The Munchkins Have an Air Force!

Way back in July of 2023, I built and painted a “Munchkin Aerostat” for my Wars of Ozz games. It is a special unit that only the Munchkins have. I know that when I have had it on my tabletop it has always grabbed the attention of any passerby. You can see my post on that blue beauty here.

Since golf season ended, I have been preparing for many convention wargames. I will be running WWII (modified What a Tanker games), retro sci-fi skirmish games (using modified Combat Patrol TM WWII rules), and of course games of Wars of Ozz.

For Ozz, this year, I am focusing on the ruined “Robotic Sanctum – a.k.a. The Industrial City” of Professor Nitpik for my scenarios. There Nitpik toils away making armed automatons of tin – (Tin Men) to defend his city from outside raiders. Supposedly he is over 300 years old and the last survivor of “The Last Great War” that brought the post-apocalyptic world of Ozz to be. He guards his secrets jealously from all those who would raid his technological secrets.

With this in mind, my two scenarios involve the Munchkins and some allied troops perpetrating such a raid. One game will have the Munchkins attacking the city. The other will have the Munchkins trying to escape the wrath of Nitpik and escape to home. Oh yeah, the robots are in hot pursuit in game number 2.

These two games will necessitate my building and painting more units and more terrain. I will be sharing those efforts here in the next weeks.

To augment the Munchkins’ forces, I decided to add a second Aerostat – and form a true Munchkin Air Force. As I wanted some color differentiation from my previous model – I went with Boston Bruins colors of Black, Gold, and White for the balloon, whole keeping the Munchkin crew in traditional blues. The model is 28mm in scale.

Assembly and Painting the Aerostat

I basically followed the same process as I used on the last model. Having a blog post to review certainly proved useful in that endeavor! First step was not short as the balloon is made of foam. There were some (more than I’d like but fixable) cavitations similar to what you see in resin. I covered all the balloon lines and cavitations with green stuff – and reinforced the structure as you see below.

The basket is metal, and easily glued together. Once again, I used my 1987 matchsticks (that I purchased while stationed in West Germany) to give a more realistic look to the bare metal basket’s underside.

The model comes with wire to attach the basket to the balloon. Once again, I decided to employ a better mounting. A polystyrene and green stuff sandwich with inserted screw eyes worked well before – so I used that again.

I affixed the sandwich to the balloon’s bottom with PVA – letting that dry overnight. I then drilled out though the sandwich (as perpendicularly as possible!) to make a path for the acrylic rod base support. This allowed me to prime and paint easily by using an old paint brush inserted into the balloon on one end and my airbrush cleaning bottle on the other.

As for the base, I used metal support braces, small rocks, and green stuff to secure the acrylic support rod as vertically as possible to a piece of 4″ square polystyrene. Once the green stuff cured, I added pigments and pigment binder to the base.

Then I painted the crew and the basket.

The crew have small tabs under their feet that correspond to little pre-drilled holes in the basket floor. Unfortunately, some of those did not make it off the popsicle sticks – but I was still able to use Gorilla Glue to securely mount them in the basket.

Painting of the balloon itself went fairly easily. I also flocked the base as you see below so that it would be completed before my rigging.

It was then on to rigging with twine – which is my least favorite thing to do with models. I made it work such that the basket was more or less level. Then I coated the twine with PVA, let that dry, then painted over that to make the twine look like rope.

I was done!

Here are some eye candy shots – as it is a model with no front or back – you’ll see a few shots of the total model as well as some crew shots. I did post a video on Instagram as well (a bit bright on the lighting):

View this post on Instagram

Eye Candy

And now some closeups of the crew:

Here now – the Munchkin Air Force assembled and ready to go after Professor Nitpik’s secrets!

And as they will need to travel -to these conventions- matching Really Useful Boxes…

I finished this model right before Christmas. This is my first Wars of Ozz modeling post since April! Wow! More will be coming. I also will have Nitpik forces AND terrain for his apocalyptic world. Come see this and join the fun at COLD WARS, TotalCon 2026, Cold Barrage 2026, HAVOC XL 2026, and Huzzah 2026 “The Revolution”.

I hope you found this interesting – if so (or if not), let me know in the comments section! And join me at a convention or two!

Final Notes and Links

Want to learn more about Ozz and its world? If you want to check out the excellent Wars of Ozz figures’ range, there are two places to get them. You can also get the rules there. (I make no money from this.) The game rules and the figures are available from the next two places:

In the US Old Glory has a site – Wars of Ozz Miniatures.

In the UK go to Sally 4th.

And the new Wars of Ozz Supplement is available as a PDF download from the next two websites:

• Drive thru Cards
• Wargame Vault

Below you’ll see the list of paints and the like that I used on this Aerostat project. As I mentioned, I often use my old blog posts to help me remember what I did – and sometimes even what I should NOT do. Anyways, they are not likely as useful for you as they are for me, but that’s why I post the lists.

Miscellaneous details and references for those interested in that sort of thing:

For my earlier posts on Wars of Ozz games, view this page. It includes figures, units, and other related projects.

PAINTS, INKS, GLAZES, SHADES, WASHES, PIGMENTS, FLOCKING, GLUES AND MORE THAT I USED ON THE BOSTON BRUINS-COLOR THEMED MUNCHKIN AEROSTAT:

1. Polystyrene sheet
2. Gorilla Glue
3. PVA Glue
4. Popsicle sticks
5. Matchsticks
6. Green stuff
7. Small screw eyes
8. Twine
9. Small stones and talus
10. Chinchilla dust
11. Vallejo Mecha Primer “White”
12. Vallejo Mecha Color “Off White”
13. Vallejo Surface Primer “German Green Brown”
14. Vallejo Premium White Primer
15. Vallejo Model Air “Wood”
16. Army Painter Speed Paint 1.0 “Dark Wood”
17. Vallejo Model Color “Black”
18. Army Painter Warpaints Metallic “Gun Metal”
19. Vallejo Model Color “Red Leather”
20. Army Painter Speed Paint 1.0 “Crusader Skin”
21. Citadel “Contrast Medium”
22. Army Painter Speed Paint 1.0 “Pallid Bone”
23. Martha Stewart Crafts “Pale Bronze”
24. Vallejo Model Air “Bright Brass”
25. Citadel Contrast Paint “Imperial Fist”
26. Vallejo Model Color “Light Flesh”
27. Vallejo Game Air “Somber Grey”
28. Vallejo Model Color “Sepia” (wash)
29. Vallejo Mecha Color “Sky Blue”
30. Vallejo Mecha Color “Turquoise”
31. Citadel Contrast Paint “Talassar Blue”
32. Citadel Contrast Paint “Baal Red”
33. Vallejo “Natural Umber” (pigment)
34. Vallejo Pigment Binder
35. Vallejo Mecha Varnish “Matte”
36. Vallejo Thinner
37. Vallejo “Gloss Acrylic Varnish”
38. Gamers Grass “Yellow Flowers” (flocking)
39. Shadow’s Edge Miniatures “6mm Pink Sunset” (flocking)