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So, having finished painting two small forces and a bunch of terrain, I'm itching to get some gaming in. However, still need objectives. There's a card token in the box for the Epirian faction objective, the automated uplink relay, but I wanted to make an actual model. And I did. Now, the following is not a how-to. In fact it's probably a 'how not to'. I'm an impatient type and I just grabbed random crap material and eye-balled pretty much everything. That it didn't fall apart during painting is a small miracle. Anyway, here goes:


The top is the easiest part, that's just a modified Spider Drone. Here are the bits I used. Drone body built as normal, but then with two 'Flakk defense batteries'. From the characteristics of this weapon I figured it was a flakk gun with a shorter barrel, and in fact more barrels. So I took the flakk guns from the drone sprue and made them shorter. I cut up the drone side bits to accommodate my 'flakk batteries'. I cut the legs off the Spider Drone support and kept the center.


Flakk guns were modded so they fit on top of each other.


Drone mostly finished. I put it on the card token to see what else needed doing. The model has to be as tall as the token, per the rules, but it doesn't have all that big of a base so the proportions are going to be slightly odd.


I made track thing templates in Word and stuck the print on some 1mm plasticard. Two pieces per side, one slightly smaller than the other, to give the thing a little structure and make it not totally boring.


Bought this off eBay. Didn't realise these are very fiddly individual track links with a very open structure, but they're not actually that hard to work with.


High tech materials for the inside of the track things.


Test bit of track. The track links have big teeth, so can't just stick them flat on anything. Luckily I had some balsa around which the teeth fit perfectly, for ease of sticking the links together.


Decided to cut the outside plasticard in 3 parts for more detail/interest.


Track thing sides ready/


Trying the inside. Nothing of this is measured. Don't do that.


The track links having such an open structure, you'll be able to see inside. So. Paint it black.


1 track thing.


Drill holes for more detail.


Track that should go around most sides in one go.


After letting the glue set for a bit you can form the track quite easily, which was a relief.


Yeah, not a bad amount of track.


All round.


Next, something to fit between the track things and put the drone on top. Made a shape out of scrap foam and built a plasticard box around it.


Drilled some holes.


Whilst that was drying, started thinking about the comm-bits for the drone. Used 'part X' from the drone sprue and shamelessly nicked a dish from a Landraider Crusader.


Making this.


Magnets to fix the drone to the track unit.


Buffer bits to go between track things and core thing.


And presto! Contraption compared to token, it's about equal size.


The painted result:

That looks awesome! Nicely done.


I had started something similar, using the track unit from a Star Wars Miniatures assassin droid... but it winds up a fair bit smaller than the card version.

Man, that's more work than I was hoping to put into that! It looks great, and I'm quite jealous you have one.

And I'm happy I finally got it done . In fact I think it's better to find something with completed tracks and steal those. Someone here on the forum, can't recall, showed a pic of a Wall-e mini that looked neat. The 'thing' is getting the model to be as tall as the card. The drawing on the card looks like a normal drone body but it's actually quite a bit larger, so either you make a taller 'core' beneath it, or make huge tracks Ain't nobody gonna say my model ain't 'large'. I kinda figure that with the Epirian way of making modular stuff and kitbashing machines from whatever's to hand I get away with it.

Brilliant stuff The antenna design on the card is from an HQ scarecrow's backpack but your solution looks much more effective

I actually had that part in hand as I was building this, just came down to what most easily fit where

I bought "Small Triangular Track Unit" from Zinge Industries. They are slightly too big, but it's pretty close.
Haven't actually built the Uplink Relay yet. Will post pics when it's done.

That looks totally perfect!