Building the Desert Lions - Part 2, Coteaz, Henchmen and Anti-Grav Transports

Zooom! (if only I was using the BA codex)   

Welcome to part two of my (very) irregular series on building my counts-as Grey Knights, the Desert Lions space marine chapter.  Part one, containing the background for the army can be found here, and a 'prequal post' containing my 'purifiers' and 'dreadknight' can be found here.

Today, I am going to show off my Commander, an as yet unnamed Techpriest who is a counts as for Coteaz.  Additionally, there are some members of the proto-scout elements of the chapter, who count as henchmen with bolters.  Finally, I'll be showing you my almost completed anti-grav rhinos and razorbacks. 

Counts-as Purifiers and Dreadknight Complete (pre-primer)

 
Hi everyone.  Today i am going to let some photos do most of the talking. These are pictures of my (finally) completed Dreadknight and my two squads of 'Purifiers'.  The Dreadknight has been sitting on my workbench for months in a state very near to completion but I got round to completing his base and adding a few last details yesterday. 

The Purifiers have taken the last few weeks to build, but as usual, there was a considerable time before I began building when I just mulled ideas over in my mind.  These guys represent members of the 1st Company of the Desert Lions Chapter.  They are not a psychic chapter like the Grey Knights, so I have had to think carefully about how to represent the various psychic powers.  Hammerhand can easily be rationalised, since these guys have bloody great chain halberds,  If those don't give you +1 S if you hit something I don't know what will.  Purifying flame is represented literally, by flamers.  More on that below.  The force weapons are a bit more difficult to justify, and in the end, I gave up.  It isn't like the ability comes up that often in game anyway.

Dreadknight - what a pair of legs!

So yeah, yesterday I showed you guys a foot.  It belonged to my first attempt at building some large robotic legs for my Dreadknight.  In todays very brief post, i'll show you the rest of the legs. Click on the pics for high res versions.

Vendetta Conversion/Scratchbuild (6)

Hello everyone, and welcome, once again, to my Tuesday hobby post.   Today, I am tired.  This is because last Thursday I had a job interview.  An hour after I finished the interview i got a call.  I started yesterday.  This meant I was extremely glad I did so much painting last week, because otherwise I would never have had my army ready for the tournament this weekend!  While I am extremely grateful to have a job at last, it is going to mean much less time for 40k, so don’t be surprised to see a little less of me until things get adjusted.

Anyway, enough of my ramblings and on with today’s post.  This is the final part of my guide to converting a Vendetta Gunship.  Find the rest here.  Today I will do a quick run-through of the interior. 

Vendetta Conversion/Scratchbuild (5)

Welcome ladies and gentlemen, to the penultimate instalment of this guide to the creation of my Vendetta gunships.  Today's post will again be picture heavy, and fairly extensive, because it deals with the creation of the rotors.  These are entirely fabricated from plasticard and as such require a more detailed explanation.

Now, the design of these rotors owes much to another individual.  This guy is one of the greatest scratch builders I have yet discovered on the interweb.  His name is Klaus and he builds, sculpts and paints to an incredible standard.  In fact, his skill is matched only by his imagination.  I believe he has a few blogs, but the one I follow is called DEI GRECI, and can be found here.  My inspiration for these rotors comes from his own VTOL gunship, the Charon, which can be found here.  That link is to the completed diorama, if you search a little you will find his own rotor construction post. 

Anyway, without further ado, here is how i did it.  

Vendetta Conversion/Scratchbuild (4)

Hi everyone and welcome to the first of my regular Tuesday posts.  Most weeks these will be generally related to what I am building at the time of posting, but occasionally they might be about stuff I've built in the past and just want to show off (if I'm feeling lazy that is).

Its been a week or two since the last part of my Vendetta walkthrough, so feel free to remind yourselves how far I got last time Here. 

Vendetta Conversion/Scratchbuild (3)

Hey everyone.  This is part three of a step by step guide detailing how I constructed my Vendetta Gunships.  The completed model can be seen here, and the first part of the guide is here.  Today, I'll be talking about the construction of the cockpit exterior.

 This is arguably the most complex part of the construction and this post will be pretty long, so be warned :)

Vendetta Conversion/Scratchbuild (2)

So it begins.  This is the first (or technically second, i suppose) of what may turn out to be a reasonably lengthy series of posts detailing exactly how I built my pair of Vendettas.  Yes, I have indeed virtually finished the second one.  If you have no idea what I am talking about, or just want to remind yourself of the end result, you can see the completed first one here.

I should note that I learned an awful lot when I made my first Vendetta, so the construction process was a little different this time, but its come out looking almost identical, which is gratifying. I never expect anyone to build one the same (though I'd be honoured of course, lol), but if anyone wants measurements, or more detailed instructions on how any part of the process, feel free to comment or email. 

So, onward.  Today, I'll be taking about the hull.

Hydra Conversion - with punisher cannons! (2)

Hi again, and welcome part two of my Hydra Flak Tank conversion guide.  The first part, which deals with the hull, can be found here. This time I'll do a walk through of how to build the turret.

This part involves a lot more in the way of building 3D shapes from scratch and is a little more challenging than the previous section, but it still shouldn't be difficult for anyone who can measure, draw and cut in a straight line!
You can view other SoS conversion guides here.

Hydra Conversion - with punisher cannons! (1)

Hey everyone, after a crazy holiday period at work, i have finally had time to do some modelling and subsequent blogging.  Since Venerable and I are both heading to the X-Legion 1750 point tournament in February i have realised i need to seriously get on with the building of the remaining units i need for my army.  most obviously lacking were four Hydra Flak Tanks.  while i already had two, the hulls were shared with my two Manticores meaning i couldn't use both at the same time.   this had to be sorted.

the motivation for the way I've built my Hydras is partly financial (they only cost about £28 to build, including shipping) and partly because i love the forge world punisher cannons and just wanted to use some on a tank!

today I'm going to do a step by step guide on the construction of the hydra hulls.  this hull conversion is very simple and can actually be used for a variety of converted tanks including Manticores, variant Chimeras, and maybe even Deathstrikes. 

Vendetta Conversion/Scratchbuild (1)

Hi all,

sorry for the absence.  the reason is simple, I've been painting the thing which can only be described as my baby.  my pride and joy.  my finest creation.  at least i think so.  it's the first of (hopefully) two Vendetta gunships for my Imperial Guard. 

Medusa Conversion (2)

Hey peoples, welcome to the second and final part of my medusa conversion walkthrough.  The beast is now complete, and after an hour of cutting and sticking rivets (joy) I took some photos to show the finishing touches I added.  I am pretty pleased overall.  I think I achieved my aim of creating something new and different, while maintaining the look and feel of the Imperial Guard. 

Medusa Conversion (1)

Hi all and welcome to my first post.  As I mentioned yesterday I will be showing you my first Medusa conversion.  First of all, I’ll explain a bit about my army.  While most imperial guard regiments are very, well, regimented, mine is the exact opposite.  The army represents a veteran regiment made up of the survivors of numerous deployments of troops from a wide variety of planets.  I’ll show you some of them over the next few weeks, but for now, I just wanted to mention that almost all the armoured vehicles are non standard.  My seven completed chimeras are all different patterns (most of my own devising), for example.  

As for the Medusa, I intend to do two of these but I am undecided as to whether to make them look the same or not.  I have actually been thinking about how to create these for about four months now and I’ll just explain a bit about the thought processes as I think they are very important when attempting a scratch build or extensive conversion.  The Medusa is either a direct fire siege cannon or a self propelled anti-tank gun and therefore it never made sense to me that it had such a high profile and open platform.  I wanted mine to be much lower, and have an enclosed roof.  Not only will this help in game terms, it will (hopefully) echo some of the German tank destroyers of WW2.