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I've got two marine armies that are part of the same chapter (my Sons of Sanguinius homebrew successor chapter) but use two different books for their rules. For my original marine force from 2nd/3rd edition, I use the normal Blood Angel rules. For my terminator force, I use the Dark Angel Deathwing rules. When I traded for a Stormraven and Chapterhouse conversion kit, I wanted to try and see if I could use the vehicle for both armies and the Stormeagle Forgeworld rules give me that chance. Since the Chapterhouse kit extends the Stormraven's body similar to the Forgeworld, my extended cab-raven could pass for the Eagle variant as well with some weapon swaps. The two kits share similar weapons except for the Vengence Missle launcher on top so I decided to try and convert something for that in place of the normal top turret weapon. While I was doing this, I got the idea to make the kit look as similar as possible to the Thunderhawk to the extent that my bits box, sanity, and common sense allowed. As I've only worked with plasticard once before in making my baneblade Fortress of Arrogance conversion, I'm admittedly pretty rough with the edges of the material.

Basically, I used the CH kit to extend the main body and then clipped the tail to about a third of its length. I then added a bunch of left over landraider parts to the top of the extended hull to make the top "hump" of the Thunderhawk. Since the T-hawk also has some front canards with heavy bolters, I decided to use the left over bits from the engine mounts (which are clipped off with the CH kit) to make the magnetized cannards and attached the hurricane bolters underneath. Also, I turned the top turret into a remote variant without the servitor (which I abhor... doesn't fit the established marine vehicle aesthetic!!) and made a dual missle launcher from ravenwing bits and a left over FW turret bit to use the kit as a Stormeagle. Finally, I straightened out the tail as much as I could (causing the plastic to buckle almost to failure) to give it a more T-hawk style back end. I've still got a decent amount of gap filling to do around the base of the thunderhawk hump but I think the conversion does a good job of conveying the T-hawk look at the Stormraven size.

Yeah, the missle launcher is a bit boxy for a flying vehicle but it was the only suitably large rocket launcher other than an old 2nd edition whirlwind battery that I had available. I think the above is definitely preferable to the old sharpened crayons rubberbanded together missle launcher!

Flinty wrote:That looks really good. More pleasing somehow, compared to the normal stormraven.

It does remind me of the original Epic thunderhawk, but in a good way, rather than a flying brick way

Thanks! I don't mind flying bricks as long as they look cool... but the standard Stormraven doesn't IMHO>

liquidjoshi wrote:Nice work, really like the Lascannon assembly. It's what the SR should have had instead of the Servitor turret.

Yeah, the servitor turret was my second biggest complaint about the base Stormraven (after the shmushed together chibi look). Most current marine vehicles utilize remote control for their turrets and sponsons since 2nd edition; I have no idea why they decided to buck that trend and make it manned like the old 2nd edition razorbacks and whirlwinds.

Orinoco wrote:great idea. I would have put the turret in the hump like it is on the thunderhawk though. really nice conversion!

I thought about putting the turret weapons in/on the hump but I didn't want to put it on the topmost flat area as it would make the hull too tall for my tastes. I have a front land raider hull piece and test fitted it as well putting the turret in the twin Heavy Bolter spot; it still looked too tall and blocked the view of the tail so I just went with the FW landraider hull piece at a shallower angle instead. From a gaming perspective, the weapon also is modelled correctly as a turret instead of hull mounting for determing angles and LOS to targets when used as a Stormraven... important in case I run into a TFG. The flipside of that is the Stormeagle missle launcher doesn't have the appropriate mount but I expect to use those rules less often and I didn't frankly have a good way of hull mounting them on the hump anyways. It's not a perfect representation of the T-hawk but its a fair mix between the style of the Hawk and the loadout of the Raven.

I'm not sure if its the best replacement for a stormeagle but thanks for the compliment. At best, I consider it a better looking T-hawk themed stormraven that can double as a stormeagle if you squint your eyes.

As for the cuts, I've actually primed the model and will start some painting today but I can describe the cuts for now since I'm not home. I tried to use as much of the original storm raven kit as possible so I've co opted left over parts for other uses. The lascannon turret is made up of the base of the servitor one (the single flat piece that inserts into the hole) with the lascannons and cowlings glued to the bottom of it. In between the lascannon, I inserted random techy bits to connect the two guns as there is about a 5mm gap between them.

The front cannards are simply the separate little wings that attach the engine to the hull (which are NOT used with the chapterhouse conversion kit), clipped to be straight (they are slanted initially) and glued to the top of the hurricane bolters. The parts of the little wings that you need to clip off the engines I used for detail on the side of the hump. The tail was cut off at the first crease on the boom away from the tail and attached to the back of the hump. I cut up the magna grapple into two pieces and filed them down, fitting them in the grooves where the tail would normally attached.

Finally, the top hump was made from a landraider hull piece with the side tread guards cut off. To that, I attached the front part of the land raider hull (the one that normally includes the TL-heavy bolter.. but I used a leftover FW piece) and just cut and filled the sides in with plasticard. To get the conversion to work with the standard land raider front hull piece, you'd have to cutt off everything behind the back wall of the heavy bolter in order for it to fit onto the back of the storm raven. If you don't mind the hump extending further forward, you could skip that particular cut. Using the LR standard piece also allows you to mount the turret in the hump more reminiscent of the T-hawk.

I should have more pics as I progress with painting it but I wouldn't expect too much of a good paint job. I stay within the lines and use some moderately complete painting techniques but I'm mediocre at best. :( As for the design... since Majortom got to name his conversion so shall I.

I declare, by the power vested in me by the God Emperor and Omnissiah, that this is the Stormhawk!

Det Thyge wrote:Did you ever finish this? Any pictures?

Best regards
The Necromancer

The conversion itself was done in those pics but I did paint it up and use it a couple of times before 7th edition 40k basically sucked my interest dry in the game. I haven't gotten back into it since either so don't have any more recent pics. I really thought I posted an updated painted pic onto dakka but looking through my gallery I haven't. I'll have to dig it out of the carrying case and take one to remedy that. Thanks for the interest!

The_Real_Chris wrote:My favourite conversion has the turret becoming a chin mount.

https://musingsofametalmind.blogspot.com/2012/04/stormraven-conversion-finished.html

It's definitely cool. I was trying at the time to go for a melding of the two so kept the turret up top instead. I do actually have a bunch of the old Dark Angel ravenwing accessory sprues so could have used the speeder double cannon but honestly didn't think of that. Regardless, it's a nice conversion too!