Crooked Dice Cold War Jeep - UAZ-469

Back in November 2021 I assembled and painted the Crooked Dice "Alien Jeep".

Comparison with other 1/50 scale vehicles showed that it was a bit large to be a proper UAZ-469 (even ignoring the two door design).

At Warfare this year I picked up one of Crooked Dice's new Cold War Jeep.

The kit comes in six pieces: A one piece body, four road wheels and a spare wheel.

The model has a fixed canvas roof.

Basic paint job:

Citadel Chaos Black spray undercoat.

Citadel Snot Womble Green base colour.

Windows are Army Painter Royal Blue.

Canvas is Citadel Death World Forest.

Tyres and windscreen wiper blades are MIG Rubber and Tyres.

As you can see, the Cold War Jeep is smaller than the Alien Jeep.

But scales a lot better with the Crooked Dice Land Rover.

Empress SWB Land Rover

 This is a test dry run for an Empress Short Wheel Base Land Rover with a pintle mounted mounted GPMG for use in Twilight 2000.

There are some moulding defects on the front grill. I will cover this with some camouflage netting and possibly some jerry cans.

That is not a wheel clamp, I just have not removed the tag from the wheel.

The gunner is from the BAOR32 Anti Aircraft Unit.

The base of the gunner will be trimmed and a plastic card insert created with the pintle mount attached.

This is going to be loaded up as a recce or security vehicle to provide protection for an anti-tank LWB Land Rover with the BAT recoilless Rifle.

Soviet Cold War Desant

 Not finished...

Empress BMD-01 progress

 As mentioned back in February, I received a BMD-1 from Empress.

It is now assembled and base painted.

So the detailing included an aerial on the left rear deck, cables attached to fittings on the hull nose and stretching back to the rear of the hull. Rubicon cable ends were used, the cable is brass wire. Holes are drilled into the hull a distance from end point (the distance being such that the cable ends will hook over the bracket and the ends of the wire). This secures the wire (the hole at one end is made very deep so that the wire can be tensioned by pushing the wire into the hole) and gives the impression the cable end is attached to the cable.

Notches were filed into the nose for the two bow mounted machine guns.

A rotating periscope on the rear hatch. A piece of thin plastic card is placed into a paper punch and a circular piece cut from the plastic. A piece of Slater's 0.06" microstrip makes the periscope.

The aerial is a piece of 1mm brass rod. The base is made from a piece of Plastruct rod.

It was at this point I noticed that the model was missing the periscopes just behind of the turrets. Again strips of Mircostrip provided the periscope heads.

The periscopes were painted with Humbrol 34 White acrylic (shown in the above photographs). They were then painted with Army Painter Deep Blue. The headlights are also Humbrol White.

This is the base painted model with Rubicon Soviet Tank and T26 decals. The numbers are from the Soviet Tank set (DCSV01) and the number in a triangle from the T26 set (DCSV05).

The grills have been shaded with Citadel Camoshade, as has the periscopes and hatches.

It now awaits final weathering and shading.

Empress BMD-1 IFV

 After "One Thing and Another", and before the current unpleasantness, Empress released a range of Cold War Soviet Paratroopers as opposition to their BAOR British infantry. I have just got round to ordering them. So they do not have to walk very far, and to give them some punch, here is the Empress BMD-1.

This has been re-worked from the HLBSCo version, an example of the original HLBSCo BMD-2 has been featured here, and is still awaiting finishing.

The first thing you will note is that the track guards are now metal, a major improvement as at some point before assembly I managed to break the resin ones on the BMD-2.

This will not have as much stowage as the BMD-2 as it will be representing a vehicle early in the conflict and so will be regulation rather than many years in the field (and having been air-dropped).

It will need the periscope fitted to the rear hatch, some aerials and probably the bow mounted machine guns.

Some research is required on the equipment placing.

Crooked Dice UAZ-486 - AKA The Alien Jeep.

 Crooked Dice have just released an "Alien Invader Jeep", which bears an uncanny resemblance to the Soviet UAZ-469 (though in the form of a two door variant).

Two Zone explorers check out the surroundings. Empress modern Russian and Universal Soldier.

UAZ-469 and Mighty Mite.

UAZ-469 and unfinished  M151.

HMMWV (Empress) and UAZ-469.

Tigr and UAZ-469.

Crooked Dice Land Rover and UAZ-469.

Spectre SUV and UAZ-469.

UAZ-469 and William Killian

Empress Land Rover (WOMBAT carrier)

 As part of my Not-Colours order from Empress, I got a BAOR Land Rover carrying a WOMBAT Recoilless Rifle.

Here are the components of the Land Rover (there is a pack with the crew and the WOMBAT still to photograph).

The doors are optional and it comes with a set of stowage and opened WOBAT ammunition boxes.

Size comparison between the Crooked Dice (SWB) Land Rover and the longer Empress one.

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.