I'm a great fan of (WWI-ish) heavy guns (I keep replaying sections of DVD's showing these big guns in action, they fascinate me...).
So I thought it to be about time that my forces should have some of these to blast away at the invading flying saucers. I have a kit of HLBSC's Big Bertha, but the length of this (beautiful) model is such that it is hardly practicle to move it around on a tabletop battlefield, so I had a look at Forgeworld's Imperial heavy mortar. Again a wonderful toy, but very much "40K"ish in its appearance and with 3 Death Korps of Krieg gunners on top not quite cheap at £25.
Since I want several of these guns, I suppose I could have bought a battery (or several) of 3 at £65, but finally decided this was far too much...
Finally I went to have a look at the Armorcast range and found a neat 28mm SF howitzer there with a barrel the size of a Big Bertha at USD9; only... it came with a static mount! Well, this was surely great to add to the defences of my fortifications (so I bought some...) but still left me in the cold as far as mobile warfare was concerned.
A visit to the craft shop solved my problem and I came home with some (very) small doll's eyes, a wooden letter "V" (for the tail of the carriage) and some wooden wheels of suitable size (I removed the rubber ring representing the tyre, since this made the carriage look too modern). Adding on top of that a small piece of plasticard and some L-profile, I constructed the gun carriage in less than 30 minutes, measuring included (not much of a challenge, really).
Once this finished, I then glued a small rectangular metal base to the bottom of the static gun and a (slightly larger) piece of magnetic strip to the top of the carriage to hold the gun (by force of the magnet) in place. To the front of the carriage I glued a piece of L-profile to keep it from sliding on the magnetic strip (at the back of the gun this job is done by 2 doll's eyes, representing giant rivets or the like). This way the gun is held firmly in place when handling it, but can still be gently pulled from the magnetic strip and used in a static function if need arises.
The most wonderful thing is that (including the 3 crewmen, still to be converted from Warzone figs by simply cutting the lasguns from their right hand and adding a shell to one of them) one gun & crew will cost me £8 instead of the £25 I was (nearly...) going to spend with Forgeworld. I - for one - am pleased, but what do you think of my little model?
This is the first model I used one of the new GW washes on, instead of thinned down ink. My opinion: they work well and give indeed a matt finish. The one thing you don't (need to) do is thin them: if you do, not much of a wash is left, so I assume I will consume a lot more than before (with thinned ink) in the end, but the matt effect and the fact that this wash does not concentrate in lower areas (as thinned ink does if one is not careful) make this new product worthwhile I guess.
Rudi
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April 28, 2024, 09:42:47 PM
June 24, 2008, 10:14:18 AM