WH40K - Idea for Ork Warboss Battlewagon

I have stalled in building and painting my Ork Battlewagons, for a couple of reasons. One is that I decided to paint the interior before completing construction, so there aren't any unpainted areas visible when the model is finished. That is enough of a reason to make the cars 'open topped' as per the game rules - so I can stop building them, paint them up and get them on the tabletop already.
So, it occurred to me that I should make a flashy Battlewagon for my Warboss - with lots of 'bling'. (Trophies, spikes, chains, enemy heads, etc). I will build this one with an open cabin, so that the Warboss miniature can stand there. I will probably included one or two of his favourite guns, and a driver figure from the Trukk model to do most of the actual driving.

WH40K - Quick conversion - Ork Rokkit Boy

A very quick conversion. I used two of the small rocket pieces from the Ork Stormboyz box (you get a lot of these left over). These were glued to the barrel of the Big Shoota piece from the Ork Boyz box. The barrel of the shoota was cut down, and the cog shaped 'gunsight' piece from the Lootas/Burnas set was glued on the end, to make it look less like a gun and more like a rail for launching rockets.

Of course it's ludicrously overbalanced, and it looks like the Ork firing it is about to get a face full of rocket exhaust. But that's what I like about it. (When I paint him, I will add scorch marks on his face.)

Tools and Tips - Cheap circular cutter

I found this in the tool section of a discount store, among the blister packs of carton cutters and soon-to-be-rusty socket sets. It's a tool for cutting small pieces of pipe. I have used it on brass and styrene, and it works very well, considering that it cost all of two Australian dollars. I have cut lengths of brass pipe of approximately 5mm and 6mm diameter, and styrene tube up to about 13mm diameter.

It works by a circular blade (not very sharp itself) which freely rotates and is gradually screwed down over two steel rollers. The pipe is turned by hand on the rollers, as the blade scores and then cuts into the pipe. I have found that the brass tube does bend in slightly at the cut, so if you have bought two thickness of tube to slide into each other - for instance as pistons or gun barrels - you will have to file back the cut end so that the smaller tube can fit inside the larger. Also, when working with large but thin styrene tubes, the plastic can warm slightly in your hands. This means that the cutter will crush rather than slice through the plastic. I recommend going slowly. Again, the blade will score as you turn the tube, which means you can eventually snap the cut portion off. The end may be a tiny bit rough with a cheap tool like this, but sanding or filing will fix that.

Ork Flakka Trakk turret, with gun barrels made from sections of brass pipe.

I have been able to cut sections of pipe down to only a couple of millimeters length - basically brass rings. This tool is an incredibly cheap way to cut tubes for converting models: gun barrels, roll cages, suspension parts, pistons, rings and even 'brass' shells from fired ammunition.

Warlands - Box Contents and Scale Comparison

Here are some pictures of the Warlands vehicles from the boxed set. In that box you get one truck, two buggies, two white metal driver figures, three white metal gunner figures, two six sided dice, two ten sided dice and a small rules booklet, which includes cut out counters. The cars are nicely moulded, with only minor flaws. The figures are a little indistinct, but a clean paintjob would fix that. Scale is definitely 20mm, but they will work with vehicles in similar scales.



The truck. The tailgate is moulded separately. An airbubble is visible on the back edge of the cabin, but this could easily be filled with superglue, or left as a bullet hole. There are several bullet holes and areas of damage moulded on these vehicles, so it won't look out of place.

The Buggy. There are two of these, with the same 'battle damage'.

Here are some comparisons for scale. The green truck is an Old Crow model in 25mm scale. The bike is from the Grenadier Future Warriors range. The brown figures are 1/76 toy soldiers (It should be noted that figures in this scale, and 1/72 scale, are rarely consistent between brand names. Of course human beings aren't all the same size, but you will notice the difference when you mix brands of these or any figures.) The white car is a Matchbox model of a Bentley, in what it claims is 1:64. I have a tape measure, but not a Bentley, so I will have to take their word for it.

The vehicles and figures are clearly small scale - about 20mm or 1/72. The cars could be used with 25mm miniatures, but the more 'epic' the proportions of your miniature collection, the smaller these vehicles will look. So, they look good next to Grenadier minis (such as the 'Future Warriors' from the 90s) but tiny next to Games Workshop. In between would be ranges such as Street Violence. The cars would still be useable, but noticeably smaller. How well that works on your tabletop will depend on how picky you are.

If you were going to use these with larger minis, I would suggest moulding a new driver for the buggy, and adding a remote controlled gun, or a completely new gunner. You could also just use repainted or converted Matchbox or Hot Wheels cars, with the rules that come with this game.

Unfortunately, these little cars are visibly smaller than the 25mm scale Old Crow models. Old Crow make a range of 15mm models, but I have never seen them in the flesh (in the resin?) so I could not compare the two types.

WH40K: Scratchbuilt Zagstruk and Stormboyz Nob

Before I went away, I built two members of my Stormboyz hierarchy. I made a Stormboy Nob (squad leader) from an assortment of parts, and then went to town to scratch build my own Zagstruk, a special character who can lead a Stormboy mob. He's not a figure I need in my army, but by the time I got around to building him, I had a couple of plastic power-klaws available. The hard part was mounting him in a flying pose, but not having him overbalance. The base has a few pieces of scrap white metal superglued in, for that reason.






Games Workshop's model of Zagstruk is available here - but support your Friendly Local Games Shop!

Warlands!

I found the basic boxed set for 'Warlands', a Mad Max style car skirmish game by Aberrant Games, at Milsims in Melbourne. These are crisp little models in 20mm scale - so they are far too small for Warhammer 40,000. However, they don't look too bad next to 28mm scale figures of more realistic proportions, so they would be fine in most Cyberpunk or post-Apocalyptic wargames or roleplaying games. The cars are made up from single pieces of resin for the bodies, including wheels, engines and upholstery. White metal is used for the roll cages, figures and some small accessories. The moulding is nice, although there was an air bubble on the back of the cabin of the truck. This will be easy to fill with superglue. I expect that they will scale nicely with the Old Crow Models tanks that I have.

Oh yes, and I am back!

Note: All these pictures are from Aberrant Games' website, and belong to them. Go there and spend your hard-earned on these shiny, shiny toys!