Hammer Time! (Part 2)

This must be some kind of record... it's only mid-February and I've almost finished three Christmas present projects already! The 6mm FUBAR! army is painted, the fleet-scale Star Wars reinforcements are done, and now my 28mm Hammer's Slammers blowers from Old Crow are all-but-completed too.

Work in progress - some weathering on hull and chipping on the skirts

Badab Black washes on hull

Above, the almost-finished blowers. I weathered the hulls some more with GW Badab Black and Gryphonne Sepia washes, and applied decals (custom-made for me by Sparetime Hobbies while I waited yesterday - thanks to Pete and to Conscript Kevin H for the tip!) to the skirts, then proceeded to weather the bejeezus out of them... mainly with a "chipping" technique and mud brybrushes.

I think they came out OK, all I'm waiting for now are the Lion Rampant decals from Ginfritter's Gnomish Workshop so I can complete the Slammers livery. Oh, and I have to paint the commander for "D16". Once that's done it's "look out Gunschwarm" when FuturKom's hired guns roll out...

Hammer Time?

Four blower tanks from Old Crow's 25mm "Hammer's Slammers" range, pictured with two GZG NAC Royal Marines. They're big suckers, eh? (the tanks, that is ;-)

The blower tanks (three regular and one command blower - a full platoon) are now ready for the paint shop.  Assembly was pretty simple - assembling and attaching the pintle-mounted tri-barrel powerguns and the main powergun, and sticking on the deck stowage (a one-piece casting). OC supplies photo-etched brass components to build a turret bustle cage for extra stowage and these assembled pretty easily too. I also added some extra stowage I had laying around. 

 

There was minimal cleanup required (Jez from OC takes considerable pains to clean up castings before shipment) but I did have an issue with the turret mounting assembly. The hull has a ~40mm hole and the turret has a flat bottom, so OC supplies a "plug" (about 40mm round by 10mm thick) that you affix to the bottom of the turret. The problem is that the plug is a bit too big around to allow the turret to comfortably rotate in the hull. Problem is solved by substituting a Litko 40mm round base for the supplied plug, and relieving the hull hole a bit with a half-round file. I like the turrets to rotate easily and now they do ;-)

Anyway, further updates as the tanks progress through the paint shop...

NAC/Hammer's Slammers 25mm test model

In the unrelenting world of future war that is Spacekrieg, all of the future combatants need a helping hand once in awhile. My wife knows this better than any of us, and this is why she (in the guise of Evil Robot Santa) got me a platoon of Old Crow Hammer's Slammers blower tanks to lend some compensated endorsement to the causes of FuturKom, Gunschwarm, and/or the Future Britz.

Of course, even a hot-poop mercenary outfit like the Slammers doesn't run on blower power alone - grunts are required to winkle the other space-soldier out of his foxhole. But what is a suitable match for the old-school look of the OC blower tanks? None other than the NAC Royal Marines from GZG's Stargrunt "true 25mm" range.

I started off with a test model - a female trooper from the command pack. I'd managed to pick up a couple of NOS blisters (originally distributed by Geo-Hex!) from an online retailer for cheap. I wanted to make sure that I'd be happy with the models before shelling out for a platoon. I have to say I am I was pretty impressed with the quality of the models, especially considering that they must be 15-year-old sculpts at least.

The detail is finely sculpted and the model was super-easy to paint. The flash makes the jumpsuit seem quite a bit bluer and brighter than it is - I used GW Shadow Grey highlighted with Ultramarines Blue. I'll likely put a tactical number in red on the back of the helmet once I figure out the TO&E for the platoon. But as far as models go I think I'm onto some winners!