Varangian guard and arm weapons WIP

Haven't had much time to work on Varangian, or any other models lately (nice weather and a large piece of land) but I have managed some progress small progress here and there. I am currently a bit unfocused and are working on several projects in parallel which is not helping. The release of the knight codes and associated models have my brain working overdrive with conversion ideas which is definitively not helping me stay on target.

Be that as it may, I have finally gotten over on major design hurdle on the Varangian, how to attach the arm weapons. I have seen some different designs on different fora but nothing that got struck me as how wanted it done. Since the weapons are quite heavy and if I am posing the arms at some stress position this will put a lot of forces on the joints. One thing I liked from my excursions on the internet was to reinforce the resin with a metal tube to take the forces from the screws or pins if using this attachment method. However, I could not find any suitable tubing for a reasonable price. The closes I got was breaklines but these were only sold in 5m lengths and up. In the end I found what I think is a neat solution, some bushings with a 4 mm clearbore that probably was not intended for this use but thy fit perfectly and will help protect the resin edges from shipping or cracking. The pins were made from M4 threaded pin that was cut to length with some endcap nuts. By tightening the nuts I squeeze the weapon lip in the arm braze so that I can set the angle of the weapon relative to the arm. I hope this will hold up. Anyway, it is a relief to have decided on this so that I can move forward with painting of the upper arms.

Apart from this I also had what I think was a small epiphany the other night. I have not been really happy with the rear platform and especially the railing. The scale has been of somehow. So I thought that if I ad some guards to hold the platform from boarders it might give it a bit more life and a feeling for scale. I remembered that in the baneblade kit there were some commander bodies standing in a non moving pose and that there were some belt feed heavy stubbers for shooting over the sides of one of the baneblade builds. So I thought that a combination of the commanders, some skitarii helmets and heavy stubbers would look cool on the back platform. However, the railing was to high to get the guns over in practical way so I decided to cut of the top rail and shorten the "legs" a bit to get it more in line with a waist high railing for a human soldier. And by just doing this, suddenly the platform did not look so off as before, adding the gunners then was just topping on the cake. I must say that I am really happy with how it turned out.


Not much painting, or much building but at least I have made some design decisions that will help me move forward, and as it is holiday time I will have some more time to sink into this.

The Skag-Valkyrie and Warlord Knight

I have started a new small project, the "Skag-Valkyrie". When the Armiger-class Knights were released I decided that a small banner of fast hunters would make an excellent addition to my growing Knight host. And since these Knights are inducted into the Northern Ghosts I thought that I would call them Skag-Valkyrie to keep with the norse naming that I use for my titans (Varangian, Joluns Modh, Uthola and Ylgjar Ergi). I have not given the Armigers their individual names yet, nor have I done so for their larger cousins but I am working on it. That as well as some background etc. I will see if I make a small series of posts, one for each Knight, later on.

Well, apart form thinking about cool names to give to small plastic models I have also been working on on the plastics. Off course I needed an interior also for these Knights, and since they are Valkyries the pilots needed to be female. I did not have any seated models left (I used all my sentinel pilots for the last trio of Questoris-class knights) so I was looking through my old sprues to see if there were any suitable candidates for some conversion work. What I found were some very old Dark Eldar plastic models form the 3rd edition (?) 40k starter set. These had some female upper bodies and the legs were skinny enough to look easy to get into a sitting position. So, some cutting later I had the start of some pilots. This was complemented with some heads from the Sisters of Silence sprue together with some arms. Now they need some green stuff to get them into shape but apart from that I am really happy with how they turned out.

Next I needed an interior for the pilot to sit in. Since the upper body of the Armiger-class is much smaller than the Questoris-class I decided to go simple and just make a combined "wall and chair" sort of thing and mount it to the bottom of the torso instead of making a complete interior with floor and all (as I did for the other Knights). They also got a dash board and a viewing screen to top things of. For the "engine" I used one "turbine" from the same type of jump packs (maxmini) that I used before for the larger Knights, all to keep with the theme.

I also cut out the hatch so that it can be removed/opened as well as opened up the air vents on the back. So far I have only made these changes to one Armiger and I am using this to fit all six of the interiors I am building. I want to see that it turns out ok before starting on any other kits. In the end there will be two Warglaives and four Helverins.

I have also been working on my last Questoris knight, adding some extra armor plates etc. With the additions I have made I would guess it is more in the Dominus-class size but I do not have one of those to compare with. But next to a "regular" questoris you see the difference. There is still some green stuff work to do, mostly chaos growth and so, and some missing plastic bits, but I should soon be able to start painting.

Varangian bodyboz and inside WIP

For the last week or so I have been shipping away, quite literally, on the body box. The weathering and details take forever. One thing that I have done which I am not sure is worth it is to paint all the armor attachment points with black and yellow chevrons, some thing that we never be seen but would probably be there. And who knows, I might want to display it with out some of the armor at some point?
Since I am making progress with the outside of the box it is getting time to start thinking about the inside. The internal panels have been done now for some time but I have not put them in as it is a very tight fit and I do not want to risk the paint job more than necessary. But to know what to paint on the inside I needed to do at least one fit to mark the areas that will be painted. I am quite happy with how it looks with the panels fully painted in there. But these will also only be visible at special occasions. I am really looking forward to finishing the top box as it is a pain to paint. It is a bit on the large side when it comes to all the detail painting.