Chaos Land Raider Spartan.. I wanna make one!

While I've been spending most of my hobby time on my Eldar, I have not forgotten my Chaos Space Marines, my poor down-trodden traitor marines who are the red-headed scorned and neglected step-child of all the power-armor factions, not allowed to have any of the good stuff and having each of their own bits spiked with BS3 or appropriate substitute. Where was I... right!

When leafing through IA:Apocalypse, I noticed how awesome the Spartan Land Raider variant is. Not only does it carry 25 instead of a measly 10, but it also has more hull points and stronger weapons for a mere 3 marines more points. Less awesome is that I have three Citadel plastic land raiders. Two of which I bought as new kits before I understood that they are too expensive for what they do and one that came with a Grey Knights lot that I bought.

Google brought up this thread which has a very nice side-by-side view of the offical Forgeworld Spartan model and a plastic land raider. Very very close indeed. In fact, close enough to just go for using the Spartan rules with the plastic models. However, that wouldn't quite feel right. The rather obvious thing to do is to look at converting up the plastic model.

I figured that the mostly stripped Grey Knight land raider would be the optimal sacrifical test model. I ripped off the roof and the tracks before clamping it between two bits of wood which served as a guide and chopping it in half with a pull-saw meant for woodworking.

Then I took my clippers and scraper to some sprues and trimmed them down to strips. Plastic cement and wedging these in place between the two halves made quite a rigid connection. This picture shows most of them in place, I used a total of four in each corner of the hull.

I trimmed the roof part down to take engine cover and turret rings out. The Spartan tracks are supposed to be higher than the upper hull and overlap a bit, so the position of the proud bits of the roof has to be changed.

Which brings us to plasticard. I got some pieces ready to close the gaps in bottom, sides and roof. There will be additional pieces of trim to make it look less like the chop job it is.

Now I have to build up a ridge between roof and tracks, make tracks that look rough enough for the look, make the shield ridge for the spontoons and get enough laser cannons to make two quad-laser spontoons. Fun times! =]

I decided against the storm ramp that extends past the tracks on the original model because I don't want my variant to get stuck on everything and prefer it to climb over it using it's tracks. ;-]

7th Edition CSM FAQ

When I read and processed the change from 360 degree to 45 degree fire arc, I thought the lamp shade thingie you put on a dog to stop him from licking himself. So I went and took a picture of my heldrakes fixed in the same way. ;-]

Knight WIP Update: Red goes faster

I still need to learn how to apply decals and add some bits to the roof, but he looks much more painted compared to the last silver only state. =D

Grime 'em up!

With my Knight looking way too shiny in just base colours, I decided to try my hand at coating a model with a gloss coat in preparation for shade, the idea being to then wipe the shade off all of the raised areas.

The result isn't great, but isn't horrible either. My guess is that I should have left the gloss coat dry more than the 4 hours I gave it. Noted for the next time.

Magnetising monster bases

I use plastic boxes with sheet metal to move my models, I superglued disc magnets under the bigger bases. That works most of the time, but with bigger bases they do come loose depending on how they are removed from the metal sheet. I figure it's the sheering force that the superglue cannot do much against, so I looked into getting some side-ways support going.

I've tested this now on some flight-bases and I am happy with the the result, so here is what I did. Using the hobby saw, I scored a grove into 2mm thick plasticard stock and marked off sections with a marker.

Using a milk can perforator from the super-market as a center punch and a hobby vise as support, I drilled pilot holes and then 6mm holes for the 6x2mm disc magnets I wanted to use for this model. With rough stuff like this, I have no qualms about using the little power tool, the holes end up bless wobbly than with a hand drill and the little toy's RPM is low enough to avoid thermal problems.

Next, I used clippers to weaken the line between the sections and then broke them apart. I also clipped off a corner of each section.

Using plastic cement, I stuck a section into each corner and clamped them with the paper-clips. A quarter hour later, I superglued the magnets in place.

This should hold nicely. ;-]

Two drakes done!

After what felt about three times as many hours as it actually took to do the blacklining, The two replacements for my first drake are finally done.

Shown here following my second fire-drake, banking left as they all do. I gotta collect my first heldrake for a shot of the four of them, but the three will have to do for now.

Heldrake reinforcements

Last year I did my first heldrake in blue and silver, then my second in red, orange, yellow and black. For an Apocalypse game I made another one of these.

Then I had a request for a Tzeench drake - ergo blue with gold trim. The deal I offered was two kits for one painted drake. So I painted a few shades of gold over the silver trim of my blue and sliver drake. Here is a picture that I took before handing that model off to its new owner.

For quite a while, the two new drakes sat in their boxes unopened, but I've recently been clipping, demolding and partially assembling them. Now that my airbrush is back in play, I hit them with primer and will fire them up now. Here a WIP picture.

Since the flame effect takes multiple steps, it is a time saver to do all parts for each step and helps with consistency. That being said, it's time for the red coat to go on and orange and yellow are already itching in their Vallejo dropper bottles. Black for the lines isn't as enthusiastic, but I'm sure with the right TV show running that too will pass! =]

PS: Several hours later, the flame effect is done, the black metal is painted. Chest and eye glow to go, as well as the black lines. I didn't paint the whole time, maybe 5-6 hours ;-]

Edit: Progressing through the edge-lining.

Imperial Knight WIP 2

I had not touched the knight for a while. As my Defiler conversion showed, I kinda like big robots, but chaos being denied knight allies against the fluff is a bitter pill to swallow.

Regardless, I took my new tool, a Noga demolding scraper and went for the kit.

Like with othe kits, I wanted to keep some things flexible and use magnets. My weapon choice is the melta, I didnt bother with making the magazines exchangable. I did however put magnets in the shoulders, elbows,  head, neckplate, stubber, shield, weapon barrels and of course the hips.

I extensively used plasticard to beef up the thickness of parts for mounting magnets. You can see all the white bits in the picture below. I will eventually glue the two remaining arm/weapon joints and their pistons. The armour plates will be glued on strategically after painting.

Iyanden update

Since I learn faster than I can finish an army, I decided to just finish the models to a common standard and give them a common look to tie them together. I got all models based and painted up the rangers and reavers. Also, I finally removed the hairbands holding the upper shell on the serpents. I didn't quite want to glue it, but poster tac came to the rescue. Holds really solid when squezzed between the parts. ;-]

Poppy fields

I picked up some plastic poppies from the model train store today. Boy are those petals small! After some fiddling with tweezers and puddles of plastic cement, they were assembled.

To get a - hopefully - good bond with the base, I punched holes into them with my trusty milk can puncturer and glued the stems in there.

I'll let the result settle in a bit and look at it in daylight tomorrow. At most I'll add a bit more green or more poppies to each base. My aim isn't a happy field like on the packs in the back, but individual flowers showing life and hope in the otherwise dead and barren base. 

Considering that the models are yellow, blue and white, using poppies with their green and red on the grey rubble bases seems a good idea. Also, the poppy as the flower of wartime rembrance is fitting for the Iyanden wraith-warhost being a shadow of the craftworld's former glory.