Dice Hospital is a favourite board game in our house, a work placement game in which you must treat patients until they’re well enough to leave the hospital. As you might infer from the name the patients that you treat are in fact dice. 

When the game, and its expansion Community Care, was launched on Kickstarter naturally there were some additional goodies to tempt backers with. Namely 3D ambulances and a helicopter to replace lesser components in the retail versions of the game. So without further adieu let’s get to painting. 

Ambulances

Before I could get started on the painting however I first needed to remove the stickers that go on the ambulances to number them from one to five. I cleaned up any residue with white spirit before priming the ambulances with Colour Forge Standard Grey.

To get things started I painted the panels with Archive-X Reefer White, an off-white colour with some slight warm tones to it. I used the airbrush for this as it allowed me to build up multiple smooth layers quickly and easily.

I was going for the stereotypical red and white of medical vehicles so I painted the trim with Mephiston Red and on my test model the crosses made of dice on each side of the ambulances. I’m glad that I only did one of the crosses red because I remembered that only actual Red Cross vehicles are allowed to bear the emblem. Seriously, putting a red cross emblem on a non-Red Cross thing is actually against the Geneva Conventions. In hindsight, I should have noticed that all the crosses in the artwork were green. Not wanting to rouse the Swiss to war, I quickly repainted the cross on the test model with a few thin coats of Warpstone Glow, which was then easily extended to the remaining models. 

Crisis averted I moved onto the remaining details such as painting the windows with Thousand Sons Blue, the tyres with Army Painter Matt Black and the tyre rims with Army Painter Speedpaint Broadsword Silver.Next was the various lights on the model. The emergency lights I painted with Temple Guard Blue and Evil Sunz Scarlet, while the running lights I picked out with Yriel Yellow and Troll Slayer Orange. 

I hadn’t intended to do any washes as the models are mostly flat panels but there were some recesses that would benefit from panel lining, namely on the bonnet and around the rear doors. For these I ran a thin line of Liquitex Carbon Black acrylic into the areas. Likewise I picked out the pips on the dice with Liquitex Titanium White acrylic ink. 

The last thing I needed to do was to replace the stickers that I had peeled off at the start. Said stickers had come off in one piece and I probably could have stuck them back on without much fuss but I wanted something a little more permanent. I dug around in my collection of waterslide decals to see if I had anything appropriate. Best thing I could find was a very old Warhammer 40,000 Imperial Guard vehicle transfer sheet. The numbers were very militaristic but they would have to do. I prepared the models by painting a thin coat of gloss varnish onto the bonnets. Once that was completely dry I then cut the decals out of the sheet and soaked them in some clean water. After a minute or so I was then able to slide the decal off the sheet and onto the miniature. I let the decal dry on the model then dabbed each one with a bit of Micro Set, a solvent that will soften the decal slightly. I let it work its magic for a minute before pressing the decal into the model with a wad of damp paper towel. With that done I sealed the decals down with some AK Interactive Ultra Matt Varnish. 

Helicopter

The helicopter model has a detachable rotor for easier storage but it was a little loose fitting. I figured that I could make it a little more secure with the use of magnets, first though I needed to trim the peg for the rotor in order to account for the added magnets. A magnet was then glued to the peg and another inside the rotor being mindful of the polarity. With that done I then primed the model with Colour Forge Standard Grey.

Air ambulances in the UK tend to be either yellow or red, although yellow does seem to be more common. So with that in mind I basecoated the model, leaving the rotor separate for now, with Archive-X Reefer Yellow. It took a few coats but eventually I built up a solid coat. To aid with manufacturing costs, I suspect, there are no gaps in the model between the fuselage and the skids, just solid blocks of plastic. There’s not much you can do about this unless you want to use a dremel to hollow out these areas and risk compromising the structural integrity of the model. Instead I painted the areas with Army Painter Matt Black. 

Moving onto the details I painted the rotors, skids and exhausts with Scale75 Black Metal. I went with a darker metal as something like Thrash Metal would stand out a little too much. Like the land ambulances I painted the medical crosses with Warpstone Glow and the windows with Thousand Sons Blue. The model was looking a little plain so I picked out a few details with Evil Sunz Scarlet. The splash of red really helped to make the model pop. Lastly, I ran a line of Liquitex Carbon Black acrylic ink into the panel lines.