Re: figure sizes

At 01:43 AM 6/29/97 -0700, you wrote:

>Secondly, RoCo Minitanks. Austrian I believe. Very large range of 1/87
>fine-scale military models. The M-114 may have been a dog, but it looks
>good, especially with a 20mm on it. And of course, heaps of obscure
>Hotchkiss and MoWag AFVs from the 60s which look good too.

I have a number of Traveller 15mm figures that I intend to use with
Stargrunt. I also have 3 of the original Traveller tanks, and one APC. I
needed more vehicles, so after hunting around I bought some Rocco
minitanks.
I'm currently converting them.

The two designs I chose were the USS M551 Sheridan and the Bundeswehr
Marder
APC. The Rocco minitanks' chassis pops apart into two pieces. From
there,
you can easily lift out the track assembly. With the Marder, I carefully
cut
away the short fender that goes along the top of the treads. 

With styrene plastic sheeting, I cut two panels to cover the area that
once
had the tracks. These panels are ALMOST rhombus shaped. I glued them on
with
model cement. I then cut four triangular "end cap" sections to cover the
openings at the front and rear of the vehicle. Using the fender pieces
from
the Marder, I cut them down and glued them to the newly created panels,
suggesting that they are anti-grav plates or maybe an anti-personnel
system.
I'm now at the point of trimming the styrene, and then filling some
cracks
with filling putty.

So far the models look quite good. I can imagine how much better they
will
look painted. A couple of tips:

1) On the Sheridan, file off or sand of the rivets on the side panels of
tank. It gives it a sleek look. Besides, I doubt if rivets will be used
in
the far future.
2) You might want to mount the .50 MG on the Sheridan's cupola ring. If
so,
you might also want to modify it to look "science fictiony".
3) I picked the Sheridan because the stubby missile launcher/cannon
looks
cool as an SF weapon. You might find some other tanks that look equally
as
good. I found that the Sheridan was an obscure enough tank (which is
being
phased out of service) that it holds that all important suspension of
disbelief. If you did the same treatment to an Abrams, for instance,
you'd
have to change the turret shape or it will look like "an Abrams with the
treads cut off."
4) For the APCs I chose the German Marder APC (not to be confused with
the
WWII vehicle of the same name). I picked the training variant as the
main
vehicle, because it's a bit sleeker looking and has a small dome shaped
cupola on top. This vehicle is one of the vehcile conversions on the
cover
of the Striker II rulebook.
5) For support vehicles, I used a Marder with a TOW system on top. I
varied
the radar to make it more sci fi, and to cut down the vehicle's profile.
I
intend to purchase another variant of the Marder for another support
vehicle.

All told, I'm happy with my conversions to date. I plan to paint up my
15mm
figs once I get back from GenCon. The cost is reasonable, as well. While
the
Marder with the TOW system was fairly expensive (C$16), the other
vehicles
were about C$8. To give you an idea, an airfix model kit costs about the
same. 

Allan Goodall:	agoodall@sympatico.ca 
"You'll want to hear about my new obsession.
 I'm riding high upon a deep depression. 
 I'm only happy when it rains."    - Garbage