Old Crow Vultures

Old Crow are a small resin model company that I got involved with over the Hammers Slammers Project.

They make a great range of 28ml vehicles. Compared to Forge world, they are simpler, chunkier, much cheaper, and much better finished. Jez machines each part of the resin kit to fit and he uses a non-warp resin. That does mean less detail but the models are great for wargaming as they are tough. A word of warning, machined resin fixes in about one tenth of a second with superglue and the bond is stronger than the resin.

These models are Raven Gunships, which I use as Vultures. The kits cost £20 each.

I have fitted out two. One is a tank buster with a GW Heavy bolter in the chin turret and twin lascannon on the fusalage hardpoints. I hung six GW Imperial Guard hunter Killer missiles under the wings. The tiny missiles on the wingtips (GW Guard rockets) are representative of decoys.

The second gunship has the same gun choices but carries two hellstrike missiles as flak suppressors. The missiles on the wingtips are GX old-style hunter killers from my bit-box. I use them in games when we have air-to-air combat. They count as hunter-killer missiles with an AA mount. They can only be fired at aircraft.

The rules are getting a bit mixed up about what counts as an AA mount on an aircraft. There are three conditions. All three must be met to claim an AA mount.
1. The aircraft must be an air superiority fighter, i.e. small, light, fast and manoeuvrable. That rules out Vultures, which are ground attack aircraft. Ork Fightas and IN Lightnings are fighters.
2. The weapon must be in a fixed, forward-firing mount only.
3. The weapon must be rapid fire, e.g. autocannon or shurikin cannon etc. That rules out lascannon, which are one shot ground attack weapons.

Specialised air-to-air missiles are an exception. They can be fitted to anything. RN sub-hunting Nimrods used to carry sidewinders in case they met a Russian Bear. However, an aircraft that does not meet the fighter criteria, such as a Vulture, fires at BS-1 against true fighters as the latter are more manoeuvrable.


My mate, Sean, kindly made the stands for me.

You can find a link to Old Crow on my sidebar.

I have used these vultures in combat against the Tau. They attracted massive amounts of fire and did not last long.