New $1 find at Target

OK, I was at Target and browsing through the Dollar aisles at the front and found these two packs of cheap plastic army men.  At first I picked them up (thinking the vehicles had some potential use with my 20mm modern troops.) and then put them down again, and even walked away.  However, I had to go back to rule #2 of gaming acquisition: If you see something that will work, buy it now because when you go back for it, it will be gone!  I've violated that rule too many times to not heed the warning.  So, I went back and picked up a bag of each.

Here are the two bags.

Bag #1 (Left) has 28 pieces that included a truck with an absurd weapon on the back, an undersized plane, and 26 figures. I thought all of the plastic men were useless until I saw the four kneeling figures with a 30 cal. MG.  I'll probably cut these off to use with my Car Wars vehicle conversions or for use with the helicopter as a 50 cal. MG.

 Bag #2 has 22 (Right) pieces that included a tank, a helicopter, and 20 figures.  Again, I thought all of the plastic men were useless until I saw the four kneeling figures with a 50 cal. MG. I'll probably cut these off to use with my Car Wars vehicle conversions as they are too large to use with the helicopter as MG's.

 Here are the four vehicles with 20mm modern contractors (not completely painted yet) for scale.

Truck: I'm going to cut off the hideous weapon (that will leave a big gaping hole in the cheap plastic truck) and add a utility/transport bed made out of plastic styrene.  This will serve as a transport truck for one of my smaller modern contingents in need of transportation. (I.E.: 20mm Grenadians, Argentineans, Cubans, or Somalis.) 

Small Plane: I may cut off the bottom struts/wheels and use it as a UAV/drone. I'm not sure yet.

Tank: At first I thought it was too small, but after looking at it, I think it will be turned into an armored,  infantry fighting vehicle (IFV), sort of BMP-2-ish.  The turret needs to go, or at least cut off the main mantlet/gun and the rear portion and replace with bits of plastic and a new, smaller caliber, main gun.  Similar to the truck, this vehicle may be put into service with a variety of the smaller, modern contingent countries in need of a little armor.

Helicopter: The main reason for getting the pack was to turn this into a good/cheap replica of an OH-58 Kiowa. You can never have too many of these. I'll need to remove one of the sets of blades and maybe use a bead or something on top of the rotors for the optic sights to make it a scout. It will certainly come in handy and will be well used by my contractors employed in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other hot spots around the world.

Here's the Kiowa glued together, mold line trimmed and sanded, and primed with some Krylon Fusion black paint. The 20mm contractor is shown for scale.

Here's the IFV glued together, mold line trimmed and sanded, and primed with the Krylon Fusion black paint. Again, the turret needs to go.  The 20mm contractor is shown for scale.  The hideous truck is in the background.  However, by the time I get done with it, it won't be an ugly duckling any longer.   Now that I think about it, I may have to either make some type of emplaced gun position out of the hideous gun, or just relegate it to the parts box.

Modern 15mm African Mosque

Again, a fellow gamer needed a mosque for his upcoming 15mm Mogadishu game, and I built one. I had the most fun with this one and plan to build one in 20mm scale for my games.  I hope he remembers to point the mosque in the right direction towards Mecca for his game. All the roofs/tower is removable as well as the trees. Notice the tile work in the mosque.  Any troops assaulting this mosque are in for quite a fight.

Modern 15mm Hotel 'Olympia' on comission.

A fellow gamer wanted a 15mm Hotel built for his upcoming Mogadishu game, so I built one.  There weren't a lot of references to go by, so I did take some artistic license in building it. I tried a new technique whereas I left the street side of the muli-story building intact, but built each floor individually so they fit right into place.  This way, you could have floor by floor fighting, without destroying the look of the building from the street-side. (Notice the two-story lobby space, continuous elevator shaft, and stairs to the roof in both corners.) The sign on the roof is removable (sign is built on a metal base and their is a small magnet on the roof) and I made additional signs for him to use.  Also, the palm tree 'oasis' in the courtyard is removable, giving him more flexibility there as well.

Modern African Shanties: A commission project

A fellow gamer wanted some 15mm Shanty structures for an upcoming African/Somali/Mogadishu miniatures game. I game 20mm moderns, so building in 15mm would be a little change of pace. I also had some spare vehicle bits in 15mm that I'd never use, so I made a couple of additional scenery pieces. Here are some pictures of the project, from beginning to end. It did give me some needed practice, and I plan to make some in 20mm for myself.