MJ;-) Project Log: The Terminators

Sheesh! How dare Real Life get in the way of my addiction, um, I mean Hobby...

So when I last posted, I had revealed my sparkling-new project - an all-terminator Space Wolves army. I call it "Wolfwing" here since that is how most folks on the interwebs refer to such an army, but I dislike that nomenclature. I think I prefer Logan's Hunters, but I digress...

Today, I want to go through the bulk of the army's construction. THE TERMINATORS!

(cue dramatic music crescendo here)

As I pointed out earlier, I had acquired just over 25 terminators. Ten were Assault on Black Reach (AoBR) snap-togethers, five were a box of fancy new Wolf Guard (WG) Terminator models, and eleven were Space Hulk (SH) terminators. In essence, these acquisitions left me with two major tasks.

One. Kit bash the 10 AoBR and five WG terminators into 15 Space Wolves Terminators.
Two. De-Blood-Angel-ize the 11 SH terminators.

Part One

Turns out, the first task was rather easy, and very rewarding. In a nutshell, what I did was snapped the AoBR torso fronts onto their models and then used WG arms and shoulder pads to wolf them up a bit.

The WG box set had several extra arm and weapon options, so I was able to fully kit out the AoBR minis and then only had to revert to a couple of the AoBR arms for some of the WG termies. The concept here basically equates to:


AoBR Body + WG Arms/Pads = SW WG Terminator
WG Body + WG Arms/Pads or AoBR Arms = SW WG Terminator

The AoBR terminators utilize a peg-and-hole to attach the arms, but the WG arms don't have the necessary hole. No problem, just cut off the peg from the AoBR terminator.

Here is where I realized one of the beauties of the AoBR models. The "regular" terminators come with a slightly-raised circular area on the shoulder and the arm then has a circular recess to marry the join; the circular nature of the join allows you to rotate the arm up/down as you want. Guess what? The AoBR terminators ALSO COME WITH THAT RAISED CIRCULAR AREA!

Sweet!

Cut off the peg on their shoulder, and voila, "normal" terminator arms perfectly join onto the AoBR shoulders.

Did I already say "SWEET!"?

About the only WG models that were built completely out of WG parts were my Arjac Rockfist, my Assault Cannon Terminator, and my Heavy Flamer Terminator. For Arjac, I added a Chaos Terminator Lord's cape and also a Space Marine Seargent's backpack banner - I will use the latter to hand paint an anvil symbol in the circular area and include some Runic words (probably "Arjac" and/or "For Russ").

So, a couple of evenings of work, and there we have it. 15 mixed-and-matched Terminators that all contained some level of "Wolfyness" in them. Awesome.






Part Two

Going into the second phase of the Terminator project - that of de- Blood Angels -ing the SH terminators, I have to admit, I was a bit anxious and even a little scared. Several reports on the internet I had read led me to believe that doing this task was going to really push my meager modeling skills as the SH terminator models were variously described as "dripping with" or "chock full of" Blood Angels symbolism.

I guess the reports weren't "wrong" per se, but I think I over psyched myself, so in the end, it wasn't nearly as hard as I thought it would be. In a few instances, I decided that removing a blood drop icon would be to hard, so just left it (what's wrong with a couple tear-drop symbols after all). And after I primed the models, I actually noticed that I *MISSED* a few - even a few that were blatantly obvious and easy to reach/remove. Oh well, what's wrong with a couple tear-drop symbols after all...

One bonus presented itself with Part Two. The fine details of the SH terminator models often include battle damage scars. Nice. Not so much because I like the look of battle damage, which I do, but moreso in the sense that if I somewhat butchered the removal of a Blood Angels icon, it just adds to the whole "battle damaged" theme.

Part Two-Bee

One other task was necessary to make the SH terminators ready for my Logan's Hunters army - that of removing them from their SH bases so they could be attached to the Dragon Forge Resin Bases I acquired for the project. I decided that the SH terminator kneeling down and ripping up the floorboards would be my sacrificial lamb, I mean Test Subject. So with my trusty hobby saw - one of those nice fine-bladed, fine-toothed hobby/jeweler's saws - I set to work SLOWLY cutting between the soles of the feet and the rest of the SH base material. My Test Subject came out rather well. But as anticipated (and hence why this specific SH model was chosen as the Test Subject) the whole "ripping up the floorboards" just wasn't going to work with my "parched earth turned frozen tundra" base scheme. Lucky for me, the SH terminators number 11 (insert Spinal Tap pun here), so I could afford one sacrificial lamb and still end up with ten usable SH Terminators. What removing that model from its base made me realize, though, was that this part of the task was going to be fairly easy also.

All told, I spent one evening freeing the SH Terminators from their bases, and one evening snaping/gluing the SH terminators together (in other words, I actually did "Part Two-Bee" first and then did "Part Two" last).

The current status of my Logan's Hunters project is farther along than my blogging seems to indicate. The 25 terminators are attached to their bases and they have been primed (Krylon gray - a fairly dark-to-medium shade of gray), washed (Citadel Badab Black wash), and had their first layer of drybrushing (Delta Ceramcoat Rain Gray) applied. My three dreadnoughts and two characters (Logan and Njal) have been primed. My two Land Raiders will have to wait until after an upcoming May 22 Apocalypse Battle before they can truly convert over to the good side; I need those two Land Raiders to remain painted in a black scheme for my Armored Spearhead formation.