More work on the Rukkatrukk Squigbuggy

The Rukkatrukk Squigbuggy is a type of Ork attack vehicle. The first Rukkatrukk Squigbuggies were invented by enterprising Snakebites in order to feed Speed Freeks on the move. Mobile pens full of edible squigs, the vehicles kept pace with the warband’s Warbikers, buggies and Trukks while their grinning crews hawked their wares at the tops of their lungs.

Having started building the model, I finished putting it together. Unlike earlier GW models there is less room for variations on the model, so you are quite constrained on how the model is put together.

Ork Rukkatrukk Squigbuggy

The model though does go together quite easily, but there are a fair number of parts.

Ork Rukkatrukk Squigbuggy

The instructions are very clear and easy to follow.

Ork Rukkatrukk Squigbuggy

I didn’t glue in the driver, as I will paint him separately, as I will also do with the grots and other Ork crew.

I gave the underneath of the model a black undercoat followed by a white undercoat. However the white had made the underneath somewhat dusty…

I gave the underneath of the model a black undercoat followed by a white undercoat.

The white undercoat brings out a lot of the detail on the model.

You can see I added the cab rollbar for undercoating, but I didn’t glue it into position.

See the full workbench feature on the Ork Rukkatrukk Squigbuggy.

Undercoating the Morris CS9 Armoured Car

The Morris CS9/Light Armoured Car was a British armoured car used by the British Army in the World War II. The vehicle was based on a Morris Commercial C9 4×2 15-cwt truck chassis. On this chassis a rivetted hull was mounted with an open-topped two-man turret. The armament consisted of either Boys anti-tank rifle and Bren light machine gun or Vickers machine gun. The vehicle carried a No. 19 radio set.

The prototype was tested in 1936. A further 99 cars were ordered and were delivered in 1938. Thirty-eight of these cars were used by the 12th Royal Lancers in the Battle of France, where all of them were destroyed or abandoned. Another 30 served with the 11th Hussars in the North African Campaign. It was found that when fitted with desert tyres the vehicle had good performance on soft sand. However, its armour and armament were insufficient. The vehicle was retired halfway through the North African Campaign.

Morris CS9/Light Armoured Car

This is the finished version of the Bolt Action model, as seen on the Warlord Games website.

The pack contains a resin and metal kit. The hull and turret are resin, the wheels, guns and axels are whitemetal.

Having glued the axels and wheels to the main hull, I glued the weapons to the turret. I also managed to stick the headlamps into place, this was much harder than it looks and it took a couple of attempts.

Morris CS9 Armoured Car

Morris CS9 Armoured Car

I gave the underneath of the model a black undercoat followed by a white undercoat.

Morris CS9 Armoured Car

Morris CS9 Armoured Car

Morris CS9 Armoured Car

The next stage will be the base coat. I will be trying to replicate this paint scheme which shows a camouflage disruptive pattern.

Morris CS9/Light Armoured Car

See the full workbench feature on the Bolt Action Morris CS9 Armoured Car.

I also have a Flames of War blister of a 15mm Morris CS9 as well.

Inquisitorial Reinforcements

A few days ago I mentioned I had the (relatively) new Achilles Ridgerunner as a vehicular reinforcement for my Daemonhunters forces.

As well as my other Daemonhunters Inquisitorial Stormtroopers which are based on the Cadian Kasrkin I have also decided to add a unit based on the Tallarn or I may just use them as inducted Imperial Guard.

I have a blister and boxed set of Tallarn Imperial Guard troopers. I checked an old box of miniatures I had and realised I also had unopened blisters of the Tallarn Lascannon and Tallarn Autocannon.

This is how they looked from the (original) marketing material with the other heavy weapons in the range.

Tallarn Heavy Weapons

You can tell from the blisters how old they are as they have the letter E on them to reflect the prices of that time.

My favourite of the two models is the lascannon.

It reminds me of the British world war two six pounder.

I am thinking do I start painting these, or do I try and finish the other Tallarn models I have on the workbench.

Inquisitorial Achilles Ridgerunner

One of my more recent models is the Genestealer Cults Achilles Ridgerunner.

Achilles Ridgerunner

The Achilles Ridgerunner is an Imperial light exploratory vehicle often used to scout out new ore seams by mining guild prospectors and newly discovered terrain on Frontier Worlds by geological surveyors.

Because of its speed, range and sheer durability, the Achilles Ridgerunner also has proven to be very popular for use with the outriders and scouts of the Genestealer Cults.

Achilles Ridgerunners range into deadly frontier environments, their pilots scanning for promising resource deposits and communicating their location back to base. Though well equipped to engage enemy scouts and outriders, the Achilles Ridgerunner’s true qualities lie in its ability to rove ahead of the cult’s main forces, scouting out potential ambush sites and routes of ingress into the foe’s territory.

I really do like this model, and as it is an Imperial light exploratory vehicle, I decided that I could use this to support my Daemonhunters force of Inquisitorial Stormtroopers, some of whom are Cadian Kasrkin and some are Tallarn Imperial Guard.

It comes in an A5 sized box with two sprues.

Darth Vader

Something I have been thinking about getting for a while now was the Fantasy Flight Games Star Wars Legion boxed core set. So I was well pleased to get it for Christmas.

There are thirty-three easily assembled figures in the boxed set including Darth Vader.

Once a heroic Jedi Knight, Darth Vader was seduced by the dark side of the Force, became a Sith Lord, and led the Empire’s eradication of the Jedi Order. He remained in service of the Emperor for decades, enforcing his Master’s will and seeking to crush the fledgling Rebel Alliance. But there was still good in him…

Darth Vader has three components, his body, arm and light sabre and his head with a cape.

The model goes together very easily.

Due the nature of the plastic used for the model the light sabre is a little bendy and doesn’t sit straight. I am wondering if I should replace it with some plastic (or even metal) rod.

I used superglue to stick the model together and to it’s base.

FFI (Forces Françaises de l’Intérieur) Char B1

The French Char B1 is one of my favourite tanks, probably as a result of making that Matchbox plastic kit of the Char B1 and the Renault FT17 when I was young. 

So it was probably a no brainer to get one of these for my French partisan band.

The Char B1 was a specialised break-through vehicle, originally conceived as a self-propelled gun with a 75 mm howitzer in the hull; later a 47 mm gun in a turret was added, to allow it to function also as a Char de Bataille, a “battle tank” fighting enemy armour, equipping the armoured divisions of the Infantry Arm.

Among the most powerfully armed and armoured tanks of its day, the type was very effective in direct confrontations with German armour in 1940 during the Battle of France, but slow speed and high fuel consumption made it ill-adapted to the war of movement then being fought. After the defeat of France, captured Char B1 (bis) would be used by Germany, with some rebuilt as flamethrowers, Munitionspanzer, or mechanised artillery.

What I had discovered in my research about the FFI (Forces Françaises de l’Intérieur) was that they had re-captured many of the German Char B1s and used them against the Germans. 

B1-bis FFI Vercors of 13rd Dragons - La Rochelle, May 1945

The model is a plastic kit and comes in a nice box complete with decals and instructions.

Bolt Action Char B1 bis

There are two sprues in the box.

The kit does go together relatively easily.

I had a few issues when putting the frontal weapon into place and where the top hull joins the bottom hull.

There are quite a few options when it comes to putting it together, if you want an original vanilla French Char B1, a captured German version or, as I am doing a liberated version for use in 1944 and 1945.

See the full workbench feature on the Bolt Action FFI Char B1.

Starting the Rukkatrukk Squigbuggy

The Rukkatrukk Squigbuggy is a type of Ork attack vehicle. The first Rukkatrukk Squigbuggies were invented by enterprising Snakebites in order to feed Speed Freeks on the move. Mobile pens full of edible squigs, the vehicles kept pace with the warband’s Warbikers, buggies and Trukks while their grinning crews hawked their wares at the tops of their lungs.

As with most models these days, the kit comes in an A4 sized box.

Rukkatrukk Squigbuggy Box
Rukkatrukk Squigbuggy Box

The entire model comes on a single sprue.

The model goes together quite easily. The instructions are very clear and easy to follow.

However unlike earlier GW models there is less room for variations on the model, so you are quite constrained on how the model is put together.

This means that what you see on the box is what you are going to get. The squigs for example are moulded into the truck, so if you wanted to use the truck as a basis for a different kind of Ork vehicle then you will need to do some serious conversion work to make that work. A lot of the “weaponry” is integrated into the body parts, so you can’t easily omit them from the construction process.

Cruel Seas

When I first saw mention of Warlord Games new game, Cruel Seas, I was both intrigued and a little tempted.

So far I have put together the models I got free with Wargames Illustrated.

Royal Navy Vosper MTB

The Vosper 73 foot motor torpedo boat was a mid-twentieth century British motor torpedo boat designed by Vospers that served in the Royal Navy during the Second World War

The plastic sprue that came with Wargames Illustrated has two Vosper MTBs, one type I and one type II.

I found this graphic useful in putting these models together.

As with any small plastic model kit, I found these quite fiddly to put together.

Vosper MTB type I
Vosper MTB type II

Kriegsmarine S-Boats

E-boat was the Western Allies’ designation for the fast attack craft (German: Schnellboot, or S-Boot, meaning “fast boat”) of the Kriegsmarine during World War II. The most popular, the S-100 class, were very seaworthy, heavily armed and capable of sustaining 43.5 knots.

The plastic sprue that came with Wargames Illustrated has two S-Boats, an S-100 and an S-38.

I found this graphic useful in putting these models together.

As with the Vosper MTBs, I found these quite fiddly to put together.

Kyle Reese

Kyle Reese was a Resistance soldier in the post-apocalypse future, where most of humanity had already been wiped out in a deadly nuclear Third World War, sparked off by an artificial intelligence entity known as Skynet.

Kyle Reece is a metal miniature for the Terminator Genisys Miniatures Game from Warlord Games.

This is Reese when he is fighting Skynet in the future.

Here is a painted version.

The first stage will be to undercoat the model.

Tally Ho Rolls Royce Armoured Car

This model was the first one I bought for Tally Ho! It has been stuck in a box for about twenty years. It was originally designed and manufactured by the Honourable Lead Boiler Suit Company (HLBSCo) they were small and relatively new.

The Rolls-Royce armoured car was a British armoured car developed in 1914 and used in World War I and in the early part of World War II.

This is a 1920s version of the Armoured Car. The model consists of a resin armoured hull, metal chassis, wheels, turrets and fiddly headlights. The model went together very easily, the parts were a good fit. I glued the armoured car hull to the chassis. The wheels and axels fitted very nicely into the respective holes.

Rolls Royce Armoured Car

I did check a few reference pictures to confirm that I had aligned the hull right and the spare wheels in the right place.

Rolls Royce Armoured Car

Rolls Royce Armoured Car