Magnetizing Assault Marines

As I mentioned before I finally got some new magnets to customize my marines. I plan that each squad's Sgt and Special Weapon guy (and Heavy Weapon in the tac squads) will be magnetized to switch up options. More cost effective than building multiple marines, given the current economy and rumored GW price hikes. For this I'm using the 3/16" x 1/32" disc magnets, which fit perfectly in the shoulder area of a marine. Anything smaller and I don't think there would be enough pull to hold up all the weapon types and anything bigger or thicker just won't work on such a small model. Drilling seemed to be out for such a large hole on a little model as well. The problem with simple drilling is it leaves a dimple, not a hole, so it's not always the correct shape, or you'd need a specialized bit that would leave the cut flat, but that's just more money out.

Instead I simply just cut down the shoulder area on the torso, then I cut away a lot of plastic off the arm itself. This can negate the size of at least one of the magnets if you cut deep enough, and no one will be the wiser because of the shoulder pad. I don't cut away any of the rounded shoulder as this is what the armor pad has to attach to, I just take the part that makes contact with the torso down. Now, with this method, you won't really be able to get both hands on a rifle like the Melta-gun, or a Bolter for the Tac squads. For ASM, they ditch the pistol for the new weapon and always retain their Chainsword for CC. So, I just modeled my guys to dual-wield the rifle in one hand, and the sword in the other. My guys just can't wait to get into CC they already have their swords drawn, plus, this would account for my abilities to roll 2- a lot, haha. Since half of the special pistol options are left handed, but none of the rifle arms are, I just took a generic left-handed pistol arm and cut off the pistol, filed it down, and popped the flamer on it in this case. I'll do the same for another Melta when I buy more special weapons. Here are some images (click for larger detail) of what it looks like at this point.

As you can see in some of the pics, it's not that noticeable when painted over and the magnets fit perfectly into the should pad areas. The first pic shows off some of the new Death Company sprue weapons that my Sgts will be using. This is a seriously easy process, just repetitive for so many options, but will save a ton of money, makes WYSIWYG quick, and gives your guys a bit of style with the moving parts. Plus it's fun to give him dual-pistols and dream. :-)

Magnetizing My Baal Predator

Well, I've been working on my new Baal Predator since I got it on Friday and ready to post a couple pics. I decided to magnetize a few things like the turret and the Hunter-Killer Missile. Of course the sponsons are magnetized for either Rhino doors or the weapons, but this time I decided against trying to mag the HB and HF options. Partly because they have been redesigned and tougher to do now, but also, I never feel like I'll run HF, just personal preference. There's always count-as... Anyway, besides the weapons on the turret itself, there is a back portion, called the bustle, for either the Flamestorm or the Assault Cannons. I pretty much took the cheap and easy approach to this by using magnets and glue. This isn't the strongest combo, as the glue can fail on you if the pull is too strong. Something like green-stuff might be better after it cures, but I'm no good with that stuff so far. Here is what my pieces look like:

As you can see, the magnet in the center of each bustle will match up with the one in the back of the turret. The one to right of the back magnet is for the Hunter-Killer Missile. You can take it on and off as you use it and still leave the paint job on the outside pristine. I also felt bored enough to add a magnet for the smoke launcher, so if I pop smoke I can remove it. For the turret weapon, the part that pivots will stay in the housing, and the gun choice can be slipped in and the cowling slipped over the top for a snug fit and add matching bustle. Easy as pie, haha. Now I can seal all these parts up and move on to the next stage. As for my DC looking Sgts, they are all built up to the last part which is magnetizing their arms for weapon choices, but otherwise look great.

Magnetizing My Rhinos

So another one of the hurdles that was keeping me from finishing my army has been wanting to magnetize as much of my models first, before assembling and painting them. Awhile back I ordered a couple different sizes of magnets from Miniwargaming.com so I could finally stop making excuses. After finishing a good number of my 40k tokens that I posted about earlier, I decided to switch gears and get some models done. I hemmed and hawed about how I was going to do this, but when I sat down with the models and magnets in hand, this was probably one of the simplest mods I've done or probably will do, since magnetizing the troops will be a smaller, more delicate job than the huge rhinos.

So as I said this was simple. I used the 1/4" x 1/16" Disc Magnets to ensure they could hold the weight of the finished HB or HF sponson of my Baal Pred. I measured out the distances needed inside the hatch here to make sure the magnets had actual contact in both situations of a door or a sponson. With the one magnet on the hatch itself and the other on the sponson, they had full contact and were spaced perfectly! Now for the door, I needed a spacer to make up the distance to the magent in the recessed area. I snipped a piece of sprue, filed it down to the width of the door and tested it: perfect again! With the sprue spacer and the size of the magnets they had full contact and perfect spacing. I started by using the rounded GW file to remove the rivet from the center of the inner rhino hatch to provide a smooth surface for the magnet to adhere to. Applied a dab of super glue and let it set.

Next I decided to magnetize my sponson options, eventho I feel I'll never A) use HF on my Baal Pred and B) never field a normal Pred that has las-cannons as an option, I still felt like I want the option or maybe something would change come next BA codex. This was a bit more tricky trying to decide how I wanted to mount it. I contemplated using Oni's method but I wanted to retain the up and down tilt of the guns for some reason, don't ask me why. So what I did was just cut above where he did to leave a bit of the arm that sits between the two gun halves. For this I used the 3/16" x 1/16" Disc Magnets. In general, go with Oni's method. I would too, but if I switch now, they won't all match up and I'm OCD when it comes to stuff like that, lol.

 (Click for closeup)

As for the other parts of the Rhino like switching out for a Whirlwind, Rhino doors up top, Pred turret, and the little hatches I decided that them being on top, I'd just let gravity do the work of holding them on. Trying anything else would be too complicated for all the options. Next up will be my Land Speeder, with magnetized options for the missile launchers, MM or HB and the HF or AC underneath. Should be a bit more of a challenge. Then will be my Heavy Weapon, Special Weapon, and Sarge in my tac sqaud.

As a general update, I've also started priming everything that I finish in Krylon Primer Gray. This eliminates me from trying to decide between priming in either white or black depending on the model as I have the full foundation paints and I wholly endorse them as a base paint, so the primer color is almost a moot point. Plus the can is labeled "primer" so it's gotta be right for the job, no? And it's only 3 bucks at Wal-mart and it has the angled nozzle so you can do passes in wide lines instead of a centralized circle.