Friday, November 18, 2016

Building a Space Marine Fellblade with Custom Parts from Blood and Skulls Industry


Recently I decided I wanted a better super heavy for my Emperor's Children Horus Heresy force. I already have a Malcador superheavy tank, but while it looks amazing (and even while it's one of FW's oldest kits!) I wanted to get one that is more space marine-y. 



So I decided I wanted a fellblade. The FW kit looks amazing, but I kinda wanted to customize my own. I wanted to take parts and make it look like my own custom kit, one that has its own personality with stowage and extra kit parts.

The FW kit is certainly beautiful
So I set about to figure out what to do. I knew Blood And Skulls Industry had tons of options available, and specialized in kits to customize a plastic baneblade into a fellblade. It would cost more than a stock fellblade from FW but it would look different and provide a cool project.


Here's what I started with. The actual baneblade kit and the resin parts in a box to be cleaned. The parts themselves weren't too bad to clean up and file off. I always thoroughly soak my resin to get the cleaner off.



Here are the plastic baneblade track chassis pieces plus the actual tracks themselves from B&S. The tracks weren't too hard to do. They look pretty great. The 'fuel tank' on the back is custom too.


Here's the tracks glued onto the actual bottom of the tank. It stands up pretty well. One of the tracks was a little angled at first but I fixed it.


Here is the chassis itself. This is pretty much stock - the exhaust ports at the back are custom, and the turret housing on the top is different because the actual turret itself has a different connector.



Here you can see the 'hull mounted' heavy bolter. It's a turret, when in the rules it should be hull mounted, I believe, but its not a big deal, and it looks a lot cooler. It is part of the custom kit.


Here you can see the rear end. It took a little bit of work, cleaning up the fuel tanks and you have to cut a hole for the gothic looking iconography between the exhaust ports. 



You can see here the lascannon sponsons. They're really nice looking alternate quad lascannons. The main fellblade guns are here as well. I love the huge muzzle brakes. Overall they look great. The only annoyance with the whole kit was that these guns were not straight - I had to bend them back - and it wasn't super easy.


Here is the main turret - you can see where the guns get magnetized or glued on. I don't now if magnets would hold the actual barrels, as they're pretty heavy.




This is the overall finished tank. The sponsons have extra turrets on them that are removable. They don't have rules for them, but they look pretty sweet. The turret itself is pretty huge and heavy, but stays on well. 



I added on some stowage as well, including fuel tanks, extra tracks, etc. I have tried to make my EC stuff look 'lived in'. I used 1/48 scale stuff and it looks pretty cool! It'll help to diffuse some of the overall purple by painting the stowage a bit different. I also added two antennas.





Here's the tank after spray priming. I love the little ladder on the one side so marines can climb up to the fuel stores. I'm excited to get some paint on it - thanks for looking!

2 comments:

  1. Awesome build! I'm a big fan of the B&S kits and you've put 'em to excellent use!

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