Small but beautiful

A couple of weeks a go I finished some british armoured cars from GHQ models, but I haven't had the time to write up a report on them.

Daimler armoured cars armed with 2-pounder guns.

These are 1:285 scale, or 6mm scale. 40k players might recognise it as Epic scale, although GW never wrote out the actual scale. It's more commonly known as microarmour.


The UK commissioned a lot of different wheeled armoured cars used for recon duties as well as simple liaison or staff duties. They were divided into three types; Light Recon Car, Scout Car and Armoured Car. Since all of these are called armoured car in daily terms by modellers and wargamers and quite a few historians, one can easily see how confusion can arise. Since no manufacturer could fill the need by themselves several different but similar designs were used.

"Look out for Gerry, lads!"

Scout cars were lightweight, fast and carried at most a bren gun. Armoured cars were more heavily armoured and carried a "proper" gun ranging from 2-pounders or 37mm guns up to 75mm guns. While meant for reconnaissance work these could deliver a bit of a punch should the need arise. The LRC seems to fall somewhere in between the other two, still armed with only a Bren gun or an AT rifle at most. As far as I can discern there were no hard and fast rule to classify the cars based on equipment. Instead they were classified by their intended roles.

AEC mk III, looking particularly orky thanks to it's 75mm gun.

Just as the Daimler the AEC mk III is designated as an armoured car, but it's quite different. Sometimes referred to as a heavy car it was manufactured by the Associated Equipment Company of Middlesex that usually made truck and bus chassis. The first mark was simply a standard truck chassis with the turret of a Valentine tank! The third and final mark had a custom designed turret carrying a 75mm gun for close support  and usually operated together with the lighter scout cars. It had a four man crew and carried two machine guns and a large radio set in addition to the main gun. In a sense it was more like a wheeled tank.

Big Brother! A size comparison.

The vehicles were painted quite fast with a simple basecoat-wash-drybrush technique. I might return and do some details later on, like painting the shovels on the sides of the Daimlers or dust the sides down a bit.

1. Basecoat: GW Knarloc Green.
2. Wash with GW Thraka Green.
3. Drybrush Vallejo Russian Uniform
4. Drybrush Vallejo Russian Uniform + GW Bleached Bone
5. Paint the tires slate or dark grey (can't remember which one I used but it's not important).
6. Drybrush GW Bleached Bone for the final highlight.

The whole family out on a field trip.

Done. The cars were mounted on Renedra bases which got a thin layer of Tamiya textured paint and then flocked. I took the photos right after flocking so there's a lot of flock around the models. I hope you like them.