Conversion: Leman Russ Rapier

Holy crap it's been a long while since I've posted any work. That's mostly because I, well, haven't done any work. Also, for the few that managed to keep up, our URL has finally been changed. The downside? The transition didn't work as I'd hoped and I'm constantly getting emails asking where the hell we went. Traffic took a massive decline from ~1000 views a week to ~100 a week. So if you're one of the few that's managed to find us, again, spread the word about our URL change; we're not dead. Moving along, today our weekly game of 40k got canceled due to Eric feeling under the weather, so I actually managed to get some model-work done. This time around it was finally time to finish up all of the Leman Russ variants the fandex has to offer ending with the Rapier. So without further adieu:

The Leman Russ Rapier is one of my favorite units in the fandex. I like rolling a plethora of dice, and since I played Mech-dar, Rhino-spam SM and Necrons I don't get the opportunity so much as my Ork- or IG-buddies do. Luckily, I created the Rapier Laser Focuser to tickle my fancy in this respect. I've been eager to get this variant finished for quite some time, though I wasn't sure what I wanted it to look like exactly. Originally I wanted a crystal of some sort coming out of the "barrel" of the weapon, but anything I came up with looked too "alien". I finally came up with a concept using one of the regular Leman Russ weapon barrels:

First I wanted this thing looking like it spit out some heavy laser-like fire, to accomplish this I set two plasticard strips within the barrel itself:

I debated, and still am debating, using four prongs instead of two. Let me know what you guys think on this. Next I wanted to fill those displacer-holes with "power crystals". My first idea was to use a whole bunch of small plasticard tubes to make it look like sharded crystal:

But this looked a little too out-there for what I see the AdMech using. Too Necron-ish if you will. So I went with slightly larger plasticard tubes:

I think it comes off as slightly out-of-the-norm for Imperial weaponry, but not so much that you'd think the AdMech are more of a heretical community than they already are.

Next, it was time to magnet this thing. I shaved down the back end and then cut a groove into it where the magnet could be placed outside of view:

Finally, I put the guard in place:

And there we have it, a pretty easy-to-accomplish Rapier Laser Focuser:

And the moment at least I've been waiting for. The showcasing of the Leman Russ Variants:

Rapier

Burrower

Butcher

Vladd

That's all for now, folks. I'll hopefully have more conversions for the fandex soon. As for the fandex itself I'm awaiting one more article from the fluff-writing team. Once that's in I can put the finishing touches on the beast and get it out to the masses.

Stay tuned.