Saturday, June 18, 2016

Forming a Strike Squad



I decided to follow the template set up by the Fire Support squad in making each model in the squad a unique variant.  The models that I had to choose from were two Fire Jaguars, a Jaguar Predator, and a stock Jaguar.  The Predator was out as it has no equivalent in the current living rulebook (LRB) so I decided to turn it into a bazooka armed Destroyer variant instead.  The stock Jaguar, while supported, was too similar in loadout for my tastes as the two Fire Jaguars (all three wielding MACs) so I decided to try and convert it to a Flash Jaguar instead.  For the Flash variant, I thought it might be nice to convert the arms into a folden across the chest position as opposed to simple at its side.  I took some cutting, pinning, and filling but I'm happy with the final result.  Finally, I decided to try and convert one of the two rocket based Fire Jaguars (the unassembled NIB model) into a missile firing Arrow Jaguar instead to stand alongside the assembled Fire Jaguar.  Picture below are the Destroyer and Flash variants.




Unfortunately, when I opened the three blisters I had (one Fire Jaguar was already assembled and painted), I noticed that every single Jaguar head was different.  One had the extended visor just as the assembled Fire Jaguar, one was angular similar to modern Jaguars, and one was oddly curvy but not very similar to the cury Fire Jaguar heads either.  Unfortunately, the engine in that pack also didn't match and it appeared that I had yet another RAFM mispack.  From looking at various pics online, I had a hunter "bits" plastic bag in my Jaguar blister instead of the correct one.  You can see the various heads in the pic above as well as the engines below.


I decided to only build three Jaguars (similar to the three Grizzlies... not including the Kodiak commander) since I only had three correct matching engines.  The heads, however, were a different story as I'm still not sure what to do.  On a lark, I figured I'd try to email Rafm and see if they had any extra bits left over from that era.  I realize it's a very long shot and hopefully they'll be able to help.  If they can't my only options will be to either use wildly different heads or try to press mould additional heads.  For now, I'll hold off on the decision about the heads and next build the last Arrow Jaguar addition to the squad.

2 comments:

  1. Or you can keep looking for more RAFM for sale on eBay.

    Sucks though.

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  2. Yeah, they don't come up often (let alone in the blister) but they do pop up occasionally. I tried some more immediate possible solutions over the weekend that I posted about a few hours ago but ended up using the existing heads that I had.

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