28mm on the cheap: Sci-fi bikers and post-apoc cars

Many of the games that Chicago Skirmish Wargames plays are generic skirmish games. These games don't require a lot of miniatures, and they don't try to tie you to a specific line of figures. This fits well with our philosophy of "28mm on the cheap."

Recently, I painted up a biker gang and some vehicles for our club's playtest of Apocalypticum, a forthcoming post-apocalyptic skirmish game from Ganesha Games, publisher of our club's favorite fantasy game Song of Blades and Heroes.


The Bikers

The majority of this gang is made of biker figures from EM4 Miniatures. These classic Mark Copplestone sculpts were originally sold by Grenadier for their Kill Zone game. The figures are great sculpts that hold up well even today. In fact, Copplestone has continued this line of figures with new and variant sculpts through his own company Copplestone Castings.

The figures are stock except that some of them had weird, large calculator-type things (maybe that's what they thought future computer would be in the early 90s?) attached to their belts. I filed these down into packs with no problems.



In the pic below, the biker on the right is a Warzone figure. His weapon is a bit out there, but it's very useful for a warband to have a miniature with a weapon that could be a heavy machinegun or a grenade launcher, or a....you get the idea.

The last figure in the pic below is produced by Mega Miniatures, one of my favorite small minis producers. It was formerly produced by Alpha Forge Miniatures for their Star Mogul Game.


There was an 8th member of the gang, but when I opened up my minis case today, it looks like he went missing after last week's game!

Except for the Warzone figure (that came in a mixed lot and might be available from Prince August), all the above figures are currently in production and retail for less than $2.50!

The Vehicles


These 3 trucks were each made to accompany a vehicle I already had. For the most part they were done with the same techniques as the other vehicles in this how-to article.

The Bug'gy

This vehicle started life as a 1/32 scale Volkswagen Beetle. Far too large to look right as a bug, I decided to turn it into an off-road monster.The wheels are from a 99-cent kids toy from Target. They are mounted on 3 layers of sprue glued to the bottom of the car. The decals are very old Games Workshop decals. They broke up while applying, but I decided to put them on anyway.


The armor plates are simply pieces of plastic packaging, the kind you might find on a typical blister pack of miniatures. To emboss the rivets, I bought a hand punch and filed the punch into a smaller rounded shape that makes the reverse rivet impressions that you see here (yet another tip I learned from Necromundicon).


The back of the bug was removed to make a space for miniatures. Wheel wells for the rear wheels (otherwise you'd be able to see right through the car) are made from the corners of blister packs. The Bug'gy was built as a companion vehicle for my Mahindra Scorpio conversion. Now they're a pair of dangerous-looking wasteland raiders.


The Hummer H2

This 1/46 Maisto toy car was smaller than the exaggerated (1/48 to 1/32) scale vehicles I usually buy — but at 25 cents in a resale shop bin, I couldn't pass it up. A bent axle (probably why it was 25 cents) was easily corrected and I set to work. No real conversion work here, just paints, washes and drybrushes.


The H2 was made to go with my Land Rover. A pair of vehicles suitable for paramilitaries, mercenaries, survivalists or defense contractors.


Chevy Pickup

This 1/32 beauty is one that I'm really proud of. Instead of my usual paint job of washes and drybrushing, I first brush-dipped this with Minwax Polyshades Antique Walnut. In the places where it pooled or lined, I heavily drybrushed on orange for the rust effect you see. The wolf decals are Games Workshop Space Wolf decals. The same design is included in mirror images, so both doors have the wolf facing forward.


I followed that with a heavy drybrush of tan for dust and a bit of watery brown paint in a few spots for dirt. After removing the pull-back motor (all these cars seem to have them) I was able to lower the bed quite a bit so it looks better when miniatures stand there. The grey plates at the wheel wells are once again made from plastic card. The little lights on top are covering up a hole where a surfboard was originally attached.


The pickup was made to match the style of my Volkswagen bus: a pair of vehicles that would be equally good for regular post-apoc survivors, hippies, rednecks, or just used as cool pieces of terrain.


I'm quite happy with the way these vehicles all turned out. I've really lucked out with the Kinsmart brand of toy cars. The VW bus, Chevy pickup and VW bug are all from this brand and each only cost me between $4 to $8 each. The brand is fairly common and shows up often online and elsewhere. I found these at a train shop, a grocery store and a neighborhood mega-mall in a Chicago neighborhood. As always, comments are appreciated and questions are welcome.

— Karl, Chicago Skirmish Wargames club member