Magnetising Drop Pod Doors (how NOT to do it) Part 2

right, finally finished a rough draft of the assemblage with all the doors magnetised just to show the progress. later on i will start assembling the other drop pod bits with possible magnet options there also, hence me not having glued anything together yet. enjoy

Magnetising Drop Pod Doors (how NOT to do it) Part 1

so of course i find myself sitting in front of the computer planning to finally glue the arms onto my dark eldar when lazyness strikes and i decide to tackle a project i've been meaning to do for ages. did a bunch of googling in the past but never found a satisfactory way of doing it. i'm sure i just missed it, so no claiming to be original on my part, just what follows is how i went about it ...

basically all i will be using is a sharp craft knife, a small file, lots of 6mmx3mm rare earth magnets (there is no such thing as overkill) and some epoxy to set them nice and tight after i superglue them in.

and of course here is where reality came crashing down and i realised two things : this might not be the best way to go about it and dang i need smaller magnets. but since stubborn is a good thing in 40k i decided to push on through and try and make it work. unfortunely this now involved one heck of a lot of cutting down of the bottom drop pod sections, some small bit manufacoring and casting, lots of swearing and dirty looks from my cat.

lets start with the drop pod doors, as they are the easiest by far to do and the magnets are actually perfect in size for this. the first picture below shows the bits you need to cut off and/or trim down. note you are now cutting off the drop pods hinge pin, so if you're not sure about buggering up your new shiny drop pod, read everything and then decide. my dad always used to say, look 3 times, think 2 times and do once. the second pic below is how it should look after the trimming.

outside done, now lets dig around the inside :) in the first pic below is the unaltered drop pod door piece with little arrows marking the inner lip thinghy. don't worry it serves no practical purpose that i can see, except to keep the magnets from being nice and close to the edge. excise the little tumour and in the second pic below you can see where i've cut it out and the final pic below shows where i've already glued in 2 magnets.

right, for now the doors are as done as i would want them. do not glue them yet, there's making sure the magnets polarity match up with the magnets in the bottom hull, adding some epoxy/greenstuff to more firmly seat the magnets in case they decide to come loose, and finally we'll need to add a magnet to the top part of the door so it properly closes. moving on to the bottom hull sections

i won't lie, this part is pure make it up as i go along, required way too much carving of the hull sections and took up the most of the time spent doing things. pic 1 and 3 below shows how much i carved out when you compare it to the pristine parts. this was all in aid of being able to seat the magnets as high up and therefore close as possible to where they would align best to the magnets in the doors. at first i tried to place the magnets in each of the 5 points so they repulsed each other, thereby "pushing" them closer to the door magnets but this was just plain silly. as the magnets are too strong i had to finally make some resin plugs to put in each point (pic 2 below). not too much of a hassle but i could have achieved the same in much less time with a well cut section of leftover sprue i think. anycase, i went the long difficult route, and i couldn't find my 6 mm drillbit to add to my woes. finally all the nits are done, glued into place and now its just a matter of some (lots) of trimming of the resin bits to make the top part of the hull fit on the bottom part again. for now also i will not be gluing the top and bottom together, more magnets to come i hope.

end of part one for now, part 2 will start with a pic of where you should be after these steps

Battle Report, Space Wolves vs. Tyranids

pitched battle deployment with killpoints objective, 5th ed 40k

space puppies, vs. tyranids. victory went to the wolves with 6 killpoints to 5

wolves list

wolf lord with thunderwolf, power fist, storm shield, runic armor, wolftooth neclace, etc ;)

3 x thunderwolf cav, 5 models, 2 storm shields, power fist, meltabomb

2 x grey hunters, 10 models, rhino, 2 melta, power weapon, mark of wulfen, banner

tyranid list

3 squads of yamgarl

6 sqauds of genestealers

2 trygons

1 tervigon?

wolves won the rolloff and decided for the bugs to go first

on seizing the initiative, players should be allowed to unseize the initiative, so on a roll of 6 you make your opponent go first. wouldn't that be cool?

turn 1 - bugs

all in reserve so nothing happens

turn 1 - wolves

this was a fun club game, though league, so i just moved my units around randomly a little

turn 2 - bugs

tervigon, and 3 sqauds of genestealers show up, tervigon back of bug table edge hiding and stealer sqauds outflanking from my left heading for the 2 thunderwolf sqauds  i had there. after some good and some bad run moves my one thunderwolf sqaud got charged by 2 stealer sqauds and they proceeded to beat the living snot out of them. 2 wounded wolves left that tried to break but thankfully got swept and so did not run off the table edge that was 2" away. 

turn 2 - wolves

thunderwoof 2 moves in to charge the stealer sqauds beating up on their buddies, rhinos and wolflords thunderwolves try and camp on a small hill in the middle of the table

killed only a couple of stealers but won combat, they lost another one or two due to fearless saves

turn 3 - bugs

some stealers arrive from outflank on my right flank, far away from the action. 2 yamgarls sqauds pop out of the hill i was trying to camp and the 2 trygons tunnel up from in front of same hill. last stealer sqaud from the left flank moves up to charge the big wolf/stealer combat. trygons try to tazer a rhino and some thunderwolves but nothing much happens. stealers on the left charge my thunderwolves and yamgarl charge wolflords thunderolf squad. lots and lots of dice get rolled. thunderwolf 1 wiped out and thunderwolf 2 reduced to about 3 wounded models. they try and break and yet again swept by stealers to keep them from running off the table. ironically in this game it's the first time i've had reason to be glad stealers are init 6. would have lost the game royally otherwise. back over on the hill of death the poor yamgarl squads found out the hard way how much not having frag grenades screw them over as by the end one lone yamgarl is left surrounded by thunderwolves who like this new version of whack-a-mole they invented. think one storm shield wolf and wolflord took a wound each from that. 

turn 3 - wolves

with 2 trygons right in front of me the wolves on my left is, well left to the wolves, as my 2 grey hunter sqauds jump out of their rhinos and move to come at one of the trygons from each side, the wolflord cursing the one lone yamgarl that has still has to be pulped and thus keeping him from the big bugs. 2 stormbolter,16 bolt pistol shots and 4 melta shots later and the trygon is down by 2 wounds only. nothing for it but to pop the banners on both sqauds and charge that big beasty. 6 grey hunters died to make that happen. 10 wulfen attacks, 6 power weapon and 48 normal attacks later and the trygon fails a final save and falls over ded :) lone yamgarl dies horribly and the thunderwolves on the left flank is reduced to 1 storm shield wolf that yet again tries to run but the kind kind stealers keep him in combat. 

turn 4 - bugs

some more yamgarl show up near the hill of contention and the last trygon moves up on the depleted grey hunter squad. yamgarl try to charge rhino on hill but fail to make it, trygon charges leftover grey hunters and mashes them to paste. 2 stealer squads still running from right side of table, eager to get something to eat. on my left the lone thunderwolf is surrounded by 15 geneastealers from 3 different sqauds and prepares to kiss his furry ass goodbye, so naturally he wins combat and 3 stealers are left ded. 

turn 4 - wolves

the remaining grey hunter squad moves left to engage the yamgarl and the wolflord and his pack move to engage the trygon. rhino 1 immobilised itself earlier trying to climb the hill and rhino 2 now does the same attempting to tank shock the yamgarl. charges happen, more dice get rolled. lone storm shield thunderolf finally dies, yamgarl and half of the grey hunter sqaud dies, trygon dies horrible but not before leaving each thunderwolf now with only 1 wound left. 

turn 5 - bugs

on my left stealer the small 2 man stealer squad moves to get a charge on the one rhino and the other 2 bigger sqauds descend on the weakened grey hunters. right side of table 1 stealer squad makes it to another rhino. rhino gets charged but nothing happens,other rhino goes boom killing to stealers, grey hunters get almost wiped out with only the wulfen guy remaining and he managed to pass his morale on 3 which he needed. phew!

turn 5 - wolves

wolflord and his mates descent on the remaining stealers and pretty much wipes them all out, leaving a very relieved wulfen guy standing there alive and kickin.

turn 6 - bugs

basically the last turn, a stealer squad moves up to charge the last rhino the other 2 stealers can't kill and it finally goes boom, killing one stealer from each squad

turn 6 - wolves

wolf lord splits off from the rest of his squad and moves towards the lone stealer as the rest of the wolves move  up on the other stealers. charges happen, all the stealers die horribly and game ends with the wolves being 1 killpoint up on the bugs. heck of a close game with lady luck initially kicking me in the nads repeatedly but then making it all better later on

highlight of the game - that one lone little thunderwolf dude beating 15 genestealers in combat. awesome!