If the current batch can't rotate their top-mounted turrets, one option for a second batch of tanks would be to integrate a 2x2 LEGO turntable into the connection between the hull and turret - it might need some supports to keep it from just free-wheeling (ie., to make the turret not spin when you don't want it to), but it'd be a simple solution to making the turrets spin without also locking you down to a single turret design.
Unfortunately, I don't think there's necessarily a good solution to including gun elevation without substantial (and probably headache inducing) redesign of the turret interior and the gun modules, but being able to spin the turrets to point at a target would honestly be really cool during a game I think (and it'd also make dioramas easier, potentially).
Huh I just realised that since I used Google Translate for this it kinda fits with the whole 40K aesthetic of using inaccurate translations for the pseudo-Latin that is High Gothic!
Also for fun I decided to do the above for TTS verse For the Man-Emperor of Mankind:
Huh I just realised that since I used Google Translate for this it kinda fits with the whole 40K aesthetic of using inaccurate translations for the pseudo-Latin that is High Gothic!
now, this army is very much the anti-Catachans, right? like, thematically, but also in presentation, being artillery-heavy, methodical jungle soldiers to their maverick macho jungle fighters.
but something was missing. the catachan have a pile of named characters, all more badass than the last, and while i've generally been erring toward an army who are equal parts triumphant and terrified in posing, i figured i can't let this go totally unanswered. I don't think we'll have an Iron Hand Straken or Sergeant Harker, but there is one soldier perfectly in line with the theme of the army, perfectly suited to disrupting enemy counterbattery fire and killing characters to protect my infantry. one character who would ensure the enemy were always watching their backs, always had to be careful how they deployed in case he came calling.
Preacher Liviana Atticus had armed herself well. Clad in unremarkable fatigues, a helmet slung low to conceal her face, and a pack full of weapons for her mission, she strode through the milling soldiers with the distracted aura of a bewildered private told to find the 'ID-10T dataslate.' Sighting her first target, Liviana jogged ahead and stepped in front of the crouched Sentinel, bringing herself level with the pilot behind the armour-plas screen.
"Sergeant, errr, Minh?" the Preacher called out hesitantly, her off-worlder accent concealed by extensive practice with the schola's vocal coaches. "Message from the Techpriest, sir."
The Sentinel pilot rolled his eyes wearily. "Fuck off, private, I ain't no 'sir.' Now, what is i- oh." His tirade was cut off suddenly as Liviana used the distraction to duck inside the Sentinel, her helmet jarred upwards by the impact on the cramped side hatch. "You again, Liv."
"Me again," she chirped. "I need a favour, Minh."
Sergeant Minh leaned back from the Sentinel's controls. "Another? And wipe yer feet next time y'get in my ride, Preacher."
Liviana reached into her pack, drawing out her first weapon. "Don't worry, Minh. I've learned to wipe my boots on the step, and I can pay this time. I know you and Bui in Second Platoon have set up a still to make rotgut," she began, casting a meaningful glance towards the apparently innocuous pile of refuse to the Sentinel's right. "All that work - rather illegal, to boot - for shitty alcohol." She twirled a bottle of illicit amesac between her fingers, the brand clearly visible on the side. "Meanwhile, I can get you a few bottles of the good stuff instead."
The Sentinel pilot glared daggers at her. "First off, who snitched?"
The Preacher waggled her finger. "Ah, ah, ah! I'm no novice anymore, Sergeant; we both know that info costs extra." Liviana had gotten a tip-off from Tech-Priest Theta about a still, and had merely guessed that Minh was in the loop, but his face now spoke volumes. "Here's my deal: a few bottles of good amesac here - plus my silence - for a simple favour. I need you to find someone, Minh."
The Sergeant's face turned contemplative as he turned back to the Sentinel's complicated augur arrays. "You need someone, who you can't find with your off-worlder friends...oh. Oh, no." The pilot's face turned pale, back-lit only by the cabin's red standby lighting. "I can't do that, Liv!"
"I need him," the Preacher pressed. "We've got a full regimental review tomorrow, with pict-captures during the parade, and we both know it'll be impossible to find him then. He'll be drunk right now, so we've got to find him before he sobers up and realizes what day it is."
"We? We? Don't rope me into your problems!" Minh yelped, banging his head against a low-lying strut as he shrank away from the unwelcome visitor. "If he's awake enough to remember, I'm fuckin' dead! Y'hear me - DEAD!"
"He won't be, and we both know it," Liviana reassured the frantic pilot. "Just track the bionics, easy as you can, and keep walking. Your walker's just been through maintenance, and it'll need a quick walkabout anyway; no-one will notice a thing out of place. You find him, and I'll have a couple lads scoop him up. No one has to know." She cocked an eyebrow, nodding towards the amesac.
"And if I don't play along, then you send my head to the Commissars," Sergeant Minh finished wearily. "Fine. Gimme the rest of your case of amesac and the name of the snitch, and it's a deal."
And just like that, she had a breakthrough. "A quarter of the case. This stuff isn't cheap, you know."
"You don't know who you're dealing with. Three-quarters."
"I've read the reports. Half."
"'I've read the reports,' she says, as though that meant something," Minh chuckled grimly. "You're a fuckin' idiot, Liv; all you off-worlders are. Half it is, then."
"Deal." Liviana gave a friendly handshake, the disguised Preacher affecting an unconcerned air. "Pham from Mortars is your snitch, by the way." Corporal Pham was a good-for-nothing snake, and Liviana fed her name to the wolves with no remorse. "Lead on, Sergeant; let's go find Duke."
The augur pinged, and Liviana handed over the half-case of amesac as Sergeant Minh confirmed the findings. "I wasn't here, Liv. If anyone asks, I was just takin' Tam-Cam here for a stroll to test the legs, nothin' more." He slapped the controls, causing the Sentinel to dig its three-toed legs into the dirt. "I didn't see nothin', I didn't ping nothin', and I sure as hell didn't say nothin'."
"Nothin' across the board," the Preacher chirped, squeezing herself out through the tiny hatch. "Carry on, Sergeant!"
The pilot saluted sardonically as Liviana dropped herself to the ground, donning her 'borrowed' helmet and disguising herself once again as a clueless rookie soldier. Ignoring the crunch-hiss of the departing Sentinel, Liviana darted past the nearby tents as she continued the hunt for her target. The augur's readings had clearly showed the energy signature of a miniaturized plasma reactor nearby, but that only meant her quarry had gone to ground. Now, she needed to actually find the bastard.
Though she soundlessly mouthed a prayer to steady her nerves as she walked, the Preacher couldn't suppress the slight shiver of fear that ran down her spine. Though he might be among a regiment of raw recruits, Sergeant Minh was an 'old-timer,' a veteran of the Guard who'd served in multiple deployments. Minh didn't scare easily, but Liviana's target frightened him. She might have learned a few tricks herself, but what did she think she had going for her that renegade Astartes didn't?
"Timing, for one," Liviana muttered to herself as she rounded a corner and spotted her quarry. Sprawled among a forest of debris, the bane of heretics and traitors alike snored gently into the mouth of an empty amesac bottle. "I have you now," Liviana announced, more to calm her nerves than to the unconscious man with the piss-stained pants. "You're not escaping this one, Duke."
Sergeant Duc 'Nukim' Nguyen merely hiccuped in response, barely even twitching as the Preacher organized a working party to get him moved. The regimental review was tomorrow, and the pict-captures of the parade would show the regiment's hero in properly statuesque poses, no matter what he'd been doing the night before.
there has been very little progress due to carpal tunnel; i can't paint at all unfortunately, its very frustrating
in place of that, though, i do have something cool if you have a 3d printer. here's the STL for one of my figures! im hoping somebody out there is bored enough to paint one up and i can live vicariously through that.
hey, im getting treatment for my stupid hands! extremely early days, but maybe that means i'll be able to paint again in the near future
in celebration, i'm working on something new... an actual Veteran Guardsman kill team set! I'm tired of waiting to see if they'll make new Catachans and I'm just making them after the Death Korps kit. in this image we've got the sergeant, two guardsmen, the bruiser, the marksman, and two gunners. all WIP of course.
my plan is to do the full set of veterans you can field in a kill team, in such a fashion you could also field them as a legal 20-man Death Korps unit. that's because i'm actually going to release these models! i'm not sure yet if they'll be a paid or free kit, we'll cross that bridge when we burn it or whatever, but I do wanna put something out there while getting to greedily keep my actual army to myself. i would appreciate your opinions on this matter.
I'd double check the legality of releasing models, especially paid, because that seems exactly the sort of thing Games Workshop would get mad at and they've been... weird about fan creations before.
That said, it's wonderful to have you back! Best of luck with the hands!
I'd double check the legality of releasing models, especially paid, because that seems exactly the sort of thing Games Workshop would get mad at and they've been... weird about fan creations before.
That said, it's wonderful to have you back! Best of luck with the hands!
I don't think GeeDubs has a sturdy legal leg to stand on - she made the models, she owns them. Marketing them as WH40k models is obviously out, but releasing them should be fine. Paid or not. Obviously, other people couldn't use the actual army in official events (IIRC GeeDubs does allow people to use models they made, just not models someone else made), and there would need to be a Veneer of Plausible Deniability about it, but "you were inspired by our IP when you made this so you owe us money" is a pretty high bar to clear for anyone not named Disney or Saban.
(I am not a lawyer. I have studied copyright law in the context of international human rights law. I am not a lawyer. Copyright law is a dystopian hellscape of corporate interests. I am not a lawyer.)
Is the... Melta(?) Gunner getting a cybernetic hand or something, like the Sarge has? Also, her pose looks a little weird, as if she's going to fall over anytime now - must be one heavy-ass gun.
Is the... Melta(?) Gunner getting a cybernetic hand or something, like the Sarge has? Also, her pose looks a little weird, as if she's going to fall over anytime now - must be one heavy-ass gun.
I'd double check the legality of releasing models, especially paid, because that seems exactly the sort of thing Games Workshop would get mad at and they've been... weird about fan creations before.
That said, it's wonderful to have you back! Best of luck with the hands!
Should be fine so long as she doesn't explicitly market them using 40k branding, I think. There's plenty of people already out there selling both STLs and actual prints of proxy models with no trouble.
Should be fine so long as she doesn't explicitly market them using 40k branding, I think. There's plenty of people already out there selling both STLs and actual prints of proxy models with no trouble.
this is a big part of the reason why i wanna release the kill team over the rest of it; it'll be a lot easier to remove on these guys without changing the design too much, as they wear fewer of them and less prominently
