Forward Base: Habitat 5 part 6 wrapping up

Wrapping up Hab 5 construction by adding the exterior steps, some resin details, and the exterior light acrylic.

Antenocitis Workshop have recently released some new steps and stairs for Forward Base which use acrylic steps for a super cool Sci-Fi look. I've not used them on Hab 5 because its a Vehicle Garage and Maintenance building so I rather liked the industrial grate feeling of the stock step but I will be using the new kits when some of the entertainment and command buildings show up on my desk.

As steps go these are pretty easy. I set the stringers in first and then set the steps while there was still some flex in the glue.

There are two exterior personnel doors.  In retrospect I might have made the steps removable for ease of storage between games... that may yet occur if the prove too vulnerable jutting out as they do.  The vehicle ramps are hinged and fold flat against the side of the building when not in use so they are much less of a concern. 

Next up are they acrylic exterior lights.

One of the upgrades to the building included full light brackets instead of the tiny resin caps that are usually used for mounting the lights. I really like the full brackets but they have a small disadvantage in that they have a set length... (Doh! I have, somewhat belatedly, realized I "could" have cut the bracket to alter their length a bit.  It would have been fussy but totally doable... oh well... lessons learned!)

  The acrylic rod provided with the kit was just a bit short of what is required to fully fill all the brackets.  With the stock endcaps I would measure the rod and set the individual light length according to rod supply... except... that I think of Forward Base as a modular system with many interchangeable parts which means, for example, all lights used for all "Hab 1" style buildings should be the same length... so it looks wonky fast if that is not the case. 

Left you see the universal jig that is evolving to cover the various Hab light lengths. 

Right we see... I ran out of acrylic rod! Not to worry I'll swipe some from the next building I open and fill it in. Antenocitis also sometimes has acrylic rod available separately which is super useful.

The fixture count was odd.  There were six brackets but 7 scribed locations for them. Its not a big issue as this middle location is a bit camouflaged by the other scribed details.

You can see here the Bay Doors in their closed position. The resin face is inside the bays as thsi orientation gave the best fit.

I didn't have any vehicles close to hand for a comparison but I did have the Forge World Gargantuan Squiggoth on the table for some repairs. The poor thing took a hit to the tail and some of the Big Shootas during the move here. Its all better now. You can see the Hab 5 is large enough to offer even this big fella some cover!

It also occurred to me that Hab 5 might make a good Lair for a Supers Game... Its a really big space with room for a couple of vehicles and multi level combat internally... food for thought!

 

 

Dark Eldar Reaper ready for action

 The Reaper sail is ready.  Like the Razorwing this is a very clean finish with little weathering.  These are being integrated into my legacy Dark Eldar which are also in a very clean, unweathered, style.  I may decide to revisit the army as a whole and weather them together in future but for now I'm concentrating on getting them playable with a good, unified, look.

 To the right you can see the Raider sitting in the display case next to the Gargantuan Squiggoth.  I can just imagine the Orks jeering at the weedy Eldar and their puny sailboat! 

"Oi!  What iz dat!?... a Weedy Git ...flyin... trukk?....HAHAHAHAHAHA!  Oi ladz... KEEL IT!"

Speaking of Orks I finally finished off the counter set with infantry status markers, a big WaaagH! token, and a special die with the Waaagh!'s logo in the 6 slot.  I had a last minute fail though.... I took a break from painting while my wife was home for some R&R and the first peice I did when she left was the big Waaagh! marker.  Unfortunately I incorrectly remembered the color scheme and neglected to check it before actually putting down paint.  As a result the colors of the Jolly Ork are darker than for the rest of the set.  I corrected this for the infantry status markers so the fail was limited... the the biggest marker of the set!  DOH!  A custom, square bottom, dice bag will easily contain the counters and completes the accessories for "Da Big Red WAAAGH!"

Convertable Lobbas for Squiggy!

I got to thinking about how often Squiggy would be appearing in an actual game and decided that it would be cool to have these excellent Big Lobbas from Forgeworld available in normal sized games.  Good thing I have a pile of magnets handy so can have my Lobbas and eat them too!

Now I just need to make a call on actual Ork Crew.  I'm thinking I'll leave it open for actual transported models although I'm still waffling on adding Orks to the sponsons

 The Big Lobbas have been built and painted.   On top is the same Big Lobba that you see on the rear of the Gargantuan Squiggoth (on left, and below).

The gun-shield on this Lobba was weathered with a stippling technique that was not used on the rest of the model(s).  I don't think its too out of place and I'll be using a lot more of the effect on future Ork projects.

The forward Big Lobba (to the right, and at bottom) and thew two of them configured for use in a Big Gunz battery.  Magnets are awesome!

I really liked the look of these Lobbas so I'm going to try my hand at scratch building the rest of the battery based on this design. I'm thinking of doing 7 scratch builds to fill out the chart.  Now to dig up some cool Gretchin crew!


On a Dark Eldar note I discovered some wracks that I'll be slipping in while I'm waiting for paint to dry on the Razorwing.  I'd done a quick brush up on them for use at Geekfest and then forgot about them in all the Chaos since then... now that I've located them I just can't let them sit!

Da Squiggoth iz just waiting for da big gunz to arrive!

After making contact with the Gnome King and having him search the  basement for signs of the Squiggoth driver I discovered him here in my Ork army case of all places!  Who knew?  I swear I looked there 5 times before calling the Gnome!

I got the Howdah basically finished and added the shoota assortment (as well as the errant driver!).  They are magnetized so can be arranged differently every time! 

 The kit came with some sprues of Orks But I'm thinking I'll just leave them off and have it transport the actual models its carrying during a game... I mean when do you ever see that?  I may put a couple of guys in the sponsons for grins but I'm not suree yet Basically I want to see what it looks like with the Big Lobbas and their crews before make that call. 





I've also left off the steering chains for now.  At the moment the Howdah is removable from the main body of the squiggoth and is likely to remain so for moving purposes.  I'm thinking I could so the chains with magnets but otherwise am out of ideas for them.

I think I'll mount the Big Lobbas with magnets as well just so I can clear the decks to put a big load of boyz on them from time to time or for weapon swaps if I ever feel the need.


More work got done on the Dark Eldar flier. Mostly working on the back section of red and doing another coat on the fractal pattern.

Travel board and more...

 Today I painted up the Battlefoam X-board travel display.  Its a good size for a regular game with most armies.  I painted this one up in neutral browns to minimize conflicts with different basing schemes.  I was a little disappointed in the clips that hold the side boards on.  They are hard to assemble and require special attention to avoid damage to the clips which have a tendency to splay wide causing one of the three prongs to miss the clip and splay even wider.  It does come with a great carry bag and the 1520 XL army bag features side pockets specifically to carry this item in the same bag your army is traveling in ... handy!  I think I'll make metal name plates for the armies and put some magnets on that slot.  Its either that or velcro and use my name tag.. which has its merits!

 Here you see some Dark Angels on three different themes of base.  One is pretty close to the board finish but the others are not and I think they display pretty well. 

 The driving section of the howdah for the Gargantuan Squiggoth is coming along.  detail painting is about 50% then weathering to match the rest of the Howdah and its epoxy time!

I've painted up the big shoota assortment for the critter and popped some magnets around the Howdah to mount them.  I figure the guns will just get broken off in moving if I affix them permanently so magnets FTW! Now I'm just waiting on the main armaments to arrive from Forgeworld.

I've decided to go ahead with a variant paint scheme for the dark Eldar Razorwing.  It will still sit well with the army as most of the elements of the variation appear in the main scheme.  I've been working on the red fade section but they were not complete when i called it a night.  I'm considering adding the red to the area at the front of the model covering the area from the base of the broken up white pattern to just past the cockpit and including the engine intakes.  The rest of the model would remain black with some highlighting and some picked out detail.

I also need to tighten up the cockpit and pilot as they are just a little blotchy looking at the moment.

Dark Eldar Razorwing

 While waiting for supplies for the Squiggoth I worked a bit on updating my Dark Eldar Kabal of the Blood Rain.  Here you see the Razorwing.  This is a beautiful model and is not terribly complicated to assemble... or so it seems. 










I'm painting this one on the sprue as usual although it probably doesn't benefit from that technique quite as much as some of the more fiddly kits.

I'm continuing on my old Dark Eldar color scheme so the white spots will be colored in a red/orange/yellow/bone/white descent but I really kind of like it just bone colored as it currently sits.  Perhaps I can leave the tips this way and work out the signature color pattern another way... like maybe on the engine intakes...  hmmm... probably not!

I also got the driving compartment for Squiggy built.  Now I just need to attack it with the green stuff and wait for the paint to get here!

Squiggy Driver's Cockpit

 The cockpit box is roughed out now.  I'll still have to add plate lines, reinforced strips  and rivets but that should be pretty straight forward.  I'll add those bits and get it primed tomorrow looking towards a finish Thursday.

I used some old luggage tags for the boards as they are a little thicker than green stuff and can be notched and bent for more stability in some of the angles... and I misplaced my stash of plastic board ... >.>
 

The Cockpit is not yet attatched to the driver's seat for ease of paint/prime.

That'll leave crew... once I rescue the driver from the gnome house in Boston.... oops! and then on to Dark Eldar next week... 

Gargantuan Squiggoth on the rampage!

 Taking a break from all things Thunderhawk, indeed all things Dark Angel, and from unpacking my house from the big move, I dragged out the Gargantuan Squiggoth that I started at Geekfest just prior to Gamesday Chicago.

Its hard to believe that I only have about 8 total hours in this one so far.  Its a testament to just how clean the beastie was right out of the box and the HUGE difference that having less than 10 total parts makes! (crew and guns omitted since I don't have the guns yet and the crew is still on the sprue, except for the driver...)

I ran into a spot of trouble as this model was acquired in 2001 (on the same trip that I came across the Thunderhawk) and it is caught between production models.  It seems that most of it is from the new production casting format but that the howdah appears to be from the original design.  I contacted Forgeworld to see if I could get a replacement for what I thought was a missing part.  They went above and beyond to replace the driver's section of the howdah, which is utterly amazing for a model purchased 10 years ago!

 Unfortunately the replacement part was identical to what I already had on hand as I had miss guessed which bit had been modified in the redo.  I'll proceed from here by reconstructing the bit from plasticard and greenstuff. It looks to be a relatively simple fix and I anticipate finishing up the project over the weekend.

I tried to pick up some big (supa?) Lobbas for it at Gamesday but came just a tad late to the counter so they'll be in the mail sometime in the near future.  While I was ordering the guns I failed my reality check and ordered a couple of the Big Squiggoths so I can field the silly Apocalypse formation.

My Ork Waaagh! is primarily composed of Evil Sunz so the Squiggoth herd will really stand out of the crowd with its Snakebite motifs.