Assembling the Confederacy
Today we're delving into some painting and modelling with Trevor as he talks over assembling his new Homeworld Confederacy team!
Hey all, Trevor here! Folks have started to receive their Wave 1 preorders and assemble their new teams, so I thought I'd take the opportunity to go over some of the cool modelling opportunities presented by the models in the Homeworld Confederacy core set!
I'm not an expert modeler by any stretch, but I am a big fan of customizing miniatures; in fact it's one of my favorite things about minis games! For my HWC team, I wanted to make it unique by swapping some parts from the kit to some new and exciting poses:
Here's the team in all its unpainted glory! It's a total of 8 units; one HWC Core Set with an extra M-TAC Rifleman mini so I can swap troops out of my lineup if I like.
The four M-TAC Riflemen are basically straight out of the kit. Some 3D scenic bases let me play with the positioning of their legs for some very wide stances.
I also took advantage of the similarities between each pose's parts and switched the arms of one of the running Riflemen with the arms of the "standing at ease" pose, to give the impression that they're sprinting with their weapon lowered.
Hint; one thing I found that makes putting these guys together a little easier is if you start by gluing the left arm to the body first. That way you don't have to hold it in place while you make sure the foregrip on the rifle in the right hand fits well.
What good team of M-TAC Riflemen would be complete without a redoubtable Fireteam Leader to lead them into battle!?
For my Fireteam Leader, I decided to give them some more forward momentum by using one of the running Rifleman bodies. It's important to keep the most recognizable aspects of the original miniature, so I used the original's signalling hand and specialized helmet with its expanded communications array.
I decided to change the leader's original rifle out for a Rifleman's, so it's pointed directly at his target. Unfortunately, that did require me to replace the foregrip on the gun, which I was able to stick on with some putty and lots of care!
Captain Johan Lukas leads my team and I did some body-swapping for him as well. I imagined Lukas directing his troops and providing overwatch from a vantage overlooking the fighting, so I decided to make him a little more reserved than his regular pose.
The body uses another Rifleman pose, but keeps both Lukas' signature rifle and his pointing arm. I also equipped him with the helmet from a Support Gunner to help him see a little better.
Speaking of Support Gunners, this team also includes 2 of them as well!
In order to differentiate the two, I decided to assemble one gunner in a standing pose to contrast their kneeling buddy. This was easily the trickiest repose of the set, so here's how I did it!
First, chop the Rifleman and Support Gunner bodies right above the belt-line. It's important that you cut cleanly, so sometimes it's worth cutting a little higher up and carefully shaving the parts down.
Next... we'll need to replicate the ammo feeds that run down the armor on the gunner's thighs. To do this, I made a simple little mold from kneadenite putty (a.k.a green stuff).
This might sound tricky but it's actually pretty easy; I'm a beginner modeller at best and even I could hack it!
Just wet the part you'd like the replicate with water, then press a blob of putty firmly over it. The water is important to make sure the part doesn't stick to the putty.
Let that dry for ~24 hrs, then wet the mold and press some more putty into to it create an impression of the piece you want... voila!
Once I glued the new ammo feeds to the poor bisected Rifleman, I just assembled the rest of the Support Gunner mini on top.
All done! Now you can create your own alt-pose Support Gunners!
And that's the team; time to delve into some exciting new Wave 1.5 models and ZTP units!
Thanks for reading; have you assembled your Wave 1 teams yet?