I'm really fond of the "two lawn chairs on a jet engine" look of the 1st and 2nd edition landspeeder models, and I'm trying to use them exclusively for my refurbished Space Wolf army. I'm in the middle of experimenting with ways to distinguish between Speeders, Tornados, and Typhoons.

For Typhoons, I will (of course!) use the Man of Kent conversion with some old 1st edition metal Landspeedes.

For Tornados, I thoght I'd try to build something reminiscent of the old 1st edition 40K speeders. I removed the plasma gun and the front bolter, and used the flamer(?) as an ersatz mount for the old L-shaped bracket. (The 40K version used the flamer for this too, so I think it works.) I then replaced the plasma cannon with the weapon from on old Sentinel, and chopped he heavy bolter off of an old Imperial Robot to mount on the L-bracket.

The result is a machine that looks wider and shorter than the original speeder, even though it is no wider. I think it looks much less like a speeder, and much more like a floatiing weapons platform. That's a good look IMHO for Tornado.

Pictures of the test build are below, along with the old 40K version for comparison. I'm pretty happy with the result and may try and go into "production" with them now. When I build it for real I'll remove the plastic base and use a chopped-off flying stand to mount it to an old square base, which is the way I based my standard speeders.

Now what I neet to decide is, should all the "Sentinel Cannon" face straight ahead, or should some point in random directions?

-Allen McCarley

I know it wasn't what you were talking about at all, but the idea of a flamer on a Land Speeder really tickled me. As it roamed around the battlefield at speed, all it would be good for would be barbecuing the occupants!

Your conversions are looking ace! So far as the gun turrets go, it would really depend if you prefer a uniform army or prefer some more individual looking units. It's a very personal choice I think, but I'm confident they'll all be great whatever you do!

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Looks good !!

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Legion 4 "Cry Havoc, and let slip the Dogs of War !" ... "People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."

Vintage WIN!

Looks very neat. Will there be more?

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Thanks, guys! And Bissler, I'll never again be able to look at an old drawing of a Landspeeder mounting a flamer without having a good chuckle.

(Little known fact: The first Landspeeders were used by the Salamanders Legion. The Salamanders's fiery emblem actually has nothing to do with their volcanic homeworld; but with an unfortunate training incident that they'd rather not talk about. )

Mr. Gonzo: I plan to make at last five of these, so I can have a full formation of Tornados. I've also decided that I like the turret made from styrene rods much better than the "fixed" looking mount of the plasma cannon, so I'm going to snip the plasma cannon off all of my standard landspeeders and remount them with more rods.

I'll also make some Typhoons using Man of Kent's idea of using Whirlwind rocket pods.

I'm also tempted to try my hand at a Landspeeder Storm conversion, but at this point I'm chopping up an awful lot of miniatures to make a bare few. LOL. (And thus helping to rush in the end of Epic plastics!)

-Allen McCarley

Below, see a "work in progress" shot of four Tornados and a Typhoon. There is also a standard landspeeder I painted back in 1998 for comparison. (I'll be re-doing those soon....)

I find I have a question about Space Wolf landspeeders: who is driving these things?

In the old days of 2nd edition, they were driven by Blood Claws. You knew this because it said this right on the army card: Space Wolf Bloodclaw Landspeeder Squadron. Thus, as you can see, I was beginning to paint these Tornados and Typhoons in Bloodclaw colors. (Still need pack markings) However, now days I seem to see 'speeders painted in Gray Hunter colors.

I guess that makes sense; Hunters have a bit more discipline, and you don't really want your marines leaping off of their expensive 'speeders (in mid-flight) and trying to bash their opponents over the head with a pointy object.

It also makes Dobsy's Space Wolf list more sensible to use, since they won't have to continually try to get into base-to-base contact.

Has the fluff changed? Are 'speeders now driven by Gray Hunters rather than Bloodclaws?

At the moment, given the three varieties, I'm tempted to give them the same progreesion as foot troops: Landspeeders are driven by Bloodclaws, Tornados--with a bit more range and finesse--are driven by Hunters, and Typhoons are driven by Long Fangs. At least it would mkae the formations more colorful.

Thoughts?



-Allen McCarley

After getting in a game with the new Landspeeders, I started thinking about the plasma guns that I'd cut off of the 2nd edition models in order to make the Tornados. Since I'm (pretending that) I'm building a Dark Angels army, I decided to chop the missile launchers off of a few plastic Devastators and make some plasma-armed marines.

I'm sure I'm not the first to try this, but here are some phone pics of my first plasma-marine, next to a Dark Angel tactical marine for comparison.

I drilled out the front of the weapon, to make it look more like a weapon. I might try for some sort of blue glow effect there.

It still needs just a touch of greenstuff where the plasma weapon doesn't quite mate up with the old housing of the missile launcher's trigger mechanism.

If I go for several detachments of tornados (for Wolves and Angels...) I might be able to arm my entire Dark Angels army with plasma.

Now, what to do with the missile launchers?




-Allen McCarley

Pretty good !

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Legion 4 "Cry Havoc, and let slip the Dogs of War !" ... "People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."

Oops!

I had someone start "using" my credit card a while back, and had to replace it. I think I must have forgotten to switch my web domain bill over to the new number.

I'll get the pics back up.

-Allen McCarley