Tallarn 110th Redux: Battlegroup Ptolemy.

So I've finally rebased all my Tallarns to actually be in a desert as they should be. Some grey rocks chucked in for a bit of variety...

Anyway, I now have 1850 (and a little extra) points to take with me to the tourney later this year. So now I can focus on other stuff (such as Warmachine which my buddy and I just got into among other things).

But either way, here they all are, with redone bases and a bad attitude...

A couple of things to note.
1) The Ogyrns now have official GW bases, so I won't get docked for that!
2) Yes that is a commisar all his lonesome. He will be leading the 3 squads of infantry with attached Autocannons. You will also notice there is only 1 vox between the three of them for that reason.
3) The mortars are there in the pic as well as a partial squad that was left over. I wanted them to be in the picture just 'cause they still look awesome.
4) That squad under the Vendetta is a grenadier veteran unit as you can see from its 3 meltaguns and pack 'o explosives (that little guy single handedly took out a Chaos Soul Grinder back at my last tourney)
5) Why battlegroup Ptolemy? Well, he was one of Alexander's Generals who took over Egypt after Alexander's death. He fought in the desert and prevailed, so I figured why not name my commander after him. Besides, Ghengis Khan didn't seem to fit a guy with a comb-over...

Vendetta, Ogryn Chimera, Tallarn Sentinel Done

Its about time, but I have FINALLY finished the Vendetta, the Ogryn Flamer Turret and the Tallarn Sentinel Scout. I'm really happy with all of them. The Vendetta took a LONG time to do, but the outcome is really good I think. Although I still have to dull coat everything (except the canopy), I figured I'd post since I can now start on the easier stuff for the Tallarn 110th Battlegroup. I didn't bother painting the other weapon loads just yet since I'm only going to use the Vendetta, but when I decide to use 'em I'll finish them off. The priority is to get everything ready in time for the tourney, and so I can start painting something else...

Probably the hardest part of the Vendetta was the camo scheme. I had to highlight and shade each panel by hand. Next time I'll do a spray job (when I get a spray set). Something cool to note, the canopy also has the camo scheme going up onto it. The base is a bit meh, but since it matches the rest of the army, I had to do it. When I start my Black Templar army, I'll start doing better bases.

Had to give 'em the fighter pilot's helmets even if this is an Apache/Blackhawk type attack transport. And I even named them Cougar and Merlin. Maverick and Goose was just lame (and their helmet's weren't as interesting). I have removed the magnetized twin linked lascannon so you can see the names better. You can also see the screws painted onto the turbine fans to show that they are turning, although now that I think about it, they should be a blur right now..... oops.

This shot gives you a good view of the underside. I felt like WW2 British fighters were the way to go, so underside=sky blue, topside=camo. Also get a good shot of the magnetized twin linked lascannons.

Next up is the Sentinel. Quite a nice Forge World model. So now I have 2 scouts, and 2 heavies. These guys will flank along with the Vendetta with the help of the Astropath..

The multilaser is magnetized, so can be pulled off and replaced with a lascannon if I so choose. For now, the multilaser stays..

Forge World did such a nice job of the detail on the driver, that I felt it was necessary to swing his door open so you could see him better. I have no idea why the door is open... Maybe he needed a better look, or perhaps it got blown open by mistake. Either it took some very careful exacto knife work to cut it out and glue it on properly.

And last up is my favourite conversion, the Ogryn Heavy Flamer turret. He came out GREAT, and he can even rotate, as well as be pulled off for easy returning of the chimera to a regular vehicle. I'm still debating whether to give him a hose leading from the gun down into the Chimera, or have some kind of tank next to him, but for now he'll do.

Next up will the rest of the Tallarn troopers to fill out the platoon of 30, the commissar, and the Astropath. After this lot, that should be easy...

Valkarie/Vendetta Initial Magnetizing

So with the Waaagh GT a mere 10 months away, I decided I needed to get EVERYTHING ready for my army painted STAT. That includes getting the Vendetta ready for action. But I also realized that you need to magnetize the Valkarie because what happens if GW decides that vehicles aren't as important in their next edition of 40k? Well with that, I looked around a few sites that do this kind of conversion and magnetization, and here is my contribution:

First of all, the multilaser in front needed to be swapped for a twin linked lascannon. I'm assuming for now that I won't have just a single lascannon on the front of this thing. Since with the side pods, you get 3 options for the spotlight, I used a trick where you reverse one of them and place it on the back side of the weapon pod thusly:

The 0.135 x 0.03" rare earth magnets I used for this project were just a tad too weak, so I generally had to double them up. On this particular piece, I used only 2, but there was plenty of space so not a big deal.

Next the lascannon and multilaser were magnetized:The top half of the twin linked lascannon was cut down from a triple pack of regular guard las cannons that I bought from www.thewarstore.com. Nice and cheap, they look the same, and you'll see what I did with the other 4 lascannons soon enough..

Here you can see the connected lascannons to the side pod. The magnets touch and are quite strong.
Here's a shot of the side pod glued onto the Valkarie body:
One problem with doing two magnets is you have to worry about polarity, so to make sure that they were correct, I mounted everything using multiple magnets while the super glue dried:
After the glue is dried, the pieces can be pulled apart easily, and I KNOW for certain that the weapons attached to them will face the right way.

Below is a shot of the weapon pieces. The missile and the rocket pod are fairly straight forward. You just have to carve down the top pieces a bit until you have nice flat surfaces to glue the magnets to. The lascannons are ground down to that they glue evenly to each other, and then I tried to glue a stryene tube with a paper clip inside it to the top. That sucked as the magnets were not strong enough, so I cut it in half and glued the magnets to it. It looks messy, but should paint up fine.
Here's the rocket pod and lascannons mounted to the wing. It looks pretty sweet if I do say so myself. You may notice there are 3 magnets on the wing. This is because the magnets weren't strong enough (it was flimsy, and I want my connections strong), so I had 2 magnets mounted to the wing sponson.

And here's the full weapon loadout on the Vendetta/Valk conversion. You'll notice first that the wings aren't glued on yet. That is because I'm trying to decide whether to magnetize them or just leave them detached for easier transport. The slots are very firm and easy to put the wings in, so may not need magnets. Also notice that the top has not been glued on. I did this to be able to paint the inside more easily. For this build I'm not planning on using the side bolter gunners, but I'll have them and magnetize them if necessary. Also the back ramp has magnets so that it can be closed easily (I think it might get loose after a while, so you gotta think ahead!)

That's it for now. I'll start painting this baby in the next few weeks, although I also want to get my Ogryn Turret conversion greenstuffed. I need to figure out how to do sandbags in greenstuff first though...