"Modular Matchbox toy." Topic

This is a little project that I've been working on for a few months now and finally I think I have enough variants, my plan was to find a cheap toy vehicle that I could field multiples and multiple variants of, so what we have here are some converted Matchbox toy Commando AFV's with the original plastic turret taken off and replaced with several other turrets from Brigade models and Rebel miniatures all mounted on a 18mm washer that fit snugly into the void were the original plastic turret went making it into a modular vehicle if you like. In total i bought ten Matchbox Commando toys all for around £2.00 GBP-£3.50 with postage from E-Bay, I stripped all of the old paint off of them and cleaned up the seams with a file and cut off the rear engine housing to make it look a bit less like a Commando and more like something current or from the very near future. Then it was a simple case of choosing what kind of vehicles I wanted to game with and selecting the turrets that I felt would look good for that particular vehicle. So I have two APC's with Rebel miniatures open top shielded machine gun turrets, four IFV's with Brigade models with auto canon turrets and side mounted missile launcher, three light tanks with short barrelled canons and three dedicated anti tank missile vehicles and finally there are a pair of Mech hunter / killers with huge remote mounted gauss canons again from Brigade models, and just to fill up the bottom corner I've added a few generic combat engineering vehicles that I still want to get a dozer to complete them. :) Zac

PS: I still need to add loads of stowage that i've bought and the tank commander to the open hatched IFV.

Excellent – and a pair of Stalwarts (so you can't go wrong, in my book!)

John T

Saw these a couple of days back. Excellent work and a great idea. For just a couple of £'s and a little elbow grease, you have gotten a fun factor off the scale.

I posted them up on 15mm Sci-fi Facebook but not here on TMP as I have noticed several members here do not visit that particular forum and visa versa. I still have a couple of other turrets that I am thinking of adding to create a few more variants but for the time being I have enough for what I wanted them for, that being secondary vehicles for all my human forces for several different game systems with the one exception being my custom mercenary unit for the Hammers Slammers which only use hover based vehicles.

Those are very nice! And I agree with John. Stalwarts! How Anderson-esque! :)

Zac, saw the conversions before. Been enjoying their progress alot. Also seems you cleaned them all out on eBay for the time being. You have collected them all. :-)
And peeps need to stop posting to that group. The rest of us are missing out. FB is such a pain to use. It isn't a forum. And is a fad that will be gone in a few years, tops. 😠😡
So many peeps are missing out when things actually get posted there.
Keep up on your Commandos.

Grimm

Grimm your missing out if I can navigate the 15mm FB group believe me anyone can and to be honest there has been and is some spectacular threads posted there.

Looks like it has a lot of potential. How is the scale? Can we see it next to some minis?

Looks like it has a lot of potential. How is the scale? Can we see it next to some minis?

Here you go sorry about the quality of photo it was taken with my tablet, but I think you will agree that they scales very well indeed next to these standard 15mm figures.

A friend of mine is building Slammers Crucible forces using a mixture of various Roco Minitanks with turret swaps and such like: there's lot's of potential with 1/100th adjacent forces (in the case I've just mentioned, 1/87th, of course – or at least nominally) what with "15mm SF" having so many quite large vehicles.

So these Matchbox conversions do look, not surprisingly, pretty much spot on to my eyes.

John T

All the older Matchbox "Junior " military range are pretty much perfect for 15mm gaming, but the other Matchbox ranges do tend to differ in size so they can be a little bit hit or miss.

Zac, never said i couldn't navigate it. I said it is a pain to use. Love to scroll down, click a pic to view, and hit the back button to only be back at the top of the FB group and not where i left off at. And people are missing out. People who don't so FB are missing out. People like SpacemanSpiff and Froggy haven't posted anything but there for ages now. Shame because you are right, there is some nice things going on there. I have been using the GF's FB account to look over that FB group. I am not impressed with FB and never will. I just find forums and BLOG's more useful and user friendly.
As i have said though, loving your Commandos. Cant wait to see em completed.
By the by, have you seen pakwagon's articles on the Gruntz forum?
link

John T, you are right there for ROCO vehicles. I like the 1/87 scale. Some 15mm vehicles are too small for 15mm scifi and you can get away with some 1/72 for 15mm scifi vehicles. Ask the ODB about his monster. My fav ROCO conversion is a M-60 tank with the Necron rifle for the TG. Damn ROCO's are a pain to get in lots though or to find for a decent price.

Grimm