Star Wars X Wing Miniatures: B Wing Redux

I picked up the B Wing on Friday. Love the ship, stats, cards and what it brings to the game. Don’t like the pose. Nothing wrong with it really, it does make sense as a production pose for the game. Still, I prefer the asymmetrical pose, so I decided to re-do the B Wing.

In all, this was a 20 minute task, most of that time was spent going slow and making sure that I did not put undue stress on any wings, cannon barrels or anything else. I did not break a thing.

Materials List:

1. 1/8" drill bit & 1 smaller bit for a pilot hole
2. X-Acto blade
3. Super Glue
4. Small detail brush
5. Black paint
6. Grey paint like GW Eshin Grey, Dark Reaper or Dawnstone
7. Thin file

 

First, pop off the cockpit. It seems like this piece was a glued part with a peg so you’ll just need a sharp X-Acto to break the paint layer and chop that peg. Trim the surfaces back to flat and dry-fit in the position you want. Don’t glue it yet, set it aside.

 Second, remove the female peg for the flight stand. I just slowly rocked it back and forth until I was able to pop it off. It did leave a clear piece of peg between the four engines but I smoothed that back down with the thin edge of a file. Just get it smooth. Once done, hit it with some black paint or wait until after everything is together. 

Take the female peg and insert a male peg, seeing where the male tab shows though, when seated. Make a cut on the female peg at least 1/8" away from the top of the male tab inside (yeah, I know, mine was less). Clean it up after you cut it. Make sure you set the trimmed female flight peg aside, you’ll need it.

Third is the trickiest part. You’ll need to be sure that the male flight pegs are centered on the B Wing ribs. True, the ship doesn’t weigh a lot but you want it right over the flight base footprint. The cleaner you make the hole for the female flight peg, the easier the ship will come on and off… the pose is better IMHO but you may find yourself pulling the ship off the base in heavy table traffic. So, look at where the main “sail” or wing attached to the engine cluster. You’ll see fairing that looks like 4 ribs. The 2nd rib from the front of the ship is where you put the hole for the female peg, that is center. Mark it with a pen or just go for it. Use a smaller bit than 1/8" for the pilot hole. DO NOT GO DEEP OR YOU WILL GO OUT THE OTHER SIDE of the ship. I suggest tapping the pilot hole by hand, skip the drill. After that, use the 1/8” bit to make the hole for the female flight peg, being mindful of your bit: make sure you are drilling as vertical as possible. Again, DO NOT GO DEEP. You may get frustrated at the cut speed. The ship material is like cold plastic or vinyl and so, it won’t cut fast. If you use a drill, don’t be tempted to give the drill more juice or you’ll pop a hole out the other side or worse, it’ll grab the model, spin it like mad and you’ll break wings or cannon grabbing it. Test the fit and work it so it can press fit or hold with glue. Once the hole is ready, put the female peg on the flight stand, MINDING THE DIRECTION ARROW on the stand. Take a minute to practice putting the B Wing on the female peg. Once you know which way is forward and you are ready, add a bit of Super Glue to it and attach the B Wing, making adjustments as necessary for flush vertical and horizontal if that is what you want. DO NOT PRESS HARD or you may snap the flight pegs or worse. Let dry for a few minutes.

Almost there. Glue on that cockpit. Remember the cockpit? Yeah, find it again and glue that on, making it level, remembering the cockpit was supposed to move and stay level as the ship barrel rolled around.

 Finally, re-touch the paint. Put some black over the trimmed peg at the engine clusters, grey on the engines. I'm gonna add some engine glow to mine sometime soon. Maybe you are more ambitious than me.

Attach your B Wing to the flight stand and enjoy!

Look ma, no change in how you store it in the blister. If you are into that sort of thing.

Warmachine: Khador Mechaniks WIP

So, campaign starts October. I'm betting mechanics will finally be useful enough to warrant taking them in many campaign games. Starting a damaged warjack in a game because you have no choice and having mechanics rushing to fix it while the game starts sounds like the level of stress I enjoy in my games. Not kidding.

Anywho, thanks to the generosity of my buddy Finn, I now have a unit of Khador Mechaniks. Thanks Finn!

Yes, I converted them. And yes, I actually like the sculpts a lot but not the repetition. So, I lopped off their heads (save the leader, who is awesome) and replaced them with Maxmini heads I had laying around for my Valhallen IG. Adds just enough visual variety to make them more interesting and still let me get it all done in one sitting.

I'm planning on trying some urban camo on them. We'll see how that goes.

With greenstuff blending around the neck...

Warmachine: Practice Games

Got in a pre-campaign practice game with my Khador today. I hosted, playing Trish's Menoth while Pete had Cryx, who played Finnegan's Skorne. All games were 35 points. I think we're all committed to our present forces except for Finnegan, who said he'd bring Retribution to the campaign but may now be considering Skorne. It might be useful to be the only Hordes army in the campaign.

The Jugger on my left flank takes a drubbing by the Menoth 'jacks and Bastions. A turn later, Butcher feats and everything here dies to the almost-wrecked Khador 'jack. Jugger eventually goes down. Butcher comes in to free up some engaged Widowmakers, gets over extended and is caught and killed by Amon Ad-raza's forces.

Pete's Denegrah list hits Jon's Skorne list. If I heard right, Cryx caught Skorne with a feint and sealed the deal.

Khador: Man O War WIP

More work done today on the Man o Wars...

Added textured wallpaper to bases. Leg pieces glued in and back filled with greenstuff 

Added pins to leg pieces

Trimmed shoulder nubs and tapped holes. Added 1 piece wire straight through holes. Glued both torso halves around green stuff core, pressed together.

Glued torso onto lowers, smoothed greenstuff overflow.

Khador Ulhans: I hate you. Plus: Gamillions of other things I'm trying to do at once...

 So I'm planning on running Ulhans and Markhov together at some point in the upcoming Fall campaign since I eventually want to have an all pike, all lance army under Vlad. you know, something for the kids. I brought the 5 unassembled Ulhans on vacation with me, to knock out some pinning/gluing and building.

Fail. What the hey-hey PP? The fulcrum for the model is the lower half of the IFP rider, supporting the upper IFP and telephone-pole pike on top AND the weight of the giant horse on the bottom when you pick it up and move it.  You make the IFP’s waist 2 pieces, split down the middle from front-to-back along the thinnest part of those pieces? You suck. You could have easily made this one piece. 

But you didn’t, so now I have to pin two separate pieces of lap to the horse. When? I dunno.

Still reading? In other news, this stuff is underway. My converted Vlad, a pinned Doomreaver unit attachment and Drago's murderously thin bicep reconstruction are all underway. I also fired up the Man O’ War assembly line with 2 units of Man O War Shocktroopers and one 3 man Demo Corp unit. I have the option of adding one Man O War to either the Shocktroopers or the Demo Corp. Prolly go Shocktrooper.

Warmachine: Khador Underway

I knew it was bound to happen. I graduate college, start in on a huge backlog of projects both game-related and no, start a rhythm of painting, prioritizing and sorting what the hell needs to be built. I kept wondering if I would let myself be drawn into some painting and playing that had nothing to do with the work I most lamented not doing because of life (eg. Strange Aeons).

So now I’m in a Warmachine campaign. I already planned a Fall of Strange Aeons but instead I’m dragging out all the Khador I neglected to paint in Mk i.

Campaign starts in October, and we have a meeting tomorrow night to run out our charter, ways and means, that sort of thing. Between us we have a ton of terrain so the pics on Sarcophagi should look pretty good around Halloween.

So, stay tuned as I dust off my old red paint mix batches… which are all dried out. And GW changed their color formulas… great.

The Wall of Shame or What I Could Paint for the Campaign Since I own it Unpainted:

Warcasters:

1. eSorcha
2. Vlad
3. eVlad
4. eButcher
5. Strakhov
6. Old Witch

Jacks:

1. Destroyer
2. Devastator
3. Spriggen
4. Kodiak X2
5. Drago (definitely painting him)
6. Marauder (already converted it)

Units:

1. IFP
2. Doomreavers
3. Greylords
4. Man O War Shocktroopers
5. Man O War Demolition Crew
6. Widowmakers
7. Great Bears
8. Uhlans

Solo:

1. Koldun
2. Kovnik
3. Fenris

Where the frig to begin... more as I decide and progress.

In the meantime, pics of what I already have painted, Not much!

Legion of Everblight: Finished War pack

 Here is the completed Hordes war pack (plus 2) I did for my buddy Jon. I am pretty sure that the Shredders and maybe other models don't need an arc to speak of but I don't have a book or cards to be sure. Anyway, I marked all models with an arc, easy enough to paint over.

I also added adhesive-backed felt into the Privateer Press Legion dice tin. I've done this with the other original dice sets I own... the felt deadens some of the noise of rolling into the trays.