Sunday 19 April 2009

Weird World War I: Part 6


Now, as promised, photographic evidence of the latest Land Dreadnoughts to terrorise the Earth: introducing the 'Devastators', and their diminutive cousins, the 'intermediate' class of dreadnoughts!
Below we see a pair of the unfeasible self-propelled guns that are part of the arsenal of Austro-Hungary, in a camouflage scheme designed by Vienna's pre-eminent botanist, guaranteed to defeat the compound eyes of any invading Martian! (For which, read.....I went a bit mad with the paint-job.........oh well.)

They are teamed with their ammunition carriers with shell loading cranes, ensuring a never ending supply of crater-makers. (Unfortunately, I couldn't find the brass etched mesh I wanted to use for these, and had to go with simple plasti-card and wire; that's the problem with never throwing anything away - you can't find it when you need it.)
Obviously basing is yet to be done, I'm not sure yet if they should go on the same base, as it will be very large, although I suppose these behemoths probably wouldn't move around too much during a game.
The Navwar Karl-Gerat is absolutely ideal for this sort of conversion, it already looks the part, just some length added to the barrel and you have a super-weapon beyond all imagining; how much does it weigh.....who knows? What calibre......what do you fancy,
280mm.......380mm.....whatever you like!




Next up, something stirs in the hinterland of Anatolia, surely a Mark IV Tank? Yet it looks as if it is about to destroy that whole farm up ahead under its whirling tracks, and what is that on top?


Yes, you guessed it, we have the intermediate class Ottoman Land Dreadnought, complete with armoured observation turret in national stereotypical colour and form! O.K., I went a bit mad with the colour scheme here as well, but it's easily remedied if I feel differently in a couple of weeks (phew....what was I thinking?) Afterall, what self respecting servant of Attaturk would be seen without a Fez?


These represent a poor man's solution to matching the likes of Great Britain's HMLD Indefatigable seen in a previous post, and will certainly have no trouble dealing with standard AFVs or artillery. Navwar's Mk I 'Mother' does double duty here with a couple of additions from the bits box, again an easy conversion to do.


Talking of conversions, what about building from scratch, (In a sort of Dr Frankenstein, cannabilistic way...) well I had to go to Tsarist Russia for inspiration here, and have completed the production model of the 'Tsar Tank' or Neoptyr by Lebedenko, which has been given the armoured turntable of a decommissioned battleship in order to mount the world's first turnable turret on an AFV, shame it only mounts 47mm pop guns. Obviously the enemy will be frozen in terror at the ridiculous contraption as it approaches, and run for their lives!




Certainly, I had a lot of fun putting these chaps together, and they help to underline the world wide nature of the conflict of 'Weird' WWI; I think next I'll be looking at some of the Alien forces, making use of the 2mm Sci-Fi on offer from Irregular, that's if I don't get distracted by thinking about what the Japanese, Italians, or even the Americans might field!

9 comments:

  1. Good stuff! The dazzle camo is wild as are the giant fez contraptions!
    How did you make the trees?

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  2. Love everything here but the Russian tanks take the cake. Those came out really nice and look impressive.

    A comment on your Ottoman tanks, but they look like they are wearing fezzes, especially with the black line down the side of the red turret.

    -Eli

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  3. Hi Guys, yes, it's red fezzes all round, although I might re-paint them before they reach the gaming table, it was just for fun, really! If I do a Japanese force, I'm wondering how I might model a Samurai helmet as a kind of turret at this scale.....

    The trees are an idea I picked up at the 2mm Yahoo Group, great for anything 1/900th downward. It's basically Woodland Scenics bushes in a mix of colours stuck to a flat surface - I tried it on cork initially, but the bushes wouldn't stick down too well, so I ended up using a shattered plastic transparent lighting panel you find in suspended ceilings in workplaces! This had a sort of honeycomb pattern and enabled the glue applied to hold to the bushes - just like most of my work, a quick and dirty solution!

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  4. Like it all, the fezes are especially characteristic, I'd keep them.
    For the Japanese - how about a large flag, suspended from an "inversed" L (bamboo)pole (google "samurai flag").

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  5. Hi Luka, thanks for the comment, and another great idea! You mean those flags that the foot soldiers wear on their backs, (Always looked good with thousands of them rushing about in old Kurosawa movies) that would be ideal, all I need now is some appropriate characters to put on them.

    Cheers, SteelonSand.

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  6. Exactely what I had in mind. And speaking of footsoldiers; how about putting the flags on the smaller contraptions (also), for the effect of "fierce charge rush" ... used in numbars might look quite good. Hope I didn't give you additional work. :)

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  7. Interesting. Though the Samurai culture had really fallen out of vogue in the real world of this time, sashimono might be cool nonetheless.

    -Eli

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  8. Oh C'mon Guys, you're ganging up on me now, scratch-built sashimono it is then.... :-).

    Sayonara, SteelonSand.

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  9. I like these Tsar Tanks! You've done a great job!

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