Special Projects - Armor on the CHEAP!!!

Okay so this series on Special Projects is for all you cheap...I mean frugal gamers out  there.  You know who you are!

Seriously, I'm one of them.  Family, mortgage, etc... Lets face it, the hobby we have chosen to become well "invested" in isn't cheap.  Even those of us who seed the best deals on eBay or Bartertown understand that there comes a point when you are going to need a serious upgrade to your army and with 5th Edition, it seems to be all about the Armor!

I'm all about the Foot Slogger Army.  For me, for my time, for the space I have to store armies and models I've always refrained from having much if any mobile armor in my armies.  I simply don't like painting tanks.  Too many flat surfaces, blah, blah, blah.  However, with 5th Edition rules favoring armor and or Mechanized armies, its become absolutely necessary that I add some armor elements to my army and ASAP.

So what's a modeler/painter supposed to do?  Well it's been common practice to use proxy models in pickup games for what since inception of miniature wargaming?  And, though they may or may not be allowed in most tournemants, scratchbuilt models have become a sign that sets the true modeler/converted aside from the average joe gamer.  Soooooooooooo, here we go.  The decision is made, scratchbuilt it is.

Now I know what you're thinking, what/where/how?  Well for the time being I'm going to delve into the world of paper-scratchbuilt armor, then replace them with some more GW approved models later.  Say it isn't so!  You're going to proxy scratchbuilt PAPER models????? No not exactly.  C'mon, give me a break!  Would I do that?  HECK YEAH I WOULD!  ;-)

In all, there are some stunning templates out there at the bwc-archive yahoo group. Of course I have no intention of building them solely out of Card Stock either.  A little balsa wood, some plastic tubing, card stock, and GW bits should yield what I'm looking for.

So for my Flame Guardians I'm in need of some Drop Pods (2) and a Razorback.  Now unfortunately I can't find a good template for the full Razorback, but they've got some great Rhino templates and a few different Drop Pod variants that I'm going to play with (still waiting on approval to post the templates in the blog).

I'm planning on building a couple of different variants of these vehicles.  The first variant will be the straight up Card Stock/Balsa Wood variant.  No GW bits, no plasti-card.  Just build straight from the template.  I'll use some colored Card Stock (Red/Yellow) so I can see how they'll turn out with no painting.  Second variant will use the templates in combination with more advanced materials.  Still using the Card Stock/Balsa Wood, but also adding in plasti-card, plastic or brass tubing, and various GW and FW bits to make the models more tournament legal (or as best I can).

Thoughts?