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My Scratch Built Drop Pods for Space Wolves (Pics)

    The Reavers are a Space Wolves lost company based on a space hulk with little to no control of where they wander.  This has led them to specialize in ship to ship and ship-board combat.  For planet side encounters they make heavy use of drop pods in lieu of more valuable transports.

    I have 3 DIY drop pods that have seen heavy use in my hybrid lists.  More recently I’ve proxied two additional pods more of a pure pod based list and been happy with the results.  This means I need to build two more pods.  I decided to use the same templates as used for my older pods but take them a step further.

    Drop Pods - 2
    Foam core and card stock for the win!

    These are my current pods, still in need of a little more paint, with a few marines for scale.  I don’t have any WIP shots of these.  They were made from foam core and cereal boxes with orange juice covers as the retro thrusters.  I started with the GW dreadnought drop pod template which I downloaded from one of the old GW websites. It produced a pod similar in size and appearance to the Forgeworld Dreadnought Drop Pod which was too large for my taste so I’ve re-scaled it to more closely match the GW drop pod kit in foot print and height.

    For my next pair of pods I decided to use styrene.  This allowed me to modify the design and create pods that open.  As far as difficulty I found that these have been comparable to the previous ones.  There is extra work required for the hinges and petals but I will not need to pre-paint the edges of anything before spray painting, and plastic adhesive cures more quickly than the PVA glue I used for the card stock ones so there’s less time holding pieces together and waiting for them to stick.  Here is a finished plastic pod next to a cardboard one for comparison:

    Drop Pods - 3
    They’ve almost identical!

    As you can see these will fit nicely together once they’re painted.  The real difference is when they’re opened:

    Drop Pods - 4
    Ok, they’re not quite the same.

    The opened pods give a much more dramatic feel when deployed than the closed ones do, although the petals can be a bit of a pain to move model around.  I’ve magnet mounted the storm bolter so it can be removed to represent Weapon Destroyed.  I could even build a Deathwind Launcher for it if I were so inclined.  I like the more open interior compared to the GW pod.  I imagine the Reavers relying on their armor and magnetic boots to keep them safe rather than seat belts and padded head rests.  If I ever pick up the GW kit I’ll probably leave those out of it.  Overall I’m happy with this pod.  The fifth one is almost complete; it still needs the center console and weapon mount before I attach the doors:

    Drop Pods - 5
    Don’t worry brothers, just hold the doors on till we land…

    After that it’s time to paint them!

    Kamui

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    10 Comments
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    therhino
    therhino
    12 years ago

    I used to have three of these I built using the French templates. Unfortunately, I became a paint-and-model snob, and refused to field them anymore. They had a deepstrike mishap into my trash can. :P
    The styrene version looks very nice.

    Thor
    Admin
    12 years ago

    Your functional plasticard ones makes me feel lame using my plumbing pods. Then again, my build time is about 5 minutes :P Yours are much cooler though.

    Sean Squires
    Sean Squires
    12 years ago

    It was already a cool design, but the opening doors put this model over the top A++!

    Thor
    Admin
    12 years ago
    Reply to  Kamui

    I think the top of the, now old, GW paint pots would work. You must have a billion of them I imagine.

    Thor
    Admin
    12 years ago
    Reply to  Thor

    Nevermind, I see you’re using it inside the pod. Using it for two different things wouldn’t work. Hmmm.