Saturday 31 December 2016

Upgrading an Outrider - GZG mini-turrets and weapon mounts

I've recently been working on a second batch of Old Crow Outrider grav scouts to add to my reconnaissance force.  The original 4 are all armed with the standard Old Crow missile pod / machine gun turrets, as seen below.

Outriders with original Old Crow weapon mounts.

For the new Outriders, I wanted to try something slightly different but I couldn't decide on which turret style would be the best armament for them.  As luck would have it, I recently rediscovered my stock of 2x2 and 3x3mm Neodymium magnets, originally bought for attaching Full Thrust starships to their bases.  Sadly their original use didn't work very well, anything larger than a light cruiser being too heavy for the magnet to hold firmly, so I have a large supply which didn't get used.  Fortunately these will come in useful for my new project, I've already uses most of the 3x3mm cylindrical magnets to attach the turrets of my Glaive tanks, Claymore and Lancer heavy APCs.  The 2x2mm cylindrical magnets are ideal for these smaller turrets, just cut off the mounting peg on the turret, drill a suitable depth hole, dab in some superglue gel and drop in the magnet.

Outrider with 2x2mm magnet installed on top.

I have a good number of Old Crow mini-turrets.  Jez didn't have the metal gun barrels available when I placed my order so he threw in the mini turrets free with the idea that I can use some brass wire or something similar to make the guns.

Old Crow mini-turret.

Next we have a tribarrel mount from a GZG MAWP(W) (V15-24A).  The MAWP will also be magnetised, allowing it to share the range of armament options.  I've included a Peter Pig US Marine for scale, PP figures tend to be ever so slightly smaller than many Sci-Fi manufacturers such as GZG or Brigade/Armies Army etc.

Outrider with MAWP tribarret mount.

You can see some of the extra stowage I'm using, Brigade Models' jerry cans (from set SF15-906) and Ainsty Castings' etched brass stowage baskets (from set HS1014).  The little grab handle is just a piece of wire glued into a couple of small holes.

Outrider with MAWP tribarret mount.

 Next up is one of GZG's new mini-turrets, this one with a pair of quad missile mounts, V15-ACC29.

Outrider with twin missile mount.

Outrider with twin missile mount.

I rather like the look of the plasma cannon (V15-ACC27) too, so let's try one of those...

Outrider with Plasma Cannon mount.

Outrider with Plasma Cannon mount.

The twin machine gun mount (V15-ACC28) looks like it will make a good point defence weapon.

Outrider with twin machine gun mount.

Outrider with twin machine gun mount.

Finally I decided to give my old groundmount medium missile battery (V15-25D) a new lease of life.  Long-time readers of this blog may recall seeing this on a previous occasion, way back in 2010!  This should be useful if there is something too large for the point defence guns to handle.

Outrider with medium missile mount.

Outrider with medium missile mount.

I haven't seen any comparison photographs of these different turret/weapon mount styles yet.  Although there are photographs on the GZG web site with a scale next to them, I never find it very easy to visualise how big they actually are without a person for scale. That said, here is a comparison photograph of all the turrets I'm using, along with my crouching infantryman for reference.  Hmmm... thinking about it now, a standing figure would have been more useful!  I'll take another comparison photograph soon, I have a couple of other mini-turrets to work on as well.

Weapon mount size comparison.

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