Scratchbuilt: WH40K Armored Train

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By Sean Michael Ragan
Posted 2011/10/10 @ 9:00 am
Category Craft, Fun & Games

This classic Warhammer 40,000-style wargaming model is actually the work of the Games Workshop studio team, and was produced for an example battle in GW’s 2007 Apocalypse rulebook. Individual modelers, as far as I can tell, are not credited. There are more pictures on the GW website, and I find them especially interesting because they show the model both before and after painting. [Thanks, Lee!]

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0 Responses to Scratchbuilt: WH40K Armored Train

Anonymous on October 10th, 2011 at 7:41 pm said:

The studio builders at GW are amazing. I loved the story of how, when the Weta Workshop guys visited GW HQ, even they were really impressed with their terrain boards. I’ve seen a bunch of the studio boards at Games Day cons and even saw them building one during a con. Really cool, enchanting stuff. You can learn a huge amount by watching these pros (and “pros”) work.

A big “trick” in making models like the above look awesome is layering, paneling, and adding things like rivets. I used to be amazed at how, if I was working on a building, let’s say, if I added a few layers of thin plasticard or scored some panel lines and then added rivet heads (just by cutting small-dia plastic doweling, or even using little flattened dots of epoxy putty (“Green Stuff’), the results were so much more realistic and interesting looking.

I got into the habit of buying up ANY plastic model kit at yard sales and built up a huge bitz box. Slap on some ladders, fencing, handles, car motor parts, whatever, and when it’s painted and weathered, it’ll look awesome.

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Stuart on October 10th, 2011 at 8:18 pm said:

Nice to see some wargaming stuff on makeblog. What you neglect to mention is this sort of this is fairly common from the GW studio builders however it’s typically difficult for NON studio builders to mash up kits like this. Mainly because GW’s plastic kits are so ridiculously expensive these days for what they are that committing a set of them to a model like this involves considerable expense.

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Stuart on October 10th, 2011 at 8:18 pm said:

Nice to see some wargaming stuff on makeblog. What you neglect to mention is this sort of this is fairly common from the GW studio builders however it’s typically difficult for NON studio builders to mash up kits like this. Mainly because GW’s plastic kits are so ridiculously expensive these days for what they are that committing a set of them to a model like this involves considerable expense.

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- Anonymous on October 10th, 2011 at 10:43 pm said:
  
  I know it’s disparaging looking at their boards where they have obscene amounts of their kits invested in the buildings and terrain, but it doesn’t have to be that way. I was a big fan of Sean Patten’s models and terrain (he made an astounding scratchbuilt Thunderhawk Gunship that I wrote about in MAKE Vol 08) and he rarely used 40K bits. Most of it was from GI Joe toys and action figure accessories, combs, jewelry chain and charms, model RR bits, plastic food containers, deodorant can lids, etc. He was a master at gluing on a bunch of bizarre crap and then doing an amazing job of finishing the piece so that crap turns into gold.
  
  (BTW: I once added up all of the building and terrain kits used it a GW diorama and it was nearly $1000 in parts. And on the board were two 2,000-point armies. I was probably looking at over $2000 worth of models and supplies. Yikes. Not a poor person’s hobby.)
  
  Attached is Sean’s gunship and landing bay from MAKE Vol 08.
  
  Reply ↓
- Anonymous on October 10th, 2011 at 10:43 pm said:
  
  I know it’s disparaging looking at their boards where they have obscene amounts of their kits invested in the buildings and terrain, but it doesn’t have to be that way. I was a big fan of Sean Patten’s models and terrain (he made an astounding scratchbuilt Thunderhawk Gunship that I wrote about in MAKE Vol 08) and he rarely used 40K bits. Most of it was from GI Joe toys and action figure accessories, combs, jewelry chain and charms, model RR bits, plastic food containers, deodorant can lids, etc. He was a master at gluing on a bunch of bizarre crap and then doing an amazing job of finishing the piece so that crap turns into gold.
  
  (BTW: I once added up all of the building and terrain kits used it a GW diorama and it was nearly $1000 in parts. And on the board were two 2,000-point armies. I was probably looking at over $2000 worth of models and supplies. Yikes. Not a poor person’s hobby.)
  
  Attached is Sean’s gunship and landing bay from MAKE Vol 08.
  
  Reply ↓
  
  Anonymous on October 10th, 2011 at 11:52 pm said:
  
  BTW: One way to get GW bits for cheap is at GamesDay or other game cons where they sell bits by the pound. A lot of it is weird, unidentifiable stuff, but if you see it as kit-bash components for buildings, model conversions, and terrain, it’s useful. I have a small drawer filled with the stuff and it used to come in real handy when trying to dress up buildings, using as rubble on model bases, etc.
  
  Reply ↓
Stuart on October 10th, 2011 at 8:18 pm said:

Nice to see some wargaming stuff on makeblog. What you neglect to mention is this sort of this is fairly common from the GW studio builders however it’s typically difficult for NON studio builders to mash up kits like this. Mainly because GW’s plastic kits are so ridiculously expensive these days for what they are that committing a set of them to a model like this involves considerable expense.

Reply ↓