Fixing Centurions....

They're not a terrible idea, just not a great one. Really, their role is filled, and better, by other units in the codex. Make that codexes, because there are allies and Escalation and pretty much all bets are off.

But this is not a rules blog, it's a modeling blog, and the models are awful.

So, as I take pictures of the latest raft of models to join my Necrons and Ultramarines, I've been thinking about them, and have basically whittled down the choices to two:

Choice the Firste: they're giant powered suits, more akin to a landmate than an actual Astartes suit. This necessitates a new look for the model along the lines of the SM aesthetic, ie "building out" the existing Centurion model with in-proportion arms and legs. Basically, a custom that looks more like the actual artwork.

Choice the Seconde: they're Terminator armor fitted with heavy weapons (and support hydraulics for them) I don't mind this option, because Terminators have been a viable heavy weapon platform (albeit a fragile one) from the get-go.

Choice the Thirde: is, of course, to move on to another project such as... shit, I dunno, an Outrider for the X-wing miniatures game.

Any thoughts, folks?

Hurricane Mortarion.....

For those of you who haven't read his statline and abilities by now, Mortarion, in-game, can pretty much kill an entire standard 2000 point army by himself, with room for afters (providing you never, ever roll a 1). All of the Primarchs, in fact, are ludicrously powerful (and should be), not to mention ludicrously priced (despite preexisting competition)  and by the time FW gets to the Emperor (in 12 books or so) I expect to see 40k's first 1000-point character, if not one that breaks that 4-digit cost. Oh well. At least we get some new, if very pricey, models to look at. I'm not going to gush about the new FW Angron because, well, I think it's rather boring. 

On to Mortarion. 

Mortarion is based on Kabuki Models' Uriel, from their Dark Messiah line. I can't tell if they mean for this line to be a game, a line, a state of mind or whatever, but it is full of some very nice, if reasonably priced, models. My only complaint about them is that heads, being proportionately correct, are too small compared to 40k-scale heads, and so side by side the models would look rather weird. I had originally intended for Uriel to be Sanguinius, but A) his pose is far too static and B) I didn't want to have to green stuff all that hair. Plus, his body was covered in so much lovely death imagery that I figured it was only a short leap to the master of the Death Guard.  The head is from a Valkyrie door gunner, and the scythe blade from an old Rackham dwarf who now swings a more appropriate axe. 

Any interest in seeing Rackham dwarves? They're quite characterful, if oversized. No? Yes? Anyway, moving on...His belt buckle is a rather hastily molded Death Guard crest on a terminator hip pauldron. It didn't come out quite as well as I'd hoped, but still says "Death Guard", doesn't it?

That right arm took a bit of remolding; originally it was palm-down and pointing at... well, you, I suppose. I don't know what the original model was going to do with his not-very-threatening lance, but I thought him blasting away with the Lantern would be more threatening by far. Originally I'd thought to make it out of an actual lantern,  but the lantern bits I'd had on hand were either too big or two small, so more's the pity. 

Kabuki sculpts these really nice shoulder pads with shields for heraldry, so I tried my best for another DG crest. The only problem is, of course, that the are within was way small, and my smallest brush was getting rather fractured at that point. They do sell the shoulder pads separately, by the way. 

I used ork bike exhausts along with some power cables for his backpack, which makes him look rather like a walking chemical plant. They flare out nicely in a wing-like fashion, which I prefer to some of the other 3rd-party reproductions that look more like a walking pipe organ. Speaking of pipe, in hindsight I should've thickened that scythe handle somehow, but the blade has bit of wire running clear through it and around the other side (hidden by that grille) and it's not like I'll be hauling him to a lot of games, anyway. 

He also has this lovely little chained Grim Reaper back there, which is I suppose is the 31st century way of saying "don't wear this in a closed garage". I had thought for some tracery on the cloak, too, but Mortarion is more the working man's Primarch, all about sticking it to overlords on mountain tops, and so I thought he'd be above such finery. Also, I'm a bit lazy and my eyesight's too poor to go putting tracery on everything. 

Vintage model enthusiasts among you will note that the Lantern is, in fact, constructed from the back end of a Battletech Warhammer's PPC. The barrel is, presumably, elsewhere. I had the bit in my box, and it looked just big and retro-sci-fi enough to be a decent facsimile of the artwork, so I decided to go for it. I need to look for a bit showier of a base in the future; the one that came with Uriel was more of a half-shelf, and not very useful or interesting in this case. 

The Primarchs are, of course, giants, towering over even the already towering Astartes. If Azrael here ever ran into Mortarion, he'd be David to Mort's Goliath, although this time Goliath would be stronger, faster, and certainly cleave him in two with that scythe. 

More models, and something of a review next time. 

For all of you in the Northeast, particularly PA, NJ, and NY, stay well, and stay dry!

WIP: Mortarion....

Let's be clear, I hate, hate, hate the Nurgle aesthetic and everything to do with it. However, a Primarch with a big bloody scythe who breathes toxic gas to live is pretty damn cool. Uriel came from Kabuki Miniatures with a big spear and a tiny head, and, having no use for that, I decided to make a Mortarion. 

More to come. 

Happy Monday, people.

Flyer Leak! or GW's Art Dept has Schizophrenia like you wouldn't believe...

What is this, a 1985 GI Joe cartoon?

(images from the leaked scans over at The Shell Case blog.)

Oh GW, words fail me. 


Wait, no they don't , otherwise I wouldn't have a blog. Words do not fail me on how shit this aircraft is. One had hoped that the "concept art" from a while back was someone's idea of a joke, but sadly, it's not. When at rest, the thing sits on its turret. Considering the weight of the rest of the aircraft, this is a MAJOR ENGINEERING NO-NO. They couldn't be bothered to stylize the turret at all, and left it as an irritating little box with an assault cannon sticking out of it (ammo, GW?) And what is that thing sticking out the back of the canopy? A cloaking shield for the rest of the thing? The artist that drew it and the manager that green lit it should be shot. For crying out loud, it looks like something from a Japanese bullet hell shooter (except that the Japanese would have employed decent artists). This thing should have been a burly, muscular aircraft, not the front 1/8 of one. Why do the GW artists stop at the front of the plane and call it a day? Why?


Oh wait, they don't:

Hooray! It's a plane! Boo it's wasted on the Orks.

Look! It's a proper aircraft! That's right, the thing that makes sense as an actual working plane is built by the howling  space monkeys who look like they should have built that flying blue guppy up there. Once again, the orks seem to get all the good art talent for their shitty codex. Bravo, boys, and fuck you. 


You know, in a colossal middle finger to whomever designed the StormFish, I might have to ram these two kits together and make some kind of Cobra Rattler for the Ultramarines to fly around. Except, of course, that the game stats for the StormFly are utter shit. 


Moving on:

I understand the working name was "Moon Over My Hammy"

We knew it'd look like this, didn't we? A nasty flying crescent with an inexplicably exposed pilot. The new robot bug designs are phenomenal, and the plane is.... well, it's not bad, is it? I don't know what that shit around the rim is, but the rest of the thing is serviceable... sort of? The same way you wouldn't mind being given a shitty sports car because, though it may not be a great sports car,  at least it's got a turbocharged V12 and it's free? Anyway, let's look at the competitor for this slot in my army: 

Ooooh right. A horrifying mechanical nightmare with actual scythes that is, itself, vaguely scythe-shaped:

Scythes, GW, are long and curved, not shaped like fluffy french pastry.

 All I'd have to do is mount it on a flight base and bob's-your-uncle. Oh, did I mention they break down into smaller parts for easy storage? And, since I'd inevitably want to spam them I already have a pair built. 


It seems you lose again, GW. But don't worry, those Carnifex bits don't come too cheap (wait, yes they do) and I will need some other gribblies from the parts resellers. 


Happy Wednesday, people. Note the poll in the top right.

Stormtalon Leaked!

Beasts of War apparently gets their hands on early copies of White Dwarf, and is revealing all sorts of things, most notably, this horrible thing. 


It flies. That's the best thing I can say about it. Why didn't they just take an Assault Marine and add on a bunch of weapons until he looked like a GP03? Modern Marines get things like the AV-8B Harrier II's, F/A-18's,  and the new F-35 Lightning. Future marines get the flying fish. Oh, and it still has the Stormraven's ridiculous tail assembly. Bravo. Obviously they wanted those little gunboats from Transformers 3, but went to the same git that gave us the previous raft of crap marine fliers, who then bent over and shat out this boxy turd. 


Speaking of turds, here are the stats: 
130pts
BS:4 AV11/11/11
Fast Skimmer, Aerial Assault, Supersonic
Ceramite Plating
Escort Craft: Place unit on table within 6" of another unit that arrived from Deepstrike, or Reserve.
Hoverstrike: Stay stationary to gain +1BS
TL Assault Cannon
TL Heavy Bolter - upgradable to either:
TL Typhoon Missile Launchers
TL Lascannon
TL Skyhammer Launchers - S:7 AP:4 Heavy3 R:60"


To sum up, it costs as much as a Vendetta and is not nearly as good. It has the same amount of gun mounts as a Landspeeder with marginally better weapons, but is won't survive long enough to put them to good use. Oh, and it can hold hands with something that deep strikes, so your DS'ing speeder won't feel alone as it gets shot up. This thing has a paltry AV11, so yes, it's going to be missiled out of the sky as soon as it shows its face, which is constantly, and since it's a flyer, it's going to be on a flight base, so, unlike our friend the speeder, no cover for you. It doesn't even carry a melta weapon to take advantage of its speed. 


If you can't figure out a better way to spend 130 points in the Big Blue SM Codex, not to mention your hard earned money, then I wash my hands of you. 


EDIT!


I see where your jealousy lies, GW. Shame on you!

Stormraven Conversion Finished!

In the spirit of doing what I say I'm gonna do this year,  I fixed a Stormraven model so it's the proper length to carry just about everything. I also did so in record time (for me), because the original deadline for the Miniature Wargames Conversions contest (again, thanks in advance for your vote) was set two weeks short. Now, two weeks is a hell of a lot of time. I could put in some LED lighting, hinged a proper dreadnaught ramp-- hell, I could've properly jointed a dreadnaught to fit in there. But, alas, I had to settle for a finished bird. Oh well. 

And she's a big one, too. All kitted out, she's as long  as an IG Valkyrie from its nose to its twin booms, and sits higher on her landing gear. Maybe a little too high, but it was important that the chin turret had clearance. Plus, half the time she'll be carrying jump infantry anyway, and the front storm hatch is actually at just the right height to walk right out of. You'll notice I dispensed with that huge ugly fishtail rudder in favor of delta wings set waaaaay back and rudders sticking out of the engine cowlings. I wrestled with setting th swings amidships in the original mounts, but she looks much, much sleeker this way.  Also, where most people felt obliged to stick on canard wings (which are really so an aircraft doesn't stall out when it climbs) I dispensed with them in terms of crew doors under the big, manly Hurricane Bolter mounts, which, visually read as canards anyway. 

What I really needed time for was to suss out the rear hatch, which would've yawned open like the jaw of an angler fish to allow a dread to just stomp on out. I'm also mightily disappointed with the hinge on the smaller inset crew hatch. Unlike the Rhino one, it's just sort of clamped in those teeth and will not fucking stay in. 

She is, of course, magnetized to hell and back for easy storage. naked like this you get a better look at the big friendly side door. Since all GW-designed Imperial troop craft are designed after Republic Gunships anyway, I though it a good idea to include these instead of just leaving the weeny little crew doors in the front. There is, after all, nothing in the SR rules that says the side exits are invalidated by H-bolters, it's just (badly) modeled that way on the original kit. Those weeny little h-bolter housings make better landing gear wells anyway. 

The only thing I didn't magnetized were the little nose-mounted missile racks and heavy bolters, because the multi-melta is so much more useful anyway. The SR isn't a missile boat at all, it's meant to fly up into people's faces and pour anger down their throats. However, it's a flyer (no cover) and a sad AV12, and under gunned (you can't sit back and shoot all day with TL lascannons like you can with a Vendetta) but I plan to give the Run/Gun/Drop/Die strategy the old college try nonetheless in future Blood Angels list. 

Being a completionist, I detailed the inside and its crew, including the Techmarine (who looks stuffed in there, the poor guy) and Edbart XIV, the gun servitor. You're going to see something of the inside when you open the ramps anyway, so why not? 

I had fun making the little servitor model. He had no arms, so I fitted his right with a spare auspex bit and ran cabling from his left shoulder.  I wanted to light the inside with LED's for the contest, but at the time, time was running short (remember, the original deadline was the 15th). The side hatches had plenty of area for hinging, and would've gotten reinforced with magnet locks inside the fuselage so they could hold up the weight of the h-bolter sponsons, but now... oh well. If Storm Eagles make it into the next Ultramarines codex, maybe I'll do it in there, especially after seeing all the great effects on Jon T Law's photo series on Flickr. Thank you for that extraordinary find, Tears of Envy. Another interior detail shot: 

FW made detail packs for the insides of Valkyries with a full squad of Elysian Drop Infantry sitting on benches, and I still hold out hope they'll make some of Space Marines doing the same for Astartes vehicles. Of course, to do that they'll have to upsize the Rhinos and Land Raiders...

The underside is boringly under-detailed due to time constraints. One of my thoughts was to model a set of belly doors so the Dreadnought (or any riders) could just drop out. Of course, that thought came after the thing was nearly finished, and the zep gear (a pit of them) would had to sit in new ugly housings to the side, fattening the already blocky profile, or in the originals at the rear. Oh well. The flight base mount sits into the crosspiece under the forward section a bit loosely, but otherwise snugly. As a result, she sits nose-up instead of nose-down like a Valk. She sports a chin turret because it's a better configuration for ground-attack missions. The thing would have to bank something awful to fire a dorsal turret at anything on the ground, be it tank or infantry.  Sorry GW designers, you should've put more thought into this. Way to fail. 

Perhaps to make up for the plain belly (also, let' s be honest, you see it more) the top is quite well detailed. For Storm Eagle duty, I could make some missile pods and stick a little metal plat on them so they adhere to the magnets holding the wing/turbines in place. But then, there's plenty of time for that in the future, and other projects to do. For those of you puzzled about the orientation of the wing decals in other shots, I hope this sheds some light on matters for you; they're for other pilots to see and identify the plane when flying above it. I mounted the grapple on the roof for boarding missions; she's meant to fly up under something, reel herself in, and then the Marines open the top hatch and cut their way aboard the enemy ship. 

Fitted out for anti-troop duty with those assault cannons the thing would have to carry mountains of ammo, so the lascannon turret makes a lot more sense. The h-bolters throw out more than enough shots to deter enemy infantry, and you're really going to be more concerned about Hydras and things with lascannons and lances anyway. I want my flying tank to take down other tanks and transports, and assault cannons just don't do that, unlike in the real world where a shell-spitting 30mm vulcan is a tanker's worst nightmare. You can get larger vulcans from Japanese companies (Kotobukiya makes an excellent, cheap, motorized one, and yes, I have one)

The hope is, of course, that our sweat pays off  and we win the aforementioned contest, but if we don't, there's still a great aircraft to help fill out the ranks of the Ultramarines. so it's win-win, right fellas? Fellas?

I swear their expressions just changed. 

New FW Stormeagle.....

No sooner do I finish my own extended StormRaven for the Miniatures Wargame Conversions contest, (painted pictures to come soon):then I saw this, on Tabletop Fix:

The official FW Storm Eagle model.

Hmmmmmmm.......

Happy Friday, People. 

Test Flight...

The next generation Stormraven (extended) prototype out for a test flight before principle photography for the contest over at Miniature Wargame Conversions. Test Unit Alpha 1 is sound, if a little drafty inside, and, at the time of this blog entry, ready for final paint and detailing. For those of you not in the know, contest entrants have to submit photos of unpainted conversions only, so while she looks a little rough now, rest assured she cleaned up nicely in the end. 

The Tachikoma engineers and yours truly thank you in advance for voting for us on the 30th (or whenever voting opens).

Happy Monday, People. 

Wash Out Your Eyeballs with This.

All of you hobbyists out there know you started out with Lego, or at least had them at some point. This video makes me wonder why we gave them up. The stock LR kit doesn't even have the wheels and rubber treads that even make it potentially mobile, so it takes some heavy converting to make the thing move, much less remotely. 


But Legos? Man, you can really master the possibilities, as this guy did. 


Happy Tuesday. 

Meanwhile, at the Factory....

One of our crack engineers is making final adjustments on Edbart XIV, the ship's gun servitor. Why put him in a big poorly-designed turret when he can sit safely in the armored heart of the ship? Plus, he'll be there to greet people whatever door they come through. 


Except the yawning dreadnought door in the back, but I'm sure he can swivel or something.  Ooooh I should've hinged that before gluing the hull together. Well, it's not like I have time to make a fully-articulated dread, anyway. Maybe next time....

I'll just leave this here....

From the factory floor of M3 Aircraft Works, where our intrepid engineers are diligently working on a improvements to a rather poorly designed aircraft. Whether this design will make it beyond the flying prototype stage is uncertain. During the initial design competition stage, it did beat out the twin-boom hulled "Flying Tumbler", which, while inspired by a capable, solid body design, looked too much like a Land Raider with wings. Sadly, the mock-up for that poor beast was subsequently pushed off the factory floor into the parts bin. 

For Your Speculation....

"It looks like a flying Tumbler..."

Commissions: Their first Rhino....

Blogger is being a shit today, making it extra tricky to upload photos with their widget. Hopefully they'll fix it soon, because it makes things take twice as long. 


Patron X has seen the Mechanized Force light, and has gotten his first Rhino/Razorback for the Angels of Flame. Properly kitted out, the Rhino really is an excellent little model, if a little fragile in the game. 

And why not use the little hunter-killer mount, too? Give that APC a reason to feel good about itself before an enemy model sneezes and blows it up. (Of course, you get the same result if more than one Marine tries to cram his frame inside the thing) I fitted the Razorback turret plate underneath the double hatch, which itself is pretty snug without the need for magnets. So, all he needs to do is pop the top off and voila!

Burly little monster, isn't he? If only they'd designed the Storm Raven as well. Incidentally, have you seen the latest Chapterhouse mod kit? It turns that shitty aircraft into this:

Looks a little generic now, but it's a step in generally the right direction. Had I these parts, I'd also shift the wings farther back, eliminate that ugly rudder, put some proper forward sponsons on for the hurricane bolters and missiles, and--oh hell.  Alright, gang. I'll make you a deal. If I get the design job I just interviewed for, I'll celebrate by getting a SR kit and this spacer from Chapterhouse, or just make the whole shebang from scratch Klaus-style. God, that little nose gun bothers me, now, and that horn thing still needs to go. I wish they'd used those vector mounts on the Valkyrie kit, though.

Their wheeled Chimera kit is pretty nice too. Honestly, I don't know why they didn't go the extra yard and just flesh out a full wheeled tank kit. For $13.50 I could plasticard out the rest and have  cheap wheeled APC ready to go.  Chapterhouse does nice work, they just need to not be so fucking stupid with their naming conventions to the point of getting sued. GW has the cash to litigate you into the stone age,  and you go and do something like bandy their copyrighted material about? You're not fanboys anymore, you're business men. Show some smarts and do it right. 

Commissions: Angels of Flame Wrap-Up.

A short post today, wrapping up the rest of the Angels of Flame commission work whilst I grind away at the Dark Eldar on my painting bench; and I do mean grind, as there's a fair amount of it involved in making the Craftworld French look more like their evil kin. As far as list-building goes, I keep advising my client to get himself some Rhinos/Razorbacks to safely taxi his troops around. We played a 1000-point battle last week, his SM vs my IG, and I virtually exterminated all of his units while only suffering damage to my Demolisher (immobilized) and Vendetta-mounted squad foolish enough to think they could take on 5 marines. In addition, I had two objectives held and one contested to his one and one. It was only his second game ever, and I tried to teach as much as I could, turn by turn. Hopefully my lessons on movement and target priority sunk in. 

As the LR kit he'd bought was a Chaos one, there were  lots of useful bits left over, such as the combi-flamer bit that made it onto this secondhand Landspeeder. It came to him with the sensor spine sheared off, so filed away the frayed parts of the nub and turned it into a sensor optic. 

The bikes also came to him secondhand, and were painted all kinds of garish in thick as hell paint; a bath in some Simple Green solved that problem, but I prefer to paint bikes largely unassembled. They're just too fiddly to properly detail otherwise. Luckily the riders were separate, having come as bits from his LR/bit box purchase. There are still LR hull sections in there that I want to turn into a Stormraven for him, but he's rather resistant to the idea. Hopefully the DE Razorwing conversion will warm him to the wonders of the shop. 

Being that this was the first Dev box I've ever worked on, I must say I think it's quite a good deal. With a few extra leg/torso bits, you get enough to make fully two squads of Devs, albeit with only one Signum pack for a sergeant. Thus, I had to improvise with a tank bit and an ammo hopper. Even so, there were tons of fiddly bits left over (including servo skulls). 

I shot them separately because we had to wait for extra robot pants to come in for assembly, so they were finished a while after their charges. While wish he'd stick to one army until it's built out, I am glad of the color palette switch that the Dark Eldar bring, and it's such a cool army that it's been a real pleasure to work on.  At the same time, working on these guys has been a valuable experience because it's exposing me to kits that I'd otherwise not had the chance to work on, if at all. Hopefully it'll continue to deliver. 


Till next time, Happy Thursday, people. 

Commissions for the Holidays...

The latest Angels of Flame work is sort of an exercise in bodyguard theater; a Librarian and his Terminator bodyguard, accompanied by a Chaplain and his Assault Marine friends. Even as these (along with their Ironclad buddy)  rolled out, another commission rolled in, and a Hilda Garde III airship (from Final Fantasy 9) is taking shape on my hobby desk. Again, these models appear brighter than the ones from earlier this year because the photos were taken in a lighhtbox, whereas the previous were by virtue of sunlight and bounce cards. 

I quite like the new LIbrarian model, and was hungry for an opportunity to work on one for some time. I couldn't possibly justify purchasing one of my own, as I have two of the older ones in my own Terminator collection and adding a third to the sixty-strong football team of death would just be too much. For some reason, that right shoulder proved highly resistant to CYA glue, and had to be shaved bare and pinned in place. He isn't stock blue because, quite frankly, I wanted him to tie in closely with the rest of the client's army and quite frankly, the blue look doesn't quite work for me, visually (except in the case of Ultramarines, which are supposed to be blue). I quite like the dark, smoldering look of the army, and it carries well into the HQ/special models with their dark-grey robes. 

His pals are some older-model Termies purchased by the client from eBay. Their previous owner assembled some of them with torsos twisted a bit too far, but I didn't break/repose them for fear of ruining the model, and so left them be. 

Likewise, the Assault Marines came with backpacks attached, which made painting the flame motifs on their shoulders a double pain in the ass. Again, removing the packs would've mauled the models, otherwise I would've done so and painted something a bit more ornate as a squad logo. Oh well. 

The Chaplain himself came to my client with the wolf's head helmet of a Space Wolf captain, which I removed and replaced with bits from his Land Raider box, which turned out to be a wealth of bits for the rest of his army. There was a gap near the jump pack's joint which allowed me to pop it off, giving that winged shoulder pad the attention it deserved. I painted the skeletal angel thereupon in flaming colors (it's there; zoom in and you'll see it) so as to tie him in with the rest of the regiment. 


That's the last of the Angels of Flame for a while until we see progress on the Storm Raven, which depends on the client's parts orders/interest. In the mean time, there's another airship to build, and then those lovely tanks seen in the last post. 

Commissions: Ironclad Dreadnaught

My client's Angels of Flame army is growing by leaps and bounds, not least of which is another Dreadnought. Although it's the model I completed last, I thought I'd feature it first. If you're comparing it to the last bunch of pics I took of the initial Angels of Flame offerings, keep in mind that this is MUCH better lit, thanks to the lightbox, so looks altogether brighter and more vivid. Again, thanks to Greg for goading me into making one :)

Firstly, the Seismic Hammer might be one of my most favorite weapon bits, ever. I left the joint lose and mobile, so it could be posed punching, and for the better part of a day agonized over whether to do more cutting and pinning so as to make it spin. Maybe if I ever get an Ironclad of my own.....

While I like the concept (and look) of Hurricane Bolters, I think they could've designed the weapon arm better. Why not make a huge right gauntlet ringed with embedded bolters to serve as a counterpoint to the Seismic Hammer? The pepperbox is big and imposing, but robs the dread of a CC weapon; not a very good trade-of if you ask me. The chainfist bit is rather  low-impact, visually. A long, wicked looking one with a hinged wrist and more intricate, jagged teeth (like a real chainsaw) would've been been much more interesting (and possible) on such a large model. Purists (and Battletech fans) will note the searchlight mounted off the left torso, like a Warhammer. Sort of makes me wish the HK missiles were in a little six-shot box. 

I do like the extra beefiness the HKM's bring to the torso, though. I've always been a fan of the boxy dreadnought's squat strength, and this kit doesn't disappoint. While I like the elephant-foot power glove on the standard model, the fingered glove on this one makes a lot more sense as a manipulator. 

The obligatory Super Dread shot, courtesy of magnetized shoulder sockets. While the HKM boxes look sexy, I still wish this thing had the anti-tank punch of Lascannons or Autocannons. The client could mix/match arms and field two dreads with ranged anti-armor rounds, I suppose....

As a last note, on the bench now are a couple of scratchbuilts for my own Ultramarines:

Thanks to some old-style metal bits from an eBay bits-box auction, a Razorback and a Predator will be joining my forces by Christmas. After covering the rest of the commissions next post, I'll do a Klaus Fischer-style photo docu of these things going together. The backbone of any Marine force is its Rhino-chassis motor pool, and I'll be expanding mine for sure now that I have patterns cut out (not to mention enough metal Pred bits for another tank). I ran out of stowage bits back when I was working on my IG tanks, though. :(