WHAT WAS IT THEN?
Somewhere in the middle of 2007, when I was just dipping my toes into 40K, I got the idea to satisfy my inner Big Mek by looting the Imperial Guard's Armored Company and making a mini-Codex of my own. From the inside cover...
| In the grim, dark future, a Mekboy slaved away building trukks, buggies, and koptas for a nigh-unstoppable embodiment of Gork - his Warboss. With a load of strength and a smidge of cunning, the Boss had ransacked the planet, destroying or mobbing up all the planet’s clans into a single green tide. His green tide. The day an entire battalion of mechanized ‘umie made planetfall, the Boss was ready. With a cry of “Waaagh!” so tremendous it shook the earth, the clan rushed forth ready for another great krumpin’.
As battle raged around him, the lowly Mekboy could not contain his excitement when a well-placed stikkbomb crippled the treads of a Leman Russ. He rushed to the tank and climbed inside, his wrench absently dispatching the crew as his mind boggled at the new technology. His world shrank as he focused on the shiny, new worky bitz, trying to fathom the orderly tangle of ‘umie engineering. He did not notice the dissipating thunder of his clan outside. Climbing out of the Russ a day later, his pack full of gubbinz and good ideas, the Mekboy could just make out the silhouettes of ‘umie tanks and transports disappearing over the horizon. At his feet laid a sea of dead orks. Putting two and two together and somehow getting four, he decided that if the brute power of tanks could destroy the most powerful thing he’d ever known, then by Gork, he would have some of his own...  |
Unfortunately, I couldn't afford all the Leman Russ kits I would need for the project, so I went about figuring out how to make my own. Armed with a compound saw, basswood strips and some plasticard I was able to start churning out chassis.
Suitable turrets eluded me until I chanced upon electric plugs at the local hardware store. With a little work, I started churning those out, too.
Exterminator Turret | Eradicator Turret | Plain Turret
Slap on some bits and bobs for detail, nick and scrape it all up with a good hobby knife, and add lots and lots and lots of rivets, and you've got a "Krumpin' Wagon!"
Ultimately, I ended up with 9 Krumpin' Wagons, 3 of each turret type, before I moved on to other projects.
WHAT DID I LEARN?
Despite their simplistic nature, the wooden framework and hard plastic shell of the electric plug makes for a sturdy, resilient model. This project is also where I started working in earnest with plasticard. I figured out that the thick sheets are best cut by using a sharp knife, metal ruler, and multiple light scoring marks before they'll just snap apart. I developed a few different ways to weather the edges of plasticard plates. Scraping a sharp hobby knife along an edge, pulling the blade along the edge while constantly changing the angle of the blade, and multiple quick, sharp angled attacks each create a very different look that look great alone or when used on top of each other. This project is also where I started slicing off bits of plastic hex rod to make Orky rivets, a method that would be de facto standard until I started using Grandt Line rivets a few years later.
WHERE ARE THEY NOW?
One of each tank type was painted and donated to 40K Radio's annual Toys for Tots auction back in... 2009 I believe. Three more were given away as a Christmas gift the year after that. The other three I still have, unprimed, a few shelves above the one in the picture.
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