Steam Tank Follies

The first of my packages have arrived - one, containing my shiny new self-healing cutting mat, my sculpting tools and my Green Stuff; the other, my 1/72 scaled Mk A Whippet tank.  Opening the second, I carefully took the sprues out of the box to inspect what I'd be working with.

Hilarity has already ensued.

I couldn't find specifics regarding how big the completed kit would be online, but knew that since it was a 1/72 scale kit, it'd be, well, 1/72nd the size of a real one.  Looking up the measurements of an actual Mk A Whippet, I did some rough calculations and came out with some numbers suggesting the assembled kit would be between 4 and 5 inches long.

I miscalculated.

The assembled kit will be closer to three inches long.

Here's some shots of the sprues (one of the big chassis pieces broke off the sprue in transit), including a shot with a nickel for scale.

So now I need to recalculate a little regarding converting this into a "Land Ironclad" for Steampunk/VSF wargaming.  It's still getting converted (into a one- or two-man Ironclad), don't get me wrong, but I need to do some rethinking about how I go about it.

I think I'm going to assemble the chassis, minus things like the Hotchkiss machine guns and the exhaust pipes, and use that as a frame-work to build a Land Ironclad over; a couple pieces of plasticard cut to the appropriate size and shape glued over the Mk A will create a bulkier vehicle, and then I can put a turret on top - Brigade Games has a couple nice ones, and if I fatten this bad boy up a little I can put the 1" turret on top of where the fixed turret of the Mk A is.  Speaking of, I think I want to turn the tank around; on the Mk A, the turret is above the back end of the tank, with the engines encased in the lower area in front.  If I turn it around it'll resemble a more "modern" tank in general outline and I can put a boiler and smoke stack on the "back" behind the turret.  Then I'll just glue the Mk A tank treads back on over the plasticard body.  Prime, paint, seal, get it on the table.

Now, this is not a priority project for me by any means; Cthulhu needs to be done first (I'll be doing some good work on him this weekend), and by the time that's done I should have all the figures I ordered from Wargames Factory in hand and can plan my next project.

Speaking of, I noticed that they've got a Persian Infantry sprue bundle deal, where you get just the figure sprues from the Persian Infantry boxed set minus some accessories, for $2.49 per set of six.  That's $2.49 for twelve figures, six each of archers and spearmen.  I ordered ten bundles, which brings the total number of Persian Infantry I've got coming in the mail to 144 infantrymen.

2015 might be the Year of the Achaemenids.