Six Dollar Sci-Fi Tanks from Russia

I've got a bargain on the desk today -- it's a 28mm "Bronekorpus" tank kit from Russia, made by Tehnnolog, the company best known for its Robogear line of mech kits.

Tim and I bought a pack of 10 of these kits on eBay. Shipping ranges from $1-$2 for each tank. As you'll see below, it's not a perfect product, but it's a solid model with a lot of options and a great bargain.

Here are the 19 parts that makeup the kit.

I don't know how they come from the factory, but mine arrived already off the sprue in a plastic bag. The casting is well done and the plastic is a polystyrene that feels very similar to that used by Games Workshop and other wargames companies. It's easy to clip, cut, scrape, file and glue.

Here's the hull and treads:

The front and back pieces and hatches:

The turret and turret weapons options:

The first of the three weapons can either be left as is or given one of two muzzles. The third weapon is a plasma-type gun that will be familiar to those who have built Robogear kits.

Here is a selection of secondary weapons:

The dual missile launcher is a single cast piece of a Robogear weapon that was formerly 3 pieces (rack and two missiles).

The last item can be assembled as a small anti-personnel laser or as a radar array.

Construction Notes and the Flaws
Everything in this kit be pushed or snapped together. There's no reason to use glue if you don't want to, and some gamers might wish to leave the kit with as many options as possible. The turret weapons slide right on from the bottom when you take the turret off.

Rather clever, eh?

However there are a few design flaws, First, if you put the mini-turret on the lower hull surface, the main gun will hit it.

This can be remedied by shaving away the round rim on the lower hull and/or the rim on the mini-turret.

Secondly, and most annoyingly, no matter how you assemble the treads (they can slope forwards or backwards) you end up with a gap between the treads and the lower section of the hull.

This can be remedied by filling the gap with putty or plastic card, or by raising the hull up. It's a small matter to clip away the mounting pegs on the side of the hull and just glue the treads a bit further down the body. Here's what the difference looks like between the raised hull and assembling the model as intended. The figure in the picture is exactly 29mm from sole to eyeline.

I think the raised hull looks better, though the top edge of the hull side has no detailing whatsoever as the model designers intended for it to be mostly obscured by the treads. Not a major problem, but worth noting.

Lastly, when assembled with the bottom of the front treads overhanging (like most modern tanks) the treads will face the wrong way.

Warhammer 40,000 Comparison
Here's how it compares to an Imperial Guard Leman Russ Battle Tank by Games Workshop. It's quite a bit shorter.

Even my raised version is stunty by comparison.

However, the footprint is actually quite close.

The BroneKorpus is about 1/8th inch shorter in length and 1/4 inch smaller in width, not counting the Leman Russ side sponsons.

Options, Options, Options
One of the best things about this kit is the many ways in which it can be assembled. Here are a few of them.

First up, a sleek, no-frills main battle tank.

And here's a similar version, but this time with a rack of missiles, some comms gear and the bulldozer front.

Reversing the hull to put the lower section in the rear and the dozer front gives it a bit more of a 40k look.

And don't think that main battle tanks are the only thing this kit does. Lose the main turret and you've got a nice little armored personnel carrier.

Though this isn't bad either.

Add the big missiles and you've got a missile carrier. 

Stacking two of these missile pairs on top of each other could cool too.

For use with my 28mm Mech Attack games, I'll probably go with this simple configuration: raised hull, single main gun.

Though not intended for 40k, I'll probably put a Space Marine tank hatch on top of the turret, as it has nice detailing (and I've got a bunch in the bits bin).

No matter how you assemble yours, you'll end up with a batch of great parts for converting other vehicles. Here's a use for the second set of muzzles. They look like rocket pods rather than gun muzzles so that's what I used them for.

This "Destroid Monster" kit had four ridiculously long cannons, but I removed them and glued the rocket pods in their place. Macross fans will likely disagree, but I think it's an improvement.

Final Assessment
There is no other sci-fi tank kit in this price range with this kind of quality and usefulness. It's not a perfect kit, but the few flaws are easy to remedy or ignore. The sheer number of options in the kit means that gamers of many stripes should be able to find a use for it on their battlefield.

The size of the model suggests a light or medium tank, but who can say how big a tank will have to be in the future? I heartily recommend this kit to anyone who wants some armor and doesn't want to spend a lot of money.

 Lastly, I also encourage you to check out this review on Dakka Dakka, which inspired me to write this post. Most notably, it also has comparisons with Space Marine tanks.

-- Karl, Chicago Skirmish Wargames club member

Armor Reinforcements for Warpath and 40k

I finally brush-dipped and varnished the Leman Russ tanks I painted up for our mega-apocalypse Warpath game from last month. You can read all about it right here.

These vehicles are mostly stock with a couple of modifications, and they received a quick paint job of base colors, drybrush and brush-dip with Minwax Polyshades Tudor. One of these was a kit that I've had sitting around for about a decade and the other is a rescue of a very poorly painted (Testors gloss enamels, ugh) tank I got from Tim.

I lengthened barrel on the this cannon.

And I added a classic metal Imperial Guard tank commander figure -- something I've always wanted to paint one up. Here he is, with a small gas-mask bit from the Imperial Guard command sprue.

This one has a couple of metal plasma cannons from the old Demolisher kit. I'm not sure plasma cannons are an option for standard Leman Russ tanks at the moment, but I'm quite certain I don't care.

The head on the commander is from Pig Iron Productions. Every human figure in my Imperial Guard force has a gas mask.

The mud is Sheetrock brand paint texture mixed into brown paint.

All in all, these were a fun couple of tanks to build and paint.

I can't imagine anyone ponying up the $50 each that Leman Russ tanks cost nowadays, but I've got a soft spot for these ungainly sci-fi-meets-WWI behemoths and was glad to add them to my army.

I don't play 40k anymore, but Warpath is always an inspiration to paint up a unit or two. So, expect the army to continue to slowly grow...I've still got a Valkyrie VTOL, some Ogryns, a small platoon of infantry and a few Chimera transports waiting for the brush.

-- Karl, Chicago Skirmish Wargames club member

Chicago Police from Tactical Miniatures and West Wind

Here's another one of those projects that I started long before I had a use for it. I'd been wanting to paint up some Chicago Police Department officers since I picked up four packs of cops at Little Wars for stupid cheap money two years ago. Here's what I ended up with.

• "Rookie Cops" and "Narcotics Team" from Tactical Miniatures, now owned by Armorcast and available here.
  
• "Police Officers" and "Detectives in Tactical Body Armor" from West Wind, still available direct from West Wind in the UK or from Old Glory in the USA.

I recently painted up the Rookie Cops and Police Officers. First up, I'll discuss the Rookie Cops from Tactical Miniatures.

These guys are very realistically proportioned to the point of maybe being a bit too slender. I ended up with a nice selection of poses and weapons with a modern sculpting style.

And here's a look at the West Wind Police Officers.

These have more of a chunky, mid-90s style to them. They remind me a bit of the Copplestone or Foundry style. They have less fine detail than many current miniatures, and have more of a uniform appearance (no pun intended) with caps, long sleeves and generic semi-auto pistol.

I painted these guys with my usual base colors, a bit of drybrush for the hair and then a brush-dip of Minwax Polyshades Tudor. However, this time I tried something new for me. I painted freehand Chicago flags on all the officers, and checkerboard rims on the caps of the West Wind figures (an essential CPD detail).

I used a micron pen for the black checks and the blue stripes.

It turned out OK -- nothing to write home about, but good for a tabletop-quality paintjob.

These figures are virtually stock, though I cut their slotted tabs down to pegs so I could mount them on plastic bases. I also cut away the insignia on the right shoulders of a couple minis to make space for the Chicago flag.

Speaking of bases, like the Van Saar I painted a couple months ago, I based the cops on Champ Industries plastic scenic bases, in this case the "Urban Design" set.

Though they only come in four styles, the Urban Design set is a nice set of plastic bases depicting broken pavement with some half-buried metal beams. It's very reminiscent of the ancient streetcar and train rails that still show through some Chicago streets.

The bases are slightly bigger than a standard 25mm slotted base (a bit over 26mm in diameter) but you wouldn't notice on the tabletop.


Despite the difference in proportions, I think the two lines will look fine on the tabletop together.

Of course what police force would be complete without some cruisers? I picked up a few of these Welly brand 1/43 Ford Crown Victoria cruisers in Chicago Police Department livery a few years ago.

This vehicle is still a CPD icon even as it's being phased out in favor of smaller Taurus and Explorer based interceptors.

Here's a look at the whole group.

There you have it, a CPD unit ready for action. These figures were a joy to paint and finished up very quickly. I can recommend them without reservations to anyone who needs some cops on their table. I still don't have a concrete use for them yet. They might make their way into next year's Halloween zombie apocalpyse, or perhaps they'll fight alongside superheroes in our next game of Power Legion.

When I paint up the narc team and detectives, I'll have enough variety to make a very cool police force for "Fistful of Kung Fu", a Hong Kong action movie ruleset from Osprey that I recently picked up.

-- Karl, Chicago Skirmish Wargames club member

Post-Apocalyptic Tuk Tuk Auto Rickshaw

I found this little gem a couple weeks ago and couldn't resist it. Here's how it looked originally (not my pic, but mine was identical except that this example is missing the windshield).

After disassembling the model and ripping out the seats, I set to work mixing it up a bit. The gas tank became the new front wheel fender.

The vehicle is roughly 1/35 scale, so I had to build up the level of the drivers station floor with tubes from Robogear mech missile launchers and various other stowage, topped with a grated bit. Note the two levers for tank tread steering.

In the rear bed all it needed was a similar floor grating and some stowage.

More stowage on the starboard side.

And on the back, I finally found a place to use this awesome Ork backpack that's been on my workbench for quite a while.

Here's a shot of the sun-faded canopy.

And another shot of the whole thing.

Here's a pic with some 28mm figures for scale. As you can see, this thing is pretty big -- almost a sort of small land-ship.

-- Karl, Chicago Skirmish Wargames club member

Khurasan's Caiman APC Ready for Battle

Last weekend I embarked on an ambitious project -- paint up one of the two huge 28mm Caiman APCs that I had acquired second-hand from fellow club member Jon. These gigantic resin vehicles from Khurasan Miniatures are a glorious love letter to the classic APC from "Aliens"  -- which is why they're rarely in stock from Khurasan's web store these days. The vehicle is more than 7 inches long from nose to tail light, and solid resin through and through.

I wanted them to paint up to match my Pig Iron Productions Heavy Infantry figures (pictured here), which are among my most favorite "hard" sci-fi figures ever. They have a chunky, gritty aesthetic which will look perfect alongside the lean, predatory lines of the Caiman APC.

For this project, I decided to try my hand at painting some digital camouflage. I only did one camo color because 1) it was exhausting doing all that geometric brushwork freehand and 2) I was terrified I'd mess up if I started in on a second color. Thankfully, I think the single-color camo approach looks decent. Don't look too closely or you'll see my blobby squares and rounded rectangles!

I've been reading about the new near-future ruleset called No End in Sight, and I think with a few tweaks it could work well for our sci-fi skirmish games. Maybe this hulking behemoth will take to the field one day soon?

-- Patrick, Chicago Skirmish Wargames club member