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This is an older conversion that I put aside for a few years and would appreciate some ideas on finishing it.





All turrets are magnetized and turn freely. This is a conversion of the very old battlewagon I had laying around.

I thought about putting a deffrolla on the front, but a reinforced ram might be better. Also maybe a cargo net for the back, so it looks like Orks just climb up on to the platform anytime they want.

Any and all ideas welcomed.

The front and back halves don't really match; the front has lots of clean lines and flat surfaces, but the back has lots more randomness to it, and looks much more Orky to me. I would suggest carrying forward that Orkiness you have on the rear half. Add more "armour plates"/plasticard and lots of rivets to the front half.

The overall profile of the model looks great. It looks like your main challenge is going to be working out the front without adding too much in length to the model. I would try to break up the 90 degree angles in the front by adding a ram or grill that bends to a 45ish degree angle on the sides, wrapping around the lower half of the front end. At that point you could add in some Teef, and give the windows the appearance of eyes.

Some less angular features could help a bit on this as well. A lot of GW ork models are boxy, but they do feature some metal panels that are curved or rounded. i've always had a tough time with this on my scratch builds and compensated by heating up styrene rods and bending them around the model to look like engine parts.

Looking forward to seeing your progress!

Looking good.

I presume you'll be adding the same level of rivetty detail over the whole thing? The rivetty bits look great.

Logically, you probably need to add a 'roof' over those two middle girders, and then short walls to create an extension of the rear passenger compartment. Even though that will mean partially obscuring some of the nice detail you've already completed :(

The rear passenger compartment looks a bit fragile and holey - add some more armour to the inside to mostly cover the holes?

That big turret looks a bit too large and top heavy to me - unless you'll be adding more weapons to it?

I too am looking forward to seeing how this goes.

Thanks for the suggestions.

Cleatus: You hit it exactly. The front needs to be more Orky, to many angles in the front.

Novasetri: Your ram idea is great, and its what I decided to go with. And Teef, most definitely Teef.

Clang: Yes I will be riveting the heck out of this thing. Your idea of a roof is great, and once I removed the turret I see that is one of the reasons his model bugs me and I put it off to the side for so long. You right the back platform needs to be beefed up.

So this is what I decided to do:

1. a reinforced ram that wraps around the front , at about a 45 deg angle. add Teef.
2. adding more armor to the back platform, and some more smoke stacks from the engine
3. Removing the turret and cutting into the roof (adding a partial roof over the middle crew compartment) to make a recessed gun deck. I have several Forge world guns laying around (Supra Cannon, big Lobba etc..) that will go up there nicely.
4. Some of the roof and the top of the small turrets are going to get some old school armored shingles.
5. Random Armor layering all over and of course RIVETS!

Thank you all, you helped break the mind lock I had on this model. Now I am really looking forward to finishing this one up.

Why not magnitize that ram so that when GW evetually buffs the rolla back up (to increase sales) you'll be able to pop it right on.

looks okay a bit beefier than the "official"model but not overly so (still fits in the 4x9 spot the other takes up with all its gubbins) over all more rivets a front ram/grill figure out what base colour its going to be and get a can (tamyia, or army painter) unless its a basic camo then krylon/rustoleum camo cause they are just as good/better and cheaper..


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Are those big shootas maganatized ..if not then maganatize them so you have the option of rokkitz instead


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Is that the olde armourcast battlewagon as the base?

Matphat: Good question. I thought about magnetizing the ram, but after mocking up a deffrolla the model was just too long. Also this model probably won't see the tabletop, I am on an extended break from 40K, just a collector/painter now.

Morfydd: It definitely is beefier than the official model. Might have to upgrade it up to a Battle Fortress, but it just doesn't have the guns for that. The big shoota turrets are magnetized, not the guns themselves. I have some rokkit turrets in the works. And yes that is an old armourcast battlewagon underneath. I have a few laying around still, 28 years in the hobby (all orks baby!) I have models in the attic, 2 closets filled up and stacks in my office.

Should pack them out oneday, would make for a cool pic, oldest to newest.

Here is a progress picture.



I am beefing up the platform in the back, and adding some armored shingles over the doors on the side. Also I have started to create the gun deck that will take a standard FW gun on top.

Definitely got the mojo back for working on this model.

Looks great, now I'm tempted to start orks again. *sigh* after I just received a ton of eldar stuff too.

Looking good! I'm pretty excited to see how your progress goes as you clearly have technical skills to make this a great model. I really like the shingles! Think i'll have to steal that idea for future projects

Looks like you have an inch or so distance from the nose to the table ..more than enough room for a deffrolla/mineplow.. one little thing down there using up some leftover/broken choppa bits, plasticard and a 3/8th inch peice of tube ploystyrene add yer imagination and you have a nice coppy lookin thing you could count as either underneath without adding length

as to upping it to battle fortress that part would be simple ..
swap those big shoota turrets for a pair opf zzappa turrets spurcue cup the main turret to be a supa kannon and away you go ...oh yea add two side sponson sons to use the big shoota turrets on

Okay so I thought I would post an update on this project. Having about 20 projects running concurrently is not a good idea, but its good for my ADHD.

I have decided to change this model to a Battlefortress. This is because of the size of the model, it is just to big to be a battlewagon.





There is still a huge amount of detail to add. Hoses and wires for the Zzap gun turrets, lots and lots of rivet work. I have not decided what to put on the gun deck yet, either a Forgeworld supa kannon or something else scratch built.

The front ram is attached via magnets so I can switch to a deffrolla in the future.

Looking good.

Keep the main gun deck as a empty 'tray', and then build supa kannon (and whatever else, e.g. some sort of turret) mounts to sit in that tray, for easy swappability..

Good call on the ram magnetising - the deffrolla might actually become useful again next codex

That's cool.

Is that just thin plasticard? Can you explain what you're doing a bit? It looks like it would either be insanely easy, or insanely difficult, and I am interested as to which it is.

Clang: thanks for the compliment. I think you are right about making the gun deck a universal system for different weapon systems. I am cautionously hopeful for the next codex.

Kb_lock: Other than old ork battlewagon parts this model is made out of just plasticard. (styrene) I mostly use 2.0 mm thickness sheets for the main body of a model. Then 1mm and lower for all the small pieces. I get most of my plasticard from evergreen scale models, but I get a big discount from my company. Everything I do is really easy, anybody can do it. (I am not even that good at it, compared to others on Dakka Dakka)

Here is a picture of my temporary work space.



Number one rule, always have a plan. Sketch out what you want your model to look like, even if you can't draw a simple sketch solidifies your idea.
You can work without a plan (I have) but your model end up showing it.

Looks very cool, love ork scratchbuilds.

Awesome battlefortress, dude! That tiny, old-school battlewagon is practically lost beneath all those layers of plasticard. I definitely do not envy the amount of time you'll be spending in rivet hell in the near future, tho

The only quibble I have is the way you've constructed the shingled roofs on the sides. The tiles are a bit thick, and it looks like you simply stacked them on top of each other. Use plasticard to build a simple cupola, then use bits of card (from paperboard packaging) to lay your shingles over the structure.

the_Armyman: Yeah I think your right about the shingles. At first I thought it looked okay, not great but okay. The idea of a cupola is a good one. I have .13 thickness sheets that will work. Now just to decide if I want to do a half conical or a half pyramid with the point cut off. The only thing I am concerned with is that the roof does not interfere with the gun deck area.

 Warboss Gobslag wrote:
the_Armyman: Yeah I think your right about the shingles. At first I thought it looked okay, not great but okay. The idea of a cupola is a good one. I have .13 thickness sheets that will work. Now just to decide if I want to do a half conical or a half pyramid with the point cut off. The only thing I am concerned with is that the roof does not interfere with the gun deck area.

I think the older style conical ones would look really cool. It would be extra work, but it would be cool if you made them into two-story gun turrets. It would break up the flat plane on top of the BW adding some height. The design of the gun platform could be made to tie into the towers, adding to the ramshackle look.

Oh that is a good idea. Grot sponsons built into tall conical shingled roofs. Oh my, thank you for that idea. Got so excited that removed the shingles already. Now I need to go sketch it out.

That Battlewagon (Battlefortress) is looking good! Very inspiring!

This looks great man,
I'd say you've succeded in Orkifying the front XD
Can't wait to see what you do next

To me what makes a great ork peice like this just perfect is loading it up with snotlings and grots doing all sorts of funny, stupid, and of course acts intended to kill while extremely endangering ones in life. Just crawling with green skins.


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Always loved the idea of one holding a torch while another jumps on a oil squig to create a small flamer.

This is really coming along. The profile almost looks like it could be the front of a train. Makes me think you could add a trailer to the back or something if you wanted to add on to it later on.