The latest release* for the Chuhuac (space dinosaurs with guns) from Loud Ninja Games (available through Alternative Armies) involves something that many ranges of sci-fi figures ignore: air support.

*When I say “latest release”, these have been available for some time: I just haven’t got around to painting them!

First off the painting table is the Raxa Light Attack Ship that can be assembled either landed or in flight…so I bought two so that I could field one of each.

The picture on the right shows the landed version, with its wings folded up. The kit comes in four main parts: the fuselage - the head and two wings - plus two legs and a cornucopia of weaponry that can be attached to various hard points on the craft.

It’s pretty easy to put together: the head slides onto the fuselage easily, the wings will just about balance upright and, believe it or not, the ship will balance on its two ‘chicken legs’ without too much difficulty.

To get the legs even, so that the ship didn’t list to one side, I popped a drop of PVA and superglue into each of the slots the legs fit in to, put the legs in to the slots and, whilst the PVA and superglue were still hardening, gently stood the model up as I wanted whilst still holding it’s weight. Once I was happy that the legs were even, I then made sure the legs were at least partially dried in place (i.e. wouldn’t move if tilted the ship) then found a way to balance the ship mostly upright without the legs touching the floor.

Note that the transparent base didn’t come with the kit: I had that in the bits box.

The flying model was not too difficult to build either, although there’s no clear guide as to what angle to seat the wings: you have to work out the sweet spot where the wing tilts down sufficiently without coming out of its fuselage slot.

I sprayed each model with a military green undercoat, then washed them with GW Agrax Earthshade, then carefully drybrushed a very slightly lighter military green from front to back. I then painted the legs black with a steel dry-brush, the jet outlets in a dark red with the black soot-stains on the nearby fuselage, then added some bright yellow and blue ‘markings’ where the relief work on the model suggested I should.

I use my usual 12” flight stand, but with a very solid rare earth maginet to hold the Raxa in place. I love the pteradactyl-look of the craft in flight!

Here are some more shots, including the official ones from the Alternative Armies website: