In The Grim Cheapness of the Future... View RSS

So, last week a thought crossed my mind.

It was the day after Christmas, and it was one of the most Games Workshoppy ones my lady and I'd had in a while.  I’d already been hit with a financial crunch, but really... by seventh edition I’d lost most hope for the game.  As I’ve mentioned before.

So this Christmas was some Death Guard and a core of Stormcast Eternals for me, while she got the core of a shiny new Arkanaut/ Kharadron force (she’s had her eye on the steampunk dwarves and their airships since they first showed up). 

There was much rejoicing.

But it got me thinking about building a lot of this stuff.  And the tweaks I still need to make to my Death Guard so they’ll fit this brave new millennium we’ve entered into.  Plus some Primaris I have left to build.  Really, there’s a ton of additions for the Relictors that have kinda piled up.  And the core of a Seraphon army that I’ve been collecting for ages...

That’s a lot of stuff to work on.  And not a lot of time.  Especially since I’m really pushing to get two new books done in 2018.

When you also consider that I barely managed to post twelve times last year...and only nine times the year before that.  Trying to do any sort of noteworthy project, document it, and write up semi-useful directions takes up a fair amount of time.  Plus, there hasn’t been any real response on anything in about two years, and even then it’s not like there were long lines of people waiting to share their thoughts.

So... I think I’ll be shuttering this blog. I won’t be so extreme as to delete it—there’s still plenty of advice here for conversions and Paperhammer models.  Plus the models themselves in the STC files.

I may still post something now and then, too.  I’ve got a scratch-built Ogre Tyrant that I put together for about six bucks.  Some updates on my cheap Legion of the Damned.  And I’ve been toying with building a cardstock version on Witchfate Tor.  Maybe even get some of these Paperhammer projects finally done and painted...

I may put some new stuff over on my just-as-neglected Relictors blog. It’s a little less instruction, a little more of my musing about the game and the chapter and my take on them (and how my models fit into that take).  And I'll continue to do stuff with the Atomic Warlords (for as long as they'll have me).

So, to the three of you who still check this page every other month or so...  thanks. If you have any interest, I actually blab a lot about geeky stiff on Twitter and Instagram. Maybe I’ll see you there.

the sandpaper.
At one point that past weekend, I got a bit frustrated and just took the clippers to the base of a hapless Alpha Legionnaire and cut off the edges of the base.  I worked from underneath, so the top stayed the same. I filed down what was left and ended up with a figure standing on a flat, decorated disk. And I glued the whole thing to a 32mm base.
End result—all my basing and scenery transferred over.  There’s never any risk to the figure itself, so it’s faster and easier.  Plus, the model ends up being about 2-3 mm taller because the old base and basing transfer over and stack on the new base. I was going at a nice, leisurely pace and rebased about twenty Death Guard marines this way in a little over an hour.

Sorry... need to mention my other art projects for a minute.

Next week I start touring up and down California with my new book, Paradox Bound, plus a little trip out to the east coast for New York Comic Con.  If I’m going to be near you, please stop by and say hello—there’s still time to reserve a copy at your local book store.

And if I’m not going to be near you... well, most of these stores take orders and ship. Some of them even ship internationally!  Give them a call, request something for enscribbling, and you can still have a personalized copy in your hands in just a few days.

(and there’s also a kick-ass audiobook narrated by Ray Porter, which means you can listen while building and painting... just saying)

So, a few years back you may remember I spent ages working on a Paperhammer Knight.  It’s a fantastic model from Newobmij, and I’m still very proud of how mine turned out.

That said, a while back you may remebember GW put out their Renegade box set, with Imperial Knights vs Traitor Knights.  Big shock—I loved the idea of Knights that had fallen to Chaos.  Plus, it meant I could now do fantastic giant robot battles with Marcus.  One of the online bitz sellers I deal with frequently bought a bunch of Renegade sets and put a lot of Knights up for sale at about half off. Just bare-bones Knights—not the expansion/ Warden sprue—but still really cheap. Almost half-off.

I may have made some poor choices.

Anyway, so... now I had some Traitor Knights. A few careful bids on eBay got me some weapon options without costing me too much (it’s more about patience than anything else).  A small traitor household began to come together.

The one part that kept eluding me, though, was the missile pod. People were willing to pay big bucks for one.  I’d see them routinely go for $28 or $30. And I told myself I wouldn’t pay more than a third of that.  After losing a dozen or so auctions, I turned to my bitz jars.

And here’s what I came up with. 

I checked that post from every angle. It’s very important that it be as straight as possible—perpendicular to the surface of the box.  I checked it multiple times from every angle.

Okay, so, while that whole thing was drying, I built two Havoc Launchers from the Chaos vehicle sprues.  These were just straightforward, standard builds.  The only thing worth noting is that I didn’t use the bracket that normally holds them—just the bare launcher. I also cleaned the heck out of them as far as mold lines and sprue marks. By nature of being a weapon and a conversion, I knew this piece was going to get a lot of attention.

Once they were relatively dry, I glued them onto either side of the box.  This took a little bit of work and patience.  I wanted them to be flat across the top, but they also needed to have a lot of surface area touching the boxes for the glue.  It required some wiggling.

Helpful Hint—once I had them more or less in place, I flipped the whole thing over, letting it stand on its head to dry.  That way the top of the piece would dry flat, even if things slipped or settled.

Now, the next part was tricky.  I had a post that fit in the top socket of the Knight, but I needed a bracket to hold the pod upright and stable.  I dug through some random scraps and found some plastic tubing that was just about the right size to fit in the ring around the socket.  A little work on the edges with a file and it fit perfectly!  I could cut a short section and set it around the post, so the two elements would each lock into place.

But... it needed to be perfectly centered.  Even a little bit off and nothing would fit.  I’d have to cut it off and try again.  I mulled on this for a few minutes and then realized the answer was right in front of me.  The ring and socket on the knight were already there. I just needed to fit the tube section and pod into place and they’d center themselves.  The only worry was being cautious with the glue so I didn’t accidentally attach the whole thing right now.

So, I set the pipe section into the ring, carefully applied a thin coat of glue to the top, and then slid the pod’s post through it into the socket. The whole thing settled snugly into place, and I waited about ten minutes before checking to see if I’d messed something up somehow.

And look at that.  A perfect little bracket for mounting on top of the Traitor Knight.  Exactly lined up and centered. It keeps its place so well I can take it on and off with no problem at all. it's solid when it's in place, but pops right off for transport.

The big Horus eye plaque for the Land Raider fit almost exactly across the top of the missile pod. That helped to tie it all together so it looked a little less cobbled together. I also added in a strip of plastic here to fill a small gap.  Next, the regular missile launcher has a sort of antenna/sensor array that wraps around one side.  I wanted to imply that, and found out that one of the curved spiky bits (usually used to line hatches and turrets) worked like a dream for this.

For a few final details... a spare lens from the bitz bins (I think it might be from the basing kit) helped fill up some space in that center section. 

And there you have it.  A $30 missile pod for... well, one afternoon of rooting through my bits.

Okay, this isn’t really a hobby/modeling post.  More of an idea that’s been bouncing around in my head for a few weeks now. A few meta/in-world thoughts about the new guys on the scene in Warhammer 40K, and I figured this was as good a place as any to let them all roll out...

So, a while back I came up with a rationalization for why Roboute Guilliman  would send a company’s worth of Primaris Marines to the Relictors to help bolster their near-decimated chapter.

I bring this up because I was at SDCC last month and got to sit in on a panel given by Titan Comics. They’re the folks doing the Warhammer 40K comic (really great—you should check it out), and as such they’ve got a hotline to Games Workshop. And they had some interesting information they shared about the Primaris Space Marines, who’ll be showing up in their stories soon enough...

Three fun facts. 

One is that every Chapters was offered Primaris marines to fill holes in their ranks.  Are you missing a key person here or there?  Maybe a squad.  Maybe a whole company or two?  Here are some troops to fill those gaps. Not everybody took them, but everybody got the offer.  Guilliman had plenty to spare.

Two is that every Chapter also got the how-to technology to make their own Primaris.  No more regular Marines for you.  From here on in, every new inductee will be two feet taller and broader.

Third is this...  Primaris gene seed can also be used to turn current, regular Space Marines into Primaris. Yep.  A few new glands, a little bit of downtime, and you’re one of the cool kids again.

Between two and three, I’m pretty sure we’ll be seeing Primaris versions of most of the major Space Marine characters over the next year or three. Tigerius.  Dante.  Lysander.  Shrike. You could save time now and just convert an Aggressor into Primaris Marneus Calgar.

(try saying that five times fast...)

Although this does leave me wondering where—within the story of the game—this’ll leave the many, many relics and historic items each Chapter has in their respective armories.  We suddenly have a thousand suits of power armor and/or Terminator armor—each individual component with a long, storied history, some of them stretching back to the Heresy—and now none of them fit our new recruits.  All those bolters that are near-relics?  They’re all second-rate weapons now that we have bolt rifles.

But as I was thinking about all that, something else hit me.

How are any of the Primaris from that first group (point one) dealing with this?

Let’s look at a few of our First Founding chapters, shall we?  We’ve got the Dark Angels, who don’t even tell their Chapter’s true history to three-quarters of their own members.  The Iron Hands, who more or less all have surgical addiction and  mechanical fetishes.  The Imperial Fists have their OCD scrimshaw habit.  The Blood Angels are about two inches from being vampires and have a tendency to go into berserker rages.  The Space Wolves are about one inch from being werewolves, and ignore most of Gulliman’s rules about how a chapter should act.

And then, out of nowhere... new guys.  New, fully formed Space Marines who share the same gene-seed but haven’t gone through the chapter’s various indoctrinations.  Who’ve been re-engineered to get rid of all those pesky “defects.”

How are they really going to fit in? How are they going to react to their super-secretive Dark Angels brethren or the savage, bestial Space Wolves they’re now training with?  It’s easy enough to repaint your armor, but how do you go against the twenty-forty-sixty years of training you’ve had to deal with these... these other people and their way of doing things?

Plus, there’s one other important thing we all tend to forget sometimes.  Space Marines are these huge combat monsters now... but they were born human.  They had mothers and fathers, maybe siblings.  They got carried around, wrapped in blankets, burped, and even on the worst of worlds they played games with other kids and laughed.  Y’know, before being sent off to work in the adamantite mines for their fifth birthday.  No matter how much training and indoctrination they go through, there’s a core of humanity there.

The current Primaris don’t have any of that. They were all machine-raised.  One of the guys at the Titan panel made a great example—put a Space Marine in a room with a crying baby, and he’ll do his best to quiet it, probably try to find its mother or some suitable guardian for it, and protect it the whole time. 

Put a Primaris in a room with a crying baby and... he’ll probably just stare at it.

Some interesting food for thought, if you like thinking about such things.

Anyway, next time, I wanted to show you this cool Knight missile pod I made for just... well, nothing.  It was pretty much free.  I made it out of bitz I had laying around.

And then I might finally finish that friggin’ Destroyer..

So, I’ve mentioned before (in a few places) my plan to use the Primaris Marines from the Dark Imperium set as my new Relictors second company.  Naturally, the Relictors Conclave isn’t going to tell the new guys everything about how their Chapter functions, but I still wanted to make a few small tweaks to some of the higher-ups, something to show just a small hint of... well, you know.

Here’s the Primaris Captain.  One of the first thing that struck me—a running theme I’ve noticed with the Primaris—is that he’s actually designed with a reliquary (a philatory, if you want to be exact) hanging at his waist.  That’s a good start.

I added a few skulls to the base.  It’s a habit I got into with Age of Sigmar models, because it’s an easy way to make characters stand out (and if you’ve been playing this game for a while, odds are you’re not short on skulls). It also helps fill some space, since Primaris are on 40mm bases.

I added more purity seals, because the Relictors love purity seals.  Some on the shoulder, a few on the cape.  I like them because the Chapter has such an overall simple color scheme that it isn’t always clear to some folks that they’re actually painted (I had once had a tournament judge comment on my “primer gray” army). So purity seals also serve to add some color and contrast to each model.

Finally, the biggest tweak, but it’s still kinda subtle.  Using a very sharp knife, I sliced the pommel off the Captain’s power sword and replaced it with a skull.  A deliberately large—perhaps even life-sized—skull.  He also got another purity seal on the back of his hand, as close to the sword as possible.  It doesn’t scream “Chaos weapon,” but it maybe mumbles it under its breath. I may give the blade a red-orange paint job, just to make it a bit more iffy.

Not bad, I think.

So, between a bunch of writing commitments, some medical stuff, some work stuff, and actually playing a game of 40K (haven’t done that in a while) the past three weeks have been kind of a blur.  I don’t have an actual post for you. 

However...

Thurs 7/20, 1:00-2:00 – I’m doing a signing at the Crown Booth (1515).  It’s going to be cool. If you happen to be a fan of my writing, you really don’t want to miss this, okay?  Seriously.  Please be there and hop in line.  It’ll be worth it, honest.

And that’s all we’re saying about that...

Friday 7/21, 3:00-4:00 – Some random giveaways at the Crown Booth (1515).  Odds of being given something increase if you tell them "The road beckons."  I’m not officially there, but I’ll probably be informally hanging out/lurking a bit if you had something you wanted me to scribble on.  Or if the booth folks handed you something you wanted scribbled in.

Saturday 7/22,  1:00-2:00 – There’s a big cross-genre panel in room 28DE. I’m up there on stage, but so are a lot of better, classier authors like Sarah Kuhn, Charlie Jane Anders, Vic James, Daryl Gregory, and Pierce Brown.  It’ll definitely be worth it to see all of them.  And one of us may something wise and clever about writing.  Or at least funny.

Saturday 7/22, 2:15-3:15—All the folks from that panel are going to be under the sail for a signing.  And Mysterious Galaxy will be there with piles of books from all of us, so it’s a great chance to get something scribbled in without having to lug it around for half the day (and to fill in those holes in your collection).

I don’t have anything official scheduled for Sunday, so—to be horribly honest—I’m not sure I’ll be there or not.  I may try to sneak off with that life sized Spider-Man LEGO sculpture.  We’ll see how that goes...

Hope to see some of you there.

So, spent the weekend putting some of the Dark Imperium models together.  Let’s go over a couple observations and impressions, from the modeling and customizing point of view

First observation... A complaint I had with the DarkVengeance set was that all of the Space Marines were firmly Dark Angels.  All the iconography was sculpted on the models—sometimes quite a bit of it.  It was gorgeous, no question, but it was also a lot of work if you wanted to use them for anything else.  Despite the prominent display of Ultramarines colors and heraldry on the box and promo pics, Dark Imperium avoids that issue, and the Primaris look fantastic without being pinned down to any particular Chapter.  Which is cool, because I plan on using them with my Relictors.

Of course, the flipside to this is that the opposing team is... well, 100% Nurgle.  There’s not a single model here that’s even vaguely something else. Which is great if you have a Death Guard army, or have been wanting one (it is a full army, after all), but otherwise... it’s a bit limiting.

Past that...

Another DV issue was that many of the models (especially the Chaos Chosen) went together in really bizarre ways.  Heads and arms would be a single piece connected by the trim on a shoulderpad.  Legs would be split lengthwise through the kneecap.  It was almost as if GW went out of their way to cut the models in the most bizarre ways possible.

The Dark Imperium models go together in much more basic standard patterns. Heads and arms are separate on a lot of the models—standard connection points, although it’s worth pointing out that the arms tend to be complete-with-shoulder pad, just in case you had clever ideas.  This means there’s a bunch of easy tweaks to do that can customize the army without resorting to cuts or filing or putty. 

The simplest one is head swaps within the set. Many of these models have separate heads, and they all use the standard neck-ball that Space Marines of all types have used for the past... what, almost twenty years?  I swapped the heads of these two Plague Marines and didn’t have to cut or trim a single thing.  

Also, because of that standard socket, most older head would fit on these models, too (and without too much of a scale problem).  Yeah, it wouldn’t make much sense for a Primaris to wear a Mk 7 helmet, but it’d be simple to work a lot more bare heads into the army to give them a less straight-out-of-the-box look.  I bet some of the Space Wolves unhelmeted heads would look good, too.  Or if the Plague Marines look a little too Nurgley for your particular army, it would be easy enough to swap in some regular Chaos Marine heads to bring them down a notch.

Helpful Hint—I’d perhaps avoid heads with bionic implants for Primaris soldiers.  After all, they’ve been in so few battles at this point, how many of them would have lots of replacement parts...?

The PoxWalkers worried me a little.  There’s ten variants (two of each in the set), and they all have pretty extreme horns. Silly as it may sound, they’re so extreme that it actually makes them all very distinctive.  It felt obvious they were repeating poses/models within the squad (to me, anyway). So I shaved off a few of the horns and spikes. It helped break them up a bit, and it also helped to inch the whole squad a little closer to my existing plague zombies.

Worth noting—I tried to make those cuts as smooth as possible, and I saved all the horns and spikes.  We’ll see how the final rules (and squad sizes) shape up for PoxWalkers when that new codex comes out in the hopefully-near future, and then I might move some of the spikes and some old skeleton horns over onto my zombies so they all look good together.

Also, one last thing to consider. All the Primaris Marines wear Mk X armor.  Every one of them.  Which really means the only difference between the troops, the sergeants, and the lieutenants is the paint jobs.  Want to give all those guys helmets?  Just trade with friends and give that guy a red helmet.  Want to use that unhelmeted Lieutenant as another sergeant?  Done!  Silly as it may sound, the uniformity gives us a bit more space to mix and match

Is there a lot of room for making this model  into that? Well, we may need to see the full Primaris book before knowing that for sure.  But there’s definitely lots of conversion and cutomizing possibilities within this set.

Next time, I may show off a few of them.

Well, it’s been about five years since the last Warhammer 40K starter set.  A bunch of us from the Atomic Warlords site sat around this weekend with some rum, the new Dark Imperium set, and a few of the index books. We had many thoughts. Most of them positive.

Marcus was going to talk about the revised game mechanics over at Atomic Warlords. Very short version—they’ve moved 40K a lot toward Age of Sigmar.  Not all that way, but if you’re somebody who really loathes those game mechanics, you’re not going to be happy with the grim dark future...

I wanted to talk about the value, though.  I know a ton of people have already broken it down in different ways. I juat wanted to do a nice, simple "how much does this save us" sort of view...

We’ve got two HQ units (the Primaris Captain and the Lord of Contagion).  Going off the average clamshell prices for single figs, it wouldn’t be outrageous to say these would be $30 to $35 each.  GW’s been getting slightly better about pricing, though, and there’s some online retailers who offer nice discounts, so let’s say they’re only going to cost $25 each-- $50 for the two of them.

There’s two more character figs for the Plague Marines, so there’s another $50.  There are three more Primaris characters, too, but Marcus pointed out it wouldn’t be surprising to see them as some kind of command squad.  Let’s conservatively call them $40 altogether.

There’s also that Foetid Bloat-Drone. It’s dreadnaught sized, so I don’t have trouble believing it could be a $35 or $40 set once we get one with options.  We’ll call it $35.

At this point, we’re already over the box set’s price tag of $160.  We haven’t even added in the three five-man Primaris squads, or the jump troops, or the Plague Marine squad, or that twenty-man PoxWalker squad (probably another $40,easy).  Heck there’s a full-sized, hardcover rulebook, which sells for $60 on its own.

Also, something we realized late Sunday night.  This is a very complete, balanced set.  It’s two actual, viable armies that are pretty fairly matched, not a couple random things that look good individually but don’t really match up (y’know, like a bunch of cultists vs Dark Angels terminators...).

This set is a freakin’ amazing value, even using my very conservative prices.  Half price on everything, if not more.  Split the box with someone, Chaos and Primaris, and get an army for $80.  Heck, let them keep the rulebook, haggle a bit, and get your half for $60 (heck, GW’s giving the basic rules away for free).  That’s maybe a third what you’d pay for either set.  Literally 66% off!

            Tick-tock, tick-tock...

            I don’t know about you, but the past few editions have been... well, a bit of a letdown for me.  Honestly, at times it felt like someone at GW really had it out for me. 

            Chaos had become a mess on so many levels (although the Traitor Legions book did help with that a bit).  That pretty much put the Alpha Legion, my largest army, out to pasture.  But at least I still had my beloved Relictors!

            Well, until someone declared them Excommunicate Traitoris in the fluff.  Stupid Inquisition...  Yeah, that doesn’t affect day-to-day games, but it still just felt like getting kicked when you were already down.  Imagine if it had been the Space Wolves.  Or the Blood Angels.

            Heck, I never even finished my Dark Eldar army.  They came out, sold a ton of models, and then the entire army took a hit to their saving throws with the new edition.  I already have an army that runs around with thin armor.  But at least the Catachans get real tanks...

            Plus, the game itself had become so bogged down.  Pages and pages and pages of rules, rolling dice again and again and again for what should be simple results, units that were so randomized they were effectively useless.

            And let’s not forget—the whole reason I started this page was because GW effectively priced me out of the game.  I needed to find newer, cheaper ways to play that didn’t involve models which had practically doubled in price.  Paperhammer was, if I may be so bold, Emperor-sent at a time when I didn’t have a lot of good things going on in my life.

            If it weren’t for my friends at the Atomic Warlords, I’ve got to be honest.  I probably would’ve dropped this game a year or five back.

            Anyway...
            I have high hopes for this weekend.  I really want this game to be fun again.

            What about you? What are you hoping for?

             Hey, so sorry.  I know I haven’t done much here in months but... I need to take a minute to make a sales pitch.

            It’s kinda how I make my living.

            I’ve got a short story collection coming out from Audible.com next week—Dead Men Can’t Complain.  It’s a bunch of short stories that I’ve had published in various places over the years, plus a trio of all new ones that have never been seen (or heard) before. Most of them are stand-alones, although you may find hints to a few things I’ve written in the past (or may be planning for the future).  It’s an Audible exclusive—no print, no ebook, no special kanji edition—it’s audiobook only. 

            Because they wanted to publish it and they do fantastic work, that’s why! 

            You can pick it up using your Audible credits (if you’re a member) or straight through Amazon.  And one of the great things about audiobooks—you can listen to them while you build and paint.

So, let’s try to get this year off to a better start...  Not paperhammer, but here’s a money-saving tip—one we’ve probably all tried at one point or another.

One of the wonderful-yet-frustrating things about GW sets these days is options.  So many of these kits are just packed with options.  Phenomenal-looking options (even if some of them are a bit silly).  And we end up with lots of leftovers.

I had some extra neophyte weapons for my genestealer cult, and I wanted to use them all up. My lovely lady had gotten me the Armored Claw for Christmas, so I figured I could put them on the Cadian bodies.  Extra weapons, plus the change of arms and shoulders helps to move them a bit further away from Guardsmen and closer to mine-workers, visually.

However... the Cadian torsos have really narrow shoulders. I tried a few different ways of putting the weapon-arms on them, but no matter how I angled it I ended up with a sizeable gap.  Then I tried a couple of spare Catachan torsos I had—not much better.  They were wider, but that gap was still pretty big.

You can spot potential genestealer cultists by shoulder width. It’s a fact. Who know?

I played with a few different ideas of bulking out shoulders with plasticard and putty, but then I had a thought that tied back to one of my (very few) posts from last year. Maybe I had some older figures I could repurpose with a bit of cutting and scraping...

Meet some of my old, scratchbuilt genestealer cultists.  They’re built from the original plastic guardsmen, circa 1994 (I think).  I found a couple of them floating in the bitz bin way back when and used them to bulk out my (at the time) all-metal Genestealer Cult army.  Which, believe it or not, also came from the bitz bins...

A few quick slices and those old cultists had all new arms on them. Heads were a bit trickier—I needed to make some neck sockets. I used the thinnest drill bit I had for my pin vise, found the center, and gave myself a pilot hole (maybe just 1/8” deep) on each model.  Then I swapped out bits to my largest, which gave me a nice, centered socket.

Helpful Hint—when you need to center something like this, take your time.  Check and double-check.  Heads are always going to be a focus point for a model.  We all know how bodies go together, so even on this scale we’ll pick up on things that don’t line up.

After that, it was just gluing heads on and... done.  Some heavy weapons guys who will blend in nicely with the rest of the cult.  And all it cost me was some older models I wasn’t going to use anymore.

You may notice (like I mentioned above) that the new limbs are slightly out of proportion on the older body.  The arms, notably, are a bit long.  There’s a few ways to adjust for this, but I’m not going to worry about it much in this particular case.  Genestealer cultists have a lot of distorted body parts, so these won’t stand out much.

Next time—swear to Tzeentch—I’m going to finish up that Destroyer.

Wow. So here we are, at the end of the year, and this has been the worst year ever for this little geeky blog.  A mere nine posts. Counting this one.

Granted, there’s a couple of reasons for that.  I’ve been working on a new book, a big one, and it’s been a monster in many senses.  I did a bunch of signings and cons.  Plus, like far too many folks this year, I had some friends and family die on me, and it left me in a mood to... well, I drank a lot this year.

When all that’s going on, forcing myself to work on a project just so I can put up a new post isn’t any fun.  And that‘s what this blog—hell, this whole hobby—is supposed to be about.  Having fun.

If I’m not having fun... why am I here, right?

This isn’t to say I didn’t do anything 40K related this year. Through the miracle of eBay I managed to buildup a fair-sized Genestealer Cult that I’m pretty sure Marcus the Blackhearted is looking forward to crushing under the Imperium’s heel, and also some dirt-cheap Knights that became a fallen household to deal with his followers of the False Emperor.

Plus my lady and I have been playing Age of Sigmar on a fairly regular basis, which eats up a night or two.  She’s been trying out her Skaven against my Ogres (or is it Ogors now...?), the Empire, and my very zombie-heavy Vampire Counts army.  All with a disgusting level of success.  We’re hoping to do a battle report for the Atomic Warlords page sometime in the near future.

But Paperhammer... I hate to admit, but it kind of fell to the side.  Because, like I said, it kept feeling like an obligation.  And I didn’t want to spend my scarce free time on an obligation if I didn’t have to.

Yeah, that’s a contradiction. Deal with it.  You know what I mean.

So—if you’re still interested—I still want to keep this page going. I really love the sheer creativity of Paperhammer.  Plus, let’s face it, even with the better direction GW has been taking these past few months, a lot of folks still can’t afford this hobby. And if I can help them into it with some white glue and cereal boxes, I want to do it.  Because the more of us there are, the better.

Anyway, I’m hoping to make things work a bit better in the year to come. I need to finish the Destroyer.  There’s a few Age of Sigmar scenery bits I want to work on.  And I still keep looking at some of those huge templates for Warhounds and Warlords. I mean, you’ve seen what Chaos is up against on the Atomic Warlords’ tables, right?  We’ve got a fallen Knight household, but we seriously need a titan or two.

And if there’s something you want to see a cheap, Paperhammer version of... please let me know.

Happy New Year.

As you may have noticed, there’s been little forward motion on the Destroyer.  Not from lack of interest.  Just trying to juggle a few dozen things, like the edits I’ve mentioned (they’re extensive) and SDCC plans (I’m doing a few things down there this year, too) and my other blog and some doctor stuff (boring). 

And, yeah, in all fairness, building a few other, non-paperhammery things.  My lovely lady and I have really been enjoying Age of Sigmar, so I’ve been putting together some more bits-bin-Skaven for her and a big horde of zombies for me (also collected, for the most part, from random bitz bins parts).  I don’t get to play that often, so this kind of gets my focus at times.

Hey, I haven’t had a chance to get back to the Leman Russ/ Destroyer (got a pile of edits that needed my attention) but I wanted to share something else I’ve been working on. Sort of an ongoing background project.

As I’ve mentioned here once or thrice, my biggest 40K army is the Alpha Legion.  I was a fan and follower of the 20th Legion since back when they were just the Napoleons of Chaos, long before THQ and  Dan Abnett made it cool to like them.  And as such, I’ve always had a place for cultists in my army. 

Alas, for years, the only cultist models were half a dozen or so metal ones, half of which were leaders or special weapons.  That’s not a lot of options.  Plus, they were metal, so they could cost three or four dollars apiece!  Can you imagine that?  Paying four dollars for a single GW figure?  What craziness.  Thank goodness for Finecast, am I right...?

Anyway...

Like most folks, I solved the problem by mashing things together. A good mix of Catachan parts and Fantasy Marauders gave me a nice group of post-apocalyptic looking cultists.  Mix in a few Kroot accessories and they looked great.  And these guys worked fine for many years.  Then Dark Vengeanceshowed up and there were real cultist models. Not too posable, but lots of variety. Also space to add on the odd bit of individual detail here and there. Plus, through the miracle of eBay, I was able to get a bunch of them for less than two dollars each...

But this still left me with all my old, homemade cultists in their horned helmets and headbands.  They just don’t mesh well with the new ones.  Sooooo... what to do with about forty figures?  And then it struck me that, in Age of Sigmar, it’s possible to field just one or two units and play like that. So what if I just turned the mostly-Marauder ones back into regular Chaos Marauders?

I went through all of the old cultists and sorted them into mostly Catachan and mostly Marauder.  In a few cases, I found complementary pairs where I could swap legs and they’d make a more-complete figure.  Then, I began to disassemble them.

Helpful Hint—The idea of cutting up figs like this might seem intimidating.  Just make sure you’ve got a really sharp, clean blade, a good cutting surface, and plenty of light (the seams can vanish in shadows, and I want to be cutting between components, not through components).

It took about an hour to separate them all and scrape off any of the white “soft spots” left from the glue.  Then I dug up all the leftover Marauder parts and made a good-sized squad of fifteen armed with axes and shields.

I also discovered I had enough bits sitting around to make one more figure, and after a bit I decided I might make someone I could use as a Darkoath Chieftain, using the Age of Sigmar rules that GW put up to go with some of the Silver Tower figures.  More on that later, depending on how it turns out...

And as for the leftover, mostly-Catachan models...  Well, as it happens a while back I also ended up with a bunch of the hooded Adeptus Mechanicus heads.  A few head swaps, a few details from the Marauders and the Kroot, and now these figs will blend in much better with the newer Alpha Legion cultists.

So don’t be afraid to cut up old figs and repurpose them. It can save you a couple bucks and turn units you don’t use into units you do. Heck, it might even give you something to play a new game with.

And I'm just adding this one last guy with the flagellant body and a flamer because I really liked how he turned out...

Okay, let’s add on all that detail and make this pop.

First up is the little sighting hatch on the front of the hull.  I’m sure somebody knows the real name for this—feel free to educate me in the comments.  I started with the sighting window itself and added two tabs onto it (at the top and bottom of the template). I glued it and just held it for a few minutes.  Once it was solid I glued it to the outer panel and held that for a few minutes.  Finally, I clamped all of that to the outer panel and let it dry while I worked on other things.  Once it was good, I put it on the front of the hull.

Next up, the tread wall has lots of round detail pieces representing rollers-axles-wheels-something (again, feel free to put the correct term below).  The easy choice is to use my hole punches to make various sizes and work with those.  The catch is... none of the hole punch sizes really match up with the size of the detail pieces.  I went back and forth on this for a bit, debating pieces that looked a little small or a little big instead of cutting out all the pieces and having them be mostly round vs. the perfect discs I’d get from the punches.

In the end, I went with the hole punches.  This is detail work, and I think more people will skim over things that look really good vs. focusing on things that look okay.  The off things draw the eye, in other words.  So I played around with sizes and put some discs down on the tread wall.  As I mentioned above, some are a bit small, some a hair large, but I think it’s pretty unquestionably a Leman Russ setup.

Helpful Hint—That top front wheel/roller/axle piece. There’s a small problem here.  On the template, it goes down right on the seam between two of the panels.  But if you check an actual Leman Russ model, it sits in front of the seam.  On this model the seam is just a little too far forward for a clean placement, but it’ll by passable if you play with it a bit.

Next up is the second big part of the project.  If those tread walls were half of the work, this is about another third. Seriously, between the layers and the links, about 4/5 of the time on this project so far has been these tread elements.  They’re not difficult, they look fantastic, but just keep in mind they’re going to be the big time suck. Plan accordingly.  Have background entertainment prepared.

The first layer of tread links took about an hour.  I cut them all at once and then peeled off the template-paper where I could.  There are ten extras for each side, so there’s some room to pick and choose.  Also worth remembering that sixteen of them are going to be on the bottom, so there’s even more leeway.  I set the glue on the tread element section by section and then set the pieces down, making sure all the best, matching ones were on the front parts of each tread element.

Helpful Hint—I printed out a spare page of the template to help with placement.  It let me see how many to a section and gave me a nice sense of spacing.

The second layer is a little trickier.  This is the one that makes the treads really pop, though, so it’s worth it.  A small tread link goes between each of the larger ones.  I put a drop of glue, spread it a bit between the two sides, and placed accordingly.  The tricky part is on the corners.  A drop of glue will still hold one, but you need to keep an eye on it until it dries or gravity can pull them out of line.  Once set, they do a great job of “rounding” out the treads.

Once all this was done, it was time for the big moment.  Gluing the tread elements to the hull and hoping it looked like a Leman Russ.  I used a couple photos for reference, glued, and held the whole thing for about ten minutes to make sure it held.

Helpful Hint—Be extra careful when lining up the tread elements and the hull.  Because of that odd, uneven piece on top—plus the unusual shape overall—it can be tricky to make everything match in every direction.  Check how far forward and back the treads sit.  Make sure they sit flat.  Check it all.

Now... it was cool getting two posts in one week, right?  Well, funny story...

This weekend is both Memorial Day here in the states and also my birthday weekend. This means I’m going to be playing, not building, all weekend. So I won’t have anything new to show off next week. 

But after that... we’re going to turn this Leman Russ body into a Destroyer.

Hell—I wrote this up last week and never actually posted it.  Yay for you. Double post this week.

Sooooo, last time I got the layered sides cut out and glued together. This time I’m going to try to get the hull and both tread elements (for lack of a better term) done.  Yes, I’m sure there is a better term for what I’m calling tread elements. If you happen to know it, feel free to share your knowledge in the comments. 

The hull is pretty straightforward. Two sides and a long strip that connects them and becomes... well, the part we’ll see.  These are all big and simple, so I cut them all out with scissors.  Only took about ten minutes to have them all done and marked.

Helpful Hint—Because I’m planning on building this as a Destroyer, I didn’t make any of the cuts or adjustments in the hull that would normally allow for the forward lascannon sponson.  I may end up regretting this—we’ll see.  If you were making an actual Leman Russ (or variant) you’ll want to be sure to make those extra cuts.

I lined up two of the front-strip edges against one side of the hull.  Once I had them as close as possible, I clamped them with a pair of clothespins.  After about ten minutes I moved the first clamp along to the next edge, and then swapped out the next pin to the edge after that.  It took a bit longer to work this way, but it let me get much cleaner lines on the whole thing.  Once I had the whole strip attached, I let it sit for a few more minutes with a small weight on it to keep it pressed flat.  I used my smartphone, for this, actually.  It’s a good size and weight.

 

While it sat, I cut up some of the scrap cardstock into strips about 10" or 12" long and made some of those consummate Vs to put inside the hull.  It's worth noting that the hull has two heights, front and back, so I cut two different width strips for the Vs.  Note also that these went vertically—I want to have some support in case something ends up pressing down on the hull. Especially since that’ll be what I do next.

There’s a raised section on top of the Leman Russ where the turret usually mounts.  The shape is a bit odd, but it goes together very well.  The worst part is that—even with tiny tabs—you’ll essentially need to hold the whole thing from all directions until it dries.  So make sure you’ve got a good movie on. 

If you follow me on Twitter, you know I did not have a good movie on for this part...

Helpful Hint—If I was going to do a Leman Russ (or variant), this would be a good time to think about making some sort of socket for the turret.  Or you could just glue the socket in place, depending on how nitpicky your own gaming group is. Or do something clever with magnets.

Next up was the engine compartment in the back.  This is a little tricky because it runs up the back section of the hull and the back part of that raised section. This means there’s a slight angle along the back edge of the compartment.  It’s easy to miss, so watch for it.

With that addressed, this is an easy piece to build. I added a few extra tabs and glued the body together.  Then I added the detail frame on top.  Once that was dry, I glued the whole thing in place.

Once all this was done, I glued the last wall in place and sealed up the hull.  It took a tiny bit of wiggling and pressure to make everything line up just right, and then a few more minutes of waiting.  Once the glue had a good hold, I set it down on its side with a book to hold it in place.

Next up was the treads.

To make this easier to follow along, I’m going to try to refer to things the following way from here on.  When I talk about “the treads,” I’m going to mean the horizontal section, the part that (hypothetically) runs around the wheels and moves the tank.  The tread walls will be the pieces I built last week and the matching inside piece—the vertical sections.  The tread element will be the whole thing together.  So there’s one tread element on each side of the hull.  Make sense?  Hopefully that’ll cut confusion a bit.  Again, if you happen to know the actual terminology, feel free to share the correct names in the comments.

           

On this template, the tread is two sections.  Rather than join them, I decided to attach them to the tread walls individually.  I figured this would give me more space to work the clips and get nice, solid joins.  And it worked.   Once I had one attached, I added the second (the back section), and joined it to both the tread wall and the front section.

Helpful Hint—I glued them to the inside wall first.  If anything went wrong, it’s easier to replace all of those parts than the layered, detail-heavy wall I put together last time.

I did this for both of the tread elements. While they were drying, I cut some consummate Vs to go inside the elements.  I tend to pick up my tanks by the sides, so I wanted those sides to be solid.

Once I had the Vs in place and everything was dry, I glued the layered tread walls in place.  I lined them up, wrapped them in an old veggie bag (wax paper works, too) and set them under a few hardcover books.  Again—I made sure everything was lined up first.  It’d suck to have it dry crooked after all this work.  I left these to dry for about three hours and they turned out... well, fantastic.  Solid and strong.

           

Alas, all of that drying time on some of these pieces needed means I didn’t get quite as far as I’d hoped to this weekend. The big elements are done, but there’s still some detail work. So I think I’m going to stretch the “Leman Russ” portion of this out for one more week before I switch over to full Destroyer mode.  So to speak.

Or, it was going to be one more week before I forgot to post this last week.  Now it’ll just be up on Friday morning.

So, I’ve had it in my mind to build a Destroyer for a while now.  I’ve always liked the look and idea of them.  Much like the Basilisk (another favorite) it’s less a tank than it is a mobile platform for a single, massive weapon.  Plus, some of the folks I game with are starting to assemble (no pun intended) some pretty impressive forces, so having a dedicated super-heavy hunter gives me something that can die on turn one a lot...

An advantage of the Leman Russ being so popular is there are lots of different templates out there for it.  And for all the many, many variants of it.  Some brilliant ones by Patroch.  I dug through my collection and found a nice one from way back when—one of the first Leman Russ templates I ever saw, to be honest.  I’d love to give credit where credit is due, but the best I can find on it is a date (2000-11-15) and the word Bile, which might be a proper name or a handle or maybe someone created this template as part of an elaborate revenge plot?  If you know who created it, please speak up.  Regardless, it’s great and up in the STC Archive for your perusal.

One of the things I love about this template is its relative simplicity.  It has a lot of detail, but the whole thing is only four pages long. And all that’s on the last page is the standard turret—it’s really about three and a quarter pages.   I managed to fit about 90% of this on a single frozen pizza box.  So this is going to be cheap even from a cardstock point of view.

I’m going to start with the outer sides and work in.  This may seem a bit odd. but it means I’ll be able to get most of the treads and hull done in just two posts. Again—very simple template.

The sides of this template are layered, a lot like the Malcador I built years ago. It means a little more work, but it makes for a much, much more detailed model—and a much more solid one, too.  If you look at this template, sheets one and two each have both sides of a tread and three layers of detail (plus some other stuff we’ll go into later).  It’s worth noting that those inner layers, the two sides, are all angles, not curved. This is to help line up the tread pieces later.

Helpful Hint—The outer two layers have some fine detail work at the bottom.  The third layer is just one big ring, really.  Whenever I have to do pieces like this, I always cut out the inner bits before I cut the whole element from cardstock.  It’s much easier to work this way, especially with narrow bits like that ring.  Cut the element out first and it’s harder to hold and harder to work with.

Once everything was cut out, I set it out in order and started gluing sections on, one at a time.  I used my clothespin-clamps every step to make the edges stayed as flush as possible—especially at the top.  This is going to be a very visible edge, so it’ll draw a lot of attention. 

When all four layers were together and lined up, I let them sit for a minute to firm up. Then I carefully wrapped them in some old veggie bags (wax paper would work, too) and set them under a pile of books.  There’s a lot of glue here, and I don’t want anything to curl or bend while it’s drying.  Again—just to hammer it home—I made sure everything was lined up first.  It’d suck to cut out all this detail and then have it dry crooked.

I left these under the books for about... four hours?  I went out and saw Captain America: Civil War.  When I came back, they were dry, solid, and very flat.

And, believe it or not, the Leman Russ body is almost half done at this point.

Next time, I’ll assemble the treads and the hull, then put it all together.

Long overdue.  Many thanks to the six of you who still check to see if this page ever gets updated.

I’m finally going to have some time to work on some new projects, but I thought it might be good to go over some of the basic paper-crafting elements first.  There’s a lot of stuff I skim over when I describe stuff, usually in a “just do this” way, and I figured maybe I should finally explain how, exactly, to do this.  That’d be helpful, right?

So, let’s start with the very basics...

I get most of my cardstock from food boxes—mostly cereal and frozen pizza.  It’s probably worth mentioning that most frozen food boxes tend to made of slightly thinner cardstock.  I’m guessing it’s a temperature thing.  Mailing envelopes are even a little thinner.  Regardless, it’s a good thing to keep in mind when plotting out which templates are glued to which sheets of cardstock.  Back when I built the Imperial Knight, I had a bunch of issues because the template is actually designed to work with paper, not cardstock.  That difference in thickness caused some of the more complex elements to be a little bit off—just enough to notice and cause problems.  So if something’s really elaborate... maybe aim for thinner material until you’re sure how it’ll go together.

  

The most basic paperhammer shape is a box.  It’s something you’ll use all the time, and it’s kind of the cornerstone of paperhammer.  All you need to remember about boxes is to make edges match—a 1” edge here meets a 1” edge there.  It sounds simple ‘cause it really is.  Check out this quick diagram.  Four sides, a top, a bottom.  This would give me a cube because all the edges are the same length.

(more or less the same—I sketched it quick in Paint just so we’d have something to look at...)

If alter the edges, I can alter the shape of the box.  Look at this example. I shrink all the side edges (but not the top and bottom edges) and now I’ll get a square, flat box.  This is the kind of thing I stick on larger models to add some detail and texture.  I could also go the other way—doubling or tripling the sides to make a long, rectangular box.  As I mentioned above, shapes like these are a cornerstone of the paperbuilding craft.  Even with nothing else, you can use several of them together to build scenery pieces, simple vehicles, and more.

This is probably a good time to mention tabs.  Trying to glue cardstock edge-to-edge with white glue is pretty much impossible, so it’s always good to add extra tabs on to the basic shapes. These are just the parts I bend and slip into the model so the glue has something to grab onto.  Some templates have them, but often they’re tiny little things that are all but useless.  Others don’t have them at all.  I add or enlarge on a case-by-case basis, and try to make note of where I do.

Helpful Hint--Always remember that tabs can be pretty much any size or shape because they’ll end up hidden inside the shape you’re building. The only thing I need to be careful of is overlap.

It’s also worth mentioning that sometimes I can skip a side and just use tabs.  If I know, for example, that my flat box is going to get glued to the side of the building, I can leave off that connecting side and just put four tabs where that side would go. It can make pieces sit a little cleaner sometimes, rather than gluing big flat surface to big flat surface.

Now, you can use these same techniques to build an elaborate box, something with a more irregular shape to it.  This diagram shows how I built the engine for the Gargant.  I used the five-edged side as my starting point, and that told me what all the other panels and edges needed to be, size-wise—remember, boxes are just about making the edges the same length.  I mirrored the other side, added some tabs, and put it together.  The triangular boxes I added on either side went together the same way.  Also remember that some shapes which look really complicated on their own (like that Gargant engine) become a lot simpler if you break them down into component shapes.

One term I’ve mentioned once or thrice is consummate Vs (which is a StrongBad reference, you heathens). I first used them, if memory serves, back when I built the classic Land Raider. Simply put, when I build a box (regular or elaborate), I’ll usually save some strips of cardboard close to one of its dimensions.  Then I trim said strips to be just 1/8 of an inch narrower.  For example, if that flat box up above was 3/4” deep, I’d try to end up with some strips that measured 5/8” wide and four or five inches long. 

Before I seal everything shut, I fold these strips back and forth (into Vs, or maybe Ws--just zig-zags, really) until they can fit inside the box. They end up becoming interior, load-bearing walls.  Sounds a little silly, I know, but these make boxes incredibly solid.  If you have any worries about how strong a paperhammer model can be, try a few experiments with strips.  They’ll hold up stacks of books, so a bump from a plastic Carnifex isn’t going to do much.

For the longest time if had to make a cannon or tower I built it as a paneled cylinder.  This is when I have a long card with numerous scores in it to create an octagonal (or decagonal or dodecahedral...) cylinder.  On the plus side, these can be easier to work with because they’re all flat surfaces. It’s much easier for things to attach to them, or to attach them to other things.  Also, it’s very easy to hide where the two edges of a paneled cylinder come together.

On the down side, paneled cylinders tend to look...well, kind of blocky.  They tend to make things look like polygon models without the skins.  It can also be a little tricky working out the diameter of one of these if you need a specific size and you’re not going off a template..

The flipside of this is a rolled cylinder.  Just like the name implies, it’s when I make the shape by rolling the cardstock.  On the plus side, it’s round and curved, which helps a paperhammer model look much cleaner and blend in on the tabletop.  Also, it’s much easier to work out how big the diameter of a rolled cylinder will be. 

On the downside... well, curves and cardstock don’t always go together well.  It’s much harder to hide the seam where the edges of the piece join.  Also, that seam is going to have a lot more pressure on it compared to a cylinder with lots of folds. Finally, that curve makes it harder to glue the cylinder to another surface.  So working with rolled cylinders means working a little slower and making sure everything dries solid before moving on.

Finally, tools. Really, all you need for paperhammer is your basic hobby knife and some sharp blades.  But over the past couple of years I’ve found a few other things that definitely make some stuff quicker and easier.  A good pair of scissors can help, especially when cutting out larger template pieces.  So can a straight-edge or steel ruler.  I use basic wooden clothespins all the time as miniature clamps. 

Also... hole punches.  These are probably the best investment you can make if you think you might be doing a lot of paperhammer.  I have three. The basic 1/4” one, a 1/8” one, and the 1/16” (which may be my favorite).  They can make perfectly circular holes or discs, either of which can make for great detail work on a model.  I use the 1/16” for rivets, which make things look amazing.  I know some folks will say 1/16” is too big for a rivet, but there’s such a huge history of things being excessive/oversized in Warhammer 40,000 that... well, I’ve never had any complaints.

So, now that I’ve gone over all of that... let’s build a tank.  Haven’t done that in a while.

Otherwise—two weeks until tanks.

This spring has turned into a whirlwind for me, and (as usual) modeling and gaming is what’s taken the hit.   I wanted to be working on a paperhammer Destroyer by now (I’m going to need it), or at least some Tyranid scenery (also paperhammer—it’s going to be great).

Pretty much all I’ve managed to do is prime a few things.  But I thought some of you might like this—it’s the Imperial Knight I made last year.  I don’t put up pictures of painted things that often, and I know sometimes it’s easy to write off paperhammer projects when they just look like... well, cardboard.  But even just a basic coat of primer shows how great these models can look.

I’ll put up a few more shots as it gets some color on it, but I wanted to give you a look at it right now.

It’s the new year, so I thought I’d post a few quick thoughts about this geeky blog and... well, what I feel like I’m doing here.

Yeah, I know.  I don’t do much here.  Very funny.

Anyway, on one level, this page is pretty straightforward.  Miniature wargaming can be an expensive hobby.  Bare-bones entry level can be over a hundred dollars, and that’s not even talking glue, paint, or time. A few years back I hit a long stretch of poverty—not imagined-poverty or slight-belt-tightening, but actual how-do-we-pay-rent-this-month poverty?  It was a really bleak time, made more so because my absolute favorite hobby went from a big part of my life to completely unaffordable in about a month.

Then I found Paperhammer.  It’s like finding the light of the Emperor, just... cheaper.  I’d worked in the film industry for a bunch of years as a prop guy, so I had some passable art/craft skills.  I dug around online (using the internet at the library) and found templates for Rhinos, Land Raiders, Baneblades, Monoliths... even Titans.  And there are some great templates out there.  Almost identical to the company models once they’re painted.  Suddenly 40K was affordable again!  The big expense was white glue and paper for the printer.

Alas, while I’ve managed to claw my way back into the middle class, I know there are still some folks who haven’t.  Worse yet, Games Workshop’s prices have skyrocketed over the past few years.  Thirty dollars per figure?  Fifty dollars for bare-basic tanks?  I remember when $150 would pretty much get you a solid army—and that wasn’t so long ago.  Now it’s a lucky thing if that same $150 can round out your Heavy Support choices. 

So being able to build a lot of these models on the cheap means keeping the game open and available to a lot more folks.  That’s a good thing.  And I’m glad to share my tips and experience with you.  Read another way, I’ve screwed up so you don’t have to.

On another level, though... The hobby part of this game doesn’t just mean buying the boxed set, putting it together with company glue, and painting it with company paints. In fact, there was a time when said company encouraged creativity and offered tips to players who couldn’t afford to drop a lot of money.  Making terrain out of cardboard and styrofoam used to be a regular feature in White Dwarf  articles.  Black Gobbo ran a great piece (remember Black Gobbo?) showing how to mix parts from a Basilisk and a Leman Russ to create  a very passable Salamander and Destroyer.  Heck, I remember when the Ogre line was first introduced for Fantasy, White Dwarf ran a whole article about how to convert Hero characters from basic ogres (just in case you couldn’t afford the big metal models.

(I’ll touch on this again in a few weeks)

Thing is, I like making my own models and scenery pieces.  I enjoy it.  I’m proud of the fact that I turned three Tony’s Pizza boxes into a very solid Imperial Knight and some bargain-store Halloween decorations into multi-use scenery.  I like being able to turn some random pieces I dug out of my local gaming store’s bitz bins into a unique and impressive Captain for my Relictors or a character for an Age of Sigmar game.

So, that’s that this is all about.  For me, anyway.  Making the game accessible to a lot more people and giving those people a chance to do something a lot more personal and unique with the units in their army.

If any of that interests you... thanks for being here. 

I’ll try to be semi-interesting.

Whoa!  I wanted to get one last post in before the end of the year and realized this is post #150.  Many thanks to the seven of you who bother to keep checking in...

Anyway, in these last days of the year,  I thought we could go over the final weapons options for the Defiler.  Yeah, only three years late.  Or a few weeks late, depending on how you look at it.  Either way, not too impressive, I know.

Hey, I’ve been busy...

           

A quick recap.  I built the hull and legs of a Chaos Defiler entirely from cardstock.  The only non-paper part is the ball-and-socket joints, made from some wooden balls I got at my local hobby shop for about two bucks. I designed one to be more of a Nurgle firebase while the other was going to be a Khorne close-combat monster.

First off, I’m not going to be doing the weapons for my Khornate one, despite the current wave of Khorne madness.  Games Workshop changed the options for Defilers since I first worked on this project, and I think it doesn’t work out that great for an all close-combat version.  Power fists and dreadnaught close combat weapons are not the same thing, alas.

           

That’s just one of my many problems with the current Chaos Marine codex, though.  Maybe it’ll all go away someday soon and we’ll finally get one that shows the ruinous powers some love.

But I’m not holding my breath.

           

Anyway...

           

As I mentioned above, I’d always planned on going much more range-oriented on the Death Guard Defiler.  As such, I decided to skip close-combat arms altogether and go with an autocannon/ havoc missile launcher set-up.  Ranged firepower on the move, plus the battle cannon when stationary.

So, here’s what a bit of experience and R&D can teach you. 

The twin autocannons are using the template from Newobmij‘s Imperial Knight—it comes with a heavy stubber, and a few subtle tweaks will let it work as an autocannon.  That template’s available in the STC archive if you want to check that.

Now, I used this template twice for the Knight, and the only issue was that it doesn’t work as well with thicker material.  So I looked around for something a little thinner-than-cereal/pizza box cardstock that would curve well.  It being the holidays, I realized the mailing envelopes I was using to send out books was maybe 30-40% thinner.  Also plentiful and cheap (don’t be greedy—some folks need these envelopes to mail presents and end-of-year business stuff).

That gave me two barrels.  The body’s just a basic 1” square box, 1/2” on the sides.  I sketched it out, added some tabs, and out ti together.  If it was a little loose, no big deal (I'll explain why in a minute).  I glued the barrels on the cleanest side, putting them together and closer to the top. I held it for about three minutes, then added another line of glue where the two barrels touched.  If it was a little messy, well... it's Nurgle.  I stood this on end and let it dry for about fifteen minutes or so before I started handling it. 

While the main body was drying, I made a simple axe-blade by cutting out a chisel shape and then layering smaller chisels on either side of it. If you really wanted to go crazy, you could put more of a curve to this, but just remember it's really important to make the curves on all three pieces line up.  I mounted this on the bottom barrel of the autocannon as the standard chaos underslung blade.

Normally each autocannon would have big ammunition drums or at least dangling belts.  I decided to work around those by putting an armor plate over the whole thing.  It was just a matching 1” square that I extended by 1/2” in the back and 1/4” in the front.  Then I put a top and bottom on it and gave the whole thing 45 degree corners.  That might all sound a little odd, but by doing it this way I’ve got a bit more weight towards the back.  Which is cool, because the Defiler’s “abdomen” is already a little front-heavy with the battle cannon. 

 

I cut some 1/8” strips and added trim along the edges of the armor, and also a few little Chaos “barbs,” or whatever you might like to call them.  The little jags and triangles that show up on most Chaos armor and weaponry.  I used the 1/16" and 1/8" hole punch to create a bit of "corrosion" on one corner of the armor plate.  As a final touch, I used some 1/4" discs to add a Nurgle icon.

I thought about building a traditional, six-barreled missile launcher like the one that comes on the Chaos vehicle sprue.  But then I realized I could do something fun and a little more custom with a seven-barreled missile launcher.  Because all the true believers know how much Papa Nurgle loves his sevens...

 

I started with a 3/4” x 3/4” box and drew an X across it, corner to corner.  Then I used discs from the 1/8” hole punch to mark out five spots—one at the center and the others equidistant out from the center one.  The whole thing looked a lot like a D6 when I was done.

Helpful Hint—When laying this out, remember that you’re not going from the center point—you’re measuring from the edge of the center disc, 1/16” out from the center point. If you don’t take that into account, you D6 face will look a bit squished.

Once I had the five spots, I just mirrored them above and below to give me a 1-2-1-2-1 pattern.  Seven silos.  I added a 45 degree line off each corner and that gave me the front plate of my Nurglesque havoc launcher.  I cut it out, traced it, and now I had a back plate.  Measuring the edges gave me the lengths of all six faces of the sides (which were 3/4” and just a hair over 9/16”).  I’d be more exact about it except the whole body is going to be covered by another armor plate.  I gave it the same trim, jags, and icon as the autocannon.

For the shoulders I traced a 25mm base and cut out 14 circles.  These were stacked and glued until I had two discs that were seven layers thick (there’s those sevens again).  I put clothespins on these so they’d glue flat and let them sit for a bit.

Important Note—in retrospect, these are a little small for Defiler shoulders.  Not horribly so, but just enough that it gnaws at me a bit.  It wasn’t clear until the whole thing was together.  If you wanted to use this same method, I’d use a 40mm for my tracing template.  I still might pull it apart and do new ones before the warm liquid goo phase.

While the shoulders were drying I decided to go back and add some rivets to the whole model.  Looking back, I guess I never got to the rivet stage before.  I know I had the 1/16” hole punch at that point because the corroded effects were done with it. Anyway, I glued a few rivets on at some key points.

I also decided to bulk up the blast plate that sits behind the battle cannon.  The one from the original template is kind of puny.  So I built a larger one and added some more trim and rivets.  It gave the center a bit more heft.

I glued the shoulders onto the central hull. Again, I tried to center them back a bit to help counterbalance the battle cannon.  Once they were dry I added the weapons.  Because all of this is straight connections, I was able to stack the whole thing and use my phone for a bit of weight.

And there’s a range-loaded Defiler, just like that.

(ignoring the three year gap)

So, lots of people are already talking about the new Horus Heresy plastics. I might at some point in the future, too.  For the moment, though, I wanted to look back at the last big sci-fi set...

           

(okay, seriously, how do we describe the connection between 30K/Heresy and 40K?  Are they just the #0K games? Imperium-based games?  Grim Future games?)

           

...their last box set from mankind’s grim future, and show something fun and cheap you can do with that.

           

You can still find lots of Dark Vengeance stuff online, most of it at half to 1/5th what you’d pay for them as individual units. A full tactical squad is about twenty bucks.  A lot of HQ characters are just two or three dollars.  And you can usually find the Dark Vengeance Dreadna—sorry, old habits—Helbrute for under ten bucks.

Now, as I’ve mentioned before, there’s a reason for this.  Like most of the Dark Vengeance models, the Helbrute’s a block of plastic that takes some serious time and effort if you want to do any major conversions (that said—I’ve seen some great ones).  But it is possible to do some neat looking ones on the cheap without half as much effort.

           

For example...

           

This particular Helbrute is going to be named Occulus Blight, and it’ll be joining my Death Guard.  Before I even started putting him together, I rolled up a little ball of green stuff.  A little bigger than a pea, a little smaller than a marble.  I rolled this back and forth between my fingers until it was as round and smooth as I could get it.  Then I very carefully pushed it into the hood/collar hole where the little face piece would normally go.  I didn’t want the teeth/claws around the hole to gouge the surface of the ball.

Once this was in place, I stretched the putty out on either side to help hold it in place. Again, I had to be careful so I didn’t force it into the teeth/claws on the other side. This was tricky and I had to try twice.  Fortunately, on something this simple, messing up just means pulling the blob out and rolling it smooth again. So don’t panic too much.  It maybe took ten minutes from starting to mix the green stuff to having it in place.  I let it  dry for another fifteen minutes—face up! I didn’t want its own weight to make a flat spot on the ball—and then assembled the Helbrute as normal.

Look at that.  One big eye in the socket.  Much Nurgle.  So pestilent.

 

I did a few quick detail things.  An old scenic rubble piece went on the base.  I snipped off the chains that hang from the power fist and added some “tentacles” made from the horns of a Chaos Marine helmet.  It’s hard to tell, but I also added a big tentacle to his power plant—one of the ones from the old mutation sprue.  It looks really good there, and it’s got me thinking some of those bulkier pieces might work really well on other Chaos dreadna—sorry, did it again—Helbrutes.

I didn’t glue the front plate-armor-hull piece in place because I want to paint the eye without too many extra bits around it. So I’ll prime those seperately and assemble them later.  As one last bit of detail, I added a centered horn to the armor plate.  It’s something I pulled from the bits bins at one point—I think it might be from the Chaos Terminators set.  Central horns are distinctively Nurgle in 40K (and related games).

All in all, maybe an hour to make a distinctive Helbrute.  And about a third of that was just digging up parts and mixing drinks.

(Primed and basic paint pictures coming this weekend)

Just a quick post this time.

As has been noted, I haven’t added the templates for the past few projects into the STC archive.  Sorry about that.  There were some password problems, now resolved.

(and, as a reminder to myself, the new password is now in the original document for this post...)

Anyway, everything should be current now, including templates for the promethium pipes and the Kroot tents (there's a whole Scenery folder in the archive now).  I’ll try to be a lot better about keeping it up to date.  Maybe even pre-updated, so the templates are uploaded before I start new projects.

Over the next few weeks, I’m hoping to finish off an old project that’s been sitting here for... well, about four years waiting for final touches.  Maybe dabble with some cheap or easy conversions.  A few tricks and techniques.  And I’m going to get back to a basic Paperhammer tank.  Something to deal with all the Knights and Gargants.