"Blimps/Balloons for 28MM?" Topic

A friend of mine wants to use blimps, or other airships for his 40k IG Praetorian Guard army. Any thoughts?

Revell has a Hindenburg.

Reviresco has some blimps.

If you want to scratchbuild something, rush to your local WalMart and ick up some hollow 12" Easter eggs.

I have also heard of people scratch building with 2 liter soda bottles.

Many years ago I had made an Ork Airship from a Gulf gas station inflatable toy blimp. I don't know if they still sell them as promotional items but it was about 2' long and about 8" in diameter at the midsection and made out of that vinyl material common to inflatable swimming pool toys.

Perhaps there is a vendor that custom makes such promotional items??

In 28mm a blimp is going to be huge. For example, a standard Goodyear blimp is almost 200 feet long, or between 3 and 4 feet in 28mm. A dirigible is going to be at least that long. Even if you use selective compression to shorten the blimp or dig, it's going to look cartoonish.

Also, blimps and digs are notoriously slow and easy to shoot down. Not very practical for a 40K battlefield.

Instead, your friend might want to consider Space:1889-style or Aeronef-style flying gunboats. There are many good Space:1889 sites on the Net; here's one:

link

And here is the Brigade Games Aeronef page:

link

Some of the smaller 'Nefs would be fairly easy to replicate in 28mm using sheet and tube styrene.

link

link

A search on ebay for toy blimps may work as well.

The Major General's website has construction notes for an airship:

link

"Also, blimps and digs are notoriously slow and easy to shoot down. Not very practical for a 40K battlefield."

Yes not very practical. Just like the toughest warriors are armed with chainswords and bright armor and charge across the the battlefield to engage in close combat. It's a game :-)

Anyway.. The fluff I created for the Ork blimp was based around the Freebooterz back in 1st/2nd Ed. days. The Orks used Lifta gas and the blimp had a gondola with prop engines and a catwalk across the top. A crowsnest and front nose balcony where also present to place troops on. I never completed it but had planned to have ablative armor in the form of gretchin clinging or tied to nets along the sides of the blimp. I also had a large anchor that dragged along the ground affecting any models in its path.

Instead of ablative gretchin one could also use a power field generator to reduce damage.

I have an airship hanging in my study - the Bauhaus Lady, originally constructed for Crimson Skies. It's made from two-liter soda bottles. I cut the bottoms off, caaarefully glued the cut edges together, and ended up with a two-topped bottle, reinforced with epoxy. I then cut the necks off and puttied over one, and used an interesting conical item from the bitz box as the nose. Fins were made of basswood, and "superstructure" was dental floss, glued onto the outside and then covered with several coats of primer.

After that, it was just decals and a gondola.

I'm inclined to kind of wonder how well this would work for 28mm gaming, though. The Bauhaus Lady wouldn't support much in the way of 28mm material without looking kind of goofy.

Perhaps three 3-liter bottles, carefully cut and glued together...

I have a pair of the old model Goodyear blimps that let you scroll rude messages on one side. They're 1/72 or so. This means that they'd be able to hold maybe two 28mm figs in a rediculously oversized gondola.

However, for a balloon for 28mm figs, I'd recommend going with the brass or plastic toilet float. Those are the round items in the toilet tank (not the bowl) that shut off the water when the tank's re-filled. This was in a White Dwarf a few decades back along with description on converting dwarf casualties to hangglider troops.

Wyatt

Thanks guys! I'm not 100% sure what he's going to use them as...I'm assuming they'll be skimmer proxies for Leman Russes or somesuch. But I'll pass along you're great suggestions!

Goldwyrm: Yeah, I was aware of that "practicality" issue when I posted. Then again, I can absolutely see Orks using gasbags. It's a very Orky thing to do.

I'm frighteningly inspired to get a pair of 3 Liter Shasta soda bottles and some Evergreen rod stock to make a Dwarfish war zep. I'm thinking something along the lines of the "Hyperion" picture from "Island at the Top of the World."

I may have to go buy a Dwarf Gyrocopter so I can have a parasite fighter. I sold the one I had a year ago, darnit!

Wyatt

I highly suggest that you depart from trying to make a realistically scaled 28mm blimp; a few quick calculations will show that the volume of gas needed to lift a few hundred pounds is bigger than you'll want to model.

That said, I highly recommend buying 2 12" plastic easter eggs and gluing similar halves together for a nice symmetrical blimp.

Alternatively, you can blow up a baloon, dip string in glue, and then wrap it around the balloon as rigging. Coat the balloon in more glue over the whole surface and let dy. I remember making art projects like this as a kid. I haven't tried this, but I have always wanted to.

Here's my own attempt:

link

I'm building one now but was searching for guns. There is a website that has different ship's guns for sale but I cannot remember what it is - anyone?

PJ

London War Room

There's a pic of mine about 1/2 way down this page:

link

And more pics with notes about construction on the bottom half of this page:

link

I made mine so the gondola can come off for easier handling on the table. I also intend to eventually build a winged airplane kind of contraption that will plug into the gondola, but haven't gotten around to it yet.

HOUSTON'S NAVAL GUNS AND SHIPBOARD ARMAMENTS ~

link

at THE LONDON WAR ROOM - thelondonwarroom.com

And I also took a try at making a soda bottle zeppelin ~ link

Al | rivetsandsteam.com

Didn't Flagship Games used to have airships? You might email them and see if they have any left.

Damn I love this place!

Thanks guys

PJ

Irisherb where do you live? I want to move there and join your group. I can't get anyone localy to help me create games in that scale and I don't have the time to do it all myself!!

Someone does a real R/C blimp that would fit the bill.

All you need to do is go to the local party store to have it inflated, and/or buy/rent a tank so that you can inflate it yourself, whenever desired.

Tie it to the table, lest it fly away on the air currents.

Weird thing is that I started out with IG/Pretorians and used a pastic 2litre "coke" bottle the best thing about it was that the plastic was styled like the Classic shape of the glass bottles just like the blimps and airships in some of the links above! Just fill with expanding foam (the type used in a spray can used for plumbing etc),as for the body of the beast check out any naval boats or the flyers from London War Rooms Parrhoom Station

While attending an Art Deco exhibit in San Francisco's Legion of Honor museum last year, I bought an Authentic Models' reproduction of the Hindenburg, which comes already assembled. It's huge: 44 inches long (which means 1 inch equals approximately 18 feet). You can see it here: link

I plan on using it for a pulp campaign that I'll be starting this summer. I just need to figure how I'll place it over the downtown cityscape I'm constructing.

The major difficulty in buying the model is that Authentic Models apparently only sells to select retailers, such as museums. The company Web site does have a retail locater that might help you track down a copy.

Aaron Malchow

Wow - that Hindenburg is awesome! Can I ask how much you paid for it, Aaron?

Ted,

It's easily the most expensive model I've bought for my fledgling pulp campaign to date. It cost around $300.00.

I was fortunate enough to actually be able to afford it when I saw it last year. I'd been actively looking for such a model for over four years, so I had been saving up for it.

It's sturdy enough to place 28 mm miniatures on it, allowing for some dramatic action sequences along its frame and fins.

Aaron Malchow

Aaron,

Do you have a website or gallery for pictures of your pulp games? What rules set are you using for your game? Is your city scape already built or are you still working on it?

Photos, pics, galleries... We need more!!

Thanks,

Norm Hensley

Norm,

Gosh, thanks for the interest. I wish I had a gallery to direct you to. Over this summer, I intend to design a Web site for my campaign. When I do, I'll put up a post, letting people know about it if they're interested.

The rules set I use is Crimefighters, which as you may know, was a 20-page pulp game insert that appeared in Dragon Magazine, issue 47 back in 1981. For those who aren't familiar with it, Bill Coffin wrote a good descriptive review of the game over at RPGnet: link

Despite the shortness of the rules, I've found them to contain everything I've needed for my pulp campaigns. I've run five different pulp campaigns with those rules over the last 24 years, with the last campaign having just finished, to make way for the new one that I'm building the cityscape for.

And at this time, I have one-fourth (3 feet by 2.5 feet) of my planned cityscape completed. Pending my work schedule, I hope to complete the entire cityscape by the end of July.

Take care,
Aaron Malchow

jpattern2 wrote:

-Even if you use selective compression to shorten the blimp or dig, it's going to look cartoonish.-

This is 40k we are talking about, most of the line looks Cartoonish.

But, Reversco (sp?) has a papermodel blimp in 25mmish.
And there is the onl that Flagship games makes....

Hope that helps.

"The rules set I use is Crimefighters, which as you may know, was a 20-page pulp game insert that appeared in Dragon Magazine, issue 47 back in 1981. "

Is that the set illustrated by Jeff Dee? i think I still have my copy of that. I tore it out of the magazine but kept it! I'll have to look it over again...

A Paper airships link:
link

Also a 15mm "Land Ironclad"

Neat!

Fortean2,

Yep! Crimefighters was indeed illustrated by Jeff Dee, with Bill Willingham contributing a nifty drawing of a shadowy avenger of justice. And there's another drawing by Dee and Willingham, featuring a two-fisted adventurer facing down a wild jaguar.

Like you, most of my gaming group removed the game from their copies of the magazine when we first started playing it. Since we were already reading Shadow and Doc Savage reprints by the time we stumbled across the rules, my gaming group fell in love with it, so the rules were always within reach no matter whose house we gamed at.

Aaron Malchow

Reviresco has a Zeppelin kit for only $25 USD and is designed for gaming with 28mm figures. See it at. tin-soldier.com/balloons.htm I hope you find it iteresting. John Mcewan

For a great airship idea, try finding a "super-soaker" knockoff at a $ store. I have noticed several in which the plastic water "tank" would be perfect for the balloon. The rest of the gun can be scavenged for parts. I've had great success using the 'innards of squirt guns to make 28mm boilers for steam tanks.

just my 2 cents

What a idea Old Digger, now I can see how some of them would work out!

Has anyone tried building one of these?
link

Off Topic ——-

Aaron Malchow can you email me at warrenss2(at)yahoo(dot)com? I want to ask you something.