Monday, April 22, 2013

Go team Helbrute!

So I had a crazy thought a few days ago, about building a bunch of HelBrutes but each converted for the different weapon load outs. There's considerable challenge in this approach, because I wanted to make the conversions from the actual HelBrute model. IE the one out of the Dark Vengeance starter set. Now I will absolutely admit that the HelBrute model is a really great model, as far as snapfit models go. It's got a lot of great details to it, but it's fairly static. There's just not much the model is designed to do. And by 'not much' I mean nothing. The model is designed to be what it is and nothing else.  But then again there in lies the challenge.

So I posted my idea on Bolterandchainsword.com and got a couple responses from folks who were join me on the idea. So I've been working on my HelBrute, armed with twin-power fists with flamers.
The Helbrute with LED installed in the left power fist
 Now myself being who I am it's not like I can JUST build a HelBrute with two power fists and call it a day. No no no. I have to push myself and add something to make it even more challenging. In this case it's electronics. In this case lights. I want to install an led in the palm of each fist and then another LED in the check so that there will be a red glow around the head.
the LED in the left fist
The real challenge so far has been taking the left handed power fist and converting it to a right handed.
converting a left handed powerfirst into a right handed one.






Monday, April 08, 2013

Thank you Virginia!

Okay, it seems like Virginia has FINALLY decided to give us spring time whether and with that has come temperatures that permit priming. Now I know this is going to sound a bit odd in relation to my most recent post where I said I'm largely done with Games Workshop products, but I still have a sizable stockpile of 40k miniatures waiting on my shelves to be painted. Many of them have already been built and I do intend to still play from time to time. So that's what I've been doing today, working on my ready stocks:


In this case I'm working on a drop pod and 3 land speeders. You can see the lower frames of the land speeders mounted on the tooth picks with the central computer console for the drop pod on the corner of the Styrofoam block. I only partially assembled the land speeders and mounted them on tooth pick this way purposefully to make painting them easier. Easier in that I can get at the interior details and then assemble. You can see the legs of the marines have been painted all the way down to the ankles.
I ran into one little hickup with the land speeders though and it is a minor one, though worth noting. See I got 2 single Land Speeders, and the Dark Angles Raven Wing battalion box set to get the third. Well the Land Speeder in the Raven Wing box is the older design of land speeders so I've effectively got two different models. It's not a huge problem, but it has created a few minor planning issues. For instance the newer version of the land speeder allows you to build the lower section of the entire Speeder body and then apply the top of the body to that. if you look at the land speeder body on the right you see how the seat backs are attached to the bottom of the speeder, but on the left the seat backs are attached to the top portion. Like I said, not a huge problem just an annoyance.

So far I've only managed to paint the central console on for the drop pod. Nothing terribly note worthy here. But worth the picture.


Now one other thing I've started working on, a new game. Does anyone know the Mobile suit Gundam franchise? Specifically the segment known as the "Universal Century" time line? Well if not here's the brief break down: Mankind has begun to colonize space with the use of space colonies. But after nearly 80 years one group of colonies have declared Independence and launched a war against the Earth Federation. Initially the Space colony had the advantage with the advent of mechanized war machines known as mobile suits but ultimately the Earth Federation caught up and developed their own Mobile suits. That war last about a year and the following series explored the fall out from that war.

Well I'm a big Gundam fan and I was watching the series 08th MS team the other day and it got my mind rolling about the idea of a table top strategy game based on that. Meaning you get a team of between 3 and 7 pilots, outfit them with your selected mobile suit, and then equip the suit with the various weapons and then you and your opponent each attempt to achieve your respective objectives. I figure you can use the 1/144 scale models to represent your mobile suit teams. it'd be a notable investment to get a basic team up and running, but $100 for a medium sized team seems almost non-existent when compared to hundreds of dollars you'd spend getting a 1500 point Space Marine army together.

I don't want to make it a Gundam version of 40k, I intend to make it a bit more complicated than that, but not up to the level of an RPG. Right now it's all in the conceptual stages and the only thing I've managed to accomplish so far is compiling a list of weapons from the first couple series with some rough notes about concepts and ideas that would apply to those weapons.



Friday, April 05, 2013

Things are changing.

Okay, so GW has made a radical change to it's trade partner policies. I won't go into details about what the changes are. There are any number of discussions out there about them. I'm not going to get into discussions about the pros and cones about them. If you haven't heard about them, I suggest you check the MiniWarGamming response video to them.

What does this mean for me? Well it means GW products are basically not my first go-to option for modeling any longer. I'm sorry but the closest options for brick and mortar stores for me are 40 minutes north (2 hours if traffic is even moderately bad) and an hour and ten minutes south of me. I'm sorry. If GW is going to cut out 2/3 of their product line from the non-Gw stores and thus limit me to only online purchasing of them, then I'm going to move on.

So in the coming weeks I'll be looking into other games systems and see what I like. If anyone has any suggestions feel free to post some suggestions in the comments section. I will be upfront and tell you all that I'm not very inclined toward the gaming part of the hobby and am much more inclined toward modeling so the actual models that the company in question produces will be of much greater interest to me then the quality of the rules or gaming systems.