Landspeeder Magnetized & Assembled

Finally got my Landspeeder all magnetized and put together... most often, I plan to field it as a Typhoon, but for flexibility (and because I love magnets) I decided to magnetize the Typhoon launchers and the Tornado-mount assault cannon.





In these two pics you can see the magnets in the access-flappies (for the Typhoon launchers) and a smaller magnet in the front "compartment" for the Tornado mount. The third picture shows the metal pins I put into the Typhoon launchers to make them stick to the magnets behind the access hatches. Also note the purple stripes on the crew's helmets; different than the red stripes normally sported by my Marines, because these chaps are Tactical Reserves from the 7th Company, who normally take to the field in Landspeeders to provide light vehicle support for the Chapter's Battle Companies.



The fully assembled speeder with all its options laid out in front of it. I decided not to magnetize the heavy bolter as my army has pretty adequate anti-tank provided by other units; so I felt the multimelta wasn't necessary.



Here it is as a Tornado with underslung assault cannon.



Here, as a Typhoon with the eponymous missile launchers.



To prove that it's the same model, all the options stuck on at once.
That's all for now, upcoming are pics of my all-plastic scratchbuilt Chaplain, as well as my second painted tactical squad and my scouts with fedoras.

Yes, I said fedoras.

New Flamers for the Vigilanti

So I was recently reviewing the ranks of the 219th Vigilanti Honour Guard (the fully painted mongrel Imperial Guard army I picked up secondhand from a family friend) and organizing them into a codex-legal army in their own right. End result, I need to build 4 sergeants for the infantry squads, a full command squad to lead the 2nd platoon, and a standard bearer and medic for Capt. Tellap's company command squad.

I also noticed the classic flamers that two of the special weapon troopers in the infantry squads were armed with. While I do bear a hefty amount of respect for classic models (especially the metal Cadians), I'm not a fan of the old-style flamers and they had to go. Don't worry though, I kept one un-converted for archival purposes.



This shot shows the archival trooper on the left, and on the right, the flame-trooper prepped for conversion; I've trimmed and filed away the conical flamer nozzle, and cut the nozzle and pipes off of a plasic Catachan flamer.



As this pic shows, it's pretty much a perfect fit!



All that was left to do was drill holes in the larger pipe and the main bit of the flamer, and pin them together. The pic above is the finished flame-trooper. Job's a good'un! I have one more of these guys to do, and many Revilers still to paint, so pics of those are upcoming. In other news, I'm still waiting on a bitz shipment from Nebraska, so work on the supplementary Vigilanti and the entirety of the 524th Aeshaettar is on hold until then.

Heavy Weapon Team Bases - Step by Step

With the advent of the new Imperial Guard codex, Heavy Weapon teams are now a single two-wound model mounted on a 60mm round base. Since the standard giant tripod-mounted heavy weapons don't really fit in with the "light infantry" theme of my 157th Aeshaettar, I plan to convert man-portable versions from Space Marine Devastator heavy weapons. This means that my gunners and loaders can both be mounted on 25mm bases for ease of storage and transport. But how, then, would I mount them on a 60mm base to make them codex-legal?
Using this:




It's an Infantry movement tray for War of the Ring... with conveniently shaped depressions for infantry based on 25mm bases. Since I only need 2 models to fit on each base, I cut the movement tray into conveniently sized sections. Like so:






I then trimmed it to fit within the perimeter of a 60mm round base, and cut a corresponding hole in the base.






The section of movement tray was then glued into the middle. I'll fill any unsightly gaps with greenstuff later.



A view from the side... it's perfectly flat, so my support troopers will stand at the same height as my other Guardsmen.



And finally, for illustrative purposes, two of my Revilers pretending to be a Heavy Weapons team. This shows how the models fit into the tray, allowing me to remove them for transport or remove the loader to track wounds.



Now I just have to make 14 more.

A General Update

Well, the painting-tactical-marines over March Break didn't work out, and neither will the tournament on the 11th; I've got a driving lesson that morning. :P

But, in other news:

• I've got almost one and a half tactical squads painted up - will post pics soon!
• My metric assload of Imperial Guard bitz is on the way from Bitkingdom.
• My regiment has been renumbered... again... they are now the 524th Aeshaettar Light Infantry (this may help them fit in chronologically with the "famed 501st") - I think 524 is more visually pleasing than 154, and translates better, IMO, to Roman numerals (DXXIV)
• The Short Talons are officially bringing a table to Games Day Toronto 2009! What this means for me is I won't have to spring for a ticket, and get to pick up some of the shiny new IG Command Squad boxes at a 30% discount!

That's all for now. Pictures of my Space Marines are imminent.

Oooh, A Deadline!

Well... here I am, setting myself a goal.

There is a HoH 40k tournament at the local Bunker on April 11th... that's 47 days from now. I would like to bring my Revilers 3rd Co. to the tourney; this means I have lots of painting to do! Proposed army list looks like this:

• Librarian: Gate of Infinity and some other power
• Tactical Squad 1 (10 Marines): plasma gun, missile launcher, power weapon, meltabombs
• Tactical Squad 2 (10 Marines): flamer, missile launcher, powerfist
• Scout Squad (5 Scouts): heavy bolter, power weapon
• Sternguard Veterans (5 Veterans): powerfist
• Devastator Squad (6 Marines): 2 lascannons, 2 plasma cannons

At the moment I have about 90% of my first tac squad painted, and my Librarian is partly painted. The Sternguard are done, however. So I've got to finish the partially painted models, and paint my Scouts, second tac squad, and Devastators. 47 days... I'll post regularlish updates.