Gaslands: Another Monster Truck

In my endless hunt for car fodder, I've become increasingly aware of the Teamsterz brand. I've found these in at 8 or so UK retailers, I'm sure there's more, sometimes under their own branding, sometimes not. It's a supermarket "own brand" sorta situation, in that we have a single manufacturer providing for specific niche, that of an inexpensive alternative to bigger brands, and they sell to everybody. While rarely attempting to be specific makes of cars, these do have a virtue beyond low cost, in that they aren't bolted together. So, grab yourself a crosshead screwdriver, and go looking. 

 

This second Monster Truck is a follow up to my first one. Department of Redundancy Department. But, I'm doing a slightly more involved job this time. I took the wheels and bits from the same kind of poundshop toy as before, and sought to merge them with a Teamsterz car which I disassembled. The die-cast bit got the dettol treatment, while I worked on the wheels. This was a bit of a bodge job, as the metal axles were slightly too long, and I wasn't happy with how things looked. I removed the axles, pinned the wheels into place, and attached the whole thing to the actual car with hot glue. Despite my best efforts, the wheels look wonky instead, which isn't a plus. I also neglected to paint the car interior, which ordinarily wouldn't be an issue, except its orange. So, yeah, a bodge job across the board. This is the first time I've tried major structural work on any of these Gaslands cars, so it's forgivable, and I'd rather get the mistakes out of the way before my bits come in and I start on my serious attempts. 

 

Something I do feel a lot better about is the cabling and piping effects on in the “lift kit” area. These were made with various sizes of wire and tube, while the car's original plastic underside was repurposed as greeblies. The paint job was done in my usual style, and looks proper rusty. And to continue the joke, I named it "Medium Jock".

Up next: oh! My bits turned up!

Gaslands: Warden Team

Its extremely tempting to label Gaslands as a Mad Max inspired game. I mean, what other massively popular, car-based media would you use as a point of reference? There is even a prolonged tribute to Fury Road, with the War Rig being its own thing, with a narrative campaign. Gaslands does however draw from various source such the Carmageddon games, Deathrace 2000, any number of racing movies where they are fast and/or furious, The Simpsons, and the conceptually similar Dark Future by Games Workshop circa 1988. So, with my bits still on order, and a few days off, I decided to mix things up a bit, and make a team for The Warden sponsorship.

 

So what are sponsorships? Well, these are commonly used, but not actually mandatory, set of rules to apply factional differences and flavour to a team, tying into the Audience Vote system which us roughly comparable to Command Points in WH40k. This takes the form of unique mechanics designed to encourage a particular play style, Idris for example getting access to cheap nitrous, rewards going flat out,, and perks along those lines. The Warden is less about racing so much as doing the Suicide Squad but with carbombs. It doesn't matter if they die, provided they take out another car in the process, and it's suitably explosive. A detailed explanation can be found here, which was a direct influence on this project. Creatively, I was mixing things up a little by using mesh from a sieve for the windows. It's OK, not as good as Halfords mesh, but it's good for visual variety. For painting I also tried something new, with an initial, and sadly failed attempt, to paint these in high-vis yellow. This didn't really work with heavy metal drybrushing, so for this team I researched prison uniforms, and decided that orange was the new blue. This came out a little reddish, which I tried to balance with excessive weathering. My attempts at free-handing some racing numbers weren’t brilliant either.

 

The first, Car 13- Dangerous Driving is a dedicated battering ram, with a few bits to help things detonate. Mechanically, this car is a demonstration on how the Perk system can present new tactical options, feeding on the normally unwelcome Hazard Tokens to make better rams. Cover Me allows those tokens to be moved about, Battlehammer converting them into more ram dice, and Crowdpleaser presenting a free Audience Vote if things get out of hand. I ended up leaving it at that however, as I wanted to spread my costs a little. The base toy is an Audi TT which to my limited understanding is a bit of a lads car. This example is also a roughed-up charity shop find by "Realtoy", something true for the entire team, which was a bit of an odd coincidence now I think of it. I didn’t find these in a single shop...

 

Car 69- Causing an Affray was conceived as a bloody nuisance. While still there to explode and assist the above, this carries gas grenades and caltrops for mischief-making. The caltrop dropper was the most challenging piece to scratchbuild, and I admit its got more of an oil slick look to it. The base car is a Porsche Carrera, part of the 911 family as it turns out, so possibly the exposed engine gubbins shouldn't be there? Whoops. Anyway, ruleswise, I think I'll treat it as a regular car, not a performance one.

Car 42- Arson was my biggest deviation from the guide mentioned above, mounting a flamethrower. Because if you had a bunch of condemned prisoners, why wouldn't there be an arsonist in the mix? Even David Ayer knew to do that. The flamethrower was made from a bit of a pen, wire and scrap plastic, in what I realised later was an orky style. The base car is the modern BMW Mini Cooper... So, Italian Job anyone?

Overall, as a holiday project, these came out OK. I’m not a huge fan of the colours, and there’s probably too much weathering, but I think “abused rustbucket” is a valid choice for a Warden team.

Up next: where are those bits?

Gaslands: A Blue Monster Truck

At time of writing, I find myself at a bit of a precipice. I’ve found my attempts to kitbash and paint Gaslands cars to be about 1000% successful. There’s always new things to learn, but I think I have nailed the whole rustbucket/Mad-Max look. I also have the Gaslands rulebook, so the tactical part of my brain is grinding away, and I’ve got some bits on order. I don’t really want to commit too strongly too anything just now, I’m Gamesmastering again BTW, effectively putting me into in holding pattern. But that’s not necessarily a problem, as I’m running ahead on the blog. So, here’s a slightly shorter article as awaiting for things to turn up.

So, I forget what this toy was originally called, but I it got from a poundshop possibly more than a year ago. It was picked up with an eye towards Orky kitbashes thanks to its axles and wheels. I hadn’t intended to give the diecast car bit any attention, but as I’m into Gaslands now, the obvious happened. I had two originally but, the first was sadly sacrificed on the altar of “trial & error”, and we won’t be seeing it today. While this is fundamentally the same sort of project as Blue Team, the same paints and kitbashing approach, I did do three things a bit different.

The first thing I did was take the monster truck apart. This is something that matchbox cars and the like don’t easily allow for, as they are bolted together. A lot of the cheaper brands however, including toys like this, are screwed together instead, so you can get at the internals. This means that the wire mesh I normally use on the windows could be placed inside the car, making it look a bit better. The second thing I did was replace the wheels, attaching old GW plastic wheels with hot glue and paperclips as a replacement. There was nothing actually wrong with the originals, but they were deliberately oversized, and that wasn’t what I was aiming for. The circa 1997 small plastic GW wheel, AKA the titchy ones from the Gorkamorka Trukk, was both a better fit and a part I was unlikely to use otherwise. The last thing I did was apply a new variant of bicarbonate of soda based paint for another rust effect. I mixed this up myself, going as grainy as possibly, also applying a more typical mix for mud effects.

Generally, this worked out great. And as I am a huge great nerd, it has amused me to name this vehicle: “No-As-Big-As-Medium-Jock-But-Bigger-Than-Wee-Jock-Jock".

Plamo: The 30 Minutes Missions Extended Armaments Vehicle (Armored Assault Mecha Ver.)

So, here we are again. Another 30 Minutes Missions article, and pallette-cleanser project. One where I do a straightforward build, and then make it look dirty with my usual techniques, because I find that relaxing. Another post where I have only so much interesting to say, because 30MM kits are consistently good, and there's no real lore for me to ramble on about. Of course, lamp-shading and self-parody aside, I have a good time with this sorta thing.

 

So, the Extended Armaments Vehicle (Armored Assault Mecha Ver.) is the latest in an increasingly long line of sub-mecha with similarly long names. I'm just going to call this chap "Eggbot" for reasons that should be self-evident. This looks like something Doctor Robotnik would make, or something from a strange alternate universe where the Dizzy games dabbled in the mecha simulation genre. It's basically adorable, and since it comes in olive drab, this always was gonna end up in my hands. In fact, I'd mentally committed to this before I'd realised what it's gimmick was. It's a meta-mecha for a Royroy drone, aka those little things which don't seem to do much, or be that common these days. If anything, this only makes it more adorable. Imagine this friend-shaped robot waddling towards you, firing a rotary grenade launcher in anger, only to take a hit, fall, and have its head scuttle away.

 

 

A few things I want to highlight here with respects to kit. First off, the Spinatio joint sprue is back again, and mostly unused. Yay for spare hands! This does mean that the knees and shoulders are cast in the green plastic though, an arrangement possibly not ideal for the latter. Its arms like to pop off, although this might be my fault for trying two-handed poses. The Royroy meanwhile has a War of the Worlds vibe going on, with a big central dish making it a fairly large example of such things. On the downside, the area where it sits in the chest is regrettably light on detail, and you'll find the little chap gets stuck in there. None if this is near an actual problem, but I like to be honest. 

 

This was weathered in the style I so often do with these kits now, but I seem to have gotten good at it. I used two different washes here, and some light drybrushing, all very simple techniques, but given the pay-off, this almost feels like cheating now. The sensor eye was meanwhile done with contrast paint.

 

Job’s a good ‘un.