Creating A Monster: The Foundations

The CD rack of terror - it has the entire Nickelback back catalogue stored within it

You may have read in my last post that I have been using a despoiler with my new Scourge list. Not only are they as fast as a Condor for dropping off your nine tanks, they are robust with 5DP, and take serious names with their E11 gun (I can add a Sabre to the list enemies it has felled in the field of battle after its last outing!). What's not to like? Well they don't fit in every army for a start, and are rather expensive at 102 points with the gun. These issues shadow in comparison however to the real problem with the Despoiler. The model.

It isn't truly awful, it just isn't very good. The OB team have named it the shelf, the CD tower and the Towel rack to list a few nicknames. It's a bit of an oblong monstrosity (sorry Dave, everything else you have made is stellar!).

I had been putting off getting this model for a little while, as I wanted to decide I really needed it before spending the cash. I was close to biting the bullet, when on one dark, wet Tuesday night (that could be any Tuesday night here in the UK really) I was down the club with the guys, and Edchopp gave me the idea of making my own Despoiler. His idea was to use Marauders in some way to create my own heavy dropship. This immediately struck chords with me, as (in my opinion) DzC doesn't have a huge scope for conversions, and it is something I used to love doing when I played a host of other, forgotten games. I happened to have three spare Marauders as I had been lucky enough to win a 2 player starter set, so Project Wideboy began!

Work began that very night. Lightning cracked outside the window of my Laboratory of Evil, as I set to work on the carcases of three Marauders. Maniacal laughs filled the air as my scalpel went to it's diabolical work, slicing and cutting its way into the perfect plastic body. (***Disclaimer: The last sentence may er on the side of being melodramatic***). The first task would normally have been to plan ahead and figure out all the minor details of the project. Sadly I'm too inpatient to bother with this, so I went straight in and chopped the faces right of the Marauders bodies, muhahahahhaAHAHAA! *Ahem* Next I sliced the engines from four of the six Marauder sides, to make them smooth(ish) and able to be glued together. 

Once glued in place I had the main torso of my monster, but it was missing details in abundance. After a few minutes of thinking, I decided to under sling the heads I had lopped of earlier to the remaining head, and add the plasma hoses of all three models in as well.

Although this modification helped, the miniature was still missing 'body' and looked too flimsy. Inspiration hit me like being chinned by Frankenstein's Monster, and I started chopping up a couple of spare Invader (it has occurred to me that I might have too many 'spare' DzC models...). As a side-note, if you don't own a hobby saw, get one! I would never have got through a chunky model like the Invader without one. I shortened the body on one, drilled a hole for the widgit to go in and then glued it to the underside of the main model. This created a much beefier feel in general, and stopped it looking too skinny. Using the back 'wing' engines from another Invader, I attached them to the central Marauder to break up the aesthetic of the piece, and give it a little more character.

With more or less all the modelling done, I just needed to fill in the holes with putty! You will however have to wait until next time for this, as it isn't quite ready yet.

If you have made any conversions of your own, I'd love to hear about them!