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Ah-hem.... 7' tall marine.... biologically enhanced... veteran.... power armor. Also if the mechanism is well balanced, you'd be amazed what you can get away with in size, just a matter of learning how to fight with it. Compared with the stupid-huge weapons that most marines are toting around now-a-days... I thought these were actually quite rational.

I suppose I could model an extra piston apparatus on the inside of the arms that would give additional power and speed to the extension/contraction motions of the arms. It would be easy enough to model a piston... just doesn't seem like a very marine thing... very orky though...

YOu should use those on terminators! They can use LCs and are hugenormus

Hey Gitsplitta, sorry to change the subject but I've heard good things about that Mantis Warrior short story in the Legends of Space Marines. I'm not sure if you've picked it up yet, but it portrays them as loyalists who are very adamant about getting back into the Emperor's good graces.

*grin* Thank you IceAngel! I'll have to go get me a copy... that's certainly good news!




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Here's where we are so far...








The thought is that these are overlapping plates that expand or contract as the sword parts move. I think painting will help with the illusion and changing my assembly order (top strip first, then the triangular plates will to all the way to the top) will also improve the look.

Looking a lot more realistic!

Very nice indeed

>crazy idea< I wonder if these jump pack guys could have some sort of insect wings, like the BA's have angel wings?

The mantis arms are terrific!!! They don't look like extended chainswords anymore, that's great!!!

That would be pretty cool, even if it was just a thorax extension on the jump pack. Kinda hard to explain whats in my head, I may have to just make one and take a pic.
Looks good with the termi legs and the wire, gives them a heftyer look.

For having to do an entire chapter, I decided that doing a true-scale marines simply wasn't practical... however I liked the idea, so I'm planning on doing what I can using simple techniques to make the figs look more formidable... at least the veterans and commanders. A termie leg-swap is an easy thing, and really does make an impact on the mass and presence of the figure.

I don't think I'm done with the conversion yet... some wires perhaps, and I'll shift the attachment points of the cables to the arms a bit on the rest of them (wasn't sure where the shoulder pads would end up). I'm also going to try and get one of the Chapterhouse pre-herasy jump packs to see how they look. They are very cool and "different" looking. I don't claim they'll be actual pre-herasy jump packs... just a different configuration of a modern pack to augment the feel of the model.

I'd be very interested in seeing what kind of an insect thorax you come up with. I thought about trying to build a type of dragonfly wing set-up for the jump packs... but couldn't figure out a good way to do it that would be sustainable or easily repeatable. I'm sure I could make up a wax master that would cast correctly (in brass for example), but that's a lot of money to invest in the mold & the casting for only 10 - 20 figures. Well, let me think about it anyway.

Made some quick protos, hope the glue doesn't mess up the jump pack to much.
They are up in my gallery, im to lazy to figure out how to add them to the post lol.

Here ya go! I'm so used to sticking photo's up it's second nature (and stupid simple to start with).



Neat idea WM! Definitely food for thought. Guess I'll have to 'speriment some more. Not in a hurry with this one though. Regular jet packs will work fine until I find the "just right" substitute...

Did I send any extra termi legs? Can't remember, but if not I have to many of the DA ones if you are in need.

Those mantis arms are terrific. Have you explored how they'd look with a round hinge? They don't look 100% right yet. Just my two cents.

Oh, and by the way, you don't need to do truescale.

It's everyone ELSE that needs to do truescale.

@WM: No, I think I scavenged those off of an existing plastic termie... (poor bast**d). I'd be delighted to assume control of anything you had to offer. All my stuff is so old I'm not sure I'd have anything of value to offer in trade... could pay you for them though.

@Skarwel: I'm open to suggestion... that's why I put stuff up here, so you guys can poke holes in it and improve it! Can you give me a pic or a link that illustrates what you're talking about?
LOL! LOVE the truscale comment.... I thought about something similar... it's not that SM's are too small, it's that everyone else is too big! A good pair of flush-nippers should be standard issue for every marine player so they can cut their opponent's down to size!

I agree, I can see orks or Nids as being the size of a SM, but Imp Guards must be hitting the gym cuz they are huge.
I've got 6 extra legs for ya, you cover shipping and they are yours. If you really want to trade something, how bout I put a marine in there and you paint him up and send him back! I have a few marines that I've had other people paint in there own colors, just hangin with my power armored boys.

Gitsplitta wrote: Can you give me a pic or a link that illustrates what you're talking about?

Will try. Google image search for hinges results in finding door hinges. This may be harder than originally thought.

@WM: You've got a deal! Will PM you.

@Skarwael: I may have an idea worth investigating, but it'll take me a couple of days until I can see if I can get the right bits. You keep working on your end, I'll keep working on mine.

Nothing mind-blowing or anything, but I just feel they might look better with joints that look like the arms on fabius bile's backpack, say:-

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?catId=cat300002a&prodId=prod1860240

Ok, I realize that its not the coolest example out there but look at the hinge directly beside the knee brace. Its a round style joint. Is this the style you were looking for?

Yep. That's one saucy looking joint.

Got it... if I can cleanly remove one of the existing joints I'll try it on this model.

But right now I get to game with my BOYS wooo-hooo! Check out "the other blog" later this weekend for a battle report on our new... gaming table!

:-)



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Well the water softener malfunctioned and the basement flooded... game cancelled. Table sure looks good though...

OK guys, have made some progress on a couple of fronts...

I found what I need to re-make the hinges on the Vanguard, but have not done it yet... hope to have something for you to consider in a day or so.

Just for giggles, I took one of my old, vanilla semi-junk dreds that I got off of ebay, ripped the arms off (they were glued), magnetized new weapons, give it a new config & am re-painting it in the "new" mantis warrior green scheme. I'ts not perfect... as I was largely experimenting with how the painting process would look on a vehicle, but it's turning out good enough that I'll definitely keep it. It's close to being presentable, but I want to pick out a few more details and finish the base before I show a pic.

That brings me to the real reason for this post.

I've decided that I want to do a venerable dreadnought in Tranquility Campaign camo. Essentially a veteran dred of the Tranquility Campaign, who's job it is to give close support to my Sternguard. I'm thinking of using the Forge World Mark IV venerable as the figure... question is.. what type of armament should it have? It WAS as sternguard sniper... now it's a dread supporting the snipers.

Thoughts??

Double Twin Linked Auto Cannons or Lascannon/ML combo.

That was my thought... (autocannons), but then he really cant help them at all in HtH... They're kinda weak in HtH (just no fancy weaponry) so could use some help in that way. I was thinking autocannon and CCW, but I must admit the twin autocannon thing is a lot more in keeping with the tone of the squad.

Why not do both? Dread arms are easy enough to switch out.

Duh.... point well taken.


Of course... I'll have to paint up a couple of drop pods to match.... I'm thinking that I'll do a whole "Tranquility Campaign" subset of painting for the army. Not too much... just a bit to give it the right feel. Sternguard squad, one venerable dread for support, and a character (counts-as Pedro) to run with them. So I'd have this little, self-supporting Tranquility detachment within the greater MW army. Kind of a neat idea I thought. The whole thing can come down in two drop pods and there's even a scoring unit (with Pedro).

I think it'd look good having little almost individual sections of your MW force.

If you go the route of T/L Autocannons I suggest getting using the quad autocannon from the GW Aegis defence line, I've seen a few done like that and it looks swish.

Good suggestion... those are better (more detailed) than the FW ones. That doesn't happen too often.

I still think I'm leaning toward the FW Venerable rather than the standard one... not quite as busy but just as ornate.

Thoughts?

Well with the plastic one you can makea very simple Ven Dred actually. I used that as the base of my Libby Dread that I'm working on and I had to add stuff cuz there wasnt enough going on!