For when you care enough to send the very best, part 3

Success! I was able to finish up the Deathstrike launcher for the Tale of Even More Painters contest today, and it was nice enough outside to get it sealed as well:

The missile itself is magnetized to keep it in place in both the transport and launch positions. It is my intent is to use this as a proxy for the unit in the Guard codex, and as such I went with a weapon servitor armed with a heavy bolter rather than a hull-mounted version as is the case on the Chimera chassis.

I felt that the Deathstrike should be tended by tech-priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus, and as such I rooted around in the Closet of Doom for some servitors and such. I was able to find a spare Skulls-era tech-priest and a tech-servitor to man the command deck.

All in all it was a fun model to build, and I think it's large enough to really warrant the destructive power of the Deathstrike missile. Though it will rarely be used in regular games, my local gaming group is planning an apocalypse game soon, and the crawler will be taking the field to help thin out the enemy ranks!

I was asked to post a picture of the undercarriage of the launcher, and I'll be the first to admit that I didn't spend much time on modeling the underside. The basis of the crawler was two ork battlewagons glued together back to back, with some of various flat panels and some plasticard to hold it together. Pretty simple, and rather bland, but for the most part no one will see the undercarriage I suppose...

For when you care enough to send the very best, part 2

Some forward motion on the Deathstrike for the Tale of Even More Painters contest today, started adding some detail work - doors, control panels and a blast shield. I also finished building and primering the missile and launch pylon:

My intent is to have three main sections to the crawler - the driver's compartment up front, a control section amidships (which will be crewed by a tech priest and a servitor), and the rear section will be the actual launch pad. On the first turn the missile will be in the 'travel' position as shown above, and in subsequent turns while the countdown is, well, counting down, the missile will stands in the 'launch' position on the rear deck:

It's a truly huge piece, at the moment I'm trying to decide if I want to make a whole diorama out of it, adding camo-netting, sandbags and such. I still need to clean up some gaps, add the Heavy Bolter, some stowage and a good-sized antenna array, but other than that it's getting close to being ready for primer! I'm hoping to polish the build off over the weekend and get started on the painting process...

For when you care enough to send the very best, part 1

No updates recently, I've been out of state for the last week attending GenCon out in Indy - five days of high-octane geekery, far too many cocktails and sleep deprivation. It was glorious!


Now that I'm back however, it's time to get cracking on Challenge #2 for the Tale of Even More Painters! This go-around we've been asked to complete 125 points in Elites or Heavy support. That being the case, I've decided to focus on finishing up the Deathstrike Missile Carrier that I've (barely) started. At the moment it's in two main sections - the crawler, which I've decided to represent with what was originally going to be an Adeptus Mechanicus vehicle, and the missile itself, which is comprised of an old V-2 model kit plus some extra bits and bobs to make it not quite so obviously a V-2:

Since I last fiddled around with the crawler, GW has released the Planetstrike terrain, which has provided me with a number of interesting new bits to use in its construction. Over the next week or so I need to finish the build, and get it primered and painted. My intention is to include a number of tech-priests and servitors tending to the missile which will allow me to use it in both my guard army (whose paint scheme the vehicle will ultimately wear) and the eventual Ad-Mech army as well. Of course to finish it will require some deep delves into the Closet of Doom. I've made mention of it in the past, and I figured I'd snap a couple pictures to give an idea of why I call it the CoD:

Every one of those boxes on the shelves is full of bits of one type or another, collected over 20 years of hobbying. Frighteningly enough, there's even more boxes on the shelves below and above what's shown, the camera wasn't able to catch the full extent of it. It makes for good conversion fodder for sure, but I wouldn't go so far as to say that the bits are particularly organized. It's really a bit of a crap shoot whether I'm able to really find the bits I'm looking for! On the other hand, I'll usually run across something I wasn't looking for but would end up working just as well, if not better!

Ah, what a terrible space-gobbling addiction miniature gaming can be!