Sammael Landspeeder, part 1

I'll be attending the Ordo Fanaticus 40K team tournament in Vancouver, Washington in August.  I'm planning on taking a Doublewing list.  Partly for giggles, partly as motivation to get my Ravenwing finished, and partly as motivation to get my Deathwing command squad done too.

As I have four Ravenwing battleforces, I wasn't short of parts to make Sammael's AV14 Landspeeder of amazingness. I went ahead and ordered a barebones Landspeeder body from The War Store which suited my needs.  Of course, it is one of the older bodies.  Not a big deal actually.  I've built a couple and have figured out the foibles and niggles of assembling these "bloody things".

I think I've more or less worked out where I need to trim and sand to get the best fit possible.  Then I went to work with the Squadron brand green putty.  After that had dried and was sanded I did the fine work with Tamiya White Putty.  You can see the result above.  I should not be able to see the join once the primer is on.

The antenna doodad was awkward too and took a fair amount of filling.

One more thing - I HATE the GW flying bases.  I'm sure I'm not the only person on the planet who feels this way.  They give you a long stalk and a short stalk with the base, and inevitably the stalk snaps at one end or the other.  The other thing is that the model is so unstable on the top of the stalk and spins around and lolls to one side.  Crap.  They made an improvement with the ball and socket thing but even that wears after a while.

S6 engineering in the UK has a unique solution and it involves magnets.  It's secure too!  They're quite easy to assemble after some test fitting and filing.  I wouldn't recommend using a CA or plastic glue to assemble the base though as the acrylic did cloud up on me where I glued the magnets in place.  But you can't see it unless you pick the model up.  Meh.

Sammael was relatively easy to source the bits for.  I used the commander armour with the high collar and a power sword from the Dark Angels veteran kit. Easy peasy!  I won't put the hood ornament on it as I think they look silly.  The scrolls and such though will fit the model and as it will never come off the base, there's no problem with them hanging low.

Next blog I'll be talking about the Deathwing Command Squad some more.

GW, thanks for the Grey Knights!

So for ages, I've wanted to build a Deathwing apothecary after drooling over the one in the codex since I bought it.
That one was kitbashed from the Terminator kit with a veteran head and some Apothecary bits.  I just wan't able to do my own conversion justice and longed for the day when I could actually get a Terminator Apothecary arm.

I love Grey Knight Terminators just for this reason!  They get an Apothecary in the box!  So I gave it a couple weeks and looked to the eBay bits providers to sell me some love.    Thanks very much to The Imperial Forge on eBay - they're in Woodstock, Ontario. Go check out their store! They made me happy.  Here's what I got for my $8.95 plus shipping.

Yes indeed.  That's what I got.  I wasn't bothered that I didn't get the head because it only works with a Grey Knight.  I put it together today.

I believe that the Grey Knight terminator bodies are bigger.  The lamp set had to be filed and shaped and then some filler added when I glued them to the back of my dudeman. Also, the left shoulder joint is bigger than regular Terminator arms.  I had to cut it down quite a bit to get the Forgeworld pauldron on without it springing off in a random direction.
Well... not really random - usually in the direction of the underside of my desk.  Nice.  And here he is.

The base is from Evil Mushroom Games in the UK. He's got some nice inexpensive bases and scenery bits there.  Quite a simple base - big flat rock for him to stand upon and do his thing.  The second picture was to let you see the filler I had to apply - I gave the rock a bit of a wash to make it less stark in the picture as they come very white indeed!

Next build is the Deathwing standard bearer.  I have the Warhammer Fantasy Empire General's standard with the hammer completely cut out.  I would like to install a sword in its place and use a piece of brass rod to run through the hand of the Terminator.  I'm still in a quandary over what to arm the dude with.  Standards give +1 attack to the squad but I'd like to use that to advantage.  If it's in an assault squad with Lightning Claws, that would be 5 attacks each on the charge which would be handy.