Wednesday 27 November 2013

Cypher Conversion, Company Commander & Chapter Commander

I made mention yesterday of the bits and pieces used in various conversions of Cypher that I'd made. Today money where my mouth is time. First the Cypher conversion that I'm running as a Veteran Sgt with the relic chainsword, bolt pistol and mk 3 power pack. Next up is my Company Commander most of it is a Destroyer with a Chaos plasma pistol and Destroyer bolt pistol, the straight mag on this is very close to the mag on Cyphers bolt pistol. Next up is my counts as Azriel, this is made, if memory servers me correctly, from a spare pair of Terminator legs you get in the DA Vets box, a Space Wolf torso ( the teeth aren't teeth on this one but represent the Fallen taken by The Lions Blades) the sword is my first attempt at a Sovnya made from an eldar sword and a small pole taken from a banner possibly, the plasma pistol arm is from Cypher as is the back pack, the head is from the DA Veterans box. I've chosen not to go with the helmet barer but going for the mantel of the Lion I thought I'd go with the cloak off the Chaos Terminator, to denote rank, even though that's something DA don't really go in for, I found a horse hair crest and stuck it on the cloak and I'm calling it The Mantel Of The Lion. This might get used as a Mantel of Heros at some point.

Tuesday 26 November 2013

Made The Choice

When I posted last week with my 3 Cyphers I asked about which power pack to go with turns out I'd forgot one, an option I hadn't thought of at the time. I made a new Commander from bits bought off ebay a while ago and my Chapter Commander already has a Cypher pack which  I had forgotten about. So the Commander came out of the box and his Mk3 pack taken off and added to the Cypher Conversion, I took the Cypher pack off the Cypher and put that on my Captain and gave the mk3 to the Cypher, job done simple conversion complete and 2 good looking and indiviual minis added to my army.

Sunday 24 November 2013

Dr Who 50 Years Special Spoilers

Now I know not everyone is a Dr Who fan but if you do come across this blog then I'm fairly sure you have a passing interest or more in sci fi in general and any show marking 50 years is an achivement. So on Saturday I got paid to watch Dr Who, and again today as well, bit of a marathon shift I'm on as I finish at 4pm tomorrow after starting at 2.30 on Saturday. So got paid to watch Dr Who and have been wondering how are(if they want to that is) the BBC can carry on Dr. Who after Peter Capaldie decides to move on; in the show all 13 Doctors show up and move Gallifrey out of the line of fire, trapping the planet and The Time Lords in a moment out of time and let the Darleks shoot themselves to death. So how does the work around work? Russel T Davis has already brought a Time Lord back with The Master, The Time Lord High Command resureceted him to fight in the Time War thinking he'd be a great fighter but he ran away to the end of time and hid himself by becoming Human because he was terrified. So with Gallifrey trapped in a pocket universe Capaldie's Doctor finds it and pulls it back into the normal space time universe but at great personal cost, the last Doctor dies to return Gallifrey to the stars but as a greatful Gallifrey can they bring hom back to life briefly(as seen in the Night of the Doctor short film where we see Paul MaGanns Doctor regenerate into John Hurts War Doctor) and grant the Doctor another 13 lives. Please comment with your thoughts on this.

Saturday 23 November 2013

Lord Cypher and 2 Conversions

I currently have 3 of these brilliant models, hard to believe that this is a 3rd ed mini. Of the 3 one is as Cypher for the Fallern, I use the rules for Dark Apostle for him as that seems to fit closest to how Cypher feels for me in the Chaos Marine Codex. The other 2 are both Sgts, one in Tactical Squad 6, my senior Tactical Squad and the latest addition is a Sarge in my Veteran Assault Squad. Yes I do keep my eye out on ebay for more Cyphers, I'm thinking of putting them in as Sgts for all squads (long term blue sky plan), so look for more of these posts in future. I like Cypher as a mini and as a Character, I like the hints that may well be loyal to the Throne but not to The Imperium and is willing to use Chaos against itself. In every warzone he goes to faith and loyalty are stronger after the war than before. This may also be part of the reason I like to play Dark Angels.

Photos- Cypher as you get him out of the blister pack
Cypher Conversion 1 alternate arms, guns and power pack
Painted 2nd Cypher Conversion took this one and asked for advice on power packs And all 3 of my Cyphers together

Friday 22 November 2013

Quick One, I'M ON A TRAIN!

Did a little bit of work on my latest Cypher conversion last night, just magnetised the arms. I will be posting this picture up in the Facebook DA group I'm in asking for some advice about which power pack looks best, if you care to leave a comment with your suggestion, just keep it clean.

Thursday 21 November 2013

WIP This Week

Had a few hours yesterday to do something, I didn't touch either of my big projects as, frankly I couldn't build up the steam to start them. I pulled up out my secret draw with the Terminator army in and boxed up the spare marines for the Knights of Blood/Carchasons army and found that when I'd glued the the hull of the Venerable Dreadnought onto the legs the wrong way round, I'll be trying to ease this apart over the weekend to get it the right way round and start painting it red again. So yesterday all I did do was start painting another Cypher up, this one is going into my Veteran Assault squad, I went through the squad and pulled out the one I liked the least and swopped the weapons around to get the best looking one onto this guy, I also got the metal Librarian Terminator armour out and painted both legs black and the arms Wazzdakka Red with a Nuln Oil wash and then dry brushed the arms with the scarlet red.

Saturday 16 November 2013

Remagnetised The Titan

The first batch of magnets arrived yesterday, but as I was taking this week of thing seriously yesterday all I did was nap in the afternoon and drink pear cider in the evening and watch Marval Agents Of Shield. So this morning I got the Titan into the kitchen and stripped the small magnets off the pelvis and shell and fitted a couple of the rectanglular and 2 to the chopped up Rhino chassis. The magnets on the cockpit are set at an angle with green stuff and the opposite magnets have been glued to the shell. While I was out in the week I picked up a couple of sheets of plasticard and some more superglue but this glue is rather fluid, so I bought some of the gel glue today to use instead but so far I haven't broken it out of the packet. The plasticard is going on the Rhino to hide the horribul job I did of getting the tracked sections off, which I'm starting tomorrow as Empire Strikes Back is about to start now and then I really need to start tea for me and the kids, Linda MaCartneys Buffalo Burgers and sweet potato chips (fries for the American readers).

Wednesday 13 November 2013

Mastodon Latest WIP

Few days off work and I'm already moving on with this build, used up the last of my super glue last night sticking the back plate and sides to the base and used some of the green stuff to fill the gaps where the fit is less than perfect (all of them). After gluing the angled plate I'd fitted on roughly was massivly undersized so I flipped that and put it underneath as a brace where the body mates with the head, that was last night. This morning I cut a new angle plate and then started to finess myself a top deck. For this one I actually got the tape measure out and did some vaugely accurate measurments, but my cutting was a touch up. So with some remedial trimming and gently knife work to trim out the foam but leave the plastic coat I got the top deck on. As it stands now I can fit 10 marines on there, but I still need to fit a casment around the top to give the riders cover.

Bottom photo; while out working yesterday I saw this lego kit, the Mandolorian Speeder, had to double check but if you squint you could pass this off as a Forge World Javlin  Land Speeder I think, and half the price.

Monday 11 November 2013

Genesis of Project Titan

A big thanks to Warhammer Proxies for these 2 pics, the Italian conversion group I joined after getting an invite.
These 2 photos show the first 2 large scale Titans built by Tony Cotteral. As you can make out he's used half the shell over the cockpit of the ATST, where as my more modern ATST has a head that can be removed which has meant that I've kind of altered the design by using the full shell and I couldn't find what kit had been used to make the cockpit, so I used the Rhino. On my weapons I'm now planning on making a couple of guns, the Vulcan Mega Bolter and Turbo Laser for starters.
The 2nd model is the Saber Tank Destroyer, this was made from the bits left over from the orginal Spartan conversion that used half the Rhino hull on a Land Raider chassis, this kit used the Land Raider hull on the Rhino chassis with, I think, a pen as a gun barrel. Yes I am thinking of making of making this, I'll be looking to get an old Rhino hull and some small bore pipe to make the cannon. Will be on ebay after I finish this post to check out an old Rhino for this conversion.

Wednesday 6 November 2013

Just Waving At The Moment.

Could the next Star Wars Triology end up more like High School Musical IN SPACE!!!!! I watch BBC Breakfast in the morning as I find it's the least annoying breakfast TV programme, and I like how they do the weather, I also like Star Wars, I love the first 3 films, they are the first films I remember seeing at the cinema (Empire may have been the first film I saw in a cinema or it could be Flash Gordon, it's been about 35 years). Now how do BBC Breakfast and Star Wars even get into a blog post?
Well I was watching it this morning when Charlie and Susanna made an announcement about an open casting call for Star Wars, the priducers are looking for (1) a street smart & strong orphaned girl in her late teens and a smart capable man in his late teens or early 20's. While like most things I'm going to resever judgement on the finished projects till I can see footage, that casting spec does not fill me with a warm and fuzzy feeling.

Good Week For Working

Not so good for time on the hobby, 49 hours and 6 straight days. Plan is to get down to Granthams to get hold of some foam card to start the Mastodon body.
Other plans.
I had always intended to sell the Mastodon and keep the Titan  but now I'm thinking of selling the Titan and keeping the Mastodon and add a couple more as Company Transports for The Lions Blades or maybe selling both and using the cash to make the 3  Mastodons I'm planning on. Beyond that and using those 3 to get used to messing around with foam card and plasticard I'm thinking of possible starting to sell them. I know I'd not be able to use the GW bits if I was to sell them on so I'd have to make tracks, turret and the rest out of foam and plasticard with enough divergence from GW to get away with it and also use a different name as I'm fairly sure Mastodon will be a registered name, that bit is easy as I've already looked up the evolution of the Elephant and it's family tree and seen a couple of branches that died out that I might use the names of.
So on my day off I got on with cutting up the foam board to make the body of Mastodon. I started off with a base and made it a bit too long, along with the sides, it took some work to at first and it wasn't a looker, with the Russ tracks on the front it was not good. I flipped the tracks around and found that they looked better that way than I had thought but the extra weight kept pulling the body apart and with the with the look of body I thought I'd chop it down a bit, I orginally thought to cut 2 inches/50mm out of the body, but going with the baby steps idea I thought it better to cut half of what I wanted to out as I can always cut more off, but if I cut too much out it would have been a waste and I'd have to start again with another sheet of foam board. After the cutting I spent a bit of time finessing plates and getting them to fit. With the heavier tracks on the back I was only able to stand them next to the back for the photo but I think it looks better like this.

Saturday 2 November 2013

Playing With Power Tools

So I borrowed a Dremmel off a mate of mine last night and had some fun today, Saturday, cutting up the Rhino and the turret mount for the Leman Russ. I started on the Rhino cutting into what had been the front plate. I got to work on the cut outs with my file tiding up the cut outs, I realised that I hadn't taken into account the brace that the head had fitted to so I got the Dremmel out again and cut down a slit so that the hull actually angels downwards. I spent some more time playing with file to get a good fit. I'm now waiting on the magnets to arrive from Hong Kong to fit the hull to the shell properly. While talking to my mate last night we got onto to the weapons I'm getting, I was planning on getting the guns from Forge World but my mate suggested that they'll be over balanced as the mounts are near the back, if I make them I can have the fittings more central and get the guns back ends to help counter balance the forward weight of the head. Onto the Mastodon; I wanted a turret on it and am using the Leman Russ for this, as I think that this rather than a super heavy gun is more in keeping with the transport role of the Mastodon, a Baneblade type weapon while an option would take up way too much space and while I see a Big Fracking Gun version being made ( 4th up as I intend to sell the first on ebay to to pay for bits to make the next 3. This one will have a smaller transport capacity of say 15 with maybe an Earth Shaker Cannon mounted on the back to act as a Command Version which was a suggestion from someone in the Imperial Guard group I'm in on Facebook, the Command Squad and maybe the an elite squad or 2 to act as bodyguards will be transported in this one. So I started off by fitting the turret plate on the ATST the wrong way round. To get a better fit I cut off the flat end plate. This looked okay but needed a bit of finessing, now finess is an alien concept to someone who lived by by the ethos the only 4 tools you'll ever need are WD40, Duct Tape, The Chisle Of Ignorance and The Lump Hammer Of Brute Force and I cut more off than I intended to. Luckly glue, green stuff and a coat of paint should hide that little mess. After fitting it to the top of the ATST it looked bad, so I turned it round and had the "crew hatch" at the back, this also helps to hide the extra cut I made by mistake. The turret looks good on it this way round, and I look forward to getting foam card this week to make the body of the Mastodon and the weapon arms on the Titan. I think I'll be adding some magnets to these to help hold the weight of the weapons and not just hope that the rubber nut from the Zoid will hold it on.