Desert Polecat

Khurasan's Polecat Light Armoured Vehicle painted in desert digital camouflage. Here used to support a team of Khurasan's DEVGRU SEAL's at their camp in the burning sands of Erytipium III.

Right hand side

Front view

Left Hand Side

Another Front View

Closeup

 This time I painted them all by hand without using masking tape. With the high level of detail on the Polecat, masking tape becomes more of a hindrance.

Lettering from my 1:48 Chinook spare transfers and an upside down Letraset V. Background image from Arizona I believe. Close up ground from a brown T-shirt. Lighting courtesy of the big yellowy object in the sky shining through my kitchen window, diffused somewhat by an overcast sky - probably the best ambient light source you can make use of, so long as you use a tripod.

Urban Polecat

Khurasan's Polecat Light Armoured Vehicle painted in urban digital camouflage. Accompanied by a section of Khurasan's DEVGRU SEAL's as they patrol a ruined section of the city on the hunt for a suspected alien creature.

Front View : "Maybe it doesn't show up in infrared at all."

Left Side : "You're reading it wrong, that's in the polecat"

Right Side : "We should take off and nuke the site from orbit"

Rear View : "This city is headed for a disaster of biblical proportions."

Painting technique was this:

Spray gray with Army Painter base coat, then apply small rectangles of masking tape, stipple paint with darker gray (following Mr Harolds guide on his blog).

Thought about putting on a more rectangles to do a darker coat, but on realising it'll end up jet black, went for a 2 tone pattern instead.

Peeled of most of the rectangles and then realised as the Polecat was highly detailed the edges of the squares were not very distinct as the paint got under the masking tape due to the raised detail.

Ended up tidying the squares up by hand and then  painted in a lighter set of squares by hand anyway.

Symbols and text from some letraset and some spare water slide transfers from a helicopter model.

Background image from scenicreflections, foreground ruins from me, asphalt road surface by Metcalfe Models. Giant alien bug hiding in the ruins from Khurasan.

Harook Support Troops

I've finished 7 of my 20 Harook Support Troops. 1 sniper, 4 SAW gunners and 2 Plasma gunners. They sport my usual Harook multi-coloured head and tail feathers.

Back Left : Sniper.  Front Left : Plasma Gunner. Back Right : SAW Gunner

Two Harook fireteams move into the ruins

The sniper lines up his shot

The second squad move into the ruins

Walkers, what are they good for?

I've just finished painting the last of my DIMOG walkers that I bought from Khurasan so I thought I'd put together a post about all the walkers I have and the problems they pose.

The biggest problem is getting a bloke in there. Most of them do not have enough room for anyone to sit in them unless they were recruited from the casualty wards. Now this may not be too far fetched, it at least gives a reason for the existence of walkers, which is tenuous at best.

The only possible reason for them is a need for something more armoured and carrying more powerful weaponry that has similar mobility in terms of terrain as infantry. So they could only be used where tanks can't go, as anywhere a tank could go, a tank would be superior in terms of armour, weapon size, speed, range, lack of joints to break and also a lower silhouette. So we can only be talking about very rough broken terrain and possible heavily vegetated areas.

On to some pictures, here we have the DIMOG varients from Khurasan...

DIMOG Light Varient with open cockpit

DIMOG Heavy varient

DIMOG Civilian Loader with out of work flight officer

All of these obviously have no problem with fitting a crewman and are probably some of the most realistic style of walkers in the ranges currently available.

Next up we have some Steel Warriors, nominally 25mm scale power armour types, though such figures would have great difficulty getting their legs into the armour, as 15mm walkers they work much better...

View from the front looks a bit tight...

....but the side view shows a protrusion to the rear allowing a seated position entirely within the torso.

Now we have a Critical Mass Protolene Scout Assaultsuit and an (unpainted, sorry) Copplestone 28mm Power Armour Suit (sans arms also)...
Each of these has problems with cockpit size. The Protolene Scout Assaultsuit obviously would require a lower limb amputee to drive it as the articulation between body and legs would not allow the pilots legs to pass through. Alternatively it could be a robot piloted by an AI instead. The 28mm Power Armour also has problems with crew position, although it does look possible for the legs of the pilot to fit in the upper part of the walkers legs, although it would require a saddle rather than a chair.

Now if you want to do it right, by which I mean if you are insane enough to think that walkers are a good idea, you have to be Harook, in which case you can create the fantastic Chicken Main Battle Tank.

The very size of the thing has a morale effect that compensates for its sheer impracticability and as such fits into the Harook philosophy of war quite nicely.

Source of model, unfortunately, is lost within the mists of time, but it was intended as a 25mm model, could do with a new paint job though.

Traveller Blog

Space is large, and full of things that you can run into. Mind how you go.

My unstoppable blog creation tendencies have struck again.

Over at FelonTrav I'm going to put all my stuff concerning the Traveller Campaign I'm about to start. There will hopefully be some links to SF wargaming as it would be nice to do any major conflicts on the tabletop.

The campaign is going to feature the trials and tribulations of a group of Sword Worlders in the uncertain times following the Fifth Frontier War.

FelonTrav now updated with character histories and some jump drive speculation.

Power Loader

Some Photos of Khurasan's Civilian Power Loader, a DIMOG variant.

Here seen in one of it's traditional roles, defending second grade citizens from alien bitches.

Not fair! There's two of them! Newt you take the one on the right!

When not fighting aliens, someone with a Class 2 Loader Operation licence can always find work picking things up and putting them down again. It's good work when your flight officers licence has been revoked,it's great your keeping busy, and I know it's all you could get. There's nothing wrong with it!









Updated with photo enhanced first picture as it was a little boring...

DEVGRU, DIMOG and the Darling Little

Some photos of Khurasan's DEVGRU SEALS, DIMOG Armoursuit and the "Darling Little" Direct Fire Support Infantry Robots (DFSIR for acronyms sake) showing the various turret options.

I purchased a couple of spare turrets with the DFSIR to allow the use of all the weapon options the kit comes with. The turrets sit in a circular recess on top of the walking bit so they can be easily swapped over. This is the missile set, 4 missiles each side. They could be either AA or AT missiles.

This is the twin autocannon turret option.

This is the MLRS turret for mobile artillery support.

Here is the DIMOG Armoursuit with autocannon and recoilless rifle.

Other figures in the photos are Desiree Kim, one of Khurasan's Heroes of the Resistance, and the reporters from Oddzial Osmy's New Vistula Legion range.







And here are some photos of my most recently painted figures, Khurasan's DEVGRU SEAL's disembarking from a pair of Old Crow Goanna Scouts...

More photos of the Tracked APC's

Here's a few more photos of the two tracked APC's built with spare track parts... 

Defending the cliff road with the help of a Walker (Khurasan's DIMOG)

View from the drone guiding in the stand-off missile.

The media team from Central News Holovid interviews the team commander.

Track Conversion No 2 and Other Stuff

I've made another tracked vehicle using the remaining spare track units from the Khurasan Siler Heavy Tank that had the grav vehicle mod. Here's a bunch of photos of the construction process...

The main bits cut out of 1mm thick plasticard.	Track sections attached to the base (base is 40mm x 36mm with 11mm x 3mm slots each side)	Top bit and Edge bits added to make a tracked tea tray (top bit 40mm x 40mm, edges 42mm x 6mm with chamfered ends)
Milliput on the base - somewhere for the machinery to go.	More milliput build up on the top over the tracks and front section.	Then a bit more milliput to build up the cab unit which has had a 7mm hole drilled in it when its dry.
The gun and crewmen added, along with a plasticard shield. This is a more heavy gun than was on the last one, either an artillery piece or an anti-tank cannon.	More plasticard panels and side skirts added, Half BB's and plastic airplane bits stuck on for detail	Finished and painted.

 The donor vehicle for the tracks, this is the Silar Heavy Tank from Khurasan with the grav modification.

This has had an additional gun mounted on the turret for the commander. The gun is another spare autocannon from a Khurasan's DIMOG walker.

On the previous tracked conversion this was the main gun, on the battle tank it's just a minor secondary weapon! Shows how big the tank is.

 Speaking of Khurasan stuff, here's some Nova Respublic figures (the next lot of infantry I'm painting up).

And here's some camo scrim nets made from plastic netting (contained garlic originally so proof against visibility and vampires) with flocking material stuck on and then painted.