REVIEW: Vanguard Miniatures' Hurk Bomber / Gunship

 

Make it Hurk So Good

An (admittedly biased) review of Vanguard Miniatures' new Hurk 

Aircraft — any and all aircraft — hold a particular fascination for me. I am enchanted by the story of Humanity's struggle to do what the majority of the bird kingdom manages without much thought. But when the means of taking to the skies consists of a huge, lumbering monster, the likes of which would convince the Wright brothers they should have stuck to fixing bicycles, well that's all the more fascinating!

Imagine my delight, then, at being invited by Vanguard Miniatures to sculpt a few flying machines for their range of 6mm sci-fi forces. In this case, guided into the air by the green, ham-sized hands of the Skinners; a species dedicated to violence and mayhem, who nevertheless possess a certain, rudimentary technical know-how, and thus create amazing machines and weapons that reflect that dedication. (To the dismay of the rest of the galaxy!)

Behold, therefore — The Hurk!

Can I get a "WAAAAAGH!" ??

I'm sure the fellow aviation buffs among you can determine the real-world inspiration for this beast; It was of course the C130 Hercules which has been a mainstay, heavy cargo aircraft in many airforces for the past 60 years. The resemblance is quite deliberate because the Skinners maintain a certain race-memory of the machines of Earth's past, and their creations are an unconscious echo of that distant world... 

The Hurk became a reality after many months of work with the very patient and knowledgeable John Fielding of Vanguard. We went through several iterations of the Hurk over many months, adding some details, changing others, always with an eye to making it a brutal, erm, brute of an aircraft. 

Nice, smooth Hurk...

Here on the right is an early render of the Hurk from the middle of 2019. 

It still looks quite aerodynamically respectable at this stage! 

But things would change in due course, as we added more panels, more guns, more hatches, more guns again, and more rivets. 

So. Many. Rivets. 

I lost count sometime in December, so don't ask! 

Festooned with gribbliness!

Along with the riveting there were panels to open, revealing the 'gubbins' within, glyph plates to bolt on, hinges to screw to flight surfaces, engines that needed plumbing... honestly, it sometimes felt like I was building a real aircraft. 

But in the end, our hard work paid off. The Hurk flew off my computer and into the moulds, and now it is time to look at the real thing, instead of all these 'vaporware' renders!

The Aircraft now Waaaaghing at Gate Four...

It was less than two days before I wrote these words that two samples of the Hurk landed in my mail. When I opened the parcel from Vanguard Miniatures, I beheld some of the sharpest, cleanest castings I've seen in 30+ years of modelling and wargaming. 

The Hurk comes in 20 resin parts with 17 metal parts for the smaller details, such as guns and bomb bay doors. The parts in my examples were virtually flash-free, with only minor seam lines that cleaned up in mere minutes. Part fit is tight and just about perfect. 

I did say 'just about' — Perhaps its the result of shrinkage, or maybe the inexperience of the digital sculptor(!) but there is no gap between the inner engine cowlings and the breeches of the fuselage-mounted big guns:

Juuuuust a smidge tight...

I managed to squeeze them into place, but would recommend shaving off a little of the cowlings' inward sides to make alignment easier. 

Another minor flaw is the centreline seam where the wings join together. You can see it in the photo below; This is not too much trouble to clean up with putty and some judicious sanding. Still, I wish I'd sculpted a recessed panel line here, to disguise the seam. 

The Hurk has some strategically placed, 5mm diameter holes and matching 'dowels' to ensure alignment of major fuselage parts. These also allow you to magnetise these parts if you wish them to be interchangeable. I chose to do this with the Bomber section and the Gunship section that attach to the underside of the Hurk.

And yes, that's a standard Aeronautica Imperialis flight stand you see there; each rear section has a hole to take the ball-ended flightpeg. You might need to scrape just a teeny amount of the rim of the hole to get a nice, tight fit. You're welcome. 

Here's an underside shot of the Hurk in gunship mode, showing where the peg connects. I think that's enough dakka its got there... 

So, all in all, I am really happy with (and not a little proud of), the Hurk. The model has been reproduced stunningly by John and the Vanguard crew, and the real credit for bringing this cumbersome corsair of the clouds to life all goes to them. 

Next time, I'll throw some paint at the Hurks, and share some beauty (?) shots of them in formation with the rest of my A.I. Air Waaagh. 

But I can't go without one last shot of the most impressive part of the Hurk; that's the tiny, lever-pulling bombardier sculpted by the far-more-talented-than-I Ben Skinner!

"Bombz away, Boss!"

See you all next time!