BA-3 Heavy Armoured Car by Rubicon

At Warfare in 2019 I bought a number of Rubicon kits, including the recently released BA-3 heavy armoured Car. It is referred to as a "Heavy" armoured car due to its weight rather than due to it being heavily armoured. It does however pack the same turret and gun as the contemporary Soviet T26 light tank.

The kit comes in the traditional Rubicon box.

The kit contains a slide mould body (which eliminates the need for a lot of  assemble of the vehicle body). There is a set of decals including those in use by Finnish and Axis forces.

There is also one sprue that contains the rest of the kit.

I assembled the kit according to the instructions, going for the BA-3 rather than the later BA-6 version.

Most of the assembly used Tamiya extra thin liquid poly (which can just about melt the ABS used by Rubicon) though I did tack pieces together in a few places using Humbrol liquid poly and then add the Tamiya extra thin to make the joint permanent (there is enough polystyrene in the liquid poly to make the surfaces "sticky").

The kit went together well, I did have some problems getting the hull machine gun in place (I drilled out the mounting hole to make it easier).

I undercoated the model with Citadel Chaos Black spray. Unfortunately I had run out of the Humbrol 30 Dark Green spray I normally use for my Soviet vehicles, so ended up brush painting it with Humbrol 30 Acrylic Dark Green.

The Sarissa Russian hut provides some background, while a Bad Squiddo female Soviet soldier provides some scale.

Top views.

One Careful Owner, Wear Value 6... Empress HMMWV for Twilight 2000

Twilight 2000 was a nineteen eighties role playing game that explored a future global nuclear war and its aftermath. There are a number of posts on this blog about it.

One of the iconic vehicles is the humble US HMMWV, and this is often the vehicle that a starting party escapes from the collapse of US forces on the Eastern Front.

At Warfare in 2019 I bought an Empress 28mm scale US HMMWV with 0.50" HMG for that purpose and other modern games with limited support.

The model comes as a multi-part resin kit with white metal details.

This is the model dry assembled with William Killian for scale.

A comparison between the Empress HMMWV and the Crooked Dice version.

The Chinese owners of the vehicle in the foreground should wash that dust off.

The view from above showing the part depth hatch.

As this is primarily intended for Twilight 2000, the vehicle is loaded up with gear. Parties rarely have a base to return to, they need to carry everything. Oh, and fuel has to be brewed and distilled, so the energy content is much lower than the fuel you would get from a forecourt garage.

I used baggage from a number of sources including Crooked Dice, Debris of War and Empress Miniatures. Additional soft stowage was sculpted using GreenStuff using the usual methods. The two jerry cans are by Empress.

A long rod aerial was added on the right hand side of the roof.

The pintle mount awaits the addition of the 0.50" HMG.

A pickaxe and shovel from the Empress US stowage set was added on the sloped back of the vehicle.

A rail was added to the boot hatch to secure the stowage.

 The spare tyre was pinned to the back of the HMMWV.

Crooked Dice Security Troopers

Crooked Dice recently released a pack of Security Troopers for their Colony 87 SF range.

Each of the four figures are in two parts, a body and a head. There are two styles of head, a reinforced perforated visor and a smooth glass style visor. There are two armed with assault rifles, one technician with side arm and one with a cut down heavy cannon.

 The figures were undercoated with Citadel Chaos Black spray followed by Citadel Death Guard Green spray. A camouflage pattern was added to the cloth parts with Citadel Rhinox Hide.

The gun was repainted with Army Painter Black then a mixture of Army Painter Black and Vallejo Black Grey. Pouches and the holster were painted with Citadel Death World Forest.The figure was dry brushed with Citadel Nurgling Green. The cloth parts of the suit were washed with Citadel Agrax Earthjshade.

The visor was painted with Vallejo Game Colour Night Blue.

 Three of the four figures.

 So what was I going to use them for? Well, I thought that they would make good reconnaissance troops from some shady government group exploring the Zombie apocalypse.

I did have a quick add up of the required points for skilled troops with body armour, Assault Carbines, ammo etc.

It turned out that you would have ten to eleven walkers per trooper.

 They are of a reasonable match with the Walking Dead zombies.