So, I’ve had it in my mind to build a Destroyer for a while
now. I’ve always liked the look and idea
of them. Much like the Basilisk (another
favorite) it’s less a tank than it is a mobile platform for a single, massive
weapon. Plus, some of the folks I game
with are starting to assemble (no pun intended) some pretty impressive forces, so having a dedicated super-heavy hunter gives me something that can die
on turn one a lot...
An advantage of the Leman Russ being so popular is there are
lots of different templates out there for it.
And for all the many, many variants of it. Some brilliant ones by Patroch. I dug through my collection and found a nice
one from way back when—one of the first Leman Russ templates I ever saw, to be
honest. I’d love to give credit where
credit is due, but the best I can find on it is a date
(2000-11-15) and the word Bile, which might be a proper name or a handle or
maybe someone created this template as part of an elaborate revenge plot? If you know who created it, please speak up. Regardless, it’s great and up in the STC Archive for your perusal.
One of the things I love about this template is its relative
simplicity. It has a lot of detail, but
the whole thing is only four pages long. And all that’s on the last page is the
standard turret—it’s really about three and a quarter pages. I managed to fit about 90% of this on a single frozen pizza box. So this is
going to be cheap even from a cardstock point of view.
I’m going to start with the outer sides and work in. This may seem a bit odd. but it means I’ll be
able to get most of the treads and hull done in just two posts. Again—very
simple template.
The sides of this template are layered, a lot like the Malcador I built years ago. It means a little more work, but it makes for
a much, much more detailed model—and a much more solid one, too. If you look at this template, sheets one and
two each have both sides of a tread and three layers of detail (plus some other
stuff we’ll go into later). It’s worth
noting that those inner layers, the two sides, are all angles, not curved. This
is to help line up the tread pieces later.
Helpful Hint—The outer two layers have some
fine detail work at the bottom. The
third layer is just one big ring, really.
Whenever I have to do pieces like this, I always cut out the inner bits before I cut the whole element from cardstock.
It’s much easier to work this way, especially with narrow bits like that
ring. Cut the element out first and it’s
harder to hold and harder to work with.
Once everything was cut out, I set it out in order and started gluing sections
on, one at a time. I used my
clothespin-clamps every step to make the edges stayed as flush as possible—especially
at the top. This is going to be a very
visible edge, so it’ll draw a lot of attention.
When all four layers were together and lined up, I let them
sit for a minute to firm up. Then I carefully wrapped them in some old veggie
bags (wax paper would work, too) and set them under a pile of books. There’s a lot of glue here, and I don’t want
anything to curl or bend while it’s drying.
Again—just to hammer it home—I made sure everything was lined up
first. It’d suck to cut out all this
detail and then have it dry crooked.
I left these under the books for about... four hours? I went out and saw Captain America: Civil War. When I came back, they were
dry, solid, and very flat.
And, believe it or not, the Leman Russ body is almost half
done at this point.
Next time, I’ll assemble the treads and the hull, then put
it all together.
I have always really liked the Destroyer. It was my first Forge World kit, back when it was real work to make the resin parts fit onto the plastic ones. Your paper one will probably turn out much better looking than mine.
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