From Barks: Cult vehicles at the Snowlord's Altar (75 points)

The Snowlord Challenged me to paint two 28mm vehicles. I shy away from painting vehicles, mostly because of the variety of techniques I'm not comfortable with. There's a balance I can't achieve between my style, a realistic scale model style, and speed. So I've been putting off painting these vehicles for years.

These are civilian mining vehicles, weaponised by my cult for the coming uprising. The predominant colour is a utilitarian grey with some hazard stripes because safety. The kits are nice, with a lot of options in assembly. Because I don't know any better, I made a rod for my own back by trying to make as many of these options viable as possible. I literally chopped and changed several things during the assembly process. I did them in subassemblies, which made painting easier but it was more like painting two dozen models than just two.

Subassemblies before Army Painter Uniform Grey spray.
It took me days to get the models to this stage.

Achilles Ridgerunner

The Ridgerunner is a cool zippy little buggy, with a lot of options. I 3D printed some extra parts to give me all the options, and fiddled around with magnets and superglue and swearing. I experimented with pigments on the tyres (Vallejo European Earth)- I don't want too much weathering, but I still didn't quite get the effect I was looking for.

Missile Launcher and Spotter

Two Heavy Stubbers

The markings are decals left over from old scale model kits.

Spotter

I made antennas from stretched sprue. Two snapped during painting. Pennants were from stickers wrapped around the antenna.

Stretched-sprue antenna and pennant

I prefer grunts to vehicles. The kneeling character has legs from the Wargames Atlantic Raumjäger kit, which were a little too large but not criminally so.

Heavy Mining Laser and Flare Launcher

Heavy Mortar and Survey Augur

Goliath Truck/ Rockgrinder

The second vehicle I inflicted on myself was a Goliath I picked up at CanCon 2019. Again, I spent a lot of time prepping this so I could use all the options. This mining vehicle has two main choices- the Goliath Truck, or the Goliath Rockgrinder.

Goliath Truck

The Goliath Truck is a troopcarrier. I shaved a few bits away to allow three previously painted 25mm-based figures to fit inside.

Troop compartment

Twin-linked Autocannon

Commander has a Heavy Stubber

Goliath Rockgrinder

The Goliath Rockgrinder is a utility mining vehicle, and the back is covered. The mining arm has a dedicated operator, and the main attraction is the Drilldozer Blade. All of these are magnetized. I used some Tamiya 5mm tape for masking the hazard stripes on the blade, and freehanded the rest.

Covered tray

Drilldozer Blade

Heavy Mining Laser

Clearance Incinerator

Heavy Seismic Cannon

Operator's console

I'm relieved to have these vehicles done, but I didn't love the process. The effects I was keen to achieve seem to be done with airbrushes and specialty enamel products that I don't have. There are so many little details that I was quite fatigued by the end. Thank goodness no camouflage was involved! I am amazed at how some of you are able to churn out fleets of lovely big vehicles.

2x 28mm vehicles: 40 points

2 + (2 x ½) 28mm crew: 15 points

Snowlord's Altar: 20 points

GW side challenge: 55 points