Cheap ‘n’ Simple Scratchbuild – Holy Soviet Empire Shock Drones DIY Miniatures

How do – Dan here again. After Jim’s revamp of his decadent Western capitalist imperialist helots (which included a reinforcement with a dastardly M42 Stealth Tank and a close air support flight of Avrocar flying saucer tankbusters), I’ve had to up the game for my Holy Soviet Army in the hope of Lt. Polikarpov finally getting a victory for the workers.

This started with the BEHEMOTH mech I showed you last time, but seeing as we got such a positive response I thought I’d share these little critters with you – a pair of Shock Drones. Now, these are inspired by and similar to (but definitely not the same as) the notorious Terror Drones from Red Alert 2, and function in a similar way – basically fast moving close combat killers with limited AI and rigged to self-destruct when they hit Allied lines!

So – the build. For materials, you’ll need a few wee tiny offcuts of foamboard, some cocktail sticks, some glue that isn’t superglue, some glue that is superglue, some bits of sprue, some wee little bits of cardboard, and some disused guitar strings or bits of wire.

Step 1:

Foamboard. Take a rectangle of foamboard, 20mm x 15mm, and trim it at the edges. Count 5mm in each side and trim off. This gives you an octagonal shape which is the main body of the droid.

Step 2:

Glue a bit of sprue on top. Two if you’re really enthusiastic. These are the sensor superstructures on top of the droid.

Step 3:

Legs. You’ll need two cocktail sticks. Chop them in half, and then score each half a stick in the middle. Break the stick along that line but leave it in one piece and bend it at an angle. You then soak it with superglue to stiffen that joint. It will harden and actually be more solid than you might expect. Then you cut a V-shaped piece of cardboard, score it along the middle and fold it, and glue those to the “shins” of the legs (it doesn’t matter which way round you do it, but I had the sharp bits of the cocktail sticks as the feet). The other end of the cocktail stick gets dunked in glue (NOT SUPERGLUE – that will melt the foam) and pushed into the foam on the edges.

Tell you what, here’s a picture:

 

Step 4: Attack cables

Guitar strings (or wire) wound up around a screwdriver, dunked in glue and pushed into the foam.

Step 5: Painting

This is exactly the same as the paint scheme for Stompy Uncle Joe, with one MAJOR difference – DON’T USE SPRAY PAINT! Spray paint has a chemical in it that melts foam. Your model is largely made from foam.

Some close ups of the finished articles:

This is a dead easy build, and the little fellas actually do look quite nice in situ:

Seen here about to rip apart an M60A3 Centurion..

They’ll certainly be a valuable addition to the rolling firestorm that is the Holy Soviet Army, skittering ahead to attack whatever enemy unit registers on their crude but effective sensor arrays. They also represent a potent, if somewhat unconventional anti-tank capability – admittedly the Holy Soviet Army likes to deal with tanks by using LOTS MORE TANKS (and occasionally the Holy Mystic to chuck them about).

We’re going with Armour Rating 12, Speed 24cm, CCR8 but no ranged weapons. A rugged Soviet construction method means the first hit penetrating the armour won’t destroy them, just halve their stats – the second takes them down, and when they go, they explode like a frag grenade!

And of course, there’s no way they could get hacked and go haywire. Is there, Jim?