We’ve all been there. It happened with Da Skooderia. It happened with the Virum Nascii. That idea, the initial rush of enthusiasm… and then nothing.
Such it was with this guy – a Valiant Miniatures “1/72” German converted with cardboard, greenstuff and the now infamous granny grating into a sci-fi trooper with an unfeasibly big gun. I was pleased with the results, and resolved to make him some friends.
And then I did nothing about it. For a year.. or close to it.
But then the other week I got to thinking, “I could just go for a bit of Firefight…” – Dan offered the use of his gloriously retro Blood Angels to play the part of the Crusaders (humanity’s power armoured elites), I ordered up a load of bases from eBay and we were rolling once more!
Greenstuff for face coverings (COVID security) and kneepads – we’ll assume all troops are fully vaccinated too!
Granny grating to turn those Mausers and StG 44s into something suitably futuristic and sci fi! Cardboard cut to fit body armour plates – yeah, won’t be winning any awards on that anytime soon..
Voila, a platoon of the Free Companies’ finest!
Groundwork – I knocked up a texture paste of filler powder, PVA and some crud off the garage floor, then when that was dry sprinkled yet more garage floor crud (sawdust, cat litter, gravel chips) on them, lots of lovely texture, all for free! And crucially these days, I know to do this pre-priming…
Primed white and hit with base colours – the tan is just a craft paint, the body armour is Vallejo Russian green (a colour we’re seeing a worryingly large amount of in real life at the time of writing..)
The Valiant 44th (because that’s the number of the TRUE F1 World Champion!) on patrol!
Support weapon – triple barrelled gatling/multilaser/heavy blaster thing
Lieutenant, aka “Lute” or “first pip” (according to the rulebook fluff)
The lads in action during their training missions – close assault here….
Using heavy weapons to clear a roadblock
House clearance led by Crusader NCO (who promptly got himself killed.. meaning the Levy NCO had to practice taking command… yeah, sounds like a plausible training mission!
The first mission of the rulebook campaign saw the Crusader NCO taking the squad out on a patrol, clearing a building. This saw them first ambushed by a Goblin patrol in the garden in front of the house:
Off we go, out on patrol…
Ambushed by Shia Khan Goblins!
A brief scuffle sees the Goblins cut down almost to a man, the survivor flees into the house..
Preparing to assault, but there’s a second Goblin patrol in ambush!
Fast & furious action sees the Goblins annihilated, but it’s a close run thing!
Sniper, booby trap and radpit traps all fail to slow our lads down, and here we see a celebratory picture of the lads completing their first patrol!
We’re getting the hang of “Firefight” now, and it’s a really fun game – even though the lads emerged unscathed, gunning down the opposition, it was a much closer run thing than the result might show! If you’ve never investigated this unsung 90s classic, I thoroughly advise you to do so – low model count, fast paced rules, neat campaign system.. perfect for a Friday night in when the weather is vicious!
The Levy platoon is 18 strong which leaves me 40+ Valiant models to do something with… and I have me an idea… watch this space!
How do again world. Having built up a nice head of steam painting Captain Tycho and being within touching distance of finishing my RetroBloodAngels, it makes perfect sense to leave them once again to concentrate on something else.. but as my partner in thrift mentioned, sometimes you just want those little wins, and the idea of a quick and simple project lit a fire under me.
In these days of economic apocalypse where just heating your house seems to require working three jobs (and one of them being a hedge fund manager), the casual wargamer could be forgiven for thinking that the Epic Imperial Guard army he once coveted as a kid would remain out of reach forever…
Look at the top caption – a glorious sight, one’s heart fills to bursting with pride in the Hammer Of The Emperor
Guess again.
Some of you have already seen the GrannyGratingImperialGuard force taking shape over the last couple of years (and I certainly can’t take credit for the idea) and as the project as taken on a life of it’s own I’ve started to base it more and more on this force from the “Assault On Barbarius” battle from 2nd Ed Space Marine back in the early 90s. We’ve got the infantry component and a contingent of Rough Riders, plus a Vindicator company (the Guard could take them way back when) and of course the DIY Leviathan. The Assault On Barbarius force also called for (amongst other things) a squadron of Sentinels, and I quickly saw how a bit of granny grating and greenstuff could take care of that. A couple of evenings later – done!
The infamous “Eggs On Legs”! Granny grating frame (3 up and one across, I believe), vaguely elliptical blob of greenstuff for the cockpit, “L” shape greenstuff for weapon and pilot. Bases 20mm single corrugated cardboard from wine box. Shown here about to be primed white, as was the style of the time. Up close and personal- these are never going to fool anyone that they’re GW originals, but it’s clear what they’re supposed to be.The army (as it stands) deployed on the DIY battle mat..A few units to go before we’re “street legal” but I’m pretty pleased so far
“Wow.. how much did all this cost you?” “So far? About £5”
So there we go, another unit added to the Hazzard 1977th – for free! Stay safe and sane, see you soon
Skinflint Games 