Reaver Titan Pt 11 (What's on your back?)

Finally, back to the Reaver!

Warning, the camera is not my friend today. I'm completely out of practice and the pictures in this blog show it. I apologize up front.

The internet, being the glorious place it is, affords us a chance to meet a lot of people in exotic far away lands. One such person made me a rather unique offer a while back. This person was in a position to send me a couple of Warhound Titan weapons that were miscast. Now, the hows, whys, and WTFs I'm perfectly fine not knowing. The ends, in this case, justify my means.

This gives me the chance to do a little converting and add the possibility of variety on the Reavers Carapace mounted weapon. Except for the Apocalypse Launcher all the weapons available for a Reavers carapace are Warhound class weapons. So, I was more than a little excited when I got these in the mail a while back...



These will take a bit of cleaning up, and a good deal of conversion to look the way I would like. First off, the bottoms will have to have a bit of roundness added to them to mount to the part that rides in the carapace and allows the weapon to rotate. You can see the bottoms here, and the rounded area on the Apoc Launcher that the two new weapons are lacking...



So, with this in mind, I went to my local DIY store and found a piece of PVC pipe. To my joy, I found that you can even buy it in two foot sections which is great as I don't need ten feet of the stuff. The curve matches that of the rounded part of the bottom of the Apoc Launcher perfectly!



After a few minutes in the garage with two of my favorite tools, I had small pieces of rounded PVC pipe ready to attach to the new weapons. I really do love the Band Saw and the Disk/Belt Sander...




With the PVC bits ready to be added, I had to make sure that the weapons were ready for this step. The Plasma Blast gun has two small hoses that are right in the way of where the curved bit is going. As shown below...



A careful trim and I not only get the hoses out of my way, but have a couple of bits that can be used elsewhere sometime!



Two part epoxy is my weapon of choice for gluing large pieces. I'm a huge fan of JB Quick, but I found something new on the shelves at my DIY store. Loctite Weld. It claims right on the package to be a better bond than JB Weld (JB Quick's stronger slower big brother), so I decided to give it a go. So far so good, but I'll save a full review for another post...



Last I have a series of shots with the carapace propped up and each weapon mounted. Ignore the piece of cardboard holding the weapons up in the front, it's just for staging the mock up...

Standard Apoc Launcher

Vulcan Mega Blaster

Plasma Blast Gun


The weapons will take a good deal of work to make them look right, as I mentioned above. You can see from the pictures that the place where the Warhounds arm attached is a large socket joint. It is my intention to cover this and rebuild the armor plating to be more symmetrical. I also will try to extend the armor plating down to cover up part of the curved PVC that I added to each weapon the way the armor on the Apoc Launcher does. Some plasticard, putty, and bit of patience and I think I can do it.

Look for an update later this week in which I will have (hopefully) made some progress on the carapace weapon swap project. Please feel free to leave some feedback. Questions and comments are always appreciated!

The Work Space

Just a quick post to share the workspace I'm working on. Since moving into a larger house with more bedrooms, I've somehow lost the dedicated office/geek cave I had before. So, now I'm getting organized and will try to squeeze the same amount of geekdom into a smaller space. I'll be sharing the geek cave with the guest bedroom. This would be ideal if I only ever had guests who were into GW hobbies. But, I pretty much never have those sorts of guest. In fact, I really never have guests. Does anyone want to come see me? Anyway, as pictured below, I have acquired a desk that should allow plenty of room for computer related mischief and still have a large work area for the hobby fun.



The item on the work area is a tray I've made to work on. It's MDF board with 1x2" wood for the frame. I put felt on the bottom of it to prevent scratches on the desk. The cutting mat is a standard 18x24" one that can be found at your local neighborhood hobby store. I can considered gluing it down, but decided it would be better left unglued, as then I can replace it when wear and tear take a toll. Here's a couple of close ups.




That's it for now. I'm off to start unpacking the Reaver. Titan update in a day or two! Take care and thanks for stopping by.

Because A Hive Mind is a terrible thing to waste...

Some news to follow at the bottom.

So, I was thinking. A dangerous pass time, I know. And the following occurred to me in no particular order...

On a backwater planet near the Eastern Fringe of the galaxy in the 38th millennium Tech Priests found a completely intact STC. When it was discovered that this STC would produce a previously unheard of Universal Translator, there was much excitement and waving of mechadendrites. This discovery came none too soon as reports had begun to come in of a Tyranid Hive Fleet approaching the system. Requests for assistance were issued, but there would be no one close enough to dispatch help in time. So, the Adepts of Mars took the most logical approach. They commenced work on the translator in hopes that it might finally allow communication with the completely alien Tyranids. Maybe they could be put off the idea of completely destroying this peaceful little rock if only reasoned with?

Six hundred years previously a world beyond Imperial control is being systematically destroyed. This world is so far out there that if a well traveled Rogue Trader were to come across it, he'd say, "Wow, this is really way out there". The world was only inhabited by one sentient being type, humans. Upon processing all the DNA and studying it, the Hive Mind picked up on an interesting tidbit of genetic information. There was a single species of insect on this planet that the humans were genetically predisposed to find, "cute". The Tyranids adapted this insects DNA in hopes of disguising itself as something less obviously dangerous in an effort to sustain less damage in future conflicts with this species that called itself 'human'. Thus was born, "Hive Fleet Ladybug"!

Flash forward six hundred years. The planet is under attack and the disciples of the machine god are working feverishly to finish the translator. Guardsmen are outside dying by the tens of thousands. For some reason the Tyranids are able to close to within just a few meters before men start firing their las rifles. The priests continue to work even as there is a thunderous pounding on the very walls of their sanctum. They finish the translator only seconds before a Carnifex, grown for siege work, busts through the rockcrete walls. As it lets out a mighty roar, the Universal Translator repeats its message in a loud monotone voice, "I'M CUTE!!!". And for a split second, the Tech Priests believe it...

The Ordo Xenos was able to acquire all the transmissions received from the planet before it was overrun. They have made some startling discoveries. Apparently, the Hive Fleet Ladybug Tyranids have combined an appearance that humans instinctively find harmless and cute with a strong psychic suggestion to believe this is true. The effect is that many of the defenders of the planet simply didn't think to fire their weapons till the true horror of what was happening was strong enough to deny the psychic manipulation. Thus far the Inquisition is at a loss as to how to combat this new weapon. But, it has been suggested that commanders in the field no allow their soldiers to look at the enemy during an attack.


Now, if I was some sort of GW guy, or even a White Dwarf lackey, I'd probably try to come up with some rules for this Hive Fleet and publish them. But I'm not, so my super awesome Hive Fleet Ladybug rules will never be seen...except by you! Besides the genuine psychological edge it could give you to field an army painted like giant mutant ladybugs, I'd suggest the following rules; For a few extra points per model, all brood size Tyranids could get the 'Harmless Appearance' special rule. Larger size creatures would have to pay significantly more, possibly 100 points per model or unit. The 'Harmless Appearance' rule would basically only allow HQ units, psykers, or units with one of the above attached to it to fire on turn one. All other units are completely taken in by the color scheme and psychic suggestion being broadcast. Units with no psyker or HQ unit to lead them would have to roll a 6 on a D6 to fire on turn one. On turn two they may fire on anything but a 1 on a D6 (some folks just don't get it).

Just the mad ramblings of a crazed (hive) mind.


On to the news!

I'm back! New house, tons of excitement and tragedy and stuff has been going on. I've just about got my workspace set up, so work on the long languishing Reaver Titan should be picking up soon (within the next week). I've not painted or built anything since last November, so I'm totally going nuts to work on some stuff. Ideas are bouncing around my head like small rubber balls on crack. I've been playing a little "Dawn of War II", and if you like pc games, I recommend it. I'm in possession of a home with a garage, and I've come into some tools, so a gaming table of some sort may be an upcoming project here on the blog. I've, obviously, still got a rambling problem...

Thanks for stopping by. Feel free to leave some feedback in the ole comments section. I'm always happy to hear from you... yes, you!