenin figure from the Nexus reissue of the Atlantic Russian Revolution set.When did a google search for images to base my painting on, I found a number of images of Freud without his glasses. This convinced me that the Lenin figure could be easily repurposed .into a figure of Freud.

The good doctor and a GMG.

Another view of the GMG.

The addition of the GMG onto the stand is partially due to Freud's purported interpretation of the underlying meaning to having or desiring big guns. Plus I think it looks good on the stand :)
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Complete with  travelling case.

I recycled an old GW paint container to make a transport case for the good doctor on his travels. When I gave the figure to the co-worker they were quite pleased with the final result.

Once More Unto The Breach...

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead.
In peace there's nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility;
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger. . . .

Henry The Fifth Act 3, scene 1, 1–6

M1 Abrams tank with mine plough, and M-58 MICLIC on a M-200 tracked trailer.

 One of the gaps in my collection of models is a lack of modern engineering equipment capable of breaching minefields. Recently I have started to address this gap by  a combination of purchasing model kits and diecasts of suitable equipment, and to scratch building some items for immediate use.

Scratch built M-58 MICLIC on a M-200 tracked trailer.

The first item I built was a M-58 Mine Clearing Line Charge (MICLIC), on a M-200 trailer.I  built this as a result of being shown a picture of one being towed by a LAV. Unfortunately, while I could find photo references on the internet, I couldn't find anything that gave dimensions, so the model is probably quite out of scale.

Undercoating - I should of taken a phoito  of it unpainted!

 I built the model out of plastic card and stuff from my bits box. The wheels came from a plastic 1/72 scale trailer and I believe the track is from the Matchbox Churchill kit. The chassis of the trailer came from a plastic Hong Kong toy rocket trailer I was given by Ion.

Another view. This is before I added in the DAS to represent the line charge in the trailer tray.

I doubt I'll make another of these on a tracked trailer - in fact if I was to make more MICLICs I would make something simple and quite generic that would be simple to make.

And finished

 Of course once a breach has been made in a minefield, it needs to be confirmed by a mine plough or roller. Or you can use a mine plough to make the breach, but then you don't get to have the massive explosion from the line charge!

A toy Ertl diecast Abrams tank.

Since I have a shortage of 1/72 scale Abrams tanks, I used this Ertl diecast as the tank that on would put my plough on. While it is the right size, the running gear is extremely toy like, and the roof mounted commander's HMG is very cartoonish.

The underside showing the Ertl brand.

 I decided to base the model in order to protect the mine plough, and because I felt it might act to draw attention away from the running gear.

Based and ready to paint.

 The plough was made up from bits of plastic card and is loosely based on pictures from the internet. I have ordered the Trumpeter Abrams with Mine Plough kit, and will take comparison pictures once it arrives and I make it up.

Close up of the plough.

Undercoated and waiting the finial paint job and ink wash.

By building these models I hope to be able to add some variety to my games and potentially have them used as teaching aids. I now need to make up some minefield templates that can act as visual cues as to what they are, and blend into the tabletop. I have some ideas on how to achieve this, but I will need to do some reading first.

And painted!

I hope to make up some more modern engineering assets, so that I can have a similar range of equipment for this period as I do for WW2 games. I suspect that I might paint up some of the remaining Roco vehicles that I have to fill some of these roles, but I would prefer to use 1/72 scale models.

105mm Light Guns - All Finished!

I've finished painting the scratch built 105mm guns I was working on in my last post. The initial plan was to use sections of Chux cloth to disguise elements of the build that were simplified for ease of rapid construction.

Three more painted 105mm guns.

 The Chux cloth proved to be too unwieldy, and too good at obscuring detail, that when I showed it to others, they suggested using bandage gauze instead (and even kindly supplied me with some:))

Comparison shot between the scratch builds and a actual model.

And while the bandage gauze certainly looks better, it is very fiddly to apply. The results are very promising, and certainly I hope to use the technique again in the future.

Side shot of the three guns.

 I have a few other scratch built guns that I think I am going to treat in a similar fashion using gauze to simulate netting over their position. I will try and layer the gauze to help create a more substantial netting effect.

Bandage gauze versus Chux cloth .

 If I make more scratch built 105mms, I will try and put some into sandbagged emplacements in order to add some variety to the stands - and obscure some more detail!

The three store bought models.

Overall I think they work well with the actual models, and their construction has proved to be interesting and enjoyable - two things that I think should be central to any hobby.