Conversion: AdMech Leman Russ Burrower

Replace 'Ear' With 'Deployment Zone' And 'Babies' With 'Explodies!'

The conversions keep coming for this month. After an especially disappointing rapture on the 21st, I needed a pick-me-up. No earthquakes, no flying people and no religious nuts admitting stupidity. All around disappointment. So I decided to finish up the Leman Russ Burrower even though I'm still waiting (almost 2 months) for the other weapon variants (keep a look out on MWC for that review...it'll be a doozy.) This project took a crap-load of trial and error, but I was diligent on taking pictures almost every step of the way. So join me after the break on this tiring process and its inevitable completion. By-the-by, brace yourselves for picture overload.

If you remember my review of Quantum Gothic's Power Generator on MWC, this is the conversion I purchased it for. If you haven't read my fandex, shame on you first of all, but the Leman Russ Burrower is a Leman Russ variant with a mortar-like weapon built into the Leman Russ itself and fires its projectiles underground rather than through the air. I pictured a Leman Russ with a tank-like barrel going through the tank itself at an angle, and this is what I accomplished. First, the most important tool of this entire project was my disc bit for my dremmel:

Taking this, I cut off one side of the generator like so:

Then using my new trusty flapsander bit I easily shaved down the rest of the side making it smooth all the while inhaling enough resin to shorten my lifespan by 17 years:

Next I needed to remove the few centimeters of resin this thing looked to be sitting on very carefully so as to not cut into anything I wanted to keep:

Ha! Power Sammich!

With a poop-ton of cleanup time, this thing now sits flat on a surface:

From this point forth, the below picture is our goal, but as you can tell this thing looks like it's floating above the chassis due to the way the Leman Russ' turret insert is. While I want it to look like it's placed on the Leman Russ and interchangeable in a factory, I do want those pipes looking like they're hooked into the chassis.

I'll continue with the solution to this problem later on, but for now I moved on to the "cannon" portion of the weapon.

As I've mentioned in a few posts now, I found a stash of old models and toys that looked to be useful to me for 40k projects. In said stash I found this little fella. After tilting my head back and reminiscing about the good ol' days and letting out a big sigh I swiftly ripped the cannon off of this guy's back and began tearing into it with my dremmel without mercy:

After getting the slant I wanted (after 7 attempts...) I shaved this thing clean:

And applied it to the generator's flat side like so:

Now, to keep this thing steady on the chassis of the Leman Russ I'll (of course) be using magnets, but I don't want this thing turning at all. This weapon is built into the chassis itself and at a slant; should not be pivoting. Thankfully, GW gave me some indentions on the outside of the cut-out circle that makes the turret insert:

Slap on some plasticard, sloppily and voila!

Sturrrrrrrdy

Now, back to the "hovering" dilemma. Hot damn I'm clever! My first few attempts failed horribly. One of which included GSing the crap out of the bottom and pressing it into the chassis to get a good mold of sorts:

Yeah, Shut Up...

The thing that actually ended up working was a combination of plasticard and a tiny bit of GS for filler:

Next I moved on to the cannon. I needed a cap on this thing as it fires into the ground and not into the air. Fortunately the Power Generator came with a cap that I won't be using!

While in the above state it's far too wide and tall some very careful cutting with my dremmel disc again made this thing the perfect size:

Glue it on the cannon, GS in the cracks and there we have it:

Next some detailing. I wanted some power cables on this thing as...well, since I discovered Dragon Forge I've wanted to put power cables on everything. Even my girlfriend, though she was less than pleased by this. So I drilled some holes into a few portions of the combined generator and cannon:

And glued in some power cables:

Next I put some rivets on here from TichyTrain for flavor:

After some cleaning and final touches, we have our Leman Russ Burrower:

Praise the Omnissiah. Until next time!