Finished - Ork Wrecker Epic Post

I started this project almost a year ago. After a flurry of initial activity, I encountered difficulty in converting this 1:32 scale Army truck into a sufficiently Orky Speed Freak Wrecker. I started cutting up bits of plasticard into interesting shapes and gluing them on. I quickly found that this did not really make things look Orks and rather just kinda made it look like I had glued a bunch of crap onto the model. It was a mess. It like the more I did, the worse it looked. I initially tried to fix it by adding more armor plates, bits and gubbins but that really made it worse. Getting frustrated by converting it to an Orky Trukk, I set that project aside and tried to focus on other aspects of the conversion.

I wanted to magnetize the crap out of this vehicle to the point that as it became damaged, parts would come off of it. I wanted all the doors to work and the top of the cab to come off. I wanted the windshield to fold up and down. As the assembly went forward, I had to stop assembling the cab and paint the interior. The doors were held in by the top of the dashboard. To assemble it further, I would need to have the inside painted. Before I could finish painting the interior, I needed to get the driver and gunner assembled.

Finished - Thousand Sons Helbrute Epic Post

 As part of the Cult Troops project, I am trying to complete groups of unit sin each of the styles of the 4 Chaos Gods. I have already completed a Dreadnought/Helbrute dedicated to Khorne and began to turn my thoughts to the other powers. Nurgle, was fairly obvious as it needed to be a mas of boils and puss much like the Daemon Prince of Nurgle. Knowing this was beyond my skills to sculpt, I sent a Helbrute kit off to a buddy of mine that is better with green stuff. 

That is two down. I have no idea what I am going to do for the Slaanesh Helbrute but I did have a tickle of what to do for a Thousand Sons/Tzeentch Helbrute. I wanted to borrow from the fluff of the Thousand Sons in that, thanks to the Rubric of Ahriman, many of the Thousand Sons Legionaries are spirits trapped in their armor. That is pretty close to what a Dreadnought is already. 

Assembly and Conversions

I had a metal Chaos Dreadnought that I had gotten in a trade on Bartertown that, if I did not use it for this, would probably never get used ever. I had some left over and extra bits from the Helbrute kit that I decided to incorporate them into this kit. 

Yes, I paid good money for the real Helbrute kit rather than Dark Vengeance one. Why? The bits man. The extra weapons and decorative bits could be spread across several kits. They are incredibly detailed. To sculpt them would be out of my league and to buy the bits individually would be too expensive. I really got all my money worth out of this kit. 

Finished - Gravity-bearer

I finished the second Combi-weapon Bearer so it is officially now a thing. For my second attempt, I chose a Combi-gravity from the Sternguard plastic set. I wish I knew the names for the side-by-side vs the over-under Combi-weapons but I do not. I would love to be consistent with my conversions, but there are a lot more over-under weapons than side-by-side. 

As for painting, I used Agrax Earthshade to shade the robes rather than Sreaphim Sepia which accounts for the differences in color tone. I chose to paint his cute little feet blue to match the Gravity effects. I know that I paint my Plasma weapons blue too, but I don't care. The Gravity weapons are visually distinct from Plasma weapons enough. 

For the value of this mini, I would put it on par with the other Combi-bearer ($30). The conversion work was a lot less than erasing that evil metal helmet with a Dremel. It mainly consisted of clipping off the sword and re-sculpting the mini a little. 

Finished - Plasma-bearer

I banged this little fracker out in a hour or two. My plan is to use him as a counter for Combi-weapons. It is easy enough to know that he stands for a combi-plasma weapon when using it for a lone IC but you may ask, "How will you know which model carries the Combi-weapon in a mixed unit?" I will tell you that I'll keep him in base to base with that model. That way he will not only denote which model has the combi-weapon, but which if he still has the one-shot use left in him.

The only difficult part will be remembering to roll for a bolter rather than a storm bolter after the combi-weapon has been used. That is really only applicable in a unit composed of Storm Bolters and units composed mostly Bolters will not have any change in their utility regardless of how many combi-weapons are involved.

In the end, I am avery happy with how this mini turned out. I like that I will not have to convert and model a combi-plasma for every mini I own and that I now have a counter for the minis that do have combi-weapons.

I think this is the first mini that is not only painted to a table-top quality but is designed to be viewed from arms length. Up close, this mini does not look so great. But put it at arms-length and it looks awesome. This is a new thing for me as I usually paint minis that look good up close but just ok on the table. I am not sure how I feel about this.

It is hard to value this mini. The Watcher In The Dark mini is kind of hard to get a hold of as the only way to get it was with Azriel who is discontinued in metal. Granted, he was around for ages so there is a fair number of these loose minis floating around in the secondary market. A quick search for completed auctions on eBay says these minis go for $2-$8 with the plastic ones going for $2-$4. The paint job is a 5 of 10 for me so it is hard to charge more than $10 for it. What took forever is the conversion and getting the bits. The conversion work took some lengthy and delicate Dremel work that I value at about $10 because it took 2 solid hours. The bit is hard to value because it is not readily available. with some luck, it might cost $2-$8 to replace it.

Final total using averages, this mini comes in at about $30 which is about what I would let it go for in trade. That would get me a small box of infantry which I feel is fair considering how many times I ripped my thumb open with the Dremel. 

House Rule - The One

 We've all done it. Rolling a single die and have it come up a 1. That is so frustrating! It makes you want to say, "I wish I has not run/shot/etc at all."

A while back, I proposed a house rule to my mate Keith to have a fun way around this. 

Enter the One Token. Holder of this token can re-roll a single die. It has to be a single die like a run roll, single to hit roll, single reserve roll. Roll that are ineligible are things like Leadership, to hit rolls that are rolled in multiples (examples to follow), or anything that has already been re-rolled. Once the roll has been made, you must accept the results even if they are another 1. That's tough luck. Once the re-roll has been made, the holder of the token passes it to his opponent. 

Specifics on which kind of rolls are acceptable and which kind are not. The key is that it has to be a single roll. A SM Sargent with a Powerfist gets 3 attacks on the charge so none of those rolls are acceptable. But a Techmarine with a Servo-arm gets a single Powerfist attack. If that roll was a 1, it could be re-rolled with the token.