I.. am... Iron... Man...

Alan and I are going to give the Gruntz rules a try out using our 28mm collections. I was putting together a 300 point list when I realised that what I was creating was just a 40k Imperial Guard list. So I dug out an old IronMan toy and stuck him to a base. I will come back to it, but at the moment it's just a big mecha - I will replace the right arm with a cannon.

Sentinels from GW (the pink one has been paint stripped - somehow the red paint has stained the plastic underneath; figures from Wargames Factory.

Imperial Guard HAWS

Looking through the bits box last night, I found a load of wheels. Since I'm getting started on painting up all the Imperial Guard I have had laying around for ages, I thought I could make use of them to mobilise some of the heavy weapons. So... I present the Heavy Automated Weapons System; three lascannon making up a heavy weapons squad.

Stub axles on the wheels from plastic rod, square section plastic tube for the axles, lascannon from razorbacks. Quick and easy.

Okay, a bit too easy - I added a bit more plastic to the sides of the platform to make it look a bit more solid, and some front bumpers. I will add some stowage on the back and a light on the front, but basically that's it. All I need now is a single crewmember for the squad - I will scratchbuild his arms so that he's using a remote control like you get for RC cars.

Salute 2012 figure - painted

I'm not the best painter, and I'm certainly not the best photographer, but I really enjoyed painting up this year's Salute figure. The skin colour is much closer to the first picture than the second; I think the blue background has enhanced the redness of the skin. It is very much a painters' figure; plenty of detail, big areas to blend, a wide choice of colour schemes.

Just need to mount it on a proper base and it can go down the club for Monday's painting competition.

Cheap chain

I'm always on the lookout for useful bits and pieces for my models. Yesterday I ended up in Primark, and amongst their jewellery I found this piece for £4...

It had three dangly bits - I have disassembled one already - each with ten 3½ inch long lengths of 15 link-per-inch chain. The chain is fairly soft and thin, so it's very easy to combine a couple of lengths if you need to; I joined them up into two- and three-section lengths with a pair of needle-nose pliers. 35" per tassle, three tassles - by my reckoning, that's almost 9 feet of fine chain for under 50p per foot... bargain.

MicroPanzer SAS

It's about time I painted up some of the 15mm figures that have been hanging about on my painting table, and this seemed a good place to start.

Very simple colour scheme; overall green, grey weaponry with orange 'business ends', a wash of Devlan Mud over the lot and a pale grey highlight on the guns. Forty figures painted up in a couple of hours...

Nice figures, though I am not quite happy with the heads; the helmet / mask / face combo seems somehow awry. In the end, I just assumed a full face helmet and didn't put any flesh in there at all. It looks okay.