Another use for Mad Mecha Guy watchtowers

 Another possible use of Mad Mecha Guy watch towers would be to use one as the basis for a water tower.

I've cobbled this example together using an old paint pot and a drinking straw.  If I was going to build a permanent one I'd try and find a slightly smaller pot to go on the top.

Useful for scenarios...

Destroy the water tower!  Deprive your enemies of water by destroying the tower - fight your way to it and attach explosive charges to the tower legs - or perhaps you can destroy it from a distance using missiles?

Poison the water tower!  Fight your way to the tower and climb it to pour poison/mutagens into the supply.

Steal the water!  Your troops are running low on water and a raid on this water tower might save their lives.  Spend a number of turns in contact with the base of the tower while you fill water containers, earn more water counters (victory points) for every turn, but make sure you escape before enemy reinforcements arrive.  Make some water markers before the game - paint some spare jerry cans or something similar.  If you have appropriate models, the mission could be to use escort vehicles to protect a water tanker.

More Stoats - painted!

 My 3 new Stoat armoured cars are ready for action.  This time I gave them a scrub with a brillo pad (steel wool) instead of dunking them in paint stripper.  It gives a key for the paint and it's much quicker, which suits my lazy way of working.

Undercoated.

I've used a black undercoat this time.  Hopefully any chips in the paintwork won't be as noticeable as with a grey undercoat (as used on the first Stoat).

Driving through the forest.

The more observant among you might have noticed their sneak preview in yesterday's post!

GZG trooper for scale.

I've used the same colour scheme as the first Stoat.  Humbrol 75 bronze green with a Humbrol 86 drybrush.  Vallejo matt black camo stripes drybrushed with Humbrol 32 dark grey.  A dusting of Humbrol 93 desert yellow to finish off.  Tools are Vallejo stonewall grey heads with Humbrol 186 brown handles.  Fire extinguishers on the top of the hull are GW woodland green (a pot from the early 1990s!).

I think some Peter Pig Hummer 50 cal or TOW Hummer ring-mounts might finish them nicely.

Mad Mecha Guy watch towers now painted

My watchtowers are now painted and ready for action!  After an all-over undercoat with MDF primer, I've used Inscribe olive drab acrylic for the tower and a tester pot of Wilkinson's stone wall grey for the concrete base.  The tower was drybrushed with olive drab with a dash of white added and for some reason it's come out looking almost grey in my photographs!  I think it's because I was taking the pictures in natural light.

The completed tower.

I've made a small addition to the basic tower, gluing small blocks over the top of the holes in the roof.  This means that I've been able to shave a bit off the roof supports so the roof easily lifts off - with the layers of paint it had become a little tight.  The blocks on the top stop the roof sliding down and crushing the occupants!  In this instance I've recycled the window cut-outs from the WC blocks I ordered at the same time.

Interior detail.

 The interior is spacious enough for a squad of troops to keep a lookout.

Should hold a fire team nicely!

 Then I thought I'd have a play with some scenery...

The patrol set out...

Observation tower in the forest.

Keeping watch over the border.

Defending a forest road.

Mad Mecha Guy watch towers

 I was so impressed by my first order from Mad Mecha Guy that I've already ordered some more bits.  This was dealt with just as efficiently as last time, I e-mailed my order on Wednesday evening, received an e-mail about 7:30 Friday morning to say that it was all cut and ready for delivery and received it early the next week -despite the Easter weekend and its two bank holidays!

This time I've gone for 5 small shops with pitched roof, a set of 3 public conveniences (1 to act as a shower block for the shanty town, one for the starport and one for the city centre), some storage containers, a large house and 7 tall watch towers.  Most of the package has been squirreled away as my birthday present from my wife, so no reviews until July!

I was allowed to remove a few items for "test purposes" though...

The watch tower.

I have 3 watch towers to build.  I've just thrown one together quickly to take a few photographs.  You can see that it looms over the battlefield nicely.  This is the taller set of towers - the shorter set features 3 sections of tower instead of 4.

Removable roof.

 I'm going to leave the roof removable so that it's easier to get figures in and out.

Alternate platform configuration.

If you wanted to build it without the roof, you can turn the wall sections upside-down like so.

Engraved detail.

As usual, Joseph has engraved some panel detail to break up any large flat areas.

Components.

As always, the components are carefully thought out and go together with no trouble.  It's very obvious where they all go and the fit is snug, as can be seen from my dry assembly above - no glue required for these photographs, though you'd want some for the final assembly.  The pack contains 7 towers, enough for one on each corner of a firebase/POW camp and two either side of the main gate, plus a spare for the centre of the camp.  Alternatively they could form a frontier across the length of a 6' games table.  Plenty of scenario ideas present themselves immediately:
1) Prison camp break-out or rescue
2) Firebase siege
3) Frontier raid
4) Defend the lone tower from the restless natives

I've got them painted now, just need to set up a suitable scene for photography.  Can't wait to start work on the rest after my Birthday!

Armoured Transport part 4

 My vehicles are undercoated, I've used flat grey car primer.

Undercoated and ready for camouflage.

I added a small rectangle of plasticard next to the jerry can before I painted them,this will be a first aid kit when they're painted.  The grey paint shows up the detail much better than my previous photographs.

Roof detail.

Since taking these photographs they've received a coat of Vallejo reflective green.  Now I just need to decide on what extra colours will be used for their camouflage pattern and how I'm going to apply it.

Badger reinforcements

 I've acquired a few more Badgers recently, one from a local model railway shop's old toy box, the other two (without radar antennae) from e-bay.  I think a couple of Peter Pig Hummer MG mounts will finish those two nicely, similar to the couple of Stoats I want to add them to.

Before and after (or so I hope...)

Replacement Badgers from the surplus depot.

Hmm... looks like this one hit a mine!

Disassembled and ready for refurbishment.

Mould lines filed and sanded (paint still to be scrubbed).

Scrubbed sanded and filed, ready for painting.

 

Armoured Transport part 3

With 5 personnel carrier bodies to play with, I decided to upgrade one with a weapons turret.  I bought a small plastic Gepard SPAA tank a while ago, the Leopard tank body was rubbish but the turret had possibilities.  Sadly I couldn't find it, but luckily I had a couple of old Airfix CVR(T) Scorpion tank kits handy, so I decided to go with one of them.

Fire support vehicle.

The turret has been built in the Scimitar configuration with a 30mm RARDEN cannon. I've added a few extras in the form of corrugated plasticard, a bit more treadplate, a map pin sensor sphere, the end of an MG34 mounted coaxially with the main gun, a couple of Italeri jerry cans and the missile pod from a Mechwarrior clicky tank.

Rear detail.

 The APC body has a fire extinguisher added next to the forward stowage area and a small hatch nearby.  I imagine this hatch is for munitions loading.  The turret is slightly offset to one side to prevent the missile pod protruding over the side of the vehicle.  With a hole drilled through two layers of 1.5mm plasticard, the turret fits snugly in place and doesn't wobble as you turn it.  After completing the turret, I discovered that the slight overhang of the jerry cans on the back of the turret bustle/stowage bin was going to leave them too close to the top of the hull, they'd end up rubbing a line in the paint.  An extra circle of 1mm plasticard has lifted the turret enough to avoid this problem.

APC top plate mounting.

 I've found that Mechwarrior clicky vehicles are an excellent source of missile pods and the like and are still fairly easy to get hold of on e-bay.  You can see the missile pod donor on the right here.  As well as the tanks seen here, I have a the Jes II missile carrier which comes with loads of missile pods - some will be finding their way into my forces very soon.

Weapon donors.