SAM Station from Common Household Items

Its been awhile since I've posted something, so I've been busy building a 20mm African warlord force and somec mechas for Future War Commander. They are in need of some AA [Anti Aircraft] battery, so.....

Anyway without all the BS, here it goes :

Some pill boxes from the local discount store :

 

And some thumb tacks with plastic buttoned heads, these act as the "radar dish" in front of the SAM station:

Some bases with plastic wall hooks were used as the base, and they were glued together:

 

 Some Hasegawa Aircraft Weapons 1/72 missiles were used:

 and these were attached to the sides, with some pinning work to toughen it:

 

IMPORTANT:

You MUST use either a fine sandpaper or file to roughen up the surface of plastics, especially the pill boxes so prep them for painting, otherwise the paint wont stick!

 

PAINTING:

 

I gave them a coat of black undercoat, followed by Vallejo's Violet brown and a mixed of bone white, followed by highlight to bonewhite to bring out the details.

 

I will give them a gloss coat and flat spray later to protect the paint from chipping, and viola ! 3 SAM stations ready to take down the good guys / or bad guys / or some other flyers...hee hee...Here they stand next to some 20mm WW2 German soldiers give a dark african skin tone paint, essentially African rebels.

 

These SAM stations can also be easily used on 15mm or 28mm. So I find them quite useful and adaptable.

 

 

 

'ERE WE GO, 'ERE WE GO!

ORK WARBUGGY

This was made sometime ago, but I guess I will share it here with some of you guys who had those toy cars lying around, could'nt afford the crazy prices of a GW one, so...

why not build one ?

This used to be a cross country toy car which unfortunately I've lost the pic of it, but any buggy car of about the official size will do. This one has some nice fenders infront and the wheels have those rough ridges which is nice and screamming WAAAGH all over...keke

The original body of the vehicle had a metal frame, which I've unscrewed and toss it away, leaving the bottom part with the wheels, which I've cutted it and shortened the body, helded together by hotglue:

SCRATCHBUILDING THE METAL PLATES AND SHOOTAS

First of all, you need lotsa and lotsa plasti rods and plastic cards...er...not really if you know what are the ones you need.

For this project, some 5-10 mm round plastic rods [shoota] , squares and 1-2 mm rods [for rivets] 5-10mm plastic cards [armor plates] will do:

The armor plate infront consists of 4 parts: 2 small squares and the the bigger square in the centre, and finally a long, shorter piece for supporting the 3 pieces together. Rivets were glued at the side [see above].


I made some spare shootas as you will never have enough of dakka...

The design can be simple, as shown above.

THE CREW

My friend gave my some old edition Fantasy Orcs, but rather than let them lying around hidden in some forgotten boxes, they are recycled here:

 

The body of the orc was cutted apart, and arms repositioned.

 

 



Glue 2 shootas together, added another Ork gunner behind, and the whole piece was primed black and after some easy paint job, viola! you have a Ork Warbuggy!



 

 

The one on the left is a rokkit launcha version, which consists of multiple tubes glued together. Its nice as Ork tech is shoddy, so you can get away if you are not too neat...har har...

 

I've made 3 of these and now they are off to the battlefield ! 'ERE WE GO, 'ERE WE GO!

 

Thanks for viewing !







STAR WARS EDGE OF THE EMPIRE RPG REVIEW

 by Fantasy Flight Games

OK its been awhile since I posted something, so just came back from the local gameshop and, how can a Starwars nut not have this?

THE CONTENTS
1 Adventure Book, 1 Rulebook, 1 intro sheet, 1 double sided map, 4 Character folios, 14 Custom dice, 8 Destiny tokens, 35 Character tokens, 5 Vehicle tokens.

This introductory set is decently presented, with a set of colorful custom dice, which takes a bit of getting use to. Each symbol represent Success/Failure, Advantge/Threat, etc. there are 7 dice types altogether, and each are used for their specific functions, there is the Ability die, Proficiency die, Difficulty die, Challenge die, Boost die, Setback die and the Force die.

It is also for beginners who have not touched any RPGS[Role Playing games ] in mind, with easy to follow booklets like "READ THIS FIRST", and "READ THIS LAST", etc...

The art is beautifully drawn but wait, there's no decent chicks?!

Even Oskara the bounty hunter, the twliek on one of the character's folio, seems to want to rip your guts out lol...

The cover art on the box looks "adventure" already, personally I prefer the Invasion of Theed's cover art even though its more "cartoony"...did I say the Jedi chick is cute?

Other than THAT, this is a really nice product, the art is great, and rules are easy to follow.

BACKGROUND

The intro game probably takes place somewhere between Episode 4 - 6, between A New Hope to Return of the Jedi, and had the players all trying to escape the servants and henchmen of a Hutt boss in Mos Eisley called Mos Shuuta, and plans to steal the Krayt Fang, a Millennium Falcon-like YT-1300 freighter from a Trandosan.

The story is nicely interwoven, with Teemo the Hutt as the main boss villain.

 The character folio are stock presented with a good background and layout so players can easily connect to each other and get the game going [and easy for the Game Master].

The hard paper round tokens are useful for beginners, for the old geezers, some Star Wars miniatures are on the way!!

 

SHOULD YOU BUY THIS PRODUCT?

Why not? Even as a proud owner who had the old D6 version West End Games, the Wizard of the Coast minis games, and the D20 ones, the material presented is good although it doesnt allow you to create specific characters, a certain tweak or mod shouldnt be a problem [althought because there's no Jedi characters, you might need to get the core rulebook...] this addition, however is a good, neatly packed Introductory set which will appeal to new and old gamers alike, adding to their collection of their Star Wars RPG.

More X-Wing and Bantha Express Pics with short story

Hi there,

Here's another set of photos from my trashbashed freighter The Bantha Express and Revell's X-wing and short story, enjoy :

As the Bantha Express hems and haws, its noisy old thrusters switched on and off and landed on the rebel base with a loud "TUDD". It was excorted by an X-wing on its way into the intricate and complex tunnels, heavily camouflaged at the entrance. From outside, it look nothing more like a thick forest basin.

X-wing pilot Jaz Malone hopped out of his weathered snub fighter, and walks over to greet the captain of the Bantha Express, his childhood friend back in Dantooine.

Drack Decker, or known by his shipmates as "Dee", came out from the ship and greeted his friend, while his crew unloaded the much needed shipment of rations and military graded blasters into the cargo hold. He was, however, not very pleased.

"Jaz, this is the third run already, THIRD! When am I getting paid?!" At this rate I might as well sell it to the Hutts, at least they pay, even if it's less!"

Jaz made a forced, apologetic smile and gave his friend a pat on his shoulders. "The commander's request for funds had been approved already, the credits will wire to your account soon, trust me, Drack...."

"The rebel's cause for freedom is important, you are part of it, and we will be freed from the Imperial's tyranny soon, aren't you proud to be part of it?"

Jaz, waved off his astromech while signalling for the tech people to service the Bantha Express.

"Spare me the threatrics Jaz! We are not holovid stars for goodness sake! And they get paid too!"

As the duo walks towards the officers' mess, Drack made up his mind.

He will sell the location of this rebel base to the Imperials. Whether the rebels pay or not.


He will also regret his action in time to come.

Revell's Luke Skywalker X-Wing Fighter

Very happy this came in the post today:

This is a Revell Easy kit, which is not only snaptite or snap together kit, the colors are pre-painted, so it is really fantastic for lazy people like me ahahahah ( - -!!)

 

 

The package also come with a nicely painted X-wing pilot /Luke and R2D2 or R2 unit.

No scale was given, but it measures something like 1/56 , so it will be dam fine for my Star wars miniatures wargame!

I'll leave the pilot out first so they looked like its docked and ready for some hero to jump into the cockpit!

Having builded quite a bit of Gundam kits, I am actually quite surprised how simplified the instruction manual is, however, it does have a very good description and background of the famed X-wing.

Other than that, the pictures on the manual are simple to follow although most of the parts aren't very clear, so you will have to figure out how the parts fit especially around the 4 engine exhausts area where the landing gears are...

The good part :

Its very easy to fix! Any person with some basic knowledge of doing kits can finish this in less than 2 hours or so.

The plastic are quite hard and sturdy unlike some plane model kits which have thin plastic and are quite brittle [purely for display kind].

The kit also allow you to build with landing gear on or kept in flight mode. It shouldnt be very difficult for anyone with some basic modelling skills to drill a hole underneath it and /or give it a flight stand.

The cockpit can open or close as you like, and the S-foils can open and close too!

Because it's pre-colored, you can leave it as it is, but for my case, I did a bit of washing and weathering, so the end product is nicer !

The X-wing are washed with Vallejo's Negro black, some greys and little amounts chest nut ink.

Overall a satisfying and simple build !

The X-wing is ready to escort The Bantha Express and go smuggle some supplies for the Rebel Alliance !

Ogryns from Ogres

Originally published in plamo in 2009 and Warseer in 2010, reproduced with some minor editing here for your reading pleasure : )


Anyone who play the tabletop version of Warhammer 40K [made famous ala Dawn of War] will know about the Imperial Guards..have started this game waaay back when I was in highschool [20+ years lor..so now u know I uncle level one..hehehhe..

why..what's wrong..here alot of uncles one ok?!... = =!!]

Ogryns are basically the 40K versions of ogres, only called abhumans who are not so clever, but nevertheless recruited by the Imperial Guard to fight wars against Chaos [or Xenos ..ala Aliens..the fluff is so thick, novels and novels are written about them..so will not go into 40K literature...

The official ones are metal and costs 11.25 pounds [about S$23] EACH..so a squad of 6 will cost u like $138!!  Update : They cost more now, dont they?

So, in the modelling community, folks who dont wan to blow their noses and their wallet [so they can spend on their children la, dog la, mistress la..oops..u get wat I mean]

Anyone interested can go to their website to learn about it...

Do you want know more?
Games Workshop

Anyway a pic of the box [note box art copyrighted by Gamesworkshop]

First, I need to make ripperguns for the 6 fellas..

[Ripperguns are sturdy, easy to use automatic shotguns so Orgyns can just aim in some general direction - the enemies'..and like the old saying goes..if u keep shooting, maybe you'll hit something...]

 

This is the body of the ripperguns...made from plastic rods and plastic blocks...repeat 6 times later..u either one to shoot yourselves..or just go buy the real deal...]

 

One thing about scratchbuilding and/or kitbashing is your bitzbox [the box where u have spareparts] must be sipeh "bah" [translation : very enough]...
The ammo drums are stolen from a wrecked LVTP..

It has 20+ of the wheels..heh heh..but never fear, the APC is not wasted..it has some other projects...
Included below are some rough plans for anyone interested in scratchbuilding their own ripper guns:

Conversion of the ogre body..

 

Added plasticard as armor plates..in the community it's called "40K-fy"...

 

Backviewof one of them..with ammo pouches added..

 

PAINTING:

The first completed 2 are painted as trial...

The Back view..the one on the right was pale flesh with a flesh wash..the one on the left was layered with dwarf skin tone and highlights AFTER the wash..so the effect is better.. The grenades are scratchbuilded..the red one is Krak and the green one is frag [one got better armor penetration, one got a blast radius but lesser kill effect...go figure..both have it's own use in the tabletop game]

Berets are made from green stuff...spare shotgun shells lined the bandolier are plastic rods with just some gold paint at the lower part of the shell.

 

After painting all of them, these palm-sized dudes are ready to roll into battle..recommend using Vallejo Game Colors as the adhesion is better, so the paint dont wear off too easily [yes..it still WILL chip if yr wife scratch it with her freshly manicured nails....]

 

 

Who says only Orks smokes Cigars??

The squad leader [known as the Bonead or Bone head], as he is a little bit smarter [know how to use binoculars]....

"FRAG the fraggers! Now!~"

"Er..boss!!!, is it da red one..or da green one?" [bullets rechocheted on the sides of the wall..going Whoop whoop whoop against the mudwalls and plazinc walls...]

"*%#&^$!!.. DA GREEN ONE!!!!!"

....and his men went ahead and threw the red ones anyway.