Welcome to Part TWO of our Victoria Miniatures heavy Weapons review!
Once again I am happy to review another fine gaming product from Victoria Miniatures. Victoria has a great way of making just the right bits to add to your armies.
My review is going to be focusing on using Victoria's gun chassis only with Games Workshop weapons for a Warhammer 40k Imperial Guard unit.
When I first saw Dave Taylors Genswick 33rd army his complex kit bashing had totally blown me away and I loved the WWI trench feel.
I am a normal guy and there was no way I was going to bits hunt all those Bretonian bits and build that army, so I decided to do something with just a few simple changes to regular Cadians, a poor mans version with simple head swaps and a few other changes to make a unique army that was still well rooted in the 40k universe, my Ardwick 23rd Imperial Guard army was born.
One of the important things for me, was to keep the Guards weapons as they are so iconic and help with the wysiwyg factor in a game, so my army uses GW weapons.
A million years ago or so, I decided that my Ardwick army needed to have wheeled heavy weapons. Please read all about it here, and then come back and read on.
So as I said in 2009, lets get some wheels on these guns, building my own chassis and sourcing wheels was a pain in the but and time consuming, luckily those days are over.
Victoria Miniatures sells this chassis and even some different wheel options and they are just the thing to finally get some wheels under your guard guns. You could even find more modern wheels with tires on them and just use the chassis, its a great deal for the price and for all the time it will save you making your own.
The chassis uses an odd mounting system for the Victoria guns, with a notch in the front and a peg in the rear, the deck of the carriage is angled, the Victoria guns sit just right but if you just glue your GW gun down, it will point up in the air.
It's very simple to fit your GW gun on it, I just heated the resin in some hot water and bent the legs down a bit to level out the deck and was ready to go. You could also just make a shim for the back or cut and reposition the legs, I will leave that all up to you.
This is a great way to get more out of your GW heavy weapon sets, you can buy a chassis for each gun type and mount your Lascanon, autogun or heavy bolter on Victoria Miniatures gun carriage. If you get really slick you could mount them with little magnets and be able to change them around as you see fit.
I knocked mine together with my GW bits and Westwind heads and painted it up like the rest of my Ardwick 23rd, I also added a touch of Secret Weapon rust pigment and this model was ready to join the ranks.
I have been waiting a long time for some bits like this and I am happy to see them at last and from a great company like Victoria Miniatures.
for Part ONE of this review series, go here
John
So as I said in 2009, lets get some wheels on these guns, building my own chassis and sourcing wheels was a pain in the but and time consuming, luckily those days are over.
Victoria Miniatures sells this chassis and even some different wheel options and they are just the thing to finally get some wheels under your guard guns. You could even find more modern wheels with tires on them and just use the chassis, its a great deal for the price and for all the time it will save you making your own.
The chassis uses an odd mounting system for the Victoria guns, with a notch in the front and a peg in the rear, the deck of the carriage is angled, the Victoria guns sit just right but if you just glue your GW gun down, it will point up in the air.
It's very simple to fit your GW gun on it, I just heated the resin in some hot water and bent the legs down a bit to level out the deck and was ready to go. You could also just make a shim for the back or cut and reposition the legs, I will leave that all up to you.
This is a great way to get more out of your GW heavy weapon sets, you can buy a chassis for each gun type and mount your Lascanon, autogun or heavy bolter on Victoria Miniatures gun carriage. If you get really slick you could mount them with little magnets and be able to change them around as you see fit.
I have been waiting a long time for some bits like this and I am happy to see them at last and from a great company like Victoria Miniatures.
for Part ONE of this review series, go here
John
Excellent work! I've been drooling over those kits - definitely going to need to pick some up to add to my Spireguard.
ReplyDeleteGood stuff, man!
I built some lascannon using Emhar WWI cannon. Not sure they are as nice as these though.
ReplyDeleteThey look fantastic. I have used her to order re-breathers, goggles and cloaks and the price and speed in which they are delivered is excellent + quality is awesome too :)
ReplyDeleteJohn, glad you like it. I did design them with magnets in mind. In fact you could use two to get the gun level and not have to twist resin about.
ReplyDeleteI will say that the guns designed for it sit level already ;)
Its a great piece of kit Jake well done, and yes your guns mount up nicely, I could have been more clear, and have edited appropriately, looking forward to seeing more from you.
ReplyDeleteJohn, first, let me apologise for my first post being a bit short - posting from my phone is difficult for me at the best of times, and doing it from the middle of PAX Australia made it a bit fraught.
ReplyDeleteI love what you've done with them - don't suppose you want to paint a few up like that for me?
I would really recommend using the double magnet trick to anyone using the carriage and a GW gun on it, it'll get you the most bang for your buck since they become interchangeable, and because it serves double duty quite nicely in a hobby that is already pretty expensive.