Tuesday, January 22, 2019

More Gaslands vehicles

A car and pickup for Gaslands or Axles and Alloys, made from dollar store die-cast vehicles and some spare bits from other toys or minis.
I drilled out the rivets holding these vehicles together, stripped the paint, added some spare parts, and then sprayed them a nice blue color and washed them with a black ink/paint/water mix.
The car, Jake, comes equipped with a machine-gun turret, a manipulator arm, and a spotlight. I sprayed the inside of the windows black before I glued everything together.
The truck, Elwood, has some sort of big, sci-fi gun in a turret over the cab, and a spotlight on the hood.
It's windows were already tinted, so I just detailed the big gun on top. I also glued the wheels so they don't turn--that way I don't have to worry about my gaming minis rolling across the table if it gets bumped.
These vehicles were a lot easier to finish than my first two Gaslands trucks, which each had miniature figures posed on them.
I realize that these are not your typical wasteland warrior vehicles, but I figure there are still pockets of civilization out there, making and maintaining new (or newish-looking) cars and trucks.
The completion of this second pair means I have enough vehicles for some team battles or scenarios from the Gaslands rulebook. Maybe the next bunch will look more post-apocalyptic.

Sunday, January 6, 2019

My first finished Gaslands rigs

My first completed miniatures of 2019 are a couple of vehicles for use with Gaslands (and other post-apocalyptic road combat games, like Axles & Alloys). This front loader and dump truck came from the same dollar store blister pack. Can you figure out the theme here?
I took them apart and sprayed the plastic components with a darker shade of orange. Since I didn't have any old Warhammer 40K bits to convert to weapons like other gamers tend to use, I decided to accessorize the vehicles with 1/72 figures from hobby stores or flea markets, painted like construction workers.
Inspired by the great Kaptain Kobold, I have decided to name all my post-apoc rigs after song titles. Thus, I present to you: Who Can It Be Now? This vehicle has a driver from a halftrack model and the shooter from a box of WWII Germans.
The dump truck shall henceforth be known as Overkill. The figures in the back are all German soldiers from the same sprue as the guy on the front loader.
Confession time: I wanted to get into Gaslands because I thought that painting die-cast cars would be a lot simpler than painting figures of people or creatures. So what do I do? Decide that the first vehicles I paint all need crew miniatures!
It took me all afternoon to get these figs painted to the level I'm comfortable with--that is, a tabletop standard. The photographs bring out all their flaws, but I think they look fine at arm's length on the gaming mat.
In addition to the soldiers, I placed some containers from Reaper's Bones to give the guys cover and something to stand on.
OK, that's two down, and another couple dozen to go. Who knows? Maybe I will get enough of these done to run a game of Gaslands before 2020 gets here.