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So, I've gotten into Dust in a big way, and decided to try my hand at "Dustifying" an actual WW2 kit. I decided on a British Tank, the Matilda, Since I'm theming my Allies around the British Army, during the 1947 invasion of Southern England,

I based the conversion on a Tamiya 1/48 scale Matilda II tank, adding a Dust tank commander, and a couple of weapon swops. The .30 cal MG is taken from the Allies Dust weapons kit, and the Phaser is scratchbuilt. I've not decided on stats, but when I field it, I will most likely proxy it for a Phaser sherman. Phaser technology. The side-skirts are still off, so I can get to the tracks for painting.



Matilda III Wasp
In the aftermath of the Axis invasion of southern Britain, the need for armoured vehicles to contest the German advance was more pronounced than ever. With modern combat walkers in short supply following the Axis global offensive of '47, many older vehicles were pressed into service.

The same cottage industry that supplied Spitfires for the Blitz took on the task with gusto, using airlifted conversion kits to upgrade the power supply, or armament of older tanks. One of these was the Matilda Infantry Tank, known as the Matilda Wasp. The conversion kit replaced the Matilda's twin diesel engines with a VK power unit, giving it improved mobility, while retaining the survivability of the old dual-transmission design. The obsolete 2pdr gun was replaced with a 135 Watt Phaser Cannon crammed into the turret. The 7.62 Besa machine gun was replaced with a .30 cal mg.

While still vulnerable to powerful axis laser PaK, the resulting up-gunned tank combined improved mobility with the heavy armour of British tank design, and formed a lynchpin in the early stages of the invasion.

Next up in the conversion stream is not really a conversion! I think that Weird War works best when not everything is weird. A big stompy walker is most interesting when it's cast in relief by more normal looking tanks.

So, with that in mind, I am putting some more contemporary tanks into my various armies, starting with an IS-2s tank for the Sino-Soviet Union. I built it more or less straight out of the box, skipping some of the fiddlier details.



The IS-2s was a counter to heavier Axis armour, combining a powerful (though slow-firing) gun, with good forward armour with a lower profile. It was also mass-produced (which, arguably was the tank's chief advantage against Axis armour). In the alternative Dust timeline, battlefield tanks like the IS2 remain common in open-field battles, where their higher speed and lower profile are an advantage. Walkers dominate in city battles where they can move anywhere.



An IS2, with a KV-47 walker. Heroine of the Sino-Soviet Union Koshka Rudinova in the front.