Dixon Regiment Box

I thought it would be interesting to open up a Regiment Box from Dixon Miniatures to see exactly what you get. I was very pleasently surprised to see the number of different poses within the 24 man unit.

There are some same pose figures but all have different heads which really adds variety. I have to say, I do like the old school tissue paper that comes in the little square boxes. It makes the contents seem quite precious.

Way back in 1998, I ordered a Dixon ACW army from the Guard room in Dunstable. The 24 man regiments in the army were made up of a command group with the infantry being only two poses. They did have the various heads but looked very limited in line. It's good to see these new regiments have a much better variety to them. This one is obviously a Confederate unit and has a nice mix of flock and shell jackets. I'm very tempted to keep all this unit together when basing, we'll see...

 The other box is a Federal unit.

So the Federal charging box doesn't seem to have as much variety in poses. However, the head poses and equipment does make up for that. I like the fact that a few slouch hats have been added to give some variety to the kepis.

 These boxes were bought off eBay so this box may have been added to. What I thought was an officer, turned out to be a trooper on a horse. The horse isn't from Dixon and looks like a Mark Copplestone sculpt.

I think the infantry is legit as they number 24. So an extra mounted trooper is a nice bonus.

Heavy Decepticon Bomber

I received this large key ring toy of Starscream from the latest film. I'm not a massive fan of the new Michael Bay films, so this bot had to be given some good old Eighties chunky panelling to fit in better with the others.

For this I went to my trusty plasticard and superglue combo.

He is still an odd ape shape but at least now he has blocky legs with a more geometric look. A nice bright paint job will hopefully put him squarely back in the Eighties.

Groundpounder is born. A large aerial bomber who can drop a huge payload of explosives to lay waste to any Autobot fortress. He is used to flush Autobot units into the open, from here the swift Seekers can finish the job.

He is a huge bot with quite a pay load of missiles. I imagine him to be a big heavy bomber. He has to be slow witted or he'd be running things.

Prime is dwarfed by the brute.

 The original key ring toy, there was too much exposed wiring for me. Time to cover up and get some armour on. I might try a simple paint scheme to hide some of the detail.

In Xenos Rampant this bot would have around three wounds I imagine.

UPDATE: I replaced the head with a more blocky old school one. Having big optics and a mouth is a classic look. This particular head has goggles which is a nice touch as he turns into a bomber plane.

The purple goes well with the blue and makes him look very Decepticon.

The Rain Makers completed

The Decepticon squadron called the Rain Makers after they created acid rain to stop an Autobot raid.

Shockwave leads his Cybertronian strike team to block the escape routes from the spacebridge.

Ion storm is the first bot to get his alternative plane mode. He just needs some stickers to finish him off.

The Decepticon forces are growing nicely.

Up to no good, Starscream is plotting again.

 

These toys were a great source for colour reference.

Grim Decepticon War Trophy

 

I love it when a plane comes together...

I took a gamble on a cheap set of toy planes the other day. I was trying to find models that matched my Deception Seekers. Well I couldn't of got closer I think if I had tried, they were an excellent match. There are also some ships that can be cut up for terrain later which is an added bonus. The planes work out about £2 each which isn't bad at all considering they are in scale.

I was really pleased at the scale. It's so hard to judge on eBay when they don't give measurements.

I added some Spiers and blocks to the flying bases to add some detail. Also, the tall Spiers will help camouflage the flying support when painted. It was good to use up some hexagon bases that I've had kicking around too 

The underneath of the toys are very simple so I won't waste time painting them too carefully.

I used hot glue to weld a piece of plastic tube onto the base the toy plane. This made them bullet proof and very solid. The toy planes weigh next to nothing.

Now comes the job of painting the planes up in the various colour schemes of the robots.

These stealth fighters could be used for the Cybertronian fighters at a pinch.

An excellent find and for a bargain price too. I wonder if the cars I ordered will be as successful?

I suppose you could just use one or two planes to indicate a unit has transformed. I'll have to see how I get on and how easy it is the paint them up. As mentioned, it's only the tops of the crafts that need some detail.

UPDATE: Arming for war! Now all the planes have taken to the air, it's time to arm them up. I used some machine guns off old Gaslands sprues. The most effective missiles though were created by cutting up plasticard tubing and shaping it.
 

Most of these fighters are loaded up with missiles and other deadly projectiles. 

For the stealth fighters, I tried to make it look as if panels had opened up to allow the weapons to come out. 

You won't really see the underside but it's nice to add some weapon greeblies. I covered over the worst of the holes with panelling too.