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Hi all, Sorry for the delay in posting these, I was busy last night and have been running around a bit today as well. I found out this year about a car combat racing game called Gaslands, played with modified Matchbox and Hot Wheels toy cars. It's reminiscent of GW's Dark Future from the late '80s, but with a scrappier DIY feel to it, and the movement takes some inspiration from other template games like X-Wing. I finally took the plunge a week or so back and picked up a copy of the rulebook and a couple of die-casts to play with, and here they are armed and ready for battle: The Corvette (Laser Raptor) is a Hot Wheels Grand Sport Roadster, and the dozer (Mortar-Della) started off as a Matchbox Dirtstroyer. They're both modified to some extent, with more work on the dozer as I think it's supposed to be a double-wheeled tractor. I know I had to cut away quite a lot of nasty inner wheel moulding from the chassis! Weapons are made from a mix of AFV spares and 40K spares, and I wound some wire for the laser's power cable as I didn't have a fine enough guitar string. I painted both cars with Tamiya lacquers from the new range after stripping the original paint and re-priming with Alclad. The top coats have had a round of hairspray chipping, which probably wasn't worth it on the car as it's quite low-contrast, but looks good on the dozer. They're sealed with the Tamiya flat lacquer, which is not that flat despite my vigorous stirring, and the car has had a bit of Alclad Flat on the non-bodywork areas and lower body sides. Details and wheels are all painted with GW acrylics and washes, and a touch of the Molotow chrome pen. I'm really pleased at how the bulldozer blade came out - it's basically noodling with a sponge and different orange and brown acrylics over a metal basecoat, and it looks way better than it has any right to! I feel that way about the whole thing really, it was very organic in both the painting and building and the finished result seemed to fall together of its own accord to some extent. Quite relaxing, although I probably need to get back to some of the various longer-term things I've been working on before I'm allowed to do any more. I do have a jar of lacquer thinner in the garage with several metal bodies steeping in it though The next one (when it comes) is probably going to be a jet-propelled VW beetle on dirt tyres. And I'm tempted to get a set of templates and try out the game! BTW thanks to those who chipped in on the brief WIP thread, you can find it here: If anyone's tempted to try this, I definitely recommend it as a cheap and rewarding diversion You can drill out the rivet heads to separate the body from the chassis, lacquer thinner and a scouring pad will strip the thick paint, and you can superglue plastic and metal parts to the mazak castings pretty well. Just don't try and strip the paint with bleach as it eats the zinc out of the metal (as I found to the cost of one 917LH...) Cheers, Will

My weakness in the face of distractions is well known, so here are a couple of converted die-cast cars for the game "Gaslands": This started as a weird-looking Matchbox road roller (but with wheels?) that had extra wheels cast as part of the solid chassis. No idea if it's based on anything real. I added the dozer blade/ram and a mortar on the bonnet, plus some bits of styrene armour and mesh screen to the cab. There's also a set of extra tailpipes (which could be some kind of rear weapon discharger) made from smoke dischargers with the ends drilled out. Given the armament I'm going to call it "Mortar-Della". Sorry! I bought a handful of other cars but made the mistake of trying to strip the paint with bleach, which I discovered reacts with zinc and causes major pitting in the surface 😕 At least the cars are cheap and the one that I really left in a state of disrepair can be a wreck instead. I've switched to leaving them in a jar of lacquer thinner (hardware shop stuff, hotter than Tamiya) for 24 hours and then scrubbing with a scouring pad. While wearing nitrile gloves, obviously. This one ("Laser Raptor", thanks Kung Fury) started as a Hotwheels 50th Anniversary corvette of some description, with a matte-ish paint finish that stripped quite easily. I added a laser weapon from a mix of Games Workshop Skitarii and Tau spares and a tank part. Someone on the Gaslands FB group suggested moving the laser from the bonnet to the roll bar, and that did indeed look better: I also replaced the thick guitar string with one I wound from brass wire and beading wire, which looks worse unpainted but should be fine when touched up. Now to hope that my primer sticks - the roller/digger mudguards are made from very slippery plastic that superglue wouldn't stick to. To the point where I scraped the glue away and attached the hydraulic rams with metal pins. Note to Sgt. Squarehead: The rams and cabling mean this is part of Spicer Harvest research and development and is therefore officially sanctioned Cheers, Will