VSF British Air Boat

Good evening,

A while back Andy Gorman gave me his excellent VSF 20mm army, including this splendid scratch built Air Boat. Balsa, card and cleverness. Brilliant, in fact!




Well, seeing as HaT have brought out a naval Gardener Gun, complete with deck mount, I thought 'Cool. I'll add a couple of them to the Air Boat'.

I picked up a box from Stan last night (any Kiwi gamers who are after 20mm plastics at a great price, contact him!) and have started to pull some things together...



First up, I had to crew the gun, so I grabbed a left over sprue of the HaT Colonial Artillery and swapped their heads for the spare naval heads that come with the Gardener Gun (the result of which looks a little odd close up, but I'm hoping they'll look a little more natural with a coat of paint), along with the Heliograph Operator from the Gattling Gun sprue. I'm going to put him in a crow's nest on the forward mast. Cool idea, thanks Stan!

The Gardener Gunners also had their heads swapped. It is interesting to note that the mount is not quite tall enough for the gun's crank handle to meet the gunners hand, so I've mounted the mounts on some spare crew bases. The guns themselves will be mounted atop the bridge, to which I will add a solid railing.


I'm also thinking of mounting one of the officers with a telescope atop the bridge as well. I'll have to see how crowded it becomes first.

Isn't it funny how easily wargamers are distracted from one item to the next, before the former is completed! :-)

Nick

Steam Tank Update

Good evening,

Well, it's slow going. I redesigned the chassis, have cut up (and scored) some tracks, pulled it together and am in the process of painting same.




Not least because of...(see above post)

Nick

What Should the Steam Tank Be?

Good evening,

Well, while I'm waiting to get off my butt to actually do something constructive, construting wise, it has occured to me that I'm not quite sure what to class this Steam Tank as in HOTT terms.

The most obvious would be to call it a Behemoth, but, well, classing it as mounted would make it vulnerable to shooting which it just should not be ('cept to artillery). So, as I see it, there are four options...

1. Class it as a standard Behemoth, @ 4AP.
   


2. Class it as a Foot Behemoth - that is, as a standard Bh, but class it as foot, not mounted, @ 4 AP.
   


3. Class it as a Blade @ 2AP. Boring, but it would make it mostly invulnerable to shooting and suitably scary to foot. I think it would also suitably simulate it's lack of maneuverability and the difficulty it'd have with fast moving opponents.
   


4. Class it as a shooter, with Blade close combat factors, @ 4AP.

So, what do you think? Please vote on the side bar now!

(I also have the same problem with my EIR Tortoise...



...'cept that it can't really shoot back. What should this be?)

Nick

Now you see them...

...and now you don't!





Well, I've finally got the lid on the hull of the steam tank. I thought I might be able to see a bit more of the crew, but, well, at least now I've got evidence that there are indeed miniatures in there, and they are painted!

Next step is to add some...cladding(?)...to the remaining edges of the deck, try to touch up the gaps with PVA and paint, and then try to figure out this.


It's the unfolded running gear, or at least the bulk of it. I'm not real sure how it all goes together.

I at least figured out why the jolly thing is so tall. All of the crew are standing, save the turret gunner! I think it gives it a good 'naval' feel myself, something I was trying to get.

Still, if I was to do this again, I'd make it longer, possibly half as much length again, to give it more engine/boiler room. It wouldn't matter so much that it wouldn't fit on a 60mm by 80mm HOTT Behemoth base, they are only guidelines afterall.

No matter, I can justify its stumpyness by saying that it was designed primarily as an infantry support weapon - slow and steady, designed to just stay with the Tommies rather than speed off on it's own in some kind of 19^th Century Blitzkrieg!

Cheers,

Nick

Steam Tank Update

Good afternoon,

Well, it's been slow going. I enjoy making wargame armies, I endure painting them!








The wheels for the tracks are from the Airfix Ancient Brit chariots, with some air dried clay wheels in between so as to make the tracks wider, more chunky. I've decided to make the tracks with strips of card, with the 'links' being made by scoring lines onto/into the card.

Having the 'Mark 1' model there has been surprisingly useful in figuring out how things fit. That big white thing hanging off the side is a 54mm / 1/32^nd scaled ships air vent. I was hoping it was going to be quite a bit smaller when I ordered it. Not sure whether to use it or not. Whatdayarekon?

Next step - keep painting the crew so's I can seal them inside the hull, bridge and turret. Then on with the running gear. Which looks really tricky. Ah well...

Cheers,

Nick