MOAR CHAAAAAOSSSSSS!!!!

An ancient place of dark power has become the last ditch defense for a desperate force of overwhelmed defenders...

Now all I need to add are the Chaos Cultists swarming up the sides while a battered squad of Space Marine Scouts cower behind the barricades unaware that the forces of the Warp have already claimed them!

Industrial Scenery

It's been almost a decade since I've done any industrial styled scenery so I'm starting a bit light with a silo.  The ladders and railings still need some painting, but I'm excited enough with the results to share these images.

I'm thinking about checking into O scale train kits for future ladders and hand rails.  I don't mind scratch building them but I'd like to save a bit of time if I can.  The main focus for this series of models will be to develop an appealing look and substantial detail without sacrificing durability.  Of course, even the mass produced kits can take on damage with enough play and improper storage.  My feeling is that you should treat your terrain the same as you would your miniatures.

Procrastination and Inspiration

Procrastination.

It's less than a week away from Great Escape Games' Warhammer 40K Contest of Champions and I'm still getting my Blood Angels army together.  The project this afternoon was to convert the usual power plants on my Assault Marines  into Jump Packs. I had dropped the Packs back in 5th edition to score the Lazerback. Now that tanks have a slightly more difficult time in combat and troops become even more important, I decided to grow the Assault teams 10 deep putting Jump Packs on one and the other ride the Stormraven.  Thing is, where I am, Jump Packs are direct order only...soooo I can either wait two weeks for my Local Friendly Games Shop to get them in...or wait about the same time for GW.  Nah...I decided to just convert them.

Here's a few photos with some pretty basic but important tips when doing something like this. First off,  use a razor saw with a miter whenever you can and be sure to sand off the burs before replacing the stock back in the miter for the next cut.  If you don't, there's a decent chance that the material will lift a bit at the burr causing your cut to be less than perpendicular. At least for this project, everything needed to be consistent and accurate.

See what I'm talking about.  This makes a big difference when you're working at milometers.

Once all the vector thrusters were cut...

...it was time to mark off and cut the intakes.  This didn't take all that long but I did cut extras just in case.

Now that the main form of the Jump Pack was coming together, I went in to some details like the exhaust nozzels shown above and the bit of shielding shown below.  Here's another tip: layout the bits you need to cut so that the cuts can be repeated comfortably and consistently. Here I laid out the shielding so that the last cut would be the one that frees all the pieces at once.

These next two shots show the models with their packs. If you click the images, they'll open up a larger version for better viewing.  You'll notice several other steps that went into rounding out the effect but I figure these are self explanatory.  The main tip here is to make sure that whatever conversion you plan to do on a multi-model scale, you should make sure it's easily repeatable which also means making sure you can gather all the elements you used the first time around.

Of course, I did paint these but figure I'll let you see the final results when I post the display board I'm making for the army.

Enjoy!