Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

So I'm building up a fair chunk of grunts using the plastic cadians and to add a little flair I've got some heads from pig iron. They don't look too bad as is but I'd like to give them all backpacks of some sort. Now the first thing that came to mind was obviously to sculpt them out of gs/milliput but that seems like too much labor for a full army ( plus my sculpting skill is hardly up to the task). So I'm wondering if any of you happen to know of a cheap alternative to creating/acquiring packs for my little cadians. Something like pig iron or westwind would be awesome, I know FW has upgrade kits but you get so few for the money. I have tried experimenting a bit with old marine packs and even shoulder plates but so far nothing looks that great. Any suggestions are welcome.

The IG Heavy Weapon team sprue has backpacks on it. There's only 2 per sprue, but you could always try bitz ordering some more.

If you look here

http://www.hlj.com/index.html

these guys carry a load of detailing parts for SF and military kits in various scales. I had a quick look and couldn't find any backpacks as such -- which didn't surprise me as it would usually be a standard item in a figure kit.

You might make up something quite stylish using a few bits like a jerry can, a rocket vernier and a length of plastic tube, which would be fairly cheap and easy to make a lot of identical copies of.

@Nerf_IG: Hmm that seems like a pretty straightforward idea, I'll have to look into it.

@Kilkrazy: Oh great site! And a great idea, I hadn't even thought of using jerry cans but the seem like they would be just about the right look for a quasi futuresque looking backpack. On that not what would be a good scale? This 1/48 set http://www.hlj.com/product/TAM32510 looks like the best bet but I'm not sure on the exact numbers included. In any case that definitely seems to be the cost effective solution I was looking for, plus I get extra terrain bits.

0079 wrote:Something like pig iron or westwind would be awesome, I know FW has upgrade kits but you get so few for the money.

Pig Iron does make a set of packs. Look here: http://www.pig-iron-productions.com/eq1_packs_pop.htm

They're pretty reasonably priced, but (as is always the case with hordes like IG) could add up if you're putting them on 100+ troopers.

I think that you also get a few packs in their variety-pack of heads.

In the late 90s Target games made plastic figures for their warzone game.

Right now an Irish company called Prince August has bags of 80 (!!) of them for 20 euros

http://www.princeaugust.ie/target_games/tg2420-1.html

Each has a backpack and a gasmask head so even if you don't like the figures the bitz are great.

@Von Voytz: Dang I guess I should take a little more time looking around then, thanks for pointing that out. They seem a bit bulkier than what I'm looking for but I'm sure they could be cut down or otherwise modded.

@Kid_Kyoto: Wow, that is a massive amount of minis for the price and they look pretty cool to boot! I'm assuming that those are in roughly the 28mm range but I can't seem to find the definites yet.

Again thanks to everyone for your helpful replies!

0079 wrote:@Nerf_IG: Hmm that seems like a pretty straightforward idea, I'll have to look into it.

@Kilkrazy: Oh great site! And a great idea, I hadn't even thought of using jerry cans but the seem like they would be just about the right look for a quasi futuresque looking backpack. On that not what would be a good scale? This 1/48 set http://www.hlj.com/product/TAM32510 looks like the best bet but I'm not sure on the exact numbers included. In any case that definitely seems to be the cost effective solution I was looking for, plus I get extra terrain bits.

1/48 is probably about right. 28mm is a bit larger than 1/48 and smaller than 1/35 scale. It depends if you want a very large pack. The dimensions of the standard Jerry can are about 33w x 45h x 16d centimetres, which allows you to calculate the size of a model one in 1/48 and 1/35 scale.

You could email the HLJ guys to ask the number of sprues included in the box.

JPY 700 is about £3.50 so quite cheap if all the items pictured are included in the pack. There is also postage of course.

hasslefree do equipment. I combined hasslefree guns and drop packs with pigiron heads and cadian bodies to get...

@0079: Yes, the Warzone figures do scale up appropriately. I use Warzone capital figures in my SM scouts, and they scale up the same height.

Or
http://www.theassaultgroup.co.uk/store/home.php?cat=24&sort=productcode&sort_direction=0&page=2

The forgeworld cadian veterans have some nice backpacks.