Road Warriors and Freeway Fighters – Preparing for the 7TV Apocalypse

Slowly working my way through my backlog of post apocalypse miniatures.  This is another one from the Prince August Future Shock range.

He has a kind of Dark Future Sanctioned Operative feel to him.

Some good weather at the weekend gave me the chance to get an undercoat and basecoat down on the Tamiya conversion.

Undercoat used was a ‘pound shop’ grey car primer.  Basecoat – Plastic Soldier Company US Olive Drab

The starting point for this ‘wastelands’ conversion was a 1:48 scale Tamiya WW2 German ‘tractor’.

I’m not really used to the detail you get on these scale models (as opposed to the sturdier simpler wargames kits), and to be honest there was a lot I built, including the interior, which was actually not necessary when you see the finished model.

In addition to the 28mm scale resin and metal bits from the Crooked Dice post apocalyptic conversion sets I also raided the bits box for a spare tire (for the bonnet) and used some 1:1 scale car bodywork repair mesh for the windows.  I also used the spare ‘hedge cutter’ from the Ork truck I’ve been recently doing similar mods to.

All in all I like how this has turned out.  It has a certain Wacky Races crossed with Mad Max type vibe and the scale is pretty spot on for 28mm figures.

I’ve started painting the truck:

• White primer
• Desert Yellow basecoat
• All over wash of Agrax Earthshade

I recently picked up one of the ‘Build and Paint’ Warhammer 40k Ork trucks with the express purpose of using it to build a post-apocalypse buggy using the resin accessory sets from Crooked Dice.

I built the model as is out of the box, with the exception of the (bolt?) gun, which just felt a bit too sci-fi for my purposes.

The seated Ork minis lower halves were used with one of the metal Crooked Dice 7TV gunners and other bits from my spares box to build a suitably wastelands style duo. The machine gun and guard, as well as rear stowage are all from the same set.  The back of the stowage was masked using (my fast diminishing) supply of plastic 1/48 Tamiya sandbags.  A harpoon and mount completed the armaments and a skull (with a nod to the Grimdark) was used to mask a hole on the stowage at the rear where I had had to trim to fit with a craft saw.

All in all I’m quite pleased with this.  The scale is spot on and there is space at the rear for a based figure to stand.  I intend to stat this up for use in 7TV Apocalypse (currently on Kickstarter) when it is released next year.

Re-energised by the launch of Crooked Dice’s 7TV Apocalypse Kickstarter, I’ve gone back and finished off a vehicle and an additional miniature for my PA adventures.

The car is a 1/43 die cast ‘Teamsterz’ toy purchased a few months ago.  I cut the plastic back window out of this carefully with a craft knife and was delighted to find that the resin stowage bits I’d bought (and already released by Crooked Dice for their Interceptor model) fits perfectly.  The roof mounted cannon is also from Crooked Dice.

The originally back and white toy was undercoated dark grey (masking the Police markings on the doors) and then hand painted and weathered using acrylics.  Modelmates rust effect and AK Interactive enamel grime washes were used for further weathering and Mig Productions ‘mud’ powders were also added.  Some chipping was done using the sponge technique.

I’ve also added to my wastelands gangs by paining up this vintage Prince August Future Shock mini.

Very quick update – recently completed this lovely miniature from Studio Miniatures.

Black leather was achieved by a couple of washes of Army Painter Dark Tone over a dark grey undercoat.

As a diversion from vehicles, I’ve started to think about figures.  A few months ago I picked up some ‘Future Shock’ miniatures from Prince August.  This range is around 30 years old now and really capture that eighties style view of the post apocalypse.

First off the workbench – a former soldier / militia man.  Unlike a lot of minis from this era this (and the Future Shock range in general) are sized more like modern 28mm scale minis and fit in well with other stuff on the PA workbench (the likes of Crooked Dice, Studio Miniatures etc.)

It’s been a while since I updated this project, but spurred on by my golden button last week (yay!), I’ve done a bit more work and finished the ‘Mobile Command / Police Van’ and Oil Tanker.

Both started out life as 1/43 scale die cast toys and have been added to using resin bits from Crooked Dice and various random pieces from my bits box.

These were mainly hand painted (rather than airbrushed), with copious amounts of weathering using Army Painter washes, Modelmates rusting liquids and sponge chipping.  (I also had a go with an AK Interactive Enamel wash – see photo below).

These will eventually be used as part of a 7TV cast representing law enforcement / military types gone rogue after the fall!

I’ve build up a fairly sizeable collection of 1/43 to 1/48 scale diecast toy cars to mod up.  Using various bits and pieces including some very useful Tamiya plastic sand bags and some really old Gorkamorka sprues alongside the new range of resin bits from Crooked Dice.

The vehicles were sourced mainly from discount stores (Poundworld Plus, The Works etc.), but also from China via Ali-Express.

The first one on the production line is intended for my cast/warband of PA militia.  The base toy here is a Teamsterz Mobile Police HQ truck (approx. 1/43 scale).

Relatively simple conversion, although I had to remove the ventilation fans and hatchway (now added to the bits box) from the roof before adding some resin stowage bits from Crooked Dice.  The turrent and gunner are also from the new 7TV Apocalypse range by CD.

Post Apocalypse (PA) is all the rage nowadays. However the overarching theme and context no longer tends to be the aftermath of global conflict or nuclear armageddon, but the encroachment of the walking dead or the dystopian future nightmares of settings first originated by the likes of Orwell and entrenched in popular culture by the likes of The Handmaids Tale.

This kind of speculative fiction tends to be reflective of current social and geo-political conditions. From a tabletop gaming perspective while many of these themes and settings are future based, you can easily identify the time period in which they originated and were written. However trends have a way of coming back.

Recently we have seen an upturn in the emergence of the traditional post-nuclear PA settings, particularly that wasteland populated by road warriors and freeway fighters inspired by a certain style of movies from the early eighties and starting of course with Mad Max. Part of this can be explained by the cycle of nostalgia that appears to work on 30 year intervals. Recent games and rulesets like Gaslands, Devils Run Route 666 and the upcoming 7TV Apocalypse capture this feel. If you want to roll back to the steps leading up to armageddon there is a renewed interest in Cold War Gone Hot and World War III with the likes of Team Yankee and the upcoming Battlegroup NORTHAG.

My current favourite set of rules are 7TV by Crooked Dice Game Design Studio. A great and most importantly fun game that effectively allows your to recreate TV shows (and films) on your tabletop with tongue usually firmly in cheek. In fact the game is effectively a game about making a TV series. You dont have armies or warbands, you put together a cast containing stars, co-stars and extras. You spend ‘plot points’ to take actions, the card driven event mechanic allows things such as continuity mistakes, special effects mistakes and issues with difficult stars to affect gameplay. Now in its second edition the game is primarily focussed on the spy-fy genre (think Bond, Gerry Anderson, the ITC action series of the 60s), is figure agnostic but is supported by a great range of 28mm scale miniatures available directly from Crooked Dice.

7TV is branching out soon into the Post Apocalypse, with a standalone game that takes the core mechanics of second edition and tweaks the flavour and setting. Most notably the existing vehicle rules have been expanded to accomodate those Road Warrior type scenarios. The full game is due to hit Kickstarter this Autumn, but I had the opportunity back in July to attend a play test / campaign day to try out these rules.

One of the coolest things about this sort of thing from a hobbyists point of view is the creativity that it allows for things like conversions and sourcing figures. For the play test day I had to put together a cast and include a suitably post-apocalypsed up vehicle. I went for a ‘big rig’ approach and with a nod to 7TVs cult tv background a cast based around Garth Knight and his Goliath truck from Knightrider (imaging after the fall of society Garthe would be a magnet for scavengers and marauders).

Since then I’ve been bitten hard by the bug and have spent more time sourcing vehicles, bits, conversion parts and miniatures. This blog series will cover this project in detail as I prepare, strap on my survivalist gear, rev up the V8, scavenge the gasoline and face the white line nightmare of the wastelands.

I’m also covering this project on my own blog at www.twistedpinnaclegames.co.uk