Gunpla: The GAT-02L2 Dagger L (HG)

Finding myself in need of another distraction, and not wanting to let my experience with the Duel Gundam hold me back, I picked this one up. I had a better idea what the kit was actually like this time, going in. In-Universe, the Dagger L is in the grand tradition of the GM series of grunt suits. You know, a somewhat watered-down version of a Gundam without the plot armour. More specifically, its a further economised version of the 105 Dagger, an already simplified version of the Strike Gundam and is explicitly a machine designed to be used en mass. It doesn't have a particularly distinguished service record, SEED Destiny, and the Cosmic Era in general, was not kind to grunts, and this one was being phased out. It was also fielded by the Earth Alliance, which I am led to believe aren’t very nice, but the writing in the Cosmic Era is often awful, and I don’t want to go and check. But the Dagger L did maintain the modular equipment functions. I also half-remembered something about this being a retool of a full-fledged Gundam kit, which made it a bit more interesting. Hopefully a more recent kit than the painfully outdated Duel. Given that Bandai usually tries harder with hero mechs, this boded well. A simple meal done well, maybe? It worked for the Adele.

Initial impressions during the build were positive. Polycaps were present in a majority of the joints, but effectively so, with the elbows being a slightly more advanced double-jointed friction affair. The shoulder design confused me at first, I was convinced I'd got a bad polycap because the left arm kept separating, but no, I was just being dumb. Make sure to double check the instructions and that everything is fully inserted, if you have the same problem. The joint design seems to be the only thing taken from the Build Strike kit, its not a Fine Build kit like the Leo, and everything else seems totally new. Articulation is pretty great across the board, with a redesigned waist joint. No stickers were required, and were blessedly absent, the kit not being totally colour accurate, but the bits skipped being minor to the point of why bother? The main areas of criticism involve the accessories. You do get the standard swords, gun, and shield loadout, but not those stilettos this family of mecha have. You get two sabres with very long blades instead. The gun cheats a bit, as there is not a trigger hand here, just closed fists, so the trigger guard is cut-out. There's also notable hollowness on the inside of the shield, and you'd have to paint it grey if you were a perfectionist. Striker Pack functionality is there, but there's none present in the box. I feel I am either nitpicking or at risk of overpraising it. Its not as refined as a recent 30MM or the Demi Trainer, true, and my perspective might just be warped by that last kit I did. But if you did like this design, and maybe to the point if doing a squad, this kit does everything it chooses to do well. Its not a complex design, but its not unattractive, and I find those head-mounted guns quite charming. It puts me in mind of both the Gundam Mrk-II, and a pair of earmuffs.

I did a fairly standard weathering job on this. First a light drybrush of Vallejo Chainmail for general wear, and to pick out the CIWS gun. GW Nuln Oil was carefully used to pick out recesses and panel lines. This included the sensors beneath the visor, which required that I carefully dismantle the noggin. I then went back to drybrush again with Vallejo Silver, attempting to suggest more recent scrapes. Its a rather simple design, so there's only so much detail to pick out, but I think it worked out OK.

Job's a good 'un.

 

3D Print: The Ursa Troop Transport by Culverin Models

I'm still playing my Chem-Dogs. Even winning occasionally. And I am still expanding the force, although I've largely abandoned the idea if building in 500 point blocks. I'm still learning the army, and feeling out what I need for a typically 1000 point force. And that's not about having the units that are necessarily the most powerful. Its about having something I enjoy playing, and suits the theme. I could double-up on Rogal Dorns, and I'll no doubt allow myself one eventually, but blasting the enemy off the table isn’t the entire game. So, I've sourcing more mobile units, which includes today's subject.

The Ursa is an in-house design by Culverin Models, one of a range of 3D printed vehicles, with an implicit eye towards being used in Warhammer 40k, although they do historical stuff too, and you can see the crossover. There’s a lot of these printing enterprises around on Etsy and eBay, although CM makes its own designs rather than merely printing commonly available files. Stuff like this will undoubtedly cause GW problems down the road, but that's what happens when you hit the big time and run your business like a walled garden. I mean, I can get very left wing, but the fact things like this exist and dramatically undercut GW is just the free market at work. My first impression of the Ursa was it was pretty good for the price but it needed some serious prep-work. The basic model comes with a selection of weapons and pegs together without glue. If you were in a hurry, you could have this in a playable state in 'bout a minute, and that's an unexpected plus. The downside is that the model has numerous artefacts from the 3D printing process that a drybrush will readily reveal. I did manage to clean a lot of that up, not all as some bits were hard to sand out, and it took ages. Then again, this was markedly cheaper than any other not-Chimera I've come across, were in the sub-20-quid bracket here, so I suppose you get what you pay for. If you’re getting one of these, get yourself some cheap primer too, because you’re probably gonna need to file, spray, and file again a couple of times before things become acceptable.

I then proceeded to replace the weapons with stuff from my bitz box, fill gaps, and add rivets for visual interest. There's not a huge amount of fine detail, it looks a bit like an M3 Grant I think, and its honestly big for a Chimera, but there was potential with this model. The materials used, once properly prepared, don't forget the sanding, were fairly easy to cut and modify. Its closer to plastic then brittle resin. I added rivets to the flanks as they were a bit plain, the HK missile is another Ramshackle Games piece, while the heavy stubber is a Wargames Atlantic weapon from the Builldogs sprue. The multilaser and heavy bolter are salvaged GW pieces, while the lagun array was represented by rows of tokens. You may be wondering what a lasgun array is, and, well, its basically an artefact of GW going back and forth on how firing ports for passengers work. Currently, an amalgamated weapon profile plus a roof hatch is how the Chimera treats such things. The above is a fairly typical load-out for a chimera; other options exist, like a famed dual flamethrower version, but I wanted to keep it conventional as future proofing and to help it be recognisable as a Chimera proxy. Its a decidedly odd thing in use in game though, its a lot of shots, but its a bit disjointed.

 

Painting was achieved via the spraycan method, in much the same manner as the Hellhound. I was however as careful as possible when applying washes. Even with the sanding I had done, I was still worried about the Agrax Earthshade revealing the subtle lines of the print. I think I managed to avoid that, but its something you can see in hand, if not on tabletop. But yeah, this turned out OK, and I’ll hopefully do better with the sanding issue next time.

With Culverin Models, I seem to have found a competitor to Ramshackle Games. Neither is necessarily A tier stuff, but both are cheap and cheerful in their way. Their way being small, seemingly one-man enterprises offering inexpensive models to miserly bastards like myself. Ramshackle Games probably has the advantage for sheer quantity of model bits, but Culverin seems to be challenging them on delivery times, sticker price, and resin quality. I’m probably gonna get something of theirs again. And if the sanding requirement is reduced or otherwise mitigated? I may have a new favourite.

 

Plamo: Evoroids EVV-GC1 G-Crawler (Kotobukiya)

I picked this one up at EM-Con. What's EM-Con? Well, its like every convention you've ever been to. Just slightly less good. If you move in nerd circles, you probably know the sort of event. A vaguely corporate affair of no strong theme, with a dealer's room, a lot of Funko Pops, and a selection of minor celebs charging for autographs. Great for parents and thier kids. Kinda interesting on the cosplay front. I saw a Femme version of Immortan Joe. Possibly Immortan Jolene, but I digress. I was underwhelmed by the event, and frankly overwhelmed by the noise. But I did acquire this chap cheaply, so it wasn't a total waste of time for me.

The G-Crawler is from Kotobukiya’s Everoids, non-scale robot kits of a cute style that transform, often with a bit of Metal Slug in the visual mix. It, and indeed the vast majority of Kotobukiya's output, falls into the category of Bandai's direct competitors. There's a maybe a bit of an Apple/Android thing going on there, but you're much more likely see Bandai stuff in the West. At its best, I’d say Kobi makes worthwhile robot kits that encouraged Bandai to raise its game. At its worst? Frame Arms Girls. While Everoids had been on my radar for a while, I had to go look these up, and English language info seems thin on the ground, so my commentary here is gonna be a bit surface level.

 

The actual build is based on a core block not dissimilar to a rubrics cube via BeastBox. This seems to be common to the line, the central frame, but each kit uses it differently, for its respective transformation. The G-Crawler isn't using it for anything markedly fancy by itself, it largely stays a cube, but it does do interesting things with the pelvis and shoulder joints. By the standards of transforming robot kits, I'd say its rather good. There's minimal partsforming, as while you have to reattach the weapons, that would be acceptable on an actual Transformers toy. On the downside though, there's little in the way of securing tabs, and the arms do like to separate at the bicep. Its not a polycap system, which may explain that weakness, but otherwise you get pretty solid articulation for what is a Super Deformed Gunpla in all but name. There are stickers, but these seem largely optional, colour accuracy is a nonissue here and I do like the translucent visor. And the opening turret hatch. Shame about that tiny gap around the red sensor though, maybe the parts fit isn't quite as good as modern Bandai?

 

I managed to get the basic assembly done in a couple of hours, and so applied some basic weathering techniques, fixed that gap, and the loose joints. This worked pretty well, although the gun sensor put up a fight. I might just apply the sticker over that. Otherwise, a nice little kit that looks great as is, but looks even better with a bit more work. Would buy another.

 

 

Kitbash: Astra Militarum Hellhound

And here we are, the oft-mentioned, orphaned instalment of Project Chem-Dogs.

 

OK, lets have some fictional context. There tends to be an awful lot of war crimes in Warhammer 40,000, and flamethrowers are a frequent feature of that. These aren't actually banned in real life, at least according to a casual web search. But it is considered a crime to use them on civilians and such, while being generally considered inhumane. The Imperium doesn't have such a concern, while being a big fan of burning heretics, and so issues such things at the routine/squad level. Not that other factions aren't also fans; a flamer is a common part of the tactical toolkit, but the Imperium tends to produce flamethrower versions of every tank chassis it fields, of which the Hellhound is best known.

In many respects, this is a return to my orky habits, because it started as an ork project. I had a battered Chimera hull that needed a lot of work, but I also had some resin tracks going spare, so my initial plan was a Big Trakk, to form a trifecta with the other two. Of course, GW would retire the Forgeworld units, maybe I should have saved that Basilisk, so the plan was shelved. When I was working on Project Chem-Dogs though, I slowly realised that I could do a Hellhound from that hull. One rummage later, and I was good to go. The main challenge with the build was gap filling and the back end, with the promithum tanks being a mix of scratchbuilt bits with a resin backplate. Cable ties and EVA foam is grand for this sort of thing.

 

I tried something a bit more involved with the paint this time, basecoating the tracks and guns before masking, and then spraying it green. I actually ran out of my preferred green during this, tried a grass green, before settling on a can of Colour Forge Death Rattle Green. Once that was fixed, basecoating the flamers in black proved a good call, as it made them look a bit sooty. Brown for the tracks also worked quite well, and the waterslide transfers were almost tolerable to use. Weathering and mud paint then followed in my usual style.

The end result is still a touch more orky than I would like, but it came out well. I think I may be able to scratchbuild vehicles with slightly more refined looks going forwards. We’ll see.