Sci-Fi Technicals

Last year, I constructed several "Dust Devil" reconnaissance craft I downloaded from Paper Make It! 

However, none of my vehicles are armed, because prior to assembly, the weapons look like this...

...which is just a bit too complicated for my meager skills.  So my collection languished, weaponless for several months.

Later, my friend Daryl gave me and my gaming group his ENTIRE Star Wars Miniatures collection.  After the joyous feeding frenzy, all that remained were several Snowtroopers manning e-web blasters (Collector's # 17/17 Imperial 18), that no one wanted. 

After talking with my friend Dan about saving every spare piece from models and miniatures, I came up with a "cunning plan."  I bought a package of NW-215 washers.

Then I removed the e-web blasters from the snowtrooper figures.  If they were generic stormtroopers, I would have been very reluctant to do this, but the snowtroopers are too unique to Hoth-like environments.

I sprayed the washers with black primer, then dull black paint to match the weapons. 

Finally, I glued the blasters to the washers using superglue gel.  I prefer using the gel, because it doesn't run--usually on to my fingers--like the regular stuff.

And presto!  I can now field armed vehicles.  None of the weapons are permenantly mounted on any of my paper models.  The washer's weight keeps the blaster in place, as long as the vehicles aren't flung around the game table.

This gives my collection some versatility, where players can encounter military or civilian vehicles, depending on the scenario.  Nor are these heavy weapons limited to my Dust Devils.  I have several open-topped vehicles, like this Floater Truck I downloaded from Ebbles Miniatures.

Unfortunately, Christopher Roe is no longer producing his fine line of paper models.  Some of his work though, is still available on World Works Games.

As long as there's a big enough surface, I can plop down one of my blaster cannons to convert a sci-fi pick-up truck into a futuristic technical.