The Gasland build continues part 2...The Astor Old Guard is ready to hit the tarmac

 The Gasland build continues part 2...
The Astor Old Guard is ready to hit the tarmac

I picked up some more discounted Hot Wheels from the toy shop near my apartment the other week. None of these cars really grabbed me to begin with, but they were very cheap, so that swung my decision. One of the things that I have noticed since I was bitten by the Gaslands bug is my obsession with looking for more vehicles to convert. I hope that it fades at some point, as I am running out of space. The thing that really brought these cars to life was the paint scheme. Once I hit upon that, I became a lot more excited about building and painting them.

The first car is based on a DeLorean. I wanted to try something different with the front windscreen, so I cut it away from the rear section and replaced it with some photo-etched strips that I had lying around. On top of that small change, I stuck an old GW Imperial Guard lasgun on the roof and added a rear-facing mortar. I also added a driver.

I am planning to run this as having a car chassis, but sadly I am running out of crew figures, so I could only add one person to this vehicle.

For the second car, I went with a ’62 Corvette. I really like its sleek design, so I didn’t want to add too much to it. I decided that all it needed was some weapons, and for that a pair of rockets would look suitably Fallout.

I had another bit of a disaster when I was trying to glue it back together. I am really not sure what it is that I keep doing wrong on these things. I probably just need more practice.

To hide the gap at the front of the car, I added a large bumper. I am glad that I did, as it made the Corvette look a lot more like a Gaslands vehicle.

I have been enjoying converting several cars for Gaslands, but I felt that for the final vehicle in this team I wanted something a bit chunkier. Luckily there was a Dodge van on the toy rack. I decided to make a few more changes to the van than I did to the Corvette.

I replaced the windscreen with some wire mesh, which I took from a one-hundred-yen oil guard. I also added a new roof with a harpoon, and made some crew members from parts of a sprue and a few skulls.

The view of the crew members behind the mesh is not very clear, you can only really make out their shape, so I didn’t want to use one of my remaining driver figures for it. Scratch-building these crew members wasn’t very difficult, and they do the job nicely.

The Astor Old Guard is complete and ready to make its mark on the raceways.

The first car is the Lazerburn, driven by Ward-S. At first, I was going to give it a performance car chassis, but then I remembered that it’s a DeLorean — which is about as close to a performance car as I am to an Olympic sprinter — so I decided to give it a standard car chassis instead. For armament, I’ve given it a forward-facing combat laser and a rear-facing mortar. I’ve also added a roll cage, for a total of 25 points.

The second car is the Typhoon, driven by Dez. I gave this vehicle a performance car chassis, armed with rockets and a submachine gun, for a total of 25 points.

The third car is the Attrition, driven by Rabid Rob. I ummed and ahhed for a while over whether to make this a truck or a heavy truck, but in the end I decided to make it a truck. For weapons, it has a forward-facing harpoon and a ram. I had a few points left over, so I’ve given it armour plating, for a total of 25 points.