June 13, 2013

Khurasan Miniatures Caimen Heavy APC: AKA the APC from ALIENS

"All right, sweethearts, what are you waiting for? Breakfast in bed? Another glorious day in the Corps! A day in the Marine Corps is like a day on the farm. Every meal's a banquet! Every paycheck a fortune! Every formation a parade! I LOVE the Corps!"

Oh man awesome new goodies. When I 1st saw the Caimen on Dwartist's blog I was so damn excited to get one. Kinda annoying it took like another 8 months before I'd get to throw them some money and another month to get my hands on my own.
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You can kinda see I was excited to finally add an APC to my collection of old Grenadier, EM4, Copplestone and recent Hasslefree marines so I bought 2 instead of 1 and an extra one still in the box for my friend Andrew.  The likeness to the movie APC is great, not 100% of course but instantly recognizable.
Giving the kits the good once over and dry fit assembly they go together very well, except the front mini turrets (they're upside down in the photos) I'm going to either have to drill out the socket to make it bigger or file down the pegs on the turrets a fair bit to make them fit. Everything else slotted in fine. The casting was very good with not too much flash or bubbles. I was surprised to note a few of the bubbles on the underside had already been filled with putty and sanded back already.


I was a bit surprised the entire main body of the APC was one big cast. It's about the same width as a Space Marine Rhino but much longer. In scale it's much more Main Battle Tank sized than APC sized but it has no problems giving the impression that a whole squad would fit inside. The rest of the kit is the the 4 wheels with big solid pegs that just slot in easy, you would have to do a lot of converting if you want to pose the vehicle turning but it looks good with the wheels straight. I guess you could try and drill in axels but I'm not going to have them spinning. The Top turret slots into a socket up top at the front of the rail. You could probably convert it with a bunch of dremmelling to be in the stowed position on the back but it would not be easy. The side door slots onto a pair of rail grooves and can be put on open or closed. There is a bit of an inset doorway but no internal detail. Lastly the mini turret which as I said doesn't actually fit yet. Maybe magnets is the answer. [
Edit: Turns out getting the front mini turrets to fit was quite easy when I started cleaning the model, I just had to use a knife to trim the lip of the socket and it was fixed in just a minute.]


Hopefully the cleanup will be quick and painless so I can get to painting them.

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I also grabbed the much smaller Polecat Armoured Command/Utility vehicle. It looks like a futuristic armoured Humvee but with only 2 doors instead of 4. I think it goes well with the APCs. Similar to the APC it was one big cast for the body of the vehicle with 4 seperate wheels and a choice of 2 turrets, the pictured sensor array with minigun or an anti air missile launcher with 8 missiles. I like the look of the little boxy turret I have on now but I'll paint both and maybe put in magnets. Again the casting is quite good apart from a big bubble in the right hand rear tail light.


The kits are from here http://khurasanminiatures.tripod.com/28mmscifi.html

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