Landing/ Teleport Pad

I’ve mentioned before that my girlfriend has a large tract of land down at our local community garden.  When we go shopping at the 99 Cent Store, she indulges my quests for cheap scenery and I help with some of the garden stuff she looks at.  Every now and then they overlap.  Like when I found a bunch of three-inch plastic army men (five to a pack) and decided we needed some to protect the garden.  Well, once I’d made a few small conversions, anyway...

And then there was this time, when I found something right there in the garden section while she was looking at herbs.  This is a plastic saucer to go under flowerpots so they don’t drip when you water them.  They come in a couple of sizes.  This one’s the 10”, but there was also a two-pack of 8” ones and a three pack of 6” saucers.  My brain started working with these immediately and I ended up grabbing the largest one.  I also grabbed a tube of “Fix-All Adhesive” glue because it works on plastic and rubber.  So this project is going to cost all of two dollars.

I flipped the saucer over, peeled the label off the bottom, and cleaned it.  I didn’t want any little pills of paper left here, so I actually put this in the sink and used some soap and water on it. 

Once it was dry, I put a few threads of regular super glue in the indents from that large “10” at the center.  Arguably, you could keep it as extra detail, but I wanted a large, flat center on my landing pad.  Once that dried I used a few last drops to fill in low spaces and gaps.

Helpful Hint – It’s tempting to use the super-cheap glue I just bought, but it’s too thick.  It’s never going to settle down and smooth out, and I’d just end up with little wrinkles and peaks in the center.

I cut a bunch of card strips at 1 1/8” x 8 3/4” (your own measurements may vary depending on your saucer) and folded them into consummate V’s.  I set these down inside the saucer and glued them with the adhesive  This was the most time consuming part of this project.  The glue needs three hours to set and a day to cure completely.  So, I glued them and set it aside. It’s a long time, but it makes the whole thing rock solid.  I can actually lean on it and it will hold up my weight.

Another Helpful Hint – While the V’s were drying, I put a piece of paper across the top of them and set a book on top of it.  If one or two of these curl up, the landing pad will never sit flat, so it’s important to keep them all in position.

At this point, this piece is effectively done.  I primed it black and gave it a very light drybrush with some Boltgun Metal paint (Leadbelcher for those of you who’ve already moved on to the newer paint colors).

There’s a bunch of ridges and valleys on this thing that make for fantastic detail.  It’d be very easy to paint concentric circles, or a few of the small “buttons” as lights.   I used a yellow base and did white over that to make it look like a bright light.  It's big enough that I could clean up any messiness with a black magic marker. You could also extend the lined all the way to the center to make it look more like a cross-hairs target for landing, or use all eight of the radiating lines in bright red to give it a Chaos feel.  You could even do the little ridges/ tubes on the outer ring in a glowing/ electrical color scheme and say they’re force shield projectors, allowing you to use it as a raised/unfurled Skyshield.

Alternately, with a slightly different color scheme and detail-pattern, this would make a fine teleport pad.  You could probably go down to the 8” saucer and still fit a full squad of Terminators there.  Paint it black and green, focusing on the buttons more, and it could make a very passable Necron array of... well, probably some kind of death.  Necrons are big on that.

All for just two bucks.

Dark Vengeance Update

Hey, just wanted to mention how this conversion attempt went off and show how I did it.

So, as I mentioned before, I think a lot of the figures in the Dark Vengeance set are really gorgeous.  However, their excessive detail and solid, closed-off poses make it very difficult for anyone except very experienced modelers to do a lot with them.

One exception to this is Veteran Sergeant Raphael  He’s got both arms out away from his torso.  He’s also one of the rare models in this set who has his head as a distinct piece.  Raphael comes with his right arm and head attached by a thin tube.  So I decided to see if I could turn him into a passable Fallen Angel sergeant/ aspiring champion.

I dry-assembled his torso without the head-arm piece and discovered Raphael has a standard head socket.  So all I needed to do was cut the head off right where it joins the tube and I’d be able to put on any head I wanted in any direction I wanted. 

I went with one of the retro-looking Chaos heads (I think it’s a modified Mk 5  helmet, but I’m sure opinions vary).  This worked in a couple different ways.  It’s “historically” correct for what a Fallen Angel would probably be wearing.  It’s a visual link to the studded greaves and powerfists of the terminators.  It also gives the implication of direct a tie to Chaos, or at least to the Heresy.

           

Helpful Hint— Most of you probably know this, but for the newer hobbyists, turning the head can completely change the dynamic of a model.  I turned this guy’s head away from the sword and toward the pistol.  Now he’s not gesturing, he looks more like he’s poised to leap into action.

The hand swap was another easy one.  One cut and I traded the modern plasma pistol for one of the retro Berserker ones.  The grip looks a bit odd on this pistol, but I’ve always loved all the tubing along the length of it.  While I had the berserker bits handy, I also added a holster on the figure’s hip.

As a last touch, I took my hobby knife to his chapter logo.  I made two thin gouges—trying to avoid the wings—and wedged them together.  One cut came from slightly above, one from slightly below.  I want the cut to be distinct, but if it looks a bit rough, that’s okay, too.  Now all my Fallen Angels wear a broken sword on their shoulder pad.

And there you have it—Aspiring Champion Beleth of the Fallen.

A Few Thoughts on Dark Vengeance...

I don’t usually do any straight reviews or comments on Games Workshop projects, but the starter set is such an insane bargain I thought it was worth a quick mention.  After all, being cheap is what this whole blog’s about...

On the Dark Angels side you’re getting two Headquarters units (figure they’re probably averaging $20 each), a tactical squad ($35), a Terminator squad ($50), and a bike squad ($35).  So with just this one side of the equation, this box set saves you about sixty bucks.  If you went for the deluxe set with the chaplain, that’s another $20 fig for just ten dollars more--$70 dollars off individual prices.

Coming at it from the Chaos angle, there’s a headquarters, we’ll call the Chosen another tactical squad (just for easy reference), the cultists (if they’re priced like Guardsmen, there’s $30) and the Hellbrute.  I’m going to go out on a limb and guess the Hellbrute would be a dreadnaught- or flier-sized kit with all the options, so there’s about $46.  Around one hundred thirty dollars altogether. 

So no matter which way you look at it, there’s a fair argument that you’re getting one army at 2/3 price and another one for free.  Plus the free rulebook.  And dice.  And templates.  Really, this is close to $350 dollars worth of stuff you’re getting for just under a hundred bucks.

That’s a pretty amazing deal.

However...

Many folks have commented that Dark Vengeance is an oddly unbalanced set.  A bunch of cultists vs. Space Marines and Terminators?  I’d point out that it’s also unbalanced towards Headquarters units.  If you bought the deluxe version, you’ve already got more Dark Angels HQ units than you can use in a regular game (barring some interesting Force Organization amendments in the upcoming Dark Angels codex).  Buying two sets isn’t going to help this problem.  You’ll just end up with a lot of models to sell on eBay.

Not to mention the fact that these are firmly Dark Angels models (or arguably a close successor chapter).  With all the iconography, there isn’t a lot of flexibility unless you want to do a ton of remodeling... probably enough that it won’t be worth the savings in the long run.  Dark Vengeance doesn’t just lock you into an army, it locks you into a very, very specific subset of that army.  It is to the overall gaming experience what the snap-together models are too customization.

UPDATE: The head and hand swap
were pretty easy on this model.
I'll put details in another post.

Speaking of which, these models are pretty solid.  There’s not going to be a lot of customization without a lot of serious work.  At best, you might get a few hand/weapon swaps.  I think it may be possible to do a head swap on Veteran Sergeant Raphael (we’ll find out for sure later this week).  If you have some accepting friends, you could paint all the Terminators silver, make their various “wings” gold, and call them Grey Knights, but you’d still need to figure out some close combat options...

In my own, they’re going to be added to my one squad of Fallen Angels that I made many years back (all metal models in robes).  With these models I’ve essentially got a small army of these black-armored heretics to use as an allied force for Chaos games.  And I know my friend Marcus—a long, long-time Dark Angels player--will appreciate getting to fight against an assembled host of the Fallen.

            

So, if you like Chaos and/ or Dark Angels, this set’s a fantastic bargain.  Just be aware there isn’t much else you can use it for.