Spring of Scenery 2023: Part 9 - Survey Camp Photo Shoot

A planetary survey team set up camp for the night.

Their ride is a repainted Matchbox vehicle.  The tent comes from Alternative Armies and the survey team themselves are GZG civilians/colonists.

Scenery is my games board plus some cheap Fir trees, with some of my real garden in the background.

Spring of Scenery 2023: Part 8 - Supply Dump Photo Shoot

 Bandits break into a concealed supply dump.  This includes GZG figures, a repainted Matchbox vehicle, cheap Fir trees, Reindeer Lichen and 3D printed crates.  The door is a 3D print attached to a Linka brick panel embedded in the cliff face.

  

Volvo Lorry

Last weekend I made a return visit to the car boor sale that yielded a couple of vehicles for the AK47 Republic objective competition.  There were the usual collections of battered old toy cars and this time we came away with 3 Matchbox goodies, a Porsche 928 and a Lamorghini Countach for the young 'uns and a Volvo lorry for me.  There lots of Matchbox "Leyland Ergomatic Cab" lorries but I already have quite a lot of those.

This was originally sold as a "container lorry" with a shipping container on the back, from 1985-2000.

The detail underneath lists it as being 1:90 scale but as you can see from the photographs, it matches neatly against the 1:100 Saviem I used in one of my objective markers.

I think it's unlikely that anyone seeing this in a 15mm game will exclaim "By gad man, what are you doing using that ridiculously out-of-scale vehicle!", so now to drill out the rivets and repaint.

The Great Rationalisation of '21: Lots of aeroplanes.

One small and rather heavy box from the loft contains my collection of Matchbox aircraft that will be repainted for use as airfield set dressing for some of my 1980's set Action Force games.

Vought Corsairs - A7D?

My collection of Corsairs is a little battered, a few have rather bent wings and most are missong cockpit canopies.

"Subsonic Interceptor"

The Subsonic Interceptor will be a top secret prototype that needs to be photographed/stolen/destroyed in a black ops type mission.

Little Cessnas I think?

These little 'planes will be handy set dressing on a small airfield in a South American dictatorship...

F104 Starfighters

F-104s feature in the Z-Force story "Desert Strike".

A4 Skyhawks

Skyhawks would be useful if I wanted to do a Falklands style game.

Mirage F1s

Mirages also feature in the Z Force Desert Strike story.

MiG 21s

A few MiGs will be useful for any game involving USSR supported governments.

Alphajets

Not sure how the Alphajets will fit in but I'm sure I'll find a use.

F4 Phantoms

Phantoms appear in an SAS Force story.  You can see that I started repainting one but when I masked off the wings to spray the white panels, something went wrong and it'll need to be repainted from scratch.

The Great Rationalisation of '21: Aerospace support

 Several years ago I got some Matchbox Skybusters to serve in as air support in my 15mm games.  They'll be useful for airfield raid type missions.

Stealth Launch

"Stealth Launch" fighters come in a range of colour schemes, these came in a garish orange but I'm repainting them in a dull grey.  They'll be aerospace fighters for my Neo-Colonial Commonwealth forces.

Sea Arrow

These "Sea Arrow" planes are going to be militarised civilian aircraft with jury-rigged machine guns or improvised bombs.  I like their pusher-prop design.  I can imagine them operating from short runways hidden in the jungle...

I'll need to source some suitable transfers to mark up both sets of aircraft, I probably have some amongst my huge stash.

Whoops!

 Every now and again, something goes wrong.  Usually it's my fault.  One such occasion was when I was putting a box of newly finished epic-scale models in the loft.  It slipped off the top of the pile I was carrying up the ladder and plunged two and a half metres to the floor where it burst open and sprayed bits across the carpet.  This included some of my new Forge World vehicles and I can advise you that Forge World resin does not take kindly to being dropped from a great height with metal models for company.  There were a lot of tank destroyer gun barrels and Basilisk gun platforms to repair after that...

I had a similar incident this week.  Way back in 2013 I started work on my AFCFA army, converting some old Matchbox armoured trucks into fully enclosed APCs.  Work on this project stalled repeatedly for various reasons, having 2 children being the main one.  I've also taken an inordinately long time to find decals I'm happy with.  Anyway, they're finally nearing completion, along with lots of scout cars and light armoured cars.

Having no dedicated painting/modelling area available, I have a lap tray which comes out most evenings when the time allows.  Unfortunately, I knocked this when getting something nearby and was rewarded by the sound of 18 armoured vehicles sliding off the tray en-masse and crashing down behind chairs onto the wooden floor...

Fuel tank to re-attach to scout car.

 

Looking behind the chairs, I could see the vehicles had scattered underneath and in several instances the body shell had parted company from the chassis.  These were only dry fitted and will be glued after painting is complete, so that was easy to fix by just matching up camo patterns.

Sensor bubble to re-glue to command vehicle.

Stowage box to glue to rear mudguard.

Minor damage to top rear rail (white chip).

Stowage box to go back over front wheel arch.

APC roof to re-attach.

Medical vehicle roof to re-attach.

Luckily it seems that nothing has actually broken other than the small chip on the top rail of the suport vehicle, so an evening with some superglue will hopefully resolve everything!

Snow Trac

A few years ago I spotted this Snow Trac at the Norfolk & Suffolk Aviation Museum in Flixton. 

Snow Trac

Snow Tracs were used by NATO in Norway and I think they'd be a good addition to my mid-1980's Action Force collection.

Snow Trac rear detail

The Royal Marines version was very light weight, with the fixed cabin replaced by a canvas tilt.

Information panel at Flixton museum.

They could easily be fitted with a WOMBAT recoilless rifle for anti-tank work.  Incidentally, anyone who watched the recent His Dark Materials BBC TV series may recognise the Snow Trac as a vehicle the Gyptians had in their convoy to rescue the children from Bolvangar (though without the gun!).

Snow Trac in use with an L6 WOMBAT recoilless rifle.

A trip to the local car boot sale this morning furnished me with a matchbox Snow Trac for the princely sum of 50 pence.  It's slightly over-sized but not by much and to be honest, how often do you see one driving down the street to be able to compare it to a person?

Snow Trac in the snow.

I'll need to whip up some tracks for it but that shouldn't be too hard.  Royal Marine Snow Tracs did not have the fixed cabin but I'm not planning on fitting a WOMBAT so I'll just add a bit of stowage and leave it at that.

That man in blue should be wearing a hat in the cold weather.

I'll need to bend the front back into shape slightly and the tow hook and part of the rear equipment rack but should be fairly easy.

Won't get far without any tracks!

Some paint stripper or a polish with a steel brush and some wire wool should get it ready for an undercoat and a suitable snow camo scheme.

UN helicopter - Matchbox "Mission Chopper" repaint

Z Force deploy from their helicopter.

Last year I picked up a nice Matchbox "Mission Chopper" helicopter in the local charity shop.  I decided that it would become a UN helicopter which can fulfil the dual roles of either being transport in/out of action or being a game objective.

New and old.

Unfortunately Number 1 Son spotted it and appropriated it for his own use.  It now has a fine collection of "landing lights" (stick-on craft jewels which can now be found dotted throughout our entire house) but is no longer available for wargaming.  Luckily a quick check on ebay provided me with another Mission Chopper plus an F4 Phantom and a couple of Spitfires for only £4.

"Landing lights"

I moved quickly with the new one and had it washed and undercoated before anyone else got hold of it!

Base colours are Vallejo cold grey and Russian uniform green.  After a Future and black ink wash, it ended up looking much more RAF than I originally planned but I decided to go with it and added a Union Flag to shown who has supplied it to the UN.  I could have gone for traditional UN white but decided the camo scheme will be more useful for game purposes.

Repainting provided the opportunity to add extra windows on the front which are clearly implied by the moulding on the model.

Side windows have also been painted larger than originally printed on the model, again to match the actual moulding.

Decals are all waterslide transfers and come from a variety of sources: Space Marines, Matchbox A34 Comet cruiser tank, JB models land rover, Matchbox Panzer II, Airfix Westland Sea King, Airfix Westland Scout, Italeri Hind-D.  Plenty of Vallejo decal medium was used to soften and stick the transfers to all the curves!  A top coat of Future floor polish has hopefully sealed everything in.

Z Force trooper helpfully pointing out nose warning sign.

Although perhaps a touch on the small side for GZG or Brigade figures, it still scales pretty well with my Peter Pig infantry and they'll be the main people interacting with it during 1980's through to modern skirmishes.

APCs/ Multi Purpose Vehicles

 I've picked up a few of these APCs,.  They both seem to be an approximation of the Canadian Terradyne Gurkha MPV (Multi Purpose Vehicle), with a bit of artistic license over the exact design.

 

They're available in the UK in Poundland and/or Poundstretcher.  The Matchbox vehicle is slightly longer, taller and much slimmer than the Zuru "Metal Machine".  Both come in a rage of different colour schemes, you may have spotted some lighter blue Matchbox ones in a few battle reports on the Hammer's Slammers web site.  I have 3 white and 2 black Zuru vehicles.

Blister pack

The Zuru ones have only appeared recently in Poundland and Poundstretcher but the Matchbox ones seem to have vanished from Poundland at the moment, I got mine a couple of years ago along with a load of Matchbox M-ATVs and Marauders.

Side view

Overall, I think I prefer the Zuru one.  It also looks to have more internal detail, not that it'll show much once it's been painted.

Rear view

The Zuru vehicle has a better sized rear hatch for quick troop deployment.

Front view

The wider body gives the Zuru model a chunkier, tougher appearance. Note that both have a gun shield suitable for mounting a pintle machine gun such as those offered by Brigade Models.

Top view

The Zuru vehicle also has a larger hatch into which you could place a cut down figure as a gunner.

Terradyne Gurkha MPV

My white Zuru Gurkhas will get a repaint, probably in a jungle or desert green/brown scheme.  I might leave the police ones in their native colour scheme to start.