Nuclear Renaissance - MRP Pursuit Special

"Kick her in the guts Barry!" - Jim Goose.

Well, sooner or later it was going to happen.
After all you can't have a mad max inspired setting without the iconic hero vehicle.

The catalyst was finding an elderly and rather battered Matchbox Specials 1/40 Pro stock car at a car boot sale (Stock photo above) At 1/40 scale it's a little on the large side, but it instantly grabbed me as a great starting point for an replica of Max's V8 as it already had a similar side windows, wide arches, nosecone and boot spoiler to the famous falcon.
Price paid? A princely 25 pence!

The conversion was a very simple one, the front wheels were glued up tight into the arches to give it a bit of a stance, I added the fuel tanks, exhausts and supercharger and built a police light for the bonnet / hood.

It's not at all accurate to any of films iterations of the falcon but I think it makes for a reasonably recognisable famicile of all the key elements, still no triple zoomies :(

Thanks for stopping by! Most likely some more post apoc terrain next time up...

Nuclear Renaissance - Growing the Gangcults #4 - The Swagmen WIP

"People come here to trade, make a little profit, do a little business. If you have nothing to trade, you've got no business in Bartertown"
- The Collector...

The Swagmen are the merchants and traders of sector 44, ramshackle, motorised caravans plying their wares between the remaining clusters of civilisation.

The Swagmen also send salvage parties out into the badzones to scavenge for tradable items and are not adverse to increasing their inventory through outright banditry on the open road.

The organisation have a near monopoly on trade in sector 44, the only other ways to exchange goods between communities are by hiring the Couriers or trusting in the Lord and the sturdiness of the Plough on your rig and doing it yourself, this unhealthy competition has led to much bad blood spilt between the two.

Although tolerated by the Main Road Patrol as a necessary evil, their cutthroat antics and accusation of dealings with raider groups has led to several skirmishes and a trade embargo only ended by the Brownsprings Militia 's deployment of a museum piece tank against their besiegers.

The Swagmen 's constant forays into the outskirts of Sun city have also brought them into conflict with the degenerate rabble of Psymon Sez who regard it's boundaries as sovereign territory, and as far Simius and the other gang leaders go... what self respecting raider would be able to resist taking a crack at a juicy caravan piled with shine' and shells?

That's the basic background, on with the miniatures... this gang will eventually represent the kind of small force used as a caravan escort, security detail for a salvage party or punitive 'baliff' posse to enact brutal pogroms on serial debtors.

'Sales agent' the Limey leads the gang, driving his modified morris minor, these two, along with the Bandicoot half track can be seen in previous posts.

Next up is Kato, the limey 's erstwhile and long suffering manservant cum bodyguard. A formidable fighter at range or in a melee thanks to his shotgun and sword.

He is another scavenger by Mark copplestone from EM4, I've said it before but these minis are so much fun to paint!

The 'Bowser' buggy was built from a disney 'Planes' Chug. I figure small tank trucks might be in use on the bush airfields scattered across the outback and this particular vehicle has been modified to utilise it's precious cargo as a deadly weapon by turning it's filler arm into a vicious flamethrower. In addition this bowser features heavy duty rear tyres plus front armour plating and bull bars have been added to aid in running the gauntlet of their enemies roadblocks.

That's the gang so far, all the vehicles are done with four more crew needed for the Bowser and Bandicoot buggies.

Thanks for stopping by, any comments and suggestions much appriciated....
More nuclear renaissance soon, next up... the MRP's Pursuit Special!

Nuclear Renaissance - Growing the Gangcults #3 - the Couriers WIP

"No, we're good, we bang it!" - Imperator Furiosa...

The Couriers are a group of post apocalyptic hauliers and mercenaries for hire, delivering important messages and making dangerous supply runs between the remaining settlements.


So far I have completed trucker 'Stobart' and his rig, the 'Roadrunner' seen previously, plus the 'Possum', a light buggy typical of the 'Pool cars' used in fairly large numbers by the group, and finally 'Ronin', a tough, mysterious motorcycle courier on his crotch rocket 'Ninja'

The basis for the Possum buggy was another promotional kelloggs morris minor, with some very minor conversion work, the wheels were swapped out for larger ones (much larger at the back!) and some massive exhausts added to give it a pound shop hot rod feel. I also added an extra grille to toughen it up a little and some rear armour to aid in (not very) swift getaways. In game terms the possum will be a stock buggy with zero upgrades.

Ronin is another Future skirmish mini from EM4, like the police biker he's a bit of a pain to get together, but at least I didn't make quite as much of a mess on the paintjob with this guy as I did with my last bike.

The Couriers will be getting another biker, simply because I thought it was quite appropriate thematically, plus four or five crew for Possum and roadrunner.

Thanks for stopping by, any comments or suggestions much appreciated! Next up, the unscrupulous Swagmen.

Nuclear Renaissance - Growing the Gangcults #2 - Locusts

"Be still my dog of war! l understand your pain. We've all lost someone we love. But we do it my way!" - The Humungous...

Another in a series focusing on the work in progress of the next four gangs for NR.

So far I've completed two gangs, the marauder 'Son's of simius' and the cannibal degenerates 'children of the apocalypse'

There will be three further gangs spun off the members of the 'good guys' road warrior group and this, the fourth and supposedly final gang are another group of raiders 'the locusts'.

So far we have a fast attack buggy in the form of the 'Panda Cola' fury road rip off car seen in a previous post, two gangers from the bitume future shock line, which I really love despite their dated feel, and last but not least, the Auroch, a high speed heavy truck that's basically my take on fury road's war rig if it was just a cab.



The Auroch was built from a car boot sale truck mated with the rear body of a 30's ford custom coupe, I'm quite pleased with the end result.

That's as far as I've progressed so far with this gang, coming soon... gang WIP's of the Couriers crew and the Swagmen posse. Thanks for stopping by!

Nuclear Renaissance - Radioactive Ruins #3

"Our house, in the middle of our street"

- Pre war song lyric.

Last of the trio of ruins 'rendezvous'

Last photo is a group shot of all three together set up as a larger ruined building.

Thanks for visiting... more NR stuff coming soon (ish) I've actually painted my first 28mm mini for a year or so!

Nuclear Renaissance - Radioactive Ruins #2

"He lives in a house, a very big house in the country" - Pre war song lyric.

Ruin two of three. 'Propaganda post'

Nuclear Renaissance - Radioactive Ruins #1

"I'll be fine, as long as there's a bed beneath the stars that shine" - Pre war music lyric.

First of a trio of small ruins.

The first objective with this group was to make some bits of terrain that could be placed individually or together as parts of a single building.

The second objective was (as with all the NR scenery) that it should be free and cobbled together from what I had to hand.

Like my previous small NR terrain pieces, I used old scratched up discs for the bases. The Ruins were made from bits of polystyrene packaging, I made a crap job of sealing the polystyrene before the undercoating so I suffered a fair bit of the dreaded melt but as these are quick pieces designed to be used and abused I shrugged it off and carried on.

This first ruin is the most substantial of the three and features a lookout post bodged together from car parts and scrap metal (all those leftover bits of diecast car are really coming in handy)
There is also a grisly pile of dusty bones piled up inside, perhaps victims of the lookouts occupants?

Painting all the Graffiti was lots of fun,  although it's definitely something I need to improve on in future, by the time I'd finished all three I'd found a few simple symbols I could reproduce quicly and easily across the trio (smile faces / skulls / mushroom clouds etc) that seemed to work well to break up the scrawled writing and insults.

Thanks for stopping by! Part two of three coming soon!

Nuclear Renaissance - Fury Road Rip-off Razor Cola.

"You FILTH! You Traitor... to HIM!" 

- Slit the War Boy.

In previous posts Ive mentioned my desire to build a muscle car for nuclear renaissance based on either the iconic mad max pursuit special 'Interceptor' or its reincarnation at the gnarled hands and feverish minds of the War boys as the pumped up Razor Cola war rod.

Both had their appeal, a black pursuit special would fit right in with my MRP gang as the perfect vehicle for the 'Drifter' but the memory of Fury road was still simmering away at the back of my brain,

I was somewhat bemused by the perfunctory, off hand way the pursuit special was killed off at the start of the film, but I should've seen the clue a minute or so later when max vaults over his car under repair by some startled citadel mechanics as he attempts a frantic escape.

The reborn Falcon, in my opinion, is in its own way equally as epic as its predecessor, turning the dial up to 11 spinal tap style with some Kama-Krazy war boy madness!

The Razor Cola it its then...

Here are a couple of fury road concept artworks by amazingly talented artist Peter Pound (reproduced without permission) first up a mustang.... I thought about straight up copying this one...

Next up a super mean Holden, this thing just looks brutal don't you agree? But a buggy like this, with mounted machine gun, flamethrower and supercharged engine would come to well over a third of my available points for a 750pt gang!

A ford falcon I believe, minus the aftermarket Concorde nosecone that gave the original interceptor its distinctive snout, this picture is just so 'Blanchesque' to me and that is very much meant as a compliment! Just check out those skulls where the headlamps should be!

Plus I just love the guys mask in that one.

Concept for the Razor cola, in my opinion this is one of those rare examples where the real thing looks even better than the concept with its huge double stacked, skull tipped superchargers and triple zoomies.

First things first I acquired a Delprado Ford Mustang (broadly similar although I think another Capri might have made a better base car) Mustangs are fairly easy to come by in 1:43 and therefore one of the most likely toy muscle cars to find cheap at car boot sales and the like.

I didn't go for a straight up copy, opting instead to use some bits I already had that vaguely fit the bill.

There's no spike droppers in nuclear renaissance so instead I fitted a rear crash bar from a cannibalised toy pickup truck that fit perfectly and half an Gorkamorka fuel drum mounted as if to look as if the boot floors been cut out to mount a 200ltr drum as a long distance fuel tank.

I didn't want to replicate the speargun either due to the vast points expense of ranged weapons in NR

so instead I went for a wingback car seat in the boot (an extra seat upgrade as vehicles in the buggy class only have two as standard) and a Nitrous system activated by a gearshift.

Larger front and rear wheels, side exhausts (although unfortunately not triple zoomies)

Plus a massive (single not double) supercharger with skull fetish.

I cut a plastic bracket, glued it into the grille and began to build up the bumper and front nosecone.

Mostly complete here, the headlamp covers were made from little rectangles of mesh wrapped in chocolate coin foil.

A few more details go on... some repair patches, the roof spoiler and just a little stowage on the back of the rear seat consisting of a backup knife and some pouches.

Once undercoated I decided it needed more patches!

Painted up and ready to reave!

Nitrous system

Rear end...

I had a bit of a disaster painting up this mini with the washing stage, my nuln oil dried in the most bizarre manner, as an cloudy opaque white in horrible patches wherever it had pooled...

Can anyone offer an explanation as to why this has happened?

The bottles not even that old, less than six months I think and still 1/3rd full.   

This has never happened to me before with any washes even ancient old ones like ten year old bottles of black Ink!

I definitely think GW's paint quality has gone downhill, pictured above are two pots of GW paint circa 1997-98 ish that are still as fresh the day they were born, whereas I have newer paints that have dried up within a few weeks of being opened, perhaps the horrible current design of bottles that suffer from paint build up and subsequent lack of an airtight seal at the hinge are a factor... 

I should've taken photos at this point but I was so appalled at having ruined all my work that I immediately started remedial work with shed loads of black glaze and a heavier weathering stage than normal. Still, every time I pick it up I find more annoying little cloudy white spots in odd places, but in general I'm fairly satisfied with the rescue effort.

Thanks for stopping by hope you enjoyed the post, any comments , suggestions or feedback very welcome.... 

P.S I'm struggling to come up with a name for my Razor Cola rip off, any suggestions please?