Posted in: Collectibles, Games, Mattel, Miniatures, Tabletop | Tagged: die cast cars, Gaslands, Gaslands: Refuelled, hot wheels, mad max, matchbox, mattel, miniatures, Osprey Games, Tabletop

Hobby: Building The War Rig For "Gaslands: Refuelled"

Gaslands: Refuelled is a game very unlike most any other I've played. Set in a Mad Max-style post-apocalyptic world where gas is the ultimate currency, Gaslands takes wasteland entertainment to a whole new level. While it shares a few similarities with Games Workshop's Aeronautica Imperialis (which I reviewed here a month ago), Gaslands manages to take similar themes (in futuristic vehicle fights) and merge it with a hobby with a far lower financial barrier for entry.

Today, I'd like to go into how I, a (relative) newcomer to the Gaslands, constructed a monster. This is a story about how I managed to create the scariest vehicle in the game, the dreaded War Rig, out of little more than a Hot Wheels rig, a bit of paint, a few vehicular weapons from Aeronautica Imperialis, some other bits and bobs, and, not least of all, a vision.

Vehicle Selection

The first thing I needed to do with myself was to visit a local large-scale retailer to get ahold of a rig in its crude, unrefined form. For me, that meant a trip to Target. Once there, I scurried over to the Hot Wheels selection, which at my store, in particular, is pretty expansive. Therein, I managed to find a bunch of different vehicles for the purposes of making the War Rig. I had to ask the Gaslands community online about sizing and when I had what I considered the green light to make this beast of a rig, I bought this:

Bearing in mind that I had absolutely no use for the little car that came with this rig, I quickly went to work.

Hobbyist Techniques (Or, A Lesson in Improvisation)

This monster of a rig was already rather disgusting to behold. The rig had a ton of wonderful nooks and crannies with which detail could be added properly. But it needed more. Much more. I decided that it needed the standard loadout of rockets and other droppable weapons from the get-go, but I also wanted to make sure it could hold its own in close combat even amid the smoke bombs and other accouterments of obstruction.

It needed a wrecking ball, and I knew how to make one.

I quickly scrambled to find the old pencil eraser I had bought from a now-lost quarter vending machine, the one shaped like a mace's head, and affixed that to some sturdy wire, which itself I'd attached to an armature I rigged onto the trailer of the rig. This all probably sounds very convoluted, for sure, and that's because it really was.

This wasn't enough, however, as I decided to cover the entire trailer with steel wire, just to shore up the visage of the trailer as more than a hollow holding cell for smaller cars. I didn't get a chance to photograph this before priming or painting the rig, so I apologize, but the piece was so close to getting painted that it hardly mattered to me at the time.

Painting the War Rig

I needed to do a lot to the rig before it was palatable by my standards. Obviously a piece like this needs to be primed, so I took a matte black spray primer and took it to the War Rig. After this, the painting could begin.

I don't have a very wide array of miniature-centric paints, but if I did, this would be much easier for me. There was a point where I needed to coat part of the rig in construction-yellow acrylic paint, and that itself took maybe 3-4 coats. This process specifically was a pain, but yellow is always a color I've avoided because yellow paint is oftentimes too thin to work in one coating. I was happy to get ahold of some Citadel red base paint, and my goodness, what a difference that made in comparison.

All in all, this War Rig got a very Burton-esque color scheme, which was entirely my intent. I think it looks pretty great, personally.

The Rules

This War Rig was built specifically for games of a size of 75 cans or more (cans being the points system in Gaslands). Usually, games are played at 50 cans, but facing off against a War Rig is a big deal.

Like with all of my cars before it, the War Rig works under the in-game sponsor Verney, who specializes in dropped weapons. Any perks are going to be denoted by a pair of asterisks and any weapons or non-perk upgrades are denoted by a single asterisk.

Joker's Wild (HW War Rig) – 40 cans
26 Hull
2 Handling / Mx Gear 4 / 5 Build / 6* Crew
War Rig
** Gyroscope +1 can
** Whizzbang +1 can
** Splashback +5 cans
* front-facing exploding ram (cab) +3 cans
* back-facing wrecking ball (trailer) +2 cans
* 360-mounted HMG (cab) +12 cans
* left-facing smoke (cab) x1 +1 can
* left-facing smoke (trailer) x1 +1 can
* right-facing smoke (cab) x1 +1  can
* right-facing smoke (trailer) x1 +1 can
* back-facing smoke (trailer) x1 +1 can
* Improvised sludge thrower +2 cans
* Extra Crew x1 +4 cans
=75 cans

Conclusion

All in all, this beast of a truck took me a ton of time to construct and devise the loadout for. What do you think of it? Have you used a War Rig in Gaslands or Gaslands: Refuelled before? How did it handle? I have a game forthcoming where I'll be using it. Soon thereafter I'll be detailing it in an article. See you then!

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