May the 4th Yet Be With You – DIY Rebel Strike Mechs

So after a slightly impassioned – some may even say hysterical- piece a few weeks back, it’s time for a new project. Or, more accurately, time to reopen an old project and add stuff to it.

Inspired by Dan’s endeavours with granny grating, I built a small force of Star Wars rebels and stormtroopers, as well as a teeny tiny Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader… cue much chipmunk voice “I am your father!” “That’s not true! That’s impossible!”

This was for a couple of reasons- I like Star Wars, I like Epic, and we’ve been playing with a ruleset for 6mm battles and I wanted to test out what we had.

Now, we did have The Battle Of Aberdeen planned, but honestly, savage urban battles between a cartoon villain Russian horde and the plucky defenders just felt queasy given the current situation, so we shelved the plans for now and took our interests as far away from current reality as possible…

..which for me meant building these forces up for a May 4th battle! First order of business- vehicles.

I based my design on the units shown in the excellent and venerable RTS game Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds, so while the Galactic Empire has the iconic walkers from Empire Strikes Back and Return Of The Jedi, with the Rebels I was left guessing a little bit, so I took this as my model:

As you can see, it’s a sort of repurposed hover car/ speeder things with jets and front mounted lasers. So with the standard fare of materials (and of course, Hope), let us get started:

Foamboard for the body, dimensions as you can see marked on them

Cardboard layer around the exposed foam on the sides, detailed with cereal box cardboard overlay frame

Now we’re getting somewhere! Cockpit made from squidgy blob of greenstuff and I had a go at etching cockpit details on with a cocktail stick. Drinking straws, cut to lengths of 1cm and glued on with a mix of superglue for immediate hold and PVA for a lasting reinforcing hold.

Granny grating lasers mounted on the nose, and we’re ready for priming!

Primed grey as that’s what I had to hand, then given a coat of Wilkinsons’ Granite Dust house paint, then washed with grey, black and brown inks thinned down. Quick drybrush of Granite dust again, silver washed with black for the metallic bits, Vallejo Hot Orange for the squadron markings. I based them on 20mm cardboard squares, painted brown and dusted with the magical mix of Garage Floor Dust (TM), earth and flock. I created the illusion of hovering by basing them on a couple of granny grating “spikes” glued into the middle of the body.

And shown with the rest of the Rebel Scum..

Teeny Luke Skywalker leads the troops forward!

Right, next up will be the Empire with a few AT walkers, so until then, stay safe and thrifty out there!