Yet another Hydra Conversion

With 6 Ed around the corner and flyers figuring to be a big factor,I've finally decided to take a crack at a Hydra conversion.  Of course, there's no way that I'm going to take the easy route of just slapping a Aegis defense line gun, pedestal and all, onto a chimera -- it just looks wrong.

  Originally, I had planned to do a Half-track along the lines of my Manticore.  However, other folks have already gone there, and done it quite well so I'm going to take a different tack.  A ZSU-23-4 is an obvious choice, but the turret is a bit too modern looking to fit in next to my Medusas, the Ragnarok, and the Manticore.

Searching the list of Russian WW II vehicles, I find the ZSU-37, which has the right sort of aesthetics;  with a bit of modification to the front of the turret, the quad autocannon from the Aegis Defense Line should fit nicely.

Or the ZSU-37-2 for that matter:

In the end I opted for the ZSU-37-2.  First I created the following templates, I left them on the original drawing to illustrate the process

Here's the basic turret, flooring installed in case I decide to make the interior visible,  The magnet on the rear holds a radar dish from the Apocalypse command sprue in place.

 I cut down the pedestal for the guns to fit the space, some what trial and error.

 For the chassis, I obtained a basic chimera chassis from The War Store,  I built in the ability to slide an insert into the chassis.

The turret will mount to this box, with a Razorback top hatch.   I use a 25 mm base glued to the bottom of the turret as the pivot  

Still need to add some details to the turret, but here's the general idea:

Off with their heads?

I really like the way that my Storm Trooper conversions turned out, with one exception -- using the same head and very similar coloring to my Great Coat troopers, the melta-gunners are frequently going AWOL in the infantry platoon.   I also feel the need to give the ST's a slightly more armored look beyond the leg armor.  Solution?  Instead of the Pig Iron Militia Winter heads, use the Covered Helmet heads.  Side by side after the break

Tale of 4(ish) Gamers

 My FLGS is running a "Tale of 4(ish) Gamers"... The (ish) is because we actually have about 8 folks signed up to do Fantasy, and exactly 4 to do 40K.  I signed up to fill out the 40K side since we were short one gamer.  Not really wanting (or needing) to invest a bunch of money in new models, especially when I have too many un-built models around the house, I decided to go with Grey Knights.

Fortunately, I already have a couple of un-built Razorbacks, a Storm Raven, about 16  of the old metal GK Termies and 12 or so metal PAGK's lying around.

New 40K Flyers -- My take

 So the new flyers are officially out (or will be soon) So I just wanted to give my take.
I think it's worth noting that the rules for the new models for the Ork and Space Marines are listed as a Codex Update -- could this be the way of the future for introducing new toys to the Codices?  Hope so.

 
I Think that the Ork flyers are pitch perfect.  They fit right in with the current Forge World models like the Fighta-Bomma, and Orkiness aside, actually look like plausible flying machines.

 Hmmm.... great conversion potential here, "Da Vulcha" anyone?

Ecclesiarch Number 2 Ready for Painting

As the title states, Ecclesiarch #2 is ready for painting.  I decided to change the weapon loadout slightly by exchanging the inferno cannon for twin-linked heavy bolters -- I'll give them some rules out of the Sisters of Battle codex like inferno rounds to compensate.  I also added a little different 'bling' on the launcher.  Each of these should be a unique animal.  As you can see, I've started a bit on painting some of the weapons -- these aren't glued on yet.

Ragnarok Revisited

A while back, I built a Ragnarok style Leman Russ.  I followed the time honored tradition of starting with a Chimera hull, double-tracking it and adding a big square KV-2 style turret.  I used a few side armor plates from the Baneblade as turret sides etc.  It looked OK but fell a bit short of my expectations in terms of appearance.

I subsequently rebuilt the hull but left the turret largely the same, only adding some green-stuff 'welds'.  Now the riveted Baneblade plates just looked out of place with the welds.  This time I cut out the riveted plates, replaced them with plain plasticard and re-did the 'welds'.  Much better.

I replaced all of the surface details on the top of the turret and added 2 Baneblade Periscopes.  Also, at this time, I rebuilt the Mantlet, to give the tank a beefier feeling.

Since I planned to use this tank primarily as a Demolisher/Executioner, I wanted to give the sides a more heavily armored look than just Chimera sides, I decided to add armored skirts, using Dave Taylor's excellent Vostroyan style Ragnaroks for inspiration.  The skirts are two layers of plasticard plus some plasticard 'C'-channel as framing.

Finally some details -- the steps on the side are made from C-channel cut to about the same length as the steps on the door of a Rhino.  The 'Iron V' insignia for Vostroya are castings as I outlined in a previous post.

I primed the model black, then used a brush to get any spots that the spray-can missed, then I did a high-angle, light over-spray to pre-highlight.  The main color is base-coated with bestial brown followed by successive dry-brushes of Graveyard Earth, and successively lighter colored dry-brushes up to Kommando Khaki.  I then washed with Devlin Mud, and finished with a final dry-brush of 50/50 Khaki and Skull White.

The gold bits were base-coated with Tin-Bitz, followed by Shining Gold and Burnished Gold, then washed with a mix of Dark Angels Green and Hawk Turquoise, and a final highligh of Burnished Gold.

 The tracks were painted using the 'Jeff Rust' method over at Pirate Viking Painting.  The lenses were painted following the formulae in "How to Paint Citadel Tanks'.  Here's the finished product:

Winning a Painting Contest, In Spite of Myself

My FLGS held a painting competition this past Saturday.  In preparation, I've spent the last two or three weeks lovingly re-converting (more on that in another post) and painting my Ragnarok pattern Leman Russ.  Finished painting it yesterday morning.


 Packed it up in a nice padded box and drove off to my FLGS.  Get to my FLGS and realize... I forgot to bring the silly box.  Well, my FLGS is about 45 minutes from home and I was playing in a small tournament at the store so driving home to get the thing wasn't really an option; great.

more after the break