I’ve decided to try and get the Rebel Grots ready for the Fratris Salutem, a hobby event here in Maine scheduled for May. Allies are not allowed, so the only way for me to field these guys is to knock out a full 1500 point army of them. It’s going to be a push, but I’ve got my orks as a back up, so the price of failure is naught but pride.
I’ve buckled down over the last week and made some pretty good progress. The second infantry squad is complete and I’ve started on some tanks.
Infantry Squad #2
First up is a group shot of the full squad. Most of the time I’ll combine this squad with Yellow, 1 so I didn’t include a vox caster. They do have a flamer and lascannon team. The sergeant is pretty bare bones with just a bolt pistol.
The lasgrunts are a 50/50 split of 2nd edition gretchin and converted fantasy goblins. Future squads will have some more ambitious conversions on the 2nd ed. models, and probably a higher percentage of multi-part models to provide a little more variety.
Here are the sergeant and flamer. The sergeant is carrying a bolter because I somehow got it into my head that this was legal. I may swap it for a bolt pistol later on, or possibly promote him to a platoon commander. I made the same mistake on the sergeant for Yellow #1, so at least they are consistent.
Next up is the lascannon team. As with the team from Yellow #1, the snotling assistant is magnetized so I can remove him when a wound is suffered.
Tanks
I decided to take a break from infantry models and start working on some tanks. I’ve always envisioned the grots having a lot of tanks to support the grunts. The rebels have an arrangement with Warlord Grottrogg to trade recruits for equipment from Dakka, an enslaved Imperial hive planet. These are produced primarily by enslaved humans using the same machinery and patterns they used while still Imperial.
They are also maintained by the Grots’ own mechanics who don’t tend to experiment as much as the Meks. For these reasons they start very close to Imperial patterns and don’t degrade as quickly. However, as they don’t follow the religious guidelines of the Mechanicus, the will become more ramshackle as field repairs are required.
For the models I’m using patterns from www.build-40k.com to scratch-build the core vehicles, which I’ll then grot-up with extra armor and bits.
Leman Russ
First up is a cardboard Leman Russ chassis. The templates were designed to be printed on card stock or heavy paper and require a lot of folding. I wanted them to be a bit more robust that that, so I printed the templates and glued them to a cereal box to see how it works.
The material doesn’t fold well even when pre-scored so it’s a little fiddly to work with. The end result isn’t bad, but I really do prefer styrene. As I did with my battlewagon and boomwagons in the past, I’ll essentially clad this cardboard frame in styrene to add details and weaponry.
After building the prototype chassis, I decided to try one in styrene. It was easier to work with than the cardboard, so I’ll continue with all styrene models. Styrene tends to snap rather than fold, so I coated the back side of any folding pieces with masking tape.
I glue the paper template to the other side, cut out the shape, and score any folding lines before peeling the template off. When I fold along the score lines, the masking tape keeps the pieces together while I glue it all. Here’s the first styrene leman russ, the turret is magnetized.
Basilisk
Next up is the first basilisk. I built this one using the same methods as the leman russ, but with a different template of course. This is the Griffon template with the Basilisk upgrade template.
I magnetized the gun platform in case I want to use different variants later.
Thoughts
I’m pretty happy with these so far. Aside from some minor modifications, I’ve stuck to the templates, and I’m building each as far as the template can take me before moving on. I’ll come back afterward to do the free hand work and track plates.
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Thanks. The site I got the templates from has a lot of good stuff. It doesn’t look like it’s been updated in quite a while so I don’t know if anyone is still keeping an eye on it. I downloaded all of the templates just in case they disappear.
Being able to slap together a tank in a few nights is definitely going to be the key to getting this ready for May. They eat up points faster than infantry and add some solid punch.
So much good work here! I really like the goblin/grot with the flamer and mask, and the lascannons with batteries and brick walls, and the tank on a budget is great thinking.
Thanks! These guys have been a lot of fun to work on.
It’s a bit more work to scratch build a tank to a good standard (these have a lot of work remaining) but they are definitely cheaper! I believe I can get 4 tanks out of around $20 worth of plasticard.
definitely worth it then!
Damn! Lots of progress. Still digging the battery pack on the lascannon :) Those tank templates look awesome. You may very well pull this off for May.