Chimera Track Guards

These are the Track Guards from "Warchimera"  available to purchase from here. 

This is them on the Ratguard Hydrae I showed a couple of weeks ago.  These picts are from before they were tidied up and stuck down.

But do show what you're getting if you buy some.  They're from Poland (guess) and inexpensive compared to having to fork out for another tank accessory sprue everytime time you want track guards on a chimera chassis.

Another win for someone with a casting kit, another loss for you know who.

If for some reason I have some kind of brain failure and increase my vehicle fleet to the point where it doesn't even fit in the garage anymore - these are the track guards I'd buy again.

btw - the tracks were tidied and stuck down and then they got undercoated straight after this.

DKK Hydrae Progress

Base coat; there are three or four thin coats of Vallejo dark sand, cunningly modulated over a several week nights (Mrs Z suddenly found a social life !) and finished with a top coat of Tamiya dark sand (actually a lighter colour).  The (what-would-ABS-or-fibreglass-IRL) radar covers are Tamiya black-green over a coat of Dark Angle Green.

Green camo

Brown camo

Decals next !  Oh and, acrylic butile styrene, in case you were wondering, like a motorcycle fairing.

And as mentioned in the comments here is a pict from Ratguard showing the active radar array from under the cover:  For more picts follow the link.

Elysian Army

So here are the "I accidentally won an e-bay auction" Elysians.  Ably painted by Raven's Nest Painting.

Here's the whole lot, the HQ Command Squad is to the left, partially out of shot.  The two small squads at the bottom of the picture are the storm trooper squads.  The Platoon at the top is three squads with ML and two demo charges.  The Platoon in the middle is three tauros and two drop sentinals.  The Platoon Command Squad will have to fly around in a Vendetta. 

Here's a shot showing the ancient symbol of Drop Troops from days of old night.  These emblems, whose origins and meaning are lost to antiquity, have taken on religious significance to certain sections of the Drop Troop community.  Note the Corcoran jump boots and unlined leather rigger gloves.

One of the Storm Trooper squads.  The observant amongst you will have already noticed that they are wearing the Mk9 Elysian Pressure helmet with integral rebreather unit.  Rather than the usual bulky helmet that is issued with the M1942 Armoured jump suit.

The other Storm Trooper squad.  These guys also wear the mystical unidentified badges.

The Tauros detachment from the heart of 2 Platoon.  I don't have sky talon models ("Whaaat ?!?!" I hear you scream) and don't have any intent to acquire any either ("Whaaat ?!?!?" I hear you scream again). Air lift assets are precious - yes these would all be deployed by air, but would be dropped far enough away from their mission location to avoid having the air assets shot out of the sky - jus' sayin'.

Drop Sentinels.  These have magnetic mountings for multimelta and heavy bolters.

2 Platoon Command Squad, just because.  Some of the guys are a bit shiny in places and will get another coat of matt varnish.

1 Platoon Command Squad.  Lt Teeve with his twin ivory handled plasma pistols.  Ivory from Elysian sky wyrms, of course.  These guys have six Valkyries already; there are four Vendettas which need doing, but hey, the weather is getting better and the garage is becoming habitable. 

IG grenade launcher.

Actually it's the USMC, not the Iggies.  A lot of people out there will be familiar with what is popularly referred to as the Grenade Machine Gun (GMG).

The Mk19 40mm automatic grenade launcher is a fine squad support weapon, but being tripod or vehicle mounted, is obviously not really that suitable for one man to tote.

But this is:

USMC Orbital Assault with jet packs.

Drop pods and assault muhreenz ?  Phooey !

Get a load of this

Ratguard Hedgehogs (Hydrae)

OK, so here are finished pictures of the Ratguard Miniatures Hedgehogs; one man's alternate after market Hydra kit.  And I like it. As you can tell, I have opted for two troops of three to support the DKK.

Obviously these will get painted, and if I can figure out how much to shave off, track guards as well.

I suspect that you saw four of them on Admiral Drax' blog just before Christmas.  Here are all six, assembled and ready for waiting around for me to do a bit more.  They are ready to prepare to standby.  A favourite activity of any branch of the Artillery, including the cloud punchers.

The turrets are, you'll appreciate, not glued to the hulls.  The guns are not linked across inside the turret, but held on by two locator lugs to set the angle and a central peg which represents the axle about which the guns elevate and depress.  Only one set of guns is glued (entirely my fault for breaking the locator lugs).  The passive air defence radar (the ones on the top of the turrets) are not glued either. 

The kit includes a pretty good (active) targeting array as well, but I asked Drax to put the cover over the target acquisition kit.  I have one experience of fighting an opponent with three flyers with out any AAA.  It didn't go well for me.  I hope that six hydrae would sort that - it'd be two elite slots in a DKK Assault Brigade list.

I am hoping for a fine weekend when Mrs Z has somewhere else to be, which'll be my opportunity to get some work done on these; As mentioned, track guards (which need shaving down to fit), painting, decals, weathering, stowage.

Hopefully the next time I post these there'll be at least one more stage completed. 

Golden Throne by GMM Studios.

Get a load of this.Get a load of this



This picture is just a teaser.  It's worth a look, follow the link.  Interesting narrative as well.