Valentine's Mobile Steam Artillery UPDATE 1

[archangel1]

I guess to you at home in Blighty, all us Colonials look alike! 

Well, you have me there.

I'll just put this one down to over excitement at the content of the post, tiredness after a late night of curry and beer and my inability to accurately distinguish between former colonies in the northern and southern hemispheres.
[/quote]

It's simple.  Canadians live in igloos on moose farms while Australians wear hats with dangling corks and have pet kangaroos! Sheesh! The decline in educational standards these days! 

[Malamute]

I guess to you at home in Blighty, all us Colonials look alike! 

Well, you have me there.

I'll just put this one down to over excitement at the content of the post, tiredness after a late night of curry and beer and my inability to accurately distinguish between former colonies in the northern and southern hemispheres.

It's simple.  Canadians live in igloos on moose farms while Australians wear hats with dangling corks and have pet kangaroos! Sheesh! The decline in educational standards these days! 
[/quote]

Arr, so thats the answer, you see to me before your post you were all Johnny Foreigner

[thejammedgatling]

So finally a few decent (ish) pics of the creations. I'll post the actual battle report soon which show how they went. There are four units in the battery. Two are single units which contain small cannon firing conventional shells. The other smaller unit has an electric pulse firing gun which is attached to a sort of dynamo to the track which re-charges it (hence it has to keep moving to be used effectively). The larger command module is simply based on two of the track units and is armed with a purloined Martian Heatray up top and a small cannon in the lower platform. Two anti - infantry gatling guns are mounted as well. It's a bit of a beast really. I wanted to use the old guns to lessen the tech impact of the pieces and to give it a kind of transitional technology feel.



They were pretty fun to make with a minimum of scratchbuilding. The core track units are off some Wizards of the Coast Star Wars droid tanks. Dirt cheap on fleabay. I think I paid about $8 for 5!. The decks and superstructure are all Airfix Robogear platforming which I found in a bargain basement discount webstore for a few dollars. The heat ray body and electric gun are from that set also. The top of the heat ray the top of my superglue bottle.



The units were painted white then a rust base coat applied and rubbed vigorously back with a rag so that it pretty much only sat in the crevices (as real rust would).



By the time the second coat was applied the white had settled back to a dirty grey. A smattering of red oxide to simulate Martian dust and that was that. I must say that with more time I could have done better but we needed them for our game quickly!







Oh, and the boilers were made from a plastic plumbing reducing joint.



I plan to paint up my artillerymen but havn't got to them yet, nor to Valentine himself, who will need some conversion. So in the meantime it's the good old navy..





Forward the guns!!

More soon...

[Thunderchicken]

Wow! 

I'm off for a sit down in a dark room.

[Chairface]

Awesome. Completey awesome.

[Skrapwelder]

Excellent work.

[Geudens]

Again... Superb!!!!

Rudi

[thejammedgatling]

Hmm, still thinking of a good base figure to use for Valentine...anyone have any ideas? Might even go back to some of the Crimea uniforms..

No problem with Jonas Arkwright though (nice one Ramchackle)

[twrchtrwyth]

Excellent work.

[Argonor]

Those machines look like theve been exposed to salt water for many years. Very nice effect!