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Hey, don't newer RISK games have Epic-scale minis?

Amazing repurposing of the Thomas and Friends toys. They look great as terrain pieces!

EDC

Those ERTL buildings look great.

As for board game pieces I almost bought the new edition of Trouble a week ago at Target because it is Minions themed and comes with 17 minion figures for $13.50 (one siren bob figure and then 4sets of 4 other minions in 4 different colors. Might be fun for an oddball KOW unit.

Matthew wrote:Hey, don't newer RISK games have Epic-scale minis?

Yep. Most versions of risk: Classic, Godstorm, LoTR, Star Wars etc have minis that would work as wargaming minis. Usually they're not all in the same scale, but at least half will usually be and when you're paying resale shop prices, having less useful minis isn't a big dea..

evildrcheese wrote:Amazing repurposing of the Thomas and Friends toys. They look great as terrain pieces!

Thanks! Thomas toys have provided me some pretty good terrain fodder. Recognize this awning?...

http://chicagoskirmish.blogspot.com/2015/01/fully-painted-dust-tactics-warzone.html

Theophony wrote:Those ERTL buildings look great.

As for board game pieces I almost bought the new edition of Trouble a week ago at Target because it is Minions themed and comes with 17 minion figures for $13.50 (one siren bob figure and then 4sets of 4 other minions in 4 different colors. Might be fun for an oddball KOW unit.

I love random KoW units. KoW has kind of become a way for me to justify painting up minis I otherwise might not. Got the urge to paint some Warjacks, but I had no interest in the game, and this was the result... http://chicagoskirmish.blogspot.com/2014/11/more-reinforcements-knights-and.html

Got another resale shop find. This time it's the "Turtles T-Machines Garage and Lair Playset."
Given the size and amount of detail, it might even be worth the retail price of $15.
http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=53971906&gclid=CNTpzu-Ny80CFcQjgQodi3MHoA
I of course paid less than 1/10th of that...
I found the playset section minus the cardboard cityscape and car.


If you didn't mind it not having a detailed back, you could almost use it as-is. Note that it is polyethylene so you'll have to use epoxy (possibly some superglues) to assemble it and a plastic-specific paint to prime it.

So far I've done a bit of converting and base-coated it. I'll post a link to my project thread when I get some pics.

For anyone on the west coast of the US, there's one on ebay right now for $2 buy it now plus actual shipping

Can't believe it's been a month already! Sorry for the break. I've got a few more toys for you today. It's Happy Meal Toys that make good sci-fi civilian cars. These kind of toys are relatively common at resale shops and can probably be found on ebay without too much difficulty. It's nice to find a few that can represent civilian cars, a subject often neglected in wargaming terrain.


First up is a Decepticon truck. I believe it's official name is Mcplay Power Unlock Steeljaw Truck

It's a neat little truck with a stupid launcher thing on top. Luckily it's not hard to remove the launcher and the rails that hold it in place.

You can cut off the launcher, but I find it much easier to unscrew the toy and remove it that way. This requires a set of triangle screwdrivers which are an awesome tool for disassembling happy meal toys and some other toys. Nearly all Happy meal toys are assembled with triangle screws.

Second is a "Speed Racer Crusher Block's Truck".

It's clearly bit small to be a big truck, but it would work fine as a futuristic pickup truck, especially if I paint the rear cargo as separate cargo and not part of the truck. Alternately I could cut the rear cargo away and model a flatbed or pickup bed.

It has an opening front grill that was originally for a missile, but seems like it could be a cool chance to model an engine or a truck under repair.

This last one I need help with. I thought it was TRON, but I can't find it online. The only thing I know is that it was 2014 and licesned from Mattel by McD's. If anyone can let me know where it is from I would really apprecaite it.

Still haven't decided whether I'll trim off the tiny guns on top and use it as a civie vehicle or paint it up for one of my sci-fi forces.

Well, that's that for today. As I said before, these kind of toys pop up at resale shops frequently, but for those who want to acqure them more easily, I found each of them on ebay for less than $6 shipped.
I've got another cool find primed for posting in a couple of days so I'll try not to let things go so long between updates.

Looking forward to what you do with them. And I'm going to trawl eBay for that bottom one cause it looks awesome, reminds me of a dropzone commander PHR thing but 28mm.

With all the cool bits you've done with the toys to terrai. Stuff I'd love to see a table pic or two :thumbsup;

Thanks!
You can see alot of the completed pieces in my main P&M blog here:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/651712.page
Most of the stuff on this thread of resale finds will eventually find it's way there.

As for table shots...
A necromunda day.


A bunch of shots of the City Layout we used to play Mech Attack at Adepticon 2016 are here:
http://www.chicagoskirmishwargames.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=116
Scroll down past the 10mm test game to the 28mm convention game.

Found something new this week.

It's the Jungle Cutter toy from Indiana Jones. It's missing the driver Canopy and the large blade cutter things, but at $2 I couldn't pass up this great big mechanical beast. In fact, it's a good reminder to toy-bashers everywhere to look well beyond the intended scale of a given toy or model when considering conversion possibilities.

The scale is huge, but it's got so many great places to stand and relatively little scale-specific detail so it could easily be converted into a 28mm Industrial Crawler or Ork Tank. I've already started converting it into an stationary industrial terrain piece. I'll put up details on my P&M blog.

I think that white mystery car is from Max Steele. I seem to recall a similar looking vehicle from Max Steele made in the Hot Wheels line that other people had converted for 15mm gaming.

 Barzam wrote:
I think that white mystery car is from Max Steele. I seem to recall a similar looking vehicle from Max Steele made in the Hot Wheels line that other people had converted for 15mm gaming.

You are absolutely right, Thanks!

Looks like it's a Max Steel "Turbo Racer" Interestingly it looks like there were 2 different versions of this car at different times. I'm not sure what size is of the one that has more flat topped wheels.

I have the giant blade cutter things off that toy in my orky bitz box waiting for their moment to shine!

I've just discovered the "True Heroes" toy line at Toys'R'Us...as an ork player, I am now VERY inspired!

admittedly, it's more along the lines of big vehicles and stuff, but there could be some useful stuff for terrain? take a look

personally, I'm on the verge of starting a stupid/awesome project involving turning one of these into an ork "landa" (original plan was a "blasta bommer", but it's definitely too big )...I'll be buying one on the weekend

There's some pretty cool stuff in the true heroes line, but I haven't given it much attention recently.

I think I've actually seen someone use that plane as a wreckage terrain piece. Good Find!

Doesn't the True Heroes line have a missile hauler with a nuke on it? I would think that would have some potential for just about any player.

 Barzam wrote:
Doesn't the True Heroes line have a missile hauler with a nuke on it? I would think that would have some potential for just about any player.

There's this one that appears to be a WW2 Dragon Wagon'ish tractor attached to a missile trailer.
http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=19875226&cp=2255956.2273442.67715136.2255958.11553351&parentPage=family
It's going to be pretty huge though. I have the 1/35 scale version and it will need a bit of downscaling to work in 28mm.

Alot comes down to just having wheels and windows that are too big. Still, maybe with alot of orky bits glued on...

It was more the missile itself I was thinking would be useful. It looks like they changed the set though. It looks like they got rid of the nuke and replaced it with 3 smaller foam tipped missiles.

ahh, so I just found one of the "Jumbo rocket transport" (same as the 3-missile version, but with a slightly different trailer and just the one, big rocket) on ebay - for US$262.12 it's cool, but not that cool...think I'd rather just get a fellblade from forgeworld for that money

 ZoBo wrote:
ahh, so I just found one of the "Jumbo rocket transport" (same as the 3-missile version, but with a slightly different trailer and just the one, big rocket) on ebay - for US$262.12 it's cool, but not that cool...think I'd rather just get a fellblade from forgeworld for that money

That seems wise. The whole point of this thread is to clue folks in to the kinds of toys to keep an eye out for at local resale shops and discount stores. I'm sure the selection is very different in various countries, but I probably wouldn't advocate buying new toys for terrain unless you have no resale/charity shops at all in your area.

If you don't have (m)any local sources for used/broken toys, Ebay can be a good source for used and broken toys at bargain prices.

Made a great find at the resale shop yesterday. Sets of Wheels for "Modarri" modular customizable toy cars. The price was 50 cents for 8 wheels so I bought all 6 packs they had.

At the least I figured they could be stacked for terrain but when I got home I found that the rubber portion could be easily cut away, g iving them a slightly more industrial/futuristic look. Also without rubber, the polystyrene rims could more easily be glued and later painted. I left a few stock as I might use them for post apoc vehicles, but most will end up as some sort of terrain element

These kind of accessory packs from less-than-successfull toy lines seem to show up fairly often at Goodwill. With a bit of ingenuity they can be a great source of terrain bits. As well as wheels or industrial detail they could also be vents or possibly even thrusters on an aircraft. I'll definitely be putting a few on various terrain creations that could use some venting. At the very least, a big stack of wheels (or two smaller stacks) for half-a-buck is well worth it..

oh wow...consider me jealous ...I would ork the heck out of those things!...I find wheels are a little hard to come by...

 ZoBo wrote:
oh wow...consider me jealous ...I would ork the heck out of those things!...I find wheels are a little hard to come by...

Good wheels can be hard. Have you tried LEGO? There's alot of variety these days and though it takes a bit of searching (and learning the way it's organized) bricklink.com is a great source for individual parts often at good prices.

Today's subject is TRAINS!

I've just embarked on the building of a Sci-Fi Train. It occurred to me that I had acquired the engine and cars some time ago but had never put them on this thread.

The Engine is from a Caterpillar brand toy. Pictured stock.


The cars are from the Disney Pixar train. I've already ripped off much of the disney details.



These trains were lucky finds. I found the cars minus the engine at one store and the Engine minus it's cars at another store months later but they all match up in size. Though larger in height than actual "O" (1/48) they will look great for a mega sci-fi train and they all roll nicely on O-Gauge track which happens to be what I'm using for my sci-fi train project. Expect to see more of these greebled up and on my Sci-Fi Project log "Eilif's Toybashing Hut"

But that's not all. Just today [img]I made the kind of resale find that we toybashers dream about.

Upon opening it up I found that the Transformer Engine and most of the track was missing and the buildings are simple card structures, but $20 -though expensive for a resale find- was well worth what was included. so I bought it anyway. Here's what I did get.
The cars:

-Caboose: great basis for a small building
-Flat car: Great necromunda walkway
-Gondola: Excellent armored walkway for Necromunda. I've already got three of these and want to make many more.
-Hopper car: Chop the bottom of these off and glue in some ballast and you've got an awesome mining skip. I've also built two of these already.

Crane. Hard to think of an era from the 20's through grimdark that couldn't use one of these!


3 diferent Cargo Sprues
I-beams, cargo, crates, axles, Pallets, etc. This stuff is modeling gold. I had three of these as a kid and am really glad to get some more.


Cargo Truck. This baby is probably getting post-apocified.


Insert.
Even the plastic insert that would have held the track, transformer, and Engine could be useful. Great -possibly sci-fi- shapes and it seems to be made of thicker polystyrene than most contemporary vacu-formed inserts.



Old Lionel and other train stuff is great for modelers. Even the youth-market trains like this that has plastic trucks and single piece couplers is still usually a degree of magnitude more detailed than the kind of cheap toy trains that one finds at discount stores. Even better, sets like this are almost always "0-27" or "O-31" That means that they are roughly in scale with O (1/48) but they have been compressed (usually lengthwise but sometimes made a bit shorter as well) to be able to go around smaller curves that are 27 or 31 inches. This gives you cars that are quite a bit shorter than full size so you can fit more cars into a smaller space. In my opinion true-scaled train cars are enormous and usually look way too large on a wargame table.

Made another find this week. The "GI Joe Headquarters). This is a toy I had as a kid (maybe still have in my dad's attic?)


You can see the full toy here: http://www.yojoe.com/vehicles/92/headquarters/
Sure, it's missing just about every piece other than the core base, but the price was right and it's a toybashers dream.


This brown section is a perfect standalone piece all by itself.



Chop the tops off those 4 supports and you've got smokestacks rising from an industrial plant!


The sides sections are packed with detail too. Note the steep steps on the left. There are 4 of these on the model (two short and two double that height), Just begging to be cut off, turned sideways and used as functional steps.


One more detail view from the main section. This is going to paint up a treat!


Not sure exactly what I'll do yet, but I do know that I'll cut most of the walls away and probably paint up the brown section as-is separately. Rather than turn it into a full building, the core of the building is the perfect sort of medium low terrain for skirmish games like necromunda in that it takes up a fair amount of real estate, and provides lots of individual cover. I'm thinking that maybe it could be some sort of instalation and a stop along the tracks for my sci-fi train.

 Eilif wrote:
This brown section is a perfect standalone piece all by itself.

Indeed!

I'll be honest...a lot of the toy stuff in this thread really doesn't work for me - but the GI Joe bits are pretty spot on.

Nice Job APH1979,
I may well steal your idea of putting a grate over the mechanical section on the floor.

Elbows,
Glad I could find something for you!
;-)

Very interesting and imaginative thread; the table looks amazing. Looking forward to seeing the train completed!