Rebuilding Tycho: part 1

I love the Tycho model, I always have. Even when he was an amalgamation of Tycho and Dante, simply known as a 'Blood Angels Captain' I loved the armour and the stance. However, anyone following this blog will know my feelings on miniatures 'at ease', so as early as December last year I had decided to create my own dynamic take on this classic character.

I have been paying more attention to GW competitors' websites recently, taking in some of the movement and action captured within their miniatures – in particular Infinity and Mercs. A picture of how I wanted my new 'action man' Tycho quickly formed. Then with the new BA releases, Games Workshop did me the ultimate favour of creating a plastic kit containing Tycho-like armour. This saved me a lot of time and work, so I decided to keep the conversion as simple as possible.

First of all I picked out legs and chest from the SG kit and a head from the DC set. I put my standard bit of plastic scenery on the base and, after some trimming, glued the legs at a 45 degree angle.

With the tabard attached to the chosen chest piece I didn't have much wiggle room when glueing into position, but it seemed to sit nicely in place of its own accord. Once dry I took the DC power sword arm, cut off the sword and added the Commander's combi-melta. At the shoulder end I cut it square and added a small bit of circular sprue to add the length lost in trimming. With that arm secured I added a DC bolt pistol arm as it came off the sprue.

At this point I added my, now standard issue, penny piece to the base for weight and left the whole thing to dry for the remainder of the day whilst I moved on to picking out shoulder pads.

To be continued...

Disasterpieces...

After a week of visiting family, away from my work tray, I truly had withdrawl symptoms. The purchasing of the new Blood Angel codex did nothing to abate the thirst for creating new models for my army. I really thought I was going mad. I have stopped myself from purchasing any of the new kits in an attempt to keep things sensible and give me a hope of finishing the models already on my table – not to mention the financial black hole that a new army can become.

So I sat down this afternoon eager to get stuck in. After building two more Assault marines, to complete the squad, and basing two other marines, including the Sanguinary Priest, I decided to finish building a Veteran Sergeant with Power Fist for my Tactical squad. He was already on a base, but I decided at the last minute to chop his head off – all my Sergeants have bare heads and it's a trend I wanted to continue. I dug the Dremel out of the attic and got to work. Unfortunately the vibrations of the drill (I'm assuming) combined with poor cast quality caused the model to fall apart, almost perfectly at the waist, in my hands!!!

After finishing the drilling I tidied up the break and pinned the two halves together. However, it did still look a little weak and I was just not convinced that it would hold under the pressures of gaming. I decided to sculpt a greenstuff tabard into the model – all my BA sergeants so far have a tabard of some description so it fitted in well. I took a triangle of greenstuff and placed it across his chest before using my sculpting tools to shape it. Similarly, I took a small bit of putty and added it below the belt. The tiny bit of greenstuff I had left was added to the back of the model, and in all locations, was pushed around the break to strengthen it. I'm very happy with the final result and just need to choose a new head for the model.

LAST CALL: March Free Prize Draw

Well folks there's just over 24hrs until April lands which gives you good people about that long to get your name in for this month's Free Prize Draw to win the Deathwing Conversion piece pictured above.

For full instructions take a look at the original post – you have until midnight (UK time) on Wednesday!

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There will be little or no action from this blog for a good ten days or so. I have two days trying to contend with a work schedule from hell before going away on holiday to see the clan 'up North' who we haven't seen since our wedding. I may manage a sneaky post (especially given I shall be picking up the Blood Angel codex on Saturday from somewhere Derby way) but no new models till around the 14th.

BTW. Myself and Bull are going to SALUTE this year in London at the end of April to support my wargaming mentor Craig in his new venture Critical Mass Games. If you're going, drop by the CMG stand and say hello!