Project: Heavy Arms Rebuild #3

So, I encountered my first real 'oops' moment for this project: The chest. Or rather the covers for the chest cavity. The larger gatling cannon barrels I inserted sit just higher enough compared to the original part that it very very slightly interfered with the panels staying closed by their original design mechanism. Well I used a trick from my warhammer projects to rectify this problem: Magnets!

Yep, I counter sunk 2 pairs of magnets on the sides of the panels. these magnets are quite strong enough to keep the chest panels closed, but not so strong as to be a hindrance to opening the panels if I so choose. I used kneaditite modeling putty to secure the magnets and then used super glue to adhere them in place against the panel sides.

I also got a layer of paint down on the shoulder cannons. This is the same "Dark sea grey" I used on the Wing Gundam Buster rifle. I still need to come back and pick out the cannon barrels.

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A Son of Titan

So I'm working on a new project. Yes yes yes, my ADHD is kicking in of late. In the last week I've done an Eldar Phoenix Lord Conversion, was working on painting a DeathWatch detachment while converting a DeathWatch dreadnought, and painted a unit of Ultramarine Terminators after converting them from the Dark Vengeance set. So yeah, it's not stopping today.

A while back I was checking out MiniWar Gaming's Painting a Grey Knight Dreadnight video, and I liked what they did with the base so I tried my hand at a similar base.

And then I started working on the actual Dread Knight. And of course I can't leave it at that.

I wanted to make the weapons swappable. So I turned to magnets once again. I had to be very very careful when drilling out the space for the magnets because the magnet itself is only slightly smaller then the shaft of the hands. if I drilled too far off center I would have ruined the piece. Not something I wanted to do.

In order to mount a magnet in the arm itself I had to get a bit creative as there's just an empty space in the arm. So what did I do? Added some green stuff.

I used a mass of Green stuff in the lower arm and then pressed the 2nd half of the arm into place till fill the void. Once the Green Stuff cured I went in and drilled a space for the accompanying magnets.

Now I have to wait for the Virginia weather to figure out what season it wants to give us before I can prime the model. You know, having snow coming down makes it a bit of a challenge to prime.

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More speed!

So I've been working on a new attack bike squad for my Blood Ravens. From what I've been looking at rules wise, I think Biker armies are gonna be the default go-to army for 6th edition. Hammer of Wraith, T5 all the time, a 12" move with an extra D6 charge range, relentless. I mean let's face it bikers got a lot going for 'em now.

So here is my new and freshly converted  attack bike squad:

So I'm sure you're sitting there saying "Wait a second, you said they were converted. And that they were attack bikes. Yeah the one dude's got the scanner array backpack, but what's actually converted? And why aren't they attack bikes?"

Well, I guess I used the wrong word. I think I would have been better off saying they are transformable as opposed to converted. Allow me to show you what I mean. Here is the same bike squad with different bitz:

You can see the two forward most bikers are now armed with a melta gun and plasma gun.  Here is another change:

I magnatized them so I can swap the configurations between Biker and attack bike. With the addition of magnets in the right shoulder, the models are able to swap arms so they can be armed with different weapons. By putting magnets in select locations in the under carraige of the bike and matching points on the side car I can attach and detach the side car as needed.

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We are the Blood Ravens!

A good while back I was playing Dawn of War II and I had become inspired to begin work on a Blood Ravens army. Well they had sat on the back burner for far too long and with my funds effectively stopped, following my recent medical bills, they came out of the case and got some paint on some of them. Here are two of the bikers that I got painted the other day.

First up we have the Captain on a bike:

Blood Ravens Captain on a bike with a relic blade

Model wise he's a fairly straight forward conversion. Grey Knight helmet and great sword in right hand. The sword hand was attached to a converted rifle holding arm that I cut below the shoulder and repositioned it to be held outward. A couple other little bits add to the seniority of the model like the Raven Guard faring on the front of the model. The base is one point I would like to reference though. It comes from Dragon Forge Studios and I highly HIGHLY recommend their bases. I swear by them.

Next we have the sergent for the squad:

Blood Ravens biker Sergent with Power sword

I installed a magnet in the sergeants' left shoulder to allow him to use different weapons. This is going to be compatible with my other magnetized models in the army, allowing them to swap weapons as I see fit.

Equipped with a bionic arm and chainsword.

Equipped with a chainsword

 

 

Armed with one power fist

armed with an alternate power fist

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The work continues

So my progress on the Thunderbolt continues, but is somewhat halted. I need to order more molding compound. I didn't like how the first mold of the engine came out so I tried to make a better mold. While I managed to do that, I used more mold compound then I had previously planned on. So I need to order more. Otherwise I can't make the mold for the left wing and lets face it, a one-winged Thunderbolt is going to fly a whole lot worse then a two-winged version. However, I'm doubly delayed on that front because I just had to drop about $700 on a bit of a health problem. End result is nothing serious but I'm lucky I caught it when I did otherwise the doctors were concerned I'd be risking blindness in my right eye. No telling how much being blind in one eye would have slowed down my hobbying. So it will be a couple weeks till I can order more mold compound.

But that doesn't stop me from working with what I already have on hand. As previously stated I intend to use magnets in my final build to allow me to drop bombs, remove hell fire missiles and swap out fuel pods as I see fit. Well I managed to cast up one wing with magnets in it. Here's a video showing the magnets in action:

Right now it's using a single bar magnet in each pylon. The bar is magnetixed through the long axis. meaning if you look at the bar like this:

Magnet bar ===>  =============
Then the poles of the magnet are on the ends of the bar, like so:
Magnet bar ===>  =============

While this works it feels a bit flimsy and I think will put too strain on my efforts to build an alignment system into the missiles and pods. Also any alignment system I do build will be based on absolute placement of the magnets in both pieces, meaning if the magnet in the pylon is placed exactly 5.4mm from the back side of the pylon then accompanying magnet in the pylon, missile and fuel pod must also be exactly5.4mm from the back edge of the alignment system. An exacting measurement that is extremely difficult to accomplish. So what am I going to do about this? Well I think I'm going to get bar magnets that are magnetized along the long side rather then on the ends. That way it will be largely self aligning.

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Some more speed and some 'Ooomph!'

So I've finished building some extra goodies for my Blood Ravens.

 A Land Raider Redeemer/Crusader and Captain on a bike.  I've been experimenting with Army lists and I've been gravitating toward bike heavy lists of late. But the thought of 18 bikes backed by 6 Attack bikes running point for a Land Raider... lets just say I like that particular image.

As a means to save some cash, and with the price of a Land Raider kit at $75 I need that, I used a rather liberal application of magnets to the kit to allow me to swap the model between a Crusader or a Redeemer. I even added magnets to the sponson mounts to allow me to swap the crusader/redeemer mounts for normal Land Raider mounts should I get those parts.

As an extra addition to my forces I converted a captain on a bike with a relic blade. Off the top of my head I'm very tempted to  run him as a counts as Kossaro Khan. Have to admit, the idea of having my entire army with the ability to out flank... oh... so very tempting.

I took a Dark Angles Raven Wing icon, cut it half, removed the sword and used the wings to bracket the sides of the forward wheel guard. I also added the least Dark Angely fearings I could. I intend to paint these parts in the colors of the Blood Ravens icons to help tie it together.

I mad a banner by cutting a triangle of plasticard and heating it in boiling water a bit so that it would become pliable.

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Adding a little speed to my forces

So with the net practically hopping about the upcoming 6th Edition I'm still learning the game in general. I know that's an odd sounding thing to hear from someone like me who's been involved in the hobby for going on twenty years. But it's true. In the previous 19 years of my involvement in the hobby I've played perhaps a dozen games spread across 4 editions. It has only been in the last few months that I've really gotten into playing the game. I am still a very dedicated converter, and that will likely never change.

But I am playing more games now. Presently I'm building a Blood Ravens army. I've got a fairly solid and variable 1,000 point list with enough units I can swap in and out to experiment with different configurations. Today I add a new unit: Space Marine bikers!

 Right now I've got 5 bikers built. One is a sergeant and one has inter-changeable assault weapons. In both the sergeant and the assault weapons, the ability to swap out weapons is made possible by the application of rare earth magnets in the shoulder of the torso and the shoulder of the arm itself.

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