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Science Fiction Vehicles

These are two toys from a discount bin. Together they were less than five dollars.

The land vehicle is pretty detailed (for a toy) and the jet is pretty chibi. Even though the jet looks less gritty sci-fi now, it actually has a lot of potential. And I am only going to add to it, so we'll start with that one.

The only real issue with this one is the cockpit. The cockpit is the only thing that gives it a sense of scale. So I am going to cover it up. That will give me a plane I can use with several different scales.

The technique here is to start with putting a piece of paper (very flexible) over the jet and roughly tracing the area I want to cover. Then I cut it out and trim until it looks right. Then I use the paper (very easy to work with) as a template to cut the real piece from cardboard. Then I roll the cardboard so it fits to the curve of the jet. I usually roll it too much from both directions, that way it "pinches" in toward the jet. That will make it sit well to be glued on.

Not to go into game design, but here is another piece. Since I expect this jet to be a drop ship more than a combat spaceship, I grabbed some bits to make tokens. On the board, these will be used to "announce" where the drop ship will land. So, you drop this on the board this turn, then place the ship next turn. Or maybe you place, execute one move, then land. This gives a type of cueing you might expect for the opposing force.

The different shapes and sizes can give a different amount of flexibility to the player with the ship. The small token has greater freedom in placing the ship. The rule can also impact this. Can the ship cover the token with any part? In any orientation? Does it have to be the landing gear? A wing? And so on...

Shifting to the land vehicle, we have the same issue. The cockit ties me to a scale, and specifically to a scale I don't want (it's not 28mm or 15mm, my two main scales). So I cut all those bit out.

Now I can jam in four 28mm minis in the spot. That's much better.

And I covered down on the ripped up floor with cardboard. Now we have two vehicles ready to paint up.

So here is the jet painted. Once it is painted and gets a black wash, you can see that there actaully was a decent amount of detail on the toy. That was just lost in the primary colour scheme. It's good to learn to look for that detail past the appeal characteristics of the toy (bright red and blue); it will help you find really good things in the bargain bin.

I am showing it with ten 28mm figures. For this scale, I could easily land ten or maybe twenty (space marines don't complain, right).

And the miner vehicle. Beyond the "driver's seat", this one has lots of flat spaces where you can put figures as well. That makes it a more useful block of terrain in some ways than the jet. This is another thing to learn to look for.