2nd Starstreak Hydra completed!

It certainly feels good to get a model finished, especially as it's been so long since my last completed unit for the Corbanian 1st. This is the second Starstreak Hydra I've completed and although I was worried that I might be out of practice painting, it actually turned out quite nice. Anyway, here's the other shots ...

Finally, here's the pair together. I'm pretty pleased with how close their colour schemes are considering how far apart they've been painted.

Next up is a command vehicle for the squadron, I've already got the parts for what I'm hoping it going to be a pretty good looking conversion. I've just got to strip the chimera chasis I got of ebay and then hopefully, I'll be ready to go.

I should say that my 40k flame has been well and truly rekindled, my good mate Mike has decided to recollect his Tau force (he has a habit of selling them) and we're putting together the narrative for a campaign. So expect more 40k goodness soon!

Finally, I'm putting a lot of time into my new how to build terrain project, 'The Terrain Tutor', the blog is up and running, check it out here and for all you Facebook fans, it's also got a page at www.facebook.com/TheTerrainTutor. If you're interested in building wargames terrain and scenery, come and say hi!

Mel

A Quick Update ...

Just thought I'd post a quick update on my hobby progress since getting into our new home as I didn't want you guys to think that I'd disappeared again.

I'm actually working on Harker's squad and my second Starstreak Hydra at the same time which is a bit weird for me as I normally only work on one unit at a time. I simply couldn't decide which to do, so I decided to do them both. The downside of which is that it'll take me long to get finished pics on the blog.

So, here's a couple of pics of my progress, sorry the pics are brilliant, they were done with my phone because I can't find which box I packed our camera in yet!

Anyway, here's the Starstreak Hydra so far .....

Next up we have Harker's squad, I've almost finished their clothing but I wanted to show you their cloaks camo'd up. I still need to tidy up a few of the white spots, especially on Harker's cloak, but they're definitely getting there ...

So, that's it for now gents, I'll be post more as I get them done.

Col

One big step ....

I've finally finished the first of my StarStreak Hydra's ......

It's been over a year since I last painted a model (time really does fly), so this one's a biggy for me. I'll be honest, I don't feel it's as good as my other models, mainly because I was relearning how to paint as I was painting it. Anyhow, I'm chuffed nonetheless, time to see how it fares in this afternoon's game, although I'm actually thinking of fielding it as a manticore.

Now all I've got to do is finish Harker's squad before Blog Wars.

Second Starstreak finished

I haven't really got back into painting yet, the paints and brushes are sitting on my paint station but right now I'm not really in the mood to paint shades of grey, so instead, I decided to put together another Starstreak Hydra.

This one went together a hell of a lot easier than the last one, although it did need fixing in a couple of places. The gun slots and the top hatch both needed a little work after the filing, I also had to fix a bit of the track but in comparison to the last one, this one was a beauty to put together.

I also seem to be getting better at doing rivets, but if I ever do any major scratch building in the future, I'll definitely be investing in a hole punch as there's a lot of work in doing rivets with plastic rod.

Anyway, it's exactly the same setup as the last with just a few changes to the stowage on the sides of the hull. Here's the pics, hope you like it.

Finally, here's a pic of the twins together. Overall, I'm pretty pleased with how they turned out. Now all I have to do is break out the paints and get cracked on with painting them up in the Corbanian colours.

I'm planning on adding a third 'special' Starstreak Hydra to finish off the squadron but I need to do some searching for some bits before I can put it together. In the meantime, I'm off camping this weekend with the wife and kids, so I've loaded up the Ipod with a few episodes of the Independent Characters and 11th Company podcasts. I've never really listened to them before but I've heard good things.

So guys, hope you have a good weekend, I plan to :-)

Starstreak Hydra prep'd

Sometimes, I wonder whether it's really worth picking up prebuilt models and then converting and repainting them. The chimera chassis for this hydra project was a nightmare, why do people spend good money on these kits and then put so little effort into putting them together. This one in particular had a whole host of problems. First off, whoever put it together decided to have the tracks running in different directions, so I had to remove one of the tracks which involved sweat and a lot of swearing. I also filed the top of the chassis flat as I wanted a look similar to my ambulance rather than the standard chimera.

This involved filling a few of the gun slits with greenstuff and then filing them flat after a few of them turned into gaping holes after the lasguns were cut off.

I also had to file the backdoor flat after it was put on the wrong way round. C'mon, how do you put the door on the wrong way round? Whatever the original creator was smoking when he did this, I want some!

I also put the missile assembly together, it's tilting a bit high at the moment but that because it was the only way I could get it to sit flat. The right mount is slightly warped but I planned to fix that when it got mounted on the chassis.

I did a quick mockup of what it was going to be like when it's mounted, overall I was pretty pleased at this point although the missiles definitely need pointing further down.

Once I finished filing down the chassis, I was time to start building it back up again. This meant adding a new track, a filed down cupola, vent, searchlight and some basic stowage. I also used my dremmel to cut out a hole mount for the missile assembly.

After that, it was time to add all the rivets I'd filed off whilst prep'ing the chassis. This was done with a scalpel, some plastic rod and some more profanity.

Once the rivets were in place, all that was left was to rebuild the back door. I found it quite a fiddly process but very rewarding when I saw the finished article. Must admit, I feel like I'm slowly getting better with working with plasticard. I'm a long way off the likes of Dei Greci, but I'm taking it one step at a time.

And here we have the finished article, the first of the Corbanian Starstreak Hydras. All I need to do is break out the paints and see if I can remember the colours and techniques I used on my other vehicles.

Overall, I'm pretty pleased with the finished vehicle, although I'm starting to wonder whether buying prebuilt models is really worth it. Yes, you can pickup a bargain but when they're plagued with problems like this one, the extra effort and bits needed sort of negate the cost savings.

Luckily, my next prebuilt chimera chassis has the tracks going the right way and the backdoor on the right way round, I'm now wondering way I didn't use that one in the first place - lol.

Kitbashing a Hydra

I've had a little while off from the painting station and I'm feeling quite refreshed and ready to get stuck back in. As normal with my burnout breaks, I end up devising all sorts of hobby projects and this break has been no different. I've got a couple of projects that I'm raring to get into, so expect good things coming soon.

I've been looking through the codex and decided that I'd like to get a couple of Hydras to complement the Corbanian 1st. I've had a look at FW version and I'm not much for it, the guns are just a bit too big for the chassis and even with the rumours of a plastic version coming out next month, I still think that I'm going down a different avenue. So, I decided to have a look at what's currently out there in the real world.

First off, we have the German Gepard which although only has two guns, is quite close to the Hydra.

(Modern vehicle photos from www.militaryphotos.net and UK MOD, used without permission)

The same can be said about the Itpsv90 Marksman from Finland, although it does seem to suffer from the same big turret, small chassis problem that the FW Hydra does.

It was at this point that I decided that I really didn't want to go down the flak cannon route and so started to look to my roots and the British Army. The problem with flak cannons is that they're really short ranged and so the British Army adopted the missile as it's primary form of air defence. For a long time, the main system used was the Rapier system which was normally mounted on a trailer unit.

Rapier systems were also mounted on dedicated tracked M548 chassis for more mobility whilst also doubling the rocket capacity.

In the past decade, the British Army has added a new missile to their list of Air Defence systems. The Starstreak missile system is currently in service in many different forms, from shoulder mounted to dedicated vehicles.

So, you might be saying 'Thanks for the cool pics Col. but what's the point?'. Well, remember those Hyperios missile systems that I posted about here that ForgeWorld were kind enough to replace for me? Combine them with a crappy chimera I picked up in a trade and I've got the makings of a Starstreak Hydra Air Defence system, my next vehicle kitbash project.

I'll be bringing you project updates soon guys, first off, I've got to sort the crappy chimera out so it's time to break out the files.