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Just after the release of Games Workshop's Apocalypse supplement for large battles, a friend came to me and asked if I could convert one of his newly-acquired Baneblade super-heavy tanks into the Shadowsword Titan-Killer variant. The main difference between this and the Baneblade is the lack of a turret, and a HUGE main gun, which is some sort of plasma weapon.
I was a bit daunted by the task, and was on the point of saying no, when he revealed that he had an old Armorcast resin Shadowsword hull that he thought would fit into the Baneblade chassis. Having examined it, and decided that it would fit, I agreed to give it a go, and here are the results.
There are no real Work in Progress pictures, because I was so focused on getting it built that I didn't think to get my camera out!
The pictures here are thumbnails: click on them to see a larger picture in a new window
Once I'd had a good look at the pictures in the relevant Forge World Imperial Armour book, I could see that the Armorcast version did not quite match the current design, but was clearly recognisable as a Shadowsword.
The first problem encountered was that the resin hull was a bit wider than the Baneblade chassis. Since I didn't fancy trying to shave 2mm off each side of the resin hull, I opted to add spacers to the Baneblade chassis, instead.
Next was the glacis plate: the current Forge World design has a stepped shape, but the Armorcast version is effectively a single continuous slope. Making a stepped front hull would have required sawing off large bits of the resin hull, which I wasn't prepared to do. Annoyingly, the glacis plate was too short to reach the front of the chassis, even with most of the Baneblade front deck as an extension. So I made a new glacis plate in the continuous slope style of the Armorcast version
Next was an engine deck. This should have been simple, but cutting around the cathedral window style details on the Baneblade turned out to be a real pain, and I ended up having to fill some gaps. Of course, the original engine hatches wouldn't fit in quite the way they were intended, and so had to be adapted.
Here are some shots of the model with major construction complete. There are still a few small details to add, and some cleaning up to do, but the rest of the standard kit construction will be finished off by the bloke I built it for.
I'm worried it may need more rivets...
johno
I was a bit daunted by the task, and was on the point of saying no, when he revealed that he had an old Armorcast resin Shadowsword hull that he thought would fit into the Baneblade chassis. Having examined it, and decided that it would fit, I agreed to give it a go, and here are the results.
There are no real Work in Progress pictures, because I was so focused on getting it built that I didn't think to get my camera out!
The pictures here are thumbnails: click on them to see a larger picture in a new window
Once I'd had a good look at the pictures in the relevant Forge World Imperial Armour book, I could see that the Armorcast version did not quite match the current design, but was clearly recognisable as a Shadowsword.
The first problem encountered was that the resin hull was a bit wider than the Baneblade chassis. Since I didn't fancy trying to shave 2mm off each side of the resin hull, I opted to add spacers to the Baneblade chassis, instead.
Next was the glacis plate: the current Forge World design has a stepped shape, but the Armorcast version is effectively a single continuous slope. Making a stepped front hull would have required sawing off large bits of the resin hull, which I wasn't prepared to do. Annoyingly, the glacis plate was too short to reach the front of the chassis, even with most of the Baneblade front deck as an extension. So I made a new glacis plate in the continuous slope style of the Armorcast version
Next was an engine deck. This should have been simple, but cutting around the cathedral window style details on the Baneblade turned out to be a real pain, and I ended up having to fill some gaps. Of course, the original engine hatches wouldn't fit in quite the way they were intended, and so had to be adapted.
Here are some shots of the model with major construction complete. There are still a few small details to add, and some cleaning up to do, but the rest of the standard kit construction will be finished off by the bloke I built it for.
I'm worried it may need more rivets...
johno
