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I'm starting a squat army, I'm still working on a design for the squats themselves and will probably convert from WH Dwarves. The feel will hopefully be something a little steampunk, cogs, rivets, cables. Adeptus Mechanus with a dwarven flavour rather than the Squats in combats and soft hats of old.

Anyway, off to a start I'm building a Land Train after scaling up the Epic model.



Front



Back


It's guzzling plastic card, but I'm going to make the engine and two carriages and see how that looks, it's approximately 6" long and 4" high.

now that is an epic build...but the squats have long since been eaten up by the Bugs...some last surviving squats avoided their doom...are you gonna make their air unit? that thing always did look cool...

Oh my...this is going to be scary!

But erm Land Train? Does this mean it's based on the same technology as the Land Speeder, Land Raider and Land Crawler? If so, you might want to make the design/aesthetic look a bit similar to those models.

jep'ray wrote:now that is an epic build...but the squats have long since been eaten up by the Bugs...some last surviving squats avoided their doom...are you gonna make their air unit? that thing always did look cool...

You mean this?



Not sure, I'm keen on it but not quite sure where to start. Possibly I would cut the whole thing from polystyrene.


I'm starting with the land train as I can build that in seqments and add to it later which should encourage me to keep going. Not wanting to get ahead of myself, I'm aiming to do the train and a Leviathan. I saw a thread on here where someone started a Leviathan but that was too big fore me, looking at the Epic stuff I'd say the chassis wasn't a great deal larger than a Baneblade. Though scaling up from Epic is only a very rough guide.

Malika2 wrote:Oh my...this is going to be scary!

But erm Land Train? Does this mean it's based on the same technology as the Land Speeder, Land Raider and Land Crawler? If so, you might want to make the design/aesthetic look a bit similar to those models.

No. The current retcon is thaat Land's Raider and Land's Speeder are taken to mean Land after the person who rediscovered the STC blueprints.

The Land Train is a squat invention, squats never lost their techbase, just their foothold in canon.

sw33t!

Squats were my favorites in the old epic.

How are you doing troops?

Kid_Kyoto wrote:sw33t!

Squats were my favorites in the old epic.

How are you doing troops?

I'm using the 2nd ed unreleased Squats as some inspiration, I've compiled a single large photo of them here.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v201/howardtreesong/modernsquats-1.jpg

My plan is to use the plastic dwarves box, cut away or fill the chainmail and replace with the quilting effect that the older figures had. Axes and Xhainaxes all round, lots of cables, and some rather retro lasguns, though how I'll get though I don't know. I've got a few and might scratchbuild some replicas.

yeah,
I wish you luck... what are you counting them as?
the land train could make a cool peice of terrain/objective... if you think of it as very slow/stopped...

here's some links i have... you have probabily seen these before...
http://wk.frothersunite.com/sc/spacedwarf/spacedwarf.htm
http://www.hasslefreeminiatures.co.uk/range.php?range_id=25 I really like these... would be great if the demiurge look like this, sorta starship troopers, beardless, with a hint of Adeptus Mechanus, but too much admech will show up as the mechanical mindset side of dwarfs in space....... I dunno...

Check out matt birdoffs chaos squats! they are off the hook!
he made them with chaos SM bodies SM shoulderpads SM backpacks SM arms Dwarf Legs Dwarf Heads...
Looks good to me!
the doompa loompas
He counts them as thousand sons...



Check out his blog for more pictures, including, evil robot minions and a mini train!
http://warmongers.ziggyqubert.com/articles/chaossquats3.html

just turn sour when/if you never get a codex...

Panic...

edit: to finnish my thoughs....

just to note Birdoff used the old plastic dwarfs (now OOP) and the old plastic CSMs (2nd edition ones, also OOP).

Not sure how will his technique would work with the current ones.

Oh and don't miss

Howard A Treesong wrote:

jep'ray wrote:now that is an epic build...but the squats have long since been eaten up by the Bugs...some last surviving squats avoided their doom...are you gonna make their air unit? that thing always did look cool...

You mean this?



Not sure, I'm keen on it but not quite sure where to start. Possibly I would cut the whole thing from polystyrene.


I'm starting with the land train as I can build that in seqments and add to it later which should encourage me to keep going. Not wanting to get ahead of myself, I'm aiming to do the train and a Leviathan. I saw a thread on here where someone started a Leviathan but that was too big fore me, looking at the Epic stuff I'd say the chassis wasn't a great deal larger than a Baneblade. Though scaling up from Epic is only a very rough guide.

Someone somewhere does a Zeppelin model you can convert.

Take a look at Olley's Armies Scrunts.

http://www.olleysarmies.co.uk/home.html

They closed shop in April and such was the demand for their righteous stunted offerings that they are back in business!

Buy lots now!!!

look for the "Iron eagle attack gyro copter", that thing is cool...

Here's a Zeppelin toy. It's eight inches long.

http://www.historicaviation.com/product_info.po?ID=16314&product=Accessories&category=civil&subcategory=Lighter-than-Air

Rules-wise I know a lot of people go down the 'count-as Imperial Guard' but I recon the new Space Marine codex would be perfect. Normal Squats could be count-as scouts, being BS3 troop choice, taking a captain on a bike gives you bikes as troops instead of faffing about with roughriders and the Exo Armour are obviously Terminators.

Here's a scale model R101. It's 13 inches long.

You can buy the files to print yourself, or a ready printed kit.

Tons of model airships!

http://papermodels.net/catalog/index.php?cPath=20_26

Kilkrazy wrote:Here's a scale model R101. It's 13 inches long.

You can buy the files to print yourself, or a ready printed kit.

Tons of model airships!

http://papermodels.net/catalog/index.php?cPath=20_26

I built a paper Hindenburg once, it was 4 feet long though.

Darth Fugly wrote:
Rules-wise I know a lot of people go down the 'count-as Imperial Guard' but I recon the new Space Marine codex would be perfect. Normal Squats could be count-as scouts, being BS3 troop choice, taking a captain on a bike gives you bikes as troops instead of faffing about with roughriders and the Exo Armour are obviously Terminators.

This is attractive to me, one simple reason is that building a Guard-sized Squat army will leave me converting them forever...

Second for Olley's Scrunts (if you want your squats bearded and Texan) or Hasslefree (if you want merely gravitationally challenged dudes).

Also Old Crow do some sci-fi vehicles that go well with both.

The bag for the Airship could be made from one of those Soft foam American Footballs? Should be about the right size (this thing was BIG in Epic)

If you need lasguns, you might want to look for the 3rd ed. plastic eldar guardians that came with shuricats and lasguns. I've got a few of them and they look sufficiently 40K-retro. Should be easy to weapon-swap them by shaving off the hands... Here's a pic of mine:

I'd probably ask Imperial Guard players for Lasguns before you try getting *2nd edition Eldar guardians, which are so far OOP now it will be nigh impossible getting them, and not to mention you'll be buying a tonne of eldar for just their guns.

Check out bit sites on the net, make your life a whole lot easier.

I have a friend here that did a massive Squat army using Dwarfs and Cadians and they look jaw-dropping, he also spent waaaaaaay to much time and money on them but the result shows.

This army can be done, but expect a tonne of work for every unit or model, other wise they tend to look like a bad kitbash.

If you are looking for weapons for Squats, Hasslefree do some nice weapon sprues including spare helmets and hand to hand weapons.

http://www.hasslefreeminiatures.co.uk/range.php?range_id=39&subcat_id=17

I seriously hope that youre not just getting everybodys hope up! Youre gonna have to finish now that all of Dakka is excited.

Looks like you got some good plans though. That steamtank thing posted by KK is awesome by the way. Youll definately need to build the goliath mega cannon, that would rule!

Flachzange wrote:I seriously hope that youre not just getting everybodys hope up! Youre gonna have to finish now that all of Dakka is excited.

Looks like you got some good plans though. That steamtank thing posted by KK is awesome by the way. Youll definately need to build the goliath mega cannon, that would rule!

I've filled a few gaps and I'm ready to put the crenellations on, but I need to build a basic floor in first, and I'm hoping to use some textured plastic card for that (local shop has railway supplies so I'm good for that. Then I'll build another. Once I've for two that look about right I need to detail them, and I haven't got a specific idea on how that's going to be done. Lots of rivets I think, and a relief pattern on the front of a dwarf's head or a hammer, a cog, a wreath, or something.

How about a visual pun on the old Soviet emblem of a hammer and sickle. You could use a hammer and micrometer screw gauge, being tools of engineering.

so what weapons will you outfit the land train with? I know it had lots of options to choose from, heavy mortar, missile, anti-aircraft mount, Iron eagle helipad...and what is the lead engine armed with?

jep'ray wrote:so what weapons will you outfit the land train with? I know it had lots of options to choose from, heavy mortar, missile, anti-aircraft mount, Iron eagle helipad...and what is the lead engine armed with?

The engine has a gun in the front and a turret on top from what I can make out. One of the carriages will definately have the Missile. A Helicopter mount is being saved for the leviathan, should I get that far.

i saw this and my precise reaction was....what?!

Couple more pictures to sho how it's coming along.

Front



Back


I've got some filling and smoothing down to do yet, and a textured floor section to go in the top. I'll call it at that for now and start the other carriage or two, and then detail them all together.

I've found you another Zeppelin toy.

It's a model of the airship out of The Golden Compass. Not the Scoresby double balloon effort, the cigar shaped one used by the blonde character played by Nicole Kidman, whose name I can't recall.

The model is about six inches long and it's currently on sale for £6.99 in Modelzone

202, High Holborn, London, WC1V 7BD
Tel: 020 7405 8592.

They have a web site.

http://www.modelzone.co.uk/search-Scoresby.htm
http://www.modelzone.co.uk/magisterium_zeppelin-details.htm

Any updates??

This looks like it will be very cool.

All those links to zepplin models are too small. If you're gonna do it, it has to be big! 38.5 Inches BIG!
http://www.monstersinmotion.com/catalog/product_info.php/products_id/10439
That's over a yard of rigid airship goodness.

Random thought: when you think about it, one of the few Sci-Fi aesthetics that GW doesn't have in 40k is steam punk, Squats always seem to be up that alley. Not saying they should be steam punk but its a certain aesthetic other games have embraced whole heartedly.