Wednesday, June 20, 2012

HEAVY HANDED: Homemade ThunderFire Cannon!!!


My “Heavy Handed” series is going to feature some heavy hitters for my Crimson Fist army.  First up: my Homemade TFC! 



I wanted the incredible firepower this contraption spits out (4 blast markers per turn) but didn’t really want to spend the money on the very expensive and bulky GW model.  So I started figuring out how to make my own.  I had access to lots of syringes (though not a drug addict), so, as roughly illustrated below, I used a large syringe, sawed out the middle, sanded down the inner edges, and glued the ends back together, making the primary piece of my cannon.  I then glued vehicle kit bits on to give it more character.  The quadruple barrels are just drinking straws painted black with silver edges.  For the track I used (you guessed it) epic-scale landraiders!  Bought a handful of them for cheap on ebay.  These I stuck together using paperclip clippings.  The rocker in the middle is a turn-screw bit from my old desk (the one my then-girlfriend now-wife sat on when it was up on its side in a storage module, breaking it to smitherines – she’s not big, I swear, it was just a cheap desk).  So for literally a few bucks I had myself a very workable and decent looking engine of destruction!



The cannon I really haven’t used that much, but when I have...  Oh boy.  It rains death down on the foe with FOUR small blast templates a turn and has three ammo modes.  Surface detonation: S6 AP5;  Airburst detonation: S5 AP6, ignores cover saves; or Subterranean blast S4 AP- with a tremor effect that inflicts difficult and dangerous movement on the target’s next move turn.  It’s great against clusters of troops.  I use the AP value to my advantage, or if their cover save would be better, use the airburst version.  At S5 or S6 you can count on wounding most of the time.  Against vehicles or a target you figure you just can’t hurt, try the tremor effect and let them hurt themselves on their next move.  I’ve used it on Space Wolves, preferring the S6 hit to give me more wounds, thus playing the odds against his 3+ saves.  Against Dark Eldar wyches I used the airburst, the AP 6 enough to cut their wychsuits and ignoring their cover saves, leaving those wounded on 2+ with no choice but to die.  I think I did use the tremor against a chaos predator before but it just sat in the back on the board edge and fired its guns (which is why I sent in my assault marines, who bounced along the armored column destroying tank after tank with grenades).  



The Tech Marine comes with a full harness (hell of a bargain at 100pts for the whole package), which I tried to somewhat represent with the addition of another servoarm-drilly-bit (and hope those I play with don't get offended cuz it ain't the official 4-armed harness).  I painted his armor lighter blue washed with darker blue to stand out as artificer armor.  His head is appropriately bionic and his big hand (can’t really equip with a power fist) fits well as a Crimson Fist icon.





I call these pictures my “Dr. Doom” shots—he just looks like an evil plotting supervillain from this angle. 


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