Hobby Before I Die!: X-Wing - Millennium Falcon Conversion

This morning over my breakfast, I took the time to have a read over a friends blog. Here at Gambit, we check in on Dan from time to time, and as he is currently gearing up for our X-Wing Tournament it seemed fitting to re-post an article he'd wrote on the 24th of June - 

X-Wing - Millennium Falcon Conversion 

Yep, that's right, gasp horror, he's been cutting up a falcon. But as you'll see it looks amazing, and will really make an exciting change to the table top. Anyway, enough from me, take it away DT;

One of the things I love most about the hobby is converting minis and I've completed some challenging and rewarding ones over the years. But on the night the ol' knife blade hovered above the Millennium Falcon, I felt a sense of nervousness. This would be a one way ticket, no room for error. If I screwed this up, I'd be left with a scarred chunk of resin and Han and Chewie would be lookin' for a new ride...

If you fancy converting your Falcon, read on friend :)

It was 2am and I had the head torch on. Crazy things happen in the dark...

As the knife cut in, the first thing I noticed was how thick the resin was on the Falcon. I ended up having to apply some serious pressure to cut through to the other side. Once I'd made an initial insertion, I took my time 'scoring' along the line of the cockpit access corridor and eventually the piece began to pry out. To help when handling the model, I also popped the guns off (they're on little pegs) and removed the radar dish.... It was time to hit the sack.

The next morning, I inspected the previous nights' work and was pleased to find that things were looking pretty good. I cleaned up the model with a needle file and flipped her over to get a rudimentary view on how she would look with the cockpit located down the middle. You can see from the picture above that I also toyed around with tacking the guns on the sides and added an alternate radar dish - All helps to show how different options may look...

Next job was to fill the gap left by removing the cockpit access corridor. I measured off a piece of plasti-card and carefully trimmed it down until it sat flush in the open space. I then spent a good 10 mins filing and sanding the joins down to try and create as smooth a finish as possible. A quick wash of white paint over the area helped to highlight any areas that had been missed...

I 'scored' lines on the plasti-card to represent the edges of the new hull plates and added in some assorted gubbins down the side of the ship to blend it through. I also cut some tiny squares and hexes out of thin plasti-card and added them to the new hull plates, echoing those found across the ship.

Next job was to trim back the area where the new cockpit would be attached. This could be considered as optional, but I wanted the cockpit to sit a little further back in the ship as opposed to sticking too far out the front of the ship. The gap in the middle was again filled with plasti-card, cutting two bits for the gaps down the sides and one to cover the front. A bit more sanding down and you should be left with a nice smooth finish.

The cockpit itself was also trimmed down to fit comfortably in it's new housing. You may need to skim a bit off each side of the cockpit to ensure it slides comfortably into the gap. The arch from the top of the old access corridor was also filed down ready to go into it's new position down the 'neck' of the ship. This simple touch will help tie the conversion together and ensure the new cockpit looks a little more like it was supposed to be there in the first place and not simply just stuck on the front...

'It's Alive!!!'

With the conversion finished, it was time to crack on with the paint job. From an early stage, I knew I wanted the ship to be white with a blue motif - in homage to the Millennium Falcon's previous guise as the 'Stellar Envoy'...

I've read a number of forum posts that give advice on stripping your X-Wing models for re-painting. I personally didn't feel the need to go down this route on this particular mini and as long as you don't go heavy with your paints, you shouldn't risk covering up any of the original detail. With this in mind, the model was primed with a light coat of white primer...

I reversed the top-side gun turret so the awesome
looking view port could be seen in all  it's glory... 

Once the base coat was dry, I gave the whole model several washes of Citadel black ink, taking time to load a bit more ink around the recesses and engine vents. The blue motif was kept fairly simple, following the edge of the hull and cutting in along the line of the escape pods. To help make the blue really 'pop' on the model, I added some shading and highlighting around the plate joins and edges...

The underbelly of the beast...

The final element to paint was the infamous 'engine glow'! Load up some dark blue paint on your palette and slowly add in some GW 'Hawk Turquoise' and pure white. Take your time and you should be able to blend through successive highlights to give you a fairly effective finish...

YT-1300 Power!!!

I'm really pleased with how the converion turned out. If you're thinking about converting your Falcon, I urge you to give it a go. If you take your time and keep faith in your skills, you should end up with something that is both unique and looks the business on the table-top. Hopefully this post has given you some inspiration to make the first cut :)

Of course there is one more thing that needs to be done. The ship needs a name!

Hailing from the ship yards of the Corellian Engineering Corporation, I give you the 'Albion Star'

Khador and the Beast.

This article is re-posted from the site : http://garethhobby.blogspot.co.uk/

Hey..

So its been another busy month of hobby the highlight of which was the Salute event. I have been to many of GW's Games Days but this was my first Salute and it was awesome. Games Day is just a big Games Workshop advert, don't get me wrong I am a big GW fan but there isn't much there to get excited about. but Salute is like being inside nerdvana. If you are into gaming in general then this show really is awesome, there isn't much in the way of actual gaming, there are participation games but they are not a big part of the show. There are some big demo games going on that some clubs (normally of the historical variety) put on and these are normally very big. The main reason to go is the retail side, there are stands from the big retailers, games designers, sculptors, big companies, small companies basically anything that you can buy for any game is there and its a great opportunity to pick up those hard to find things. The club ran a 40K game this year and its defiantly something I would like to do again.

Lich Lord Terminus

Hobby wise I have managed to get a few things done in the last couple of weeks. First on the list is a new caster for my Cryx Warmachine Army. I actually bought this guy about a year ago and assembled him but then put him to one side to focus on learning one cast more in-depth, so after playing Deny as my main caster for a while I thought I would paint him up and give him a run out. Terminus is a big model and was a real pain to put together. I used my faithful Green Stuff and Superglue method, it's tricky but effective. it basically involves using a small amount of Green Stuff on one side of the joint before applying the Super Glue, the combination of the two makes joints rock solid, the trick is getting the joint to take as Green Stuff and Glue can be a bit slippery on initial contact but when that sucker takes it isn't going anywhere unless the model takes a dive from the table. Even if a joint does break in this fashion its easy to fix as the Green Stuff moulds around the joint making reattachment easy.

So following on with the Warmachine theme I finally got round to finishing the Khador starter box. The box comes with Scorcha a Devastator and a Juggernaut. I also started on the unit of Man-O-War Shock Troopers. The Shock Troopers will be going in my final 35pt list no matter what as the models are fantastic and one of the reasons I started a Khador army in the first place. I have a final 35 list and luckily managed to purchase all the models I needed in one go at Salute. Most of them are stuck together and I think will give them a run out soon even though they wont all be painted. I want to see how they roll, I am going for a fairly standard Winterguard deathstar list using Epic Irusk as my main caster. Troops will consist of a full unit of Winterguard with all the attachments standing behind the Man-O-War. The Winterguard will be able to shoot through the Man-O-War due to one of Irusks abilities, when anything gets close the Man-O-War smack them, they will be supported by the Devastator. This leaves me with 9 points..... This is a nice Juggernaut sized hole but I am still undecided if thats what I will put in. I have a few other units lying around that I could put in, I suspect I will go with the Juggernaut to start with. However if I drop Devastator, and make a couple of other tweaks I might be able to get my Conquest in...... mmm.

Man-O-War Shocktrooper

Khador starter set

And finally I added a Beast of Nurgle to my fledgling Nurgle Daemon army. This guy will walk along with a unit of Plaguebearers and Charge a unit first to take all the Snap Fire before the Plaguebearers charge in.

Beast of Nurgle

So next up work continues on the forces of Khador and adding units to the Nurgle Daemons which are not that far from completion, I just need to finalise the army list.

Until next time...

Ultramarines

I read this on Gareth's blog yesterday and thought it was reposting in case you missed it!

Ultramarines go forth.....
Hello hobby fans.

Well its been a busy few weeks on the Gareth hobby scene. Firstly the UltraMarines have had two outings in the tournament currently underway at the game club I attend in Hemel. On both occasions I am pleased to have come away with two victories.

To answer the question I posed in a previous blog I made up my spare points with a Land-speeder Storm carrying a unit of Bolt-gun touting Scouts, this unit was picked out by my girlfriend because she thought "it looked cool" and I have to say they have been awesome. Maybe a new way to build army lists? Push your girlfriend into a GW store and just ask her to pick random boxes on models.... seems to work.

In the first game they took to the field against the Tau, it was a fairly one sided affair in the end as in the first turn I managed to take out the Quad Gun and the main battle tanks, after this it was just a case of teleporting in the Terminators to clean up and the Scouts to zoom in and nick the objectives.

In the second game I faced a Marine Biker army, from my side of the table it looked pretty scary with all the T5 bikes zooming in. It got pretty messy but I managed to escape the worst of the shooting and a decent Vindicator hit on one squad and getting the Terminators into combat turned the game in my favour. The Tact units and Squads were able to move onto the objectives whilst the Terminators cleaned up with help from the StormTalon and Predator. I also managed to get all the secondary missions (Line Breaker, First Blood etc...) Although the victory point count was high for me it could have gone the other way.

So I am pretty pleased so far, for your basic Marine list its performing pretty well. 6th Ed definatly seems to favour armies that can bring some firepower to the table, combat doesn't seem as much of an influence unless its being delivered by some 2+ save, power-fist carrying Terminators.

Painting wise I have been pretty busy, I like to play with fully painted armies if at all possible so I have been trying to get the list I am using in the tourney finished as I decided to use some new units. I have finished the Land Speeder Storm this week (although I need to do the crew still), that just leaves me with the Predator to finish and a unit of Scouts, they should be done before my next game. I also want to do a new Vindicator, the one I am using is the old Forgeworld kit and it's showing its age so once the army is done I might paint up a new one so it looks a bit better.

The Dreamer and Lord Choppy Bits

Its been a bit of a new games month as well, I have been wanting to get into Malifaux for a while so I have bought some models for that, you only need a few models to play a game so getting a "crew" ready for the table wont take long.

Flames of War is another system I have been looking at for a while, there are a lot choices when it comes to building an army which is a little daunting. But with the release of the starter set it makes getting into the game a lot easier. The box comes with enough models to build two armies to begin with so I have made the purchase and have painted up my first test model.

So here are the pictures....

Land Speeder Storm.

Flames of War. German Tank.

Until next time...

More Tales From The Web

Hi all,

Just thought I'd direct people to some nice posts I've found on the net from our members.

Firstly this one from Gareth, 'The Stonehorn Cometh'. It kinda speaks for itself, but heres a cool pic anyway.

Secondly a post from Paul, further work on his Space Wolves have ended up like this....

Thirdly, Petes gotten around to posting his 'Deathwatch Kill Team', and there looking pretty cool. Pic shows a sample of the team, not the whole thing :D

And lastly, Greblord has blogged a rather nice tutorial for making islands, for any sea based games *caugh Dystopian Wars*. Find it here.

Once more, I've been Olly for Team Gambit, happy reading.

The Iron Paintbrush Competition

The Iron Paintbrush is a painting competition open to all comers and entry is free.

There are two category’s in this competition which will be a 28 mm scale Fantasy and a 28mm Science Fiction Model which can be of any type and size.
Models must be painted from the start of May to the end of  November 2012.
Competition entrants  will be judged on the last gaming day of the year.
If you can not attend on the last gaming day, which is the last Sunday of December this is not a problem, as long as your model is there it will be judged.
No more then 3 models for each category per person will be accepted.
Contact Gary at Kids Dreams if you are thinking of entering the competition.
There will be a prize for both categories.

Rob of Team Gambit

Dystopian Photo-pian

Afternoon all,
I've been tasked with updating Gambit Games' promotional material and have been asking around the members I see regularly for models to photograph.  Just thought I'd post up some images I'd taken of Dan Tulley's nearly finished Prussian Empire Fleet and Pete James' mostly finished Kingdom of Britanian Fleet. My flat unfortunaly didn't have enough space or even hope to contain a decent sea board so I borrow the Dreadfleet mat from the club.

Some nice added detailing on the starboard bow

Frigate on Frigate action their,
Arminius v. Attacker Class

This image is so much better enlarged,
detail on wood, stacks getting
painted, decals...

Prussian Sky Fortress escorted by some Pflicht Class
Scouts over some dense *cough* cloud cover

Britanian Fleet Amass, joined by some
customised tiny flying tokens

If anyone else wants to get some of their models photographed for our promo bits and bobs or even just want to put them on the net, bring them along to the club days and give me a nudge.

Olly for Team Gambit

Little Men

With our gaming weekend approaching fast and Dystopian likely to be on the agenda I thought I would share these pictures of an Antartica Fleet that one of the Kids Dreams regulars has just finished!

Also he has his own blog called Little Men which is well worth a look! Including how he made the island shown in these pictures!

Look forward to seeing this fleet at one of our events soon!

Gary of Team Gambit

Dystopian wars: 1:1200 Covenant of Antarctica starter fleet
I've been beavering away at the starter box of CoA naval forces and finally have something to show. 

'CVN Theatre', fleet designation Alpha 4 lies off the coast with accompanying  flotilla