I sent a link to this blog to a friend’s husband, then realized I haven’t updated in almost a year. So I thought this would be a good time to do some updates. Also, if you’re reading this, hi Tom!
I’m particularly proud of this next project. I have had a lot of success putting lights in things like my two last display boards, this chimera, this Leman Russ Tank, this Basilisk Tank, and many others (like this…. thing I won an award for). But I wanted to up the ante even more. What if a model had actually moving parts!
For an upcoming 2000 points Imperial Fists list, I decided I wanted to include a Venerable Chaplain Dreadnought model. 1d4chan calls it one of the best models Space Marines can field. It is from Forge World, and a discontinued model, but I was able to get one from eBay. It didn’t come with arms, but fortunately I had one for sale. I also bought the Imperial Armour book so I could legally use it in tournaments. I’m a little concerned that the Forge World units will be getting new books soon, but hopefully I can make use of that rulebook I bought.
The popular meta is to give it two close combat weapons (CCW), or a CCW and twin-lascannons. But I didn’t feel like I could put a motor on either of those. So, it has the option to take an assault cannon, which I see as a rotating gatling kind of gun, which would be fun to motorize.
I started by going all out with the lights. First, the four exhaust ports at the back would have the flickering flames that worked so well on my hellhounds. I use these flickering LED’s and transparent flames from Zinge Industries. I also wanted the eyes of the “skull” head to light up. Unfortunately, instead of drilling out the eyes, I drilled out the whole skull. Fortunately, Zinge had a solution for that too: A Transparent Flaming Skull.
I had an oversight putting the skull light and flickering lights on the same battery, because the light for the skull drained so much current that both lights wouldn’t work at the same time. So, I re-wired them onto different batteries but the same switch.
Finally, the motorized assault cannon. This was SO much harder than I thought it would be! First of all, the arm space I have to work with is tiny. Fortunately, I was able to find a motor that would fit in the arm. It’s meant to make cell phones vibrate. I broke 3 of them trying to get it wired correctly. Then, I realized the CR1220 batteries didn’t have enough power for the motor and weight of the “gun barrel part”. So, I added a CR2032 battery.
That left me with a spare switch and battery in the base. I wired that to a light in the front of the base. I think I’ll use that to indicate if the Chaplain’s canticle is in effect for that turn.
I’m very happy with the end result. I can’t wait to bring it to a tournament, and when someone says “it would be even more awesome if the gun worked.” Then I’ll hit a switch and watch the jaws drop!
I shared this on a few Facebook groups, and below is my favourite comment: