Hell Knights Medium Hover Tank Finished!

 I finished the medium hover tank for my Hell Knights.  The model is converted from a Matchbox toy. The missile launcher is scratch built from different sized zip ties.  I have two other toys I've started converted so I will have a full tank squadron.

I'm pretty pleased with the way it turned out and hopefully I'll have the other two assembled and painted shortly.

Painting progress on Hover Tanks and Mech!

I've got the new hover tank for my Hell Knights mostly painted and I've also been painting a mech made from a Transformers toy.  All I have is a wash and some weathering and these will be ready for the table.  I have two more of the tanks I've started working on as well.

Hell Knights large hover AFV and Drone painted!

 I've had the build on this large hover AFV finished since August but I've just now managed to get it painted. I'm really happy with the paint job but I'm a little disappointed with the Krylon matte varnish I used on it.  I use the Krylon because it's decently priced and because there are several places in town I can pick it up.  Normally it comes out decently flat.  Not as flat as Testorss but usually flat enough.  Every now and again thought I get a can that comes out more satin the flat in nature.  I'll definitely be varnishing it again with Testors when I get another can.  

 Here's a back shot showing the doors open.  This was a nice feature on the toy I converted this hover craft from so I wanted to retain that feature since this is suppose to be used as a troop transport.  The GW Stormtroopers are shown for scale.  I used these minis for my Armored Assault Squad troopers for my Hell Knights Mercenary Company and this transport was designed specifically for them.  I will be building at least one more of these transports since I have enough troopers for two squads.  Now I just need to stat it up and start using it in our campaign.  

I showed this Hotwheels Batman "Bat" toy yesterday that I picked up for about $8.00.  I decided to paint it up as a combat drone.  For one thing the cockpit was a bit small for a manned speeder and I would have had to tear the toy apart to paint it because they structure made the side windows very hart to get at.  Since it was rivet constructed instead of screwed together that would be been much more difficult.  The other reason thought is that this version of the Hell Knights are not Imperial guardsmen.  They are not stuck with 1930s era weapons and tactics like the Imperial Guard.  I thought using this model as a drone instead of a speeder seemed even more high tech and it still fit within the armies theme.  I used a missile launcher from an Imperial Guard Sentinel walker to give it a bit more firepower.  

Hotwheels Batman "Bat" toy

I picked up this Hotwheels "Bat" speeder from Batman to use as an air speeder for my Hell Knights army.  The cockpit area is just barely large enough to be considered for a 28mm scale pilot but I may paint over it anyway and just use this thing as a kind of drone.  I think either would work reasonably well for this design.  One weird thing about the toy is that the army mounts are positioned asymmetrically which isn't so bad because they are clearly designed to be able to sweep back and forth to track targets.  It does come with a flying stand which is nice but it is awfully short for an air speeder type craft.  I will probably upgrade it eventually.

 Another thing about that model that is kind of strange are these roto blades on the bottom.  They are however made of soft plastic so they were easy to clip off.

This is a pretty good model as is.  It's a bit on the Iconic side of things but I think painting it up in Hell Knights cammo will make look different enough to make it work.  I may add a missile launcher above the cockpit areas to change it up a bit and add a bit of fire power but that's something I can do anytime or even as an upgrade.

In The Future There Will Be Robots!

I just wanted to show off some of the toys we have amassed for our Mecha project for Station 42.  I've already shown one of the mechs with the Titania Planetary Guard update.  Here are some of the others.  Many if not all of these will make and appearance in our "Station 42 War" campaign.
We will still be using "No Limits" as our rules which will make it easy to create stats for these models but we will also be adding several house rules and some new equipment which I will publish as the project progresses.  Eventually I would like to pick up some nicer models but for now we are using these to kind of test out our rule ideas.

Anti Grav AFV almost done!

 I'm just about done with this project!  All I have left is a to make an automated weapons mount for the spot where I removed the machine gun and I have one more hole to cover in the hull that I missed before I snapped these shots.  I should have it painted soon.

Anti Grav Assault AFV Work in Progress

A while back I made this post about a toy AFV I found at Dollar General.  It's a pretty big sucker especially with those wheels.  For the last couple days I've been working on futurising it.  I replaced the wheels with some odd looking pencil sharpeners that represent the anti grav drive.  I also replaced the gun with a scratch built laser canon made from the guts of a mechanical pencil and some wooden beads.  I also cut off all the gas cans and mufflers and other inconsistent bits. 

This is suppose to represent a super heavy AFV designed to transport heavily armored troops into the thick of a battle and then act as support for them.  It's basically the equivalent of a Land Raider for Warhammer 40k. 

I've still got some detailing to do to cover up the holes that resulted from removing the details.  I'm going to cover them up with tech bits but since I want to be able to make more of these I'm going to try and stick with easily acquired items.   

Kitbashed Medium Hover Tank part 1

 I picked up a couple of these Matchbox "Rev Rigs" tanks today at Walmart.  I didn't like the wheels but I figured that I could convert them into hover tanks for my Hell Knights.  They are slightly chunkier than my light hover tank so I thought they would be good as medium hover tanks.

 I had to locate the screws that held the wheels and drive on so I could take the tank body off which was the only part I was looking to use.  There were four screws on the side of the drive part but I had to remove the tires to get at two of them.  After that I was able to pry the drive apart to get at the screws holding the tank body on.  This pretty much wrecked the drive part but at least I got some nice gears I can use for other projects from it.  I figured I would make the hover drive from cheap disposable razor handles exactly like I did on the other hover tank. 

The one really bad thing about this toy is that the turret doesn't turn.  It's fixed in place with screws and post and even when you remove those it doesn't turn because the hole on the body is smaller than the hole in the turret.  Makes you wonder why they even put a hole in the body.  On almost every tank toy or model I have ever seen the turret had a simple key attachment system that allowed it to turn and held it in place.  I have no idea why they didn't use that on this toy.  There is no way a kid could get the turret in his mouth so it isn't a choke hazard.  I'm planning on figuring out a way to make the turret turn.  I'm going to have to put a bottom in the body anyway so I think I can rig something that should work.  Also the pintel mounted gun is really ugly and huge.  I will likely switch that out with a better looking weapon.  I have some cheapo machine guns in mind that aren't that special but they look way better than that thing. 

I'm pretty happy with the toy over all though.  I think it will be no harder to put together than my other hover tank project way.  Each kit bash has it's own little issues.  Unfortunately it will probably be next week before I get to this project because I'm going to an SCA event over the weekend.