Army Tank

The one vehicle in the Mars Attacks rulebook that they don't actually make a model for is the army tank. They suggest a retro Sherman tank from Bolt Action but I wanted something a bit more classic B-movie style so it had to be a Patton or Walker tank or something close to it. In 1/48 I had a look at what Academy had on offer since I'd been very happy with the last two kits I'd bought from them. This is the kit I got



It went together very quickly but was a bit of a let down in a bunch of areas.



no bottom to the turret on this one which was rather noticeable so I used thin plastic card to cover the hole with a large hole to not block the mounting peg from the hull.



also the lower hull has gaps and a complete lack of detail for suspension. I think they use the same lower hull on all their 1/48 tanks which accommodates room for gear box and motors for the motorized versions. I hadn't noticed before because the other tanks also had quite nicely detailed side skirts which hid the problem.

Despite the problems the most important thing is for how does it look with the other minis?



maybe a touch tall but pretty good with the soldiers





game wise it's perfect size filling two squares on the map. Also it can face it's turret one direction and it's machine gun cupola in a different direction which also fits the rules.







I think it gives a nice big tank feeling.



So I went on to fix some of the gaps and add a bit more detail from tank parts in the bits box and some plastic card.



Added a some weld detail to the front by putting on a heap of liquid cement then pushing in with a sculpting tool.

Pegasus Scout UFOs finished

It's incredible how much difference a year of practice with an airbrush makes. I started these saucers way back when I was working on the Not Mars Attacks boardgame Invasion from Outer Space I started spraying them silver back then but was very unhappy with the finish I got from the Tamiya silvers. With the official Mars Attacks Martians in hand I got out the airbrush again to finally finish these things. Using Valejo model air metallics this time: Steel, Silver, and a lot of shading which I could actually control properly this time spraying over the vents on the dishes. Also lots of blue glows done in Ultramarine blue followed by P3 Arcane Blue and white inside the cockpit, and under the belly. Pretty happy with the finish in the end. With the seats left out they easily fit in Martian.
 

Also since I painted these for PAX the official ones arrived so here's the comparison side by side. They are almost exactly the same size though the canopy is much larger and tougher on the Pegasus ones since it's injected plastic instead of the vac formed ones from Mantic. I think it'd be easy to arm these too since the Mantic ones come with both Heat and Freeze Ray cannons also 2 pilots to choose from should you want a Martian pilot.
 

Attackers from MARS 1st squad of Martians painted

I got an early go at the Mars Attacks Martians from a demo kit to be shown off at PAX Australia back at the start of November. Very rush job getting buildings and minis done but they were fun little buggers to paint once you got past the sanding off mold lines. They're quite finely scaled minis a lot like Infinity minis. those skull faces take a bit of effort but really show through the helmets well, though they are fiddly to put on since they are vac formed instead of cast plastic. They need some trimming and gluing down with PVA. the USCM do not approve.

ACK ACK ACK Mars Attacks arrived

My Bad forgot to post this on the blog, my Mars Attacks pledge arrived back in November just in time for my B'day



Soooooo many figures GAHHHHH



The Martian invading horde



the human resistance



the vehicles: wrecked resin civilian cars, crashed saucer, trucks and flying saucers



flying saucers



closeups























I'm a bit surprised there are non wrecked cars in the set, especially when I can just use 1/43 ones for that:





at least I know which ones scale matches





STOMPY ROBOTS!!



Freeze ray, Heat ray and Shrink rays for the Robot



really nice touch having shrunken soldiers included with the shrink ray