this ‘ere battlewagon is still W.I.P. the main structure is made from a gunwagon which i bought for a bargain £10 from my friend David, and to which i took appart nd restructured. i made the model much bigger, and encorperated some Chimera tracks to give it some much needed width. i plan to purchase the new ork battlewagon kit and kitbash it with this to individualise both models. i am strongly considering putting the large armoured prow of the kit model onto this one..
here it is so far:
christmas break coming up, heres a list of models im working on:
-painting the Great Gargant (of course!) – soon il post some of the more recent pics.
-detailing then painting a battle wagon made from a forgeworld gunwagon and chimera tracks (pics soon)
-my big meks stompa. big renovation project. il post up the old pictures soon and then when im finished the new pictures.
-maybe after those il finally do the skullhamma extention to my Boss’s battlewagon (he deserves it!)
wish me smelly, unwashed green luck! 
this is a forgeworld fighta-bomma which i bought at games day a long time ago (i was 11 :0)
i remember hoarding my money for months to afford this thing. it was one of my life goals to have one you see
so i painted it up in classic red speedy colours, even gave the flames a go!
played with it a few times over the next 5 years or so, mainly just liked the model. apocalipse came out and i decided i really needed to make a base.
i made this by cutting a circle of MDF out with a bandsaw. drilled a hole through the centre (wide enough to fit coat-hanger wire) and glued a circle of plasticard to the base. cut two 6 inch strips of coat hanger wire (incase one got bent/lost) and drilled a hole into the centre point of the fighta-bomma.
done!
well, these guys are a really great unit, and the new models for them are also ace.
rules wise they are brilliant. they can take down almost any vehicle, and are especially good at destroying skimmers like land speeders and falcons. they can still hurt infantry, though marines and the like with 3+ armour are pretty resiliant to them. they arn’t very expensive at just 15pts each. i usually use a squad of 6-8 including a mek.
tactics wise i stick them in iether one corner to dominate half of the board, or on the board edge in the middle. make sure you put them somewhere where they are not blocked by friendly units and terain. keep these guys in lign of sight and they will pay their points often many times over. the best thing about these guys as well as their firepower is that the opponent never shoots them. they always have too many other threats like orks in trucks and battlewagons coming close to them to worry about the 6 guys in the background. but when it comes to the end of the game, you will always have a full scoring unit comfortably sitting out of reach of enemy firepower.
a great unit lootaz.
the squad i photographed here was the box set plus three lootaz i built from normal boys. their dakkaguns were made from lots of other guns from my bitz-box, and i made their harneses from plastic rod and other bitz.
on the right above my catagories section is my first battle report with 1500pts of Blood Drinkers space marines vs my ork Blitz Brigade! make sure you take a look!
here are some photographs of my looted wagons together:
the most vigilant of you will have noticed that i swapped 2 turrets around midway. Don’t believe me? look for yourself!
my third looted wagon with a bomgun. this one was originally a second hand leman russ demolisher . i removed the turret (for another project) and took the turret from a hellhound. removed the heavy flamer, and replaced it with a normal leman russ battle kannon. removed the sponson weapons, then the sponsons themselves. put them both on one side. built up a firing platform. added a magnetised spot on the railing for a big shoota. orkified the lascannon in the hull, changing it to a “gatlin” style big shoota. armour plated and battle damaged the whole thing. also added a bunker style “vision slit” next to the front big shoota to break up the profile more. added a killa kan engine i had lying around to the back. added a crate of shootas (not glued on) onto the firing platform (can be removed to put orks on if i want to model orks hitchin’ a ride.)
here are the pics!
side with plasticard skull glyph (fiddly!)
Other side with firing platform (mostly made from two sponsuns and a land rader opening hatch)
the back with the killa kan engine, removable big shoota and crate of shootas
front with firing platform
front with vision slit, 2 big shootas and boomgun
I bought this battlewagon from ebay for 48 pounds. it hadn’t been packed very well so i virtually poured it out from the box as it was in so many pieces. it was made from a shortened land raider, with some other form of non GW vehicle making the cabin. it came with a FW death-rolla, zzap gun, 2 big shootas + 2 rokkit launchas. it was a nice model but VERY fragile. first off i strengthened the body considerably with foamboard:
i made the death-rolla removable, as well as the entire top half, to make it much easier to transport.
the two halfs are magnetised together, this is what the battlewagon looks like put back together:
next i made some small details. First up a more orky engine, then the main change was making a rail on the walls of the troop compartment imbedded with magnets. this meant that i can attach any combination of defensive weapons onto it. I also added glyph plates onto the body, and covered up gaps in the build.
side view with glyphs, weapons and Big Mek Nutcog
rear/top view with the more orky engine, and a clearer view of the troop compartment.
i have strengthened the body with powerful earth magnets, it snaps together nicely, and also can be taken appart for storage.
i have now painted it:
and here’s an in game pic of it:
i have now made a new level for my battlewagon which magnetises ontop of the existing rails, in this is a skullhamma kannon with a kannon turret and two TL big shoota turrets ontop (turrets coming.)
next up to detail it, stick on those turrets, and away..
beggining structure:
built up with plasticard:
scratchbuilding, building something from scratch, or in my case, building something from:
-Foamcard
5mm thick foamcard bought from hobbycraft, its really easy to cut and draw on. i use it to make the basic structure of a war machine. then i detail it with plasticard.
if you use it, you need to use a REALLY sharp knife to avoid the foam bunching. -you’ll get what i mean.
-plasticard
i use 1mm for most of my construction. use a metal ruler and a knife and lightly score a straight line, then snap it cleanly in two. when you have the desired shape, drag your knife along the edges to angle them and rough them up a bit. add nicks and bullet holes all over. apply rivets (more detail later) and add glyphs!
i use 0.5mm plasticard if i need to bend it or to make glyphs with as it is easier to cut. it also adds variety to the thickness of the armour plates used.
-Rivets
i use a leather hole punch on 1mm plasticard to produce large rivets, used mainly for my Gargant. you can get a special rivet tool which acts like a pizza slicer at various websites. it applies rivets on the reverse side of 0.5mm plasticard. i myself just push a biro pen firmly onto the reverse of my 0.5mm plasticard, it works really well for normal 40k vehicles. it can also be used for smaller, more detailed rivets on war machines when the gargant sized ones are just too big! i apply rivets with super-glue, i’ve heard there are many ways to glue them. i just can’t stand having rivets fall off when painting, so i use super glue to cut this to a minimum.
-Magnets
magnets are absolutely brilliant in all 40k building, especially in vehicles and war machines. you can make your turrets rotate easily, have vehicles which can come apart for storage, have interchangable upgrades/weapons/sections e.t.c. the list is endless.
don’t however use any old magnets, they are not powerful enough, buy earth magnets from ebay. i use mainly 4m accross as i can punch holes for them with my rivet puncher (handy!) although i use larger ones for heavier equipment (e.g. gargant shoulders.) I urge you to make an ebay account even if it’s just to buy these and plasticard, because they are so good for modeling with. take my looted wagons for example: bar one, they can interchange their turrets with eachother. each one can alternate their weapons. riggers, bolt on big shootas and grabba claws can all be attached.
buy them! don’t be fooled by their small size, they are very powerful.
hope you find this useful, i sure wish i’d seen this when i embarked on my scratch building quest!
Blagrot’s Gargant Big Mob isn’t called a “gargant big mob” for nothing!
here’s my great gargant, i’ve been working on it since January 07, finally finished building him, now in the process of painting…
above is the paint scheme il be using, and the lil’ chap i based many measurments on.
this is the lifta droppa, its magnetised so i can remove it, i could if i wanted for instance replace it with a “gatling blasta”
its rules are roughly equivalent to a reaver titan.
its made almost entirely from foamcard and 1mm plasticard. the rivets were made using a leather hole punch. (check out “tools of the trade”)
engine shots (before spraying):
whole shot
main door, overseein’ platform and magnet spot (big shoota)
secondary door to engine workings complete with “wubbinz” glyph
that means “don’t shoot ‘dis!”
i have now completed construction on the gargant bar one shoulder top (which i intend to keep free until i have a suitably ambitious project to occupy it, comment if you have a cool idea!) It has been sprayed tin bits (two pots worth!) and i dry-brushed the ENTIRE THING boltgun metal.
how he’s looking so far:
